David Savran's Taking It Like A Man

David Savran's Taking It Like A Man: White Masculinity, Masochism and Contemporary American Culture argues that reflexive masochism -- in which you essentially torture yourself -- is the essence of how white masculinity is defined in contemporary culture. He argues that in film "heroes remonstrate against a culture made uneasy by traditional machismo by proclaiming themselves victims, by turning violence upon themselves and so demonstrating their implacable toughness, their ability to savor their self inflicted wounds." I was not sure what I thought about that, and then I saw this:



David Savran sort of wins.

Is the Album Dead?

by Scott

In a recent interview with the Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, Billy Corgan stated that The Smashing Pumpkins would no longer make albums in order to concentrate their attentions on singles, “The listening patterns have changed, so why are we killing ourselves to do albums, to create balance, and do the arty track to set up the single? It's done."

As CD sales plummet year after year, I keep hearing that ‘the Album is dead.’ However, just because more people are getting their music digitally, does that mean that a solid collection of tunes no longer has value? I mean, you can download the whole album just as easily as you can a single track… so why the shift? Maybe it’s because the iPod age has made ‘shuffling’ easier than ever and so having a bunch of good songs from many different artist at you fingertips is far easier than it used to be; you don’t even have to make a mix CD, you just point, click and drag it into your playlist.

But does that make a group of songs that work together as a collective whole any less valuable? In fact, some of my favorite releases of the past year are albums where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: Viva La Vida, 808 and Heartbreak, Chinese Democracy….

Is there any reason why singles and albums can’t co-exist separately as they once did in the 60s? If anything, I think the reason that albums haven’t been doing as well is because fewer artist are trying to make really good albums; they’re all concentrating on the single. Personally, I think that if you make a solid album, people will listen. That’s not to say that the more casual music fan still won’t prefer the single but the single has always been the preferred format for the casual music fan. The only difference is that, now, it’s easier (and more economically sound) than ever for them to avoid buying the whole album just to get the song (s) they want.

Thoughts on this?

Top 5 first tracks on an album

By Scott



My top 5 first tracks on an album:

5. Runnin' With The Devil- Van Halen Van Halen I
4. Where The Streets Have No Name- U2 The Joshua Tree
3. Thunder Road- Bruce Springsteen Born To Run
2. Welcome To The Jungle- Guns N' Roses Appetite For Destruction
1. Baba O'Reily- The Who Who's Next

Geoff's

5. Casanova Soundtrack -- MIA's Paper Planes
4. Heritic Pride -- Sax Rhomer # 1 by the Mountain Goats
3. LCD Soundsystem 45:33 -- which is totally cheating since the album is one long track
2. Bone Thugs N Harmony -- Flomotion
1. 8 Diagrams by the Wu Tang Clan

TV and Comics This Week (LOST, BSG, 24)

BSG. This mutiny plot is clearly going to last at least one more episode, which means that the remaining 6 episodes -- 4 hours -- are going to have to 1. feature the final showdown between our guys and the bad Cylons led by Al from Quantum Leap, 2. find a home for everybody, and 3. explain a very complex mythology involving Ellen Tigh, Starbuck, "the secret of the opera house" and how the Cylons lived on earth 2000 years ago even though they are also with us now. Thats a lot to get done, but at least every moment should be exciting. For right now I am really enjoying the fact that BSG is committed to telling stories about people, even though everyone wants the big mythology addressed. The mutiny is being handled well and it is nice to see Starbuck with something heroic to do -- nice bit of gender reversal with her shooting the guy who had Lee at knife point. It was also nice seeing Adama fighting side by side with Tigh and just generally being active. The show does a good job of knowing everything feels more important and anything can change and anyone can die with only 7 episodes to go. 

LOST. I still basically love Lost but right now watching Deadwood on DVD and the final BSG episodes have kind of eclipsed it. I am not as into the show as I used to be, even now that we are 25% of the way through the season, for no reason I can exactly describe. I remain a little detached. I will continue to say that I am baffled as to why it was necessary to lie to the world to keep the people on the island safe. Brad pointed out that the thing with Aaron and the lawyer seemed like a bit of a waste of time, and I agree. Most of the off island stuff does not really have my attention yet. I still adore the group on the island and I love the device of flashing to some other time to learn the history of the island and shake everything up on the drop of a dime -- I love that maybe the Indian plan crashed on the island in the FUTURE for example. With a jungle island, you could even make it the far future without too much set design. That said, it was hardly a surprise the Rousseau plot would make a return -- the actress playing the young Rousseau by the way is breathtakingly beautiful and has been in hardly anything -- though I was surprised by the return of Jin. Not impressed exactly, but genuinely surprised. It gives Sun a reason to return. I am not sure I needed such a long shot of Sawyer seeing Aaron be born, except for thematic reasons. I like the show, and look forward to new episodes without being exactly impressed by anything other than structural decisions thus far into season five. The nosebleed thing does not seem like enough of a problem at this point for one thing. 

24. This show has always been pretty dumb and a lot of the time that was part of its charm. But our big bad -- who just killed hundreds of people -- getting away from a paramilitary team by taking a bus and then seeing his waitress girlfriend who he promised to have dinner with later today even though he has tons of secret president threatening terrorism to do is kind of a whole other level of dumb. Like Jack Tripper dumb. Like I should seriously stop watching this show but I probably won't because I am an idiot dumb. Can you imagine -- there must have been a moment that 24 could not have shown in which Dubaku is waiting for the bus to arrive with a bunch of old DC ladies. Having to sneak out of dinner to be a terrorist without his girlfriend noticing -- that's gonna be some shenanigans. 

Avatar Live Action Casting

This is old -- almost nothing on this blog is timely -- but I thought I would put it up anyway. Brad sent me THIS LINK, and Brad and HCDuvall sent me THIS ONE.