Jawbox, one of my all-time favorites, played together for the first time in 12 years on Jimmy Fallon last Tuesday. Alas, it was only a one-time thing, to plug the re-issue of For Your Own Special Sweetheart, remastered by Bob Weston and released in a collaboration between indie record labels Desoto and Dischord.
They did “Savory” for TV, and 2 more, “FF=66” and “68,” that you can watch online.
(thx, rae)
Before picking up the brush, Norman Rockwell spent a great deal of time directing and composing photographs that he would use to create his iconic (and oft-derided) paintings.
Photography has been a benevolent tool for artists from Thomas Eakins and Edgar Degas to David Hockney. And to illustrators, always on the lookout for better ways to meet deadlines, the camera has long been a natural ally. But the thousands of photographs Norman Rockwell created as studies for his iconic images are a case apart. A natural storyteller, Rockwell envisioned his narrative scenarios down to the smallest detail. Yet at the easel he was an absolute literalist who rarely painted directly from his imagination.
Instead, he first brought his ideas to life in studio sessions, staging photographs that are fully realized works of art in their own right. Selecting props and locations, choosing and directing his models, he carefully orchestrated each element of his design for the camera before beginning to paint. Meticulously composed and richly detailed, Norman Rockwell’s study photographs mirror his masterworks in a tangible parallel universe. Photography opened a door to the keenly observed authenticity that defines Norman Rockwell’s art. And for us today it is a revelation to discover that so many of his most memorable characters were, in fact, real people.
Say what you will, Rockwell was a master of facial expressions.
Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is a new book that details his creative process, and there is a companion exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum, in Stockbridge, Mass., through May 31st.
There’s more at NPR’s The Picture Show.
(via pdn)
Roger Ebert remembers John Lennon, December 10th, 1980, 2 days after the ex-Beatle was shot and killed in New York City.
The news that John Lennon was dead came as an immense shock, infinitely sad, because one was grieving not only for his death but for the death of an era, and for the Beatles songs that played all through that time, over and over, giving it texture and a bittersweet flavor. The silly, innocent songs, like “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and the songs so deep they were poems, like “Eleanor Rigby,” and the albums that a generation scrutinized for secret messages.
What is most touching, when you remember how we used to study the album covers and try to listen between the words of the songs for the messages the Beatles had allegedly hidden there, was that we really believed the Beatles had a message worth listening for. At their height they commanded more ideological currency than all of the candidates in the last presidential campaign — not because they had more to say, but because they were in a world still eager to listen.
Now Lennon has been shot dead and the Beatles are no more. Ringo, Paul and George still live and the albums are still on the shelves, and Monday night all the radio stations were playing them over and over, but there is no kidding ourselves. The era they sang to, which hung on here and there long beyond its time, is over now.
Fox News has their way with the results of a Rasmussen Poll on a December 4th edition of Fox & Friends.
The actual results:
(via marginal revolution)
Ever thought a book was too ugly to read? Joe Queenan found that he couldn’t get through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a book he knew to be a masterpiece, and one he had read before. What was the problem? The packaging.
Every time I picked up the book, my eyes were lured back to those fulsome photos of Sugarplum Huck. I do not know what Huck looked like as Twain imagined him, any more than I know how F. Scott Fitzgerald envisioned Jay Gatsby. But Gatsby cannot look like Robert Redford, and the most memorable character in American fiction cannot look like the diabolically cuddly Elijah Wood. Cannot, cannot, cannot.
I’ve had my share of books like that over the years. I’ve always felt a little silly about it, but at least I’m not alone.
It works the other way, too: I recently bought an edition of Bronte’s Wuthering Heights just because I liked the cover so much. In my defense, it is a classic and no different than taking a chance on any other book you haven’t read. And, as it turns out, it comes from a collection of deluxe classics from Penguin which includes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Beginning with the UK market, Ikea is releasing their catalogue as an iPhone application.
Speaking of Wallace, The New Yorker has published a short story of his entitled All That.
Birthdays, puppy dogs, breakfast in bed…
Nothing could be better than Radiohead
Rhyming book of ABCs from Paste Magazine with great illustrations.
(via coudal)
Class worksheet on grammar and usage from David Foster Wallace, given to students of a nonfiction workshop he taught. The discussion in the comments is worth your time, too.
I liked this bit from the Answers and Explanations page on how Wallace taught the placement of modifiers.
You have been entrusted to feed for your neighbor’s dog for a week while he (the neighbor) is out of town. The neighbor returns home; something has gone awry; you are questioned.
“I fed the dog.”
“Did you feed the parakeet?”
“I fed only the dog.”
“Did anyone else feed the dog?”
“Only I fed the dog.”
“Did you fondle/molest the dog?”
“I only fed the dog!”
(via kottke)
The Literary Review has awarded the 2009 bad sex in fiction award to Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones.
The Kindly Ones, which tells the story of the Holocaust through the eyes of one of the executioners, beat off stiff competition from a stellar shortlist that included entries from Philip Roth, John Banville, Paul Theroux and the literary rock star Nick Cave.
Har har.
The judges paid tribute to the novel’s breadth and ambition, calling it “in part, a work of genius”.
“However,” the citation continued, “a mythologically inspired passage and lines such as ‘I came suddenly, a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg’ clinched the award for The Kindly Ones. We hope he takes it in good humour.”
There’s more from the winner, as well as passages from the other nominees, on the prize shortlist.
Take a photo tour of the network of tunnels under the city of Beijing, ordered built by Mao in 1969, designed to accommodate all of the city’s inhabitants in the event of a nuclear attack.
No one really knows how much of the subterranean nuclear metropolis was actually completed, or just how far the network of underground tunnels and caverns was due to be extended, though it’s generally believed they connected up with all of Beijing’s main hubs and governmental locations, including Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s Central Station and the Western Hills.
Fun video for the first single off OK Go’s new album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.
There is also a ‘making of‘ video with commentary from the band.
(via kottke)
Scientists have taken cells from a living pig and used them to grow muscle tissue in a solution of nutrients. The tissue is described as “soggy” and needing “exercise” to give it a better texture, but the hope is to one day provide meat for human consumption that has less of an impact on the environment and doesn’t involve animal suffering.
The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.
So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.
(via 3 quarks daily)
Time has a countdown of the 10 worst things about the first decade of the 21st century. Could it be the worst decade ever?
Indeed, it is very likely that the first 10 years of this century will go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post World War II era.
Indeed.
(via airbag)
