Indie Rock Covers and the Demise of Deadwood

It's been a great week so far for indie rock covers. Early this week we were treated to the Streets' awesomely earnest take on Elton John's "Your Song" (that totally crap-ass plastic beat that comes in at 1:52 just destroys me; I love it). And then yesterday saw the posting of Stereogum's follow-up to their tribute to OK Computer with a tribute to Automatic for the People. After a very cursory listen, I'm digging Rogue Wave's inventive cover of "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight," the Meat Puppets' brilliant taking-the-piss version of "Everybody Hurts" (think more the scene from Felicity when Noel is singing it while laying in the dark on the couch after he and Felicity don't have sex, and less its iconic use in My So-Called Life), and Sara Quin's (of Tegan & Sara) duet with Kaki King on "Sweetness Follows." Be sure to check out Matthew Fluxblog's contextualizing essay as well.

A good week for indie rockers is a bad week for TV watchers, unfortunately. Kottke brings us news that Deadwood won't, in fact, culminate with the two two-hour movies that were promised to substitute for a fourth season. Boo! This news is especially bittersweet for LK and myself who are currently making our way through the third season on DVD. I literally can't help myself from shrieking with delight at the end of each episode, no matter how emotionally gut-wrenching; it's just that fucking good, cocksuckers.

The Onion AV Club lists 24 Great Films Too Painful to Watch Twice. It's a fairly decent list, and one to which I would enthusiastically add Miguel Arteta's Chuck and Buck. It's not as graphically violent or disturbing as Irreversible or Requiem for a Dream, but the emotions are so complicated and awkward and trenchant, I don't think I could bring myself to watch it again even five years after I first saw it.

Extremely interesting interview with David Allen, author of the omnipresent (at least by intarweb standards) Getting Things Done, wherein it is revealed that the creator of a productivity system that inspires such cult-like devotion...is actually a member of a cult himself!

As many of you know, I'm a psycho super-fan of Adam Gopnik and I've previously quoted reverently from "Death of a Fish," the first of his New Yorker essays I ever read. I remember searching for the piece online so I could link directly to the full text, but couldn't find it anywhere at the time. I was pleasantly surprised to discover yesterday, though, completely accidentally, that The Observer ran the same essay, in its entirety, two years ago under a different title, "Pet theories." Read and enjoy, my kittens! Now if I can just find a digital copy of "The Last of the Metrozoids," I won't have to keep photocopying it out of Through the Children's Gate every time I want to turn somebody on to his stuff.

(Incidentally, this is apparently my 400th post on Blogger. I don't really put much stock in milestones of this nature, but...damn. Thanks, as always, for sticking around, my bebes.)