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To think it just popped into my head the other day and then I read today is the 100th anniversary. It is The Dreyfus affair, a key precursor to the 20th century's wave of anti-semitism ( Read more... )

So I may not have finished the bloody thing yet, but over the past month of reading I've become quite the Shandean after Laurence Sterne's digressive, post-modern-before-there-was-a-modern novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. And I hate post-modern literature. You see, dear reader, this book has something of a true heart, ( Read more... )

I really can't say anything because it won't be enough but R.I.P.

Oh, and Pink Floyd were nothing without him.

As much as I love the new Divine Comedy album I think I may have found something to replace it for album of the year: Planningtorock's Have It All. I came across the band at The Tate Modern's website where I was looking up art. She apparently performed thereMany will pass this off as more electro-cabaret crap. To me, though, it does seem ( Read more... )

It greatly annoyed me that conservative critics in this country devalued playwright Harold Pinter's win of the Nobel Prize for literature as being giving not for his talent, but his politics. They claimed the Nobel committee was just giving it to him because he is not in favor of American policies. Of course, Pinter's acceptance speech was a ( Read more... )

So, for this day, here is a compromised on, finally passed on, now unpublished piece on our national Holiday:
July 4th, Independence Day is here again. Morning in America, this 230th anniversary morning finds us at war, our soldiers accused of massacre and torture, our markets in decline and inflation on the rise, nature itself even seeming ill at ( Read more... )

There seems quite an extreme void in the high-end decent pop-culture spectrum right now. This is made doubly bad by the fact we all need some summer artistic fun ( Read more... )

So, as not a single good new album has come out for months today I get Ellen Allien and Apparat's joint work Orchestra of Bubbles. Akin to The Knife or Modeselektor releases from not too long ago, this album just struts its Euro-tronica self with savoir-faire. Nothing is particularly advanced, but like a good blues man, this duo works wonders of ( Read more... )

Want the hottest crate digging DJ track around right now? Try The Rolling Stones' 30 second garage rock wonder for Rice Krispies in 1964. Yes, it may be an avdertisement and the lyrics ridiculous but someone needs to sample the riff that just rips your ass off half way in. Damn, music used to be good!

Watch, listen, and learn here.