modern love

Me Myself I

The best 8:40 you'll spend today

way up on way up on way up on

tits! tits! tits!

Mas here.

Rainy Saturdays

= Zizek on youtube.

Set yourself on fire: SxSW

Hey friends. I was in Austin Texas last week for the week of insanity and Lonestar that is possibly the biggest music festival in the US, SXSW. 6th Street, the Bourbon Street of Austin, was flooded twenty four hours a day for a week with musicians, tattoos, free beer, cops and drunks and I barely went to bed before 6 am all week. Molly and I biked our way through the masses and along with a bunch of other radasses from OKC and Philly definitely achieved our dual goals of experiencing something real and having a good time all the time.

I know this event is criminally underreported so I thought I'd write about it on my weblog. So to recap, here were some highlights of the madness:

Checked out Sleepy Sun's Thursday afternoon show and suddenly wasn't bummed anymore about not being in San Francisco in 1969 cause it was right in front of me. They do NOT half-ass their commitment to sixties psychedilia and anybody who is that into their trip gets snaps from me. They brought out the Austin Children's Choir who rocked the tent AND they did a cover of the Guess Who's "No Sugar Tonight/ New Mother Nature," an epochal song of its era. The singer sounded EXACTLY like Burton Cummings too, for an added bonus. I was in heaven. Here's kind of what the show was like:



This is exactly what America should be in 2010. Love it. We also started a butt-touching contest in the middle of 6th street. The Sleepy Sun tent was full of olds who we later realized were parents of the children's choir. Some of the dads left pretty excited, as did a cop and multiple other passersby (I totally lost but did get some Abercrombie-with-girlfriend-next-to-him butt, which has gotta count for something.)

Whqles played at a friend's houseparty and although their name looks like a t9 typo, they were great. (hey Whqles, if you're reading this, Molly and I were the ones sitting in front of your set-up and snapping our necks). I haven't stopped listening to their EP even though it's only about 10 minutes long. Check out their space for more. Recommedations: "Sum of All Evils pt 2" and "JG," a cover of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy." And this video is kind of what their live show was like-- full of glow in the dark paint, fast, loud and impossible not to like. I have no idea what's going on in LA and never cared but now I'm curious.


Another great was seeing Mariachi El Bronx at Mess With Texas. (LA hardcore band's The Bronx mariachi side project). They put on a tight set and showed some love to the crowd.




We (thirteen people piled into a five seater with a trunk) also tried to go to a party at the UT co-ops that Andrew WK was headlining and was sure to guarantee trancendence over space and time. But instead of understanding how "to create a dynamic so that we can appreciate beauty and joy and pleasure" (seriously, read that interview linked above. it will change your life), our only lesson learned was not to show up to a party that Andrew WK is playing at 2 am (40s and facepaint got in the way, as usual). The only time I've seen more humans in one place crawling up and down stairs and around railings is between at-bats at Fenway Park when the Yankees are in town (try using a sports metaphor today!). All I could think of was a bunch of people had sex in the 80s and this is what happened. Apparently AWK did show up to play a set at 5 am. Next time, bro.

DID get to see Woods at the Magic Hat party (woooot VT) on the Lawn of the French Legation. One of my faves since their 2006 album How to Survive in the Woods, they did not dissapoint. I only wish that their set was longer and that they played "Military Madness", but then I would have been crying all over myself and the lawn.

Lone Star was the unofficial sponsor of the experience and I'm pretty sure it's since replaced most of my blood. We spent a lot of time at Shangri La, the bar that Bill Murray ended up bartending at, but missed it. I think I can still die without regret.

We ALSO ended up at some party in "the hills" (I think every city not on the east coast has a super exclusive neighborhood full of Range Rovers called "the hills") completely full of tweens on spring break and two untapped kegs. Needless to say the kegs were emptied before we left and a few packages of fruit snacks were missing. Also, lower back tats [I hate the term "tramp stamp"] are still popular?

Speaking of tweens and unintentional hilarity, Molly and I also worked the Keep A Breast table at the Alternative Press show. It's an awesome organization that educates teens about prevention and early detection of breast cancer, and middle- and high-school kids across America are now wearing "I <3> boobies" bracelets and t-shirts. The org is endorsed and promoted by Circa Survive (I am happily older than 12 and have no idea who this band is), Angels and Airwaves and a bunch of other huge acts of a genre (post-dashboard screamo tweencore?) that no one born after 1992 could understand. We met about 600 people that looked like variations of this:

Like all things that make life worth showing up for, it was horrific and hilarious at the same time. And quite possibly the best form of birth control I've encountered yet.

We also checked out some metal at Primo's, a bar in a formerly Mexican neighborhood (weird, an American city is having problems with gentrification?), which I don't really "get." Don't know if it's because I'm a girl or because I wasn't super alienated in high school. Either way, it's kind of a bummer. I wish I could get into metal. It's one of my resolutions for 2010.

Also, does your city have a magazine that is primarily concerned with squids, jorts, beards and beers? I didn't think so, which is why you need to check out Misprint Magazine. On its agenda is ending live music in Austin. Zany fun for the whole family. If they're all jaded drunks. (And whose family isn't?)

The moral of SXSW story is: forget standing in line for 4 hours to see She and Him. Get on a bike, grab some free beers and jump into a bar, venue or house party just to see what's going on. They might not suck.

ALSO every town in America should have taco trucks.

gifts 4 evry1

New stuff here!!!

How To Be Alive

"...There is no need to be cynical. Nor is there time to be cynical. You and I both know how much stupid crap there is in the world. Do not allow it to make you cynical about your own miraculous being. The crap in the world is about power and control and wealth and status; as such, it is an outgrowth of fear, the ego's silly fear of dissolution and nonexistence; the crap in the world is not the world's essence; it is our fear-filled distortion. Surely moguls and hustlers fill the streets and boardrooms; surely the bullshit machine of need hammers at us day and night to buy more, to keep these fearful moguls in trade; surely there is plenty of crap in the world. But the world is not crap. The world is glorious. The world is an out-and-out miracle. The world is yours. The world is calling to you...."

from Cary Tennis at Salon.com.
Rest of the article is here.

Hot New Tunes!!!!!!1 (tm) Vol 3

6 easy steps to your very own modest mouse


And now, the thrilling conclusion of August's BUZZ BANDS YOU HAVE TO HEAR NOW!

Modest Mouse
In 2004 I was really into "modern rock radio" specifically a radio station called Y100 in Philadelphia. I used to drive around in my Mom's Jetta mourning the suburban wasteland of my current hometown/ go to JoAnn Fabrics, listening to "90s at noon": Stone Temple Pilots, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam. The next year these guys, Weezer et al were dumped for a more "urban" format, but 2004 was the year that Modest Mouse "broke," ie made it to the radio. I heard their single "Float On" on Y100 and it sounded much “edgier” than anything else on that station, so I, like every other 17-29 y.o. who "gave a fuck" bought the album. I really liked it at the time, because this was at a point in my own life when I was becoming committed to "liking quality shit"/being cooler than all of my current friends, so it was better than most of the music I owned. I listened to it nonstop, and assigned valid emotions to the album and the experiences I had while listening to it. My experiences and the album served to legitimize each other.
Modest Mouse appeared in Rolling Stone around the time the album came out and were quoted as saying something quotable like "we beat Britney Spears on the Billboard chart! Holy Shit!"

Anyway, since I'm not 18 anymore, I can't listen to this album, and I've grown to lazily dislike this band and everything they stand for, ie forcing their (Issac Brock's) depression on their entire audience (which is rather large, as in some circles of awkward/boring barristas, Modest Mouse has become one of those bands that you "have to have liked for a long time" in order to be legitimate). Like Sparklehorse, I think they're kind of behind the curve as far as music trends go, probably because they were around before the internet, and they don't know how to read blogs and cater to their target demographic. No one wants to sit alone and listen to sad music anymore. Believe me, I'm doing it right now, and I'd much rather be "getting drunk" and dancing to shit. But it's nine in morning.
I think this band was coming up right when everything was really sucking in the world and only a few people knew about it. Issac Brock was clearly one of the people who "got it." In 2009, everybody knows how bad everything is, and no one wants to think about it/ Obama is president so everything’s fine, so people "get drunk and dance to Passion Pit."
Verdict: I wish Issac Brock would get a journal to write his sad feelings in and maybe make some music that's a little more melodic and accessible. Cat Power got it and look at her now! She's friends with Karl Lagerfield and stuff.

On an unrelated note, during the Good News For People Who Love Bad News era, I also purchased the Raveonette's first full-length album, Chain Gang Of Love. The cover looked the "edgiest" out of all the albums on the rack at my local K-mart (seriously), and I had money to burn (being a kind of still a tween who had a job but could not legally purchase alcohol). Anyway, when I bought it, I was like, huh, that's pretty cool. Then Little Steven (of Bruce's E-Street Band) really hyped them on his Sunday night radio show, "Little Steven's Underground Garage." Probably the only remaining syndicated radio show that's still anywhere near cool, and it's DJed by a 60+ guy wearing a head scarf (quite well). I don't know if it's still on; probably not. (Apparently multiple industry types with some street cred/taste took a liking to the Raveonettes: they were unofficially discovered by David Fricke, editor and columnist of Rolling Stone's "Out There with David Fricke," where he writes the 1/4 page of each issue that that covers music made by people whose publicist has not blown Jann Wenner).

So five years later, I just rediscovered this album and it is fucking awesome. Most of the songs are under two minutes long but they have enough energy and reverb to power a train. I think another reason it took me so long to appreciate Chain Gang is because it's about sex, a topic I was clueless about when I first bought this album. They've come out with three other albums since then, and I haven't heard more than a minimum, mostly because I prefer artists that I think are good to exist as that one perfect album in my mind (like My Morning Jacket's It Still Moves and Cat Power's You Are Free (I know, that sucks)) and also because now I'm poor, and I don't like stealing music from friends and putting it on my itunes to look cool to people who will potentially judge me on my digital music collection. However, I highly recommend checking out this band consistent of two hot people from Denmark who like American music from the 1950's, the Velvet Underground, drugs and sex. Fun fact: Chain Gang was produced by Richard Gottehrer, who also produced albums by Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Blondie! You can't get a much better pedigree than that.


Well, that's it for the August edition of HOT NEW TUNES!!!!!1 (tm)
Feel free to add your own uniformed opinions about any of these bands to those uniformed opinions above and suggest some other bands you'd like covered.

with love, kisses, and sincere expression of the human experience through indpendent music.

Hot New Tunes!!!!!!1 (tm) Vol 1

miss u the rapture! photo from christiannation.com

Hey Friends,
You've come to rely on Remix Mountain for cutting-edge, up-to the minute music reporting, so I thought I'd let you know about some cool new bands. I'm just gonna shuffle up some tracks and tastemake away.



The Rapture:
I hate to have to ask this, but what ever happened to these guys? I remember back in 2003, the British press was all over them (At the time, I was in the UK on a prestigious Sub Pop internship to study the effect of American buzz bands in the British market/psyche). Think they rolled right off the tail end of the first "The" bands, like The Strokes, and then they didn't do anything else? Sounds like Brooklyn and maybe that doesn't translate elsewhere, besides the UK. They also came up before the internet became peoples' main source for air, food and music news/videos/album leaks, so they probably missed some important hype and couldn't really establish a strong blog presence, and now they're "old." Wonder what they're doing now? Probably interning at Moma. Whatever, "House of Jealous Lovers" still sounds awesome and will make you long for the days when New York seemed "cool" rather than where all your friends from high school moved after college to get crappy jobs, have their parents pay their rent, and do coke in the bathroom of tacky,overpriced bars with tacky, overpaid dudes and broads.
Verdict: Sorry, bros.

Plants And Animals/Parc Avenue
This came out about 16 months ago and should be called "Riding the Canadian indie-world domination wave." Their With/Avec EP is better. Just Sayin. But seriously, Plants and Animals are very good.
Verdict: Canada is awesome!

Patsy Cline:
I think she is some post-ironic singer songwriter trying to appeal to our appreciation of authenticity. It works.


Ruby Suns:
Yes. Seriously. Just check them out. They're American but moved to New Zealand. I don't want to say anything else and ruin it. You will not regret this.

Passion Pit:
New Genre Alert: Mediocore.
Just listened to this "band" for the first time and couldn't help but get really angry. First of all, they're from Boston, which is one rung lower than Philadelphia on the list of East Coast Cities That Aren't New York. I know 19 year olds who think that they "get it" because they "shop at American Apparel" and aren't actually that self-aware but they have just completed their first year of college/done drugs/know to how appeal to the opposite sex have elected this group of bearded young white men as the flavor du season, but they sound like a pretty blatantly watered-down American version of Justice, that you can dance to and also experience valid emotion to while hanging with your friends and maybe making out with your crush before breaking up over txt msg. I like that about this kind of music, but I get sad when I think about what they'll be doing in five years. Probably in worse shape than The Rapture.
There are about 20 other bands who are doing this exact thing, have also appeared in Nylon Magazine for 14-year-old aspiring vapid "fashion photographers"/drug trade supporters, and they're all pouring Amstel Light for their high school classmates in their hometown's "most legit" bar now.
Verdict: Catchy as hell (before it gets grating), disposable as fuck.

John Fahey:
Perfect antidote to Passion Pit. Sigh. (Sorry to use those two in the same sentence.) But solo guitar is awesome. Highly recommended.



stay tuned for Part Deux for more opinions you should have.

one of my coworkers called me a communist while i was working on this

astralweeksplease

This is a poem I wrote*

"mirabelle's triple layer mousse cake, you are my everything"

sets the tone

of pulling a double tonight;

My wanderlust is creeping up on me:

i am a lonesome hobo.

homing alone.

having a sunny day on a rainy one.

home alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:is going to be dead and then shpongled...

(if ya spit in the sky, it fall in your eyes, whoa, that's no lie.)

not drinking this week:

lip hurts! I'm starving!

:means allergies or the swine flu.

(*three guesses as to the origin of this poem. Winner gets my credit card debt.)

Holy Shit! All My Idols Are Dead!

February is Dead Genius Month here at Remix Mountain.*

I've recently realized that most of my favorite artists all kind of ran themselves into an early grave after writing the best literature of the twentieth century. So I thought I would share them with you.




James Agee (unknowingly) pioneered what we now call "postmodern literature" with his 1941 masterpiece on tenant farmers in the South. The pages of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men weep with Agee's own blood, horror, anger and loving awe at the world around him. I could go into how every line of his 406 page volume is flooded with the worlds of heartbreak that defined Agee's view of the human experience, but this isn't a review because reviews are boring and a bit pointless ("I liked it and you might too!"). But this book is a train through your barely beating heart, a tornado that will rip up the broken barns of icy hatred that lying leaders and the endless pursuit of cheap shit have built on the flat plains of your jaded little twenty-first century psyche.

I am hesitant to reprint any of Agee's words on this admittedly- sometimes-bereft-of-anything-good-or-humane-corner of the virtual world, and the internet is mostly for illicit sexual activity, gambling, and "entertainment news," and printing his words here somehow seems like letting your wide-eyed baby play in a pile of dirty needles at the park, because you just can't bear the though of your baby touching needles just like you can't bear the thought of James Agee's words touching porn or news of governmental sex scandals or celebrity teen pregnancies and the hateful jokes about them that have become an industry and an ideology, an easy refuge in a broken time, because he never took the easy route and he wrote about every spiderweb and and tree and barn and how a cotton dress moved at the end of the day and because the words he wrote about poor tenant farmers during the depression and his life with them and how they were beautiful and how they were damned by the system that they had no control over pretty much killed him, dead 14 years later at age 47 of the bad heart life and alcohol had given him.

But. Because at age thirty he described every door frame of every decrepit house with the love of a new father and with the sorrow of a man who knows his children are dying: this is how he writes:

The sky was withdrawn from us with all her strength. Against some scarcely conceivable imprisoning wall this woman held herself away from us and watched us: wide, high, light with her stars as milk above our heavy dark; and like the bristling and glass breakage on the mouth of stone spring water: broached on grand heaven their metal fires.
And now as by the slipping of a button, the snapping and failures on air of a spider's cable, there broke loose from the room, shaken, a long sigh closed in silence. On some ledge overleaning that gulf which is more profound than the remembrance of imagination they had lain in sleep and at length the sand, that by degrees had crumpled and rifted, had broken from beneath them and they sank. There was now no further extreme, and they were sunken not singularly but companionate among the whole enchanted swarm of the living, into a region prior to the youngest quaverings of creation.

(We lay on the front porch:



Good god. No wonder he was dead so early. He seems to have absorbed every action and emotion he ever came into contact with, and at a certain point he didn't have the space or strength or energy for any more. Photographer and collaborator on Famous Men Walker Evans notes: "Agee's rebellion was unquenchable, self-damaging, deeply principled, infinitely costly, and ultimately priceless."

Like all great artists, Agee rendered the world a richer place by offering an invaluable take on the act of being human, and left behind some devastating love letters to life itself.




* Irony is only the splintered crutch of the heartbroken.
Also: Of course we celebrate Black History Month at Remix Mountain, too!

Wisdom for the Spiritually Bankrupt II

"Being is not a being, not God, an absolute unconditional ground or total presence, but it is simply the living web within which all relations emerge.

It is the constellation of art, science, politics, and religion within which a historical people dwells.

In our everyday lives we are rarely struck by our inheritance in existence as a whole, by the relation between our own individual being and all beings.
If the wonder of sheer naked spatio-temporal existence should strike home, it is a significant personal experience. "

Carol Bigwood, Earth Muse



painting: Karen Williams Edelmann

May 2008

Summer Scene by Bazille, 1869

In May 1968, students boycotted classes at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. They aimed to protest the divisive, hierarchical social systems that capitalism has formed into its own incarnation of humanity. Behind slogans such as "Never Work," "The More You Consume The Less You Live," and "Run, Comrade, the Old World is Behind You," there were soon one thousand protesters, then ten thousand, and ten million, and by the end of the month, forty percent of the nation was on strike. The students had grown to include a formidable group of professors, communists, and prominent intellectuals. The group intended to bring their revolution to other European countries, stating
"Just as we have made Paris dance, the international proletariat will again take up its assault on the capitals of all nations, on the citadels of alienation.... A deeply-rooted movement is leading almost every sector of the population to seek a real change in life. It is now a revolutionary movement which lacks only the consciousness of what it has already done in order to triumph."
Forty years later, the revolution of 1968 is left out of history books, remaining a cult phenomenon among historians and anarchists. Today, most college students choose to graduate with the means to furnish their urban apartments with expensive electronics. Under a certain sky, the urgency of fear and boredom of consumption are replaced by a determination to escape the existence capitalism has etched into the modern world for each of us.

When the sun heated up the cold air, and we wrote letters to people we'd been changed by, and painted. We ourselves were Late May. The end of spring. We had the world; we had to pay for what we had learned. We were naked and fearless, we wanted the love of one another, in this moment, forever. We gave almost everything we had to each other (I would have stayed with any of them here, I left all of them for somewhere very far away). We were like we will probably never be again: we were racing in the night, almost identical, hiding nothing from the world but seeking refuge in our parallels.
The sun-- you really should have seen this sun-- it crept across the yard all afternoon until only this huge lopsided tree was illuminated-- an electric lime green across this blue sky that can only be described as silken or satiny; so rich is this blue that it almost seems unnatural. The sun falls across the sky as paint drips down wood. So when the sun left the yard for this big tree you were left cold with only memories of what had happened in the sun, and these two colors together which were so brilliant, so otherworldly, supernatural, cosmic, hyperreal, that there's no point in trying to explain them except to say that when you see these two colors together, and especially if you're watching them while in the company of very beautiful, very young people with folded limbs, intentionally dressed, with long hair and red cheeks, long low laughs and good ideas who are creating things and saying kind things to one another so that they can continue, you will believe that there is a world that is very large, endless actually, and very important, and very real, outside of your own mind and this at once becomes a whole new reason for Never Working.

No is Boring

Art by Katie Loesel, Burlington, Vermont based artist

"The critical impulse... is to suspect, doubt, tear at, and to take something apart to see how it works. Which of course is completely the wrong thing to do to art. I used to tear books apart, and tear art exhibits apart - I was an art and book critic for a few years in San Francisco - but my urge to do that was born of bitterness and confusion and anger, not out of any real need to help or edify.... The worst sort of critics are (analogy coming) butterfly collectors - they chase something, ostensibly out of their search for beauty, then, once they get close, they catch that beautiful something, they kill it, they stick a pin through its abdomen, dissect it and label it. The whole process, I find, is not a happy or healthy one. Someone with his or her own shit figured out, without any emotional problems or bitterness or envy, instead of killing that which he loves, will simply let the goddamn butterfly fly, and instead of capturing and killing it and sticking it in a box, will simply point to it - 'Hey everyone, look at that beautiful thing' - hoping everyone else will see the beautiful thing he has seen.

...

The thing is, I really like saying yes. I like new things, projects, plans, getting people together and doing something, trying something, even when it's corny or stupid. I am not good at saying no. And I do not get along with people who say no. When you die, and it really could be this afternoon, under the same bus wheels I'll stick my head if need be, you will not be happy about having said no. You will be kicking your ass about all the no's you've said. No to that opportunity, or no to that trip to Nova Scotia or no to that night out, or no to that project or no to that person who wants to be naked with you but you worry about what your friends will say.

No is for wimps. No is for pussies. No is to live small and embittered, cherishing the opportunities you missed because they might have sent the wrong message.

There is a point in one's life when one cares about selling out and not selling out. One worries whether or not wearing a certain shirt means that they are behind the curve or ahead of it, or that having certain music in one's collection means that they are impressive, or unimpressive....And if anyone wants to hurt me for that, or dismiss me for that, for saying yes, I say Oh do it, do it you motherfuckers, finally, finally, finally."

excerpted from a 2000 email correspondence between Dave Eggers and a writer for the Harvard Advocate.

Joni Mitchell's Side of the World

Everything you've heard is true.

It never rains here, we spend all day in the sun and people talk sincerely about existing with the cosmic forces in the universe, and it all makes a lot of sense, is the only thing that makes sense.

There are fires and farms and long country roads through the mountains. The sky is an easter blue above the sand-colored hills, dotted with forest green, and everything is so soft that it's like being in an impressionist painting. This is what the sun intended.

And also, the sun bounces off the water off the edge of the continent like something you think you've seen but really haven't unless you're staring into it in late afternoon sun when the wind is whipping around your grateful limbs and suddenly you can't even remember what you were ever afraid of, and when you do, it seems different and smaller.

Happy Earth Day!

In celebration of Earth Day, I've launched a new website!

An introduction to radical environmental ethics is now online at www.radicallygreen.org

Enjoy!

anti-formalism

And I will stroll the merry way
And jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear
Clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And theyll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrows sky
And I will never grow so old again
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain

Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I shall drive my chariot
Down your streets and cry
hey, its me, Im dynamite
And I dont know why
And you shall take me strongly
In your arms again
And I will not remember
That I even felt the pain.
We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
And I will never, never, never
Grow so old again.

Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I will raise my hand up
Into the night time sky
And count the stars
Thats shining in your eye
Just to dig it all an not to wonder
Thats just fine
And Ill be satisfied
Not to read in between the lines
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
And I will never, ever, ever, ever
Grow so old again.
Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
Sugar-baby with your champagne eyes
And your saint-like smile....

Van Morrison, Sweet Thing, 1977

painting: Elissa Gore

My Blog, MY SELF!!!!!111111

(whatever the hell that means.) SERiously.

So everyone I know was all like, update yr blog!!! Although everyone I know is with me every waking minute of the day. Isn't that weird, that we look to the virtual for affirmation or something? Like, with Keh: I JUST LOOKED AT HER BLOG AND SHE'S SITTING ACROSS FROM ME EATING SALTY BEANS (organic) AND EGGS (cage free)!!!!!!!!111
Just let that one sink in and let your head explode.

So, at this juncture, I will just let the world know that Laurie Anderson's music is so awesome and it's pretty beautiful that she and Lou Reed are married. That wrinkled old bag of skin turned out to be a pretty legit human after all, which is more than I can say for most stars of rock, who tend to marry European supermodels who at some point will be asked by the Times style magazine about the last book they read in a completely non-ironic manner.

Also, did you know that muticulturalism can be bad for women? Seriously, check it out. Two cornerstones of liberalism duking it out: who can be more politically correct while simultaneously offending everyone who isn't a philosophy chair at Princeton?

And:
"Many people don’t write songs for an audience. They write songs for Gray’s Anatomy, for Zach Braff, and for Apple advertisements (Volkswagen if they’re not ambitious). If I was in a band I would write a slow song with an 808, reverb, and a female vocalist, and call that song “Zach Braff’s Eyes Reflected in My Nano.” I would make sure it got to the right people. By which I mean Zach Braff, or one of the leechlike marketing creatures that feed from the skin of Steve Jobs under his mock turtleneck."
-Paul Ford writes 6 word reviews of SXSW bands so you can impress your friends by being all like "Oh yeah, I've totally heard of these guys... they kind of suck."

and for this weeks installment of "thinegs i learnd at collge this week LOL!!!!111":
being "fashionable" isn't. Everyone can go to Urban Outfitters and dress like a damn Olsen twin or whoever the hell the kids like these days. Boots, scarves, big earrings and no pants are LAME and the fast track to a life of disappointment and incessant shopping. Find another reason to live before this nation turned into a toxic waste dump of your failed non-aspirations toward mediocrity and Braff-rock.