palewire

Am I the only one getting increasingly casual emails from major corporations?

With the presidential primaries working up to their full fury, it can sometimes seem like dark forebodings are blooming all around us. I know all the political rancor can get people down. But look on the bright side, public angst always makes a good season for what my favorite comedian, Bill Hicks, dubbed “the comedy of hate.”

For instance, when I emailed my uncle a couple of the goofy tag clouds I’ve cooked up at work lately (ex. one, two), here was his response, unedited:

Maybe you can do one for me that shows the frequency of
words I use to describe politicians.
Like:

asshole
liar
ego-centric
disingenuous
opportunist
insincere
dishonest

Can you do thin in real time as I write? Huh? can ya?

His personal motto: “Never vote, it only encourages those people.”

I don’t agree with him. But, come on, that’s pretty funny.

So I’m looking for a new car out here in LA. To give you an idea of what I’m going through, consider the following Cars.com ad.

Yes, that’s right. The asking price for a 1992 five-speed hatchback Honda Civic with 278,942 miles is $5,800.

When the inevitable complaints come about Rupert Murdoch dumbing down the Wall Street Journal — and they will — let’s all think back to this graphic, which ran today with a front page story about a college drinking game.

One of the more enduring lines from John Ford’s Westerns is a maxim offered by Carleton Young in the “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Young plays Maxwell Scott, an aging newspaper editor confronted with facts that contradict one his community’s most cherished beliefs. Rather than print the ugly truth, he elects to destroy the evidence. His justification:

This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

I thought of Young’s line today while trolling the web for old video and news about Tony Wilson, the infamously impish founder of Factory Records who died this past week.

Over on YouTube, I found a snippet from a television retrospective of his career. It focuses on his success promoting pathbreaking pop groups like The Sex Pistols, Joy Division, New Order and The Happy Mondays.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFndQ379ICw[/youtube]

While there are some fun moments with the man himself, I was struck by how heavily the producers relied upon clips from “24 Hour Party People,” the excellent biopic about Wilson starring Steve Coogan.

Nevermind that the movie was a work of fiction. Or that Coogan’s version of Wilson is an unreliable narrator with a nearly pathological commitment to self-mythologizing. When a moment calls for video to illustrate qualities of Wilson’s personality or events from his life, the producers jump for the legend more frequently than the fact.

And, as much as this tweaks my inner journalism professor, I think I can understand where the TV producers were coming from. I’ll try to offer it here as a 2007 update to Ford’s maxim.

This is TV, stupid. When the tape is hot, run the tape.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tca2JkjsZHU[/youtube]

Why does this band play quiet songs? It’s such a waste.

And it’s never more obvious than when they drop all the crappy leftovers from indie rock (precious self-denial, sad-sack cutup lyrics, distrust of rhythms and anthems), quit babbling vague Holden Caulfield mumbo jumbo and shake some serious action.

There’s one thing Arcade Fire do well, and they do it very, very well. That’s the crescendo. The percussion locks in, the tempo and volume push upward into fifth gear, and everybody chants their head off. You can just soak it in. And it feels great.

So why do they even bother with the other stuff? It was obvious last night at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall, where the crowd slept through the dirge-filled middle section of the show, only to burst to life when the band got back to the loud stuff.

I walked up to see Hot Chip perform last night at the 9:30 Club. If you haven’t heard these guys, they got some solid love last year and even some mainstream video play thanks to the funky breakout single “Over and Over.”

Alright show. I dug the slackerish twist they put on Kraftwerk’s style of stagecraft and when things really got rumbling the music hit with serious heft. It reminded me a bit of the industrial shows from my Chicago days put on by Ministry and KMFDM.

The biggest thing missing yet are the songs. Even the group’s best material often ignores the model of rising tension and dramatic, climatic release capitalized on by the rhythmic pop music I most enjoy. Sadly, the new songs they played didn’t show much progress there.

If you visit the new link I’ve added to the sidebar, you can play around with a dinky Web toy I made this afternoon. It’s a series of tag clouds that report the words most frequently found in reviews of this year’s indie hype monster, Arcade Fire’s “Neon Bible.” It’s hardly revelatory — and a long toss from scientific — but it can still make for a bit of fun.

If nothing else, it’s clear that the band’s lead singer, Win Butler, is getting more attention that his mates. And a bit interesting, though hardly surprising, that the band’s debut album, Funeral, played pretty high in most reviews.

How about how often “war” makes its way in?

I made the hypecloud using a free application developed by a bright guy named Chirag Mehta. You can check that out here. Mehta has done some cool stuff with it, particularly an excellent cloud that displays the most commonly used words in presidential rhetoric since the founding of America.

Like many of my fellow pale, white Americans, I have a job that requires I spend most of the work day seated in front of a computer.

It comes with a few negatives. I have minor neck pain. I’ve gained a little weight. And I’ve developed a highly refined, and easily inflamed, sensitivity toward the shortcomings of different varieties of database development software. None of which is probably doing much for my sex appeal. Especially that last one.

But it has its advantages, too. I enjoy the work. I’m blessed with great coworkers. And it’s possible to complete most of my job while also engaging in one of my favorite hobbies: listening to pop music.

To make the most of the opportunity, I decided several months ago to purchase a good pair of headphones, the Grado SR-80. While I won’t pretend to be an expert on the subject, they’ve certainly been great for me.

And, more recently, I’m signed up for an account at the social networking site last.fm. Now every time I listen to a song it’s cataloged by a little bug on my computer that sends the track back to their site. You can watch what I’m up to here. You should go join yourself, too. It’ll be fun. (And if you do, add me as a friend!)

Since I’ve written about last.fm and the RSS feed of recent tracks over there in the sidebar before, I won’t ramble too far. But I do have something new. Below is a quilt of album covers that displays artwork from the music I’ve been listening to lately.

It’s dynamically generated and updated by last.fm. You can check it out anytime right here or over on my media diet page. Pointless indeed, but at least marginally entertaining. Sort of like this blog, I suppose. When we’re clicking, at least.

So much for the so-called experts. After months of being dogged by the national sports media, the Chicago Bears pushed through to their first Superbowl in 21 years this afternoon. Take a peek after the jump for a true blowout.

Bears 1, ESPN “braintrust” -8.