Given his recent passing, I thought I would put up a poll on what product represents Steve Jobs’ greatest accomplishment:
What is Steve Jobs Greatest Accomplishment?
October 6th, 2011Well Crap: Steve Jobs, RIP
October 5th, 2011Sort of humbling to consider he was only ten years older than I am.
Very few people can say they truly changed the world. He did.
And, in the interest of providing actual content:
And this seems appropriate:
And here’s his commencement address to Standford University in 2005:
You Could Own John Wayne’s Copy of The Lord of the Rings
October 4th, 2011Heritage Auction is auctioning off tons of items from the estate of John Wayne. Being the canny man he was, he saved just about everything from his movie career: scripts, outfits, awards, you name it. There’s a treasure-trove of Hollywood memorabilia going under the hammer, including letters from Ronald Reagan, Katherine Hepburn, Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, and about a hundred other luminaries.
I did take a look at the books being sold from his library, but all of them have opening bids substantially above market minus the Wayne connection. However, I did want to point out his owning copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Not firsts, of course (Wayne seemed to be an avid reader, but not a book collector), but that beautiful second edition Houghton-Mifflin LOTR set done to bring the books back into copyright after the unauthorized (but borderline legal) Ace books edition. This is the edition my father read to me from as a child, and it’s the edition I own.
Heritage sends out a Heritage Magazine for the Intelligent Collector as a freebie to people who bid in their auctions, and they had a fascinating interview with his son Ethan Wayne about growing up living with his father, and about how random people would come around. One time John Wayne saw some guys coming up his dock, grabbed a gun and said “Who are and what do you want?” “Golly, Mr. Wayne, we’re Marines. We just heard that you lived here.” “Well then come on up and have a drink.” And they sat around drinking until 1 o’clock in the morning.
Sounds like he was a swell guy.
Edited to Add: John Wayne’s Tolkien collection sold for a hefty $2,868.
Shoegazer Sunday: Slowdive’s Shine
October 2nd, 2011So I’ve been meaning to do some sort of comprehensive post on my love of obscure Shoegazer bands. But instead of one big post, I’ve decided to start parceling out little nuggets of Shoegazer goodness every Sunday.
If you’re unfamiliar with Shoegazer music, think of reverb-and-sustain-drenched guitars backing songs drifting between the poles of rock, pop, and ambient, with a little prog and psychedelia thrown in for good measure.
We start off with Slowdive, which is actually one of the least obscure shoegazer bands out there. I first heard “Catch the Breeze” on WHFS the one year I spent in the DC area. (Actually. WHFS was one of the few things that didn’t suck about living up there.) Later on I picked up Just for a Day, which I’ve always thought of as the definitive Shoegazer album. (I’ve never been able to get into My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, despite my best intentions. Maybe it’s the screechy, annoyingly high-pitched sounds scattered on many of the tracks. Or maybe it’s the sonic quality that sounds like someone recorded the entire thing in a bathtub on a Realistic cassette recorder after they’d dropped it down a stairwell a few times using factory-second Certron tapes.) Of the songs off that, “Primal” has long been my favorite, as it has a perfect, wistful descending chord progression at the start. But I haven’t found a good video for that.
Instead, here’s “Shine.” This is a pre-Just For a Day songs off one of their early EPs.
Interestingly enough, there’s another fine Shoegazer song called “Shine” (also not available as an embeddable video) from the short-lived band Lowsundays. I prefer the short version off the Projekt Spring 2001 Sampler.
The Greatest Screen Couple in the History of Cinema
October 1st, 2011I’ve only seen the first of these, but I do look forward to seeing the others.
It Didn’t Take Sherlock Holmes to Crack This Case
September 30th, 2011This Case of the Overturned Garbage Can, that is.
Peter Gabriel Friday: Myst IV Version of “Curtains”
September 30th, 2011Here’s a version of “Curtains” Gabriel did for the game Myst IV.
This version is available on iTunes, but only off a compilation album for a foundation supporting Transcendental Meditation. Since I hated my parents dragging me off to TM as a child (it was the 70s; normally rational people did crap like that then…), I’m going to have to pass.
I’ve seen some people claiming that the original version of “Curtains” itself is unreleased, which is not true, since it was included on the CD single of “Big Time.”
New Lame Excuse Books Catalog Due Soon
September 29th, 2011I’m in the process of putting together a new Lame Excuse Books catalog I hope to be able to send out via email next week. if you’re not already on my mailing list and want to receive a copy, drop me a line.
New Frontiers in Fashion
September 29th, 2011From the Alternative Hair Show in Moscow. Does it count as science fiction if one of them is sporting H. R. Giger’s alien on their head?
But that’s sedate next to the florescent palm tree:
New Book Acquisitions: Two Richard Matheson First Editions
September 25th, 2011I managed to pick up two notable Richard Matheson first editions in the last month or so:
