Slavoj Zizek commented on the “Gangham Style” phenomenon at a recent lecture in Vermont. He makes the case that the hysteria surrounding the phenomenon is a form of spirituality that creates its own kind of sacred space, It’s disgusting, so you have to watch it 40 or 50 times a …
I sometimes feel a bit embarrassed to play guitar. There’s something –I don’t want to sound ungrateful –but there’s something very old-fashioned and traditional about it. You meet kids today whose grandparents were in punk bands. It’s very old and traditional, but then, so is an orchestra and so is a string section. … [It's] is a contradiction going around in my head, and I can’t really resolve it.
-Jonny Greenwood (guitarist for Radiohead in an interview with NPR, a perfect metaphor for a particular “postmodern” soul)
OMBRE’s ”Believe You Me” is the latest release from forward thinking Asthmatic Kitty Records, also home to other great artist like Sufjan Stevens and The Welcome Wagon. This review is set to be published on PopMatters.com within the next few week. Stream the entire album here while you read the review! Album …
This is a really important article. “Is Food the New Sex?” by Mary Eberstadt
I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and value…It seems to me that the intellectualization and aestheticizing of principles and values in this country is one of the things that’s gutted our generation. All the things that my parents said to me, like “It’s really important not to lie.” OK, check, got it. I nod at that but I really don’t feel it. Until I get to be about 30 and I realize that if I lie to you, I also can’t trust you. I feel that I am in pain, I’m nervous, I’m lonely and I can’t figure out why. Then I realize, “Oh, perhaps the way to deal with this is really not to lie.” The idea that something so simple, and, really, so aesthetically uninteresting – which for me meant you pass over it for the interesting, complex stuff – can actually be nourishing in a way in a way that arch, meta, ironic, pomo stuff can’t, that seems to me to be important. That seems to me like something our generation needs to feel.
- David Foster Wallace (quote from a 1996 interview with Salon talking about the theme of American sadness found in his novel Infinite Jest)
We are the wanderers We are the confused We are the pregnant; struggling to give birth We are the stimulated We are the despair We are the story less We are the profane We are the sacred We are the friendless We are the fatherless We are the overactive conscience; …
We live in a post-authentic world.
-Bruce Springsteen (during keynote address at SXSW 2012)What cannot be said must be passed over in silence. But what cannot be said is most important of all.
-Ludwig WittgensteinDiscarnate man is not compatible with an incarnate Church.
-Marshall McLuhanPromote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
-Someone On Facebook
When I was growing up many of my elders loved to read biographies. I remember seeing quite a few Lee Ioccoca and Winston Churchhill biographies laying around on coffee tables, and even more in the 25 cent bin at neighborhood garage sales. I don’t like reading biographies and never have. …
TV on the Radio is currently the coolest band in the USA, they just don’t know it. And that is precisely what makes them so cool. Their new album Nine Types of Light doesn’t come across like it was made by rock-stars, or even “wanna be” rock-stars. Nine Types of …
It is my suspicion that most of what is typically labeled “postmodern” culture is actually just late modernity. The same myth that taught me that I could grow up to be “anything I wanted to be” is the same one that advises “healthy” individuals to be unencumbered by tradition, and …
