sarahndipity
It is so fortunate that Palin’s mortifying performance at off-the-cuff TV interviews coincides with McCain’s waffling on the scheduled debate.
Hopefully, this is the point at which this outrageous vice-presidential nomination will swing voters to the Obama side. What was McCain’s point in nominating her again: “Look look, America, I found you someone, and a woman no less, who makes Dubya look wise…”?
I’m breathing just a bit easy about the outcome of the election now compared to then. However, I have to remind myself, there’s still time for the votes to be cast. And, bewilderingly enough, there’s still folks out there who think this way…
(Comment on CBS News Video of Sarah Palin being interviewed by Katie Couric)
“So Palin’s not that great on answering questions that she’s been getting crash courses on over the last few weeks. She can’t communicate very well off the cuff. She looks stupid trying to defend her forgein policy when she doesn’t have any. I really don’t care. What I do care about is her record as a succesful governor who faced down corruption, made tough decisions, demonstrated good judgement with the information the experts around her presented her with and maintained the highest approval raiting for any governor in the state. Apparently she has a decent grasp on how to govern and serve the people. Something Obama only wishes he had. Oh wait, he’s running against McCain. Woops, two people with more credentials then he has. Didn’t see that one coming.”
I’m not superstitious but my fingers are Xed for the debates.
brand: dubai
Caught the recently released Will Smith movie Hancock the other day. In a scene, one of the main characters refers to the top 5 cities of the world – London, Paris, New York, Hongkong, and Dubai. I mentioned the slightly surprising fact – that Dubai was so solidly on that list already – to a couple of people in the media biz.
They had similar responses: “It might well be product placement!” Now product placement I understand – like how the judges of American Idol slug down massive Coca Colas and not Pepsis or how Sarah Jessica Parker has a Mac and not a PC on Sex & the City. But city placement as well? Wow.
Apparently, there’s a media operation called ‘in-programming’ whereby moviemakers solicit those who would like a snatch of good publicity. Once the appropriate dollar amount is determined, a contract is signed, and the ‘product’ in question is woven seamlessly in to the plot. Unbelievable! (Even to an advertising person, somehow.)
beware
In an unmissable TED talk lasting just 4 minutes, Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, tells us how the US media tells the news. Her message – no matter how amusingly delivered – is disturbing, especially considering how journalism is one of THE most influential and important ways in which world-views are shaped. Yet another question that springs to mind: is it time the world reevaluated its misguided enchantment with Americanism or not?
sellebrity
Watch British commercial artist, Alison Jackson, make a wry statement on our morbid curiosity about celebrities.
HS, LS, and oh yeah, MS
Okay, so I seem to be whining exclusively about women today. But how can I help it! See I heard Archana Puran Singh on the radio. She is a sassy actress and comedienne who delivers – in her upbeat Hinglish sort of style – Indian celebrity news. And as she does so, she classifies actors and their acts, whether on stage or off, as “HS”, “LS”, or “MS”. If it has you scratching your head, that’s high society, low society, and you got it, middle society.
Believe it or not, her audience laps it up! India has historically been a country of much hierarchy – from the caste system, to the imperialism imbibed from the British, to the recent-haves and always-hads created by the more recent economic boom. Which is precisely why I find Archana’s system of stratifying Bollywood gossip to be irresponsible. I’m very tempted to label her deejaying as deeply LS, but I’ll settle instead for HI. As in, highly ignorant.
go west?
There’s a fat blanket of smog hanging over rapidly industrializing India, absorbing sunlight that would otherwise filter on to the subcontinent. This is according to a study recently published in the New Scientist and it’s not surprising.
“It turns out that smog produced by US and Europe until about 1980 had resulted in similar dimming across the world. But when the West cleaned up its act in the 1980s and 1990s – just as India and China were starting to spew – clearer skies returned across much of the world.“
Clearly, it’s important for India to learn from the cycles that more developed parts of the world have gone through already.
But think of the blind acceptance of Western consumerism that we are seeing in India today. An ad for Zeiss opticals – now available in India – shows a girl in an office expressing condescension towards a coworker for wearing glasses with no brand name. The tagline is “Brand nahi to style/naam nahi” or something like it. Basically, it signals that without brands to show off with, a person can make no impact. How tasteless and how untrue!
India, beware. The unthinking brand of capitalism the West embraces just isn’t cutting it anymore and the sociopolitical state of America is good evidence. We don’t have to go stir crazy on brands in India to realize that rampant consumerism - just like the grey smog that now envelops us - is damaging. Indians need to be wary of the retail therapy trap.
(Of course brands – and the businesses they represent - need to start being more responsible with their messaging too but that’s a story from another day.)
A recent article by Francois Gautier captures well some of my sentiment. I’m not sure that spirituality is the answer to India’s problems. But sitting up and taking a look at the West more objectively is certainly in order.
“Today, there is a sense of deep satisfaction, of gloating even, in India. The economy is booming, there are more and more cars on the roads, shares are soaring, a plane is taking off every six seconds, hotels are full, shops do roaring business… But if one looks closer at what is happening here… India is veering blindly, without restraint, towards total globalisation and Westernisation… Yes, there are great values in the Western world: Freedom, democracy, equality (not always though), respect for the environment, less corruption. And India must, and has already borrowed from these qualities. But… it seems the Indian political and intellectual mind is pushing these qualities to an illogical extreme, as if it wants to prove to the West that ‘we are as democratic, as liberal, as free as you are’… India must achieve its liberalisation and industrialisation, by taking the best of the West, but preserving what is good, pure, wise in her own culture.”
i love KGSR
samson came to my bed
told me that my hair was red
told me i was beautiful
came in to my bed
i cut his hair myself one night
a bad dull scissors and the yellow light
he told me that i’d done all right
and kissed me till the morning light
the morning light
the morning light
samson went back to bed
not much hair left on his head
he ate a slice of wonderbread
and went right back to bed
we couldn’t break the columns down
no we couldn’t destroy a single one
and the history books forgot about us
and the bible didn’t mention us
not even once
That’s a snip of the evocative Samson by Regina Spector.
I came by the song after first hearing the more catchy Fidelity on the radio. Regina’s music has an honest and quirky quality that is hard to shake off. Add to that the fact that she is supremely versatile without compromising the narrative ability that makes her unique. Born in 1980 to a Jewish family in Russia that immigrated to America in the early 90s, she was at first a classical musician.
She later became inspired by singer songwriters like Ani Difranco and Tori Amos and has been writing original eclectic music for a while now. From what I have heard, she improvises immensely using unusual musical techniques – both vocally and instrumentally. I don’t adore the typically high pitch of her voice, but her music has soul. Her artistic vision shines through in her videos as well and I wish upon her beautiful music much popularity.
The richness that a touch of folk provides to ‘popular’ music is undeniable. This is Us (the original recording is way better than this live version though) by Mark Knopfler and Emmy Lou Harris is a testament to it; Knopfler underplays to Harris, no doubt, but it makes the song sweet. Think of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ huge career and the same thing goes.
Austin’s FM 107.1 KGSR gives airtime to people like Regina, a countrified Knopfler, and the inimitable Petty. There’s other new stuff from Dylan, Clapton, Springsteen, David Byrne, Bob Schneider, Jon Dee Graham (a little-known master of ‘roots rock’), Bettye Lavette (an old-time blues singer with an amazing voice), Kelly Willis, The Subdudes, Sinead O’Connor, Ben Harper – a slew of great musicians on the playlist.
And once in a while, just for the fun of it, they’ll throw in this great little number from Warren Zevon! Listen to KGSR live here.
you see what i see
Derren Brown is devoutly skeptical of the paranormal. Like him, most ‘psychics’ seem to use a combination of observation, suggestion, psychology, misdirection, and showmanship in order to ’see’ things. But unlike most who have his skills, he is an entertainer. Here is a video on how he uses subtle cues to generate powerful suggestion – to the point that it’s almost persuasion. Amazing!
Yet, this fall, America’s #1 psychic will be crowned on reality TV. 16 ’seers’ will compete in several rounds of competition on a Lifetime show called ‘America’s Psychic Challenge’. In one challenge, psychics match pet-owners to their pooches. In another, the psychics recreate a scene of a violent crime years later. So on. Previews feature all the blurry sepia shots and eerie music one might expect, and it is being advertised on all major networks.
I can’t help but wonder how progressive or responsible of the media it is to give ‘psychics’ any legitimacy whatsoever. Did someone mention a “bottom line”? Of course.
