• Alec Soth’s blog:
    1) In 2004 I applied to Magnum. The night before the members voted on my application I attended a Magnum party in New York. The room was packed with great photographers from around the world. I was intimidated. One photographer approached me and said, “I just want to tell you that I don’t like your pictures and I’m not voting for you.” Scrambling for the door, I was stopped by Alex Majoli. Majoli is tall (I’m guessing 6’5”), Italian, and looks the way a photographer should look. I prepared myself for another lashing. Instead, he grabbed my face in his enormous hand and said “Good pictures, good pictures.”

    Here.



  • Ted’s Myspace blog:

    I am so lost I almost buy Gene Loves Jezebel but I get distracted in the nick of time as Trent rounds the aisle and announces, I’m buying this!

    He hands me a cassette with artwork so lame I have to chuckle.

    Voivod’s Dimension Hatross.

    Here.


    in

  • New Yorker:

    When Adelman went to see Rumsfeld in his office, he knew that Rumsfeld wanted him out. “He said, ‘Ken, you’ve been my friend for most of my adult life,’ and he said that I was going to be his friend for the rest of his life,” Adelman recalled. “Then he said, ‘It might be best if you got off the Defense Policy Board.’ I said, ‘It won’t be best for me. If you want me off, it’s not a problem, but if it’s up to me I’ll stay on.’ He wanted me to resign. He didn’t want to do it himself. And so we did that little dance.”
    Adelman went on, “Rumsfeld said, ‘You’ve become disruptive and negative.’ Well, I got a little flustered and said, ‘That’s bullshit about being disruptive. Negative, you’ve got right.’ He responded by saying, ‘Well, you interrupt people in the meetings.’ And I said, ‘You know where I learned that from? I learned that from the master.’ ” Rumsfeld laughed, Adelman said.
    “I had the floor then, and I started by saying what a positive influence he had been in my life, that I love him like a brother. He nodded, kind of sadly. And then I said, ‘I’m negative about two things: the deflection of responsibility, and the quality of decisions.’ He said he took responsibility all the time. Then I talked about two decisions: the way he handled the looting, and Abu Ghraib. He told me that he didn’t remember saying, ‘Stuff happens.’ He was really in denial that this was his fault.” Adelman said that it struck him then that “maybe he really thinks that things are going well in Iraq.”

    Here.


    in

  • NYT Magazine:

    Christopher Guest’s latest film, “For Your Consideration,” a scathing sendup of award-season hype that opens on Friday, employs his usual repertory of actors — McKean, Shearer, Eugene Levy (who has co-written most of Guest’s films), Parker Posey, Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara, among them. Guest’s movies take months to write, as he and Levy painstakingly develop characters and plot. In “Consideration,” the unlikely Oscar candidate is the independent film “Home for Purim,” a hokey melodrama about a Southern-Jewish family in the 1940s and a dying mother’s reconciliation with her lesbian daughter. Guest and Levy conceived the film-within-the-film to be written by two self-important hacks (played by McKean and Bob Balaban), community-college professors whose pretensions and limitations were explored so completely that Guest and Levy even wrote the titles for 27 of the fictional duo’s plays. As in all Guest films, the parts were created with each actor in mind. When the outlines were finished, the actors offered input into their characters’ costumes, cars, even the set designs for their homes. Then they improvised their dialogue.

    “By that point, Gene and I have written hundreds of cards delineating what happens in every scene,” Guest told me. “We have no rehearsal, just turn on the camera and people start talking.” (In the new film, the “Home for Purim” scenes are scripted).
    Here.


    in

  • Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids:

    Titi Ebenezer-Fola
    What did you say? Ah, that will not be my portion in Jesus name. I reject it! I would not marry such a man in Jesus name. Any man that has VD, it means he has been patronizing prostitutes. God forbid bad thing. The God I serve will never allow my man to contract veneral disease. My husband and I will forever be covered by the blood of Jesus.

    Here.


    in

  • NYT:

    On Sunday, violence erupted between the gangs fighting for control of this impoverished turf. One gang is the Mungiki, a secretive, quasi-religious sect whose members cut out their enemies’ navels and worship a leader who says he came from a ball of shining stars. The other is a band of vigilantes who call themselves the Taliban, even though they are Christian and have nothing to do with the original Taliban group that imposed a harsh brand of Islam in Afghanistan.

    “They just wanted a name that sounded tough,” said George Wambugu, a youth counselor for a soccer league in Mathare. The Mungiki and the Taliban have clashed before, but not like this. According to residents, the Mungiki tried to impose a higher tax on brewers of chang’aa, an outlawed homemade liquor with a kick stronger than that of vodka.

    The brewers resisted and enlisted the help of the Taliban to fight back. That led to a cycle of street rumbles, shanty burnings and reprisal killings. Most victims were hacked to death with machetes, though some apparently were shot.

    Here.


    in

  • SFGate Daily Dish:

    Federline had been plugging his debut album, Playing with Fire, on the show, which entered the Billboard 200 chart at a lowly 151 and has sold less than 7,000 copies.

    Federline is also enjoying his new single status, declaring to his female fans he was “a free man” at Chicago’s House of Blues Wednesday night.

    On stage, Federline said, “Hey, I see a lot of fine ladies in here. You know I’m a free man, right, ladies? You wanna dance with a pimp?”

    Following his performance, Federline partied at nightspot Cabaret, where he danced to his own album in the club’s VIP section.

    Here.


    in

  • NYT:

    Unsettling and often quite absurd, his labor of love, almost 10 years in the making, is predominantly inhabited by people with Down syndrome, whose dialogue is often indecipherable. There is also a person with cerebral palsy; three naked women with monkey faces (played by pornographic-film stars); a menacing Shirley Temple doll; Mr. Glover himself, as the apparent ruler of an underworld freak show; numerous snails; and a man in blackface who injects the snails’ slime in hopes of becoming one. What is it indeed.

    Here.


    in

  • NYT:

    The new film “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus” is a fantasy of a different order. Its marble-white Venus is Nicole Kidman, who here wears a conceit rather than a sable. The film’s core idea is that Diane Arbus, who trained her photographic gaze on nudists, twins, grimacing children and the retarded, liberated her muse by coaxing out her inner freak. The film conjures a conduit to her liberation in the furry form of Lionel, a neighbor played by Robert Downey Jr. The actor’s involvement is something you need to take on faith, since he spends most of the film covered in fur, a costume that suggests the bewitched prince in Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” and makes Mr. Downey look like an immaculately groomed Shih Tzu.

    “Fur” is a folly, though not a dishonorable one. It was directed by Steven Shainberg, whose last feature, “Secretary,” was a tender love story about a shy masochist and the boss who spanks his way into her heart. The film was funny and modest, and it treated the putative perversions of its characters with the kind of good, gracious humor that insists on respect for everyone involved. “Fur” is a more ambitious work, in part because of Ms. Kidman, whose talent cannot obscure that she has been grievously miscast and left to indulge her mannered coyness.
    Here.


    in

  • WFMU’s Beware the Blog:

    When I was in college, a friend gave me a cassette containing the frustrated rantings of a guy named Bruce.   Bruce is a dad from suburban Jersey.  He tries to fix things around the house, like the family piano.  He does his own taxes.  And he uses very colorful language, some of which was caught on tape by his son.

    Here.


    in

  • Texas Polygamy blog:

    I moved to CC after our house got built in 1999. I was working for Guy Allred at Allco because I had just had back surgery and I was not able to do construction with my brothers at the time. Anyway, the lifestyle down there was totally different than what I was used to in Salt Lake. I had never talked to a girl before, and when Ruby started flirting and paying attention to me, I thought it was pretty cool. So I sent it right back, never dreaming of what I was getting myself into. We just flirted for a little while, and then she started calling me. I thought that was even cooler although I was pretty scared that I would get in trouble. You have to realize that I had been taught all my life that even to talk to a girl was a huge sin. I really was scared. Anyway, it progressed to where I snuck out one night and went and met her. We talked and, yes I kissed her. It was almost intoxicating. I had never felt anything like it in my life. But at the same time, my guilt was killing me. Then someone told me that they were monitoring the phone calls that the girls were making from their rooms. That really got me scared, so I went to Uncle Warren and told him what was going on. He asked me if I had told her I loved her or touched her or kissed her. I told him no. So he cussed me out and told me if I wasn’t careful then he was going to kick me out of Priesthood meeting.

    Here.


    in

  • The Moscow Times:

    The distributor, 20th Century Fox in Russia, can appeal the agency’s decision in court, Vasyuchkov said, adding that he had never heard of a non-pornographic movie being banned. Hundreds of hard-core pornographic movies are currently licensed by the agency for distribution.

    “We got the news today,” said Nikolai Vorunkov, deputy general director of Gemini Marketing, the movie’s distributor in Russia and a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. Vorunkov said he remained hopeful that a solution could be found.

    “There was some kind of explanation that the movie might create tension between races and nationalities because of its far-from-simple humor,” said Vorunkov, adding that the movie was now unlikely to open before the New Year — if ever.

    The film can be downloaded illegally on the Internet, however.

    Here.


    in

  • The Onion:

    WASHINGTON, DC—After nearly six years of much-publicized service as Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld announced his resignation Wednesday afternoon, saying that he had “proudly accomplished everything [he’d] set out to bungle.” “Years ago, I decided to bog this great nation down in an extended, grueling foreign occupation, and I’m happy to say that’s exactly what I’ve done,” said Rumsfeld in a farewell address at the White House, during which he urged Americans to continue waging the ill-conceived, mismanaged, and evidently unwelcome fight for democracy in the Middle East. “Each of my actions—from undersupplying troops with body armor to focusing on capturing Saddam Hussein while Osama bin Laden remained free—has led America inexorably toward our current state of extreme crisis. Well, anyway, goodbye!” President Bush expressed confidence that Robert Gates, his new nominee for Secretary of Defense, will be able to “f*ck everything up the rest of the way.”

    Here.


    in

  • Boing Boing:

    ARTY, SHOW AND SPECTACLE: Due to the “illegal” nature of Pranks, key speakers from the Billboard Liberation Front, etc, may be in disguise! Ex-hacker Marc Powell, Babalou and Karen Marcelo from SRL, Cacophony Society’s Chris Radcliffe, and Prankster-Godfather MAL SHARPE will show their real faces (we think). Rare and inspiring pranks video clips will be narrated live, and questions from the audience will be taken. Cyclecide will bring a demo-cycle. Event is still being planned; other guests/events TBA.

    Videos will include Mal Sharpe’s new prank DVD release (excerpt), a special Billboard Liberation Front clip, Jihad Jerry and the Evildoers’ “Army Girls Gone Wild,” Reverend Al’s “Art of Bleeding Safety Film,” and excerpts from Ron English’s “Popaganda,” the wild & crazy “Yes Men” Film, the Cyclecide film, and Scott Beale’s “You’d Better Watch Out” documenting the Cacophony Society’s wild “Santarchy” escapade in Portland. (For the past ten years, groups of folks dressed up as Santa Claus have invaded department stores, hotel parties and other events, causing ideological havoc and consumer confusion–anarchic fun! Over the years, the Santas have spread to major cities over the planet.)

    Here.


    in

  • RetroBlast! Retrogaming News:

    Having recognized the success of Namco Networks in the mobile content arena, Aruze, the license holder for Mr. Do!, Mr. Do’s Castle and other titles originally published by Universal, selected Namco Networks to localize mobile game titles for the North American market.

    “Partnering with Aruze further expands our popular catalog of arcade classics, meeting the ever-increasing consumer demand for fun, casual content,” said Kenji Hisatsune, president and CEO of Namco Networks. “Mr. Do! and other Aruze games were very popular in the 80s arcades and we believe this popularity will continue on the mobile platform.”

    Here.


    in

  • Featuring Yana Payusova, Andrew Faulkner, Ken Davidson, Ashley Franscell, Aldo Martinez, Gerry Melendez, Cristie Dunavan, Scott Bort, Rick Egan

    Check it out here.


    in

  • Susan Bowen Photography:

    I use a $20 plastic camera called the Holga. The long overlapping images are created by only partially advancing the film between exposures – the overlapping occurs in the film itself. It delights me how well these mostly unplanned juxtapositions capture my experience of a particular time and place and at the same time have an identity all their own.
    Here.


    in

  • New Yorker:

    The photographer Samantha Appleton talks to Matt Dellinger about making pictures in Nigeria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

    Here.


    in

  • NYT:

    Some of the snubs are blunt. “Everyone gets their due,” a former client writes of an embezzling accountant. Or, “I sincerely hope the Lord has more mercy on him than he had on me during my years reporting to him at the Welfare Department.”

    Others are subtler: “She never took the time to meet me, but I understand she was a wonderful grandmother to her other grandchildren.”

    “Reading the obit, he sounds like he was a great father,” says another, which is signed, “His son Peter.”

    Hayes Ferguson, the company’s chief operating officer, said, “Most often it’s cases of Sue posting that he was the love of my life and then we check and the wife’s name is Mary.” The company said none of these snubs made it online.

    Here.


    in

  • LA Weekly:

    At some point, I noticed a row of photo albums haphazardly stacked against the wall, and I began to look through them. What I found were thousands of images composing a visual history of West Coast punk culture, starting with Jennifer Finch’s teenage Hollywood years and proceeding through her time in Seattle for the birth of grunge, and then on tour with L7 for Lollapalooza and later on several Warped Tours with both L7 and the Shocker.

    But what captured my attention beyond all the history and rock stars were her earlier pictures, from our teen years in the Los Angeles punk scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s. There was admittedly a wave of bittersweet nostalgia, seeing so many old friends looking young and unscathed, if not particularly innocent. But when I managed to step back, what resonated far more was the undeniably troubled quality of the subjects in her images. I had seen the energy and defiance captured by other photographers, but while many have been able to render the rebelliousness, none seemed to grasp the underlying discontent like Finch. And the truth is, as provocative and exciting as those years were, what attracted such a disparate cross section of kids to both the music and one another was that, more than anything, the scene gave purpose to the pain. Perhaps because Finch was a part of it, one of us, it’s there on display in her photos — the uncertainty, deep friendships, youthful sexuality and eyes-closed comfort of the heroin that would eventually destroy the scene and so many of us.

    Here.


    in