I'm now the Brooklyn Vegan "Examiner". As in, I "examine" things that have to do with veganism in Brooklyn, not popular music blogs.
My first article reviews one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants
If you feel so inclined, please subscribe/add RSS feed/etc
7.01.2010
4.26.2010
What is the Irish didn't Become White?
I'm in no state to be analyzing the new M.I.A. video given how shaken I still feel after having viewed it. I am known for developing immediate convoluted theories about the greatness of art that has emotionally moved me, only to later realize: Yeah. The thing successfully manipulated me. But beyond that there's nothing/it's actually ridiculous/oh my god I ever had anything good to say about American Beauty?!? AKA one of my most hated movies EVAR?!?
Here goes anyway, cuz there's no shaking these thoughts.
So. M.I.A. released a very NSFW music video for her recently-leaked track "Born Free". It contains graphic, disturbing violence and is relentless. Funny Games relentless. So you might not want to watch it while you're home alone, right before you're neighbor notifies you that your front door is just, like, open, and your cat is no where to be found, as I just did. (My cat was eventually found, unescaped.)
So here it is:
(I'm sure this will be yanked from YouTube--which pulled the official M.I.A upload this morning--any minute, so if Content is No Longer Available just go to her website where it's streaming on the homepage)
So basically, the video really fucked me up. And I think I really like it.
First of all, it's really well done. Not just cinematic, like really good cinema. The editing and cinematography are outstanding. The tension and horror are merciless and don't let up for the duration of the clip. I respect that feat in and of itself. I respect this repurposing of the music video to do something beyond calling attention to itself, though some are already criticizing the piece for doing just that. The violence is handled well, imho. It's nausea-producing but stops short of numbing. It is jerking viewers awake and to attention and, if Twitter is any indication, spurring at least a lot to think about and discuss what they've seen. People get that this relates to things actually going on, and are discussing the hows and whys and that alone is an invaluable service.
I see "Born Free" as part of the " what if history went different?" genre, works that present a plausible alternate reality meant to illuminate obfuscated aspects of our current one, a la The C.S.A. or The Plot Against America.* Here we have red heads--exclusively red heads--rounded up by US special ops of some sort, brutalized and murdered. It's obvious commentary on US racist imperialism, war on terror, racial/ethnic profiling and detentions, etc, but beyond that the choice of targeted demographic is revealing of the nature of The (vulnerable) Other. We maybe all know that Race Is A Social Construct. Red heads are coded (potentially) Irish, a nationality with it's own "terrorist" organization. Once upon a time the Irish were a racially "other" (nonwhite) immigrant demographic in the United States. Their ascension to whiteness and its corresponding privileges was not foretold by god and a part of some inevitable march of history and progress or however its encoded within the nationalist psyche. I think its potentially usefully provocative to show the internet a different, plausible today in which things went differently, but the same underlying oppressive power dynamics are in play. I don't see this as a simple inversion ("Look! White people are the terrorists lol maskesyouthinknotreally") but an opening to conversation about the construction of race, terrorism, and State power.
I could be very wrong, but its as if M.I.A. and director Romain Gavras (yes, he is the son of Costas) saw what happened with Telephone and thought "Huh. What if we gave the internet wank-mill something new and unexpected with layers and actually important real-world implications? What if we gave music/pop-cult bloggers something to really sink their teeth into?" That if, upon obsessive over-analysis, there was really some there there, past the shock tactics and novelty of a Pop Event?
Now I really need to go make some soup.
*Tell me if the latter is a bad example. I haven't read it. My understanding is it fits this model.
Here goes anyway, cuz there's no shaking these thoughts.
So. M.I.A. released a very NSFW music video for her recently-leaked track "Born Free". It contains graphic, disturbing violence and is relentless. Funny Games relentless. So you might not want to watch it while you're home alone, right before you're neighbor notifies you that your front door is just, like, open, and your cat is no where to be found, as I just did. (My cat was eventually found, unescaped.)
So here it is:
(I'm sure this will be yanked from YouTube--which pulled the official M.I.A upload this morning--any minute, so if Content is No Longer Available just go to her website where it's streaming on the homepage)
So basically, the video really fucked me up. And I think I really like it.
First of all, it's really well done. Not just cinematic, like really good cinema. The editing and cinematography are outstanding. The tension and horror are merciless and don't let up for the duration of the clip. I respect that feat in and of itself. I respect this repurposing of the music video to do something beyond calling attention to itself, though some are already criticizing the piece for doing just that. The violence is handled well, imho. It's nausea-producing but stops short of numbing. It is jerking viewers awake and to attention and, if Twitter is any indication, spurring at least a lot to think about and discuss what they've seen. People get that this relates to things actually going on, and are discussing the hows and whys and that alone is an invaluable service.
I see "Born Free" as part of the " what if history went different?" genre, works that present a plausible alternate reality meant to illuminate obfuscated aspects of our current one, a la The C.S.A. or The Plot Against America.* Here we have red heads--exclusively red heads--rounded up by US special ops of some sort, brutalized and murdered. It's obvious commentary on US racist imperialism, war on terror, racial/ethnic profiling and detentions, etc, but beyond that the choice of targeted demographic is revealing of the nature of The (vulnerable) Other. We maybe all know that Race Is A Social Construct. Red heads are coded (potentially) Irish, a nationality with it's own "terrorist" organization. Once upon a time the Irish were a racially "other" (nonwhite) immigrant demographic in the United States. Their ascension to whiteness and its corresponding privileges was not foretold by god and a part of some inevitable march of history and progress or however its encoded within the nationalist psyche. I think its potentially usefully provocative to show the internet a different, plausible today in which things went differently, but the same underlying oppressive power dynamics are in play. I don't see this as a simple inversion ("Look! White people are the terrorists lol maskesyouthinknotreally") but an opening to conversation about the construction of race, terrorism, and State power.
I could be very wrong, but its as if M.I.A. and director Romain Gavras (yes, he is the son of Costas) saw what happened with Telephone and thought "Huh. What if we gave the internet wank-mill something new and unexpected with layers and actually important real-world implications? What if we gave music/pop-cult bloggers something to really sink their teeth into?" That if, upon obsessive over-analysis, there was really some there there, past the shock tactics and novelty of a Pop Event?
Now I really need to go make some soup.
*Tell me if the latter is a bad example. I haven't read it. My understanding is it fits this model.
4.07.2010
This is how it's done
Some of my favorite minutes of film:
I had Peggy's wrong number monologue as my voicemail message for a minute. Some people who weren't as familiar with the film got confused/upset and I had to change it. Which is too bad cuz it's really the best voicemail message ever.
I had Peggy's wrong number monologue as my voicemail message for a minute. Some people who weren't as familiar with the film got confused/upset and I had to change it. Which is too bad cuz it's really the best voicemail message ever.
4.05.2010
K4Pizza!
Surplus of matzo? Need one more k4p meal? Idea for next year? This was a raging success.
Please excuse the sucky photo. I hope it captures the gist.
How do I make (vegan!) K4Pizza?
Well. You need:
Matzos of your choice
Tomato sauce
This "goat cheese"*
additional toppings of your choice.
What you do:
Preheat oven to like 400. Prep any toppings that need prepping (like, ahem, grilled artichoke hearts). Put yr matzos on a baking sheet. Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce. Schmear on the goat cheese. Add the other toppings. Stick in the oven for like three minutes. Marvel at the taste sensation that is this fake goat cheese mixed with tomato sauce, and the shockingly appropriate texture of now delightfully foldable matzo.
You could probably do a calzoneish thing with this basis. Just sayin'.
As you can maybe see, I put awesome toppings on the K4Pizza above. If you use these toppings, you will probably be very happy and want to eat a lot. I used:
leftover grilled hearts of palm
pickled garlic
olives
kale
minced fresh garlic
chopped red onion
one potato on each piece from the tomato sauce (made my own, put potatoes in it, its a thing. A delicious thing.)
I had previously used the aforementioned grilled artichoke hearts. I would also recommend things like: mushrooms, bell peppers, spinach.
Basically you have no idea how actually wonderful this is. Easy. Pleasing. Everyone is happy.
Btw my sauce was: saute 1/2 small onion, minced, in olive oil til fragrant. Add 28 oz frozen csa heirloom tomatoes, thawed with dash of basil, dash or oregano, teeny dash of cloves, crank of the pepper mill, dash of salt. Throw in a peeled, shopped potato and a heaping tbsp of tomato sauce. Simmer, stirring occasionally til you're bored/ready to eat/whatever. Stir in a dash of sugar. Savor the tomato-permeated potatoes.
*Seriously. If you're vegan and observe Pesach dietary restrictions, you need to add this recipe to your repertoire. Delicious lifesaver.
Please excuse the sucky photo. I hope it captures the gist.
How do I make (vegan!) K4Pizza?
Well. You need:
Matzos of your choice
Tomato sauce
This "goat cheese"*
additional toppings of your choice.
What you do:
Preheat oven to like 400. Prep any toppings that need prepping (like, ahem, grilled artichoke hearts). Put yr matzos on a baking sheet. Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce. Schmear on the goat cheese. Add the other toppings. Stick in the oven for like three minutes. Marvel at the taste sensation that is this fake goat cheese mixed with tomato sauce, and the shockingly appropriate texture of now delightfully foldable matzo.
You could probably do a calzoneish thing with this basis. Just sayin'.
As you can maybe see, I put awesome toppings on the K4Pizza above. If you use these toppings, you will probably be very happy and want to eat a lot. I used:
leftover grilled hearts of palm
pickled garlic
olives
kale
minced fresh garlic
chopped red onion
one potato on each piece from the tomato sauce (made my own, put potatoes in it, its a thing. A delicious thing.)
I had previously used the aforementioned grilled artichoke hearts. I would also recommend things like: mushrooms, bell peppers, spinach.
Basically you have no idea how actually wonderful this is. Easy. Pleasing. Everyone is happy.
Btw my sauce was: saute 1/2 small onion, minced, in olive oil til fragrant. Add 28 oz frozen csa heirloom tomatoes, thawed with dash of basil, dash or oregano, teeny dash of cloves, crank of the pepper mill, dash of salt. Throw in a peeled, shopped potato and a heaping tbsp of tomato sauce. Simmer, stirring occasionally til you're bored/ready to eat/whatever. Stir in a dash of sugar. Savor the tomato-permeated potatoes.
*Seriously. If you're vegan and observe Pesach dietary restrictions, you need to add this recipe to your repertoire. Delicious lifesaver.
4.04.2010
I just blew my own mind: Kosher for Passover Vegan Spinach Pie
Inspired by this recipe for non-vegan, matzo-using spinach pie. I'd veganized it before, using tofu ricotta. Tofu doesn't cut it for Passover, though, if you're a somewhat masochistic lover of culinary challenge, at least.
Because of the almond cheese, this recipe requires a little advance planning, but is actually pretty easy and requires little active cooking time.
And it's really freakin' good.
Ingredients:
Olive Oil
1 Onion, chopped
20 oz Spinach, washed and chopped (you could use frozen probs, thaw and drain)
1/2 cup chopped dill Plus extra for garnish
2 cups cooked quinoa
2 cups almond milk
3 Tbsp potato starch, slurried in 1/4 cup of water
dash of nutmeg
1/3 cup almond meal
Double recipe of this "goat cheese", minus herb oil topping
6 matzos of your choice
salt and pepper
Make your goat cheese. Since the goat cheese requires a lot of almond soaking, chilling blended mixtures in the fridge and whatnot, you're gonna want to plan ahead and start that a couple days before you plan to make this.
So now let's say you have your goat cheese. Preheat oven to 400 and start cooking up some quinoa. While the quinoa is cooking, sautee your onion in an oiled skillet for about 10-15 minutes, til onions are translucent and golden. Your quinoa should be done by then, so take it off the heat and leave it covered.
Add spinach to onions and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and add 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of pepper, 1/2 cup dill, stirring to combine.
Now we make the genius, soyless ricotta substitute. Dump 2 cups of cooked quinoa in a food processor or blender with 2 cups of almond milk, potato starch slurry, nutmeg, almond meal, 1/2 tsp salt and a dash of pepper. Blend til smooth-ish. Reserve 2 cups in a bowl, pour rest into spinach/onion mixture, along with 3/4 of the "goat cheese". Mix it all up.
Put your matzos in a dish and pour remaining quinoa mixture over them. Spread it around on them, try to saturate each piece. Let them sit for 10 minutes or more, if you can.
Generously oil 13" x9" baking dish and lay two matzos, side by side, on bottom. Spread half of spinach filling on top. Add two more pieces of matzo, rest of filling on top of them, and then the final two matzos on top of that. If there's any quinoa filling left in the dish the matzos soaked in, spread that on top. Then crumble the rest of the goat cheese on top.
Bake uncovered 30-35 minutes. Let sit 10 minutes out of oven, sprinkle chopped dill on top, slice and SERVE.
Because of the almond cheese, this recipe requires a little advance planning, but is actually pretty easy and requires little active cooking time.
And it's really freakin' good.
Ingredients:
Olive Oil
1 Onion, chopped
20 oz Spinach, washed and chopped (you could use frozen probs, thaw and drain)
1/2 cup chopped dill Plus extra for garnish
2 cups cooked quinoa
2 cups almond milk
3 Tbsp potato starch, slurried in 1/4 cup of water
dash of nutmeg
1/3 cup almond meal
Double recipe of this "goat cheese", minus herb oil topping
6 matzos of your choice
salt and pepper
Make your goat cheese. Since the goat cheese requires a lot of almond soaking, chilling blended mixtures in the fridge and whatnot, you're gonna want to plan ahead and start that a couple days before you plan to make this.
So now let's say you have your goat cheese. Preheat oven to 400 and start cooking up some quinoa. While the quinoa is cooking, sautee your onion in an oiled skillet for about 10-15 minutes, til onions are translucent and golden. Your quinoa should be done by then, so take it off the heat and leave it covered.
Add spinach to onions and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and add 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of pepper, 1/2 cup dill, stirring to combine.
Now we make the genius, soyless ricotta substitute. Dump 2 cups of cooked quinoa in a food processor or blender with 2 cups of almond milk, potato starch slurry, nutmeg, almond meal, 1/2 tsp salt and a dash of pepper. Blend til smooth-ish. Reserve 2 cups in a bowl, pour rest into spinach/onion mixture, along with 3/4 of the "goat cheese". Mix it all up.
Put your matzos in a dish and pour remaining quinoa mixture over them. Spread it around on them, try to saturate each piece. Let them sit for 10 minutes or more, if you can.
Generously oil 13" x9" baking dish and lay two matzos, side by side, on bottom. Spread half of spinach filling on top. Add two more pieces of matzo, rest of filling on top of them, and then the final two matzos on top of that. If there's any quinoa filling left in the dish the matzos soaked in, spread that on top. Then crumble the rest of the goat cheese on top.
Bake uncovered 30-35 minutes. Let sit 10 minutes out of oven, sprinkle chopped dill on top, slice and SERVE.
4.02.2010
Vegan Passover Update
Just need to document some of my observations and lessons learned this Passover.
1. Special Accidentally Vegan K4P finds:
-Glick's Hot n Spicy BBQ Chips are AWESOME.
-Holiday Candies Dark Chocolate Coconut Bon-Bons are also awesome.
-Osem Chicken Consomme Soup is good if you like salty, salty broth and, despite name, vegan.
2. Matzo Brie!
I'll try to put together a real recipe for this, but I have found that combining abt 4 parts broth with 1 part almond meal and a li'l potato starch will give you a great Passover-friendly egg substitute for this classic, must-missed dish. Prep otherwise as you'd prep normal matzo brie--soak the matzo, heat up a pan, dump it all in, mix it around, fry it up. Salt and pepper.
You could probably use k4p almond milk or other nut milk instead of broth for a slightly creamier effect.
3. A Matzo Sandwich
with this quinoa tabouli, horseradish, artichoke garlic cream (I got some at Fairway but plan to make my own--it's just artichokes, olive oil, garlic and sea salt, whipped into creamy, amazing deliciousness,) on Streit's Moonstrips (aka the best matzo EVER) is really effing good.
4. K4Pizza!
Tomato sauce, this* almond cheese (made mine sans herbed oil topping,) toppings of choice (I used black olives, red onion, and grilled artichoke hearts) on a piece of matzo. Stick it in a hot oven (450?) for a couple minutes. Surprisingly delightful and not sad and pathetic in its unleavened crustiness, at all.
5. My Grandmother's Tzimmes
I don't know if I'm allowed to share the recipe, but if you cut up sweet potatoes and carrots and bake them with some OJ, Agave, and salt, it's probably going to be really good.
More to plan, more to come.
*that almond cheese is a general Pesach godsend, great just on matzo, in general. My other standby Pesach spread is mock chopped liver--sautee aprox. equal parts onion and mushrooms, food process that with equal part walnuts, salt and pepper to taste, chill. Delish!
1. Special Accidentally Vegan K4P finds:
-Glick's Hot n Spicy BBQ Chips are AWESOME.
-Holiday Candies Dark Chocolate Coconut Bon-Bons are also awesome.
-Osem Chicken Consomme Soup is good if you like salty, salty broth and, despite name, vegan.
2. Matzo Brie!
I'll try to put together a real recipe for this, but I have found that combining abt 4 parts broth with 1 part almond meal and a li'l potato starch will give you a great Passover-friendly egg substitute for this classic, must-missed dish. Prep otherwise as you'd prep normal matzo brie--soak the matzo, heat up a pan, dump it all in, mix it around, fry it up. Salt and pepper.
You could probably use k4p almond milk or other nut milk instead of broth for a slightly creamier effect.
3. A Matzo Sandwich
with this quinoa tabouli, horseradish, artichoke garlic cream (I got some at Fairway but plan to make my own--it's just artichokes, olive oil, garlic and sea salt, whipped into creamy, amazing deliciousness,) on Streit's Moonstrips (aka the best matzo EVER) is really effing good.
4. K4Pizza!
Tomato sauce, this* almond cheese (made mine sans herbed oil topping,) toppings of choice (I used black olives, red onion, and grilled artichoke hearts) on a piece of matzo. Stick it in a hot oven (450?) for a couple minutes. Surprisingly delightful and not sad and pathetic in its unleavened crustiness, at all.
5. My Grandmother's Tzimmes
I don't know if I'm allowed to share the recipe, but if you cut up sweet potatoes and carrots and bake them with some OJ, Agave, and salt, it's probably going to be really good.
More to plan, more to come.
*that almond cheese is a general Pesach godsend, great just on matzo, in general. My other standby Pesach spread is mock chopped liver--sautee aprox. equal parts onion and mushrooms, food process that with equal part walnuts, salt and pepper to taste, chill. Delish!
1.10.2010
Things
Small update for 2010
Chick Lit/Chick Flicks
Over the past week or so I watched Julie and Julia on DVD and read Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner. I had long intended to see J & J, but never intended to read Certain Girls. I got it off a free shelf, it was an impulse-take. For months it's been the insomnia book on my nightstand. I've been sleeping fairly well, so, until my awesome stomach virus last weekend, I hadn't made it past page 50. It's a 400 page book. Both Julie and Julia and Certain Girls feature scenes in which a protagonist is upset by a cobb salad lunch with other women. Both scenes depict and/or discuss the ritualistic ordering of cobb salad minus as many ingredients as possible. This is actually a near-universal female malady, I'm pleased to been relieved of my ignorance.
Rihanna's Rated R
This is a great album. It only has two real throwaways, "G4L" and "Te Amo", the latter of which is a real problem. I guess this is a post-Katy Perry thing? It's a really cheesy "Latin" themed sexysong about how Rihanna will dance with a lesbian because everyone needs love, but she should watch where she puts her hands because "I'm not afraid to feel the love/ but I don't feel that way ". Rihanna sings the thing like she's two seconds away from throwing the poor dear a pity fuck (and she's like it.) It would almost be awesome but it just feels too contrived (by someone who isn't even Rihanna) and offensive. Maybe it'll work as camp in a minute. For now I usually skip it.
Otherwise the album is great. I like "Photographs", the song with Will.i.am. The part when her comes on is actually exciting. He's good at what he does. I can't listen to the Black Eyed Peas for the life of me, much as I like pop music, but he's a talented guy. I saw him freestyle at a Talib Kweli show some years ago and he was fucking awesome. He's a great rapper, and a smart songwriter, even if I don't like most of what he does. It works here.
"Cold Case Love", the track Justin Timberlake co-wrote, is delightfully grand, with welcome strings. "Russian Roulette" sounds better in the context of the album than as a confusing first singe, it's really grown on me. It's still scary, but it's also gorgeous and fits into the album's emotional arc. It's also followed by the punky-guitar infused "Fire Bomb", a rousing song worthy of Kelly Clarkson. My favorite moment right now, though, is "Hard" featuring Jeezy, who sounds energized and is in fine fun form. My favorite part of his spot is the awful/awesome "Cardiac arrest?/Cardiac a-wrist!" following a discussion of his really expensive watch. It's so expensive that it will give you a heart attack. Rihanna sounds fabulous, even when asking "where them bloggers at?"
Seriously though, if you like pop music, buy this album. It's weird and ambitious and fun and solid.
If you are a nerd and like hip hop
You might like Rap Genius. Copiously footnoted hip hop lyrics. My bf writes for it now. And he'll probably do some of the Rihanna album soon, at least that song with Jeezy.
Funny Tom Waits thing
I read this last Sunday, when I no longer had a fever, could eat toast, and was no longer vomiting, but could not stand up for very long at a stretch and kept falling asleep instead of making an ice cream cake. I put on Glitter and Doom for caking music, and ended up googling "Tom Waits Voice Evolution" instead. I have a long standing disagreement with someone who shall remain nameless re: Tom Waits voice. This person doesn't like most of Wait's work because they really like his voice on the early stuff and find his latter day vocal stylings obnoxiously contrived. I actually kind of respect that, even as I clearly disagree. Anyway, I found, like, nothing, except this, which in my state seemed hilarious. Tom Waits fandom wank. Someone suggests that maaaybe cigarettes and bourbon weren't the only culprits, others go apeshit. Also one reader had another theory:
My theory is that he was really straining to sing like that on his first albums. Then he realized he didn't need to.
That's beautiful. Hold on to your dreams, sweetie! Hold them tight!
Oscar Season is in almost-swing!
Only a month til the noms are announced! Now that I'm not vomiting I plan to get right on seeing as many likely noms as possible! I'm going to start with the White Ribbon though (srs best foreign film contender!) because I've been chomping at the bit for that anyway. I should make Michael Hanake film criticism bingo cards. Dismissive accusation that Haneke wants to "shock/stick it to the bourgeoisie". Accusation of sadism. "Cold", "pretentious", accusation that the film is somehow unfair. I have more.
The Golden Globes are on next Sunday. Amanda Palmer will be there, walking the red carpet with Neil Gaiman. How weird is that? How jealous am I?
What else? I think I'm gonna go watch some season one Gossip Girl. My bf is taking it on faith that Chuck becomes more of a likable prick when he's not trying to rape people anymore.
Chick Lit/Chick Flicks
Over the past week or so I watched Julie and Julia on DVD and read Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner. I had long intended to see J & J, but never intended to read Certain Girls. I got it off a free shelf, it was an impulse-take. For months it's been the insomnia book on my nightstand. I've been sleeping fairly well, so, until my awesome stomach virus last weekend, I hadn't made it past page 50. It's a 400 page book. Both Julie and Julia and Certain Girls feature scenes in which a protagonist is upset by a cobb salad lunch with other women. Both scenes depict and/or discuss the ritualistic ordering of cobb salad minus as many ingredients as possible. This is actually a near-universal female malady, I'm pleased to been relieved of my ignorance.
Rihanna's Rated R
This is a great album. It only has two real throwaways, "G4L" and "Te Amo", the latter of which is a real problem. I guess this is a post-Katy Perry thing? It's a really cheesy "Latin" themed sexysong about how Rihanna will dance with a lesbian because everyone needs love, but she should watch where she puts her hands because "I'm not afraid to feel the love/ but I don't feel that way ". Rihanna sings the thing like she's two seconds away from throwing the poor dear a pity fuck (and she's like it.) It would almost be awesome but it just feels too contrived (by someone who isn't even Rihanna) and offensive. Maybe it'll work as camp in a minute. For now I usually skip it.
Otherwise the album is great. I like "Photographs", the song with Will.i.am. The part when her comes on is actually exciting. He's good at what he does. I can't listen to the Black Eyed Peas for the life of me, much as I like pop music, but he's a talented guy. I saw him freestyle at a Talib Kweli show some years ago and he was fucking awesome. He's a great rapper, and a smart songwriter, even if I don't like most of what he does. It works here.
"Cold Case Love", the track Justin Timberlake co-wrote, is delightfully grand, with welcome strings. "Russian Roulette" sounds better in the context of the album than as a confusing first singe, it's really grown on me. It's still scary, but it's also gorgeous and fits into the album's emotional arc. It's also followed by the punky-guitar infused "Fire Bomb", a rousing song worthy of Kelly Clarkson. My favorite moment right now, though, is "Hard" featuring Jeezy, who sounds energized and is in fine fun form. My favorite part of his spot is the awful/awesome "Cardiac arrest?/Cardiac a-wrist!" following a discussion of his really expensive watch. It's so expensive that it will give you a heart attack. Rihanna sounds fabulous, even when asking "where them bloggers at?"
Seriously though, if you like pop music, buy this album. It's weird and ambitious and fun and solid.
If you are a nerd and like hip hop
You might like Rap Genius. Copiously footnoted hip hop lyrics. My bf writes for it now. And he'll probably do some of the Rihanna album soon, at least that song with Jeezy.
Funny Tom Waits thing
I read this last Sunday, when I no longer had a fever, could eat toast, and was no longer vomiting, but could not stand up for very long at a stretch and kept falling asleep instead of making an ice cream cake. I put on Glitter and Doom for caking music, and ended up googling "Tom Waits Voice Evolution" instead. I have a long standing disagreement with someone who shall remain nameless re: Tom Waits voice. This person doesn't like most of Wait's work because they really like his voice on the early stuff and find his latter day vocal stylings obnoxiously contrived. I actually kind of respect that, even as I clearly disagree. Anyway, I found, like, nothing, except this, which in my state seemed hilarious. Tom Waits fandom wank. Someone suggests that maaaybe cigarettes and bourbon weren't the only culprits, others go apeshit. Also one reader had another theory:
My theory is that he was really straining to sing like that on his first albums. Then he realized he didn't need to.
That's beautiful. Hold on to your dreams, sweetie! Hold them tight!
Oscar Season is in almost-swing!
Only a month til the noms are announced! Now that I'm not vomiting I plan to get right on seeing as many likely noms as possible! I'm going to start with the White Ribbon though (srs best foreign film contender!) because I've been chomping at the bit for that anyway. I should make Michael Hanake film criticism bingo cards. Dismissive accusation that Haneke wants to "shock/stick it to the bourgeoisie". Accusation of sadism. "Cold", "pretentious", accusation that the film is somehow unfair. I have more.
The Golden Globes are on next Sunday. Amanda Palmer will be there, walking the red carpet with Neil Gaiman. How weird is that? How jealous am I?
What else? I think I'm gonna go watch some season one Gossip Girl. My bf is taking it on faith that Chuck becomes more of a likable prick when he's not trying to rape people anymore.
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