Culture and Arts

526 posts

Sheen It: A Retrospective

Sue me. I can’t stop watching Charlie Sheen clips. I can’t help myself from clicking on clip after clip of Sheen’s now-infamous interviews with ABC’s Good Morning America. Like this. And this. And, oh heaven help me, this, from 20/20.

Watching a celebrity self-destruct in real time has become a bit of blood sport in our tabloid-frenzied culture. Even WebMD is in on the action. We are transfixed by the train wreck, by the tragedy of witnessing potential unfulfilled, opportunity squandered, and the pitfalls of privilege.

Sheen’s various interviews to media outlets (ABC, CNN, Radar Online, among others) have generated a lot of buzz, but people have been talking about Charlie Sheen’s bad behavior for a long time. Sheen’s drug, gambling, and sex addictions have been high-larious fodder for more than a decade. Here’s a flashback to a November 2000 episode of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” featuring a chubby Drew Carey, a thin Alec Baldwin, and knowing laughter with Reg over Sheen’s troubles.

Many celebs, world-weary and drug-wise themselves, take the “he’s an adult, it’s his life” stance, including recovering addict (and Mel Gibson defender) Robert Downey, Jr.

As I was looking at clips of Sheen’s media blitzkrieg, I couldn’t help remembering the early days of Charlie Sheen, when he was the youngest addition to a roster of hot young Hollywood stars including Johnny Depp, Rob Lowe, and the Coreys. Too young to belong to the Brat Pack with his brother, Emilio Estevez, Sheen stepped out of the shadows of his famous acting family in iconic roles in “Lucas,” “Platoon,” and “Wall Street.” My girlhood crush on Charlie Sheen evaporated sometime around 1990, long before his current troubles, but about the time his film career took an unfortunate turn. I’m guessing “Hot Shots” happened when his need for hookers and blow took over as his primary vocation. This little primer on the glory days of Charlie Sheen is for the young readers who’ve only known the cranked up, Hawaiian shirt wearing, wife beating, piece of shite we see before us now.

Early in his career, Sheen racked up a series of strong roles in great films (and if you say 1984’s “Red Dawn” isn’t a great film, we’re fighting).

Here’s how I’d like to remember Sheen (and Corey Haim, for that matter, on the banana seat bike). In 1986’s “Lucas,” he plays a classic clean-cut jock with a soft side. Part of Sheen’s charm in those heady early days was his apparent effortlessness on film.

He won acclaim for his role in Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” (1986) and worked with Stone again in a lead role as Bud Fox, a wanna-be player striving for the finer things in life in “Wall Street” (1987).

Sheen continued work in 80s classics, including “Young Guns,” “Eight Men Out,” and “Navy Seals,” churning out over 20 movies before the end of the decade. The 1990s marked a turn in his career, from dramas to comedies.

So was Sheen ever funny? If you’ve somehow watched his television show (let’s pretend you haven’t), that is a legitimate question. He told CNN’s Piers Morgan that he is able to make Two and a Half Men so damn funny because he lives such a crazed lifestyle. Everyone on it says knows coke makes you funnier. Here’s a clip from “Major League II.” Decide for yourself.

Perhaps you like your comedy a little less subtle, in which case I recommend the 1993 vintage “Hot Shots! Part Deux.”

His appearance in “Loaded Weapon” (also 1993) was mercifully brief.

It only gets worse from there, except for a small cameo in “Being John Malkovich” (1999).

By this time, Sheen’s film career was essentially over as he transitioned to television, starring in Spin City in the early 2000s as a replacement for the ailing Michael J. Fox. For me, his best and most prophetic work was in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” with Jennifer Grey’s old nose.

And now you’ve Sheen It. Go work on winning.

Spirituality Corner: God, the Devil and the Void

“I believe that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience, and not the other way around.” —  This is the fourth Spirituality Corner post in an ongoing series.

 

This post begins with the prologue to a novel I wrote in 2005 called We Are Stardust. It’s the story of a psychic who discovers via her visions that the Antichrist is the President of the United States.  The President is equally psychic, and the two of them get locked in a battle of wills that sometimes is more of a tango of divine adversaries.  I’m using this prologue as the starting point of a dialogue I’d like to open up, regarding (as the title says) God, the Devil and the Void.  (The “Void” part is designed to let atheists and agnostics know that they are most welcome in this discussion.)

*

“Little children, it is the last time:  and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.”   (1 John 3:18)

 

According to Christian prophecies of the End Times, the Antichrist in human form will function as Satan’s second in command during the apocalypse.  It is widely assumed that he will ascend to a position of great worldly power through his promise of peace in a volatile era.  Like his immediate superior, Lucifer/Satan, the Antichrist is frequently depicted as someone of infallible personal charisma.

 

Contrary to unrelenting dramatic portrayals in popular culture, the Antichrist will not arrive bearing the countenance of a maleficent, horned demon.  Instead, since he is the shadow realm’s reverse doppelganger of Christ, he will incarnate fully prepared to emulate convincingly the hallowed, human qualities of Jesus Himself.  Using a wealth of Christian aphorisms and references, the Antichrist will deliberately lead all but the most perceptive of his followers down the path of wickedness.

 

The term ‘Antichrist’ may also be associated with a collective or collaborative energy:  dark forces or forces of evil. These malevolent influences fulfill an essential purpose in the cycles of creation.  Corresponding to spirit collapsing into matter, they epitomize the proverbial fall from grace.  The dark forces prevent humanity from rising up towards the exaltation of spirit, symbolized by the idea of ascension into heaven.

 

This spellbinding drama of Good versus Evil is universal.  Throughout the ages, it has inspired some truly great theatrical performances (e.g., the collective works of William Shakespeare), as well as enduring philosophical debate, bewildering political diatribe and trite blockbuster action films that range in quality from abysmal to mediocre.

 

People who believe in the concept of Heaven endeavor to identify themselves with the principle of good. However, there are others without a moral or religious bias.  While not condoning evil deeds or evildoers, these individuals’ inquisitiveness may predispose them to seek an objective comprehension of the motivations of evil actions.

 

Rejecting the concept of sinners consigned to Hell, these free thinkers subscribe to the belief that contrition and forgiveness are every human being’s birthright.  They are the disciples of a radically extremist notion that preceded formal Christianity:  the kingdom of heaven is within you – a quote widely attributed to the rebel Jesus.

 

Although good and evil are often considered polar opposites, more precisely, they are counterparts: the existence of one validates the other.   Creation’s full spectrum unfolds in a cyclical synthesis of light and dark; life and death; heaven and hell; good and evil… each individual pair designed in perfect complement of each other.


 

Regardless of whether you believe in God, the Devil, or/and the Void, you most likely have empirical opinions about other absolutes: life and death, light and darkness, good and evil, love and hate/indifference, truth and deception, etc.

 

I believe that life is never black and white: it is varying shades of grey, and all polarities in manifestation.  So while there may be a need for religious people to believe in an absolute good (God, heaven) and an absolute evil (Satan, hell), non-religious people may view the world through a completely different prism.  To them, the concept that all we are is stardust, free-floating in the void, makes rational sense.  As someone who believes in God but has never been a member of any religion, I find that I am often standing in the balance between these two worlds.

 

Witnessing the agony, turmoil, brutality, hatred and hopelessness that seem to be omnipresent, I have frequently questioned how any all-powerful creator could ever allow this.  But witnessing the stark nihilism of some – very far from all, I must emphasize – non-believers seems equally nonsensical to me.  For me, the middle ground is accepting my human insignificance while embracing the blessing of my human experience.  I am fascinated to discuss spiritual subjects with people on every point of the spectrum of belief, because I want to understand what brings people to believe what they do.

 

What I’d like to know in the comments – in addition to any critique regarding this post – is:

  • What are your beliefs regarding the concepts of God, the Devil and the Void?
  • How have your current beliefs been influenced by the inculcation of parents, teachers, clergy, etc. in childhood?
  • What other spiritual influences shape these beliefs in these “ultimate” themes?

 

The Meaning of Life

Basic Color Theory: Design Notes for the Artistically Un-inclined

Remember when you were a kid and in between eating fistfuls of paste you had your box of poster paints? Red and blue make purple, right? So why did it always turn out black/brown-ish purple mess? Because red is not a true primary color. Red has yellow in it.  Let’s get past red, yellow and blue with today’s subject, basic color theory. I touched on some of the aspects of this in our previous article but I thought some further information and visuals might be fun.

The two major ways colors are created are applied and light which then play into each other but that’s getting too deep for today.

Put simply, applied is paint, though that is seriously simplified. Pure pigments aside, basically any color can be created using the CMYK breakdown. In printing this is called process color but most art students get to use these colors in gouache for color theory classes . C=Cyan, M=Magenta, Y=Yellow and K=Black. With these four primary colors you are able to create most other colors. C+M=Purple, M+Y=Orange and Y+C=Green for your basic secondary colors. All three together make a warm black. Brights, neons, metallics and white are not possible to create using this method. The large majority of things you see printed in magazines, newspapers, books (not old books), anything that shoots out of your home printer is printed using this way. Art prints often are not and it depends for textiles, but usually not. It is a basic and cost effective way to get the rainbow. An uneven mix of CMY will create a brown. An even mix will create a grey.

Light, on the other hand, is a bit more complex.  Light is how most computer art programs function so it’s good to know. RGB are Red, Green and Blue. Secondary are R+G=Yellow, G+B=Cyan, B+R=Purple and all three together equal White light. All brights and neons are possible with this mix. Hence all the bright and shiny colors on your television. Some of the secondary colors seem counter intuitive but if you look at the graphic you’ll see they are basically the inverse of applied color with a couple shifts.  Ah, patterns in nature.

As a little interesting end tidbit I left our friend ROYGBIV off of the chart. He is the basic colors visual light wavelengths. He is the rainbow. Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet.

Now get your hand out of the paste and go paint something!

The Crasstalk Buzz Maintenance Program

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Thursday was interesting wasn’t it? I think we all realize how much this place means to us and that we want to keep the Crasstalk buzz going. Frankly, maintaining this place is going to take money. The question is this: how should Crasstalk generate this money?

The site that shall not be named, who also helped create Thursday’s pickle (with some help from Arken), apparently thinks that orange finger-staining Frito-lay snacks is the ideal way to feed Nibbles. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a Cheeto War here — and I don’t think Honey Badger will stand for it either.

Booze seems to be a unifying force here and that is why I created The Crasstalk Buzz Maintenance Program. Purchase fabulous wine through www.winedreamer.com using coupon code: FEEDTHEBADGER and Crasstalkers will get 10% off their wine purchases and 10% will go to our Crasstalk Overlords to offset the costs of upgrading and maintaining this site.  Turn your vice into something nice, for a change.

But wait there is more!

During the evening of Thursday, March 24th, I will host live-blog winetasting and walk Crasstalker’s through six wines from www.winedreamer.com. So invite some friends over, unless you plan to plow through six bottles of wine yourself!

The wines that we will be tasting are as follows — pricing includes 10% discount:

Whites:

  • Secret 2007 White Wine ($12.59)
  • Piro Piro Piccolo 2009 Pinot Grigio ($15.29)
  • Martellotto Chardonnay 2009 Santa Barbara ($17.99)

Reds:

  • Martellotto 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Paso Robles ($17.99)
  • M by Martellotto 2008 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley ($21.59)
  • Either Conservative Red or Progressive Red — same Meritage wine, different labels to reflect your political persuasion ($22.49)

You do not have to purchase all of these wines to participate, obviously. If you end up purchasing some of the other wines from www.winedreamer.com, let us know how they taste during our live-blog. I will probably bring out Pura Vida as that is a favorite.  Any wine you purchase at www.winedreamer.com that uses code FEEDTHEBADGER will get the 10% discount and will get the 10% to support the site.

FYI….1. Shipping is not included in these prices and the cost to ship 1 bottle or 6 is about the same; 2. Discount will not show up until the FEEDTHEBADGER code is entered and until the final screen at checkout.

Remember no code = no money for Crasstalk and no discount for you. Any questions, feel free to email me at [email protected]

Cheers!

In Praise Of Older Men

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While human and cinematic history is filled with May-December romances, in contemporary society they are relatively rare. In movies, there is rarely any mention of a large age gap between romantic leads, but I can say from experience that it can, in fact, be a significant issue on many levels. In a relationship involving an older man and a much younger woman, there is often an assumed implication: that she is bartering her youth and fertility for his wealth and security. That may be the case in some unions involving a difference in age of several decades, but in my case, it was love at first sight from the start.

 

Since I was a child, I’ve always sought out older people of both genders to befriend and advise me. My first real crush – aside from my passion for Underdog when I was 5 – was on my sixth grade social studies/PE teacher, who was 47 at the time. We shared a phenomenal intellectual connection and an effortless affinity. He inspired me to achieve my personal best in my studies and in my athletic pursuits, and we developed a mutually appreciative, very close yet utterly innocent extra-curricular relationship that would be impossible to maintain in today’s Law & Order: SVU-influenced society.

 

At age 14, I met a 29-year-old Christopher Atkins lookalike at a family wedding, and I came thisclose to dating him in secret. When I was 17, my I was smitten by a hunky, hip, obscure rock musician my parents’ age, who lived in our apartment building. He confessed to me once that if not for my mother’s watchful eye, he would have invited me up to his apartment eagerly.

 

At a spiritual retreat near Woodstock, I met my first lover, a tantric adept, when I was 19 and he was 40. (We are still close friends, 24 years later.) Between the ages of 19 and 26, I had lovers ranging in age from 18  to 60.  I met my boyfriend and companion for the last 17 years when I was 26 and he was 57. Like other much older men I’ve been attracted to, one of the things which intrigued me most about him was that he was uncomfortable with our large age difference. It’s proven much easier for me to bridge the gap in life experiences with someone who is not seeking a token or trophy to reminisce his own lost youth.

 

My present relationship calls to mind the enduring marriage of (early 20th century film icon) Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neill, pictured above. They met when she was 17 and he was 54, and their union lasted until his death, more than three decades later. Chaplin caught a lot of flak for the woman he chose to be his wife. But if he had ever listened to any of the prurient gossip and made a different choice based on it, he would have missed out on sharing the truest love of his life.

 

When love finds you, age, sexual orientation, racial/ethnic, or religious backgrounds really don’t matter. As the world becomes more diverse, there is more acceptance of individual choices which seem to be outside the norms of society. In being true to yourself, you are never alone.

Test.

The Straight Man’s Guide To The Oscars

Lots of people like the Oscars. They REALLY like the Oscars. If you’re the typical American woman and/or gay man, this is basically your Super Bowl, minus the cool commercials and John Madden. You go to the store the day before, stock up on drinks and food (chocolate) and turn on the TV at 3 p.m. to watch all the red carpet special. Because it really fucking matters what who everybody is wearing! Continue reading →

Oscar Fashion: The Good, The Bad and the WTF

Good morning to you! What a night! Dancing Queen and Missing Peace are passed out in the corner and confetti is floating in their champagne glasses. Let’s let them sleep it off – they deserve it! Although the ceremony was bad, you made it great by joining us for an epic live blog of the red carpet and the awards. We knew Francaway (the terrible monster cobbled together from the lifeless corpse of James Franco and the manic horse-muppet, Anne Hathaway) would be awful and there were few surprises for the winners this year – all the excitement was on the red carpet.

I’m peeling off the false lashes to take a closer look at last night’s fashion in the semi-sober light of day. Below are some of the most notable looks of the night. Who did you love? Who did you hate (we don’t say “hate” – how about “detest” or “want to stuff into the trunk of a car heading into Missouri meth country”)?  Click on the images, below, to get a closer look – all the better to snark with, my dears.

The WTF Award goes to…..Melissa Leo! The Best Supporting Actress winner is my pick for the absolute worst dressed. Everything was wrong with her look – the cut, the fabric, this slit up the center, the appropriateness for the event. You don’t want to go down in Oscars fashion history for wearing a giant homage to what’s left on the table after a country fair bake sale. She was heavily favored to win and should have ramped it up about ten notches. She also could have been less annoying while accepting her award (like she didn’t know she’d win – pssssshhaawww).

WTF, Leo. W.T.F.

The Bad Award goes to…Scarlett Johannson. It was not the worst – see directly above. (Are you still drunk?) It was just bad. Bad color, bad back, bad hair and no boobs. ScarJo, your big tickets are the reason we tune in and we want to see them. You might think Helena Bonham Carter would win this award, but I actually give her a pass because she’s delightfully nutty and my expectations for her are very low. She rarely disappoints because she’s set the bar mere inches off the ground. Also notable horribleness goes to Kathryn Bigelow and her sweater dress.

Dolce and Gabbana done wrong.
My girl crush.

 

The Good Award goes to…like five people. Reese Witherspoon and Camila Alves are my favorites of the night, but then I like the classics, the looks that will stand up over the test of time. If Reese is a little tame for you, how about Mila Kunis? At first, I was torn over the purple and the lace and the little boob-cup detail, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. Now I love it. The shape of the dress looks fantastic on her, though it would be hard to go wrong on that girl.  My other favorite of the night is Jennifer Hudson.  Wow.  She looked fan-freaking-tastic. Plus, Mila and JHud were on point with the color trends of the night – red (Bullock, Anne Horseface, Penelope Cruz, Jennifer Lawrence) and purple (Portman and the aforementioned ScarJo). Abandoned was the “green with envy” look that we saw at the Golden Globes.

J Hud looking fab.

 

 

 

Simple dress, perfect cut, great hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we noted last night, there was a serious lack of bling. Is it because of the economy? Are the stars not even allowed to borrow jewelry anymore?  LiLo ruins everything.

Finally, a word with all the hairstylists in Hollywood. With limited exception, the hair on the ladies looked like it had been through a hurricane. That is NOT CUTE. When wearing a formal gown before millions of people, looking like you just woke up after a rough night is not acceptable and yet, so many women were sporting that look. If they didn’t do the undone Bardot look, then the tight bun was the other option, a look which is very severe on most women.  Were they influenced by the ballerina chic in Black Swan? The boring hair and lack of baubles left us feeling more like the morning after than the main event.

 

"May I show you to your seat?"
Portman wearing port wine.
This hot bitch can do no wrong
This drew mixed reactions.
Speaking of hot bitches...
Love the dress, but Mandy Moore?
Camila Alves, best dressed and tressed.
Living well is the best revenge.
One word: Baywatch.
You cannot wear that bridesmaid's dress again.
Bellatrix is a character, not a lifestyle choice.
Patrick Bateman is less scary.
Okay, scarier than Patrick Bateman.
So over this look. Moving on...
When your stylist hates you (wedding dress #68).
Older Goop with Sleeves
Matching boob and hair parts? No.
No.
No.
Yes.

Stray Tracks of the Week (2/17-2/25/11)

*This post is also posted on The Pop Stalinist, my personal blog. There were a few reviews that didn’t make it over here this week.*

I listen to music constantly, and I’m constantly acquiring new things. So much, in fact, that serious evaluation on an album-by-album basis is impossible. To ensure my musical hoarding doesn’t amount to too much waste, I’ve elected to begin picking out choice tracks from my catch and reviewing them, here. I’m hoping to make this a weekly thing, every Thursday or Friday night, mods willin’.

This week was actually pretty light, with a lot of my listening time devoted to older Swans records and newer Angels of Light recordings, which I have dug up in light of an incredible show put on by the former that I attended in Denver this past week. These are musical supplements I’ve been taking. I put in entirely too much work last week resizing Youtube (and apparently it slows WordPress down) so I’m just linking to songs this time.

Antena – Camino del Sol (from Camino Del Sol on Le Disques du Crepsecule / Numero)

This is actually an old song, from a band I wasn’t even aware of until Numero re-released their 1982 Camino Del Solcompilation / mini-album on vinyl not too long ago. Antena was a French band originally signed to Le Disques du Crepsecule, a small Belgian indie that became notable for its close relationship with the Benelux subsidiary of Factory Records, who in large part birthed the “Madchester” scene from which Joy Division / New Order and many other notable post-punk bands emerged. Unfortunately for Antena, Manchester’s heat didn’t rub off on them (though Factory Benelux artists, such as A Certain Ratio, did meet with some success) and they and they became the sort of act that obscurity collectors raved about but few really remembered.

It’s somewhat sad to contemplate, given a track like “Camino Del Sol”. This is certainly a sort of pop music, albeit the sort of pop that goes ignored all too often. Antena’s stock-in-trade is tropicalia (or as Neil Tennant called it, “electro-samba”), which, as you might expect, translates into typically sunny moods, but Antena’s song (and most of the album from which it is culled) contains a remarkable melancholy largely attributable to Isabelle Powaga’s whisper-sung vocals and the (synth harpsichord?) chords that make up the melody, giving it an extra depth. In terms of production, it near-perfect, so good as to feel contemporary, with the electronic elements blending seamlessly in with the percussion and the vox. It feels like a lost classic, perfect for a warm Summer, or a Roger Moore Bond film. One wonders what more Antena would have produced had they received the attention they deserved.

“Camino Del Sol” on Youtube.

(Camino Del Sol is currently being sold in vinyl format on Boomkat, but if digital music is your thing I’ve only been able to find it on iTunes, which is weird!)

Hype Williams – Business Line (from One Nation, forthcoming on Hippos In Tanks)

I admit that I reacted poorly when “Witch House” became a thing. Beyond being unimpressed with Salem‘s inexplicably acclaimed minstrel act and wary of blog-defined microgenres (as opposed to, say, regionally defined ones), beyond the universally irritating use of wingdings in band names and cheaply acquired occult signifiers, as an industrial music fan I had a chip on my shoulder over Witch House’s debt to that venerable scene. Every booster of Witch House (some bloggers briefly tried to rebrand it as “Drag Music” when it was clear the “House” designation was an albatross) seemed to go on about how a given act (usually Salem) was creating totally unprecedented music – dark electronic music with a debt to hip hop. I felt this was clearly bullshit, and I was ready to write the whole thing off.

But as the bloom came off Witch House in the mainline indie press and the paremeters of the sound, which were always nebulous, started to expand beyond acts that had hit my shitlist almost immediately (Salem, Tri Angle records, and Creep, who will always and forever be that band who called their music “rapegaze”), it started to sound better. All it really needed was a de-emphasis of the Screw Musicinfluences and the tacky triangles-and-hoods bullshit. Hype Williams was more than willing to offer those things. It’s not entirely clear what their story is – it’s possible that they’re an anonymous collective, but the public face of the group, such as it is, is a duo, Inga Copeland and Dean Blunt, hailing from Russia and London respectively. Perhaps their distance from the States (and the general lack of hype from the usual blogroll suspects) made them better candidates to push Witch House forward, but whatever the case, their sound palette has proved quite diverse in the project’s short history.

“Businessline” is from their forthcoming LP debut on Hippos In Tanks, and what’s striking about it is how out-of-time it seems – It could certainly have come from the same 80?s VHS haze as “chillwave” did, but the winding synthline brings it forward to the 90?s as well, when Richard D. James was intermittently putting out demo-quality tracks that  brought a certain rough-hewn pop sensibility to IDM. It’s a short track, but its unmannered lightness stands in sharp contrast to the sort of contrived gloom that defined Witch House when it was born. If I had to wager I’d put money on Hype Williams being one of the few bands that survives and moves on when that house of cards collapses, assuming they’re anywhere near the premises when it happens.

“Businessline” on Youtube

(“One Nation” will be available from various retailers in just about a week’s time. In the meantime, you can download “Businessline” from XLR8R, for free.)

Solar Bears – Cub (Keep Shelly in Athens Remix) (Unreleased)

Solar Bears’ She Was Coloured In was one of my favorite LPs from last year (I think it ended up on #2 or #3 on my list) but “Cub” was probably the weakest track on the album. At first listen it sort of fits into the Geogaddi-era Boards of Canada sound that Solar Bears appeared to be tapping into when their music first hit the blogs. But on She Was Coloured In they showed a range of influences and capabilities beyond mere imitation of BoC (and there are far worse acts to hound). As it stood, “Cub” was an anemic sketch, really little more than a tasteful hippy guitar jam that goes nowhere over 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Worse than pastiche, it was bad pastiche.

Luckily for us, Keep Shelly In Athens (who I had never heard of before this) took to remixing duties on “Cub” and pushed the BoC era a bit forward, to The Campfire Headphase day, doubling the song’s length and adding all the dramatic bombast and sonic texture that the original lacked. I’d be remiss to say there wasn’t something a little bit off about the track – probably the fact that all the song’s emotion is front and center, on its sleeve, so to speak, and the meticulous production is sort of wasted on that bluntness. But it’s still head and shoulders above the original in terms of efficacy and quality.

“Cub (Keep Shelly In Athens Remix)” on Youtube.

(This remix isn’t on any official releases. XLR8R has it for free download, however, along with a surprising number of other Solar Bears tracks.)

 

Liveblogging the Academy Awards

Welcome to the liveblog of the 2011 Oscars award show! It’s Missing Peace, Dancing Queen, and 2/3 of Ms. Anthropy here with your Academy Awards coverage. While we are excited about the show and have been making  our picks for the winners all week, we have to admit that the red carpet is what we get most excited about.

This year, the Academy Awards will be co-hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway, or Francaway, as we’ve dubbed them.  We hope they re-enact this. Continue reading →