Yesterday evening (gmt + 1) Danish teevee news live fed President Obama’s announcement that Chrysler will head into bankruptcy protection. Can anyone tell me if the CNNization of Danish news along with its increased obsession focus on live “breaking” coverage of D.C. political intrigue is merely a figment of my imagination? A few weeks ago, [...]
Tagged Auto Industry, DetroitQuite some time ago, I wrote a post about The White Stripes’ “The Big Three Killed My Baby”, where I read the song as a critique of the car industry in Detroit and how Jack White saw Detroit being destroyed by reckless profiteering and bad industrial habits. As Stuart pointed out to me, there is [...]
Last night during the Danish version of the X Factor (I’ll understand if you don’t respect me in the morning) one of the contestants sang Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner, without instrumentation similar to Vega’s original. I was surprised to hear it selected within the context of such a commercialized pop setting. The Danish program is [...]
Tagged Suzanne Vega, VirtualityOh it gets so lonely When you’re walking And the streets are full of strangers All the news of home you read More about the war And the bloody changes Oh will you take me as l am? Will you take me as l am?
I’m unplugging from the Matrix for week starting from now. Everyone else here at aa is presumably still around, although it is Autumn Break. As for me, I need to burn one down. Ben Harper performing at Boonaroo about 4 years ago. Or was it five?
Lately, I have been preoccupied with a new research project that I am trying to work up into a paper for the next Nordic Association of American Studies conference in May 2009. These days I spend about 10 hours a week commuting, which means that I get to listen to a lot of CDs. One [...]
In a Cold War context, “jazz was a natural” in the arsenal of cultural diplomacy. So concludes Fred Kaplan a piece in the New York Times on the Jazz Ambassadors Program of the mid 50s. Possibly because jazz during the years when the program was launched, was not only a purely homegrown art form, but [...]
Whatever metaphor we may use, this is “crunch time” for many of us writing, editing, and grading papers, preparing for exams, getting out those last minute proposals, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. In the weeds, the jungle, buried in paperwork, up against the clock, 4th and goal. Well, you get the idea. I [...]
NPR.org, June 2, 2008 – One of the fathers of rock ‘n’ roll died Monday at the age of 79. Bo Diddley was born Ellas Bates in Mississippi and grew up in Chicago, where he played guitar on street corners before being discovered by Chess Records. He leaves behind a sound that helped build a [...]