Literature “Oscar Wao” Is For You, You and Yunior
Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has been the biggest critical success of the year, but if you’re into reading books for the sheer fun of it, that shouldn’t stop you from picking it up. If you were only going to read one book that came out in 2008, Oscar has my recommendation and a good portion of the NYU Local administration’s as well. As Lily Q put it to me, “I would have that man’s babies… and I don’t even like baldies.”
Díaz’s prose is keen and flexible, erudite but down to earth. As you may have gathered from his recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Díaz is unassuming, and the book reflects the philosophy of writing he explained to the LAist. “Being against a language form is just as absurd as Canute the Beast trying to order or command the sea.” He’s an all inclusive writer “looking for excuses to deploy all sorts of language.” He employs a compelling array of characters to fit the bill. Continue…
Thursday, November 13, 2008 10:00 - by Jake Fournier
Live From New York Lifehouse Stay Comfortably Numb on the Intrepid
Lifehouse Stay Comfortably Numb on the Intrepid
The most unique thing about Friday night’s Lifehouse show was the venue. Surrounded by back-lit globes and historic space vessels in a cavernous, warehouse-like chamber aboard the newly refurbished USS Intrepid, this understated AOR-radio band threatened to be upstaged by its surroundings.
Luckily, between the tepid sing-along singles and painfully earnest near-acoustic ballads, they occasionally let some surprising influences shine through, filling the makeshift auditorium with lengthy instrumental passages and washes of reverb-soaked distortion. These moments, accompanied by banging heads and stage acrobatics, showcased Lifehouse at their most absorbing—and demonstrated a rawer, jam-influenced side of their sound that’s rarely heard on their overproduced studio albums. Continue…
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 14:45 - by Derrick Koo
Cultural Detritus Plz STFU About the Passing of Proposition 8
Plz STFU About the Passing of Proposition 8
First of all, if there’s anything that my generation is as excited about as Barack Obama being elected president, it’s Proposition 8 passing. Finally—finally!—we have an “injustice” of our own to bitch about. For so long now, we’ve been obedient sons without causes; now we can all be rebels with Facebook petitions. And boy have we taken advantage of the opportunity.
I was rather indifferent to the idea of gay marriage—God knows nobody’s putting anything on this finger—before Andrew Sullivan changed my mind. The arguments about so and so’s partner being sick and mumblings about tax breaks never really choked me up. The off-chance that one’s gay lover ends up in the hospital and his/her family doesn’t let you visit him/her just didn’t seem like an argument worthy of shaking up the foundations of mankind: that man and woman belong together.
However, Sullivan’s moving explanation of the symbolic significance of legalizing gay marriage changed my perspective. To tolerate homosexual love, for the sake of all the sad, young, closeted men and their families seemed valid. To stop people from hating homosexuals and start realizing that gay relationships are as legitimate as the next (which isn’t saying much) and allow gay men and women to celebrate their choices with their families in a state-sponsored way—why not? Continue…
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 12:01 - by M V
Live From New York The Gutter Twins Darken Brooklyn for a Night
The Gutter Twins Darken Brooklyn for a Night
Twins in the Lemmon and Matthau sense, The Gutter Twins are longtime buddies Mark Lanegan (of Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age fame) and Greg Dulli (of Afghan Whigs and The Twilight Singers). ‘90s rock fans will eat this stuff up: an indie act with purebred Seattle grunge pedigree and an unlikely pairing that works because it operates in stark contrasts, rocking out with hard-hitting fuzz one moment, hushing down to ethereal shimmer the next.
Lanegan possesses the voice of God, if God chain smoked and had a penchant for single malts, and his gravelly, rumbling baritone—capable of dipping so low you can feel it in your chest—is The Gutter Twins’ single best asset. But Dulli’s melancholic, chameleon-like vocals complicate the texture, frequently layering over his partner’s voice in thick harmony. This complex sound—like a slab of dangerously black marble with a beautiful sheen—is what transforms this band’s otherwise pretty generic grunge rock songs into something special. Continue…
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 1:55 - by Derrick Koo
New Jams We All Missed Justin Timberlake
We All Missed Justin Timberlake
Since it’s re-introduction into the music world circa-2005, the auto-tune has been a topic of constant debate. Some listeners (ahem, Kanye) herald the auto-tune as hip-hop’s most innovative instrument while some refuse to acknowledge its legitimacy. Still others don’t understand what all the fuss is about. At times, these debates grow to be so convoluted that they begin to overshadow the music itself.
But every couple of months or so, a song comes along that simply forces people to listen. Lil Wayne’s “Me and My Drank” is an arresting ode to Wayne’s alcoholic concoction of choice, Kanye West’s “Coldest Winter” is a beautiful rendering of Tears for Fears’ “Memories Fade,” and as of four days ago, it brings me much pleasure to add the following song to the Rolodex of auto-tune laden masterpieces: T-Pain and Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Believe It (Remix).” How much do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Continue…
Monday, November 10, 2008 15:38 - by Morenike Fajana
High Culture The Miseducation of Katy Perry
The Miseducation of Katy Perry
“Do you see, do you see, do you see how you hurt me baby, so I hurt you too, then we both get so blue.” – Joni Mitchell, “All I Want”
“You walk around like you’re oh so debonair/ You pull ‘em down and there’s really nothing there/ I wish you would just be real with me” – Katy Perry, “Ur So Gay”
I’m not sure we knew what to make of Katy Perry.
She’d kissed a girl over the summer and liked it. What were we suppose to make of that? Lindsay Lohan was purportedly kissing girls as well, so maybe this was something cultural, but Katy was really on about the inebriating freedom of just-a-little-deviance. The gay community was already skeptical over a song entitled “Ur So Gay,” which had her responding to the difficulties inherent in a hipster-chic boyfriend. She claimed it wasn’t about a real person, and to dispel allegations of homophobia, explained that by gay, she meant homosexual. Oh. The rest of us were just confused about what “you’re so gay and you don’t like boys” meant. It sounded militant. There was something weird about this pop star. Continue…
Monday, November 10, 2008 8:32 - by Justin Spees
Hot Songs on Campus Three Tracks to Play at Your Weekend Party
Three Tracks to Play at Your Weekend Party
Telepathe - “Chrome’s On It“
This Brooklyn group was panned for bizarre live performances, but the studio cut is even weirder. In a good way. Continue…
Friday, November 7, 2008 16:09 - by Roland Li
Recommended Upcoming Events Recommended Concerts Courtesy of a WNYU DJ
Recommended Concerts Courtesy of a WNYU DJ
Thursday, November 6 / Friday, November 7
The Hold Steady, Drive-By Truckers @ Terminal 5
The co-headliners on this bill hail from disparate parts—the Hold Steady from Brooklyn-by-way-of-Minneapolis, Drive-By Truckers from Athens, Georgia. But they both arrive at beer-soaked catharsis with guitar-heavy slices of Americana, complementing without overlapping.
More after the jump. Continue…
Thursday, November 6, 2008 12:07 - by Roland Li
2008 Presidential Election The Star Wars-ization of Will.i.am
The Star Wars-ization of Will.i.am
The second most important African American man last night may or may not even be a real person. Continue…
Wednesday, November 5, 2008 11:55 - by Joe Coscarelli
Movies Not Films “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” Plays With Dirty Money
“Zack and Miri Make a Porno” Plays With Dirty Money
David Denby must be depressed. A year after the film critic spent 5,000 words in The New Yorker lamenting the dubious direction in which the many apostles of the Judd Apatow School of Lewdness are taking his beloved romantic comedy, here comes Zack and Miri Make a Porno adhering to Apatow’s formula with such obvious admiration that its creator might as well get on his knees and start fellating right now.
If this metaphor sounds lewd, it’s apt for this movie, which basks in every slimy four letter utterance. But lewdness does not equal freshness, and unfortunately there’s little fresh to be found in Zack and Miri. It’s that same hip combo of crude male-centric slapstick with a sensitive heart—of Seth Rogen as the doughy, ambitionless slacker growing up to snag the improbably gorgeous blonde, in this case the sharp-tongued yet lovely Elizabeth Banks.
The whole concept—Zack and Miri as grown-up childhood friends producing a porno to relieve their mounting debts—is a secondhand vehicle for the type of sex-inflected romantic comedy pioneered by Apatow and his buddies in movies like Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin. Continue…
Wednesday, November 5, 2008 9:41 - by Derrick Koo
