Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Have an Infinite Summer

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Once I was in a very bad place, and also in the hospital, and I asked my mom to walk to B&N to buy me David Foster Wallace’s massive masterpiece Infinite Jest.

It kept me sane through three days in the hospital, and kept me awake at night for another month – which, at my faster-than-light speed of reading, is quite the feat. Try as I might, I could not devour it in a few sittings like I can with any other book. It was a novel that required digestion.

This summer has been declared Infinite Summer, which gives you an entire solstice-to-equinox season to read the book at a snailish increment of 75-pages a week.

As I understand it, your reading will be accompanied by encouraging blog pep-talks like this one from Kottke:

So sure, it’s a lengthy book that’s heavy to carry and impossible to read in bed, but Christ, how many hours of American Idol have you sat through on your uncomfortable POS couch? The entire run of The West Wing was 111 hours and 56 minutes; ER was twice as long, and in the later seasons, twice as painful. I guarantee you that getting through Infinite Jest with a good understanding of what happened will take you a lot less time and energy than you expended getting your Mage to level 60 in World of Warcraft.

Is that more or less haranguing than my Beatles screamo diatribe from last week? I think the Big K was meaner than me.

In any event, it’s a wonderful, maddening read, there are nifty bookmarks bearing the schedule, it makes a wonderful pillow and/or doorstop, and I might re-read it too if I can find a spare moment or two to read the second half of Outliers.

Lefsetz publishes Amanda Palmer, lashes the Billboard Top 100

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I am suddenly a fan of savvy music blog Lefsetz Letter, who provided me with the link that inspired my previous post.

I found him via Amanda (fucking) Palmer, who sent him an email about the power of twitter and why she wants to get dropped from her label – the intersection of which is that she had to explain Twitter to the VP of Media at her OZ label, who dished it, and she proceeded to put together a TwitMob event in under 24 hours.

Between this and not liking her video because she looked “fat” RoadRunner records are looking like total asses. No wonder she wrote this charming song about them, to the tune of “Moon River.” Stick with it ’til the end, it’s hilarious.

Meanwhile, back @ Lefsetz, he apparently does a weekly analysis of debuts and big climbs and drops on the Billboard 100 album chart. This week he was pretty harsh, laying out the reasons why a dozen albums aren’t going to make back their production costs, let alone go platinum.

The one he singles out for praise? Lady Gaga. Not because she is fucking ubiquitous in dance clubs (I know this because I just went to one, so there), but because she has gangbusters viral marketing and can sit alone on a stage and do this. Which, honestly, so can I. This one is a bit better.

So, basically, if Amanda would produce a matching album of bangin’ club versions of all of her songs she would rule the charts.

And, scene.

(ps: check out a bonus Amanda interview I was kindly asked to blog a few months ago and got lost in the honeymoon morass.)

Polyhacking since a few days ago

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My esteemed friend Matt Lydon has left the confines of LJ for his own WordPress blog.

This is worthy of announcement because – not entirely to my surprise – Matt is a very compelling blogger. He swings from classic literature to pop culture to personal reflection with the ease of a natural writer with a limber pen. His blog is just that – the journal of a natural writer, who happens to post online.

It was my strong opinion that his talents and efforts were being wasted in the vacuum of LJ. Please pay him a visit and see if you agree.

Classic Modern Classics

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There is a wonderful meme sweeping the illustrators of blogland wherein they render an antiqued paperback cover for a modern classic.

I first caught this meme earlier in the month from the blog of author Martha Wells, who pointed to these clever Harry Potter covers, in the style of classic Penguin books. The same artist – M. S. Corley – also took a shot at Lemony Snicket and Spiderwick. I recommend spending a few minutes with Corley’s blog during which you scroll down to some of his prior work, much of which is fascinating.

However, that one blog didn’t push my to my posting tipping point – I needed a reminder. Earlier today I caught a link from Neil Gaiman for illustrator Mike Baker‘s entry for a classic Coraline.

Apparently Baker caught the bug from Spacesick, who rendered covers for cult cinema classics like Back to the Future and Highlander. Some of them are particularly excellent – I might print a set and wallpaper my cube.

Finally, Storyteller’s Workshop offers a primer on how to achieve the effect on your own.

If you have seen this meme elsewhere on the web please point me towards the art so I can update this post or pen a sequel.

abnormally attracted to sin and debunking bestsellers

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Breaking news: Tori Amos’s new disc will be titled Abnormally Attracted to Sin.

Like, duh, Tori.

However, in the “un-duh” department, each song on the disc – will be paired with a “visualette” shot in HD and Super-8. Amanda Palmer did a YouTube version of same on her last disc, which I dug. And, Tori never does anything half way.

Abnormally Attracted to Sin is the first disc in Tori’s deal with Universal Republic Records, which is primarily for distribution – she won’t be signing away masters or publishing rights ever again.

First disc of a newly freed Tori, who ended her last tour with a full band in fierce form and is coming back with her first integrated multimedia product launch. Preliminary verdict? Probably awesome.

Good luck getting into the SXSW showcase featuring the debut of new tunes – as of this morning it just became the hottest ticket of the entire festival.

Personal Tori-worship aside, I’d probably hit PJ Harvey’s instead.

In other news, yesterday my old-skool blogging pal Martha enthused about BSG and Malcolm Gladwell, two things I can very much get behind.

Except, the NYT dinged Gladwell’s newest, Outliers, right out of the gate – causing me to back off my haste to snap it up. (Later another NYT writer liked it more, and Gladwell responded.)

Martha claims the book is enrapturing, causing her to miss her bus stop twice. Coming from Martha, this is a sufficient endorsement. However, one of her commenters felt the need to respond with a general debunking of his Tipping Point.

The debunking employs my favorite example from Tipping Point (“Broken Windows“) versus Freakonomics (crime v. abortion) – a book I panned as being superfluous.

I’m not sure the debunking convinced me in one direction or the other. Yes, Gladwell skirts direct links to causation in Tipping Point, but that’s anecdotally the point of the whole anecdotal book – causation isn’t a single, lonely factor.

That said, the debunking did convince me that A Smart Bear is a rare sensible and practical marketing blog. Sample their intelligence for yourself: ignore the wisdom of crowds or act like your price just doubled.