I like pieces of art that linger after you're done with them. Specifically works that subtly change minds, or alter perceptions, or simply won't stop repeating in images, text, and sound days after the experience is over. Preference led to imitation, and that led to observation and reflection, and eventually led to Sing Along Songs--a place to house the memorable moments of art. Not just a place for music, but for film, books, and other media that may intersect with brain-worm catchy-ness. I like to think of this iteration as the quick hit version of didomizio.wordpress.com.
I'm currently a dedicated Buffalo ex-pat, living and working in Hamilton, NY.
In fact, it costs more than $100,000 to try to “make it” today, including $30,000 for “training,” $25,000 for gear, $1,000 to “pay a guy to send email blasts to databases of hip music blogs,”and $18,000 to live in New York City, because shaggy-haired rock guys are required by federal law to live in New York City. Man, were the Ramones actually Rockefellers or something?
We’re going to tread lightly here, because the level of delusion in this story could potentially suck us all into a bottomless vortex of self-entitlement from which no amount of whining to wealthy parents will ever free us.
Yeah. Sometimes you read something that’s so wrong you want to yell everything that is wrong about it all at once, so nothing has enough time to become a fully-formed sentence. This is one of those times.
Charlotte Gainsbourg – 5:55 (promotional video, 2006)
5:55 AM is the Janus hour. It offers a dual experience. The person who is “so much more productive in the mornings” eventually discovers that the earlier they rise, the more morning they have to be productive in; at 5:55 they’ve taken a shower and are drinking coffee and gearing up to answer emails, or to do some personal writing – take their dog for a run – pack for a fishing trip – make their bed with hospital corners – the list goes on. Then there is the person who has been awake all along, and is now facing a momentous decision: go to bed / stay in bed, or get up? At 5:55, if you’re not dealing with a long commute, you can still get 90-120 minutes of sleep in, which is a full REM rest cycle. Also, it is not 6AM, which is morning for everyone. Being awake at 6AM means you are officially an irresponsible person who Stayed Up All Night, perhaps for no very good reason at all. Have you even brushed your teeth? Perhaps you were blogging. If you go to sleep now, you can pretend you did so at night. It’s still mostly dark out, anyway. There’s that dead-fish grey glow on the horizon, but it’s easy to ignore.
That is, if you manage to fall asleep.
No prize for guessing which side Charlotte Gainsbourg falls on – or me. (The fact that thousand-word essays are appearing on OWOB between 10PM and 4AM Eastern Standard Time should be your first clue.)
The video (directed by Yvan Attal, Charlotte’s real-life partner) draws a parallel between the awake-all-night Abyss Of Diffuse Loathing™ and a relationship gone bad – too late to end it now; too early to start again – but the song itself isn’t as explicit. Rather, as Charlotte pointed out, it is primarily concerned with atmosphere: library-hushed vocals and perpetual-motion piano working to recreate that odd, nocturnal sense of suspended time, when nothing matters because no one else is awake and nothing is happening and you are alone, as you always were and always will be. Until 5:55 again.
“Construction has been underway for some time on this public park over a highway in Dallas, TX of all places. The arts district with the city’s finest museums, concert hall, new opera hall, et all will now be walkable for the thousands of residents residing in “Uptown” who would traditionally have to drive across the highway to cover the short distance to the arts district. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodall_Rodgers_Park”
"Ultimately, I know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I’m trying to be a construction worker. I’m trying to make things. If people are not interested in that, fine. I just don’t give a damn. Truth is, right now two bombs could drop out of the sky and blow up this house and whatever building you’re in and just obliterate Dischord and Pitchfork. And there’ll be some people crying, there’ll be some slow singing, but for 99% of the world, it won’t even affect the fly on their soup. Most of the world never have, or ever will hear of me, Fugazi, or Pitchfork. Right now, someone just got killed in Ukraine. Do you feel any different?"
Frank Miller Was a Cranky Old Man All Along: A Retrospective
By Chris Sims
By now, you’ve almost certainly heard about the statements about the Occupy protests by legendary comic book creator and hat enthusiast Frank Miller, in which he referred to the protesters as “louts, thieves and rapists” and suggested that they “go back to your mommas’ basements.” They are undoubtedly pretty polarizing statements, but we here at ComicsAlliance have been a little perplexed by people saying that they were surprised by them. If you’ve been reading his comics closely over the years, you could spot this coming a mile away. That’s why today, we’ve decided to take a look back at Miller’s earlier works and identify the moments where these ideas begin to emerge.
