Nervous Acid

Tumblr Awards voting ends this week!

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:08:45 -0500

Tumblr Awards voting ends this week!: Here’s a repost because, apparently, the Tumblr Awards have extended the voting until January 8 at midnight. So yeah: Nervous Acid has been nominated for a Tumblr Award! I’m totally not going to win, but I still think it’s cool that someone nominated the site for Best Original Content & Editorials. I’ll pave my own way forth in Tumblr land yet.

Abandoned LondonDecember 25, 2008. Regent Street from Oxford...

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:41:00 -0500

Abandoned London
December 25, 2008. Regent Street from Oxford Circus.

IanVisits explains:

A couple of years ago I had the idea that it might be fun to take photos of London without humans — yes, I was motivated by that scene in Westminster from 28 Days Later. Unfortunately, not being a film director I was not really in the position to have half of London sealed off for photos — but realised that on Xmas morning there could be an opportunity.
Alas, last year it poured down with rain — but this year the weather was good, and despite having a bad cold for the past few days I was determined to get up early and cycle around the West End of London taking photos.

You can check out an entire Flickr set from his ride here. (via)

Israel, Gaza, and "selective terrorism."

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:16:00 -0500

Israel, Gaza, and "selective terrorism.":

Honestly, I’m staying away from editorializing on the Israeli Gaza strikes right now. There’s always the New York Times for that. But I did find this think-piece worth pointing out, in which Glenn Greenwald calls to question the rationale — or ill-rationale, perhaps — of an editorial penned by Weekly Standard editor Michael Goldfarb. (If this name sounds familiar, it’s because his previous post was spokesperson for the McCain-Palin campaign.) Goldfarb writes:

The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it’s not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man’s entire family, it’s hard to imagine that doesn’t give his colleagues at least a moment’s pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions.

In other words, he suggests, a broad action of terror that kills and maims innocent people is justified if it delivers a message of intimidation. Greenwald recognizes this familiar logic:

There are few concepts more elastic and subject to exploitation than “Terrorism,” the all-purpose justifying and fear-mongering term. But if it means anything, it means exactly the mindset which Goldfarb is expressing: slaughtering innocent civilians in order to “send a message,” to “deter” political actors by making them fear that continuing on the same course will result in the deaths of civilians and — best of all, from the Terrorist’s perspective — even their own children and other family members.

That, of course, is the very same logic that leads Hamas to send suicide bombers to slaughter Israeli teenagers in pizza parlors and on buses and to shoot rockets into their homes. It’s the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings. And it’s the logic that leads infinitely weak and deranged people like Goldfarb and Peretz to find value in the killing of innocent Palestinians, including — one might say, at least in Goldfarb’s case: especially — children.

The big-picture purport to this story? There is always a real human cost. And dehumanizing a people for the sake of conceptual semantics is always wrong, no matter whose “side” you’re on. It’s hard to believe we haven’t learned that yet. (via)

Tweet of the year for 2009 already? No, not really. I...

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:33:00 -0500

Tweet of the year for 2009 already? No, not really. I don’t think hacking into the Fox News Twitter page and typing “Bill O Riley is gay” counts. But it was a noble — and very much appreciated — try. (via)

UPDATE: Apparently, Fox News was not alone.

Ancestors of the iPod?December 13, 2008. The U.S. Mint. New...

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:51:22 -0500

Ancestors of the iPod?
December 13, 2008. The U.S. Mint. New Orleans, LA.

(Source)

"The Wrestler," as evaluated by a wrestler.

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:42:30 -0500

"The Wrestler," as evaluated by a wrestler.:

When it comes to the “wrestler’s sniff test,” Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler passes according to Mick Foley — better known to some as former WWF Champion “Mankind.” Of course, this world-class wrestler — who was rumored to be the archetype from which Mickey Rourke developed this role — did find one bone to pick:

I never did detect any of myself in the movie. Believe me, I tried. Hey, if you are going to be an influence on a movie, it might as well be a great one like The Wrestler. Who knows, maybe I inspired Randy’s ratty assortment of faded flannels. And a few people have suggested that I inspired that grisly wrestling scene. But I can claim with a clear conscience that I never used a staple gun on an opponent. Thumbtacks, yes; barbed wire, definitely; but never a staple gun.

The BitTorrent Robin Hood.

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:09:57 -0500

The BitTorrent Robin Hood.:

I almost missed this great story in the Independent about aXXo, the Internet’s most notorious movie pirate. His formula is simple: DVD-quality versions of a film in a simple format that plays on any computer at just the right size to fit on a single writeable DVD. It’s the kind of attention to customer detail that the movie industry could probably stand paying attention to:

“He tried to go away,” says David Price, head of piracy intelligence at the internet consultancy Envisional. “But he came back. The pull of it is quite attractive to him. When you have millions of people downloading your content online and they know who you are, that’s quite an incentive. Even if he’s not getting any money, he is getting name recognition and status.” To commemorate his return, aXXo chose as his first post the symbolic — and hubristic — film title, I Am Legend.

This is my friend Bob. We’ve lived together, toured...

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:44:11 -0500

This is my friend Bob. We’ve lived together, toured together, and temped together. We do a terrible job at keeping in touch these days, but the love is there. A little over a month ago, I chided him for seemingly flaking out on building the website for Never Ending Polaroid — a project in which Bob took a series of almost 600 polaroids featuring a person holding a polaroid of the person holding the previous polaroid of the person holding the previous polaroid. (You get the idea.) Amazingly, the scanning has begun and the Never Ending Polaroid has a Flickr site. Get lost in the rabbit hole.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-1-4)

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:59:00 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-1-4):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr

Errors “Dance Music” It’s Not Something But It...

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:55:00 -0500

Errors “Dance Music” It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever

Creation Records founder Alan McGee recently published his tips for 2009, and for the most part, dude is crazy. He did get it right with Pantha du Prince, however, so I was willing to dig into his list for a surprise. Thankfully, it paid off: McGee describes Errors as taking on “the Kompakt sound of Europe with their own paranoid, Glaswegian style.” I agree. And I love the idea that, somewhere underneath the jagged programming, there’s a band here.

America Anonymous.

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:34:22 -0500

America Anonymous.:

Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a reporter for the New York Times, has a book coming out next week that follows the lives of eight addicts — including a blind alcoholic, a grandmother with a crack habit, a bodybuilding meth and steroid addict, and family woman who can’t stop shoplifting. The narrative becomes more complex once you consider the source: In the introduction to America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, Denizet-Lewis himself admits to being a recovering sex addict:

Sean was the only person I followed who I knew before I started writing the book. Because we’re both sex addicts, we related strongly to each other’s struggles. Sean is straight and I’m gay, but the insanity of our addictions is the same.

I was open about my sex addiction with the people I wrote about. And because I spent so much time with them, they often asked me how I was doing with my own recovery. Bobby was the only one who couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the concept of sex addiction. He didn’t understand how anyone would choose sex over the high of drugs. I told him I didn’t know how anyone would choose drugs over sex.

An F-Train AberrationDecember 29, 2008. New York City. Says...

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:50:00 -0500

An F-Train Aberration
December 29, 2008. New York City.

Says Bowery Boogie:

At each station stop, it was funny to watch straphangers avoid sitting there, as if something was terribly wrong.

The Best Selling Albums of the Year: 2008 vs. 1998.

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:12:00 -0500

Lest we need any more evidence that the record industry is stubbornly holding on to a medium that is quickly becoming this generation’s dinosaur shoes, I thought it might be interesting to look at how this year’s top selling albums compete with those from ten years ago. First, a look at 2008:

1. Lil Wayne, “Tha Carter III” (Cash Money/Universal Motown); 2.87 million
2. Coldplay, “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends” (Capitol); 2.14 million
3. Taylor Swift, “Fearless” (Big Machine); 2.11 million
4. Kid Rock, “Rock N Roll Jesus” (Atlantic); 2.02 million
5. AC/DC, “Black Ice” (Columbia); 1.92 million
6. Taylor Swift, “Taylor Swift” (Big Machine); 1.6 million
7. Metallica, “Death Magnetic” (Warner Bros.); 1.57 million
8. T. I., “Paper Trail” (Grand Hustle/Atlantic); 1.52 million
9. Jack Johnson, “Sleep Through the Static” (Brushfire/Universal); 1.49 million
10. Beyoncé, “I Am … Sasha Fierce” (Music World/Columbia); 1.46 million

That’s a total of 18.7 million records sold between all ten titles. Now, a look back at 1998:

1. Various Artists, “Titanic: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” (Sony Classical); 9.33 million
2. Celine Dion, “Let’s Talk About Love” (Epic); 5.85 million
3. Backstreet Boys, “Backstreet Boys” (Jive); 5.7 million
4. Shania Twain, “Come On Over” (Mercury Nashville); 4.87 million
5. *N SYNC, “‘N Sync” (Jive); 4.38 million
6. Various Artists, “City of Angels: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” (Warner Bros.); 4.12 million
7. Garth Brooks, “Double Live” (Capitol Nashville); 3.89 million
8. Will Smith, “Big Willie Style” (Jive/Interscope); 3.68 million
9. Savage Garden, “Savage Garden” (Columbia); 3.24 million
10. Various Artists, “Armageddon: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” (Sony); 3.22 million

That is a combined total of almost 48.3 million records sold, with a difference of 29.6 million records between the lists. As if to rub it in, the top three best-selling records of 1998 moved more copies than the entire top ten of 2008. (Oh snap, Lil Wayne!)

Relatedly, Warner Bros. — in an apparent attempt to hurt their market share even more — has pulled all its videos from YouTube because the Internet is the enemy, the customer is always wrong, and they are going to sink with their antiquated business model no matter how much it’s killing their artists. Says Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls, “Did I mention that being on a major label is starting to seem like not such a grand idea?”

Doubt The casting is flawless and the plot is compelling, but something doesn’t click. I love...

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:25:00 -0500

Doubt

The casting is flawless and the plot is compelling, but something doesn’t click. I love that the allegations against Father Flynn are never really confirmed or denied, that we are thrust into the same shadow of unsubstantiated doubt that Sister Aloysius is struggling with. But I didn’t expect to walk away feeling doubtful about the film as a whole: I mean, is this the kind of story that can afford to lack a real lump-in-throat moment? I just don’t think so.

The Amen Break New years are about learning new things, so for...

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:19:00 -0500

The Amen Break

New years are about learning new things, so for my first post of 2009, I decided to post this short documentary about the world’s most important six-second drum loop:

This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the “Amen Break,” a six-second drum sample from the B-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass — a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison’s 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

From N.W.A. to Jeep commercials to just about every jungle record ever, you’ll know it when you hear it. (via)

2009: A Typographic CalendarAntonio Carusone, Year of the...

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:32:00 -0500

2009: A Typographic Calendar
Antonio Carusone, Year of the Sheep

(Source)

Telefon Tel Aviv “My Week Beats Your Year” Map Of...

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:10:22 -0500

Telefon Tel Aviv “My Week Beats Your Year” Map Of What Is Effortless

After a quick search of my MP3 collection, I came to the conclusion that most people write New Years songs that make you want to kill yourself before midnight. (Even “Auld Lang Syne” is kind of depressing, if only because it uses words like pint-stowp and guid-willie waught.) Much better, then, to ring in the new year with this song, which is so damn optimistic it hurts.

2009? Fuck that. My first week in January is gonna rule.

Snow Patrol A Hundred Million Suns (Geffen) They were probably the closest thing to “the next...

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:18:00 -0500

Snow Patrol A Hundred Million Suns (Geffen)

They were probably the closest thing to “the next Coldplay” that we had in 2004, and lucky for them, that didn’t totally work out. (It would have hurt if the epitaph for one of my favorite bands in 2003 read: “Here lies Snow Patrol. I think I heard them on Grey’s Anatomy or something.”) A Hundred Million Suns is, by and large, a reminder of why we once lumped them in with Belle & Sebastian, while “The Lightning Strike” — its sixteen-minute epic standout — actually borrows lightly from Steve Reich’s “Music For 18 Musicians.” Which, in case you’re keeping score, is totally awesome.

The best thing that we learned from Twitter in 2008 is that you...

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:33:00 -0500

The best thing that we learned from Twitter in 2008 is that you don’t really need more than 140 characters to point out something profound. John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, takes the unofficial prize for Nervous Acid Tweet of The Year.

Fake Holocaust Memoir Leaks.

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:17:00 -0500

Fake Holocaust Memoir Leaks.:

I’ve steered clear of the story of Herman Rosenblat, the latest in a long line of lying liars with memoir book deals, mostly because I thought it was kind of sad. I mean, James Frey was a modern adult who should have known better and Laura Albert should have probably just seen a doctor, but Rosenblat — a real-life holocaust victim — was, I believe, legitimately naïve. His explanation?

Why did I do that and write the story with the girl and the apple, because I wanted to bring happiness to people, to remind them not to hate, but to love and tolerate all people. I brought good feelings to a lot of people and I brought hope to many. My motivation was to make good in this world.

Now put that in the voice of your 80-year-old grandfather and tell me you don’t think he’s being sincere.

Gawker published some of the leaked manuscript this morning and it is every bit as sentimental and astoundingly unrealistic as you’d expect. (Sample excerpt: “Time stood still. The world stood still. It seemed I could not breathe for a moment!”) But I chose to write something about Angel at the Fence this morning because of an interview I read with Ken Waltzer, a professor and director of Jewish Studies at Michigan State University. The tragedy, he says, is that, in this case, the truth about Rosenblat’s experience in the Holocaust is far more powerful than a made-up love story:

When a memoir substitutes an invented story for a real one, when it claims false experience as real experience, it crosses a line. This memoir leaped across the line. Herman erased his own compelling story. His three older brothers took an oath never to part from him. They fed him in the camp and they lied about his age to protect him. Herman wrote his brothers out and substituted a fantasy tale about meeting a young girl at the fence. Roma, the compliant wife, erased her own compelling story. She was part of a family group from Krosniewice that survived — and few survived from that town — by dint of special cunning, forged documents, and luck. She also reconstructed her family as a family of four when there were five. The third sister, too young, too dark, to pass in hiding as a Polish Catholic, was, sadly, left behind.

Thus, in weaving their joint account, Herman and Roma invented meeting by the fence in Schlieben, invented a family hiding in Schlieben, invented re-meeting years later on a blind date in New York, and invented what the booksellers and movie promoters called “the first Holocaust love story.” Evidence we gathered suggests this caused huge rifts in the Rosenblatt and Radzicki families and numerous confrontations with Herman and Roma about “truth.” But Herman and Roma would not abandon their false story until the very end.