Lizzyville

Link Love | Rihanna Interview Teaser Part Two, Blur Drummer Going Into Politics, Sleigh Bells Interview, Kings of Leon's Love Songs, Norah Indieana Jones & More

Link Love | Oprah Interviews Jay-Z, CMJ Survival Kit, Goodbye to Gourmet, Early Joan Baez Footage Found in a Freezer & More

Salon published a eulogy to Gourmet yesterday that's quite lovely. If it makes you feel sad and helpless, subscribe to Bon Appétit, which is also a Condé Nast title and is quite impressive, if its Thanksgiving '09 issue is any indication. I just did. It's only $12 a year. Says Salon's Alex Van Buren of Gourmet,

"[Editor-in-chief] Ruth Reichl was not a snob, but -- at her best -- an egalitarian badass. She is a lover of food in all its sensuous, unruly glory. She put haute French chefs like Daniel Boulud in line for a food cart on the street. She ran features about politics and poverty -- the life of a tomato laborer, a brilliant Chinese cook serving $7 entrées in Toronto, the travails of a restaurant parking valet. She asked novelist Junot Diaz to wax poetic about the authentic Dominican food of Northern Manhattan, and the result was so fantastic it sent readers from all corners of Gotham scurrying onto the 2/3 train to eat crunchy arroz con gandules (rice and pigeon peas)."

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Oprah interviews Jay-Z in the October issue of O Magazine. It's a pretty incredible glimpse into the, well, spiritual side of the artist. In the print edition he provides a list of his favorite books (including Seth Godin's Purple Cow, nice) and at the end of the interview (page 10 in Web terms), Jay-Z explains his work ethic (culled a little from his favorite books, I think). It's simple but searingly memorable:

"There’s the gift, there’s the spirit, and there’s the work—all three have to come together. If one of those things is off, it can stop you from becoming who you were meant to be.”

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The New Yorker's Alex Ross, the music critic and author of The Rest Is Noise, has started a blog at the New Yorker website. It's called Unquiet Thoughts.

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Speaking of the New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones sat down with Karin Dreijer Andersson at Webster Hall a couple of weeks ago ahead of her madly tweeted two-night light show. Weird venue, weirder music, wonderful interview.

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Early Joan Baez performance footage found ... in a freezer.

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New events site SuperGlued is making it a whole lot easier for badgeholders to survive CMJ without crying, missing opportunities, or going it alone (Twitter doesn't count as a plus-one). SuperGlued is far more than just a CMJ survival kit. It catalogs shows past and future, has artist profile pages, and lets you link up Flickr, Facebook and Twitter so that you, friends and stranger-fans can remember the shows you've been to.

Link Love | Radiohead Shall Record Again, The Marriage of the Critical and the Digital, Matthew Good Mad About Vancouver 2010, Pinkety Pink Pink, NoEcards, Hipsters Become Area of Intellectual Study, A Justice Video

 

Pareles actually makes me wish I had gone to the Pink show last night. But um I kind of hate MSG.

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Matthew Good released his new album Vancouver yesterday. He is taking the opportunity to talk about why the Vancouver Olympics this winter are going to ruin everything. And I love him.

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THIS ONE NEEDS TO BE IN ALL CAPS. Radiohead will head back into the studio this winter to record another album that will likely be released in 2010, says Ed O'Brien in NME, according to At Ease.

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Wired's Epicenter discusses the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit in D.C. and particularly, yesterday's discussion of the future of music journalism. What comes out here (it is Wired) is that the writing "should live on the same devices where we listen to our music — be that a computer, cellphone, MP3 player, tablet or home entertainment center." I'd love a Pitchfork app where I could just scroll through reviews by grade. I'm serious.

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Apple has rejected SomeEcards' application to the App Store because Some(of the)Ecards inflict cruel and unusual verbal punishment on proposed health care bills.

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Another big old piece of writing about hipsters. I like this one.

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Justice remixed Lenny Kravitz's "Let Love Rule" a few months ago. Now there is a video featuring quite original integration of film credits that nonetheless evokes the should-I-really-stay-and-watch-all-these feeling you get in the theater. It's directed by Keith Schofield (CSS's "Move," Death Cab's "Jealousy," loads of commercials).

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Nonsense sharpens the intellect. Does that include Gossip Girl?

Link Love | How Paper Magazine Has Survived 25 Years, Tribute to a Brooklyn Arts Maestro, Are There Startups in NYC?

In the first of a series of blog posts, Elie Seidman, a veteran startupper who just started Oyster Hotel Reviews, gives some background on her career and lists a series of provocative questions and statements about startups for future posts, including, "Choose your market carefully" and "Are you building an asset or a company or both?" (Thanks to friend, co-worker and travel writer Sarah Amandolare for tweeting!)

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Forbes does a nice analysis of how Paper Magazine has survived in the magazine industry for 25 years. (Thanks F.A.Y.)

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Zach Baron of the Village Voice pays touching tribute to Suzanne Fiol, who founded the Brooklyn (once itinerant but no longer itinerant) event space/series Issue Project Room and just passed away after a battle with cancer. Issue Project Room just secured more than $1 million in funding for its new venue at 110 Livingston Street from the Brooklyn borough president. 

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Breakups! It's a sad day for Jay. Or is it? Not sad for the band, that's for sure.

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The Financial Times on smoking employees. Sure, they may eventually pass on due to complications from their grimy pastime, but my, they're a nice lot (via PopMatters).

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Attend the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit in D.C. remotely.

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Spinner counts down "Rock's Biggest Quitters: 20 Musicians Who Walked Away From Fame" (from September but I just noticed it today).

Link Love | Lindsay Lohan as 'Artistic Adviser,' The Art of Sampling, Letters to the Editors of Women's Magazines Part 2, Regretsy, Is Thom Yorke Any Good?

This is a new series I'm doing. Starting Thursday, I'll officially be a full-time freelance writer, so you can expect it to be daily. Let's put this blog to work.

So I guess I was too distracted last week by this whole thing to read this whole thing: Edith Zimmerman, a fellow Wesleyan Class of '05 creative writer who writes like Miranda July with a splash of aftershave, a shot of whiskey and some instrumental Bacharach playing in the background, is doing what I hope is a monthly column called "Letters to the Editors of Women's Magazines" for The Awl. Edith used to have a very excellent blog at The L Magazine. Now, she haunts bars for Metromix. She also makes food come alive.

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This website brings tears to my eyes. It's called Regretsy and it's the stupid shit one heroic blogger finds on Etsy, then illustrates and writes about.

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The Guardian has published an Idiot's Guide to Sampling, basically an FAQ on the creation, evolution and impact of sampling (thanks, RA, for the tipoff).

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Pal and fellow PopMattersite Rachel Balik wrote a smart piece on how the media might get out of the recession alive by just being, well, kinder.

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Thom Yorke performed The Eraser in its entirety in L.A. on Friday, plus some new tracks and hangers-on from Amnesiac and In Rainbows days. But the ever-discerning Reddit community got me asking, is it any good? Or is Yorke, as I suspected slightly on In Rainbows, verging into veritable Coldplay territory? Let's ask Ian Cohen. (Or you can ask me and I will tell you, "Yes, but I don't really care.")

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Lindsay Lohan as artistic adviser for Emanuel Ungaro? The Times thinks it's gross. So does most of France, apparently. What stands out (what the author draws out by its ponytail) is Lohan's whimsical, uneducated approach to fashion. The industry has a reputation for being a ball of fluff, and people like Lohan are only obscuring the hard work and artistry committed by trained, talented professionals. Or as a commenter on The Awl (which contends that couture is fluff to all but "800 people") put it, "People give Lindsay Lohan tons of money to do things she is bad at. This gives me heartburn." I agree with The Awl in the sense that: What is the point bemoaning the cold hard fact that stupidity is employable?

Man of the Year. Last year too.

Watch Ze Frank here.

(One of the best shows, then go to the homepage and watch more.)

"Crap" Rock Reigns Supreme

Allow me to paraphrase a friend’s recent understanding of Third Eye Blind, one-hit wonders of the nineties (known in some circles as having about twenty hits––to be fair, they occupied Billboard in various capacities for several years.)  “In the light of day, the zealous cynicism of the band’s jam-rock platform is not as appealing as in the beer-drenched, disillusioned daze of yesternight,” he said, or something to that effect.  “I used to listen to ‘Semi-Charmed Life’ a lot,” he went on, at a later date.  “So I’m reminded of certain periods of high school—”  He trailed off, or I interrupted him.  “Surely,” I said, "some of those 3EB episodes are memorable?  Positively connoted?”  Mine, I proffered, were.  Every one! 

But why?  Today I’m "a rare specimen," this same friend claims.  He means well.  But many do not: I’m  a snob with insultingly refined (blinkered?) music taste.  (Asterisk: in the small private school that is Stylus, I am, to the majority of the staff, caustic in tone and mainstream in persuasion.) To make peace with my jamming friends outside the magazine, I insist on a former passion for Dave Matthews and er, Take That.  It doesn’t faze their dismay.  They either don’t believe me, or my current sins are unforgivable, however ridiculous (open) my past tastes were.

Present-day listens to Third Eye Blind are unequivocally lured into a region of nostalgia defined by the following taxonomy:

2000 > England > London > The American School in London > Track and Field > International Tournament > Austria > Vienna > District 22

I actually can’t remember whether it was 22 or 21, but in any case, districts in the twenties are, I believe, on the outermost regions of the city.  There, my friend and teammate Maureen and I were housed with a family from the high school hosting the final meet of the season, which all international or American schools participate in. Someone had lent Maureen the Third Eye Blind CD on a bus ride at an earlier meet back in England; we had since been obsessed with it, though admittedly it had reached our ears nearly two years after its release date.  Such is the Atlantic Ocean.

The highlight of our trip was discovering we were either bored, famished, or both, and realizing that we had to walk about two miles to the nearest human landmark, a convenience store.  Passing fields of cabbage in the blinding spring sunshine, we in turn were passed by about two cars.  When we finally reached the oasis of a corner store, we bought a packet of stick pretzels and went on our merry way back to the house.

Listening to Third Eye Blind reminds me of Maureen, who is a bitterly sarcastic and otherwise hilarious individual; victories in the 3000m race against a girl I had previously thought to be superhuman; Jason Danker, my crush of the week; my other teammates; my old Discman.

Present interpretation, viewed objectively: it’s pretty silly music, written by a man now in his 40s and married to Vanessa Carlton, and who, in his 30s, was catering to 12-year-olds by talking about meth habits and old girlfriends, just as the 40-something Dave Matthews promotes hookups and alcoholism to a similar but preppier demographic.  Is this why I rarely listen to music with words in it anymore?  Not like Stephan Jenkins was advocating doing meth, but kids these days…

Stephan graduated as the valedictorian of his class from Berkeley in 1987, and just sometimes it shows in his lyrics (see below.)

Tastes are statements, sometimes political ones, because the music itself is a statement.  We represent the music.  We think of the music as belonging to us.  Now, I can see Third Eye Blind’s flaws, but I love them unconditionally.

" I want to get myself back in again
The soft dive of oblivion."

Video of the Century (Day)

Inexplicably weird.

Refinery29

It's always swell when a well-rounded publication also knows what they're talking about vis à vis music.  Refinery29 seem to pretty much agree with me on Top 20 Albums of 2006 (and the discrepancies are highly respectable), but also happen to talk about everything else trend-related, without making it seem like behemoth fashion magazine name-dropping or an irritating bloggorhea-fest.  (Leave the latter to me.)  Think of them as a small, undiscovered neighborhood...online.  Check them out here.

P.S. I've had a couple of people correspond wth me about the absence of Grizzly Bear's album from my list.  I'm just not into it, unfortunately.  That said, I haven't really spent much time getting into it, and I promise I will.  New Year's Resolution #1, 2007. By the way, I should just say that the font Grizzly Bear use on their site is gorgeous and I am considering revamping Lizzyville to correspond with that elegance and my desire to appreciate Grizzly Bear as somehow like that font.

This Actually Happened

How not to rob a liqour store

FYE

I came to this far too late for my own good, but anyway:

Link Determined Between Delusion, Adorability

There is something earth-shattering (sinister?) about the degree to which Suri Cruise has turned out to be THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY BORN THIS YEAR, PERHAPS EVER, DISCOUNTING JESUS CHRIST.

A brunette gives a look to Annie Leibovitz, it's captured on film, and allows millions to absolve the Cruises of their sinful inanity.  We are a shameful, shallow culture.  Looks matter.

More!  More!  More!

And more.

"Have a good day."

I know it's obvious, but "Have a good day" is such a nice part of my day, and I only get it if I go to Starbucks, which I have long considered an ethical/financial crime, but which I started appreciating once I realized I was paying $4.79 for bad coffee, a shot of white chocolate sauce, skim milk, and Have a good day. 

Americans have the capacity to re-appreciate "Have a good day," but the reason I'm coming  at the expression for the first time is because I grew up in London, where "Have a good day" may come from the occasional female Jamaican employee at the tube station, but is otherwise unheard of.  British people have the capacity to be jovial and well-wishing, but not until at least 5 p.m., when it's reasonable to make pub rounds, by which point the expression "Have a good day" has expired.

So I really picked apart the sentence, which I seem to be doing lately (see below).  Have.  A.  Good.  Day.   Take possession of the goodness of this 24-hour period.  Create goodness from this small time frame  otherwise known as one day that has been allotted to you.  It's a colloquial version of, "Live like you're going to drop dead tomorrow," or "Carpe diem."

Raised Britishish (not a typo), I was inherently disgusted by remarks like "Have a good day" until maybe last week, when a hormonal surge or otherwise inexplicable inner sea change allowed me to open my mind to the possibility of not only "You too," (reasonable response to "Have a good day,") but actually attempting to have a good day.  Was it possible?  Was my disinterest in having one, or being ordered to have one by a barista, an incurable, knee-jerk, cynical British thing, or was there hope for me? 

When people accuse me (often rightly), of having a "drizzly" personality (my euphemistic word choice), I always refer back to my mother's alternately plaintive and nostalgic refrain of the '90s and '00s: "You were such a happy child."  "Well," I always wanted to say, and sometimes did, "you raised me in dreary old England, so what do you expect?"  But I can't blame the drear on geography or genetics, which is the other factor I liked to accuse.  It's teenhood and its excesses that are most to blame--the kind of biological machinations that make my twenty-something, marginally acquainted with tragedy, friends and I so fond of Thom Yorke's new album, which, as one friend has described it, is "Radiohead, but more depressing, which is perfect for me."  OK, there's a time for Yorke's drizzle--let's call it nighttime, and sometimes it occurs under a duvet in a room with no window, but let the mornings be reserved for "Have a good day," and the possibility of them turning into one, even if it means pretending Yorke is really singing about bunny rabbits and rainbows, not suicidal British MPs and drug use.

And forget whether the Starbucks employees actually mean it.  It's in their employee handbook, and it's enough that they utter it.  The prats down the street at Retreat, a poor excuse for a cafe, always get the orders wrong and never muster the enthusiasm to say anything remotely resembling, "Have a good day," let alone, "Check your bagel to see if I actually put cream cheese on it this time, since I always put butter on it, even though you always ask for cream cheese."

But there I go again...veering down the overcast English path, which New Yorkers are headed toward if they don't start paying more attention to the politeness of their coffee preparers.

Today in Elite Cyberspace

I stumbled upon some free time, so that's right, my handy little tidbit is back.

* This is something you should do every day: Amp Camp is miraculously the best place to both buy physical representations of music (read: CDs) and read reviews of them beforehand!  Listen, it's cooler than Insound (which I won't even link, because I don't want you going there,) it's cheaper, and we work long and hard to bring you the best in indie and electronic music.

* Italy's answer to Doubting Thomas is illuminated in this week's New Yorker

* In case you've forgotten, were studying for finals, or live under a rock, this  was the most important piece of alternative news media of 2006, and the year's only half over!

* The best sticker I've seen in awhile.

* Hey, bitchforks, it's England's answer to Pitchfork Media (and as most of England's answers to American things (football?,) it's just better.)

* Just when you thought the Balkans was only the setting for a romantic Margaret Mitchell war story starring Bill Clinton... you realize it isn't.

Expository Journalism

Or something.  Vice Magazine’s latest edition is all about Russia, and while some of the content is certainly interesting, the tone they take is sort of an überliberalism that is so über it ends up bending over backwards and looking more like xenophobia.  Still, it’s worth a look.  I suppose it’s not called Vice for nothing.

Today in Elite Cyberspace 

* Jonathan Safran Foer, you're beautiful, and I love you.

* "When people focus on the comparison aspect of things, I think that misses the point of things a bit."  How many times can Win Butler use the word 'things' in one interview?

* What do T-H-E-Y (the whiteys) think of Cifford Harris?  Pitchfork reviews "King."

* Get thee to a Neko Case show! 

* Why and wherefore thou art going to a Neko Case show.   (Check Upcoming for tour dates--the above link is for NYC only.)

* Eminem and Baby Mama call it quits again.  (Hardly elite.)

* the 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers, 2006, "Super-Villain Edition."

* Which movies have the most realistic swordfighting?  Answers to the most
inconsequential questions in the world. 

* Spielerfrau: lovely music reviewed here.

Self-Help for the Hindsighted

In today’s so-called “literary” marketplace, there is a slew of self-help books for everyone ranging from normal to a teensy bit abnormal.  These books are purchased because a) they look easier than The Mill on the Floss, b) they look less scary than A Million Little Pieces, c) the buyers have already read The Da Vinci Code, d) the buyers don’t need to lose weight because they just got liposuction, and e) they’re bored out of their minds, which leads to the purchase of a second book, while they’re at it: How to Cure Boredom.  And hey, have you tried How to Cure the Boredom That Ensues While Reading How to Cure Boredom?

In present-day America,  philosophy, the luxurious self-help section of yore, is seemingly unheard of: this broad, boundless discipline has been left to a handful of 35-year-old perpetual students, their professors, about nine writers, and let’s say six practicing philosophers.  Who’s buying the rest of the philosophy books?  N-o-b-o-d-y.  Why buy Emerson when you can buy Dr. Phil?  Indeed, why buy Dr. Phil when you can watch Dr. Phil on television?  Then again, why in God’s name would you want to look at Dr. Phil for an hour?  Buy Dr. Phil. 

No, morons, buy Emerson.  Or, if the word 'transcendentalism' is just too many syllables for you, buy Bertrand Russell.  Sure, Bert refers to humans as “men,” which provokes needless feminist outbursts; he’s been dead for nearly forty years; the covers of his books aren’t catchy or colorful; and he doesn’t profess to be able to cure your misplacement-of-car-keys problem in ‘nine easy steps.’  Quite the opposite.  Without being an elitist, Russell expects his readers to appreciate the long, variegated legacy of philosophy, literature, and art, because it is through these media that he retrieves his “advice.”  The pleasure in reading this book lies in the following: the book is so all-encompassing, I will venture, that it can cure almost anything that may result in misplacing car keys or eating too many Entenmann’s cakes.

It is my firm belief that Russell’s book, The Conquest of Happiness, published 75 years ago, is the only self-help book needed by anyone who is not necessarily unhappy, but looking for a synthesized account of every common human neurosis, taught with reference to the philosophers of the past who—would you believe it—were humans and had neuroses.  In each chapter of the book, Russell discusses typical causes of unhappiness, which I will rename, for your ego’s safety, as: ‘being in some way at odds with the world.’  Sample chapter titles are: Competition; Boredom and Excitement; Envy; Persecution Mania; Fatigue; Affection; The Family; and Work.  Anything that I have not mentioned, believe me, you will find it in this book.

Russell’s main preoccupation is, naturally, the ego.  How do we treat it well without pampering it?  How do we escape from it?  When does one’s conscience become a hindrance?  When does the conscience deserve a slap on the wrist for not being conscientious enough?  How do we fit into the world?  How do we enjoy our time here?  It’s a human’s role to feel good while they’re alive, but it’s easy to “accidentally” cross over into the realm of self-involvement and sin.  Where do we draw the line?

When I am at a loss to explain this myself, I turn either to Bert, or to my good old sibling.  There is a binding social contract between sisters that results in something both disturbing and privileged: within the scrambled confines of e-mail inboxes and Sprint phone calls that aren’t dropped lies a brute honesty from which no chiding or applause escapes.  Those who have found such a mirror in a sibling, or elsewhere, agree that it is nice to have.

But this double-edged sword, a well of help and hindrance, does not complete the task of, broadly speaking, becoming a better person.  That lifelong pursuit requires endless outward-looking, and sibling- or friend-talk provides a rather skewed and extreme version of inward-looking.  Arguably, therapy sessions do, too.  ‘Outward’ defines itself, as life goes on, to be ever-farther away than originally thought.  Humans are only programmed to learn so quickly, which is why it’s the youngest people who are so often accused of being self-obsessed, and to a point, they (we) get away with it.

Society’s models, such as the queen of product placement Paris Hilton, are no help.  While posing as “sisters” to the rest of us, their lifestyles are a sham, and their philanthropy, if it even exists, is without competition the most tiresome example of narcissism available on planet Earth.  Philanthropy itself is a double-edged sword.  If we’re looking for people to stroke our egos, we had better stick to our blood relatives (to a degree,) or relinquish the need altogether.  This is a point that Russell makes.  Constant need for affirmation is a no-no.

Subjecting myself to some VH1 production or another, I saw a segment in which Paris Hilton braved the paparazzi to share an instance of herself being charitable toward a human.  This human, a cancer survivor who also happened to be a teenage girl, was allegedly “dying” to spend time with Paris, who concurred that if one was to perhaps leave this world soon, what better way to roam the earth than along Melrose with Paris Hilton?  This kind of farcical outing happens all the time among celebrities, but it’s not every day that a lady with blue contact lenses, bleached eyebrows, false eyelashes, and pink cheetah print patterned dresses remarks of her cancer survivor companion and their outing that,

    “This makes me feel really good.  I know she’s having
     an awesome time, but I swear I probably feel like, way
     better than she does.”

Fancy that.  Billionairess feels better than cancer survivor for buying cancer survivor birthday dress.  And it was so easy!  Can you believe how simple it is to feel good?  Rich people should do this more often.

The eye drop company Visine, in a new set of commercials, uses an apt slogan, “There’s a Visine for that,” demonstrating different scenarios in which the earth’s elements can wreak havoc on your eyeballs.  Similarly,  I contend that There’s a Bertrand Russell quote for that.  Paris Hilton is exhibiting a simple neurosis here: line-crossing.  She has crossed the line.  In fact, Paris undoubtedly crossed the line while she was in her mother’s womb, and has been running away from the line at a sprint since the moment she learned how to walk.  She is a human being who, with some legitimate reason, has come to consider her voice louder than the average human, her opinion more important, and her ego, more deserving of, and accessible to, attention.  The flares have gone up.  Paris Hilton is Bertrand Russell’s nemesis, and she should be yours, too. 

So what’s wrong with what she’s doing?  Well, of course, Paris shouldn’t need paparazzi attention to legitimize her charitable acts.  The argument, "but the paparazzi is everywhere she goes” does not work, because Paris admittedly loves the press, and has given them the okay to document her entire life, day in, day out.  Another mistake.  Would someone like Paris be happy without this constant attention?  Probably not.  What does Bert suggest?

    Vanity, when it passes beyond a point, kills pleasure       
    in every activity for its own sake, and thus leads
    inevitably to listlessness and boredom. Often its source
    is diffidence, and its cure lies in the growth of
    self-respect. But this is only to be gained by successful
    activity inspired by objective interests.

    Interest in oneself, on the contrary, leads to the
    keeping of a diary, to getting psychoanalyzed, or
    perhaps to becoming a monk.  But the monk will not
    be happy until the routine of the monastery has made
    him forget himself.

It goes without saying that Paris Hilton would make a terrible monk.  If she were going to become a monk, she would have to have a reality series documenting it.  Bert says, “There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.”  To what degree does Hilton value the parts?  She loves shopping, of course, and spending money on others.  But she’s not exerting herself to reach the whole, and while moving through the parts, she finds it utterly impossible to forget the whole: that she feels very good about this, and special for doing it.  Buying things for this girl makes her feel good.  Paris gets an F for effort.

Good sister has remarked to me, in that acerbic non-verbal language that presents itself, verbally, as concern, that I have far too much interest in what people think of me, good or ill.  I believe I told her, “Likewise.”  She's right, of course (and so am I.)  Here's a conundrum.  While most of us profess confidence in our abilities, we are also apt to be surprised that others have confidence in us.  Similarly, when we are ridiculed, we are apt to see ourselves as persecuted by those that have done the ridiculing, as if we are incapable of such treachery.  Bert says:

    It does not occur to us that we cannot expect others
    to think better of us than we think of them, and the
    reason this does not occur to us is that our own merits
    are great and obvious, whereas those of others
    are at best mediocre…

Simply put, we’re in our heads, not someone else’s.  It’s only natural to feel ourselves to be bigger than we are, and our voices to be louder.  But distraction can cure this, and distraction, Russell suggests, comes through efforts in which we are merely, say, the middleman in some venture or another.  If we are able to say, “Hey, my ego feels really good about this,” we are not the middleman.  If we are able to say, “I feel better than the person I’m doing this for,” we are not the cause, but the effect of the action.  Bert goes on:

    When you hear that so-and-so has said something
    horrid about you, youremember the 99 times when
    you have refrained from uttering the most just
    and well-deserved criticism of him, and forget the
    hundredth time when in an unguarded moment you
    have declared what you believe to be the truth about him.

Bert is suggesting that our heads are quite big; they have to be for our whole world to fit inside them.  But the problem with this is: we allow ourselves to edit.  It’s nearly impossible for us to see things objectively.  How to get away from this?

Russell suggests that it’s simple mathematics.  Remember that you are one human out of millions.  Your accomplishments will never make you greater than one; your failures will never make you less than one.  This is the most important maxim I derived from the book, but there are dozens of others.  Russell is, of course, a philosopher, but as in the case of so many so-called “hard” books, The Conquest of Happiness is not actually that “hard” after all, and it's timeless: as useful today as it was in 1930, and as it will be in 2130.  The stereotypes associated with books like this are created by the motley fools of America, who could benefit from faith in their own abilities to read and understand philosophy far more than they will benefit from switching on Dr. Phil.

Overheard in New York

A friend told me about this site a couple of months ago.  I finally went to it. 

Dear Lord.

Living in the Late-Nite of Luxury

David Spade is my new hero.  Naturally, after years of wondering what all the fuss was about, I’ve grown to adore him just as most have started to watch him with delicately stifled yawns.  His attraction remains what it always has been: Spade is a suave “little guy,” oozing self-deprecation with sensual irony and candor.  His look has long remained unchanged: long, blonde locks, unevenly sparse mustache and beard, and an irresistibly dozy, smug gaze.  His humor, too, has not much evolved from his run on Saturday Night Live and in films like Tommy Boy, where his chief duty was as an imperious sounding board for Chris Farley.   

After a decade of mediocre performances spilling over into this century, Spade’s humor has been appropriated the only way a still-respected thirty-something comedian’s can be: he has a late-night talk show.  It’s safe to assume The Showbiz Show, now in its second season after a debut last fall, is on Comedy Central because that channel, home to The Daily Show and gamble spin-offs like The Colbert Report, is the only network gutsy enough to risk half an hour of David Spade complaining about—no, not politics, but pop culture, a growing television market previous cornered by such lackluster up-and-comers as Joel McHale of E!’s The Soup, and a random handful of part-time Viacom employees who grace us with their vaguely comedic presence on VH1’s Best Week Ever. 

Spade, who is also in the upcoming Sandler-produced Benchwarmers with John Heder and Rob Schneider, has a following for his talk show, a fanbase that must include the aging SNL watchers as well as new, younger folk like myself.  Spade has welcomed a tired tradition with open arms, and he took a big risk in doing so.  He seems to have realized that the show’s saving grace would be him, supported by a group of writers tailoring the show’s material to his downright sexy sardonicism.  The result: a refreshingly subversive half-hour of television complete with Hollywood guests, low-blow winners, and flops that Spade himself would cringe at, if he weren’t so stolid.

Thursday night, in the second episode of the second season, Spade, in a segment called “There, I Said It,” berated the iPod trend storming Hollywood and the rest of the country.  I was pleased to find someone highlighting with originality such an inherently American trend, irritating even as I (and Spade) have obediently followed it.  I’ll paraphrase:

[Slide show comes up on screen behind Spade, depicting socks for iPod nanos].
Spade: “Look at this, you can get socks for your iPod.  I’d love to pass by a homeless
man on the street: ‘Hey, look, my iPod’s got socks, and you don’t.”

Then:

[Slide show of iPod cases in different colors and designs.]
Spade: “And look at this: protective cases.  Our soldiers can’t get protective
armor, but you can get 41 different kinds of it for your iPod.”

iPod ridicule as already been done elsewhere, of course, but Spade brought something new to the topic.  And while such gems might be interspersed with smarmy toilet humor worthy of Jon Stewart on a bad night, the winners outweigh the flops, especially in the newest episodes.  Some critics were disappointed to find SS had been renewed for thirteen episodes; I understand the first stint of the program last fall was less riveting than the current one, or else I disagree with that take entirely, and the show has always been as it is now. 

Spade hasn’t abandoned the compulsory “invite guests that you’ll later make fun of” segment, apparently so crucial to late night talk shows ranging from Letterman to Stewart (note Stewart’s apt smearing of Sharon Stone and utterly pointless invitation of her to his show.)  But last night Spade took a break from interviewing “stars” (one recent guest was Kristin Cavallari, the star of MTV’s reality series Laguna Beach, about rich kids living in Orange County.)  It is a fortunate event if Spade can’t book any good guests, because Thursday’s episode, in which he interviewed someone from his own camp, who was given a ridiculous pseudonym and paneled a discussion with Spade called “In ‘N’ Out,” was a joy to watch.  The A-list stars won’t be missed, because Spade accomplishes much more with his comfortable solitude: the better to bash them with. 

During “In ‘N’ Out,” a round-faced, stocky gay man with “Maddox”-styled hair--that’s Angelina Jolie’s Tibetan son, and it was Spade, naturally, who made the observation--bantered with Spade about current Hollywood trends.  What began as a risky endeavor, in which the two men seemed overly conscious of their obligation to ad lib, turned into a delicate few minutes riddled with surprising jokes.  The gentle wisecracks were delivered in an overly familiar, boyish tone, like the men were two teenagers vying for better jokes, all the while effusing flirtatious admiration of each other.   Spade maintained his cool cynicism; his companion maintained that Spade was a tired, old thing of the past: “Anygay,” he crooned, rolling his eyes at Spade’s indifference to the fact that Coldplay would be both “in” and “out” in 2007. 

Importantly, Nick Swardson, who played the campy trendspotter, is responsible for fifty percent of how well this segment turned out.  While Jon Stewart may have the stature to bring in the big guns, Spade has good people working for him, which is more than I can say for Jason Jones, Stewart’s appalling young correspondent, whose "correspondence" all but leaves the art of irony in tatters.  Some of Spade’s jokes certainly fall flat, but Jason Jones’s two-part piece on Denmark on the Daily Show this week, riding on the coattails of the Muhammad cartoon debacle, is a shameless example of sophistication being thrown out the window in favor of one-dimensional ear-candy for the show’s negligible pet-audience: jocks with first- and second-tier educations who are embarrassed to say they have degrees, or at least, are not equipped to handle anything more sophisticated than bombastic hyberbole. 

Spade, after working with Chris Farley and starring in Benchwarmers, a film whose silly plot has been summarized in its entirety in a thirty-second trailer, knows all too well that he's capable of bombastic hyperbole, and that he has a good deal of jocks for fans.  But in a genre dominated by Kimmel, a younger, punchier Leno facsimile; O’Brien, who is both refreshing and tiresome at once; and Colbert, the demigod of uncool, Spade is right at home, because he also has the rest of us watching him: the nerds, the cynics, the yuppies, the parents--or certainly, he should.  Spade’s formula matches the Daily Show’s, a program popular with nearly every demographic in the country, but it also has something else: David Spade. And just as importantly, it doesn’t have Jason Jones.

The Showbiz Show airs on Comedy Central Thursday nights at 10:30.

New Therapïism

There is a new school of thought about. It's dominated by Generation Y, the MTV-reared 18-30s of today, and consists of respectable, ethical behavior in dialogue with unrespectable, unethical behavior, often occurring in one head. Both strains of behavior are marked most clearly by their language; followers of New Therapïism employ words like "grow," "together," and "cooperation." They are also apt to use phrases like, "Fuck you," "I want to be in charge," and "Everyone hates me." New Therapïism seems to have arisen from a deficiency of normal, selfless behavior in the 18-30 age bracket. People suffering from such a deficiency sought a method by which they could become less self-involved. While finally unable to involve themselves less in... themselves, most were willing to try, as long as they could do it in a manner that involved self-involvement. New Therapïism, and its offspring, The Real World: Key West, was born.

For those of you who don't know, or don't want to know, but will be forced to know now by reading this, TRW is a venue for seemingly privileged young people with a lot of emotional problems to come together to “work together” in a simulated, lavish environment deemed to be “real,” and to closely resemble a “world,” though god knows which one. Members of this so-called “real world,” while attempting to achieve positive things, find their sanity and hope demolished the way the house they live in is at the end of the season.

The Real World has been airing for a good decade or more, but the current season, "Key West," bears, as far as I can tell, little resemblance to the other incarnations of the show, which I have had the pleasure of watching as frequently as I could convince myself that life held no other purpose. This season's beachy, peachy Floridian McMansion is populated by the founding sisters and brothers of New Therapïism, some followers more conscious of how enlightened they are than others; some just plain unenlightened and pathetic.

In a feverish, sickly state the other night, I dreamt I was in front of the TV, that the remote was indeed remote, in a slot between two sofa cushions, and that the TV was on Channel 21, which is MTV. I had swaddled myself in a blanket. I was yelling, in my head, “Give me life,” not in reference to my sore throat, but about “Key West,” which was five minutes into a two-hour marathon that would conclude with a brand new episode, and would followed by a new episode of 8th & Ocean, the show about models in Miami, which could arguably be a second orgasm of the night, so to speak.

You know how this ends. I woke up, or at least, my ears pricked up to someone chanting the name “Svetlana” at a rate of once a minute, interspersed with a jarring voice speaking meaningless words, which I assumed was Svetlana’s. I found my roommates were by my side, that the remote had found its way to the coffee table, and that no one was making any effort to use it. This went on for two hours. We groaned, we cursed, we used God’s name in vain, but as these stories often go, we kept watching.

In all my days of psychology courses, therapy, and reading Bertrand Russell, I have never been so confident that I could diagnose someone with narcissistic personality disorder as I am confident now that Svetlana has the most severe case of the disorder in the history of mankind. The disorder defines its victims as having the following:

1. An exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate experiences.) See Svetlana, re: building of Mystic Tan salon, which is the designated “job” of the Key West team: “I need to be manager. What makes you think you should be manager? I was manager for my dad’s pharmacy…I have to be manager.”

2. Believes s/he is "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions.) “I need to be manager of the Mystic Tanning salon.”

3. Requires excessive admiration. “I don’t understand why no one voted for me. I need to be manager.”

4. Has a sense of entitlement. “I need to be manager of this project.”

5. Lacks empathy. “There is no good reason why you should be manager. You just randomly decided you should be.”

While Svetlana’s behavior may call up concern and sympathy from the deepest wells of our souls, the behavior of her housemates is no less troubling. The other housemates suffer from a syndrome I have coined, which I will call fresh-starting. Fresh-starting is characterized by an unquenchable, suffocating desire to impress people one has just met, demonstrate to them that one is caring and just, and to achieve a position of unbiased power and favorability within a group. Victims of this syndrome are also inhibited by an overwhelming inability to suppress feelings of resentment, superiority, and aggravation towards the very people they are trying to cooperate with.

Example: Tyler, the token gay man of the house, employs the first half of the New Therapïistic vocabulary, which suggests he is considerate, ambitious, and cooperative. He uses words like “compromise,” “share,” and “understand.” However, he also uses words and phrases like “whiney,” “bitch,” “get that slut away from me,” though the latter diction is only in reference to Svetlana, token Naricissus of the Key West group.

Jose and John also use progressive, New Therapïistic vocabulary, and the quiet, kind Jose appears to be the only breath of fresh air in an environment of stuffy imperiousnes (though his vocabulary is no less cheesy and cloying.) In other words, Jose is the only member of “Key West” capable of the diplomacy everyone else is striving for—on camera, and only because the show started three weeks ago. Soon, fresh-starting will be abandoned by all, in favor of brute honesty and callousness. But do not for one minute think that the “Key West” members won’t try to employ honesty and callousness as a simple and legitimate means of “cooperating” and “getting work done.”

As it turns out, TRW takes place on Earth, where viewers of the show and other beings also live. And in a world of misery and social stereotypes, The Real World: Key West is no exception to the rule. Certainly, we all are guilty of narcissism, as well as politeness, and employing extremes on a reality TV show is really the most entertaining—I mean, effective—way of examining social behavior. It is important to remember also that in such a condensed, stressful environment, normal people can behave in abnormal ways. But when you purposely employ whack jobs, the result is even more promising: highly superficial behavior performed by highly screwed up individuals in a laughably implausible environment.

“Key West” airs on Tuesdays at 10/9c, and will be forever burned into your subconscious like the sun is burned onto your retinas if you look at it for too long.

Country Singers Are Frequently, Openly Fond of Political Incorrectness*

Willie Nelson's new song, "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)" may be old news by now, but that doesn't make it any less weird.  Nelson claims to have kept the song "in the closet since 1981," until its release on Howard Stern's show and iTunes this Valentine's Day.  While it seems to have the approval of Nelson's gay manager, it was not approved for the soundtrack of Brokeback Mountain, apparently because it was "too funny for a tear-jerkin' movie," (according to Nelson.)  That is well evidenced by the lyrics below:

There's many a strange impulse out on the plains of West Texas;
There's many a young boy who feels things he don't comprehend.
Well small towns don't like it when somebody falls between sexes,
No, small towns don't like it when a cowboy has feelings for men.
Well I believe in my soul that inside every man there's a feminine,
And inside every lady there's a deep manly voice loud and clear.
Well, a cowboy may brag about things that he does with his women,
But the ones who brag loudest are the ones that are most likely queer
Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
What did you think those saddles and boots was about?
There's many a cowboy who don't understand the way that he feels towards his brother
Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out.
Ten men for each woman was the rule way back when on the prairie,
And somehow those cowboys must have kept themselves warm late at night.
Cowboys are famous for getting riled up about fairies,
But I'll tell you the reason a big strong man gets so uptight
Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
That's why they wear leather, and Levi's and belts buckled tight.
There's many a cowboy who don't understand the way that he feels towards his brother;
There's many a cowboy who's more like a lady at night.
Well there's always somebody who says what the others just whisper,
And mostly that someone's the first one to get shot down dead
When you talk to a cowboy don't treat him like he was a sister
Don't mess with the lady that's sleepin' in each cowboy's head.
Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
Even though they take speed and drive pickups and shoot their big guns;
There's many a cowboy who don't understand the way that he feels towards his brother;
There's many a cowboy who keeps quiet about things he's done.

Lyrics are courtesy of someone's comments on the Drudge Retort, which I may find out later are actually a parody of the real lyrics, but somehow I doubt it.  Anyway, enough said.  Except wait.  Does this remind you of anything?  A phenomenon I like to call Whiteperson Tactlessness.  Please see Oprah entry below.

For more newsy info on this topic, see the BBC article from 02.15.06

* My only other reference at hand of country singers being politically incorrect is, of course, when Dixie Chicks member Natalie Maines "obliquely" referenced the fact that Bush is a horrible president during a concert in London, and subsequently watched her group's songs get dropped from radio stations across the plains of the Bible Belt.  Her "outburst" may have been politically incorrect, but it was also politically awesome.