Joe Coscarelli

"But it boils down to this: as you know, a lot of bloggers are friends; they run into each other at..."

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:10:00 -0500

“But it boils down to this: as you know, a lot of bloggers are friends; they run into each other at parties; and nobody wants the grief of mutually assured disclosure in the New York blogosphere. It’s a cosy club — much like the print media establishment we’ve taken delight in mocking over the years.”

- Nick Denton, Gawker Commenter

The Scared Niceness?

Did anyone watch SNL? Did Galifianakis do Brian Wilson?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:36:28 -0500

Did anyone watch SNL? Did Galifianakis do Brian Wilson?

Even when Balk apologizes for not responding to emails it is moving and vaguely unsettling.

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:35:31 -0500

Even when Balk apologizes for not responding to emails it is moving and vaguely unsettling.

Bye Bye Blue Bird

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:55:55 -0500

Bye Bye Blue Bird:

zaragolden:

“So pleasant, it’s disarming…”

“…one of the country’s most respected baristas…”

Who knew!

jstn: Stainless steel pop-up toaster features a removable logo...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:50:25 -0500

jstn:

Stainless steel pop-up toaster features a removable logo plate that toasts The Times “T” onto your bread. Other features include seven heat settings, reheat and defrost buttons, and a slide-out crumb tray.

Gothamist: BOOM TOASTED.

FUCK, EDITH ZIMMERMAN IS RUINED. BUT RED SOX FANS AREN’T...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:53:43 -0500

FUCK, EDITH ZIMMERMAN IS RUINED. BUT RED SOX FANS AREN’T FUNNY!?!?

"And yes, a lot of it is age - though Christgau knows his audience, and I think he gets the tone of..."

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:38:58 -0500

“And yes, a lot of it is age - though Christgau knows his audience, and I think he gets the tone of the piece exactly right. I’m pretty sure that whatever musical ‘generation gap’ exists now or will exist is driven by fluency of access to music rather than the content of the music itself.”

- Blue Lines Revisited

Agreed.

“First!” is very much a part of the conversation on the internet, meaning “Best New Music”-ing a song before the band has a MySpace is part of the fun. This doesn’t make Christgau and friends thoughtful style of music criticism nostalgia, it just means they are bound to look old when they discover Miley in 2012.

(via zaragolden)

Yes to all that’s been said. But it’s not just about “First!” when you’re talking about an internationally famous rap star. Just as missing an essential mixtape because you struggle with SendSpace can limit your usefulness in a conversation about the state of rap, so too can skipping out on a canon of insightful work about one of music’s most mused on figures. Not to say the column’s useless, because the aside nuggets and writing are obviously golden, but golly, over 2,000 words! I guess you earn this sort of thing, but we did get Wayne for the Barnes and Noble set in a 2007 issue of The New Yorker.

But, wait, you’re sure Feldman is okay?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:09:35 -0500

But, wait, you’re sure Feldman is okay?

zaragolden: In which Robert Christgau shows his age. He’s...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:45:14 -0500

zaragolden:

In which Robert Christgau shows his age.

He’s afraid of SendSpace, which makes him the Lil Wayne aficionado equivalent of a batter being afraid of the baseball.

165 Wayne songs in the iTunes? That’s like, what, a month in the studio for Weezy? I’ve got 516, but wouldn’t be surprised if Joe has twice that.

This is nice, though:

Take Da Drought 3’s “Walk It Out,” which I’d never thought about before it came on as I completed the previous graf. Based on a stripper-ready DJ Unk track (I Googled that), it ends each of the 22 lines of its first half with a two-syllable short-u rhyme: stunner, stomach, rubbers, woman, dungeon, fun-ya (???), Bunyan, construction, seduction, discussion, trust ya, fuck ya, fuck ya (yup, twice), busta, touch ya, Usher, Russia, flush ya, crusher, gusher, production, abduction. You may think these aren’t all rhymes, but Wayne disagrees, and puts their music where his mouf is.

The rhyme after “dungeon,” though? That’d be Funyun. Yellow diamond rings.

Late pass, all around.

Fresh off of the Barnes and Noble blog presses!

Now, we all realize he’s the supremely powerful Xgau — the Dean, the Master, etc. — but seriously: has the man never read a piece on Lil Wayne before? If he had, he would have realized that we’ve covered all of this — the jail, the drugs, the id, the mixtapes, the bio and most of all, the fucking Drought 3. In 2007!

Obviously, it’s well written; he invented this game. But, seriously?

And it requires no identification with the biographical Lil Wayne. M.I.A. and Kanye West I care about — their thought processes are something like mine. Lil Wayne belongs to some other species — and that is central to who he is, what he does, and how he presents himself. Maybe it’s the dope. Or maybe it’s just Lil Wayne.

The dope!

marcthesharc: whitehousephotostream: P022710PS-0080: President...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:50:00 -0500

marcthesharc:

whitehousephotostream:

P022710PS-0080:
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Dr. Jill Biden, react while watching Sasha Obama and Maisy Biden, the Vice President’s granddaughter, play in a basketball game in Chevy Chase, Md., Feb. 27, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Hard to know what’s best about this. Joe Biden clearly wasn’t paying attention. Jill Biden clearly doesn’t watch sports much. Obama clearly needs a cigarette to deal with this.

Nope, I do know. The best is the woman in the pink sweater, who doesn’t give a shit that the President of the United States is right there and his team is losing, she’s gonna cheer because her team is winning and this is America and when you win you’re happy.

“Listen, coach. Now I know a lot of you are disappointed with Sasha’s performance from behind the arc, but just know that we are working on it every day and I need your support. No one ever said it was going to be easy, but we are committed to getting this team back on track. Now just put her in the game, okay?”

Why did I not know this keeps happening? You like that, Bron...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:10:49 -0500

Why did I not know this keeps happening?

You like that, Bron Bron?

I Cannot Sing Half of These Songs

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:57:56 -0500

iTunes’ top 10 selling singles and albums of the week ending March 8, 2010:

Singles:

1. “Break Your Heart (feat. Ludacris),” Taio Cruz

2. “Rude Boy,” Rihanna

3. “Imma Be,” Black Eyed Peas

4. “Hey, Soul Sister,” Train

5. “Need You Now,” Lady Antebellum

6. “BedRock,” Young Money, Lloyd

7. “Blah Blah Blah (feat. 3OH!3),” Ke$ha

8. “In My Head,” Jason Derulo

9. “Baby (feat. Ludacris),” Justin Bieber

10. “Never Let You Go,” Justin Bieber

And I don’t know how to feel about that. #JustinBieber

LCD Soundsystem- Oh You (Christmas Blues) Radio rip but it still...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:23:00 -0500

LCD Soundsystem- Oh You (Christmas Blues)

Radio rip but it still sounds right.

Speaking of Greenberg

(via)

Jessica K. Roy's Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:46:59 -0500

Jessica K. Roy's Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me:

The people I know want to spare you their entitlement. We’ll leave — we promise — just give us jobs!

You’re writing a lot, huh? What are you writing? The Ten Best Butternut Squash Soups for Time Out? Cute kiddie Christmas Gifts for House and Home? Or maybe just something mean and snarky about socialites for a website?

Haha! I love New York, it’s so insulated and strange now.

Me? I’m AMAZING. Thanks for asking. As you know, I have been in [SAN FRANCISCO] for seven years now, just creating and living and being a fully realized artist, novelist, and lead singer. It’s crazy I know. But I just have so much TIME there because unlike you (well not really YOU-you but people like you) I haven’t had to scrounge around and take career-compromising odd pathetic assignments and gigs to pay for my overpriced life and instead I can really become a fully expressive ARTIST in [SAN FRANCISCO].

"When the outraged masses finally rise up and slaughter Vampire Weekend for the sins of their Ivy..."

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:42:00 -0500

“When the outraged masses finally rise up and slaughter Vampire Weekend for the sins of their Ivy League educations and crisply pressed pants, this room might well be Exhibit A—chocolate salted caramel buttercream, Bordeaux, Perrier, pineapple, and blood. And on the soundsystem, as everyone mingles and grown men sidle up to Koenig for photographs? What else but the entirety of Contra, played front to back? No sooner did the record’s dazed final track conclude than Wray and Koenig—introduced as “the man who made us think twice about Oxford commas”—took the stage, white wine glasses in hand.”

- Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, in Conversation with John Wray at the NYPL, or, the Burden of Pretending That Your Mom Was a Stripper by Zach Baron

I’m a convict
Of a racist crime
I’ve only served
19 years of my time

Armond White Shut Out of "Greenberg," Sending Anonymous Angry Emails?

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:16:51 -0500

Armond White Shut Out of "Greenberg," Sending Anonymous Angry Emails?:

Baumbach to critics (trolls?): keep kicking & screaming. (No Will Ferrell, Stiller.)

Wonder what Mom thinks.

Law & Order, Balzac, or the New York Post

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:27:00 -0500

Law & Order, Balzac, or the New York Post:

As someone who never watches any incarnation of Law & Order (don’t hurt me), I can still say this was wonderful to read. So, yes, please do!

agrammar:

January, 1961. This is an exchange between New Yorker fiction editor William Maxwell and author Sylvia Townsend Warner, on the subject of Balzac:

MAXWELL: “The pace irritates me, and I see everything coming for miles and miles.”

WARNER: “I think you will come to Balzac yet. When one has disproved all one’s theories, outgrown all of one’s standards, discarded all one’s criterions, and left off minding about one’s appearance, one comes to Balzac. And there he is, waiting outside his canvas tent — with such a circus going on inside.”

Exercise: replace “Balzac” in this discussion with “Law & Order.”

Formspring bitches, Two days late on that meme bitches, Post the same link as you but don't reblog bitches, Cat picture bitches, Deleting post bitches, Photobooth bitches, Linked feed bitches, Here's my outfit bitches, Links about economics bitches, Too long didn't read bitches, Jokes in the tags bitches, Sad story bitches, Photos of my food bitches...

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:54:13 -0500

Formspring bitches, Two days late on that meme bitches, Post the same link as you but don't reblog bitches, Cat picture bitches, Deleting post bitches, Photobooth bitches, Linked feed bitches, Here's my outfit bitches, Links about economics bitches, Too long didn't read bitches, Jokes in the tags bitches, Sad story bitches, Photos of my food bitches...

Writer 2.0 Issues Preventative Embargo on Responding to Reviews... Reviews Come... Reviews Keep Coming... Writer 2.0 Seethes, Drafts Response(s)... Reviewers 2.0 Get Cruel, Ad Hominem... Alcohol... ?????

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:37:00 -0500

Writer 2.0 Issues Preventative Embargo on Responding to Reviews... Reviews Come... Reviews Keep Coming... Writer 2.0 Seethes, Drafts Response(s)... Reviewers 2.0 Get Cruel, Ad Hominem... Alcohol... ????? :

I think, as more and more bloggers become authors (and more and more authors learn the internet), the choice between increasing the frequency of your Google Alerts or killing them altogether in the run-up to your release date will be a fairly complicated and fretted over question! What kind of person are you?

Previously.

Anastasia Friscia: A review of Shoplifting From American Apparel

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:17:00 -0500

Anastasia Friscia: A review of Shoplifting From American Apparel:

You should enable replies for when Tao Lin wants to comment.