Half Past Noon

The humanity of this video is deep.

Exhibit A: Artifice. This is the main argument against the Killers, and I may need your help fleshing it out.

It may seem like I have no problem with artifice. I certainly have a higher-than-normal tolerance for theantinomian, the transgressive, and even the nihilistic in popular music. We may also talk about the futility of the pursuit of “authenticity” in rock music, and how refreshing it is that the Killers are not concerned at all with that chase. But the old pursuit of “authenticity” is the secret hypocrisy that makes rock tolerable. It isn’t really completely antinomian, nihilistic or transgressive. It’s secretly embodied, concerned, sensitive.

The Killers are obsessed with a new type of authenticity, a consistent application of the essentials of pop. This is what makes them so successful, but also so detestable. They’re really slick and really gross at the same time (use Google image search to see what I mean). They are entirely nihilistic, they completely separate lyrics and reality, they are ultimately transgressive. This may be consistent, but like most consistency it scares the heck out of me.

I may seem fickle, but Frank can actually attest to my constancy in this regard… I was just telling him yesterday how much I disliked Britney’s song “Blur” off her new album. Lyrics: Who are you? What’d we do last night? / Can’t remember what I did last night / Maybe I shouldn’t have given in but I just couldn’t fight / Hope I didn’t, but I think I might’ve / Everything, everything is still a blur.

Pop music has rebellion at the core, but sneaking out of the house and dancing into the night is a far cry away from drunken blackouts, agonizing over whether to sleep with your ex-girlfriend’s current lover, or obsessively stalking your ex-girlfriend and murdering her. I like noir, I like existentialism, I dislike nihilism.

The Killers suck. I present for you selections from exhibits A-Z: » Read the rest of this entry «

Austin, you owe me a beer. To quote MTV:

“It’s taken from a quote by [author Hunter S.] Thompson. … ‘We’re raising a generation of dancers,’ and I took it and ran. I guess it bothers people that it’s not grammatically correct, but I think I’m allowed to do whatever I want,” he laughed. ” ‘Denser’? I hadn’t heard that one. I don’t like ‘denser.’”

Dancer it is. I win.

Kindle 2 was supposed to come out in October, but apparently it’s been delayed. We have pictures, though!

Dr. Leithart talks about blogging.

After a series of old-school inside-the-beltway cabinet picks, Obama finally delivers on his promise for “change we can believe in.”

There’s always a media pecking order at a presidential news conference, but on Monday, aides to President-elect Barack Obama introduced a new twist to the seating chart.

Reporters were assigned seats in one of two sections, one to Obama’s left, designated the “Cubs” section, and the other to his right, designated ” White Sox.” Team assignments appeared to be arbitrary.

Obama is a die-hard White Sox fan, but when it came time to take questions, he didn’t favor reporters on that side. Instead, his seemingly random selections were pre-determined by aides.