Entries from September 2008 ↓

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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O.K., friends: The world got just a little bit bigger today. Thanks to my high school friend, Angela Renee Simpson—no singing slouch in her own right—I now know the name of countertenor Matthew Truss, an ’06 Boston Conservatory grad, and apparently one of the hottest new talents out.

If, like me, you get to the opera about once a kalpa, or you confuse the word “countertenor” with “counterterrorist,” prepare to be stunned by Mr. Truss’s rendition of “Addio, addio miei sosprir,” from 18th century Bavarian composer Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera, Orfeo ed Euridice.

The video is from the Intermezzo Foundation’s Elardo International Opera Competition this past summer in Brussels, at which Truss won the $5,000 Jerry Hadley Award. While you listen, remember: Your eyes do not deceive you.

Who would have thought in 1983 that “Thriller,” Michael Jackson’s landmark, then astronomically-priced $500,000 music video, viewed from a certain wan perspective, was really just a compressed foretelling of his dementia and decay?

UVA grad David Murray, maker of this most excellent T-shirt, above, that’s who. Sizes SM-XXL at Seibei.com, $22.

Tina Fey-lin: Impersonating the Republican VP nominee on SNL

Former Not Ready for Prime-Time Player Tina Fey helped open the 34th season of Saturday Night Live by playing the role she was genetically formed to play: Alaska governor / G.O.P. VP nominee Sarah Palin, above.

With cast member Amy Poehler doing her manic Hillary Clinton jibe, the two delivered five funny minutes straight from the headlines and from Palin’s disastrous interview with ABC news anchor Charles Gibson, completely overshadowing the fact that Olympic octomedalist Michael Phelps was hosting and platinum rapper Lil Wayne performing.

If you missed it this weekend, check it out on YouTube before NBC tears it down like they do everything else on the service. Or, better, just go to Hulu.

And baby makes six: The Obama family and their newest member(s)

How legitimate are Sarah Palin’s calls that her family be kept out of the press, as she and John McCain attempt to win the White House? Furthermore, is there an implied double standard at work when she does so?

Or, as Frank Rich, in The New York Times, argues in his piece, “The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket,” harshly critiquing the campaign,

The ultimate hypocrisy is that these woebegone, frightened opponents of change, sworn enemies of race-based college-admission initiatives, are now demanding their own affirmative action program for white folks applying to the electoral college. They want the bar for admission to the White House to be placed so low that legitimate scrutiny and criticism of Palin’s qualifications, record and family values can all be placed off limits. Byron York of National Review, a rare conservative who acknowledges the double standard, captured it best: “If the Obamas had a 17-year-old daughter who was unmarried and pregnant by a tough-talking black kid, my guess is if they all appeared onstage at a Democratic convention and the delegates were cheering wildly, a number of conservatives might be discussing the issue of dysfunctional black families.”

You think?

Hey, kids: Don’t forget to get your entries in to the WIRED Science blog “Drill, Baby, Drill: The Remix” contest.

Participants are asked to cut up the clarion call from lonely Black G.O.P. guy Michael Steele, above, to the Republican National Convention for the decimation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The competition’s been going on about ten days now, so hurry and send your mp3s to Brandon Keim at brandon@earthlab.net, and post your video on YouTube.

After Alaskan governor / Republican V.P. nominee Sarah Palin—above, with youngest daughter, Piper, and John McCain—gave her presentation at the Republican National Convention last week, like you, I kept getting asked what I thought of the speech.

“Oh: It was a great speech,” I’d respond, utterly serious. “A great speech.” A beat. “It was complete nonsense. But it was a great speech!”

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Funny or Die.com, the folks who brought you Paris Hilton as a presidental candidate, now give us the unendingly sexy Gina Gershon as McCain’s running mate. Funny as all get out, yes, but here’s the crazy part: If you’d seen this two weeks ago, before McCain had announced Palin, you’d have figured these guys were just wacko, correct?

Affianwan, Calabar South, Nigeria, 2005 (Photo by Phyllis Galembo)

Photographer Phyllis Galembo burrows deep into what she calls “the transformative power of costume and ritual” by shooting large-format chromes of revelers and worshippers in remote parts of Nigeria, Haiti, and other Caribbean and African countries.

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Feelin’ super, post- the DNC? Let this black T-shirt warm your back and strike fear in the hearts of your Republican opponents.

This is an officially licensed Alex Ross t-shirt depicting Super Obama in which these Alex Ross shirts have been screen printed with the Super Barack Obama image on front. These Barack Obama t-shirts are usually made from heavyweight preshrunk 6oz. cotton tee shirt blanks.

In sizes, small – XXXL, $18-$21, from StyleOnline.com.