The current issue of The Magazine (pictured above), a bi-monthly glossy published by the Bangkok Post, contains a very brief item I wrote about Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. (You’ve heard me mention Wilco before, no doubt.) In each issue, various folks are asked to weigh in on their favorite album, book, or movie. The item […]
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So have you been listening to Wilco’s new album, Sky Blue Sky? Well, why not? Get on it.
I think it’s a remarkably coherent — if staid — effort. Just like everything the band produces, the album grows on you. Slowly.
I agree with Rob Sheffield, who says this in his Rolling Stone review:
Sky Blue Sky […]
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I recently stumbled across this remarkably complex Wikipedia entry for “backronym”:
A backronym or bacronym is a portmanteau of backward and acronym[1] coined in 1983.[2][3] It usually refers to a phrase that is constructed backwards from the phrase’s abbreviation, the abbreviation being an initialism or acronym. Sometimes backronym refers to the initialism or acronym itself,[4] but […]
I’ve got another post over at Gridskipper. The subject: rocker Pete Doherty’s recent shenanigans down in Phuket.
Reuters:
A court in Vietnam has upheld child molestation charges and a three-year jail sentence for former British rock star Gary Glitter, who had proclaimed his innocence and lodged an appeal.
Let’s see: Glitter’s had similar troubles in the UK, Cuba, and Cambodia. My guess: he’s certainly guilty, and the Vietnamese government is using him as an […]
I’ve got a story in today’s International Herald Tribune/Thai Day (Thai Day is a Siam-specific IHT section) — it’s a review of drumming legend Billy Cobham’s first-ever concert in Thailand. The story’s not (yet?) online, sadly. If you’re reading this from the Kingdom, pick up a copy of the paper; for those of you outside […]
Let your freak flags fly, is what I say. When in Bahrain, as the saying goes. Perhaps his burka was at the cleaner?
Some stuff of note:
– I’ve posted three new items over at Gridskipper of late.
– Here’s a license plate my brother Colin and I saw here in DC the weekend before X-mas. I wanna know who’s in charge of VA vanity plate obscenity screening. Someone is sleeping on the job. (Weird side note: a bumper sticker […]
The most recent Saturday Night Live was largely lame, but it did feature a fantastic Chronicles of Narnia rap video.
(Via BoingBoing.)
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WorldNetDaily:
WASHINGTON – Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-GA, has introduced a bill to provide for the “expeditious disclosure of records relevant to the life and death of Tupac Amaru Shakur,” the rapper murdered in Las Vegas in 1996.
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Because my earlier post about the red hot* Chinese lipsynching teenagers is inexplicably ranked second in Google for a “Back Dormitory Boys” search, I’ve seen an explosion of visitors today — over 1.000 2,100 (and rising) of you suckers esteemed readers have landed on newley.com.
So I figured, what the hell: here’s even more info […]
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This is too cool to possibly be true. Of course, “major stake” doesn’t necessarily mean “controlling stake.”
Jay-Z, Arsenal
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The Onion:
WILLIAMSBURG, VA—In an unprecedented effort to fight injustice, reggae music legend Bob Marley, dead since 1981, rose from his grave in Jamaica early Sunday to free his most devoted followers, American college fraternity members, “from the bonds of oppression.”
Marley’s recordings, which originally raised awareness of the Rastafarian faith and the plight of underprivileged Jamaicans […]
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I went to see Coldplay at Nissan Pavilion Friday night. Great show — I’m a Coldplay fan but I’m not a hard-core enthusiast; thus, I didn’t know what to expect from the evening. But it was really quite an amazing performance. The grand scale of it all reminded me a bit of seeing U2. And […]
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Here’s a delightful SF Chron article from Michael Wolgelenter about various strains of Western pop music — good and bad — he’s discovered in far-flung corners of the world.
I had a similar cross-cultural sonic experience last year in a town on the rural east coast of Taiwan. I was in a bar and listened in […]