kung fu grippe

Sadly well known.

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:07:27 -0700

Sadly well known.

The Band - “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” ...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:30:19 -0700

The Band - “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” (San Francisco; Thanksgiving, 1976; The Last Waltz)

Man. The tuba.

Outstanding performance. A night worthy of a Scorsese film. And, that’s saying something.

Bob Dylan - “Like a Rolling Stone” (Newcastle, UK;...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:17:00 -0700

Bob Dylan - “Like a Rolling Stone” (Newcastle, UK; May 21, 1966; No Direction Home)

Electric Dylan controversy:

The rock segment was often greeted with hostility, as seen in shows in Sheffield and Newcastle upon Tyne in No Direction Home. Footage from the “Royal Albert Hall” concert, at the end of that film, includes the infamous “Judas” heckling incident. During a quiet moment in between songs, an audience member shouts very loudly and clearly: “Judas!”, to which Dylan replies: “I don’t believe you, you’re a liar” before telling his band to “Play it fucking loud!” as they begin to play an acidic version of “Like a Rolling Stone”.

Unrelated: Man, I love Robbie Robertson’s style. What a classy player.

And—further unrelated—brother, could that Rick Danko ever sing the shit out of a song.

The Band - “It Makes No Difference” (San Francisco; Thanksgiving, 1976; The Last Waltz)

charlietodd: Directly adjacent to the proposed Burlington Coat...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:39:59 -0700

charlietodd:

Directly adjacent to the proposed Burlington Coat Factory Islamic Community Center sits a sports bar. I snapped this photo of a sign on the sidewalk in front of it. Hallowed ground.

Never forget.¹

To always eat a big meal on nights the Yankees face a weak starting pitcher. ↩

"We don’t say “No” We say “How"

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:33:55 -0700

“We don’t say “No”
We say “How””

-

Principal of my daughter’s new school during orientation.

Having survived a decade and a half of public education (2 kids worth thru middle school), I had no idea how welcome these words would sound before I heard them uttered.

(via debbiestier)

My Bloody Valentine - “To Here Knows When” (Live,...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:36:54 -0700

My Bloody Valentine - “To Here Knows When” (Live, 2008)

Oh, were you asking about Bilinda? Bilinda Butcher? You mean, the singer from My Bloody Valentine?

Her? Yeah. She’s 45 there. Forty-five. Forty. Five.

Which is hard to believe on so many levels that I have to go sit down and watch PBS while I suck on hard candies and talk about Charles Lindberg and how expensive cotton string has gotten and holy shit she’s still so adorable.

Now, seriously, who keeps moving my slippers? I had them here a minute ago. Or was that 1991?

Stu Sutcliffe & Astrid Kirchherr (1960) [via]

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:41:00 -0700

Stu Sutcliffe & Astrid Kirchherr (1960)

[via]

New Pornographers - “Letter From an Occupant”...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:48:00 -0700

New Pornographers - “Letter From an Occupant” (2000)

Canada might be better than us.

New Pornographers - “Crash Years” (Jimmy Fallon,...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:36:00 -0700

New Pornographers - “Crash Years” (Jimmy Fallon, 2010)

I want to rub up against every part of this song until security drags me from the room.

XTC - “Great Fire”/”Dear God” Medley ...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:41:59 -0700

XTC - “Great Fire”/”Dear God” Medley (Live acoustic, 1989)

"H&M’s new prix fixe menu is great—just pick which member of Arcade Fire you want to look..."

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:53:53 -0700

“H&M’s new prix fixe menu is great—just pick which member of Arcade Fire you want to look like.”

- Scott Simpson

Public Safety Needed Lunch Sad part is, if they’d...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:53:00 -0700

Public Safety Needed Lunch

Sad part is, if they’d persuaded Officers Buckle and Poncharella to come with, they could have policed that stupid crosswalk, too.

Alas—a dream deferred.

Next time, gentlemen. Next time.

“Painting” “Pete” Pete’s prices...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:28:37 -0700

“Painting” “Pete”

Pete’s prices are competitive, but don’t act all fancy and surprised if he writes his phone number on your wall.

My sister and my dad. Three years ago. by Amy Jane Outstanding...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:00:44 -0700

My sister and my dad. Three years ago. by Amy Jane

Outstanding snap.

Color, Photos, and One Fuzzy Little Boy in a Field

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:26:00 -0700

[view larger: 800 x 593 | 6090 x 4515]

Jack Delano - Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains, Greene County, Ga. (Farm Security Administration, 1941)

A lot of the color photos I’ve seen from before the 1950s strike me as stiff, over-worked, or so experimental as to be a “Hello, World.” They’re cool from a technical standpoint, but they often don’t tell you any more about the subject than a well-produced monochrome image would.

Given the costliness of the film and the complexity of the process, it’s easy to understand why early color photographers had to be choosy about picking the subjects and conditions that their camera could capture well (rather than, as is ideally the case, working the other way around).

But, sometimes, an old color photo brings a distant image to life and produces something kind of special. The best ones make their subjects and their surroundings seem far more real and intimate.

When done well, these images help repudiate the implicit modern reading that pre-color photography realistically captured the simple but alien lives of people who were neither as complex, interesting, nor sophisticated as we CMYK people are.

Look how funny the people in those old photos look! Did they even realize everything was just black and white? Man, they sure aren’t like us. They’re not like us at all.

In this vein, I may never turn up anything quite as jaw-dropping as the brilliant color images of early-1900s Russia that were made by Prokudin-Gorskii. I mean, those are like a portal into a world where we look like the monochrome simpletons—because those Russians look like they were living in fricking Oz.

I’m also frequently taken aback by color photos of World War II—they make the soldiers look like people you might see at the coffee shop tomorrow.

And, as I sit here, something really gets me about a photo I ran across last night on wikipedia. It’s a 1941 color photo of Georgia sharecroppers working a rented cotton field.

It’s such a visually striking image, capturing this otherwise bleak scene with astonishing clarity and saturated colors.

It also seems unusual to see the lives of such impoverished, marginalized people documented through a medium that you have to imagine was far from inexpensive in the early forties.

But, thanks to the talented and prolific Jack Delano, and his astounding work for the FSA, we’ve got one hell of a shot here. And, I’m really glad Delano nailed it. Because, I love this photo.

I love the composition, the depth of field, the dance-like rhythm of the subjects, and the crisp detail of things like the adults’ clothing and hats. I wish I could have met the lady in the plaid skirt, who looks to have tucked a flower or two behind the bow of her straw hat.

Wonderful photo. Striking people.

But, the real star of the show has to be that little boy standing on the left [zoom in]. He looks like he’s about my daughter’s age—maybe 3 or so.

He’s standing over there by himself, far enough away from the grown-ups (the image tells us) to be a little out of focus range. So he looks kind of fuzzy. But, Delano clearly framed and cropped the shot to make sure he was included.

But, he’s just standing there by himself. Three years old, standing in the sun, in the middle of a field that his family doesn’t own.

No chair. No shade. No juice box, Spongebob, or iPad. And, given the day of backbreaking labor ahead of the family who’d brought him, there’s certainly nobody to grab his hand, walk him over to the scant shade of that longleaf pine, and tell him his favorite story.

He just stands there. By himself.

I imagine this was neither the first nor last day this fuzzy little boy stood in that field by himself, watching his family work.

Not many years after this, he probably graduated to joining the dance himself. Eventually, when he was old enough to have a son of his own, he might bring him out to stand on his old spot. Maybe a few years after that, when the kid was big enough to pitch in, he learned to swing a hoe, too. And, so on. And, so on.

If he’s alive today, that fuzzy little boy on the left is now in his early 70s. I wonder if he knows he’s the star of an old color photo.

I wonder if his family was ever able to buy this or any other field. I wonder if they maybe found better work at the B-29 plant in Marietta or the shipyards of Savannah. I wonder if the boy ended up serving in Vietnam. And, if he did, I wonder if he ever made it home.

I wonder if he ever got to see his own fuzzy little kids spend their days standing someplace better than another man’s cotton field.

Because, I’ll just bet that on a lot of the days that fuzzy little boy stood by himself in a rented field, watching his family sweat, his own Dad worked and wondered a lot of these same things.

And, I’ll bet, as his hoe rang on the landlord’s clay, his Dad imagined a day when he’d hear his boy take step after crunching step toward anyplace but this field.

And, I’ll bet I never would have wondered any of this if I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing such a wonderful photo of one fuzzy little boy, standing in a blindingly colorful field.

Net Net Drilldown Something Something Appletini Facebook Also?...

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:46:02 -0700

Net Net Drilldown Something Something Appletini Facebook

Also? Kill me.

Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers - “Ashley’s...

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:38:00 -0700

Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers - “Ashley’s Roachclip” (1974)

Just another B-plus funk track, right?

Jump to 03:30.

Must be really weird for poor Kenneth Scroggins know a few seconds of something he did in 1974 ended up becoming one of the definitive icons for an era (let alone the basis for dozens of other songs).

Alongside “Think”, “Funky Drummer” and “Cut the Cake”, it’s gotta be one of the most recognizable samples in hip-hop.

Sonic Youth - “Schizophrenia” (Live, 1987)

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:14:28 -0700

Sonic Youth - “Schizophrenia” (Live, 1987)

Newcleus - “Jam on It” (1984) The first rap song...

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:35:25 -0700

Newcleus - “Jam on It” (1984)

The first rap song that obsessed me.

And, now, I’m really glad I’ve finally seen the…uh…video.

Because, wow. Just wow.

"Watch me lean and watch me rock"

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:16:00 -0700

Okay. Please stop whatever you’re doing and pay close attention. Because I have a very important update with regard to (re-[re-])selecting my favorite track from Girl Talk ‘s Feed the Animals .

Thank you.

For the rest of the day, and possibly through the weekend—and even until as late as Tuesday the 31st—my new favorite FTA track is, “Don’t Stop.”¹

This is because the greatest moment in the history of mashups—possibly in the history of Western music—occurs at the 02:07 mark. When, for absolutely no good reason, Phil Lynott’s plaintive, “BREAK out!” signals that the song is about to explode into the heretofore unknown perfection of laying “Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)” over Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak.”²

It’s okay if you want to climax a little.

Okay. Wait. I changed my mind.

Because it turns out that the even greater greatest moment in the history of mashups—possibly in the history of Western music—actually arrives at 01:29 of the next track (“Play Your Part (Pt. 2)”) as George Harrison’s “What is Life” has hot, angry, makeup sex with both Huey’s “Pop, Lock & Drop It” and Dude ‘n Nem’s “Do That There.”

It’s okay if you want to climax a little again.

So, anyway. Thank you. Thank you very much. With certainty, I can now declare that “Play Your Part (Pt. 2)” will now and for forever be my new all-time favorite song on that one really awesome Girl Talk record.

I think.

You’re now free to return to your homes. Where you will join me in having “Jailbreak” in your head for the rest of the day.

Here. Let me help:

And, no, of course I had zero idea what any of these awful rappy songs by troll-like men in baseball caps were. That’s why, like me, you totally need the list of sampled tracks. ↩
Are spongebobfan879’s mashup and sample videos not the best? Best visual medium I’ve seen for this young audio medium. ↩