Link to an article by John Pilger:
Month: February 2016
Aviva Chomsky – All the News That’s Fit to Print
Link to an article by Aviva Chomsky:
“All the News That’s Fit to Print: How the Media Hide Undocumented Workers”
Bonus links: “What Pierre Bourdieu Taught Me” and “Should Journalists Care If Sources Go Off to Prison?”
Eric Mann – Trumbo: Hollywood’s Anti-Communist Tribute to Itself
Link to a review by Eric Mann:
“Trumbo: Hollywood’s Anti-Communist Tribute to Itself”
Bonus links: “Living With Trumbo Under the Blacklist” and “The Dalton Trumbo I Knew”
Review of Social Class in the 21st Century
Link to Anna’s review of Social Class in the 21st Century (2015) by Mike Savage:
“Social Class in the 21st Century“
Online copy of the Introduction to the book:
“The Great British Class Survey and the Return of Class Today”
John Patrick Leary – Flint’s Bottom Line
Link to an article by John Patrick Leary:
Bonus links: “Flint: A Tale of Two Cities” and “A Pediatrician General Motors and the Flint Water Crisis” and “The Poisoning of Flint”
Fletcher Henderson – Wrappin’ It Up
Fletcher Henderson – Wrappin’ It Up (Quadromania Jazz Edition) Membran Music 222440-444 (2006)
Fucking wow! I knew about Fletcher Henderson a little, that he was perhaps the first great swing big band leader and was a big influence on everyone from Ellington to Sun Ra. But I just didn’t comprehend just how massive his recordings are. This set, at four CDs, is hardly ever less than stellar. I can think of some pretty major artists of the 20th Century who can’t fill a single greatest hits disc!
I guess there are some artists who seems to spend there entire career working to refine what amounts to a single idea. It may be a big idea, but it’s still just one idea. You could name some great musicians, like Cecil Taylor, who fall into that category. On the other hand, I’ve always been more interested in those who seek to continually come up with new ideas, like Jean-Luc Godard, John Cage, and I would say Fletcher Henderson too. Every track here is great for different reasons. There are new ideas in each one. I love that.
Carly Rae Jepsen – E·MO·TION
Carly Rae Jepsen – E·MO·TION Interscope UICS-1296 (2015)
Well-crafted synth pop. A decade or so ago this is exactly the sort of thing Kylie Minogue was doing. Jepsen’s producers actually gravitate more toward the sound of classic Michael Jackson recordings though. That is a wise move. Admittedly, I didn’t get all the way through this one. While it does what it does well, it is necessary to question what it tries to do. This album is all about reinforcement of gender roles: men are supposed to be athletic, aggressive, competitive; women are supposed to be emotional, meek, nurturing. This sort of stuff needs to be identified and called out for what it is, which is a regressive distraction.