OH NO!

You know what makes America great? Our cars. The prosperity of our nation is founded on our love of dependency on foreign petroleum and our unrivaled adeptness at causing massive oil spills. Sadly, the sun is setting on the Greatest Nation In The World:

YOUNG AMERICANS DON'T SEE CARS AS A STATUS OR SEX SYMBOL! THIS WILL SURELY MEAN THE END OF AMERICA.

Xtina: Dangerously Boring Sexual Politics

Christina Aguilera just released a new album or something and here's the first video that attempts to polish its turd of a song with shiny bondage wear:



Observations:
1)This seems like a parody of something "totally outrageous." She's Marilyn! She's a dominatrix! She's fucking a chick!
2) Wish all the of last decade would have died...
3) but maybe Gaga will have her henchmen stuff this pale imitation into a sack and throw it back into 2002 from whence it came.

Like the less popular girl in 10th grade, Christina has always relied on giving blowjobs in the locker room to best her prettier rivals.
First, Britney won the last decade with her more accessible features and less desperate (hard to believe, but in comparison) attempts at maintaining a fan base of sixth grade girls and old pedophiles. Lady Gaga opened the second decade of the 21st century miles ahead of any other popular performer: she's accepted by the mainstream and embraced by critics. In 2010, Christina once again finds herself a bridesmaid, and resorts to the same tactics employed in 2002's "Dirrty": shouting for her father's (um, fans?) attention while writhing in a leather thong.

Which is all fine. Christina could have sex with a walrus in a mosque in her next video and I really wouldn't care.

The truly disappointing element of this entire venture is its thesis: a return to the shrouded sexual politics of the last decade, which was borrowing them from the 50s and MTV pretended to make them "new."

Christina is pushing thirty but remains a faithful TRL mascot, which she (or her middle-aged male svengalis pulling the strings of her midriff) helped define with "Genie In a Bottle": the virginal whore. "I might have sex with you, but I also might not. You can look, but don't touch. Maybe. Unless I say so. Also, 'no' might mean yes."

The name of the song is "Not Myself Tonight"; the theme of it's video is what in America is called "sexual deviance." Since Christina's "not herself tonight", she will take you home and tie you up. She will do anything you ask her to, because she's not herself tonight. And you can't blame her in the morning. She's a woman who is unable to take accountability for her actions, which may not fit within the expectations of the men she's looking to please. But it's ok because she's "not herself tonight."

After ten years of this though, Christina may want to take a moment to ask what "herself" actually is.

Music Journalism That Sucks and People Get Paid to Execute

Slate.com's team of "music reviewers" dig as deep and as recent as Kurt Cobain for a musical hero.

This is what a middle aged, well-fed gross miscalculation of trying to remain current sounds like:

"...To say that Scott Stapp, a bellowing repackager of grunge as a bludgeoning, Christian-motivational medium, wasn't a miserable blight on the culture, is to suggest that Kurt Cobain didn't matter as much as we wanted him to[.]"

You can almost see the Columbia School Of Journalism diploma hanging in his wood-paneled office as he types away on his new Macbook Pro, the nanny chasing the two young kids around their Connecticut home as he sneaks another Amstel light before the wife gets home.

America, from elsewhere

Britain's humourous take on "Life in America After the Crash!!!!!!111" from the BBC's Newsnight:

"Buddy can you spare a dime", "Dancing in the dark", "Life is just a bowl of cherries", all phrases that were coined during the Great Depression and have remained in the American lexicon [thought the first was a Marvin Gaye song, the second was Bruce, and the third-- uuuhh Doris Day or something?].

As fixed as the haunting images of migrant families captured by Dorothea Lange's unparalleled photographs.

The Great Depression shaped modern America, literally in the great skyscrapers, and metaphorically as the Depression gave way to World War II, the Cold War, and ultimately the greed of the Gordon Gecko years. [From your ninth grade history paper.]

But has it taken this new crash to bring America to its senses?

....

We have a stellar guest list. In the studio historian Simon Schama [brilliant author of Landscape and Memory, as opposed to this guy:], writer and satirist Joe Queenan, [who is a supremely untalented hack] queen of the internet and Republican-turned-Democrat Arianna Huffington, banker Liaquat Ahamed (whose book Lords of Finance points to the actions of four bankers in the 20s as central to the crash), and the novelist Hari Kunzru.

Already in the can, Jay McInerney, [the NY "writer" who best personifies the term "yuppie" in the most derogatory sense possible] who has some extraordinary observations of his own, which he is working into a new book. Get this - he says people on the Upper East Side are pretending to have lost money through the Madoff scandal.

Meanwhile, Philip Roth speaks of this as just another dark time in a series of dark times in America.

Paul Mason has made two archive-rich films to kick off discussions. First, he asks if the 1929 crash taught Ben Bernanke and others a lesson that helped avoid a depression this time. [Ha! What an important lesson to have learned!]

And second a film on the cultural response to 1929 - the literature of Steinbeck and Henry Roth, the "talkies" which portrayed the underbelly of American life, and the state-induced saccharine of screwball comedies like Bringing up Baby.

Then we'll look at the cultural response this time around.

TV sitcoms now focus on family life again. In Hank, Kelsey Grammer is an entrepreneur who loses his job and moves to small town America [Kelsey Grammer: who says "small town America" more? And what can help understand and cope with "our" "economic strife" more effectively than a sitcom? No one and nothing, that's who.] . In the explicit Hung a teacher who is struggling to make ends meet becomes a male prostitute [male prositutes on Showtime: truly indicative of a cultural trend.]. Oliver Stone (who only last year said he couldn't imagine revisiting Wall Street) is currently making Wall Street II, with Michael Douglas reprising the role of Gordon Gecko.

And, of course, like Banquo's ghost [hey, British news and your hyper-literacy], Michael Moore has turned up with his own trumpet blast at the bankers with Capitalism, A Love Story.

The sparks will fly, so do join us live from New York at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

Do the British have a better grasp on America than Americans do?
Are they smarter than "us"?
Or are they just "jealous" that we "broke away" from them over 200 years ago and turned out to be even better at "ruining the world" than they were?
Is the BBC just a "business" trying to "increase ratings" by having "idiots" like Joe Queenan and Jay McInerney argue with each other and smart people like Arianna Huffington and Simon Schama?

The Moral of the Story

... is that money is evil.

Could NYC Prep define high capitalism and signal its fall?

Cable TV shows and subsequently induced homicidal mania are synonymous at this point, so I rarely feel like I need to comment on that here. But, rarely do I wish cancer on a bunch of teenagers after being subjected to their most inane brand of purchased self-veneration and Everything That Is Wrong With America.

Five minutes into this televised holocaust and you'll be foaming at the mouth. But that makes me wonder if the producers of the show aren't doing the world a favor and exposing the insidious vapidity of what We're All Supposed To Want.

There's a great article on the show here in New York Magazine, and Vanessa Grigoriadis is a first-class journalist. I especially like this little Baudrillardian nugget on New York:

Post-crash, the city is a symbol of spiritual emptiness, an island of lost souls, almost submerged in colorful cocktails. And much of America wants to laugh at New Yorkers suffering for their sins.

We sure do!

Grigoriadis continues: "New York is a Louis XIV court, beautiful and decadent, making nothing, obsessed with its own intrigue, on its way out."

New York is home to the defining values of modern America, which has finally folded in on itself thanks to the hyper-consumerism/greed/self-worship that our culture is rooted in. You can't help but view the frantic self-obsession of these teenagers and their plastic middle-aged counterparts as merely a response to the fact that they're already embarrassing and irrelevant and they'll soon be extinct.

Grigoriadis' article will probably make you blow fewer blood vessels than actually watching the show, at least. Enjoy and be thankful you're not a completely non-self-aware symptom and cause of the end of America.


Also, so I know I said I was out of here in hopes of "making a difference" in other ways than inflicting this screed on the masses.

Yeah right.

As long as things continue to offend my and your sensibilities as sentient piles of organic matter, I'll be sitting behind my work computer and bitching about said cultural holocaust. And I'll be expecting your comments on how to fix it too.

<3 mainstream indie flix

Film Endorsement from Very Short List:

"Set in the late 1980s [80s r the new 80s] and directed by Superbad’s Greg Mottola, Adventureland is a coming-of-age story [cliches are the new black] centered on a recent college graduate (Jesse Eisenberg) ["unique" looking "indie" bro] who finds employment (and love) [employment is the new love] at a rickety amusement park. A group of terrifically kooky [the blogger bro who wrote this obviously bought an MFA in creative writing from Columbia] character actors — Kristin Stewart, [relatable tween vampire] Martin Starr, Bill Hader ["regular guy" from a show that hasn't been relevant/funny/watchable for 25 years], Kristen Wigg [relevant semi-altbroad? should probably watch more NBC to know who this is], and Ryan Reynolds [really mediocre canadian mr. scarbro]— rounds out the cast, and the ridiculously great soundtrack includes songs by David Bowie, the Velvet Underground, Yo La Tengo, the Modern Lovers, and Lou Reed. [kinda think lou reed is long overdue for a killing spree at this point.] For a simple nostalgia flick [new film genre alert], it’s refreshingly uncynical and affecting." [economy is too bad for cynicsm these days. just want to go to the movies and "escape"]

This just sounds "so" "cute." Want to see it and be "kooky"/alt/dance like no one is watching. Then I will illegally download Yo La Tengo's complete catalog and know I am morally superior to everyone who has not yet done so. Might also put Lou Reed and David Bowie on my ipod so I'll be judged favorably by people who equate musical taste with character.

Everything I Need to Know

... I learned from the Sunday Times!


Women really ARE "wired" differently from men! (In an article thankfully not written by the abominable Ms. Dowd. )
This caffeine addiction might give you an ulcer but will save your head!

And, as always, Conservatives r dum!!!!!111

On Pretty.

Women and beauty: norms unchanged for millenia.

First, pretty is not beauty. Pretty is beauty's more available distant cousin, who lives in a different part of the country and is for sale at the mall. Pretty is not a virtue like beauty is a virtue; pretty is formulaic, and it means having certain qualities. Pretty is an objective qualifying term much like being a certain height means one is tall or having certain SAT scores means one is smart. But because pretty is not only possible, not only suggested, and is so widely available, on racks, at makeup counters, at gyms, it is one's duty to achieve. One who makes no attempts toward "pretty" operates in a unidentifiable realm existing between genders, outside cultural expectations and norms. And if you are not beautiful, you must attempt to be pretty, not so much because our culture values aesthetics in any way, but more so that our culture demands signals and signs that render things easily classifiable. And because our culture decided very long ago that woman's greatest virtue is the way she appears physically, it venerates those who achieve success in this set of standards, and casts off those who do not. In this set of norms, a woman who learns, often very early in life, when she is still forming perceptions of herself and the world, herself in the world, that she is physically appealing learns that she is not or does not have to be intelligent. Conversely, a woman who learns that she is not pretty knows she must find other ways to make up for this ultimately debilitating shortcoming.

We consider ourselves an evolved, sophisticated society, but the way in which we view women is so archaic and limiting that only forty years ago was any large-scale movement formed to question the set of standards under which women are judged and valued. In 2008, it seems we've regressed as a society. (And this is not an overly pessimistic view-- I hesitate to go too far into the facts of oppressive gender roles for fear of being labeled a "feminist," the most fearsome of all classifications, perhaps on par with "terrorist" when it comes to clearing a room or getting a date.)

The fact remains, at its most basic level, that women are not free, and that men are not free either, because humans that are born female continue to exist in an oppressive and limiting realm which valorizes a single quality above all else, a quality which itself has incredibly narrow standards. This is to say that women must be physically appealing to be valued in our society, and this undoubtedly includes those rare and yet such familiar characteristics ingrained into all of our minds, such as thin frame and fair complexion, coupled with a demure, submissive manner.

When the world operates in this way, venerating "pretty" over "non-pretty" in its limited margin of acceptance, women are unable to live truly full lives, or lives which do not revolve solely around this pursuit. Thus, they are robbed of the experience of being fully human. Meanwhile, men also lose, as they learn to exist in the orbit of this realm, learning to limit their own experience of other, female individuals, based on a very elementary view of physical beauty.

This oppressive notion of the "conventional" view of beauty is more nefarious than has been widely discussed or attacked, and more harmful than can be determined by quantitative surveys or tests, yet threatens the wellbeing of millions of people living all over the world. It is perhaps best described as an epidemic or an outbreak, and is undoubtedly most evident in the heart of the human female, who, unless she is one of eight or so women in the world who fit these ideal standards (and perhaps even if she is), she is made to feel unfit for and unwanted by the world in which she exists.

Democratic Advertisements

How has the media managed to turn the future of this country into just another product?



MSNBC's political website is a complete zoo, filled with loads of unnecessary content and redundant observations: "Voters wonder if Sarah Palin is qualified." They've also come up with a graphic for the current financial situation-- or, "Economy in Turmoil."


Related: when is a "news source" going to use "Pal-out and Bail-out" in a headline describing McCain's top concerns?
And, when is someone going to come out all Kanye West-like and say "Republicans don't care about women"? Aside from the fact that she's anti-choice and anti-women's rights in general, Palin's nomination has done much more damage than good for Americans' view of women by suggesting that they are fit for a job if they've competed in beauty pageants and show little to no sign of actual intelligence. Four people are nominated for the positions of president and vice president. One of them is embarrassingly underqualified, so much so that she has to be shielded from interviews. That person happens to be the only woman nominated.
Thanks, John McCain.

If Magazines Were People

We all know that print media is on the way out. You know what else should be on it's way out? People who are as lame as mainstream print media. We know these publications like family members, or at least like acquaintances to be avoided. Here, the blogtrack assessment of just what lurks between those glossy pages, soon to litter urban areas and never really biodegrade.
Here, If Their Departments and Features were Their Annoying Behavior and Bad Habits.

Rolling Stone:
Your dad's aging friend who's still really hot. He might have about 30 years of excessive drinking around his middle and might be losing his hair, but he used to be really good looking and is still cool. He has lots of stories about Woodstock and Altamont. If you make fun of Foreigner with him, he'll totally want to bone you and future gatherings will be pretty awkward. And fun.

Details:
Bitter, closeted woman hater from the Upper West Side in Italian leather shoes. He tries really hard to look good and succeeds until he opens his mouth. He will marry a debutante from Long Island, just like his mother, who he hates.

Newsweek:
Your idiotic neighbor with no new opinions and nothing interesting to say at all, but thinks she's doing you a favor by cluing you in. She comes over about once a week to talk to you about current events with a complete lack of insight into anything at all and drops irrelevant pop culture references while thinking she's up on things . Your parents like her.

Adbusters:
6'1'', 140 lb. bike messenger who really hates himself. Would throw grenades at the white house if he thought it would do any good. Spends a lot of time reading Marx since he got over Kerouac. Will make you an awesome vegan dinner and is so good looking and cool that you will never touch another dairy product... until you get sick of feeling bad about laughing occasionally and reading the New York Times.

NYT "Arts and Leisure"
Forty-year old balding father of two kids under four who lives in Park Slope. Embarrassing aging hipster in leather sneakers and thick plastic frames who will tell you about this cool new show called Flight of the Conchords two years from now. At least he has connections.

NYT "Sunday Styles"
Bergdorf Goodman just threw up this walking pile of vapidity. She's completely non-self-aware and so incredibly boring you cringe at the sight of her before running the opposite direction to avoid an extended conversation about Natalie Portman's new haircut and this season's new boot. Renders the entire Ivy League beneath contempt for producing such a scourge on humanity.

NYT T style Magazine
Sunday Styles' even more despicable older sister who insists on being called by an annoying nickname. Anorexic headcase who rehabs in the Hamptons at her brilliant, wildly successful parents house. Everyone who knows her family secretly thinks that actually, she never should have been born because she's really just a good-looking money pit who makes her parents look bad.

Esquire:
Just smart, cool and good looking enough to make up for all the times he's dumb and offensive. You think about marrying him before realizing that he's slept with all your friends' friends. this guy can talk intelligently for hours about the problem with our hyper-violent society, then glorify it in the next breath. For now, you'll keep him around because he might have cooler, nicer friends.

The Believer:
Aforementioned cooler, nicer and smarter friend of Esquire. Spends a lot of time reading and likes things earnestly that are worth liking earnestly. Has worn the same thing since he was fifteen and writes poetry and fiction when he's not working for a non-profit.
It's love.


Add your own NOW for 60% OFF the cover price!

The Snews

Maybe it's because I'm living in a temple at the foothills of the Himalayas*, but the news is completely useless.
Headlines on the NYT today: mortgage stuff that no one can understand, an article on the fashion in an inane TV show for should-be suicidals, some non-news about the McCain campaign (i.e. that they're trying to win an election). One news-worthy item on increased alcohol abuse among veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq is relegated to the sidelines while some happening on Mercury gets the headline. Apparently a large crater was just discovered on a planet that does not directly concern any being on the land mass on which the New York Times is published.
At this point, Fox News, a 24-hour infomercial for America™ is more satisfying. At least the incessant and blatant stupidity and ignorance of Sean Hannity and Co. is a tangible (while bile-churning) reminder of just why we are where we are, which is a hell of a lot more than the NYT will dare to admit.


*or above a garage in the mountains of Northern California.

Hey Kids! Let's Talk about the Unsustainable Path of America!

Robots in 2110 will be the same as in 1972.

Pixar has built an empire on slick animated films that are ingeniously able to please both kids and their parents. They've made billions of dollars, afforded them the ability to throw a little bit (or a lot) of a political message at the young minds they arguably have the largest role in shaping.

Pixar's latest, Wall*E, is the tale of a lovable little robot, his search for love, the anthropogenic destruction of our planet and really fat Americans. Wall*E is the lone robot left on earth after human excess has driven all other forms of life away. The robot watches old movies, learns about love, and falls for a sleek visiting robot who's technologically light years ahead of him. The film takes the shape of an old-fashioned romantic film; it begins as your standard clunky-boy-chases-hot-girl narrative. But for all its provincial posturing, Wall*E offers some welcome reprieve from the text Disney's been regurgitating for about a century. Eva, the hypercapable Angelina Jolie of the robot world, ends up saving Wall*E's clunky ass (straight out of 1972's Silent Running) in ways that Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, or Belle could never even imagine.

Eva comes to planet earth looking for signs of organic life. We later find out she was sent by humanity, which by the year 2775 has morphed into obese soda-slurping slugs who live in a large mall in outer space, rendered actually unable to walk. They'd like to return to earth (in "Operation Recolonize", the perfect unwitting semantic gaffe for the 21st century), which this generation has never seen and can only return to when they receive signs of organic material. Wall*E gives Eva the only plant on the planet to woo her, and suddenly her heart beats green as she prepares to return to the mothership. Evil robots try to steal the plant, thwarting the plans the fat and happy president (think John Goodman) and his minions. Wall*E and Eva run (float, slide) from the evil robots, and the world is saved, thanks to the droid couple. Humans then return to earth, learn how to farm and live in harmony with all life forms on the planet.

For all of it's skepticism of technological development, Pixar fetishizes the robots and other sleek machinery presented in the film. Not only are they superhuman, but they even surpass human emotional capacities. A human couple is inspired to gaze into each other's eyes after watching Wall*E and Eva gallivanting in the night sky outside the spaceship. In 2775, humans are robots, and robots are humans. If children learn how to become humans through the ubiquity of the media, one can't help but wonder what a generation of people who learn from this robotic attempt at humanity will look like in ten or fifteen years.

The film will surely be criticized for its heavy handedness, (hello, Day After Tomorrow) but as a culture, we've all but forfeited the means for understanding subtlety. Pixar has recognized this and opts to hit us over the head with what some will deem their "(evil) liberal agenda." Buy n' Large, a superstore that's even on the moon, right next to the American flag, is traced to causing the end of life on the Earth. At points, the film reads as unhinged disgust with the Bush administration. A bumbling politician (or "Global CEO"-- whoa! Fuck you, contemporary Western political/economic system!) who ends up being wrong about everything preaches to his subjects the importance of "staying the course." Basically, Pixar has grabbed their audience of millions by the throat and told them what a lot of us have known for a while now. Has any major film, especially one aimed at kids, used the word "unsustainable"? And they smeared it all in a sweet little love story to make it go down easier. This isn't the first time and won't be the last that someone's used their wide, captive audience to get their own political message across. But if we now can't grasp the subtlety of suggestion, Wall*E appears at the perfect time. And by perfect, I mean probably about thirty years late.
Pixar films are ubiquitous in any house with kids, and they most likely assume the role of babysitter or even parent to a lot of kids. If kids have to be brainwashed by the media, there aren't many options that offer a more progressive perspective. Science fiction may prove more healthy and productive for both the planet and each kids than romantic fiction.

Green War and Media Sex

Humans really are brilliant.
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the irony that will bury us all.
Here's an idea.

However, not all humans are interested in militaristic masochism.
Here's a (nother) word from Kalle Lasn, the smartest teeth-gnasher of our age, who's out to expose the destroyers.

"TV sexuality is a campaign of disinformation, much like TV news. The truth is stretched, the story is hyped. If you look like a TV star or a model, a desirable mate will be available to you; if you don't, it won't. Try telling me that living with that message your whole life hasn't changed the way you feel about yourself.
Growing up in an erotically charged media environment alters the very foundations of our personalties. I think it distorts our sexuality. It changes the way you feel when someone suddenly puts their hand on your shoulder, hugs you, or flirts with you through the car window. I think the constant flow of commercially scripted pseudosex, rape and pornography makes us more voyeuristic, insatiable and aggressive."
(Culture Jam, p. 18)

Breaking: College Grad Identifies Path to Success, Wisdom and Happiness

Ah, college grads. There may not be a creature on earth who so perfectly embodies the delicate balance of idealism and self-righteousness as the Recent College Graduate, and every May the air is filled with the stench of the self-satisfaction mixed with fear. Since I wore that little hat almost a whole week ago, I have the right to glibly bombard you with my views on the world and life, because I now know almost everything there is worth knowing (just a little more Kerouac, and that almost will be effectively taken care of). Before that whole "real world" thing (a cultural construct if there ever was one) mars the clarity with which I am currently able to view the world, here is a list of personal insights and cultural observations I've culled over the last few years of expensive summer camp, which was actually really worth it (thanks, Mom and Dad!). Before I started, I never would've known what I still don't know (which completely goes against what I just said about knowing everything, but that's the beauty of being young and impressionable. Or something.)*

Finally, the wisdom the world has been waiting for:

WHAT I LEARNED IN COLLEGE

1. Wow, the world sure is fucked up.
(a) Your reality is being controlled by a small cabal of very rich and very old white men.
(b) You're a corporate target.
(c) The natural world is being destroyed.
(d) Global wealth is more uneven than it's ever been.
(e) The cheap energy sources that have built our incredibly decadent lifestyles are close to collapsing.
In fact, just about everything that COULD go wrong actually IS! So, you, college student/grad/mom/dad/shamed American, must forget everything you know and start over. Everything THEY (yes, there is a they) tell you is wrong, you can't buy your way out of this one, and your patriotic/religious paraphernalia does not guarantee you a place in heaven.
2. You CAN! almost learn how to think about maybe starting to change it a little bit.
(a) Moral superiority is not a bad thing, and that myth is only perpetuated by the selfish and lazy.
3. You don't actually have to read the boring assignments, especially if you don't care about your grades. And a lot of the reading is really interesting, especially if you don't care about your grades.
(a) If you ever experience the carpet of reality being pulled out from under you and grow suspicious of all that exists and doesn't exist in the entire world, you're doing alright.
4. The world does not end if you get a C or a D or an F. Nothing you do for a grade will ever affect anyone else's life, so stop boring everyone with your complaining.
(a) Some people will graduate with honors. Some won't. Everyone keeps breathing. A lot of people with very good grades will go on to make a lot of money, or not make a lot of money, or have a lot of fun, or do great things. A lot of people with not very good grades will go on to make a lot of money, or not make a lot of money, or have a lot of fun, or do great things.
5. Awkwardness will ensue. Embrace it.
(a) Everyone is so self-conscious that no one has time to worry about what you're doing, wearing or listening to.
6. Selling a really great anthology of world literature for $19 is a mistake.
(a) reading is still a better idea than Wii.
7. Nothing is so important that you can't skip it for something spontaneous and fun.
8. You can take about three fundamental ideas and apply them to every paper you ever write. (eg the world bank is evil, nothing is true, almost every classic text you read is patriarchally informed, etc.)
9. Women are in charge in male/female relationships (obviously). No one can deny that. Women, use it without taking advantage it. Men, don't be jerks.
10. Your major probably doesn't really matter, so pick one that's fundamental to your becoming a person, or it's going to be a long four years. If you don't have actual academic interests (or want to major in business/ neoclassical economics), don't go to college and give your spot to someone else.
11. A lot of people are huge tools. Avoid them so you don't have to worry about it.
(a) But you can make fun of them when you need to feel better about yourself.
(b) Also, a lot of people who seem like tools actually aren't. Don't judge people until after you know them.
12. You definitely won't regret any time you spend with friends. Actually, the only regret I have is that I didn't meet more people (ie hot smart dudes). Your 4.0 will never make you laugh or listen to your stories, and won't keep in touch after you graduate.
13. Mainstream media is for the old and dead, as are moderation and greatest hits albums (obviously).
14. The sixties might've been cool, but they're over and partially responsible for the quagmire of bullshit our generation has to wade through (see #1). If we learn to celebrate and loathe the time we're living in, we can understand and fix it.
15. Facebook is our generation's most brilliant form of effective corporate mind-control. Think before you offer all your personal information (see #1 (a) and (b)).
16. In spite of the self-indulgent practices and beliefs that college allows and encourages, you are actually very far from being the center of the world.
16. This list wouldn't be complete without the cliche (but valuable) things you always hear: don't be afraid to talk in class, try stuff that seems scary or stupid or weird, if you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much room, allow yourself to remain open to all views (especially the ones that confirm your own so you can win arguments against Republicans and make them feel dumb).
17. It's impossible to make a mistake (except for #6).
18. Most importantly, don't let anyone tell you what to do. Doing what anyone tells you to is quickest way to ending up miserable.
(a) For the record, the list is is merely meant as a suggestion.

Also, college is pretty cool, but I'm fairly certain that it doesn't actually have to be the "best four years of your life!!!11" You should actually make sure it's not, because who wants life after 22 to be a sixty year denouement?

*Disclaimer: contributing to the pompous tone of this list is that I'm currently in a coffee shop attempting to justify my existence. Oh, and I didn't get honors so I feel bad about myself. J/k!!111

Cogito Bloggo Sum

The only thing more annoying than blogs in the first place is when people who have blogs get all self-referential; the blog is then nothing more than an attention-seeking device available to the entire world, ten times more effective than that middle-school eating disorder. But to assume that a blog is or should be anything more than a declaration of love for the self might be embarrassingly presumptuous. This damn thing hasn't exactly stared a revolution, and only serves as a reminder of all my own short comings as a human being. It used to be cute, but now it's dropped out of high school and got a job at the video store, prompting all the familiar hand-wringing, shouting matches and "where did i go wrong?"s.

The blog itself is still a medium in its infancy; collectively, blogs are culturally significant, but individually they're nothing more than a means for the author to think they're contributing to the world in some constructive way. Anyone who doesn't get sick of the sight of their own type, blogs, and people who have blogs is either delusional or talented.

If the specific cause of my disillusionment with this completely worthless endeavor is of any interest, check out www.datingdylan.blogspot.com and you too will be robbed of the will to live. Read on an empty stomach/ far from sharp objects.

Until I've overcome this crippling fear of self-published work, here is a word from Chuck Klosterman, whose incredibly self-obsessed excuse for "journalism" finds an audience with the similarly afflicted and those with no personality of their own and a subscription to Spin: "I mean, either that guy in the corner in orange safety pants holding a protest sign and wearing a top hat is mentally disabled or he is the coolest fucking guy you will ever know."

Of Fear and Loathing and Luke in Starbucks

First: "The dominant romantic-comedy trend of the past several years—the slovenly hipster and the female straight arrow." The fat guy/ Katherine Heigl complex: indicative of a much larger cultural trend? We would be pissed if women were portrayed as either high-strung or lazy. What's better? What do we want?

What would Joni do?

Sell her her latest album at Starbucks, right next to Nirvana Unplugged, of course!
Yes, seriously. In a way, it sort of justifies Kurt's suicide (if the state of pop music in general hadn't already done so.) Isn't this the kind of com modification that made him put the gun in his mouth in the first place, over 13 years ago? (Welp, that and his heroin addiction.) Something tells me Courtney's legal fees and failure at things in general are behind this. Oh well, it sort of makes sense. Both Starbucks and Nirvana are from Seattle!

I became aware of this quandary of contemporary popular culture over the weekend, when I found myself in the Boston suburb of Belmont, whose downtown consists of a couple banks, three pizza restaurants, a few overpriced jewelry boutiques and a Starbucks. Because I have no desire to wear the same necklace as Jennifer Aniston, but do have a sickening caffeine addiction, we wandered into the local dealer, fully conscious of just how boozshie and loathsome it made us, but not caring enough to forgo our god-given right to those red paper cups.
The Nirvana display was almost too much cultural death to bear, especially as I struggled to get the overpriced coffee down my wretched throat while reading up in Adbusters about all the people, plants and animals that have to die for my right to do so. As I pondered the depressing state of the world in general and wondered whether to off myself or get another $4 latte, a familiar figure entered the chain of coffee stores that is now our nation's secular church. (Even God would admit that Starbucks is more fun than fire and brimstone.) It took a few glances (shameless gawking) to determine that yes, this tall, sharp-dressed and well-coiffed man was in fact the go-to guy for wimpy boyfriend roles and the younger brother of everyone's favorite suicide attemptee. Luke Wilson was mere feet from me and Elissa, and probably wanted to throw us (ok, me) out the window as I couldn't stop looking over to confirm the sighting. I was completely sure it was him because of that squinty-eye thing he does, and the fact that he was wearing a baller leather-jacket and was with a 30-something blonde woman who had the body of a 12 year old.

The moral of the story: whenever the corporate cultural chokehold is getting you down, an actor more famous for his relationships with co-stars than any quality films or talent will show up and distract you with his disheveled good looks, because this is America!

hoLLab@ck

Courtesy Bettmann-Corbis, Newsweek

Feminists say: Blogs aren't working!! Women need to take it to the streets for the right to earn more than men!

Ahem.
The concept of "feminism" is undefinable, as everyone has their different interpretations, but the definition of feminsim as a woman's right to make as much money as men is disgusting, as patriarchal capitalism is ruining the world as I type. Female CEOs are not feminists, they are power-hungry men in skirts. I would hope that feminists would get hip to the fact that there are more important things in the world right now than financial triumph over your damn balding coworkers. That's why the movement died. We should be past that now, but for some reason we're all still looking out for number one as the world is literally falling apart, because of capitalism, the very system feminists are trying to win in. Bullshit.
Bottom line: Capitalist feminism blows because it falls short of achieving anything as it is completely counterintuitive.

Thanks to Els for the article.
(The above is full of unsupported and controversial claims. Good thing no one I don't know reads this.)

Speaking of politics and chicks...this is good

Ratatat RAWKS even silently. Thanks Kate!

Finally, BLOGS R WIERD!!!!11, courtesy of Kelly, hella hyphy&heady queen of NoCal/ vegan*/ foremost literary visionary of our age.


*not true, but the other stuff is. And she is friends with Akron/Family.

Good News is No News

Jim Fitzpatrick, courtesy of bbc.com

Che: The man, the brand.
You're not paranoid if they really are watching you.

Old people say: "we really f-ed this one up, so start doing something about it, college kids!!! And blogs don't count. But, remember, globalization is working, so don't try and change that. "

At least we can laugh about it and watch indie movies.

Shallow and in Vogue

Clueless is the tale of a vapid, materialistic yet lovable fifteen year old from Beverly Hills. The fact that she cares more about ruining her Aliia dress while being mugged than the gun to her head would be grounds to throw this into the heap of other repulsive teensploitation films were we not supposed to be gawking at her valley-girl tendencies. Her vapidity is easier to laugh at than aspire to; we learn to closer align ourselves with Josh, her ex-step-brother, the smart college "mope-rock" fan who initially terrorizes Cher by making her feel guilty of her ignorance of Central American geography and general self-involvement. We sympathize not with Cher, the whining, well dressed, driver's test failure, but with Josh who suggests sterilization to Cher and her driving instructor who is unmoved by her weak attempt at justifying multiple-near accidents. In the end, Cher sheds her narcissistic tendencies for a less-self involved perspective, but not her Calvin Klein slip dress; while Cher does evolve, she stays true to herself. At one point Cher corrects Josh's smug college girlfriend about a Hamlet quote: she knows that Polonius said "to thine own self be true" because she remembers Mel Gibson.
The fact that this 1995 movie spawned an entire lucrative franchise of admiration of vacant female idiocy is admittedly extremely unfortunate*, but the fact that people have made a "career" out of being the "before Chers" is a sign more of our dim-witted culture than the vapidity of the film. But even Cher herself is from a long-gone era: Clueless was based on Jane Austen's Emma.


*Follow the above links with caution. They were meant to serve as useful glimpses of the depravity and uselessness of American contemporary culture, but now all I can think about is hyperreality and wonder why I even got up this morning.

The F Word

It's 2007. No one knows what's up or down anymore. However many years ago humans discovered fire, and then we discovered feminism. Which one was more incendiary, more instrumental in altering the fundamentals of human life is debatable. (Most) men run from it, and plenty of educated women won't associate with it.

Why, in this age of supposed enlightenment, is Feminism such a dirty word?

Language is nothing if not imprecise, which may be the root of the problem here. "Feminism" seems to denote female superiority, and oh good god we can not have that. In actuality, feminism operates under the belief of equality between genders, and while there are obvious things that separate us, we are all human beings and should be treated as such. But say the word "feminist" and men and women alike run for the hills, envisioning copious body hair and overalls, braless manhaters with upper lip fuzz and "The Second Sex" always at hand. After all, Feminists are really what's wrong with this country.
Classification allows for distortion, which all adds up to a convenient way to relegate an ideology and the people that subscribe to it as "other" or "wrong" or "crazy."
The men who are intimidated by the concept and what it stands for, who can't bear the thought of equality between humans due to a inflated/stunted sense of self and masculinity are just casualties of twenty/first century America, and have had all the humanity diluted out of them by the system of mind control we call contemporary culture. They, like many other products of our society, would be laughably inconsequential if they didn't run the damn show.
The women who refuse to acknowledge what's terribly wrong here proudly perpetuate the entire process in "naughty _____" Halloween costumes. Women should wear what they want without fearing assault, but in our world, which exists upon millennia of signs and signifieds that form our perceptions and interpretations, a person is all too capable of turning herself into an object (i.e. less than human) and she will be treated as such.
For some reason, Feminism has become such a loaded word that even the people in whose interest the concept was formed now reject it. So here's an idea: change the name. If Feminism is an unmarketable concept, why not Equalism or Humanism? It seems that right now we're in a cultural lull that refuses to address these issues-- there's a war going on that was sold to the public by a faux cowboy using macho language and cartoonish masculine posturing. Simultaneously, popular culture continues to sink to the lowest common denominator, sacrificing respect for women for an easy dollar. I know InTouch magazine and the rest of the pile of refined Amazon rainforest detailing Jessica Simpson's latest haircut/weight gain/ shoe purchase isn't necessarily demonstrative of our culture, but this is who we give our time, energy and money to?
All I'm suggesting is that we all turn on our bullshit detectors and refuse to let these images and ideals of femininity and masculinity infiltrate our collective conscience. None of us benefit from believing that one half of the human race is less fully human (i.e. capable of rational thought, deserving of respect for their minds, not bodies, etc.), and I'm sick of the culture that happily perpetuates subordinating and antiquated gender roles, producing weak men and the women who cater to them.