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This almost 10-year-old Billboard article is still timely. The next time a record label whinges about how the major labels are important cultural institutions preserving our musical patrimony, I'm going to email him this. Grrrr.
On the eve of the release of a new DVD edition of Empire of the Sun, J.G. Ballard muses on how strange it can be when Hollywood options your life—or something like it.
My friend Jeff Wong sends this "Beatles Anomalies List," suggesting that it's the audio analog to other obsessions for geeks who need a life—people like me, in other words.
Apparently there was some sort of awards ceremony in LA last night, but news of it has only just reached Brooklyn. I stopped caring about the Oscars years ago (pretty much around the time I became a voting member of NARAS and realized how little the Grammies had to do with musical quality), but I never cease to be amazed by how much they seem to matter to other non-film-industry people. Mark Evanier has a nice essay about the post-ceremony media frenzy—and he totally pwns Tom Shales.
John Atkinson just sent out a very strange e-mail:
I am taking March 7-9 as vacation days. I will be back in the office Friday...
What? This is unheard of. This is crazier than, say, the Oscar for Best Song in a Film being awarded to some deep-South crunk rappers growling about how hard it is to be a pimp.
Crazy, indeed. But that doesn't mean I don't like it. In fact: I love it.
Much needed and well deserved.
The biggest problem with many consumer products these days is that the people who make 'em never figured out what they needed to be. That's why I have an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machine I have never figured out how to send a fax with. I could read the manual I suppose, if I ever figure out which pile of papers it's under.
If you answered "my consciousness," then what happens if you wake up one day and it's not the same? This is a strange and frightening essay.