End of January Tiny Link Round-Up

"It’s like my parents always told me: the internet should only be considered a trusted authority with regard to matters of grotesque pornography." --James Green Pea-ness

All your bass are belong to me.

I read Steve Martin's autobiography Born Standing Up earlier this month, and this excerpt quoted today on BoingBoing was probably my single favorite page in the entire book. As many of you know, I love to read/listen to comedians talking about craft, and those few paragraphs pretty much instantly helped me get a little more the appeal of Martin's stand-up, which had always left me a bit "wha--?" (In honor of comedy analysis, I will direct your attention to the "p-shaped pie" exchange in Picasso at the Lapin Agile. I couldn't figure out how to link directly to the monologue in question, but you can either search on "p-shaped pie" or scroll forward to page 45.)

All Quick-Like

Yes, I discovered this outside my apartment building as I was on my way to work earlier this week. It gave me quite a shock--the kind of shock that can only truly be registered with the immediate involvement of my cameraphone. It's going to be a nutty year, kittens!

RIP, Bobby Fischer, you crazy-ass bastard.

"Musical theater just somehow got a whole lot gayer!"

"Unless he's using 'ironic' ironically, which is so meta it just blew the trucker cap off my mustache."

Top Ten Best Ever (via)

Eat shit and die, Doomsday. The RTA funding (fucking finally) went through.

In other local news, apparently it was first revealed way back in the fall, but I finally just saw the revised Chicago 2016 logo on the wilds of the city streets while I was out and about a few days ago. I think it's quite nice and worth noting.

Did you all watch the Tom Cruise video this week (via)? It's creepy, sure, but hardly unexpected. Gawker rightly points out that he's speechifying with "all the wide-eyed fervor that he brings to the promotion of a movie," but, rather than providing that "aha!" moment for me, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt the depth and vigor of his commitment to Scientology, it actually unseats it all a little bit for me. All his vague, repetitious rhetoric about helping people and "doing more" doesn't really sound devout, it sounds hollow, like he's giving the Scientologists the sound bites they want, the same way he'd give entertainment journo-parasites a few easily quotable words about how great it was to work with a certain director or actor. Obviously, this is all just performance, that's no shock. But, it makes me more curious about what it is in him (or perhaps isn't in him, alternately) that makes it so easy for him to hire his still considerable charisma out to these shadowy, monolithic entities. Is it something as predictable as the daddy issues that get rehashed in the controversial-to-exactly-no-one unauthorized biography that just came out? Is it just one more example of his shrewd business acumen, knowing how to hitch himself to the rocket power of the highest bidder? But, if that's the case, Hollywood is understandable, but why Scientology? Anyway. These are all ponderables to be pondered.

Baby Teeth!!!!!! In my brain, they're now having a sexy musical cage match with Bound Stems for the honor of being my fave-rave local band.

Cold?

Then keep yourself warm with some of these essays; jane dark's sugarhigh! has been particularly en fuego of late.

· On Britney

· On Hannah Montana and Taylor Swift

· On Gossip Girl

Hey! I Only Posted Twice Previously in November!

Here's a bunch of stuff, mostly from Pitchfork, I've found interesting, amusing, and diverting lately.

"But, I think that there's this middle that I'm pushing with this record. Because, as I said earlier, it's endings and beginnings, you know, those are the addictions. That's all that people can see or hear or want to read about or see in films. And the middle is where the responsibility lies." --Kevin Drew

A Stephen Malkmus double-dactyl:

Heaven Is a Jick

Chanted-in, slanted-in
Malkmus the Pavorite:
Beautiful spokestud for
Slackers and 'tards.

Lucky for him I'm so
Heteronormative;
Mystery rendezvous
Out of the cards.

Amanda Petrusich is seemingly unstoppable. First these wonderful, excellent, smart interviews with Lou Reed and PJ Harvey, and now this lovely, quiet, thoughtful post for Powell's on Joan Didion and the myth of California (via).

Want.

Here's a video of Peter Moren (of Peter Bjorn and John) and Carl Newman covering the Association's "Never My Love" at some dude's wedding. It's very ad hoc, but I could listen to cover versions of this song for days on end.