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Worthy of Mention

  • Spoon -

    Spoon: Girls Can Tell
    This is a great, understated album that merits repeated plays. Spoon have made a literate, rocking, breakthrough record that occupies a funny place--the songs are not unconventional, per se, yet they're somehow really special. Girls Can Tell displays the emotional resonance and big rock power of, say, Thin Lizzy and Mott the Hoople; the sonically referential, indie-rock smarts of a band like Versus; and amazing hooks that recall Colin Blunstone of the Zombies. Like Jennyanykind, Moviola, and the Lilys, this Austin, Texas, trio has chosen to work on perfecting their craft without paying much heed to mainstream or trends. In spite of (but mostly because of) wrenching breakup-centered lyrical material delivered in a very real, matter-of-fact way, Girls Can Tell is one of those life-affirming pop albums you know you'll return to in years to come. --Mike McGonigal (*****)

Books

  • Michael Hardt: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

    Michael Hardt: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire
    Empire (2000)—the surprise hit that made its term for U.S global hegemony stick and presciently set the agenda for post–9/11 political theory on the left—was written by this same somewhat unlikely duo: Hardt, an American political scientist at Duke University, and Negri, a former Italian parliament member and political exile, trained political scientist and sometime inmate of Rome's Rebibbia prison. This book follows up on Empire's promise of imagining a full-blown global democracy. Though the authors admit that they can't provide the final means for bringing that entity about (or the forms for maintaining it), the book is rich in ideas and agitational ends. The "multitude" is Hardt and Negri's term for the earth's six billion increasingly networked citizens, an enormous potential force for "the destruction of sovereignty in favor of democracy." The middle section on the nature of that multitude is bookended by two others. The first describes the situation in which the multitude finds itself: "permanent war." The last grounds demands for and historical precursors of global democracy. Written for activists to provide a solid goal (with digressions into history and theory) toward which protest actions might move, this timely book brings together myriad loose strands of far left thinking with clarity, measured reasoning and humor, major accomplishments in and of themselves. (****)

Recommended Elswhere On The Web

Monday, April 02, 2007

Go, Fuckers!

Mc5live1Very lively and loose color video of The MC5's "Kick Out The Jams."

Link: YouTube - mc5 - kick out the jams.

Monday, April 02, 2007 in Design, Music | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, October 30, 2006

Film Title Design Gets (C)Hip

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"The recent film projects of Chip Kidd and Peter Miles stem both from their personal rapport with the directors, and from the producers' recognition of the need to try new approaches when marketing to niche audiences. "Tropical Malady", film poster by M/M (Paris)."

Link: Slide show: New graphics in film - style - International Herald Tribune.

Above, still from Chip Kidd's titles for director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady.

Monday, October 30, 2006 in Design | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, September 25, 2006

Singin' In The Rain: Magistretti, The Umbrella, And The Almighty

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From an interview with Vico Magistretti, the architect and industrial designer who died this week at 85.

"If you were asked to tell which object embodies your creed in design, what would you like to have designed?

I'd answer "The umbrella". I think whoever invented the umbrella was quite remarkable. And just think, at the time the Church prohibited covering your head because this prevented the Almighty from sending down the rain and wetting people.

Why the umbrella?

Because of the simplicity of the umbrella, the nothingness of the umbrella, the tension of the umbrella, which make it the object I'd have liked to design most of all. Instead, I ended up designing this silly lamp, Eclisse, which still keeps going, because it has left its mark on a few generations, in some cases by burning their fingers. This is a real satisfaction, it gives you the sense of the object produced, because evidently it responded to some need that had nothing stylistic about it."

Link: De Padova - People - Designer - Vico Magistretti - Interviews.

via.

Monday, September 25, 2006 in Design | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)