Good Night, Sweet Prince

Herbert J. Kornfeld, dead at 34.

We shall never see his like again.

33 1/3

I am a big fan of the 33 1/3 series of books, and I'm especially a fan of the extremely public submissions procedure the series has maintained. Run by Continuum Press in New York, the series consists of 50+ short, smart paperbacks, each on a single seminal album. The series has ranged from straightforward histories of an album's recording (Springsteen's Born in the USA, Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) to in-depth interviews with artists (DJ Shadow's Endtroducing...) to fanciful compendia of detail and data (The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs) to fiction inspired by an album (PJ Harvey's Rid of Me).

Over on their blog, the editors of the 33 1/3 series recently issued a call for submissions for the next two years' worth of titles. About 450 writers answered the call, swamping the editors with proposals on albums by 276 different artists, from AC/DC to the Osmonds to ZZ Top.

As the editors make their decisions, a bunch of writers have posted their proposals, and it's a fascinating look at what makes a person a fan of an album, and what makes them want to write on it. They're all very interesting, and they make me feel as if you could write a really good book on, seriously, any album at all. They also make me feel as though the editors at Continuum must have had a pretty fucking tough month.

Psychocandy by the Jesus & Mary Chain

I See a Darkness by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Live at the Star Club, Hamburg by Jerry Lee Lewis

Illinois by Sufjan Stevens

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret by Soft Cell

Buffalo Springfield Again by Buffalo Springfield

Fevers and Mirrors by Bright Eyes

Shaft by Isaac Hayes

Chips From the Chocolate Fireball by the Dukes of Stratosphear

Hail to the Commonwealth

The White Blazer

James has a fantastic ode to the majesty of Miami Vice's gun battles over on Moistworks today:

What really left me flush was gun play. The mad dance of exit wounds, muzzle flash, spent casings pinging off the warehouse bitumen. No one choreographs this dance in the editor's suite quite like Michael Mann. For Mann, the bullet in flight is an Objet d'Art. Mann loved the MAC-10 too. With its short barrel and protracted magazine, the MAC-10 could introduce bullets into a scene faster and more inaccurately than any other weapon. And with Mann, the mastery was in the bullets that missed as much the ones that found the mark.

The music in Miami Vice was famously sleek and crucial to the show's moods, and James nails a bunch of the iconic songs from the show. But as a kid, I played and replayed one particular track from my copy of Miami Vice II, the sequel to the soundtrack: "Crockett's Theme," by Jan Hammer. More stately and elegant than Hammer's famous title music, "Crockett's Theme" played, a cursory Google search reveals, during many episodes of the show. I particularly remember the song, though, as playing during a climactic night-time shootout in, I don't know, some episode, in which the girl Sonny Crockett loved was killed. The shootout was shot in gorgeous slow motion, complete with Crockett yelling "No!!!" and the episode fading to black.

As a kid, I spent hours in my room, re-enacting this shootout alone, "Crockett's Theme" on endless repeat on my first CD player. For maximum verisimilitude, I used my best water gun, a jet-black plastic Uzi manufactured in the days before fear of hooligans rendered all water guns bright orange or cartoon-shaped. In slow motion I would aim, shoot, dive for cover, shout out to my beloved, take a bullet to the chest, scream "No!!!", all synched perfectly to Jan Hammer's synthesized beats. I must have been around twelve, and (I realize now) weirdly preoccupied with the artful choreography of death scenes.

Sadly, my love of Miami Vice extended past solitary, imagined shootouts in my bedroom; when my dad invited me to accompany him to the Wisconsin Press Club's annual dinner, which he was hosting, I wore a terrible outfit that appears to have been inspired by Miami Vice, with an added dash of Midwestern style:

Circa 1986, with Milwaukee radio personalities Reitman & Mueller

Tragic.

Jan Hammer: "Crockett's Theme"
from Miami Vice II (1986)

It Looks Like You're Blowing a Gasket! Can I Help?

From the New York Times comes evidence that the new version of Microsoft Word might finally cut down on the bloat that's made Word, for years, the most annoying software that everyone still has to use. The "ribbon," which supposedly replaces all the formatting submenus, is meant to contain every tool you could possibly need. (It had better, since one of the quirks of the new Word is that there's no menu customization. Never use a feature? Want to remove it? Too bad.)

The new MS Word "ribbon"

Of course, Microsoft several years ago demoted the most irritating feature in MS Word, Clippy, the paperclip-shaped Microsoft Office Assistant.

Clippy

I don't know anyone in whom the sudden appearance of Clippy, spouting his inaccurate assumptions about your writing habits ("It looks like you're writing a letter! Can I help?"), did not cause immediate, all-consuming rage. Such was the universal recognition of, and hatred for, Clippy that I once saw the audience at an improv show laugh hysterically at Clippy's popping up at an inappropriate moment ("It looks like you're writing a suicide note! Can I help?") and cheer wildly at his death.

JANATLS

Thanks to the Smoking Gun for securing correspondence to and from the State of Washington's Vehicle Licensing department about offensive vanity plates. Of particular interest is the list of banned vanity plates, which includes some priceless examples of attempted obscure obscenity. The idea that someone would actually want to drive around with BUTHEAD or FUKN4BUX on their license plate boggles the mind.

Meta banned plate: VULGAR.

Kois Revenge

I hope, hope, hope that the rock band Kois Revenge tours the United States sometime soon.

At the beginning ... the earth was ... empty. But then - four brave knights, raised their weapons and put an end to sadness, silence and bad mood. It was the "trendy Gerwin" who lead the three soldiers into the fight against commerce and boredom.

Smashing the "battle-drums", he frightens those maniacs, supported by "Rautz - the wild" and "Mark - the pin-up" who rise their "battle-axes" in order to convict those incredulous people. "Paul - the magic dragon" with his golden pipe - the most evil teddybear ever been on this world - breaks the maidens hearts.

Those four of us damned troubadours won't give up their fate. Facing dangers and crowds of techno-zombies, it is their destination to convince all volks of the wold getting luckyness and satisfaction.

It is very exciting that I have a band dedicated to my revenge.