Charming, lyrical and thought-provoking profile of great American graphic designer Milton Glaser directed by Hillman Curtis (no slouch as a designer himself!). I’ve never seen Glaser on video, although I have admired his work for years and given the coffee table book on his life’s work as gifts many times, and this was fascinating, a real treat to watch. I especially like the parts where he’s talking about teaching and how he keeps his muse alive in his later years.
A six-year-old girl has become a media darling in China on her first day of school by expressing her aspiration to become a “corrupt official” when she grows up.
The young student stated her aspirations in a televised interview.
“When I grow up I want to be an official,” said the girl.
“What kind of official?” the interviewer asked. “A corrupt official because they have lots of stuff,” she replied.
Very clear and spot-on interview with Peter Lamborn Wilson on what he calls the Technopathocracy of modern society: complete disconnection, lack of community and Internet-mediated insanity, and the Intentional Community as the solution. Right on. He makes the incredibly salient point that “dropping out” of Internet culture now is the same as “dropping out” of the mainstream in the 60s.
Despite its Jason Pierce score and Werner Herzog subplot, Mister Lonely, Harmony Korine‘s feature film from ‘07 left me bored and disappointed. Its opening moments had a sense of poetry and provocation (see here), but all that was quickly squandered as Korine, striving to broaden his film’s appeal I’m guessing, attempted the distinctly non-Gummo feat of “establishing his characters.”
Korine’s new film, Trash Humpers, premiered this week in Toronto and, fortunately, it looks like he’s left very far behind him the burdens of character development. The trailer follows below, but I’m finding even more intriguing this Variety review which opens thusly:
Pity the festival-going fool who stumbles unawares into Harmony Korine’s patently abrasive, deliberately cruddy-looking mock-documentary “Trash Humpers.” All others—that is, those familiar with Korine’s anti-bourgeois oeuvre and know what they’re in for—will have a glorious time.
Named for a band of cretinous vandals in old-folks masks who favor gyrating against garbage cans (and worse), “Trash Humpers” is a pre-fab underground manifesto to rank beside John Waters’ legendarily crass “Pink Flamingos.” Theatrical distribution is virtually inconceivable—though, in part for this reason, any fest devoted to maintaining its rep among cult-film completists will simply beg for it.
Preeminent oldies reissue label Sundazed has released a box set containing all of the Velvet Underground’s 7-inch 45rpm singles, including two that were prepared for release, but canceled. and two radio advertisements.
The box includes exact reproduction of all of the first singles that VU issued, as well as two that were can celled and never went into production. It comes packaged in a fancy box with rare photos of the band and liner notes written by long-time fan and Rolling Stone writer David Fricke.
The records are mixed in mono sound, which adds to their vintage appeal. As Fricke explains in the press release, “The Velvet Underground were a great singles band?
In the latest annals of shameful and disgusting examples of humanity and health-insurance industry miserliness:
With the White House zeroing in on the insurance-industry practice of discriminating against clients based on pre-existing conditions, administration allies are calling attention to how broadly insurers interpret the term to maximize profits.
It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.
Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you’re more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.
Is this any better than public approval for stoning and killing “misbehaving” women in the parts of the world we profess to be at war with for, among other things, women’s rights?
“Get up in the morning / Slaving for bread sir / So that every mouth can be fed / Oh, oh, the Israelites.”
Desmond Dekker was one of the first truly international pop stars to come from a Third World Country. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, but I can only really think of Jimmy Cliff and Millie Smalls before him. With his compulsively danceable songs about hard ghetto living, Dekker was an ambassador of reggae to the rest of the world before Bob Marley. His best known hits were Israelites, 007 (Shanty Town) and It Miek. Dekker became an icon of rude boy and Mod culture and from this performance you can see why. The Beatles even made a reference to him in their ska-influenced Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (“Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace”) [And “Margo Tenenbaum” was said to have been (briefly) married to him in The Royal Tenenbaums!].
Here’s Dekker on the lyrics to Israelites:
“It all happened so quickly. I didn’t write that song sitting around a piano or playing a guitar. I was walking in the park, eating corn. I heard a couple arguing about money. She was saying she needed money and he was saying the work he was doing was not giving him enough. I relate to those things and began to sing a little song - ‘You get up in the morning and you slaving for bread.’ By the time I got home it was complete.”
