March 19, 2011

THE WAY WE LIVE WITH THE THINGS WE LOVE


Linda Ronstadt as you have never seen her before. With a fucking raging band. Where is that band now? Why did Linda have to detour into Nelson Riddle orchestra tuneage come the eighties? Also, I like Jose Feliciano's introduction about Ray Charles-type country, how he loves country like Linda Ronstadt, but she's got a band with two drummers. (via Habla Blah Blah)

Bethlehem Shoals in Poetry Magazine about Odd Future:
"Is OFWGKTA offensive? Yes, but they’re also undeniably funny, sad, and, somehow, devoid of moral gravity in a way that’s both silly and nearly surreal. One friend of mine has referred to OFWGKTA’s lyrics as coming from an unformed “girls are gross” perspective, and certainly, in the YouTube videos where 16-year-old Earl Sweatshirt isn’t rapping about cannibalism and screwing corpses, he comports himself like a shy, polite kid just out to goof off with his friends. At the same time, OFWGKTA makes such doggedly creative and self-aware music that it sometimes feels as if they’ve chosen depravity not because they want to, but because they can. If there’s such a thing as meta-vile, then these kids are your pioneers.

What if television shows were still like this? Just some singing revue type thing in a fake hamlet backdrop with adults inmock turtlenecks singing softly and a guy playing a pedal steel through a talk-box?

I have taken a break from my reading pact--I got ahead early on for this reason, am still meeting my quota--but am working through Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones and Butter which is the only chef memoir I know of that's really worth reading. I mean, I love reading food porn as much as the rest, but this is more about her life and is good and at turns great, and doesn't labor over all the now-typical tricks-i.e. there are no labored descrips of like, cornichons or fois. Just her adventure-girl life with food as a sidekick. Currently, am staving off radioactive fallout fears (lingering since age 7 ever since I saw "The Day After" starring Jason Robards in second grade, which pre-occupied my every night and some days waking fears until about age 12, now re-activated) with power-watching Mad Men. Season 4! Getting there. Marveling at how Jon Hamm can make his face skin look so perfectly slack when he is wasted Don Draper. That's how I always feel you can tell when someone who is often drunk is truly shitfaced, their face looks like it's just hanging on them, loose.

Posted by jessica hopper at March 19, 2011 12:18 PM | TrackBack