Category Archives: Entertainment

Be My (Dick) Valentine

Humor, Music

After nearly a year in which it was available only abroad, Electric Six‘s sophomore effort, Señor Smoke, has finally been released domestically. Those of you already familiar with Electric Six who didn’t feel like ponying up $30 for the import will know this is a time for rejoicing, and an album purchase.

Those of you who aren’t familiar with Electric Six will have to be convinced, and this will take a certain measure of doing, because while Electric Six are a hoot and a half, they defy categorization. (I suspect that a causal relationship between these two facts exists, but I’m not sure in which direction.) It might help to imagine a band that does for a certain variety of pompous, chest-puffing, late-70s rock what Elvis impersonators do for Elvis — poking fun and showing a certain kind of backhanded respect all at once, through a sort of exagerrated homage. There’s a definite degree of ridicule directed toward the most egregious excesses, but there’s an undeniable measure of affection, too. I’ve always thought that you can’t really parody something effectively unless you secretly love it, just a little, and I think Electric Six offfers proof.

In any case, they’re going to be playing at The Independent in March. I’m going. I’ve never seen them live before. I cannot wait.

Yes!

Books, Humor

Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me! my favorite NPR program, has added a podcast; not just of selected highlights, but of the entire show. Now I can take Peter, Carl, Charlie, Paula, and the rest of the gang on the road without being tethered to a PC running RealPlayer. This is a fabulous thing.
In addition, my favorite of the regular panelists, Adam Felber, is apparently in the process of publishing his first novel, Schroedinger’s Ball. Fortunately, since it appears that it won’t actually appear in print until August, I have a little time between now and then to wear down the rest of my queued reading so as to make room for it.

An Open Letter to Blue Note, Sony, and EMI

Music, Software

Diehard jazz aficionado Volkher Hofmann is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it to the register anymore.

Read it. All of it. It’s a thing of beauty. Years from now, when the scavengers are picking over the bones of the major labels, we’ll look back and say, “This was it. This was the moment when they passed the point of no return, the beginning of the end. When people who spent thousands of dollars on, and arranged the rest of their lives around, recorded music decided that they’d finally had enough, and were no longer going to be apologists for a bunch of indifferent, cash-grubbing corporate tools.”

PostSecret

Books

A few weeks ago, NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday ran an interview with Frank Warren, creator/proprietor of the PostSecret project.

It’s essentially an anonymous postcard confessional, with the most compelling submissions displayed on the site every week. Some are funny; some are haunting. One of the latter is one I haven’t seen yet, which Warren selected to read on the air:

“I’d give anything for the opportunity to show even the smallest kindness to my ex-wife.”

I’d like to see that one. I suspect that I’ll have to buy the book to do so. I can think of worse things.

But it and the one reproduced below seem like flip sides of the same coin. It’s strange how kindness can sometimes cut deeper than cruelty.

I'm trying to forget every kind thing you ever said to me

Queen of Wands

Comics

A little while back, Chris noted his discovery of the excellent Questionable Content, one of my long-time favorites, on his LiveJournal. This led to a discussion of webcomics in general, and Chris wound up pointing me at Queen of Wands, of which I was sadly unaware. It’s a solid story, well-told, and if it occasionally threatens to stray into soap-opera territory, it displays flashes of outright genius often enough that I find myself not minding too much.

I have two all-time favorites. The first takes an idle thought I periodically have during allergy season — “Plant sperm! We’re being inundated in plant sperm!” — and runs with it. The second introduces a variation on a song from The Lion King that you’ll be hard-pressed to get out of your head for the rest of the day.

Anacrusis

Entertainment

Dirk sent me a link to Anacrusis, a collection of short, short fiction, a while back, and I had the Devil’s own time finding it again. To ensure that that doesn’t happen a second time, I’m saving it here for future reference. “Bridget” is still my favorite for the nonce, but I’ve a lot of catching-up to do.