Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Dead Soldiers and Spears. Live Music.

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First off, a big round of applause to Scott Andrew for what sounds like a terrific gig opening for Josh Kellley. Photos here. ::sigh:: I wish i could get out to see more awesome shows like this. ::double sigh:: I wish i was playing awesome shows like this.

Soon. Soon. First, Copy, Right? blogs excellent cover tunes from a range of artists, along with intelligent commentary. With sidebar links to SongFight and a referral from Largehearted, how could it be anything but good?

Speaking of stealing links from the good denizens of my own sidebar: The Go Fish exposes a must-read story about Tami Silicio, a cargo-worker with Maytag Aircraft who snapped a photo of flag-draped coffins being returned to the United States. The Seattle Times published her photo, and she was subsequently fired. The fact that the single picture of these coffins had to be obtained in such a fashion, and the fact that it got its photographer (and husband David Landry) fired are both absolutely beyond comprehension. Please become informed about the facts of this story, but also try to be cognizant of what they represent in the bigger picture. Perhaps Tami had no right to take the picture and deserved to be fired, but the fact remains that American journalists should not be prevented from photographing casualties, let alone in a tasteful and respectful fashion. Photographs are a powerful facet of journalistic storytelling, and the story of America’s war cannot be complete without them.

On a brighter note, i had forgotten that GoFish’s Nicole was a fellow American Idol addict. Further AI fixes can be had from an editorial lamenting the manipulations of this season as well as an overwrought Washington post recap. My aforementioned monster American Idol post still to come!

Oh, hell, let’s just stick with the music theme. I can’t believe that Melly convinced me to watch what i thought the worst music video of all time, but then realized is standard fare for the current MTV Generation. Witness as Britney… oh, hell, don’t witness it. It was terrible. Britney dies in what was originally scripted as a suicide, but now appears to be an accidental drowning by stupidity. This after her and her boyfriend yell at each other a lot while throwing and kicking things. Also, for a second consecutive single, Britney pretends she has singing range. Ten bonus points to the reader who finds me a Britney drinking game that involves shots every time they use Pro-Tools to correct her pitch or intonation. Hmm… maybe that’s why she drowned…

Okay, okay, something about a respectable muscian now. Beck? Do we still respect him? Well, in any case, his website is presenting a special ten-year retrospective slash making of his debut disc, Mellow Gold. You have to give up some personal information to access the feature, but it sounds lovely. In an alarming spate of cultural convergeance: link via both GloNo & MeFi.

Yikes, i think that’s plenty for now, and i have a karaoke hangover to finish sleeping off.

From Pop Culture to Quick Pictures back to Pop Culture (with stopovers in Snapshots, KevRock, & Ill-Fitting Clothing)

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So much to link to, so little time to spend not worrying about school. Yesterday got burnt desperately trying to catch up on academic reading while getting my panties into a knot over who would get kicked off American Idol. Good thing i have this misshapen b’twixt class break in which i can finish my daily blogging so i have time for both homework and a drunken karaoke celebration of my roommate’s birthday.

The Minor Fall, the Major Life is a pop-culture tracking log from someone who’s sardonic wit does a fairly good impression of my interior monologue. Which is to say, the writing ranges from laugh out loud funny to nonsensically cryptic, all while serving up the latest entertainment-related linkage. Perhaps worth keep an eye on? (Cribbed from Strident Harpy, who dishes a good bit of political news herself).

Perennial favorite blogger KevRock launches yet another one of his dazzling side-projects, Random Pixel. In this bit of mischief, Kevin hands off a disposable camera to some good ol’ regular folk who proceed to document a bit of their life.
When i asked Kevin why he didn’t aim for a more bombastically cool “one pic per person” cross-country trip for his darling cameras, he replied with math proving that he was more likely to get the cameras sent back to him with his current method.

Anyone who can use math to explain the methodology of a blog side project is already A-O-K in my book, but Kevin proceeded to tempt me with an invitation to get a g-mail account. If you haven’t heard about Google’s entry into the world of email, you should read up; watchdogs call it creepy, i call it fucking sexy. One gig of storage, people. One Gig. Of course, KevRock was playing the part of a cock-tease in a whore-house, getting me all worked up for something i was going to get anyhow, as hours later g-mail opened its pearly gates to a number of “very active” Blogger users (thanks to hao2lian for pointing this out, and for the gracious link the other day). Moral – Kevin is a god amongst bloggers. I wonder if the Big G is hiring in their communications department anytime soon…

Next, from the ever-informative Ask Metafilter: Why your shirts don’t fit. No, really … a cool little discussion on why size, width, length, and cut varies from brand to brand and store to store. File under “Things i always subconsciously suspected but never outright knew.”

Hopping back over to the media: Sellout Central is brand new music news site that does not suck. Witness as they transition from a discussion on copyright and digital promotion to news on the highly underrated Anastacia to discussing a neat hack on the iTunes store that allows you to search via HTTP. Oh, and the co-writer of the site is the ever-popular Brad, of BradSucks (whose music you can sample at my daily-favorite, SomeSongs).

That makes a lovely segueway to talking about Anastacia for just a second. I remember her coming in second on MTV’s proto-American-Idol hip-hop show, partially dreamed up by David Foster. And then she dropped off the face of the earth, as did the Lauryn Hill imitator who won. Except, she really only dropped off the face of the ignorant, flat, American-music-scene Earth, because it turns out she’s one of the biggest selling artists in all of the rest of the world. This despite only shipping in the hundreds of thousands in the US. Do we just have bad taste? Is the market so undersaturated over there that viral marketing is more successful? The communications geek in me would love to do a paper titled “From Robbie Williams to Kylie Minogue – Why Doesn’t America Get Them?” that examines the differences in communications and marketing strategies here and abroad to try to understand why so many pop acts never make the trip across the pond.

Yeah. Look for me to write that paper as soon as i finish the paralyzingly huge pile of work i have due next week. And graduate. And start a real job.

Webbing the Log

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Good lord i accumulated a lot of links while i was doing homework last night. Old-me would hoard them like the squirrel that fell through Lindsay’s bedroom ceiling, but new-me just wants to get them out there so that i can find more! Cause i am a WEB LOGGER. I LOG the WEB.

(Sorry, i had to explain that to a stupified class of Communications majors yesterday. At least my professor actively mocked them.)

You can watch Walmart from almost any angle these days, but this economist article is great sum-up if you’re doing an academic project. Link from daily favorite Largehearted Boy.

How real is American Idol? An excellent report on The Motown Episode remarks on the (sometimes huge) difference in sound between seeing a live taping and watching the show on television. I wish there was a reliable source that provided this kind of analysis every week.

Hockey player takes out a hit on his [male] lover? Or, a study in failed anger management combined with mediafucker agent? Or, trying to kill mediafucker agent? You be the judge.

Why am i not still reading more miserable crap every day? Oh, wait, i am. Lisa, oh Lisa, when will our weekly lunches resume? Probably in July. By-the-by, When i add you to the sidebar again, you will be listed as Libertine Seahag.

I generally don’t know what the fuck is going on on my Primary Ballot after i get past the bit about Senators, which is why The Committee of Seventy is a good thing — a century-old Philadelphia political watchdog group that tracks and explains the ballot. This came to light as i found out that, apparently, a fellow high school thespian of mine is running to be the Representative for Center City, abetted by fellow fellow thespian Ariel. The man is Andrew Hohns, and i’m linking him because i think it’s sad that an article about how his opponent has the gayborhood locked up currently tops his domain in google rank.

Also in the political arena: Shocking no one thought of this before. God knows my blood boils…

Groundbreaking Blogological Procrastination

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Another day, but not another dollar.

The Global Rich List is neat. I stole it from Wanting Seed. I only have to make 50k to be in the top 1% globally. I can so do that.

Laughing Meme has done me the delightful favor of linking to my last post with the words “groundbreaking epidemiologic footwork,” and endeavored to further my investigation of the p23s5 meme. File under: Best. Link. Ever.

RexSavior is a Grad student at Rutgers studying Library Science, and he’s interested in the relationships between weblogs and other daily activities, including journalism and scholarly communication. Or something. Honestly, i was reading this page while doing situps, so i didn’t absorb that much, but it struck me as the kind of thing that makes me want to be in grad school. I’ll be re-reading it later. Linked to and hosted by the impeccable Six Foot 6.

Somehow we went to nights with frost to mornings in the seventies. I need to unearth some t-shirts and put the/my ass in class.

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I cribbed the A-Z game from Largehearted Boy, but originally it’s from here via a Guided By Voices mailing list. The concept seemed like it would be an overwhelmingly easy exercise, but it definitelty wasn’t. Aside from the obvious S dilemma, i don’t own any artists whose name start with Qs, Xs, Ys, or Zs, so a combination of cheating and omission was in order.

Well, okay, i have some Ys, but i hate Pete Yorn.

  • Ani DiFranco
  • The Beatles
  • Death Cab for Cutie
  • David Bowie
  • Erin McKeown
  • Fiona Apple
  • Garbage
  • PJ Harvey
  • Hedwig and the Angry Inch
  • Joni Mitchell
  • Kaki King
  • Lisa Loeb
  • Madonna
  • Nikka Costa
  • Joan Osborne
  • Peter Mulvey
  • Rilo Kiley
  • Sarah Harmer
  • Tori Amos
  • The Velvet Underground
  • Veruca Salt
  • Rufus Wainwright
  • Andy Stochansky
  • Weezer

    You see that i’ve gone out on a limb to select a few worthies with only a single album out, and have similarly selected more than a couple whose catalogues i cherish despite giving up on their present endeavors. Unfortunately, due to our unkindly tiny alphabet, i was forced to leave off such luminaries of my collection as Garrison Starr, Lauryn Hill, No Doubt, Sheryl Crow, Sarah Shannon, Guster, Elastica, Juliana Hatfield, Elliott Smith, Mike Kovacs, Tracy Bonham, Sleater Kinney, Ben Folds Five, & Michael Jackson. Otherwise, this just about covers it.


    Maybe one night i’ll get bored and link to good resources for all of those artists. Until then, feel free to bash my taste in music and create your own lists in the comments section.

    • https://crushingkrisis.com/2004/01/107413705346066116/