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 (*****)
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. (****)
[The title above is from an old T.V. commercial for an American brand of tuna fish, Europeans and kiddies...}
Here is a list of somebody's underbid eBay items that is mindbogglingly brown and serene.
Where do they keep the dildoes and menthol cigarettes and Hostess-brand powdered sugar donettes and tiki skull cocktail glasses and silver platform shoes and Jack Daniels?
We of Wit wonder.
Nymphenburg
Treasure Box
1 flower (colored)
designer:
Franz Joseph Ess
design year:
1765
manufacturer:
Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg, Germany
materials:
Underglaze-painted, hand-sculpted porcelain flowers with wooden presentation boxes
notes:
Each flower, being completely hand made and hand painted, is unique.
Created by Ess as part of a grand table decoration for the Munich residence of the Bavarian monarch (Nymphenburg was the summer palace), these "fantasy flowers" are from the imagination of the Nymphenburg craftsmen who model each flower by hand.
price:
$550.00
Link: moss > THE DAILY NEW.
A sexy item indeed--the materials are so witty and odd, and we find it so pleasing that you can see through to the normally hidden noisemaker. It's a nice bell to aid Wit in sounding the cultural alarm!
Campane di Campana
Bell 1956 (edition of 20)
designer: Fernando and Humberto Campana
design year: 2005
manufacturer: Venini, Italy
materials: mouth-blown glass
notes: The "Campane di Campana" edition is produced freely by the Venini glass Maestro at the furnace. Even though each piece in an edition has the same composition, they may vary slightly in size and shape.
dimensions: 4" diameter10" to 28" high
price: $1,900.00
Link: moss > THE DAILY NEW.
“I think the monkeys at the zoo should have to wear sunglasses so they can't hypnotize you.” --Jack Handy
Every pair of foxy sunglasses in this Vogue slide show fills Wit with a summer kind of greed.
Link: Anatomy of a Classic: Sunglasses: Fashion News & Trends on Style.com.
Punk rock bracelets and other handsome accessories.
Link: Must-Have Items on Style.com.
Golden slide show below, and you know all these consumer goods fill we of Wit with senseless greed. Like that guy that turned into the Golem, we wants it....
Citizen:Citizen
Goldpills by Ju$t Another Rich Kid and Tobias Wong
Price: $275 for three
Available at www.citizen-citizen.com.
Link: Must-Have Items on Style.com.
Link: Bathroom Graffiti - - SECHE CHEVEUX PISTOLET.
Via: Spray Glue.
Porcelain cake dish with lid, peace sign flashing hand knob and peace sign relief decoration.
price
€ 515.00
size
height 8.66 inch, diameter 9.84 inch
Link: Royal Tichelaar Makkum.
What a chic little cabinet of chocolate sweets, a treat which a French cleric condemned as "the damnable agent of necromancers and sorcerers. It is well to abstain from chocolate in order to avoid the familiarity and company of a nation so suspected of sorcery--Spain."
"April's festivities mean there are temptations everywhere—Marshmallow Peeps at the checkout counter and jelly beans on your co-workers' desks. This year, skip the kid stuff, and instead hunt down confections from Vienna's legendary Altmann & Kühne. Each gorgeous case is papered in traditional Wiener Werkstätte designs sophisticated enough to perch on your vanity table once the box is empty. But the real artistry is inside—the dainty handmade chocolates, marzipans, and nougats are almost too pretty to eat. Sure beats a straw basket and plastic grass..."
Link: MIRALB.com l Boutique de chocolat.
Longer text bloc on bottom borrowed from Vogue's Style.com
Love this shit. We want a pot leaf and pentagrams one for the bed where Wit and Mr. Wit make the rock and roll beast with two backs....
Link: QUILTSRŸCHE : Evil Rock Quilts by Boo Davis. via.
We at Wit already have the marijuana perfume: The Wit of the Staircase: You're Gonna Wanna Sit With The Bad Kids In The Back.
