“…If He Died In Memphis, That’d Be Cool”
Alex Chilton died of a heart attack today, at a too-young 59 years of age. While it’s sad, it’s not too surprising. I’d already written an obit about him five years ago, when he went missing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I still never travel far without a little Big Star.
In Which I Ape Larry King
It turns out maintaining a blog while taking on increasing responsibilities at work and trying to finish my Masters degree and trying to maintain some semblance of a personal life is a bit tricky. Plus, I think Facebook statuses suck up an alarming amount of my wit (or potential wit). But before I throw in the towel and start a Twitter, I’m going to try my hand at one of those lazy Larry King round-ups of commentary, reviews and “observations.” (Actually, I’ve never really seen a full installment of Mr. Suspenders’ program, so I’m really just aping those even lazier parodic send-ups of Larry King.) Either these are placeholders for bigger, better posts or else they are the aborted remains of very promising ideas. … There’s a certain poignancy in that moment of steeling oneself at the front door for a charging dog who will never again slam his 90 […]
Recent Search Engine Terms That Drove Traffic to My Webpage
Presented without commentary: big rats selective service letter allen sessoms gastonia strike,1929 “mary loritz” red strawberry shoelace licorice umass ula program red scare political cartoon shaun richman finska black licorice “federation of union representatives” old fashioned licorice laces not twirler cat abortificant “shaun richman” jew shaun richman aft national staff
A Requiem for Departed Comrades
Socialism truly is a dying religion. Tonight, I’m lighting some red candles for some wonderful comrades who have passed on this year. Yesterday, I learned that Ruth Greenberg-Edelstein passed away on November 24th. Ruth was a stalwart of the Socialist Party in upstate New York. On the National Committee, she was an effective advocate for feminist process and gender balance. A retired faculty member at both SUNY and Rutgers, she had, more or less, left active service on the National Committee by the time I got on there – although she had clearly left her stamp. I remember her as a friendly and vivacious backbencher who genuinely enjoyed the company of her comrades – especially the younger ones. Herself, she seemed much younger than she must have actually been, which is why her death comes as such a shock. Her death follows so closely that of her husband J. David […]
In Which I Grumble About Pop Culture
When, exactly, did the celebrity-obsessed tabloid press switch over to first-name-basis reportage? Celebrities used to have full names, not that long ago in fact. Sure, there was the occasional Cher or Oprah, but they were the exceptions to prove the rule. Or perhaps they were the pioneers that got the tabloids asking “why take up space on the page with useless last names?” So, now we have Brad and Angelina, but also perfectly generic names like Jen and John and Jon and Kate like we’re not only supposed to know who the hell these people are, but we’re buddies. Someone named Nicole shares the cover of US Weekly with Britney as the “Worst Beach Bod.” I recognize neither her face nor her pot belly. Perhaps if there was a last name associated with the unflattering picture, I could place her. What’s worse is that this cancer is spreading into politics. […]
Play The Legend
Can rock music ever go back to the days of “headphone records,” gatefold albums, mysterious liner notes and fans creating their own image of the band in their minds? Music video did much to kill the radio star, by presenting a carefully screened image for mass consumption…but Ed Sullivan started it all rolling downhill and Marty Scorsese might have reached the nadir with what might otherwise be considered the absolute zenith of rock-n-roll cinema, “The Last Waltz.” His sumptuous concert doc made high art out of simple musical performance, and enshrined the legacy (well, a particular version of it, anyway) of an erstwhile relatively-anonymous, workman-like group of musical superstars, the Band. That simple, partly-modest, partly-conceited monicker underscores the extent that, without a pre-chosen image foisted upon the listener, this band could be whatever you choose. They first rocketed by prominence in 1968, playing on a plain white slab of modified […]
“Do you feel like a story…?”
If you can find the full, ten-minute clip on your favorite internet video-sharing service, David Letterman’s blackmail confession was brilliant, riveting and hysterical. It was almost a throwback to his nervy, early days on “Late Night.” If only the blackmailer had been revealed to be Andy Kaufman.
We Memoir Econo
Michael Azerrad’s excellent collection of 13 micro-biogrophies of beloved 80’s indie bands is a love letter to the era when pop culture began to fragment into mini-mass media of fanzines, underground rock clubs and vanity record labels. Cribbed from a Minutemen lyrics, Azerrad’s book, “Our Band Could Be Your Life” fleshes out the notion of gaining inspiration, principles and encouragement by the songs from some obscure band that your parents and most of your classmates never heard of. Teh internets have exacerbated this tendency towards fragmentation. It is regrettable, to some extent, that there can never be another Beatles to saunter across (the equivalent of) Ed Sullivan’s stage and capture the hearts and imaginations of an entire nation in two and a half minutes. But it is perhaps better to have the Replacements, whose music feels more personal due to their underdog cult status, and whose “Let it Be” far […]
Good Write-Up in the Nerd Press
I rarely write directly about work on this blarg, but some of this year’s big adventures got a nice write-up from Beryl Benderly at Science Magazine. Relevant excerpts follows: On 20 July, the postdocs at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, received official recognition for their new union. It’s the nation’s third postdoc union, but the first to be part of the same union as their lab chiefs. After a swift and successful signature-collecting campaign, the 350 postdocs on the university’s three campuses became a bargaining unit of the Rutgers Council of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)-American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Chapters. Affiliated with both AAUP, the professional society for college and university teachers, and AFT, a national labor union within AFL/CIO, this hybrid group represents all of Rutgers’s faculty members, research associates, and graduate student employees. A sister union under the all-university AFT umbrella represents the […]
Not Enough To Count
I’m coming up on a year in Bay Ridge, which perhaps makes me a “regular.” It’s enough time, apparently, to make friends with the Chinese merchants on 4th Avenue, who seem to really want me to be Jewish. I suppose having Jews around is good business for dry cleaners and Chinese take-out. I made it to Win Hing last night, just before closing time, to order some sesame chicken. The woman behind the counter, who always wears a pink Yankees cap and speaks very broken English, noted the lateness of my arrival and asked “Working late?” As the food was being prepared, and she started the closing-time clean-up ritual, she asked me for pointers on her English, which must indicate some form of familiarity. “Is that how you say? ‘Can you sit there?’” “I would say,” I said to her, “‘Would you sit there?’ It would seem more polite. Besides, […]