long hot summer

"As long as we're dancin', we ain't fightin'! When blacks were rioting, a song by Martha and the Vandellas came on the radio: 'Dancin' in the Streets'! I think that song was deliberately promoted by the government, during that long hot summer, to distract blacks from taking care of serious business."

Wanda Coleman, in Re/Search #13: Angry Women

juking

A quote from The Fugitive Kind, the Sidney Lumet/Tennessee Williams film, via my dad, as delivered by Joanne Woodward:

"Juking? Oh! Well, that's when you get in a car, which is preferably open in any kind of weather. And then you drink a little bit and you drive a little bit, and then you stop and you dance a little bit with a jukebox. And then you drink a little bit more and you drive a little bit more, you stop and you dance a little bit more to another juke box! And then you stop dancing and you just drink and you drive. And then, you stop driving."

Tonight I didn't drive drunk or dance at all, but I requested some silly songs on one of them digital jukeboxes on a trip to the Showdown with Brian, so I think maybe, technically, I did some juking.

the best sesame street song ever

is "Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco."

who wants to be men of the people

Because I made a promise to Bruce: For the record, I like the new Arctic Monkeys record. I'm not sure why Bruce wanted me to make this public statement, but I don't mind a bit. I'm still figuring out what I think about it more exactly and how much I like it but I definitely think it's a solidly enjoyable record at the very least, and as I get more familiar with it I might grow to like it more.

they're gonna crucify me

For all my music nerdery, I have one rather freaky blind spot: I know next to nothing about the Beatles. Well, that's an exaggeration. I know as much about them as any reasonably observant music enthusiast would without actually investigating them intentionally. But as I've been known to point out to people on a regular basis, I know more about the Monkees than I do about the Beatles. And I'm not that freaked out about it from a music knowledge standpoint. But lately I have been thinking that maybe I would like to actually listen to some Beatles records, not out of obligation but because I might really enjoy them.

last.fm dream girls

You know how there are those fake women on myspace? I have been wondering today if there could be fake last.fm women. There are these gorgeous women on there with ridiculously impeccable taste, and I just wonder if they could possibly be real. I just don't know what would be in it for someone to make a fake last.fm person. Still, I wonder if it's possible that a few of these women don't actually exist.

I guess when you think about it, a lot of us are sort of fake on last.fm. Any sites with a social networking component are going to encourage people to put their best face forward, pick the most flattering pictures, mention stuff that they think sounds cool in their personal info, and in the case of last.fm, potentially skew their listening habits (unconsciously, if not intentionally).

you are the everything

I've been going through some old personal papers and filing stuff and I found an old piece of paper covered in incredibly corny, angsty writing from when I was 14 or so, with lots of references to R.E.M.'s Green. That's as specific as I'm going to get, though. It was with a pile of R.E.M.-related clippings from all sorts of publications from Melody Maker to Seventeen, mostly circa Out of Time.