Purple prose

As mentioned earlier, Prince is performing at the Super Bowl this year, and I am SO psyched. I know it'll be great no matter what songs he decides to play, but in my wicked little heart I like to think of all the songs he's got that would make the Janet Jackson incident look like a glimpse of ankle. Here are nine naughty songs I know we won't hear this weekend...

more in the complete post, with downloads!



Erotic City His best B-side ever. I remember hearing this on the radio, actually, because some DJs insisted he was saying "funk." Heh heh... no.

Loose!

Bob George This was an unusually dark song for Prince, and may be one reason he deep-sixed The Black Album.

Housequake This James-Brown-ish song is the mildest of the bunch.

Let's Pretend We're Married

P. Control (remix) Those who think female empowerment can't be funny (or funky) will be the ones most shocked by this, I think.

Vibrator Another really funny song, this one is sung by Vanity because it was recorded for the first Vanity 6 album, but then went unreleased.

Sister

Sexy MF Another James Brown homage, with an f-bomb built right into the chorus.

The download links will be good thru Sunday. Enjoy!

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Well, I'm just shattered.

Syndicated political columnist Molly Ivins died of breast cancer Wednesday evening at her home in Austin. She was 62 years old, and had much, much more to give this world. She remained cheerful despite Texas politics.

Wow, I really feel like I've lost a friend.

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If there's a heaven...

...it looks like this.

The Palm Spring Modern Committee website has lots of gorgeous photos of modernist architecture from the American west, plus bios and info on the architects who built them.

So, so beautiful.

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Dear Mister Eno,

You know we love you and all, but jeez, what were you thinking?

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Skywhales

This is really amazing... beautiful, weird, AND haunting.

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Goth box!

OMG... it's my entire college years, in a box. Must have this.

They start with familiar classics from the bands who turned out to be goth's godfathers-- Joy Division, the Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie & the Banshees-- but the heart of the thing remains England's 1980s goth heyday, where the urge to dance comes out in grim, grinding, relentless music for the fake undead: Look to the Sisters of Mercy's steamroller "Temple of Love", or Tones on Tail's "Christian Says". They sprinkle in darker tracks from the pop bands who filled out goths' record collections: Echo & the Bunnymen, the Cocteau Twins, the Jesus & Mary Chain. They follow the aesthetic as it comes to North America (Christian Death), reunites with punk (the Misfits), meets up with electronic dance music (Skinny Puppy), and starts to become "industrial" (Ministry), and then they glance back at the acts who were the godfathers of that (Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten). They stop in on the kind of arty, spooky goth that was more likely to have women singing (Dead Can Dance, Miranda Sex Garden), and close off with a nice past-meets-future moment: Modern-day band AFI covering the Cure's "The Hanging Garden".

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Busted!

Watch Cheney pull out his Blackberry and read e-mail during last night's State of the Union address. Heh heh!

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Repurposed plates

Artist Sarah Cihat gets old plates from flea markets and yard sales, then re-fires them with funky new graphics on them. The best part is how she leaves bits of the old pattern showing through... so cool!

more in the complete post

Now here's a funny thing- she's got one made out of plates just like we have here at my house! :D (The cassette plate, pictured here)

They belonged to Arn's family when he was growing up, so there's no telling how old they are... from the 1960s, most likely.

While you're looking around the site, don't miss the link to the artist's personal faves... they're wonderful.

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The Juggler of Nazareth

I no longer work on the Dell account-- I am now on Mercedes-Benz. And one of the sr. copywriters is a guy named Phil Dingman, a guy who's so creative, so "off" in such an ON kind of way, that when we talk or just hang out or even WORK together, it's as though we transform and form an evil robot.

Phil often carpet-bombs my little cube with is creativity. "I once invented this thing that would..." is sort of the way it often starts.

Phil has an amazing voice. He does voice-overs for the A-Channel, a prominent TV channel here in Western Canada, plus a lot of radio. He's also the designer of the "Stuart Katt" line of T-Shirts.

Anyway. Both Phil and I brainstorm a lot. It's what we do. Phil is a member of the Actor's Guild here in Calgary, where I live. He also writes, I suppose, in order to keep his mind sharp for work (or rather, to keep his mind sharp, period), little "fake movie plots", including, it seems, one about the presumed life of Jesus entitled, "The Juggler of Nazareth."

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Please make sure you have made the right decision.

If this was real, I'd get one to keep in our bathroom. (Scroll all the way down to read the instructions and the rest of the packaging.) I love dark humor that involves cute ducks.

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The Wyoming Incident - YOU WILL SEE SUCH PRETTY THINGS

Via Google Video. A LJ friend of mine posted this and it's really interesting. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything else about this incident (otherwise I might post it to MeFi). Fortunately, however, there is a good article running down the side of it. Check it out.

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Snakefinger - The Man In The Dark Sedan

Snakefinger is REALLY awesome. I wish his albums would come back into print... I've got all but the "History Of The Blues" one, but they're all outstanding. This is perhaps his only promotional video(?), for "The Man In The Dark Sedan", from... Chewing Hides The Sound, I think. One of the first two, anyway. God, Snakefinger was great.

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Pachelbel Rant

This one's really good -- particularly if you stay through the end.

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"The Black Parade"

I'd never heard the band My Chemical Romance until today, but this video makes me think I need to hear more of them. I love this clip- kind of funny and kind of creepy at the same time.

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A Year in Comics

The First One
Originally uploaded by johnralston.

John Ralston plans to blog every day of 2007 in comics form. (I sorta know him online, from places like Metafilter.) I like his style of drawing, and his sense of humor, so this should be fun. More fun for us, the readers, than for him! ;)

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Ruh-roh...

Animator IWAO TAKAMATO, who created cartoon dogs SCOOBY-DOO and MUTTLEY, has died of heart failure at the age of 81.

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Interstella 5555

In 2001, the French electronica band Daft Punk released their best album to date, Discovery. It was only a year or so later that many fans (incl. me) found out the album was also the soundtrack to an anime called Interstella 5555, a story about a band of aliens captured and "reprogrammed" to perform on earth as the "Crescendolls." Now thanks to the magic of YouTube, you can see Interstella 5555 online.

NOTE: That last link goes to a YouTube playlist... when one segment ends, wait a minute and the next segment should begin.

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The Pipettes - Pull Shapes

OH MY GOD. This is AWESOME. Even without the _Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls_ parody-ness. It's just an OUTSTANDING song. As the Teen Tycoon of Rock, I'd like to hear them, and I'm sure you would too.

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Guess who's giving the Super Bowl's halftime show this year?

This'll be the first year I've ever actually looked forward to a football game. :D

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