Entries Tagged 'Culture' ↓

The YouTube I found earlier, before someone yanked it down, had video, as opposed to these stills. However, the track—a mashup of Jay’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” with the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony”—bangs. Rock that, Mr. President.

I think this speaks for itself, fam.

Dear The Domestic Terrorist:

Greetings. Thanks for linking to and quoting my post, “‘Is Kanye the New O.J. ?'”, from my blog, Media Assassin, in your post about Kanye West and Taylor Swift, “Much Ado About Kanye.” I enjoyed your writing.

In your piece, however, I couldn’t help but notice the following excerpt:

Where Mr. Allen lost me (well, he never really had me but I was going in with an open mind since I highly respect the person who referred me to his article), was when he spewed forth this nonsense:

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Robert Bechtle’s 1974, 48 in. by 69 in. oil, Alameda Gran Torino, is a masterpiece of the photorealistic style he mastered in the 1960s and ’70s.

In his 2005 review of the artist’s work, The New Yorker‘s Peter Schjeldahl called Bechtle’s images visions “from a prior life,” and Alameda Gran Torino, paradoxically, “a nova of banality.”

The station wagon can’t help but be only and exactly what Detroit fashioned. Hot sunlight can’t help but glint from a bumper and produce a faint reflection of the windshield on a garage door. A closeness between the green of the car and that of a background shadow is unusual, but so perfectly meaningless that your mind may panic at the waste of its energy in beholding the fact. Then something peculiar can happen: your reflexive sense of the picture as a photograph breaks down, and the object’s identity as a painting, done entirely on purpose, gains ground. Look closely. A congeries of tiny freehand strokes delivers an inconspicuous patch of foliage. The whole work is a feat of resourceful painterly artifice. At last, it’s as if the original photograph were a ghost that died and came back as a body.

And what a body it is.

I’m one of those people that believe fashion, beauty, and their related industries are, essentially, a psychological grind which prey on both feminine delight in things that are lovely, and feminine insecurities, particularly with men. I’m not against these industries, their products, or against people who use what they make. I just believe that, to a great degree, women are bent out of shape by them, that these entities are needlessly exploitative, and that that characteristic is a necessary aspect of being capitalist.

That said, is it just me, or does the model in this ad for Ookisa Hair Care System for Beautiful Hair actually look better in her “Before” picture than her “After” one?

T‘aarof, rendered above in Arabic script, is, according to Wikipedia,

a Persian form of civility emphasizing both self-deference and social rank. The term encompasses a range of social behaviours, from a man displaying etiquette by opening the door for a woman, to a group of colleagues standing on ceremony in front of a door that can permit the entry of only one at time, earnestly imploring the most senior to break the deadlock.

I cite Wikipedia as a source, here—I rarely do this on MEDIA ASSASSIN—because that’s where I discovered this aspect of Middle Eastern culture. (Big up, Wiki: Probably no internet source links more disparate topics than this online medium.)

Reading on,

The prevalence of t’aarof often gives rise to different styles of negotiation than one would see in a European or North American culture. For example, a worker negotiating a salary might begin with a eulogy of the employer, followed by a lengthy bargaining session consisting entirely of indirect, polite language — both parties are expected to understand the implied topic of discussion. It is quite common for an Iranian worker (even one employed in an Iranian neighborhood within Europe) to work unpaid for a week or two before the issue of wages is finally broached. Likewise, a shopkeeper may initially refuse to quote a price for an item, suggesting that it is worthless (“gh’aabel nadaareh”). T’aarof obliges the customer to insist on paying, possibly several times, before a shopkeeper finally quotes a price and real negotiation can begin.

I was stupefied that I’d never heard of this social practice, one whose structure was so elaborate, and whose presence was so intrinsic to Iranian reality, as seen above. I reached out Dr. Michael C. Hillman, a professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of the book, Iranian Culture: A Persianist View, in order to help me understand this cultural quality. Michael Hillman is a guest, today, on this repeat broadcast of my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, November 28, at 2 pm ET.

Then, Isaac Dolom, of the late, great, much-lamented Dailysonic podcast—they ceased production in November 2006—takes a trippy look into the microscopic makeup of ordinary sounds. For example, what would a human heartbeat sound like if sped up a thousand times? (Something like a machine, it turns out.) Not to be missed, never to be forgotten.

You can hear their ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, you can check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, dig up our archive for up to 90 days after broadcast.

Thanks for the warning: Gold digger in “I’m Keepin’ It Real” mode

Given the leanness of the times, one could say that wikiHow: The How-To Manual That You Can Edit is performing a public service by releasing this among their latest sets of instructions: A nine-point list detailing “How to Spot a Gold Digger.” Sound like anybody you know?

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The New York Times zooms in on a little-discussed mode by which people, often unconsciously, abuse senior citizens, namely elderspeak. It’s

the sweetly belittling form of address that has always rankled older people: the doctor who talks to their child rather than to them about their health; the store clerk who assumes that an older person does not know how to work a computer, or needs to be addressed slowly or in a loud voice. Then there are those who address any elderly person as “dear.”

My least favorite form of this practice is when a person refers to an obviously aged woman as “young lady.” However, overall,

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I’ve got first dibbs on the antlers and gloves: Bullwinkle Moose

The rise of Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has also brought a tasty state staple to national attention: Moose.

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After launching in their hometown earlier this summer—where Houston-based Innovative Beverage Group Holdings (IBGH) says it’s “flying off the shelves”—the company has finally brought their #1 stunna, Drank, to the New York market.

“Calming Drink Captures True Taste of Hip Hop Culture,” notes the company’s release.

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