http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress random thoughts on changing the world -- and changing thoughts on a random world Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:48:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Courtesy of cnn.com Beyonce does interview with bleeding feet Newest Obama 'loves to chew on feet' http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=149 Patsy Cline, "Sweet Dreams (Of You)." We start it off this week very sad and very weepy. If you can't feel the heartbreak spilling out of the speakers when this tune comes on, you may simply not have a heart to begin with. Strangeloves, "I Want Candy." And ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=145 Amos Milburn, "House Party (Tonite)." A bit of old jump blues that means just what its title says. Rick James & Ike Turner, "Love Gravy." Leave it to South Park to put together two musical greats -- and poster children for domestic abuse -- and manage to make it ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=142 Perez Prado, "Mambo #8." Say what you will about Lou Bega's cheesy 1999 hit, "Mambo #5." It was catchy enough to make me want to know more about the sampled song at its core. Which led me to Perez Prado's infinitely better tune of the same name ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=138 So someone who's evidently too shy to venture off Facebook and comment on my actual blog scribbled the following message on my "wall" this afternoon: yesterday was monday. something is missing..... So I'm trying to offer a "makeup" post today. Ten tunes. But no comments this time. It's another swamped ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=136 It's back. I won't know until I hit "Play" whether it's better than ever. But it's back. Dinah Washington, "No Voot, No Bout." Innuendo-laden jazz, rather than blues or r&b -- though Dinah did plenty of those in her day as well. And did them damned well. Wynonie ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=132 Sorry.  Maybe next week.  All six of you who pay attention to this will survive for the next seven days, I'm sure.  (And, if not, then I'm truly sorry for having contributed to your early demise.) http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=129 Sam & Dave, "Soul Man." Some days, the world is on serendipitous shuffle play.  This tune popped up on the radio Saturday while I was enjoying a pleasant afternoon out and about with some friends, where we traded trivia tidbits about Stax's perpetually squabbling duo while singing along.  And here ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=126 Asylum Street Spankers, "Think About Your Troubles." A cover of an old Harry Nilsson song.  And a testament to the Spankers' versatility.  It's not too many bands who can do sweet and sincere children's tunes (like this one) and bawdy bits of musical sauciness . . . and do them ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=123 Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters, "Money Honey." A glorious, old-school, doo-wop dissertation on the cruelties of capitalism and its detrimental effects on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  No, really, it is. Ray Charles, "Hey Good Lookin'." Brother Ray makes Hank Williams swing and jive.  And a party where the ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=120 Neko Case, "Thrice All American." Neko's love song to Tacoma -- where my family lived for a year when I was about eight.  Can't say that I ever loved the place the same way that Neko (or her singing persona) does.  My main memories are of being an awkward, gawky ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=118 . . . and hide the children.  Coming to St. Paul for a special two-for-one concert this May?  Elton John and Billy Joel.  Which means the whole state will be crawling with the deadliest of earworms for weeks.  Months, even. http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=115 Booker T. & the MGs, "Green Onions." Bonnie Raitt, "Fools Game." Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters, "Honey Love." Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters, "Such a Night." Irma Thomas, "Time Is on My Side." Concrete Blonde, "Run Run Run." Blondie, "One Way or Another." Solomon Burke, "Presents for Christmas." Diana Ross & the Supremes, "Love Is Like an Itching ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=112 My friend Elena likes to tell a story about grading student papers while some Jacques Cousteau special was playing on the TV as background noise. While she was gawking at what her charges had managed to do to logic, reason, and the English language, Cousteau was commenting on one ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=108 It's been too long, I know. And I'm certainly not the first blogger to turn to the shuffle feature on their handy stack of mp3s into a cheap way to generate some regular content. But several months of blog silence tells me that I shouldn't turn my nose ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=106 Once again, I've found myself with an earworm so evil, so heinous, so persistent that I must impose it upon others so that I might free myself of the plague. To this end, I give you: Elton John, "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" How bad has this ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=104 Several people (including many blog-less friends not linked here) have asked me about the Crossroads in Cultural Studies conference in Kingston, Jamaica that wrapped up early last week.  And I would be hard-pressed to do better than Melissa Gregg's summary of the event . . . except, perhaps, to simply ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=97 New York man accused Schilling says season over Oil rebounds on word http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=96 Doctors say Woods should Ohio teacher burned cross Floating foot a hoax [background here and here and here] http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=95 I'm guessing that Amazon.com's associational marketing algorithms could use some tweaking. 'Cause I suspect that the Stuart Hall who's most frequently getting linked to George Lipsitz has not started publishing books on how to play guitar . . . Dear Amazon.com Customer, We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=94 Catching up on a backlog of unread items in my RSS reader, I came across a nice one from the Feminist Law Professor blog about "Smile on a Stick": a "useful solution" for women who are repeatedly being told to smile by the men in their lives. The blog ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=93 One week later, and there are still a handful of movies that remain unnamed. So here's a set of "second chance" quotes (along with the previous, still unidentified quotes) for each of the remaining films. Film #2 [2001: A Space Odyssey -- Bo] Deliberately buried. Huh! I'm afraid I can't do that. Film ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=91 I was tagged with a movie quote meme. And being an agreeable fella (at least sometimes), I'm cooperating. I've modified the rules a bit. They look like this: Pick fifteen of your favorite movies. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie. (Or in some cases, just ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=90 I'm in DC for a few days to visit Mom.  It's the city where I did most of my growing up (assuming, of course, that I actually did grow up) and it's always a little weird to come back.  There are parts of it that still feel very much like ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=89 Yesterday, my car was involved in an accident.  Sort of.  It was parked on the street in front of the house at the front end of a series of three vehicles.  Someone managed to drive their car into the back rear corner of the truck at the back end of ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=88 Yesterday, my body rebelled against me.  Or against something.  I don't know just what I did -- I didn't actually seem to be stretching things further than was reasonable, I didn't slip on a patch of ice, I didn't twist my ankle and land awkwardly -- but I put a ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=87 . . . I hope to find something other than University labor politics to blog about. Honest. For now, however, here's yet another letter. This one to the Minnesota Daily in response to an interview with Bob Bruininks published in today's edition of the paper. I would like ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=86 The brochure for the University's annual Community Fund Drive arrived in my campus mailbox today. In past years, I have cheerfully contributed to this drive. It is, after all, a worthy range of causes. The people and programs who benefit from it are certainly worthy of the ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=85 Why I chose to make Monday my "regular" blog posting day, I'm not sure.  It's my long teaching day this semester, and several of those long days will be made longer by various meetings that are scheduled to happen in between my morning class and my afternoon seminar.  Not to ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=84 I hadn't planned for this entry to be entirely about my friend Nikki. And, after a fashion, it's not really all about Nikki. But it's been a day where multiple circumstances have had a strong Nikki aura to them, so it only makes sense to put a name ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=83 As mentioned in this space last week, the University is facing a strike by clerical, technical, and health-care workers that's slated to start Wednesday. Last week's bargaining[sic] session found the University coming back to the table without budging from the very same offer that workers had rejected when they ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=82 As I type these words, the lead story on the CNN website is a classic example of "good" moral panic reporting about the "blistering pace" of murders in New Orleans. Nearly one per day this month alone, and with a per capita rate that makes other alleged hotbeds of ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=81 The start of another new school year is upon us. And I'm always astounded by the way that this time of year can be filled with amazing optimism and amazing stress, all at once. All that fresh energy in the air, and all those grandiose hopes that this ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=80 Or maybe just the celebrities. Accidents only become important, after all, when celebrities are affected by them. Eleven people were evidently hurt in the accident discussed in the story -- one of them seriously -- but because there are "no findings to suggest anyone famous was involved in ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=79 Let's kickstart this blog a bit, shall we? And let's try doing so with a recurring quick-hit approach that will (hopefully) goad me to drop a fresh chunk of prose here at least once a week. A few folks have inquired about the long-promised but not-yet-delivered intellectual property tale. ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=78 I've been meaning to post about the Cultural Studies Now conference and my trip to London ever since I got back . . . but Margaret's mother arrived for a week's visit three hours after I got back . . . and then three hours before she left, the roofers ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=76 I received a curious e-mail today. Except for the obvious spots where I've expunged identifying information, it looked like this: Dear Gil Rodman, We loved your blog, thank you for the great content! I would like to give you an iPod Shuffle gift in exchange for a link to our [sitename] ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=74 Margaret and I closed on the new house yesterday. And, of course, this has required a range of formal encounters with a host of different bureaucracies. Utility companies. Insurance companies. Title companies. And then some. In the process, we've been amazed and amused at ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=73 I must exorcise myself of the demons that have possessed me. I must. Please forgive me for what I am about to do to you. Billy Joel, "An Innocent Man" Foreigner, "Double Vision" These are the two abysmal excuses for songs that have been stuck in my head for the past ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=72 Ted Striphas is running a caption contest on his blog involving a photo of a baby holding a book by every toddler's favorite French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze. I'm still working on my entry (how could I not? Ted's offering such fabulous prizes!) but -- in the meantime -- I ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=71 It's about time that advertisers started taking women seriously as intellectuals, rather than as pretty faces and hot bodi-- --waitasec. Nevermind. This is, after all, an ad for silicone breast implants. Even better, though, is the that the site linked above gives you the chance to click through ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=70 A few months back, I wrote about an intellectual property debacle that landed in Jonathan Sterne's lap, courtesy of an essay of his that appeared in a Sage journal. Today, I find myself on the verge of having a(nother) comparable story of my own to tell . . . but I'm ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=69 On Monday, March 25, the high in Minneapolis was 81 degrees. Record for the day. Two degrees shy of the record for the month. I don't think anyone had any illusions that we'd simply bypassed spring and headed straight into summer for good -- or even that ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=68 The pictures don't quite do it justice . . . . . . if only because they don't necessarily capture . . . . . . the openness of the space very well . . . . . . but Margaret and I are on the verge of a crosstown move to ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=67 [Spoiler warning: Follow the links in the post below at your own risk, since those will reveal the names of the films in question . . . and that may mean you learn more than you want to know about the plots in question.] Right before Margaret left for six weeks ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=66 [Possible mild spoilers ahead, depending on just how sensitive you are to these things.] Just came home from seeing The Departed at the glorious second-run theatre around the corner. And it was, in all sorts of ways, classic Scorsese: it's not a film for folks who flinch at a little ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=64 I've got a blog. It's written using my real name. Its online home is my department's server. So it was only a matter of time before one of my undergraduate students discovered this space. It's possible, of course, that this happened long ago and no one bothered to ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=63 Not only do I suddenly find myself in a mini-blogging frenzy of my own (after way too long a gap) -- three posts in four days? as if I'm Michael Bérubé or something? -- but I also find myself piping up with quips and comments on other people's blogs -- ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=62 My junk e-mail filter this morning included an e-mail from Judy Genshaft, President of USF. There's something poetically fitting about her message automatically being shuffled into my "junk" folder, since her standard policy with respect to faculty input on major issues was (and presumably still is) to accept them ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=61 . . . since I last set fingers to keyboard with active blogging in mind. The first couple of weeks of the semester have kicked my ass more than I expected. And, if my visit to the Science Museum of Minnesota's new exhibit on race is any indication, it'll be ... http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/wordpress/?p=60