See this excellent article by B. Chazelle at Rootless Cosmopolitan. This is as strong a rebuttal as you will find of George Will's column in today's WaPo. Will's views are so wrong on so many levels, and rehash the old saws of intellectual conservatism (Burke, Daniel Bell), that one does not know where to begin... At least, Chazelle's views are pretty useful in that regards.
Growing up in Paris I used to listen to a lot of Marvin Gaye. What's Going On in particular. I must have been 10 or 12 when I came across the tape at a music store. I know I must have been that young because the movie White Nights came out in 1985. In the high-concept cold war movie - James Bond meets Nutcracker in Hollywood parlance - there was a passing allusion to What's Going On. In an establishing shot in Gregory Hines character's shabby apartment, one could catch a glimpse of the album's cover, pinned on the grey, dreary, wall. I noticed it right away. I remember thinking that perhaps Marvin Gaye was much more famous and significant than I originally suspected.
The music itself was very intriguing - I kept listening and listening late into the night on my walkman, trying to figure out what exactly was he singing about. Make me wanna holler - what could that mean? The deep bass, the vocal harmonies, the orchestra, the soulful horns, the layers of lyrics. Completely enthralling.
Or Pyongyang Calling. Pyongyang, Pyongyang. Pyongyang woman on the avenue. I love Pyongyang in June, how about you?.. By the Pyongyang Dolls...
Via Salon.com. Apparently, all the bands there were started by the Dear Leader, and he probably wrote and produced all the records too. Not too mention the video clips. Kim Jong Il rocks.
"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"
Jerry Falwell, 700 Club, 9/13/01
The collection of molecules known as Jerry Falwell has gone back to its in-itself state (and yes, you faith-based biatches should get some real education, like Hegel for instance). And by the way, this is when I almost regret that there is no hell to go to. Come to think of it - nahhh.
My B-day, at the In-N-Out on Sepulveda, watching the heavies land on runway 24R. Only in LA.
Double-double with fries, before and after... And Donny is right, they are good burgers...
The heavies are landing...
It's not like it's such an exciting news, but yes he will win. My best guess is something like 53%-47%. Could be even higher. The votes are just not there for Royal, and Sarkozy is very, very good at retail politics. He made a lot of promises to many different constituencies, and he was convincing enough to get the support of both the disenfranchised and the upper class. He will abolish the inheritance tax AND lower the exchange rate of the Euro. Guess which one he will be able to accomplish. But as we say in France, promises only bind those who believe in them... Even if I find the whole thing baffling, I must admit that the alternative was not exactly thrilling either.
In the grand scheme of things, it does not matter that much. It is only France after all. It's a very nice vacation spot, especially for all the foodies and other wine enthusiasts out there. Ahh, Anne Gros, Bernard Pacaud and Joël Robuchon... Culture and all that - not so hot. Great indie filmmakers. Awesome trains, too. And Manu Chao.
We'll see. The lawyers come to work at 8 AM eastern.
One last for the hell of it...
What the hell is this? I wonder. Hmmm. Let's google it.
Update: Actually, this series of letters and numbers is the hexadecimal decryption key for HD-DVDs. Someone posted it earlier on Digg.com (or rather, linked to a story/site online which cited that key). The people operating Digg started to delete the entries containing the hex key, for both legal and commercial reasons. Digg users, who are by and large techno-libertarians (if not consciously, at least in practice), found ways to alert the whole blogosphere. The story spilled over to Slashdot (the precursor to digg.com - almost made irrelevant by digg until today at least). As a result of this online revolt, the hex key has been made de facto public domain (check out the hit count on google, and it even has a myspace page now). Digg relented and stopped blocking the posts mentioning the decryption key (and Kevin Rose, the founder, wrote a defiant post on digg.com 's blog). There are now 280,000 instances of the key on the internet. The cost of serving DMCA notices to all the hosting websites (including Google) will be so enormous that the usual enforcement through intimidation won't work. Beyond the PR disaster for media conglomerates, the story will inevitably surface on mainstream news outlets - thus letting everybody know about the encryption scheme and its trivial crack. Not so good.
This is a classic example of technology revolutionizing conditions of productions and upending entrenched social forms. Very heady stuff.
In short, this May 1st might very well mark the old media's Haymarket riot. This is the beginning of the end for DRM.
The LA Times has a great (and funny) article about the guys who wave arrow shaped ad signs by the side of the streets in SoCal. These "human directionals" - as they are called in adspeak - are among the most bizarre things one can see while driving around. One might argue it's one of the newest and most sinister forms of the rampant commercialization of the public space, yet another post-modern form of exploitation invented in California, and/or the latest in corporate -sponsored, hypernarcissistic subcultural practice vying for eyeballs on Youtube.
This is my personal blog. I use it as a notepad.