the self-hating hipster

Monolithic Architecture

I came across an article about a month ago entitled “Megaexterior,” which according to the blog I found it on (supercolossal.ch) was originally published in the moon issue of Volume magazine. A friend of mine sent it to me and when I first read it I thought it was a joke. This is not unusual since we send each other funny things we find on the internet with some regularity. The article was strangely written in my opinion and lines like “ the proverbial ‘really good’ science fiction movie” and “boxes he notoriously had specially fabricated so that they fit snug; just so” threw me off; however, the more I read the more I realized it was not a joke and by the end I was captivated.

Focusing on the monolith, featured originally in Continue reading →

Tags: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke, David Adjaye, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Monolith, MVRDV, Pyramids, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Holl, The Sentinel

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Architecture
Author meaghere

Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town

10 Apr

A few months ago I placed an Amazon order for the Kids in the Hall movie, Brain Candy, which I thought would round out my KITH collection (owning seasons 1-5 of their sketch comedy), but I discovered thanks to “customers who bought this item also bought…” that they had released a mini-series on the CBC (reran on IFC) entitled Death Comes to Town in 2010. As a Kids shill, Death Comes to Town was an exciting and obvious purchase.

The series, directed by Kelly Makin (KITH director since the early 90’s), takes place in the fictional Shuckton: a small Canadian town with Continue reading →

Tags: Amazon, Big City, Brain Candy, Bruce McCulloch, CBC, Corinda Gablechuck, Crim Hollingsworth, Dave Foley, Death, Death Comes to Town, Doc Porterhouse, Dusty Diamond, Heather Weather, hipster, IFC, inept police, Kelly Makin, Kevin McDonald, Kids in the Hall, KITH, Levon Blanchard, Marilyn Bowman, Mark McKinney, Marnie, Mayor Bowman, Rampop, review, Ricky Jarvis, Scott Thompson, Shaye, Shuckton, sketch comedy

Disappears – Pre Language

9 Apr

Chicago’s Disappears has been busy, busy. Three albums in three years: 2010’s Lux, 2011’s Guider and this year’s Pre Language. Disappears is admittedly not doing anything new. Their three albums reclaim late 60’s garage rock (the Velvet Underground aesthetic on Lux and the White Light, White Heat structure of Guider), early 70’s proto punk and Krautrock, late 70’s post punk (particularly The Fall and Wire) and early 90’s shoegaze. Their sound also incorporates elements of frontman Brian Case’s former band The Ponys.

Pre Language wasn’t exactly what I expected Continue reading →

Tags: Brian Case, Can, Disappears, Fear of Darkness, garage rock, Graeme Gibson, Guider, hipster, Iggy Pop, Kranky Records, Krautrock, Love Drug, Lux, Mark E. Smith, post punk, Pre Language, proto punk, Replicate, review, Revisiting, shoegaze, Sonic Youth, Steve Shelley, The Fall, The Ponys, Velvet Underground, White Light White Heat, Wire

Wallace – Consider the Lobster And Other Essays

7 Apr

Consider the Lobster And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace (2005)

David Foster Wallace, most famous for his gargantuan novel Infinite Jest (as the cover of this book of essays will tell you), is an author that has been recommended to me countless times. Infinite Jest, widely regarded as one of the best pieces of fiction in the past two decades, is over 1,000 pages in length (reportedly 200 of which are footnotes). Because of its sheer size, Jest also joins my list, like Joyce’s Ulysses and Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, of “things that I really should get around to reading the next time that I have a three-week vacation.” For this reason and Continue reading →

Tags: A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, Adult Vidoe News Awards, Atlas Shrugged, Authority and American Usage, Ayn Rand, Bryan A. Garner, Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace, dictionary app, footnotes, hipster, Host, Infinite Jest, James Joyce, John McCain, John Ziegler, Maine Lobster Festival, narrative voice, Rolling Stone, self-conscious, SNOOT, Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness, Tracy Austin, Ulysses

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Book Reviews
Author the self-hating hipster

Layne Staley: 10 Years Gone

5 Apr

April 5th, 2012 marks the ten year anniversary of the death of Alice in Chains’ frontman, Layne Staley. Staley was the lead vocalist and predominant songwriter for Alice in Chains which is one of the most memorable and influential Grunge/Alt. Rock bands of the 1990’s. AiC’s debut, Facelift, their iconic follow-up, Dirt, second, acoustic EP, Jar of Flies and final self-titled LP (sometimes referred to by fans as Tripod because of the three-legged dog on the albums cover) are all certified platinum.

Alice in Chains’ sound, owed heavily to Staley’s dark, pain-stricken vocals and Continue reading →

Tags: Alice in Chains, Alt. Rock, Alternative Rock, cocaine, Cold, crack, Days of the New, dirt, drug addiction, Facelift, Godsmack, Grunge, heroin, Jar of Flies, Jerry Cantrell, Layne Staley, Man in the Box, Puddle of Mudd, Staind, Tantric, Tripod

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Music, Obituaries
Author the self-hating hipster

Friends With Kids

2 Apr

I went to see Friends With Kids a week ago after dinner with my parents because my mother felt like seeing “something light” after doing schoolwork all day. I lioned an antipasto and the better part of a sausage, olive, mushroom pizza and so something light was probably the only thing I could have stomached.

Aside: “Something light” as defined by my mother = rom-com. “Lioned” as defined by my friend Steve = my primal consumption by volume of food when hungry.

The only thing that I had heard about the movie prior was that Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation), Maya Rudolph (SNL, Bridesmaids) and Jon Hamm (Mad Men) were part of the cast. All good things. Continue reading →

Tags: Adam Scott, Bridesmaids, Chris O'Dowd, Friends With Kids, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, lioning, Mad Men, Maya Rudolph, Megan Fox, Netflix, Parks and Recreation, platonic relationships, SNL, Snuggies, something light, Woody Allen

The Shins – Port of Morrow

28 Mar

Port of Morrow is The Shins’ fourth album and the first on leading man James Mercer’s own label, Aural Apothecary, after satisfying their three-album Sub Pop quota. I gave numerous listens to their first two albums Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow including but not limited to: Continue reading →

Tags: Aural Apothecary, Bait and Switch, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Chicago, Chutes Too Narrow, Crystal Skulls, Dave Hernandez, Echo & the Bunnymen, Fall of '82, For a Fool, Garden State, Girls, Greg Kurstin, hipster, indie, James Mercer, Jesse Sandoval, Jessica Dobson, Joe Plumber, Marty Crandall, Mercerites, Mine's Not a High Horse, Modest Mouse, Natalie Portman, Neal Langford, New Slang, New Wave, Now Way Down, Oh Inverted World, Port of Morrow, power pop, review, Richard Swift, September, Shinnists, Simple Song, Sub Pop, The Black Keys, The Rifle's Spiral, The Shins, Wincing the Night Away, Yuuki Matthews, Zach Braff

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Album Reviews
Author the self-hating hipster

Collins – The Hunger Games

27 Mar

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)

This has been a long time coming…

Forward:

My story with The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins began last spring. I had put hours into developing a book club for friends of mine. I raked through numerous accredited “Top” lists of the most important novels of the past century. From there I culled the cumulative list down to no more than one novel by each author, novels that were no more than 300 pages (so as not to scare casual readers away), at the same time making sure that there was novel representation from each decade and most genres. I ended up with 51 titles.

Books were chosen by the members, given a vote of three novels pulled from the list at random. This [sort of] worked for the club’s first two novels. When I saw membership/interest starting to dwindle, I opened the floor for member recommendations Continue reading →

Tags: Battle Royale, Big Brother, book club, Catching Fire, David Cronenberg, Death Race 2000, dystopia, Ender's Game, Entertainment Weekly John Green, Extreme Makeover, Gale, George Orwell, H.G. Welles, Katniss, Katniss Everdeen, Kinji Fukasaku, Man vs. Food, muttations, Orson Scott Card, Peeta, Project Runway, Richard Connell, Stephanie Meyer, Stephen King, Superbowl, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Most Dangerous Games, The New York Times Book Review, The Running Man, Twilight, Videodrome

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Book Reviews
Author the self-hating hipster

Dr. Dog at Northern Lights (3/20/2012)

24 Mar

Let me preface this by saying that I did not go to this show in the best of spirits. I woke up at 7:30 on Tuesday morning with a “muscular” headache to a throttling jackhammer dismantling my sidewalk outside. Apparently the Albany OGS felt the bricks were getting a bit too uneven on the sidewalk. I’ll trip on them just the same. Tax dollars at work waking my ass up.

I committed the cardinal concert sin on the way to work and listened to the artist on the day of a live show: a bit of Easy Beat and Shame, Shame in the car. Work was busy as [fill in expletive] and I was forced to work through lunch in order to get out of there anytime close to 5 o’clock. Continue reading →

Tags: Be the Void, Birdie Busch, Can't Hardly Wait, cardinal concert sin, crowd interaction, Dr. Dog, Easy Beat, Frank McElroy, hipster, Love Burger, Northern Lights, panic attack, Preeps, Say Something, Scott McMicken, Shame Shame, Toby Leaman, Vampire, Warrior Man, Wild Mountain Honey, Zach Miller

The Doritos Locos Taco Supreme

22 Mar

Vanessa’s on a roll. Here’s another contribution…

First of all, I’m going to get the common “but, but, Taco Bell isn’t AUTHENTIC MEXICAN FOOD!!” cry out of the way. No shit. I lived in California for 22 years and have been to Mexico more times than I can count. I know it’s not “real” Mexican food, but that doesn’t stop it from being awesome. Jurassic Park isn’t a documentary about the time they actually cloned dinosaurs from DNA caught in tree sap and then created a dinosaur safari theme park that went awry. You should also know that isn’t the REAL Mickey Mouse in your family photos from Disneyland circa 1992. But those things are still good things, and Continue reading →

Tags: authentic Mexican, bean and cheese burrito, Cool Ranch, Doritos, Doritos Locos Taco Supreme, fast food, hipster, Jurassic Park, Lean Cuisine, Mickey Mouse, Nacho Cheese, quinoa, taco bell