December 2005 Archives

NOT ENOUGH TCHAIKOVSKY

THE MEME OF FOUR:

Four jobs you've had in your life: web site producer (x3), author, teacher, grocery sacker (Aspen 1981)

Four movies you could watch over and over: WAKING LIFE (Linklater), GODFATHER 2 (Coppola), DRESSED TO KILL (Eddie Izzard), Let it Be (Lindsay-Hogg)

Four places you've lived: Boulder, Pueblo, Oberlin, Boston

Four TV shows you love to watch: Arrested Development, The Shield, Mr. Show, Larry Sanders

Four places you've been on vacation: St. Kitt's, Manhattan, Evergreen, Santa Cruz

Four websites you visit daily: Arts & Letters Daily, Bloglines, Eschaton, Flickr

Four of your favorite foods: coffee, Cool Whip, sushi

Four places you'd rather be: London, San Fransisco, Evergreen, Boulder c. 1975

Journalism Interns at a School of Rock: "Casting calls are going out on college campuses late next month for aspiring Rolling Stone writers who would also look good on MTV and want to become famous, or almost famous..."

The New York Times, which knew about the secret wiretaps for more than a year, published because of a reporter's new book, sources say...: "It's possible it plays out in a way that favors the Bush administration too," she said. "We just can't know that yet."

Bill Keller Resigns in Shame: "It doesn't make any sense: my tenure makes Howell Raines look like Mary Poppins. My stewardship helped re-elect this fascist and turned reporters into Cheney's pawns... At this juncture, my skill set will be put to better use at FEMA..."

BOOK OF THE WEEK

from SWEDEN, recently featured at Liverpool's Beatles Days,
not nearly obsessive enough...


TOP TEN PODCASTS

Beatlegs John Winn

KCRW's Left, Right and Center

le show Harry Shearer

Media Matters from beautiful downtown Champagne Urbana

Democracy Now Amy Goodman

Soundcheck John Schaefer

On the Media

PRI's Studio 360 Kurt Anderson

UC Berkeley

Princeton Lectures



WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR:

Doesn't the Blood Rush to His Cheeks?

New podcast: Complete Motown Singles, broadcast yesterday here in Boston.

AIN'T NO ONE FOR TO GIVE YOU NO PAIN

From the iTunes Celebrity Playlists, this acute remark from the perennially underrated Jeff Daniels:

"A great example of why Bonnie Raitt is one of the premiere blues guitarists. By the time she's done playing this song, every guy in the audience is wishing he were her guitar."

And you don't need me to tell you, that's Chris Smither song. Even works in a mention of Steve Goodman, cops to a healthy Freddie King complex, and nods towards Stills (with his mouth shut). And then he goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid like "Bruce Hornsby."

GROPING FOR A PACK OF MECCAS

Joy Press on Maureen Dowd.

NOBODY TOLD ME

Steve Knopper on John Lennon, telling my story that a cellist from the Eastman School once told me:

"One guy told me this story: He was on the streets in New York City, a truck pulls off and a band is playing on the back of this flatbed truck. And it's John Lennon and his band."

Apparently that Bun E. Carlos stuff is news to a lot of people...

THANKS FOR THE POMEGRANATES

Threepenny Review now has a Reading Room with links to archivals stuff from all stripes.

LEWIS LAPHAM

Lewis Lapham?!?!?!?

... to the tune of "Uncertain Times," by the Raveonettes.

X FOR EYES

Bradley's Alamanac has a Chris Brokaw live set from last month... Brokaw was also featured on Here and Now... it's almost like there's a BUZZ...

HAWKEYE'S A REPUBLICAN????

Previews for West Wing, the Smits subtext: "Okay, I'll play your Democratic presidential candidate and go live head to head with Alan Alda for sweeps... but I have to play the nicest, most irreproachable Latino Marine ever imagined..."

"Okay, I'll play Smits's long-suffering wife, but make sure she's written REALLY REALLY REALLY long-suffering. And I have to have really bad hair..." (Teri Polo)