High Gravity

Montreal Graffiti

2008-11-29T13:14:28Z

In my hometown of Atlanta, graffiti generally means obnoxious scribbling in unattractive, unreadable, self-aggrandizing fonts, with one rare exception—the rail underpass at the intersection of DeKalb Ave. and Krog St., where Robert Mitchum's mug peeks out from the tunnel. But even graffiti artists tagging this single bright spot have to worry about vigilantes in trees.

Walking around the International and Latin Quarters in Montreal, though, is like walking through a spray-paint art gallery. Here are a few of my favorites (photographed on my iPhone) with suggested titles:

"Montreal Girls Are Super. I Just Wanna Eat Them Up."
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"Ghosts of the Band"

"Chinese Take-Out"

"Dirty Rotten NBCiles"

"Tangled Up in Emo"

"Window Shopping"

"We're a Happy Family"

"Teddy"

"O Lei"

"Self-Portrait of a Graffiti Artist"

"Zombie Love"

Little painted wooden cut-outs of the Rat King were also everywhere:

Staff Picks - Josh Jackson (editor-in-chief)

2008-11-23T15:34:10Z

We've just released our collective Top 50 at Paste, and there's been the usual response both on our site and others' about what you think we missed, what we got wrong and what the list really should have looked like. Since this was a collaborative effort with votes from staff and some of our regular critics, everyone would have made this list a little differently, including me. Here's my personal top 10 (i.e. the actual 10 best albums this year).

1. Bon Iver—For Emma, Forever Ago
Some albums stampede their way into your brain, others creep in during the middle of the night and lay claim to some hidden corner forever. Justin Vernon's debut is one of the sneakiest albums since Sam Beam whispered his way into my cerebral cortex in 2002.
]]> 2. Sigur Rós—med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust
Up until now, Sigur Rós has given sonic expression to the wintry fjords and barren interiors of Iceland—the cold, somber but strangely beautiful landscapes most of us have only seen in pictures. But med sud is a summer record, full of the joy and playfulness of a warm weekend roadtrip. A little sunshine does the band well.

3. Vampire Weekend—Vampire Weekend
Sure it was ridiculously hyped, but there are few albums that deserve the buzz more. I can't listen to "A-Punk" without a giant smile forming on my lips.

4. Okkervil River—The Stand-Ins
Let this be my public apology for mostly overlooking this band up until now. If you haven't been paying attention to Okkervil River, go listen to "Lost Coastlines" right now.

5. The Hold Steady—Stay Positive
When I was in 9th grade, my friend Jamie turned 16 before the rest of us and used to pack everyone inside her old tri-tone Monte Carlo and drive around Dunwoody, Ga., with the windows down and the radio up loud. I wish we had this album back then.

6. Ida Maria—Fortress Round Your Heart
I can't think of an album where carefree collided so beautifully into heartbreaking. Loose, loud rock and beer-hall choruses aren't enough to hide the soul that's been laid bare.

7. Fleet Foxes—Fleet Foxes
As much as I love the weird left-turn that was My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges this year, I love where Fleet Foxes have taken MMJ's earlier sounds on their lovely debut even more.

8. The Dodos—The Visitor
If theaters and arenas are getting crowded with the safer descendents of Radiohead, Wilco's template is getting twisted in wonderfully new ways by bands like The Dodos.

9. Girl Talk—Feed The Animals
Call it a guilty pleasure. Say it doesn't belong on a list with original recordings. But a truckload of Cracker Jacks doesn't have this many prizes hidden inside.

10. Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit—A Larum
If you like #1, 4, 7 & 8 on this list, you'll probably like the debut from these Brits. Hey, it's been a really good year for folky, spacious indie roots.

Bush shoves a little flag-waving down Obama's throat

2008-11-18T02:59:48Z

When the White House changes party hands, there's a tradition among outgoing staffers to play harmless prank. Junior Clinton officials famously rubbed the Ws off the keyboards in the West Wing before President George W. Bush took office. But the current commander-in-chief has just pulled a doozy on his successor.
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Yes, among his last acts as president is to leave newly elected Barack Obama with the man responsible for "God Bless the U.S.A." That'll teach him not to wear an American flag pin.

The first appointees to the Council by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 included musicians Duke Ellington and Leonard Bernstein, writers Harper Lee and John Steinbeck and actors Sidney Poitier and Gregory Peck. You know... elitists. Let me say upfront that I am indeed proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free. And that I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me. But memorializing that sentiment in a song which has spawned scores of YouTube videos featuring eagles in soft focus and sunsets over wheat fields hardly seems like a qualification for the job as defined by the NEA's website: "The Presidential appointments, by law, are selected for their widely recognized knowledge of the arts or their expertise or profound interest in the arts." What, was Thomas Kinkade busy?

I don't mean to be cynical. Here's hoping Greenwood steps up to the challenge and schools himself in artistic endeavors beyond the jingoistic ballad. I'll take him at his word when he says, "My appointment to the council of the National Endowment of the Arts is a great opportunity for me to be involved in searching out the best in art in our American culture and to lend a hand to help develop talented artists and artistic programs that would otherwise go unnoticed." He'll get to serve with the amazing painter Makoto Fujimura, who founded the International Arts Movement.

But I can also imagine President Bush chuckling to himself with the thought that Greenwood is the only Council member scheduled to serve the entirety of Obama's first term.

Cool Developments in Social Networking

2008-11-11T14:31:44Z

As even us 30-somethings have come to accept social networking as part of our lives, here are a couple ways to keep your social platforms organized and one way that social networking is helping promote social justice...
]]> Yoono
This browser add-on adds a sidebar where you can keep tabs on tweets, Facebook status updates, RSS feeds, instant messages and just about anything else you'd want handy. Eminently configurable, it's truly the all-in-one tool for your info-junkie fix.

TweetDeck
This Adobe Air app (currently in Beta) helps you organize all your Twitter activity, grouping tweets from various groups of people you're following so they don't all just get dumped into a single category. Prioritizing tweets is a way to make Twitter useful instead of overwhelming.

ushahidi
For many people, social networking platforms are simply a cool way to virtually keep up with friends' relationship statuses. But ushahidi (which means "testimony" in Swahili) is a site that allows people in wartorn regions like the Democratic Republic of Congo to report crisis information via text messaging through a mobile phone or web connection. It was first launched during the post-election violence in Kenya. It's citizen journalism at its best and makes SuperPoking seem that much sillier.

Time Demolishers: Second Rate Snacks, Album Atlas and How To Nail Jello To a Wall

2008-11-06T21:54:12Z

Some blogs offer thoughtful insight and commentary on the political process, international relations or spiritual issues. Others take you through their play-by-play on attempts to literally nail jello to a wall. This post focuses on the latter category with three fun ways to vacuum up all that extra free time you have between conference calls (note to my staff: please don't read any further)...

Second Rate Snacks
Ready to end the Ho Ho vs. Swiss Cake Roll debate? Head to Second Rate Snacks and vote for your favorite junk food. A great idea even if the lack of a hyphen between Second and Rate still bugs me as an editor. The head-to-head matches include Hydrox vs. Oreos, Pringles vs. Lay's Stax and Pop Tarts vs. Toastem's Pop Ups. For the record, the bloggers (SnackGirl and her husband Ethan) and the site's readers got all three right (Oreos, Pringles, Pop Tarts). But those were the easy ones. What about Mellow Yellow vs. Mountain Dew or Eskimo Pie vs. Klondike Bar? You'll just have to see for yourself.

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Word Magazine's World: Album Covers
My favorite of the U.K. entertainment magazines (which is high praise I don't give out lightly) has created a cool new tool that helps its readers track where iconic album covers were photographed. I, for instance, learned that the spiky thing on the cover of R.E.M.'s Automatic For the People was photographed in Miami (6150 Biscayne Blvd., to be precise), but I still don't know what the object is. I also learned the exact location in downtown Atlanta of the old Rexall Drugs with the "Run Devil Run" sign that made the cover (and title) of Paul McCartney's album. And that for my favorite Waterboys record, Fisherman Blues, the band posed in front of the Spiddal House in Galway. Find your favorite album covers or add them to the map.

How To Nail Jello To a Wall
The other sites at least maintain a pretense of usefullness. The geniuses behind this webpage (the same team that brought you such gems as Does Viagra Keep Flowers From Wilting? [answer: better than vodka]) don't even pretend that they have anything better to do with their time—or yours. But I still read all the way through it. With each step I wondered, will they crack the code of nail distribution? Will bananas provide the key? I don't want to ruin it for you, but I'll give you one of their conclusions: "Jell-O + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious."

If only they'd gone to Second Rate Snacks. They could have clearly seen that Jell-O + Twizzlers would have been even better.

New Discoveries: Passion Pit, Weyerbacher Pumpkin Ale and Freaks & Geeks

2008-11-02T01:20:20Z

My new discoveries from the past week include a band from Cambridge, a perfect fall beer and an old TV show that I should have checked out a long time ago.
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Band: Passion Pit
These kids from Cambridge, Mass., were the talk of CMJ this year—including among the folks from Paste who went. For fans of Postal Service and the Incredible Moses Leroy, the space-y beats and Casio keyboard riffs are just so darn catchy.

Beer: Weyerbacher Pumpkin Ale
Apologies to Delaware's Dogfish Head, but this year's best American pumpkin ale is up the road in Pennsylvania. Weyerbacher, whose stout beat out contenders from Belgium, Canada and England in our Beer Olympics, also wins best pumpkin ale.

DVD: Freaks & Geeks
From the Department of Late to the Party: OK, I’m sure you watched it during its short-lived run on NBC in 1999 and 2000, but I finally got around to adding it to my Netflix que and watching the first three episodes last week. As he does in his films that followed, creator Judd Apatow brings the funny without sacrificing the underlying sweetness—making you care about all those who don’t quite fit in at McKinley High in 1980. "Freak" Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini) tries to figure out who she wants to be. And it’s great watching young Seth Rogen and Jason Segal. But the best moments are provided by the geeks—Lindsay's younger brother Sam (John Francis Daley) and his pals Neal Schweiber (Samm Levine) and Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr).

Two New Blogs: TV Detail and List of the Day

2008-10-27T14:37:00Z

Paste has just launched two new blogs, TV Detail for television news and reviews and List of Day. My TV Detail reviews that used to appear on this blog (like last night's review of True Blood episode "The Fourth Man in the Fire") will now appear on the new blog. And lists like this one will be moved to the List of the Day.

The List of the Day blog will kick off with a countdown this week of the 20 Best TV Characters of the Last 20 Years. We'll be unveiling four each day, starting with #20-#17 today.

The High Gravity blog will be reserved for musings on culture and new discoveries in the realms of music, film, books, video games and beer.

TV Detail: My Own Worst Enemy review. Episode 1.2 "The Hummingbird"

2008-10-21T04:18:42Z

It didn't take long for the show's title to make sense. In the premiere of My Own Worst Enemy, regular guy Henry is just beginning to come to terms with the the existence of his alter ego Edward, or more specifically, that he himself is Edward's alter ego. But the split personalities have to keep peace between themselves to survive. This precarious truce comes unraveled by the end of the second episode. ]]> 24, there's someone to question the ends justifying the means. But there's little he can do to stop it. And when he digs deeper into his past, things turn nastier.

It's no longer cool Bond Christian Slater and white collar Joe Christian Slater. Edward is more Heathers-era sociopath, making Henry's life spin out of control. It's not about catching the terrorists, though they do. It's not about waking up to find oneself in dangerous situations in Russia or London, though he does. My Own Worst Enemy is about one man, seeing his wife, his friends, his children all in the hands of a trained, remorseless killer—himself. The nightmare is not his life. It's what he's sleeping through.

TV Detail: Heroes review. Episode 306 "Dying of the Light"

2008-10-21T03:00:13Z

In the sixth episode, Heroes Season Three slowly, finally comes into focus. It's all about the villain, Arthur Petrelli, back from the grave. Not that there are enough other bad guys to spread around. The creepiest is the puppetmaster, Eric Doyle, one of the escapees from Level 5. He's found his love, Claire's mother Meredith and going all psychopath on her and the rest of the family. Meanwhile, Dr. Suresh's little lair is growing more crowded with... prisoners? snacks?
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The future is still bleak, as painted by Usutu the precog and visited by Peter and Hiro. And there's a lot of domesticating to be done in the next five years. But the most heroic feat this week was finally making me care what happens next.

Related Links:
Heroes Episodes 301 & 302 "Villains" review
Heroes Episode 303 "One of Us, One of Them" review
Heroes Episode 304 "I Am Become Death" review
Heroes Episode 305 "Angels & Monsters" review
Heroes Episode 306 "Dying of the Light" review
Heroes Episode 308 "Villains" review

Paul Simon's Lyrics 1964-2008

2008-10-20T22:55:42Z

I'm not often side-tracked by the many books that come through the Paste office. We have an extremely capable editor who does a mighty fine job on our books coverage, but the beautiful hard-bound book of Paul Simon's lyrics has yet to make it past my desk. Due out Nov. 11 on Simon & Schuster, Lyrics 1964-2008 is just that—all of Simon's lyrics throughout his storied career.
]]> #13 on our list of the 100 Best Living Songwriters, and flipping through the book randomly I wonder if our readers, who had him at #5, weren't closer to the mark. The pages are filled with hit after hit, but it's not his best-known songs that grab me. To be honest, I'm not a fan of many of his most popular songs—"Bridge Over Troubled Water," "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover," "Slip Slidin' Away." But I'm drawn in by the way he captures New York on "Bleeker Street" and the devastating simplicity of "Soft Parachutes":

Last year, I was a senior
In Emerson High School
I had me a girlfriend
We used to get high
And now I am flying
Down some Vietnam highway
Don't ask me the reason
God only knows why

Soft parachutes, Fourth of July
And villages burning
Returning bodies, all laid in a line
Soft parachutes

And what's most evident by a look through the new book is how well his later lyrics hold up. He's always had a knack for the meta-song like "Song About the Moon," but on Surprise, he's looking back as a songwriter in "Everything About It Is a Love Song," "That's Me" and "Rewrite." In "Love and Hard Times," the final song in the book, but surely not his last gift to us, he writes, "I loved her the first time I saw her/ I know that's an old song-writing cliché/ Loved her the first time I saw her/ Couldn't describe it any other way." But then he does: "The light of her beauty/ Was warm as a summer day/ Clouds of antelope rolled by/ No hint of rain in the pale blue sky/ Just love, love, love."

As New Yorker editor David Remnick writes in the introduction that Simon is "no longer young, no longer at the top of the Billboard charts, but whose capacity for feeling and thought compressed into song only deepened. In his maturity, he considers even the hardest thing with the serenity of the psalm writers."

There's no doubt that he's a songsmith who deserves the grandiosity that a book like this signifies.

SNL: Weekend Update Thursday 10.16 review

2008-10-17T04:05:26Z

In the words of Amy Poehler and Seth Myers, "Really?" Really, SNL, you're going to open another Thursday night special with a fake debate? Really? Where last week's episode was filled with laughs, this week's fell flat at almost every turn. There's only so much humor you can wring from Joe the Plumber, and while Fred Armisen does a pretty good Obama, he's yet to be given a single memorable line. And Seth, really? You can't read a teleprompter? This is prime time, baby. It'd be forgivable if your jokes were half as funny as last week, but this felt like the final half-hour of a typical Saturday Night Live where all the sketches that bombed during dress rehearsal go. There's a new SNL on Saturday Night, and I can only imagine that it's eaten up most of the writers' effort. I mean, the crazy lady from the McCain rally? Really?

5 Reasons I'm Giving Up on Fox's Fringe

2008-10-15T20:55:55Z

We're 5 episodes into Fox's Fringe, a show about the outer reaches of science—imaginable if not particularly feasible advances in areas like telekinesis, telepathy, reanimation, invisibility—and a global conspiracy to develop and test these advances, often with murderous results. Only it sounds more interesting than it is.

Here are five reasons that I'm taking a break from Fringe:
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1. Anna Torv as Agent Olivia Dunham has all the charisma of a wounded bird.
In each episode, Fringe's main character looks like she's about to break apart into a million pieces. She might be the most brilliant investigator in the history of the FBI. But doesn't have the verve to carry the show.

2. Joshua Jackson as Peter Bishop has all the charisma of a petulant teenager.
His job on the show so far is to begrudgingly assist his father Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble) and to act grumpy.

3. Each show comes wrapped up in a tidy bow.
Unlike with Lost, where questions lead to more questions, most of the intriguing details of Fringe are wrapped up by the end of each episode. Olivia sees her dead boyfriend reappearing. It's quickly explained away as a side-effect from her time inside his brain. A few mysteries are teased out—what are the motives behind the catastrophes? What is Massive Dynamics hoping to accomplish? Is Olivia's reanimated boyfriend a bad guy? But the plot doesn't seem to be moving forward.

4. The giant suspension bridge of disbelief is starting to crumble.
Look, my favorite show on TV is about a group of humans flying across the galaxy chased by Cylons. I'm more than willing to suspend my belief for the cause of science-fiction. The outlandish problems that come across the Fringe team's desk don't scare me away. But it's the even more outlandish solutions that Walter comes up with, usually in a few hours' time and with a neat little twist that would change the course of human science if it weren't simply being employed to solve crimes. Dr. Bishop's inventions are the show's deus ex machina, and it always feels a bit like cheating by the screenwriters.

5. I already watch too damn much TV.
There are too many good shows I'm trying to keep up with—and that's not even counting getting caught up on Mad Men and Pushing Daisies. At least for now, I'm bowing out.

But... here are two reasons I might someday come back to Fringe:

1. John Noble is fantastic.
Even when his crime-solving science projects get a little silly, Dr. Walter Bishop is among the best new characters on TV this year. He's both grandfatherly and dangerous; he shows flashes of great anger and then humble remorse. And he's self-absorbed but with a sense of curiosity and playfulness. I'll miss him.

2. J.J. Abrams may just be holding his cards close to the chest.
At its best, Lost was the most intriguing show on TV in a long time. With Fringe, there are at least hints of more interesting twists in store for the investigators. If you decide to keep watching and it gets better, please do let me know.

Watch Life on Mars premiere episode right here

2008-10-14T20:10:18Z

Last week, we reviewed the debut episode of Life on Mars, The American remake of British cop show with a time-traveling twist. But if you missed it, you can watch right here ad-free:]]>

TV Detail: My Own Worst Enemy review—Series Premiere

2008-10-14T04:30:02Z

Slater. Christian Slater. You've at least seen the previews by now. In My Own Worst Enemy, the star of Heathers plays both international spy Edward Albright and his regular guy alter ego Henry Spivey. The dual personalities are kept at bay through mind manipulation by the unnamed government organization running the program. Except in the series premiere, something's gone wrong, and he's flipping back and forth at the most inopportune times.
]]> True Lies, mixing the day-to-day grind of soccer games and sitting next to fat guys in coach on the way to Akron, Ohio, and Bond-like daliances with former KGB spies that end with a cigarette and a bullet through her head. (When she gets too sappy before trying to assassinate him, he dryly replies, "Let's not let an act of deception turn into an act of self-deception.")

But where Bond has gotten good again as Daniel Craig shucks off cavalier cool for a little more emotional complexity and depth, My Own Worst Enemy strips the humanity from Edward and deposits it all in Henry. Edward can be as smooth and callous as Roger Moore but the contrast with his family-man self keeps him from becoming too cartoonish. It's a neat little trick aimed at bringing good old fashioned espionage to the small screen for the first time since Alias. And Slater might have the range to pull it off.

TV Detail: Heroes review. Episode 305 "Angels and Monsters"

2008-10-14T04:04:44Z

Heroes, angels, monsters, villains. This season, you can simply call them all the Heroes pawns in a game none of us quite understands yet. In one corner, you have The Company with Angela Patrelli, her three sons (Nathan, who's having a theological crisis of sorts; Syler, who's just trying to be good for mommy; and Peter, who's basically the new Syler now that he's taken his brother's power and the hunger that goes along with it), plus Mr. Horn-Rimmed Glasses Noah Bennet and, at least for the moment, his adopted daughter (and Angela's granddaughter) Claire.
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The games of chess are too much for one of the released prisoners, a decent fellow with the unfortunately murderous gift of creating vortexes the suck people out of existence. They're too much for Claire too, who wants to help but has no idea what that might mean. To be fair, at this point, neither do I. It's bad guys vs. bad guys with everybody wanting to save the world and constantly invoking the Law of Unintended Consequences. Give me one character who believes that the ends don't justify the means, and I'll give you a moral compass to navigate this mess. That's one superpower that seems to be missing from the current line-up.

Related Links:
Heroes Episodes 301 & 302 "Villains" review
Heroes Episode 303 "One of Us, One of Them" review
Heroes Episode 305 "I Am Become Death" review