Thanks to fcrp reader Emily, who suggested the first video in today’s post—which led me, old guy that I am, to think of a couple of earlier examples of this kind of thing. So to begin at the beginning: here’s the video that Emily pointed me to, a subtle but instructive piece of performance art. [...]
[Just a reminder: this is the fourth in a five-part series exploring the greatness that is Radiohead. If you haven't read the first three, skip down the page to Saturday, June 12, and work your way forward.] Four quick time-cue beeps sweep us into “Paranoid Android.” If the popular long-running BBC radio program has taught [...]
[Gentle Readers, 1 more week of classes! Mountains of papers to grade! You'll forgive me, please, if I fall back on a piece of older writing for this week's Mystery Science Auditorium---a piece that will take us through the weekend, in fact, on the film version of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. I hope you'll enjoy [...]
I’ve not to this point followed the Adam Lambert saga closely, though the sophisticated and erudite readers of fakechineserubberplant will, I think, know the general outlines of his story: a finalist in the eighth season of American Idol, Lambert’s chances to win seemed to evaporate precisely at the moment that pictures of him making out [...]
I like to think I’m fairly sensitive to tone. Fascinated by irony, especially in its most unstable forms, I’m thrilled by cultural texts that walk the razor’s edge between sincerity and parody. Weirdly enough, I guess I’m most comfortable when slightly uncomfortable about what my reaction is supposed to be. But I just can’t seem [...]