Justin Timberlake’s new video for “Tunnel Vision” has a jillion moments of female nudity, boobs with nipples included. YouTube/Google has given it a pass and posted an explicit version, saying: “We make exceptions when [nudity] is presented in an educational,
documentary or artistic context, and take care to add appropriate
warnings and age-restrictions.”
(Video below is probably NSFW, but if it IS Safe For Work where you are I totally want to know more!}
JT: “Though I tore at your clothes and we rehearsed this, I’m going to hide and leave the impression this was your fault, m’kay?” JJ: “Okay.”
Recall that on February 1, 2004 the nation lost its mind (or the media did and CBS had to deal with fines) as we were exposed to a mammary gland from a fellow mammal during the Super Bowl halftime show with Timberlake and Janet Jackson. The top of her bustier was pawed at on the line “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song” so some kind of exposure was planned. The “wardrobe malfunction” excuse never, well, covered it.
4 Non-Blondes is a band you could look at, know they were annoying as people, and sense what they smelled like. And Linda Perry continues that to this day. Here’s a recent clip of her talking about how she loves beaver (ha! ha! she’s a lesbian! get it?) and how Justin Bieber looks like a girl. HAW HAW HAW!
Not Linda Perry. You’d think Rachel Madow had more fashion sense than this.
I’m not above remarking on Justin Bieber’s epicence quality, but I put some effort into it. There’s something about a tanned, tatted-up raccoon-eyed Skeletor making a lowball joke about a boy who looks like a girl (a joke that would have KILLED in 1982) with an acrid, molting bowler that’s – ugh! And the interviewer laughs, as he is obliged to, while Perry pretends to be the new Fran Liebowitz! No, Oscar Levant! Oh, you raconteuse, you!
I remember hearing it and thinking, “This is the most obnoxious fucking
hollering I’ve ever heard in my life.” I could envision the horrible,
horrible female that was singing it, and I knew that it was gonna be a
hit, just by how bad I hated it. I knew that it was going to be played
for years by every fucking bad girl band that came through my local bar,
and sung on every karaoke night for the rest of time.
Aaah. Hate can be soothing. I’ve read the article twice now, each time brings solace. The world feels less empty. A friend and I have been howling and barking about “What’s Up?” for about 20 years. Knowing others loathe it is good, we as a species may still get shit done. When the apocalypse comes (zombies, Jesus regulating, Shiva feeling done, Ragnarok, whatever) it’s pleasing to know that instead of hoarding food, weapons, finding shelter – there will be a few of us who have our priorities straight. While the swine are squealing about, we the elite aesthete force, hearts full of pride in humanity and art and civilization, that will destroy all record of “What’s Up?”
Someone had to Windex these before & after the video shoot.
Justin Timberlake’s song “Mirrors” drones like a leaf blower that changes the pitch by waving the nozzle up and down. Most of the time when it comes up, I change the channel or jump to another track.
Mirrors are overdone as a metaphor or object of contemplation. Or, they’re perfectly natural things to regard but it’s tough to come up with anything new. But while enduring a few minutes of “Mirrors” and listening to the words, a thought emerged: “What if it isn’t addressed to another person, at all?“
I doubt that is an original thought about this song. Glamorous people have to look at themselves the normal amount PLUS as a matter of commerce. “What’s new/the same about my appearance? Will it maintain/build/detract from my marketability?”
Attractiveness can be a burden. “It’s hard for people to take me seriously!” attractive people claim, with merit. We nod, thinking inwardly “How many traffic tickets have I ended up with compared to what you were able to talk your way out of?”
Attractive people: “No one ever asks me out. They’re too intimidated by my looks.” We laugh with compassion, thinking inwardly: “When we hang out, we can’t even go to the grocery store without you getting looks and hit on a half dozen times. Your lack of dates comes from something else. Or you’re measuring loneliness in hours and days, not weeks, months, years.”
(Yes, it is a brooding, complex experience running errands with me. Seething, cutting resentments and anthropological assessments makes the time pass faster.)
Some lyrics to ponder:
You were right here all along. It’s like you’re my mirror,
My mirror staring back at me.
I couldn’t get any bigger
With anyone else beside of me.
And:
I can’t ever change without you, you reflect me, I love that about you
And if I could, I would look at us all the time.
The whole song, should you listen/endure it, is full of psychological gems of this sort.
A print misalignment in the The New York Times resulted in blurry faces in a series of glamor photos in the SundayStyles section. I snapped examples:
Glen Close, Lena Dunham, Gwyneth Paltrow, Amanda Seyfried all glamorous, all made clowns by an errant printing process. January Jones also a victim on the page.
Funny, right? Mistakes happen. January Jones was another victim. Naomi Campbell, on the same page, managed to look even better. Presumably these beautiful people will continue on, undeterred by what happened to a West Coast printing of the NYT. Having canceled by subscription to The Oregonian (its new publisher is an Orange County, California neocon jerk) and choosing the Sunday New York Times has been much more entertaining. Though I miss Doonesbury and the weekly pondering of what life would be like if my only information about the outside world was reading Parade magazine each Sunday (on my bucket list of experiments once I’m wealthy).
The NYT motto: “All the News That’s Fit to Print” is vomitous. Not a boast the NYT has earned, and reminiscent of Sarah Palin’s 2008 answer to which newspapers and magazines she read to stay informed: “All of them.”
It was a funny answer, but I would have LOVED if this vision of Palin, a constantly-churning-information-Braniac-machine, had turned out to be true.
But every weekly opening of the The New York Times I am haunted by two ghosts. I hear Christopher Hitchens moan about the New York Times slogan, and Gore Vidal sneers and spits at the New York Times Sunday Book Review. It held a vendetta against him for decades, and even when it started reviewing his books again he thought it was sloppy and ramshackle. I’m glad to have those voices. They’re good reminders that because something feels information-packed and sophisticated, doesn’t mean it’s true.
This ad from Christian Mingle popped up on my Facebook logout screen. It sells the presumed desired final result (marriage, HUGE photo) more than the process of being a couple in courtship, dreamily cast in softened light (teeny photo). Not sure how the magical Facebook targeted ads ended up serving this up to me, heathen, it’s a demographic #FAIL.
Two elements are troubling:
1.) The registered trademark slogan “Find God’s Match for You”. How will couples work things out if both of them think an omniscient power has tethered them together? Okay, that’s most marriages, but won’t that sales pitch work into any future disagreements? “We have to do THIS thing, not YOUR thing because, ehm. the LORD has willed it.”
2.) Jim in this photo may not be 100% behind what’s going on. Lovely as they both are, his attention seems off …
Created with The Keep Calm-O-Matic. I don’t believe in any supernatural creatures, but I like the notion of a person putting this up in their workspace or posting it on their Facebook Wall and finding serenity.
A couple of years ago, in a silly mood, I created some fake job entries for my real-life Facebook profile. Who ever snoops around the work entries of a Facebook profile? Weirdos, probably. And weirdos are my constituency. Give ’em a little sumpin’ sumpin’. And confuse the FBI and CIA when (not if) they’re in pursuit.
So I created an entry describing my stint as Gollum from Lord of the Rings, written up like my more-legit entries on Facebook. The company has since made several more format changes, pushing the work entries even further into the background. More space for posts of human spawn, pets, food, good weather, photos of pets or kids with cancer or mentions of Jesus with a bullying demand you “Like” them or else, and peccadilloes (not nearly ENOUGH peccadilloes, people — grossly disappointing — pick up your game!)
Workplace: Gollum Position: Sméagol Time period: (I currently work here) Start date: March 1970
Took a well-deserved and precious birthday present and, exhausted by the jealousy of others, hid inside caves to work in isolation, fish, and cherish my Precious. Upon the thievery of my Precious by the hobbit Baggins, whom I will hate forever, spent time under the management of Sauron, a Maia and the Lord of the Rings of Power who works from his headquarters in Mordor. My duties shifted from working in the main office at Barad-dûr to the field. Later interviewed and networked with Gandalf the Grey and Strider, a Ranger of the North. From that, spent some time in Mirkwood. Later I chose to take in some sightseeing in Moria and Lórien, and even did some river rafting. Eventually found myself back in Mordor (funny how life goes) and recovered my Precious from yet another another wicked, false Baggins (ya, I KNOW, crazy!) and found happiness for consecutive seconds before falling into a volcano.
I also have blended into my Facebook profile a stint as a self-employed gigolo and an extended gig as Batman. To view THOSE, you’ll have to be my real-life online Facebook friend. Most of my friends will advise you that may be too high a price!
I have spent at least 30 seconds contemplating a Sméagol Gollum profile for LinkedIn. Possibly this summer, when the world is in t.v. reruns, these idle hands will become Sauron’s playthings and do just that.
Until then, know that you ALL are my Precious, and we loves you FOREVER!
A martial artist, Yanagi Ryuken in Japan, demonstrates his “no-touch knockout” technique, and takes down a dozen or so men with easy-breezy style. Swish-sway BLAMMO! Swifsh-swish KAPOW! You get it in the first minute:
Very reminiscent of the centuries of clownery from magicians and faith healers such as Benny Hinn, who, I grant, does have truly miraculous hair:
Here Yanagi faces an opponent who does not believe in this technique. Yanagi gets hit in the face.
The Yanagi videos are mentioned in an interview with Sam Harris in The Atlantic titled “What Martial Arts Have to Do with Atheism”. I like Sam Harris, but can see how some people don’t. His approach on many matters is clear and deliberate. He does go slightly into woo-woo territory when talking about meditation, like striving for some magic/metaphysical crediblity after spending so much time dispelling superstitious realms of thought. Meditation probably has neurological benefits, yet he winds that woo-woo stuff in. I wince.
But back to Yanagi. Does he expect his opponent in the second video to fall under his sway? He seems stunned by the contact. Maybe he knows when he’s in pantomime combat with pretend telekinetic powers mode. Or maybe he doesn’t. I don’t care to research the back story. This is amusing as-is. As Lady Bracknell says in The Importance of Being Earnest: “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone.”
9 lines of despair then 5 of exaltation in love and friendship. I enjoy the turn at the end of this very simple poem.
Jumpstarting (and applying a prolonged cardiopulmonary resuscitation to) my writing aspirations the last three (!) years, especially the last two, definitely has me engaged in the typical carping of hopeful artists caught in the throes of enthusiasmos/manqué anxieties. “How can THAT person be successful? Ugh, such mediocrity in the agora!” Yes, my annoying artist side engages in conspicuous use of Greek terms even more often than French.
Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare
When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d, Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate, For thy sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
“Desiring this man’s art” I take as a mix of envying another’s accomplishment and salesmanship (or saleswomanship), not so much the substance of the work. And those who find creating art a refuge relate to often being unsettled and grouchy about it: “what I most enjoy contented least”.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. PopoZão. PopoZão.The objects of the Sonnets shift between a Dark Lady to a handsome young man. Shakespeare’s sonnets to the young man reach greater heights. While there is a romantic reverie at the end here, this poem sums up much about how I feel about friends I have known and those in the present. I am fortunate in friends, and while envy of celebrities and other artists kicks in frequently, in times of even light reflection the burdens of fame and the coteries that form around it look annoying as hell. Glad for my friends and the people I love. I’m content to keep them instead of being like, say, Kevin Federline digging on his own song “PopoZão”. Federline surely had “friends” telling him this song was great. Ye gods, this moment from 2006 is golden:
The Oscars have come and gone, the gay Super Bowl. The annual event for us to admire and admonish our genetic/commercial/artistic superiors. Occasionally measure ourselves as their equal, before we slip back like Gollum or Thersites into our hard lives of beatings by aristocrats and/or slurping cold fish while singing songs to ourselves about how this makes us happy.
