I Served the King of England ()
Mad Men Season 2, Episode 1: Either TV is getting smarter or I am getting dumber
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| What’s wrong with this picture? |
| amctv.com |
Mad Men is the heir to the cable drama throne previously occupied by The Sopranos and The Wire. The story of a WASP-y Manhattan advertising agency in 1960, the show’s received lots of attention for the prolific drinking, smoking, racism and misogyny of the main characters, as well as for its meticulous dramaturgy.
But I would argue most of the praise of Mad Men misses the mark. What its creator, Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner, is trying to tell us, I suspect, is that these are the people who created the consumer culture we live in today. The idea that we express our individuality through buying stuff is relatively new. More to the point, it was invented by people like Mad Men’s tormented, secretive Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative director of fictional ad agency Sterling Cooper.
Jane Mayer has fun with torture at the Free Library
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| Jane Mayer |
| The New Yorker |
Before Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side and an investigative reporter at The New Yorker, discussed her book about how the highest levels of our government became chock full of torturers and what, exactly, our country could do to rectify it, she tackled perhaps a more complex mystery: how did she ever get on the Philly Fun Guide? Talking about torture, especially at the Free Library, certainly couldn’t be fun.
There are, though, a couple fun facts associated with torture that could really help you lift the spirits at the next company happy hour: did you know that Canada – Canada – has the United States on a list of rogue nations that employ, as they are called, “enhanced interrogation techniques,” along with Egypt? Did you know that some top administration officials are advised not to travel to other countries because they might be arrested? Did you know that when CIA interrogators couldn’t think of any new ways to inflict pain on a suspected terrorist, they would watch Fox’s drama 24 for ideas? If there were such a thing as “sadistic government Quizzo,” Mayer would walk out with the pot money, the bonus round money, and the deed to the bar.
Instead, she wrote a book. A killer book, one that actually accomplishes what many print and online news organizations today think they accomplish, but fail miserably at: connecting the dots. Mayer shows how Vice President Cheney outright told the country he was going to torture detainees on NBC five days after 9/11: “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies…” Mayer points out how the Bush Administration used a little-known office in the Justice Department, the Office of Legal Counsel, to upend centuries of Constitutional law with quack-level legal opinions. Mayer shows how information, bad information, retrieved from detainees under incomprehensible pain, made its way into President Bush’s speeches and Colin Powell’s case for war at the United Nations. And Mayer quotes people like a former top CIA official, who told her that after those torture tactics were used, “Ninety percent of what we got was crap.”
Free Secret Machines Tix available NOW
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Get over to Free Yr Radio like, this instant, to get yr free ticket to see Secret Machines and Dave P for free on Tuesday, Aug. 12. The concert is at Urban Outfitters, which seems like a clusterfuck waiting to happen. But free is free. And Free Yr Radio’s Philly event is for our dear, beloved WPRB.
How can such a thing happen?
FREE YR RADIO IS…
A program created by Toyota Yaris and Urban Outfitters to support and publicize the importance of independent radio. Free Yr Radio comes to life through a series of events developed to generate awareness and support for a handful of partner stations.
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Free Yr Radio is again poised to grab the attention of music fans nationwide with free shows by artists celebrated on independent stations. Check out the lineup and get yr free tickets!
Go to the site, print yr ticket, get ready to buy skinny jeans that don’t fit you right and don’t think about why a car company is so anxious to make nice with you right about now.
The 1-Upper: Sushi Go Round
Roll ‘em up
Disclaimer: I like sushi. Strike that. I love sushi. I’m pretty sure that’s all I ate during the four years I was in college and worked at Whole Foods. So when I saw Sushi Go Round, it was pretty much impossible to play without drooling. Does anyone know how to dry out a keyboard?
The premise of the game is that you’re a newbie sushi chef filling in for the regular maker of maki rolls. You’ve got a recipe book, a set number of ingredients, and some sake to satisfy customers if you’re taking to long to fill their order. Each day, you’ll be given a total figure to reach before the shop closes, and as the game progresses you’ll be given more complex rolls to make. It can get difficult clearing plates, ordering more ingredients and sake, and getting the rolls right, but it is hilarious when you screw up an order and it’s represented by a pile of poo with eyes. Even more hilarious is when it continues to scroll by on the sushi conveyor belt until the shop closes.
Go play Sushi Go Round here.
OMG You Guys: Jurassic Fight Club
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Now that Legally Blonde The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods has concluded (I still think Bailey’s a whiny plastic bitch, so it’s nice to hear that Autumn’s been cast as her understudy and that Lauren and Rhiannon got gigs with the touring production), I’ve got an opening in my DVR schedule.
And I believe I’ll be plugging it with Jurassic Fight Club, a History Channel joint that debuts tonight at 9 and promises lots of scientist-approved CGI of dinosaurs going Brad Pitt/Edward Norton on each other.
This NY Daily News review disses the show, claiming it “comes off more as a network’s efforts to remain relevant in an Ultimate Fighting world than attempt a serious program.”
To which I reply: That’s a bad thing?
Spreeding if Fundementalish
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Everybody reads. The question is how fast. The other question is: Does everybody read?
The New York Times ran this piece on Sunday about how people aren’t really reading like they used to. Kids are more into the web and not as much into books and blah blah blah. I couldn’t get through it. Skim the whole thing here.
For a more intriguing, if no less inconclusive (yikes), perspective on the whole Reading: It Still Happens? debate, check out what Sven Birkerts had to say. He’s the editor of Agni literary magazine and a devout print man with a million thoughts on the subject. Skip through it all here.
What got me thinking about all this is something ex-Philadelphian Beth Staples had to say at her Hayden’s Ferry blog regarding print versus online publishing. “if we know we can — at least to a certain extent — take back or delete what we’ve put forth online, does it change the seriousness with which we submit it?”
Read the whole thing here (it’s short).
Anyway all of that is preamble/excuse for me to direct your attention to a dizzying little device called Spreeder. All you do is copy text from somewhere, paste it into Spreeder and hit play. The words then begin to pop up on screen one at a time, 300 of them per minute. I just gave it a shot and while it didn’t lose me, it wasn’t exactly comfortable. Still, I can see this thing coming in real handy. A step close to the dream of downloading entire volumes of knowledge into the brain. I want that.
Here’s Spreeder.
The Showdown: Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules
Monday:
Despite playing Smokey, please refrain from yelling The Big Lebowski quotes at Jimmie Dale Gilmore. He’s far too awesome to contend with that. With Jenny Scheinman, at the World Cafe, doors at 7:30 p.m., tickets are $30-40.
Tuesday: Jason Pierce almost died. But that’s not the only reason you should go see Spiritualized tonight. Here are three reasons: 1. Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space is a great record. 2. “Often more threadbare than previous Spiritualized records, [new record] Song in A&E feels like a slightly lusher brand of forlorn English folk, the Fairport Convention coming down from a meth jag,” says A.D. Amorosi. 3. For the price of admission, you also get the Dirtbombs AND the War on Drugs. Need more? You won’t get it you greedy bastards. At the TLA, doors at 7 p.m., tickets are $25-27.
Wednesday: ALERT: Philly super group! “Unrelentingly catchy even at its quirkiest, the duo of Man Man drummer Pow Pow (Chris Powell) and Bablicon’s Blue Hawaii (Griffin Rodriguez) comes across like the Atari 2600 adaptation of Gnarls Barkley, its eccentric grooves rendered with rougher edges and a more unpredictable sense of play,” according to Shaun Brady. With Buffalo Stance (remember Neneh Cherry?!) and Make a Rising, at Johnny Brendas, doors 8 p.m., tickets are $10.
Or…
You can go jazzy-pizazzy tonight with Arrive. “That moment when post-bop built a bridge to the avant-garde is certainly present in the music of altoist Aram Shelton, who combines the tart angularity of influences like Ornette Coleman and Jackie McLean with an expansive reach inherited from the AACM,” says Shaun. With Matt Davis and Dan Blacksberg’s New Group, Borowsky Gallery, doors at 8 p.m. tickets are $10-$12.
Thursday: Bon Iver recorded his new album, For Emma, Forever in a remote cabin in Wisconsin. Give him some company tonight. With the Bowerbirds, at the First Unitarian Church, doors at 8:30 p.m., tickets are $12.
Friday: Check out the cut and paste-isms of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, friend of Animal Collective and fellow Paw Track-ster. With Chairlift, Tickley Feather and Kurt Vile, at the M Room, doors at 9 p.m., tickets are $10.
Saturday: Vernon Reid, founder of day-glo wet-suited Living Colour, teams up with DJ Logic and, with their powers combined, they outcome is the Yohimbe Brothers. The combo is the best of their respective worlds. It’s their first visit to Philly in four years so give them the welcome they deserve. At the North Star Bar, doors at 9 p.m., tickets are $12.
Sunday: The Showdown is all about bang for your buck, so while seeing Jill Scott at the Borgata may technically be better, you coulda seen her for a fraction of that at Black Lily (if only you knew better) AND you gotta drag your ass all the way to Jersey. Give the new guys a shot tonight for the first round of the Battle of the Bands. Or you could go just to mock their names: Eric Az and the Drive-By Hippies, Stuck in Your Radio, The Air I breathe, Pieces of Euphoria, Adam Web, Broken By Archways, Faster Than Fate, Independence Drive, The Vivid Twisted, AmRev2 and Rushmore. At Crocodile Rock, doors at 4 p.m., tickets are $10-12.
George Michael, July 26, Wachovia
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| “But Mr. Officer, I was just … “ |
| Photo | Deesha Dyer |
“I know that being a George Michael fan hasn’t always been easy, but I assure you — around 11:30 tonight, it’ll be the easiest thing to be.” –Mr. George Michael
The time between when I bought the ticket in March and when I saw the George Michael this past Saturday have been the longest three months of my life. OK, maybe that is a bit dramatic — but is there another way to be when we’re talking about Mr. Wham himself?
Even with two days to organize my thoughts, I’m still a bit scattered. There he was, right in front of me doing the same side-to-side ass-shaking dance that made me fall in love with him when those tight pants were huggin’ his legs back in the ’80s. This was George, my dear George. When the stage opened up at 8:45 p.m., and he walked out and started “Fastlove,” I looked like a lunatic, really. Jumping up and down, screaming, taking pictures and singing every word. GEORGE MICHAEL!!
MGMT, July 25, Starlight Ballroom
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| Photo | Liz Tung |
On Friday night, over the top was par for the course as shiny young hepcats flooded the Starlight for a sold-out show by electropop it-boys MGMT.
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| Photo | Liz Tung |
The Brooklyn-based duo, who broke into Pitchfork territory last year with their full-length debut Oracular Spectacular, specialize in irresistible pop hooks mashed up with trippy psychedelic breakdowns. Those breakdowns are part of what has allowed MGMT to maintain some semblance of artistic (or at least non-mainstream) credibility. On Friday, however, the crowd seemed restless with the band’s somewhat sloppy bouts of improvisation; I even spotted some rabid enthusiastic adolescent girls near the stage sneaking their phones out for a quick text during the sprawling jam-fest “Metanoia” (which, appropriately enough, means “repentance,” according to Wikipedia).
But even the most self-indulgent songs weren’t enough to prevent the crowd from falling into hand-waving rapture over MGMT’s dubiously ironic anthems to youth, glitter and excess (think Lord of the Flies + glam rock decadence + being on coke). Songs like “Electric Feel” and “Time to Pretend” did feel somewhat soulless in this regard — but I couldn’t stop whistling them the whole way home.
Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip — Confessions of a Cynical Waiter, by “The Waiter”
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| Ecco, 320 pp., $24.95, July 29 |
Ever since David Sedaris proved that humorous, autobiographical short stories can sell, a crop of new writers has sprung out of nowhere trying to emulate him. Chelsea Handler, Augusten Burroughs, Cynthia Kaplan, and now The Waiter. And like many Sedaris hopefuls, his attempts fall short.
After maintaining the blog WaiterRant.net for the past four years, the writer who identifies himself only as The Waiter — possibly from fear of fanfare (or retribution) at his restaurant — has written a book of the same title and theme: How much it sucks to be a waiter. In 10- to 15-page doses, The Waiter reveals the minds behind the ostensibly sane restaurants you dine in, all the while illustrating a variety of insolent, Napoleonic customers whose after-work recreation is treating waiters like their personal plantation workers. The most satisfying moments of the book come when The Waiter takes vengeance on these diners, but unfortunately, the chapter that exclusively focuses on revenge is also the shortest.
Although the book is an enlightening look at a venue most people take at face value, Waiter Rant will likely appeal more to servers looking for a brother in the cause than it will to diners. While some chapters are highly rewarding, other stories are unfocused and lack unifying themes, which The Waiter attempts to haphazardly remedy at the ends. He easily gets lost in tangential autobiography about his personal life and aspirations as a writer. Often, meaningless, protracted dialogue fills the pages, and The Waiter includes too many quotes to highlight his own wit. Instead of describing scenes and personalities, the narrative gets weighed down in mildly clever similes. And even though the book is funny, it probably won’t make you laugh.
Despite its shortcomings, Waiter Rant is still worth reading. If you’re a waiter, there will be plenty of “That happened to me!” moments. If you’re a diner, you’ll learn why you should leave your fascist tendencies at the door (and why you should always tip 20 percent). And for both, you’ll buy the book happily knowing that you’re helping at least one waiter escape the tyranny of restaurants.