SNL Short: An all-new thriller from the mind of Wes Anderson, “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders” starring Edward Norton as Owen Wilson.
Author Archives: shaun
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The famous quotation, widely attributed to Brian Eno, that “only a thousand people bought the Velvet Underground’s début, but they all started bands” is not wrong; if anything, it is conservative, though we have to range over many albums to size up Reed’s impact. “What Goes On” gave us the Feelies; “Sister Ray” gave us Spacemen 3; the third, self-titled Velvet Underground album gave us Galaxie 500, and maybe a chunk of the independent rock music made in New Zealand during the late nineteen-eighties. Reed’s tendency toward structural simplicity married to noise, and a faith that no word was above his listener’s head, is at the root of so much music that I am scared to make a list, in fear of the counterlists that will point out everyone who is missing.
On the Pixies’ 1987 début, “Come On Pilgrim,” Frank Black sang, “I wanna be a singer like Lou Reed.” That’s a fairly solid citation, so we’ve got one, for sure. We could venture further and say that David Byrne, Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus, and Ian Curtis would have thought very differently about music if not for Reed’s existence. The real list of who loved Lou Reed songs is probably something like “everyone,” though that doesn’t do much for anyone looking to find something to listen to right now. His work spans my life and is woven into it, and it is impossible to imagine my own imagination without thinking of the direction in which Reed told me to look. Some people have Dylan, some have Tori, others have Kanye. I started with Lou, and he rarely failed me, even when he failed me. (Hell, I liked “Lulu,” give or take twenty minutes.) Dylan, in the director Todd Haynes’s formulation “wasn’t there,” which is a brilliant plan. Reed, for better or worse, was always right in front of us, no different from anyone, except that he had some pretty nice guitars. But he barely pretended to be a singer, and the simplicity of those songs lulled so many of us into thinking we could do that, because, hey, there wasn’t even a third chord on “Heroin,” just two! That isn’t so hard.
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– http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2013/10/postscript-lou-reed-obit.html
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“Bill Murray worked on Anderson’s second feature film, starring Jason Schwartzman, for scale. “He got a piece of the profits, but his day rate was Screen Actors Guild minimum,” Seitz writes. “By Anderson’s estimate, Murray made about $9,000 from acting in Rushmore.” Even more charmingly, the actor volunteered to kick in his own funds “[w]hen Disney didn’t want to pay for a helicopter shot for Rushmore’s ‘A Quick One While He’s Away’ montage.” The actor wrote a check for $25,000 to cover the helicopter rental, which Anderson never cashed and has held on to as an apparent memento. In total, Murray was willing to spend approximately $16,000 to be in Rushmore.”
– http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/10/bill-murray-rushmore
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The common misconception is that your cable company is responsible for raising your bill. Look, I hate Comcast just as much as the next guy, however, price increases generally come from the TV networks. If Fox News raises their price, the cable provider cannot all of a sudden stop carrying it. Customers would not only complain but also immediately look to other providers for service. Instead, they eat the price increase and eventually pass it on to the consumer. This is what leads to our exploding cable bills.
When a cable company decides to carry a channel like Comedy Central, they must pay the TV network a subscription fee for every one of their customers. Subscription fees are important because they show us how expensive one channel is relative to another. The fees vary greatly based on the demand of the channel. For example, The History Channel costs roughly 22 cents/month. ESPN you might be wondering? That comes out to $5.13/month, making it by far the most expensive cable channel out there.
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“He’s taking this Bansky — to the bank!
The owner of a Queens auto-glass shop made off with the British street artist’s latest work Tuesday afternoon in response to a big-bucks bid to purchase the piece.
Bernardo “Choco” Veles enlisted about 20 pals to help dismantle and remove Banksy’s makeshift sculpture of the Great Sphinx of Giza just hours after it appeared near his Willetts Point business.
“A big gallery truck pulled up and offered me money. He gave me a card,” said Veles, owner of Choco Auto Glass.”
– http://nypost.com/2013/10/22/shop-owner-sells-off-banksy-sphinx-statue/
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“You knew it had to happen eventually: Instagram is getting ads.
Facebook, which owns the fast-growing photo and video sharing service, warned Instagram users three weeks ago that photo and video ads were going to start showing up in their image streams. On Thursday, Instagram said the ads would start in the next week for users in the United States.”
– http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/instagram-will-begin-showing-ads-in-the-photo-stream/
shaun james bockert 