December 2008
23 posts
A Chill on 'The Guardian' →
Alan Rusbridger writing on the absurdity of the British libel laws as they relate to The Guardian’s dealings with Tesco over reporting on their approaches to tax avoidance. Jeff Jarvis, John Naughton and Charles Arthur all make comments on the article which, while quite long, is an interesting look from someone very close to the issue and does a really good job of highlighting the amount of...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-21) →
Muse (30)
Elbow (16)
Radiohead (11)
Metronomy (11)
Lil’ Wayne (10)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Fruitcake is actually awesome →
Until last week I had never tried fruitcake. For as long as I’ve been on this planet, I’ve only ever heard it bad-mouthed, so I kept it at arm’s length. To fit in, I guess? Because even though it’s a cherished holiday punch line, there was always a mystery about it that piqued my interest. Cake, hello? With sweety fruity things in it? So loaded with sugar that it shines? How…how is this a bad...
Sol LeWitt
In the latest issue of Believer there’s a piece by Chris Cobb (only the intro online unfortunately) who, earlier this year, was part of a team of around 50 people responsible for the setting up of a Sol LeWitt (wiki) art exhibition. LeWitt died in 2007 (NY Times and Independent obits), but the pieces put on display in Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art were all created fresh,...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-14) →
Elbow (26)
TV on the Radio (21)
Crystal Castles (16)
Placebo (13)
PJ Harvey (13)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Greenland →
For hundreds of years, they treated Greenland and its people with unprecedented respect; Greenlandic and Danish are both official languages. According to Kjærgaard, there is no record of a Dane killing an Inuit in the 18th and 19th centuries; thousands were slaughtered in the US. Hammond agrees. “Thank God it was the Danes who colonised us, not the British or Americans or Dutch or...
2008's Music
I think I bought more albums this year than any previously, but still I find it difficult narrowing down choices and putting them in any kind of order. I’ve decided on 10 though, and they’re in some kind of order. So here’s the list, followed by a rambling summary of my musical year:
Saturdays=Youth / M83
Santogold / Santogold
Dear Science / TV on the Radio
London Zoo / The...
Two-Minute Rule →
Alan McGee on the rise, this year, of bands seeking to emulate such masters of the sub-2-minute song as the Ramones. He concludes:
These are all bands without a five-point career plan, putting up YouTube links to cartoons and hip-hop rather than press releases and official photo shoots, releasing as much music on as many labels as they can. They represent a naive revolution of fun, coming at you...
Like, I Might Be Baked Right Now →
A list of things that are totally (Ta-ho-tally, tewtally…) meta, such as:
anosognosia — agnosia means ‘not knowing’, and anosognosia means ‘not knowing that you don’t know’ (totally meta!!)
philosophers, ‘cos they think about thinking.
when I am so busy I have to make lists so that I do not forget things to do, but there are so many things to do that I have to make a list itself of lists...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-7) →
Nine Inch Nails (53)
Ladyhawke (25)
CSS (20)
The Organ (16)
M83 (15)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Fast-breaking News is Usually Served Broken →
The latest example of crap masquerading as authoritative news comes to us from the pens and microphones of the reporters covering the Mumbai massacre: Reading the first wave of Mumbai stories against the second reveals how rough the first rough draft of history can be. Respected, major media outlets produced contradictory accounts of the carnage and its aftermath.
It would be easy to blame the...
Some music lists (2007)
Andrew Womack at The Morning News has posted a list of his top albums for 2007. Three from his list appear on mine, but the others look like they might be worth checking out. Michael Surtees of Design Notes put together a list of albums, but accompanied it with a rather nice looking graph/diagram showing the relative plays of each album alongside when in the year it was listened to, and where he...
Planes on Fire →
At major airports around the world, aircraft often burst into flames, get buried in buildings, and are burnt black. But don’t worry, the fiery wreckage isn’t real, it’s intentional. In his “Airside” series, photographer Richard Mosse captures the disaster-response training practice of setting life-size model airplanes on fire. Mosse’s pictures demonstrate that, in a post-9/11 world, an image of...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-11-30) →
Metronomy
The Kills
Brad Sucks
The Presets
¡Forward, Russia!
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
The Plan →
Most of the customers in the bank must happen to be wearing Nixon masks, so when we come in wearing our Nixon masks it doesn’t alarm anyone.
The monkeys must grab the bags of money and not just shriek and go running all over the place, like they did in the practice run.
For The Plan to work, certain things must happen…
Broken Windows →
Unchecked comment spam signals that the owner/moderator of the forum or blog isn’t paying attention, stimulating further improper conduct. Anonymity provides commenters with immunity from being associated with their speech and actions, making the whole situation worse…how does the community punish or police someone they don’t know? Very quickly, the situation is out of control...
Favourite Book Covers →
Book Design Review choose their 20 favourite book covers of 2008. Of those listed, I particularly like Us vs. Them and The Mayor’s Tongue.
(via)
