Bad Bookings:
I wouldn’t go to see these bands either (via Waxy.org).
Flickr Faces:
Though I don’t use Flickr much myself (because I don’t own a camera), I love it’s weird groupings, collisions of simple creativity and manic lateral thinking. Like this one, inanimate objects that look like human faces (via Kottke.org).
Pamie.com: The Forum
So my old friend Pamie Ribon has redesigned her site and relaunched her forum. Pamie’s forums is where I got started on the whole Internet thing way back in 1999, made a lot of friends, was a sex symbol for about 5 minutes (ask if you want. It’s really not that interesting), and pretty much started off down the path I’m on now. Going back to the forums feels a little like visiting high school the week after buying your first house, charming yes, nostolgic of course, but mostly very weird.
Little Glimmer of Home:
I’m way tied up in catch up from my many weeks away and won’t be able to blog for a few days. Until then Suzan took this awesome picture of the State Theatre in Ann Arbor that I’d like to share with you. Enjoy. I’ll speak to you soon.
Why the Web is Important to Book Marketing:
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Fametracker Enters the 21st Century:
Famtracker now has an RSS Feed. We rejoice.
Or we did. They managed to remove it when putting up their vacation announcement. Wha?
Television Without Pity, still 1996 over there. Still no RSS Feed. Still not able to print out a complete recap. Still need to spend 45 minutes clicking through 13 single pages like a lab rat asking for a food pellet. We cease rejoicing.
Six Feet Under Passes On:
Six Feet Under airs its final episode tonight amidst much hype. I started watching the show on DVD about a year ago and had shut myself off from all media mentions for fear of spoiling plots three seasons down the road I hadn’t got to yet. Nonetheless, I heard a retrospective on Fresh Air which just about blew everything. If you’re in the same boat, listen the interviews indivdually and not in the round-up format like I did.
Creator Alan Ball is scheduled to give the post-mortem (ha!) to Terry Gross next week.
Wikipedia All Over:
I had no idea the folks who brought you Wikipedia had all these other projects going on. Wild.
Claire Danes, Post-Homewreckage:
The trailer for Shopgirl is fantastic, criminal even, that we have to wait until Oct. 21 to see the movie. Never has Claire Danes looked so luminous. However, despite getting lost for several minutes in her deep aburn tresses, something struck me as a bit calculating about this role and then I remembered: Shopgirl is Ms. Danes’s first post-homewrecking role, her first screen appearence after leaving boyfriend Ben Lee for the arms of Billy Crudup, her co-star on her last film, who was at the time expecting a child with Mary-Louise Parker. Crudup didn’t come out of the publicity hail smelling so sweat himself but he’s 11-years Danes’s senior and, unfair as it is, has the burden of age, gender and a serious artiste’s reputation on his side. Danes, as Fametracker points out, has never quite lived up to the goodwill heaped on her from My So Called Life, the TV blip that brought her to our attention. She’s young, beautiful, and has made a series of career choices which look great on paper but don’t add up to much in the moviegoer’s imagination. Shopgirl is Claire Danes playing a grown-up, a working woman desired by two men. Chosing what you want in a mate and what kind of person embodies it is among the first adult decisions we make. Ms. Danes seems to be making it on several levels here, an art/life/chicken/egg happening that now, I’m even more eager to see.
Song of the Week: “Dark Side of the Sun”
So everybody knows John Waite’s ballad “Missing You”, #1 on the pop charts in 1985 and covered by Tina Turner in her Leggs pantyhose campaign. A few of you might know that Mr. Waite became the lead singer of the 80s arena rock super group Bad English (they who gave us the wedding ballad staple “When I See You Smile”). But only a few other sad souls like myself have been with JW since his early days as the lead singer of the British proto-boy band The Babys, own not only The Essential John Waite but a few of the long-out-of-print studio albums from his solo career and may even check up on The John Waite Worldwide Consortium from time to time.
If you aren’t in group #3, count your blessings. But if you’ve ever thought “Hey that I-Ain’t-Missing-You-At-All song was pretty dang good. What happened to that guy?” I offer up “Dark Side of the Sun”, the song immediately following Missing You on Waite’s 1985 album No Brakes. It has the same pleading vocals and heavy-handed metaphors jambed into a conventional pop framework. But lay over a nice sing-songy keyboard/guitar combo, an addictive little chorus and a handful of “whoah whoahs” taking you home and you’ve got my favorite John Waite song.
Have a download. You’ll be goofily pleased when it pops up on your iPod.