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Music: The Big To-Do (Drive-By Truckers)

Jon Young — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Few bands even make it to their 10th album, let alone continue to make good music that long. Remarkably, The Big To-Do finds Drive-By Truckers still in peak form. The sextet's fierce Southern rock, which combines Lynyrd Skynyrd's sting with the grace of Booker T. & the MGs, has the edge of a newly sharpened knife. Woeful-sounding front man Patterson Hood crafts vivid vignettes of downtrodden characters as he examines domestic violence ("Drag the Lake Charlie"), alcoholism ("The Fourth Night of My Drinking"), and getting laid off ("This Fucking Job"). With an unsentimental yet sympathetic touch, he balances tragedy and dark comedy with finesse.

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SXSW Dispatch: The Geek Triumphant

Sheerly Avni — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:05:37 +0000

Old SXSW used to be uphill with the toboggan—you had to explain what a modem was. These days you’re all heading down the slope full speed with your hands in the air.

- Bruce Sterling, Futurist Emeritus, SXSW 2010

For the first time since it was added to the festival's line-up in 1994, SXSW Interactive has outsold Music in paid passes. It's further proof of geek ascendancy in media, as well further proof that Interactive's tagline—The Future is Now—might not be an idle boast. As Bruce Sterling ranted in his annual address at a packed Convention Center ballroom last night, the momentum of the scientific innovation has slipped into hyperdrive, for better or for worse.

In Sterling's eye, of course, it's for worse. We're making a mess of things, with all the tweet-ups and meet-ups and downloads and bootlegs and status updates and blithe disregard for the impact on the world outside our sleekly designed bubble. Our combination of self-absorption and apathy in the face of war, recession and environmental collapse is going to earn us the disgust of the next generation, and we aren't doing enough, and even if we were, there's not much we could do anyway, and it's all going to hell, chaos, technofascism and waste. He's seen the future, baby, and it is Juarez.

But of course it's not that simple, not for many of the innovators, and not even for Sterling, whose characteristic maelstrom of invective was both bracing and inspiring. (You can catch a rough transcription here.) At their best, SXSW Interactive sessions address the moral questions of emerging technologies, from technological surveillance to artificial intelligence to the use of neuroscience in marketing to the availability of hardcore porn on the Internet. This year's most exciting sessions ripped those moral questions right open, sometimes on purpose, and sometimes accidentally, just because of the sessions' constant twitter-assisted back-channels.

But more on that later. There were were so many tantalizing panels and discussions that this faithful correspondent has only managed to catch three films. For the next few days, I'll be catching up on screenings, blogging through the best and worst of the recent sessions, tweeting, and ~~drinking~~ standing in line at Ironworks.

(Coming up next: Big Brother IS watching you. Strike a pose)

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LOST Chat: Recon

Nikki Gloudeman — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:25:25 +0000

Season 6, Episode 8: "Recon"

After three weeks of being MIA, Sawyer finally returned in last night's episode of Lost. In addition to our favorite shirtless bad boy, "Recon" also featured a bargain with Widmore on the sub, more of crazy Claire acting crazy, and a pissed-off sideways world Charlotte.

We invited The JoshMeister, who runs a popular Lost blog and podcast, to join the fray for our MoJo chat this week. Thanks, Josh! Read our thoughts below, and keep coming back for more cool guests in the coming weeks.

Laurin Asdal:, Director of Development: Good morning.
The JoshMeister, Lost Blogger: Hi!
Jen Phillips, Assistant Editor: Hey Losties.
Nikki Gloudeman, New Media Fellow: Hello, and thanks for joining us, Josh.
The JoshMeister: No problem. Thanks for inviting me!

Laurin: Can I just say right off the bat, it's embarrassing how much I enjoyed last night's episode.
Jen: Shirtless Sawyer is back!
Nikki: Hoorah!
Jen: Glad he wasn't ALL good, even with the badge.
Laurin: The bad boy trying to do right. The age old tale.
Jen: And wonder if he will work with another LAPD officer, Michelle Rodriguez's character.
Laurin: Oh, yes. I hear she's coming back.
The JoshMeister: I just realized I'm the only male in the middle of a conversation about Sawyer being shirtless. Awkward!

Jen: So was Charlotte really on a date with Sawyer, or was she sent by Miles to do recon? Opinions? Also, it was nice to see a woman on the show w/out dirt on her face or hair all crazy.
The JoshMeister: That theory does make sense; my wife and I (and even Jim in the flash-sideways) all thought Miles was going to confront him about the date with Charlotte, but Miles ended up yelling at him about Australia instead.
Jen: Yeah, I thought so too. Especially as Charlotte works with Miles' dad, aka Marvin Candle.
The JoshMeister: It wasn't too surprising, however, that Charlotte shut him down when he came around again.
Jen:: I loved Charlotte's response. It's true, you can't kick a girl out of bed at 3am...and then show up with puppydog eyes and a sad sunflower.
Laurin: I loved that too.
Jen: And a six-pack! Okay, two six-packs, in the case of Josh Holloway.
Laurin: WOW.
Jen: Do you think we'll learn more about Dharma via Miles's dad?
The JoshMeister: That would be interesting. I don't know if we have enough flash-sideways left for that to happen, but maybe that could be how the writers explain what happened between the Incident and the Island sinking.
Jen: Speaking of mysteries, what do you think is locked up on the sub?
Nikki: I think its Desmond, brotha.

Jen: Ha. I hope it's Desmond. I just realized the other day we don't really know anything about his family.
The JoshMeister: Pylons? But that's too simple of an explanation for LOST. Or maybe it's a gigantic Ghost Busters-esque vacuum capable of sucking up the smoke monster.
Nikki: I was actually expecting Widmore to be Team MIB, so I was surprised he wanted to kill him. Or does he...?
Jen: dun dun DUN.
Laurin: My question is, and this is so basic, but if Flocke wants to leave the island and Widmore thinks he's bad, why doesn't he just let him leave. What's the struggle? Will Flocke mean something bad for the world outside the island?
Jen: I think Widmore doesn't want MIB off the island because he would still have MIB powers.
The JoshMeister: Perhaps the Man in Black would do something terrible if he was allowed to leave the Island.
Laurin: What, like, eco-disasters?
The JoshMeister: Imagine the smoke monster in Los Angeles. Yikes.

Jen: Some have suggested flash sideways Locke is actually Flocke...
Nikki: I got that sense from last week's episode. With Locke trying to get Ben to make a power play.
Laurin: I like that theory. I don't trust Locke/Flocke as far as I can throw him now.
The JoshMeister: Wow, cool theory. There's certainly evidence to support it on the show. You've got Locke telling Kate about his mommy issues.
Laurin: Poor baby.
The JoshMeister: And you've got Locke yelling "Don't tell me what I can't do!" to the boy in the jungle.
Laurin: Don't let Aaron become the new Flocke!

Jen: I was reading the Bible today and story of Jacob and Esau is looking pretty relevant. Especially as Jacob and Esau's mom helped Jacob steal his older brother's birthright.
The JoshMeister: Jennifer, I just re-read that story recently as well.
Nikki: I should read that. And I'm also going to watch more Little House on the Prairie for clues on what's going on.
Laurin: For reals.
Jen: What'd you think Josh? Applicable? And for sure, LHotP was awesome.
The JoshMeister: So, maybe this is too direct of an analogy, but perhaps Jacob and the Man in Black (Esau) are brothers?
Jen: Twins in the Bible story. There was a prophesy that they'd fight all their lives, Esau for forces of dark and Jacob for forces of good.
The JoshMeister: It makes a lot of sense!
Nikki: Would make sense that they're brothers. Very Lost-ian too because it would give this epic battle a very human touch. And maybe add more parent issues!
Jen: Right, I like the idea of them being ordinary guys who the island changed into something else.

Nikki: I'm really hoping next week we get some answers about the island's gifts, with Richard telling his story. Why does the island change people into smoke monsters and deities and crazy killers?
Jen: Yes, I'd love to see island as it was 400 years ago...or whenever that huge statue thing was around.
The JoshMeister: Oh man. I can't wait for next week. I think it's going to be SO awesome to get Richard's back story!
Laurin: Me too. He's the biggest mystery of them all. So I have a non-Richard question: In both Sawyer scenarios, he is chasing after the con man that contributed to his family's demise. But wouldn't one expect that Locke's dad wouldn't have conned Sawyer's dad in his flash sideways?
The JoshMeister: Any particular reason why you think that, Laurin? Just because so many things are different in the flash-sideways? I presume Anthony Cooper was a conman long before 1977.
Nikki: It was suggested that Locke has a good relationship with his father in the sideways world, which means maybe he's not bad in that universe?
The JoshMeister: Maybe Jim is going after the wrong guy. Maybe Anthony Cooper is actually innocent in the flash-sideways.
Jen: Ooh, that could be really interesting.
Nikki: That would be a fun twist.

Jen: Speaking of Sawyer, is Kate destined to be his true love/pain in the butt?
Laurin: True love/cry baby?
Nikki: She's a pain in all universes.
Jen: Yeah, she's lucky she's cute. I was so waiting for Juliet to show up all episode.
The JoshMeister: A couple people on my live show last night really think Sawyer and Juliet were a better couple than "Skate."
Nikki: This is slightly tangential, but I've never been able to figure out why Kate is so annoying. Evangeline Lilly is a good actress. Her character's not overtly obnoxious. I feel like it's the writing about her that is always just subpar. She's never really had anything to do but be a part of a love triangle.
Jen: Maybe she's like Hurley, more of a catalyst than an element in and of herself.
Laurin: I still love early Sawyer and Kate, and there is part of me that's hoping they will come back. The Kate/Sawyer relationship (or lack thereof) of the last few seasons was annoying and Juliet definitely grew on me, and her relationship with Sawyer as well.
The JoshMeister: On the other hand, Sawyer and Kate both have similar pasts. It wouldn't be too surprising to see them ending up together, especially since Kate has already tried Jack and that didn't work out.
Laurin: Kate and Jack together would make the wettest blanket in the history of the universe.

Nikki: Ok, before we all go, favorite moment of the night?
The JoshMeister: Well, I loved the reveal in the flash-sideways that Sawyer (Jim) was actually a cop, and Miles being his partner was icing on the cake!
Nikki: I don't know why, but I was also super excited by the initial reveal that Sawyer's a cop. I thought that was really cool. Miles + Sawyer buddy comedy = please happen.
Jen: Hell yeah, Rush Hour 4. San Francisco version.
The JoshMeister: There were a lot of amazing moments in the episode, though.
Jen: Kate asking Claire what the ef that raccoon skull, fur armed thing in the bassinet was. I really do kind of love Crazy Claire and her crazy hair.
The JoshMeister: I loved hearing the Man in Black tell Kate about his mommy issues. Finally we get a tiny bit of his personal back story! Although I still really wish we knew his name, for crying out loud!
Nikki: Yes, loved that too. I wonder if there will be a backstory episode for him. I like the idea that his name is Esau.
Jen: I just can't believe Lost has gotten me to read the Bible.
The JoshMeister: Funny how that works, isn't it? The show that has a guy sleeping with two women in the same episode drives people to read the Bible.

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Music Monday: "Telephone" Killed the Video Star

Sonja Sharp — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:30:00 +0000

An ocean of ink has already spilled over 'Telephone', Lady Gaga and Beyoncé's stunning nine minute video epic, and little wonder—since its debut on Thursday, "Telephone" has already been banned from MTV. A decade ago, that would have spelled disaster; today, it's merely a stepping stone to cultural significance. To wit: The single that "Telephone" supposedly promotes has been been spinning on Top 40 radio since late last year.

If you haven't seen it yet—which I find inconceivable—the video is after the jump. Summary: Lesbian outlaws Lady Gaga and Honey B (Beyoncé) are too busy fighting their way through prison, busting out, and poisoning diners full of innocent backup dancers to take your call at this time. Please try your call again later.

Despite the gratuitious product placement and explicit (not to mention explicitly homosexual) eroticism, the MTV ban should be the most significant takeaway for viewers. Just as Michael Jackson's mini-monster movie "Thriller" marked the ascendence of television as the new medium for music, "Telephone" signals the final move of music, and with it music culture, from TV to the internet.

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Tegan and Sara Speak Out (Video)

Nikki Gloudeman and Alexandra Bezdikian — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:30:00 +0000

I first met indie darlings Tegan and Sara in a dressing room. The Canadian identical twins, who first burst onto the music scene as teens, have risen to alt fame over the last decade with rock-pop hits like "Walking With A Ghost" (later covered by the White Stripes) and "Where Does The Good Go" (recently featured on the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack).

We all sat down for a backstage interview at the Fox Theater in Oakland, California (watch it above!). In the video, they speak candidly about their new album, Sainthood, get fired up over the controversy surrounding Lilith Fair (where they'll be performing this summer), and explain their love for an Adam Lambert single. In person, Tegan and Sara are down-to-earth, thoughtful, and unfailingly polite (even apologizing repeatedly for being less than 10 minutes late).

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VIDEO: How to Win an Oscar

Adam Weinstein — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:52:03 +0000

Ever wonder what a modern Academy Award "best picture" winner has that other movies don't? A couple of NYU grads have an answer, in the form of a faux-blockbuster movie trailer. They call themselves BriTANicK ("rhymes with 'Titanic'"), and if you think their take is funny—or sadly true—you can seek them out at the upcoming South by Southwest film (and music!) festival in Austin, Texas.

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Your Own Glenn Beck Video!

Adam Weinstein — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:50:36 +0000

AlterNet is hosting a spiffy new video feature sponsored by MoveOn.org, SEIU, and Brave New Films that enables you to put yourself in the center of one of Glenn Beck's inane conspiracy theories. Not just you, but your friends, your employer, your hometown, and your photos (if you're into the Facebook thing). Sure to be a viral classic, it kind of has to be seen to be appreciated. Go make yours now! Here's mine:

Strangely, Beck's rantings about me are uncannily similar to those of many commenters on this Wal-Mart/Barbie story...Huh!

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MoJo LOST Chat: Dr. Linus

Nikki Gloudeman — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:44:03 +0000

Season 6, Episode 7: "Dr. Linus"

Benjamin Linus: Mass murderer, master manipulator, power-hungry baddie...sympathetic good guy? Last night's episode of Lost threw a redemptive curveball by humanizing one of the show's most iconic villains. Plus, we got Jack embracing faith, Miles playing tattle-tale, and Richard attempting to rid the island of his guyliner once and for all.

To help us unpack the ep, we invited Ms Terri from the great "Lost For A Reason" blog to join us. Read the chat below, and stay tuned for more surprise guests in the coming weeks.

Nikki Gloudeman: Hey guys!
Ms Terri, Lost blogger: Hi!
Nikki: Thanks for joining us Ms Terri!
Ms Terri: Thank you for inviting me!
Nikki: So, last night was pretty emotional, yeah? I actually felt genuine sympathy for a guy who once gassed his dad and killed a community of people. A testament to Michael Emerson's acting, I think.
Ms Terri: Yeah, I got choked up.
Nikki: Me too! Not ashamed to admit it. I also think more firmly now that Jacob is good and MIB is bad.
Laurin Asdal, Director of Development: Agreed.
Jennifer Phillips, Assistant Editor: Yes, MIB was definitely trying to play on Ben's love of the island to recruit him.
Laurin: And his love of power.
Nikki: It's interesting because I've always thought of Jacob as fate, and yet this episode demonstrated that he's also very much about choices.
Laurin: I think they are both about choices but I'm getting the cliché devil on one shoulder, angel on the other image now.

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Music: San Patricio (The Chieftains Featuring Ry Cooder)

Jon Young — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Ireland's Chieftains and California's Ry Cooder have absorbed musical styles from Cuba to Mali to Newfoundland, so an album mixing Mexican and Irish sounds is hardly startling. However, the vibrant San Patricio, which tells the dark story of ill-fated Irish immigrant soldiers who abandoned the Yankee cause to fight for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of the 1840s, surprises simply because it's so much fun. Joined by a slew of guests, including Linda Ronstadt and Lila Downs, Cooder and head Chieftain Paddy Moloney pump out irresistible party grooves that are a striking contrast to the defeat and death encountered by their real-life subjects.

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Music: The Winter of Mixed Drinks (Frightened Rabbit)

Jon Young — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Frightened Rabbit's sparkling third album is worth hearing simply for Scott Hutchison's adorable Scottish brogue, but the quintet has a lot more going for it than charm. Mixed Drinks builds on the guitar jangle of the band's first two outings, providing a more polished setting for Hutchison's breathless tales of hearts on fire. Soaring tunes such as "Swim Until You Can't See Land" and "The Loneliness and the Scream" celebrate wild-eyed romantics. When Hutchison shouts, "If you never feel bleak / Life starts to lose its taste," his fervor is downright inspirational.

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Hurt Locker: War Films Are Back

Adam Weinstein — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:45:44 +0000

It's hard not to gush about Hurt Locker's cleanup of the Academy Awards last night. The film, which details the life of an explosive ordnance disposal team in Iraq, was itself an insurgent engaged in an asymmetric war with a high-cost, high-revenue, CGI popcorn thriller (we all know who that is). But besides earning the first Oscar honors for a female director, and being the lowest-grossing "best picture" winner ever, Hurt Locker could be still more groundbreaking: It could pull complex, nuanced war stories out of the art houses and back into favor with commercial audiences and producers.

That's no small feat. Just a few years ago, Michael Moore was being booed off the stage for giving his not-so-nuanced take on the freshly minted Iraq campaign. Since then, a bevy of Iraq-related films (In the Valley of Elah, Redacted, Brothers et al) have been relegated to the margins of American culture, deemed too violent, too political, or just too damned in-your-face at a time when the American public would like to forget its ongoing expeditionary forays. (Last year, as a PR person for the US military in Iraq, I felt like I was Sisyphus rolling a boulder uphill just trying to get any mention of the war in the mainstream media.) But today, Hurt Locker has penetrated the American pop psyche like no war film since Saving Private Ryan—albeit in a completely different way, which is fitting for a movie that chronicles a completely different war, waged by a completely different America.

To be fair, Hurt Locker, too, doesn't satisfy the "been there, done that" war grunt's attitude—a hunger for accuracy or patriotic fervor that the political right has always used to torpedo war films deemed lacking in the John Wayne rah-rah factor. Some of the movie's less realistic points—like US soldiers roaming the streets of Baghdad alone after dark—are the subject of fair ridicule, and "going all Hurt Locker" has now entered the warfighter's lexicon, referring to someone who's being overly dramatic. (The conservative school of thought here, apparently, is that realism is the only mode appropriate to war drama—unless the reality is inglorious, in which case, contrived glory wins.)

But today, even some of the Iraq war's biggest (and most laughable) proponents are praising Hurt Locker's triumph. Apparently, conservatives are now ready to brook some dialogue about war and art, and what their intersection can tell us about ourselves. They're also calculating, I think, that more war references in popular culture will "bring the war home," reminding the civilian public of what's being done abroad in its name. For completely different reasons, I can only hope that they're right.

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The Cove Wins Best Doc Oscar

Kiera Butler — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:46:47 +0000

All in all, I found the speeches at last night's Oscars rather vanilla. But a notable exception came when The Cove, the film that exposed the secret dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan, won for best documentary. I was tickled to see director Louie Psihoyos and dolphin activist (and former Flipper trainer) Ric O'Barry accept their award, not just because I liked the movie, but because O'Barry gleefully held up a big sign urging viewers to speak out about dolphin slaughter via text message. So much better than "I'd like to thank the Academy" followed by a littany of names! Read our review of The Cove here and our interview with O'Barry and Psihoyos here.

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George Washington Was Black?

Titania Kumeh — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

George Washington and his clan of Brit-fighting revolutionaries were black men. Not just any black men, but hip-hop pioneers who gained indie swagger from their scores and cameos in Jim Jarmusch films. MoJo readers, do not fret. This may be historically inaccurate, but you gotta admit it's an awesome concept. So consider Victory or Death, a re-creation of the familiar 1851 Emanuel Leutze painting depicting Washington's crossing of the Delaware. In which our founding father is replaced by RZA—leader of hip-hop's Wu-Tang Clan.

When Art Imitates Life (WAIL), a new venture developed by Sway of MTV and Tech of "The Wake Up Show," asks respected musical artists to come up with visual concepts—ill illustrations—and then has a crew put them on canvas. RZA opted to re-create (art) history by including himself in the epic 1776 voyage that helped emancipate New Jersey from Hessian and British rule.

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Video: Five Minutes With Michael Moore

Dave Gilson — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:30:00 +0000

Sure, the timing for Capitalism: A Love Story couldn't have been better, but otherwise it's been a rough year for Michael Moore. The re-regulation of Wall Street is spinning its wheels on Capitol Hill while folks in cities like Flint and Janesville are barely making ends meet. Not to mention that his dream of universal health care, expressed in his previous film Sicko, has flatlined. "I don't know what to do! I've never really felt this level of despair," Moore chuckled earlier this week during a quick video chat in advance of Capitalism's DVD release. The Academy Award-winning director and former MoJo editor had plenty to say about why he's more disheartened by the past couple of years than eight years of Bush, his ideas for reforming Washington, D.C., and how the Tea Party has stolen the populist mantle from lefties like himself. And on a lighter note, he also talked about some of his favorite films of 2009 (Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, Up in the Air) and some recent documentaries he wishes had gotten Oscar nods. Check it out.

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Best. Music. Video. Ever.

Adam Weinstein — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:12:57 +0000

Check out a brief live-action history of painting's masterpieces, set to the song "70 Million" by the French band Hold Your Horses! The Raft of the Medusa and the Death of Marat are eerie; the Mondrian and Magritte—and all that follow them—are simply amazing. The song ain't bad, either. Feast your eyes, then spread the link. Hat tip to the esteemed art historian Stassa Edwards for passing this on (full disclosure: She's my wife).

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

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MoJo LOST Chat: Sundown

Nikki Gloudeman — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:26:56 +0000

Season Six, Episode 6: "Sundown" (March 2)

Creepy. That's probably be the best word to describe last night's bloody, game changing episode, which forever changed the way we'll listen to a popular children's song. What bargain did Flocke (faux Locke) make with Sayid? Is Dogen really gone forever? And for the love of god, will Sun and Jin ever reunite?

To help four MoJo staffers dissect it all, we invited Mac Slocum from the popular Filmfodder blog to join in. Thanks, Mac! Read the chat below, and tune in for more guest bloggers in the coming weeks.

Jen Phillips, Assistant Editor: Hey everyone.
Laurin Asdal, Director of Development: Howdy.
Nikki Gloudeman, New Media Fellow: Mac, thanks so much for joining us!
Mac Slocum, Lost blogger: You bet! Thanks for having me.
Nikki: So last night's episode...wow, yeah? I'd say creepiest in the history of the show.
Mac: Uh, yeah. It got dark in those closing moments.
Samantha Schaberg, Administrative Assistant: I loved the music.
Nikki: Freakiest version of that children's song. Gave me chills. Also: No more temple, hooray!
Mac: Yeah, thank God for that. The Epcot Temple needed to go.
Nikki: Yes it was pretty lame. Now it's fight time in the jungle. Much more interesting.
Laurin: Bring it back to the beginning.
Ben Buchwalter, Editorial Fellow: It's gonna. be. crazy.

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Please Just Stop, Sarah Palin

Adam Weinstein — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:05:56 +0000

It feels as if Sarah Palin's been attacking Fox's "Family Guy" longer than she was governor of Alaska. Last night, a desperate-for-ratings Jay Leno gave her another forum to vent about a single line in a February episode of the comedy show. (One of the characters, a learning disabled woman, refers to her mother as "the former governor of Alaska." Palin took that as a dig against her son, Trig, who has Down Syndrome, and happily played the victim via a note on her Facebook account.)

Given the golden opportunity, Palin flat-out lied to Leno:

"...I commented and then that gets out there in the blogosphere, it gets out there in the different forms of the mediums that we have today. And then it's left there, not an opportunity for me to follow up and kind of elaborate on what I really meant and what I really thought of the thing."

Before Mr. Leno went to a commercial break, Ms. Palin said that a fuller opportunity to discuss the incident would have led to a "much healthier dialogue." After the commercial, she did not expand on her remarks. (H/T to the New York Times via The Daily Dish.)

Funny, since we all seem to remember her 6-minute tirade on Fox's "O'Reilly Factor" last month, when she went on at length about the "Family Guy" fake controversy, then parsed Rahm Emanuel's and Rush Limbaugh's uses of the word "retard." She also took the chance to rail against "the Hollywood Fox," apparently to differentiate it from the more-authentically American Wasilla Fox studio.

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Excellence in Illustration

Tim J Luddy — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:20:26 +0000

I'm proud to announce that Mother Jones has been recognized for the excellence of our editorial illustration by a trio of prestigious organizations this year: the Society of Publication Designers, American Illustration, and the Society of Illustrators. This magazine has a long tradition of excellence—not only in investigative reporting, but also in design and art direction, and we've always believed that visual journalism is an important part of our mission. It's gratifying to see that we continue to be recognized by our peers in the publication design industry.

First of all, we've been honored by the Society of Publication Designers with one medal finalist award and three merit winners in their 45th Annual Competition. The SPD is one of the most prestigious association of publication designers and art directors in the country, and this work will be featured in its 45th Publication Design Annual book, which usually appears in November. In addition, the work will be exhibited online and at the Society's awards gala. The gold and silver medal winners from the field of finalists will be announced at the gala, which this year will be held on May 7 in New York City.

And the winners are: The medal finalist was "Presidents of the United States," by Steve Brodner, from our January/February 2009 issue, in the Single/Spread Illustration category. The Merit Award winners were: "Don't Look Down," by Dale Stephanos, from our January/February 2009 issue, in the Cover Illustration category; "The People vs. Dick Cheney," by Roberto Parada, from our January/February 2009 issue, in the Single/Spread Illustration category; and "The Sheikh Down," by Jack Unruh, from our September/October 2009 issue, in the Single/Spread Illustration category.

I'm particularly looking forward to attending the awards gala, which over the years has gotten more and more entertaining. The 42nd annual gala, the last one I attended, featured two emcees, George Karabostos, the design director of Men's Health, and Fiona McDonagh, director of photography at Entertainment Weekly. Their onstage patter was flawless—and then there were the costumes: After the presentation of awards in each category, George and Fiona re-took the stage in increasingly fancy evening dress, until at their final appearance, George brought down the house in an off-the-shoulder evening gown. I'm not sure what they've got planned for this year, but I do know that if our finalist gets the gold or silver medal, I'll be there to pick it up. (The winners aren't allowed to make any speeches, which is probably another plus for all concerned.)

In other awards news this year, two works of illustration commissioned for Mother Jones were included in American Illustration 28, a juried illustration annual publication. Steve Brodner's "Presidents of the United States" will appear along with Yarek Waszul's illustration for "The New ECOnomy," from our November/December 2008 issue.

 And finally, the recently-released Society of Illustrators 51st Annual, a publication that features work from the 2008 calendar year, includes a pair of illustrations from our pages: Tim O'Brien painted "The Last Empire" for the cover of our January/February 2008 issue, and Mirko Ilić created "The Seven Myths of Energy Independence" for our May/June 2008 issue.

Illustration credits, from top: left, Steve Brodner, right, Dale Stephanos; Roberto Parada; Jack Unruh; left, Yarek Waszul, right, Tim O'Brien; Mirko Ilić.

Update: After this was posted, we were notified of an additional 8 awards nominations, 4 of them for art, from the Western Publishing Association. See Elizabeth Gettelman's blog on the subject, here.

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Sting's Uzbek Dictator Problem

Adam Weinstein — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:47:22 +0000

I'm not going to pretend pop-music fame is easy, but here's a handy maxim for future crooners to keep in mind: Don't do private concerts for tyrannical rulers who reportedly boil people alive. Just sayin'.

You might think it goes without saying. But then, you might not be Sting. The former Police frontman, whose given name is the less-barbed Gordon Matthew Sumner, has been taking it on the nose for performing last October at an "arts festival" put on by the daughter of Uzbekistan's strongarm dictator, Islam Karimov. (He's the former communist party boss who, since 1991, keeps getting "elected" as his political opponents or their bodies keep disappearing.) Tickets to the gig in Tashkent, Uzbekistan's capital, ran from $1,000 to $2,000—or 45 times the average Uzbek's monthly income. And having been there, I'd say that might just be an overestimate of the average Uzbek's earning power.

If you want to know just how bad Karimov's regime is, ask Britain's former ambassador to the nation, Craig Murray. Or the thousands of children Uzbekistan puts to work in its cotton fields to pick and bale its "white gold." Or Condoleezza Rice, who tore asunder a tenuous US-Uzbek anti-terror alliance after Karimov's men gunned down as many as 1,000 demonstrators in the streets of Andijon five years ago. (When the Bush-era State Department calls your country "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights" and castigates you for allegedly torturing and killing terror suspects "by immersion in boiling water," brother, you're on the wrong side of a moral argument.)

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The Best NYT Lede Ever?

Nick Baumann — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:45:00 +0000

There's something wrong with the first sentence of this recent New York Times story about white anti-abortion activists trying to recruit black people to join their cause:

For years the largely white staff of Georgia Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, tried to tackle the disproportionately high number of black women who undergo abortions.

The next sentence explains that the staff of Georgia Right to Life "found it difficult to make inroads with black audiences." That makes sense. Hassling women who want to get abortions is bad enough. But tackling them?

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Have One on Joanna Newsome

Taylor Wiles — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Joanna Newsom
Have One On Me
Drag City

Joanna Newsom's new triple (!) disc has been shrouded in secrecy for the past two years, and now that it's finally out, well, it was worth the wait.

The northern California musician has been playing the same old harp since age 12, and sees herself as the musical offspring of home-state artists CSNY, Joni Mitchell, and the Byrds. But Have One On Me is a departure from her past work. Newsom's nasally voice, so off-putting to some listeners of her first albums, is now mostly angelic—due ironically to a vocal injury last year. There's also more percussion and a deeper cache of instrumental layers here. She wrote her own harp and vocal arrangements, while Ryan Francesconi, who plays guitar, long-necked lute, banjo, mandolin, and soprano recorder on the album, arranged and engineered the recordings.

Each of these 18 songs—only three of them clock in at under five minutes; six are eight-plus—is a leg of her musical trip through the Golden State. The nice parts of it, that is: black bears and beetles and all that. When you come and see me in California / You cross the border of my heart, she croons.

This album can function as background music if you want it to, but what's most intrusive—and interesting—is the multiplicity of texture. From lutes and harps to horns and electric guitars, it unfurls surprises on the first few listens: Check out "Soft As Chalk," "Easy," and the title track. Newsom describes Have One On Me as "more direct and more open" than past records. Which might be true, but her seraphic vibrato is still there if you listen for it.

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Vajazzling: The Next Female Craze?

Nikki Gloudeman — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:55:21 +0000

And you thought Vagina Mints were bad.

The latest genital craze is Vajazzling, which is pretty much what you'd fear it is: Women getting a bikini wax and adding Swarovski crystals down there for $50 a pop.

Apparently, Jennifer Love Hewitt is into it. As is a blogger who shared TMI here.

Ok, to each their own. But one fears the whole thing plays into a troubling Heidistein mentality, in which women think fakeness=male bait. (According to an unofficial Gawker poll, it doesn't.)

Not to mention it seems more than a little gratuitous. As our assistant editor Jen Phillips put it: "We’re in a recession with a jobless rate of 10% but somehow women are finding money to put crystals on their waxed mons pubis. Why? How? And why again?"

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The Al Qaeda-Harmonica Link

Tim Murphy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:25:41 +0000

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a pair of cases that challenge the existing federal ban on providing "material support" to terrorists—on account of the fact that "material support," as you might expect, can be taken mean almost anything. Including, it turns out, teaching a terrorist to play the blues. Let's check the transcript (pdf):

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Under the definition of this statute, teaching these members to play the harmonica would be unlawful. You are teaching—training them in a lawful—in a specialized activity. So how do we—there has to be something more than merely a congressional finding that any training is bad. [emphasis mine]

Solicitor General Elena Kagan, quick on her feet, told Sotomayor that such a scenario was unlikely. Terrorists, as anyone with even an elementary education knows, hate bluegrass: "Now you say well, maybe training a—playing a harmonica is a specialized activity. I think the first thing I would say is there are not a whole lot of people going around trying to teach Al Qaeda how to play harmonicas."

But Justice Antonin Scalia, for one, was unconvinced: "Well," he retorted, "Hamid Hatah [note: I think he means Mohammed Atta] and his harmonica quartet might tour the country and make a lot of money. Right?"

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12 Bizarre Liquor Laws Revealed

Kiera Butler — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:01:00 +0000

Back in the day, "blue laws" were supposed to keep Christian citizens from sinning with booze. A bunch of those laws are still on the books—and Mother Jones has rounded up some of the weirdest: In Oklahoma, for example, stores must sell liquor at room temperature. In my home state of Massachusetts, forget about happy hours. And don't even get me started on Texas, where, as Adam Weinstein reports in our March/April issue, public intoxication arrests are on the rise. Inside bars.

To see our slideshow of America's 12 weirdest drinking laws, go here. To read about Texas' absurd—and racist—bar arrests, go here.

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LOST Chat: To the Lighthouse

Nikki Gloudeman — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:20:29 +0000

Season Six, Episode 5: "Lighthouse" (February 23)

The final season of Lost is on a roll! On the heels of last week's amazing ep came another doozy, complete with Hurley humor, an emotionally wrenching Jack storyline, Claire as a crazy bad-ass, and a lighthouse scene that should give fans plenty to ponder over the next week.

To help us make sense of things, we invited Danny McAleese, a blogger for the fan fave Lost Easter Eggs blog and author of Things You Never Noticed About LOST, to join us. Thanks to Danny! And tune in for more surprise guests in the coming weeks.

Jen Phillips, Assistant Editor: I was happily surprised by last night.
Laurin Asdal, Director of Development: Me too.
Nikki Gloudeman, New Media Fellow: Yes, I thought it was awesome. It reminded me a lot of season one, with the emotional heft.
Danny McAleese, Lost Easter Eggs blogger: Heya.
Nikki: Hey! Thanks for joining us, Danny. We're really excited to have you.
Danny: I'm excited to be here!
Nikki: We're discussing the general awesomeness of last night's episode. Agree?
Danny: Totally agree. Last night was a great episode with a lot of fantastic reveals, all done without any action, explosions, or gunplay.
Nikki: Yes, that was appreciated.
Jen: The mirrors! Amazing! A bit heavy with the Alice in Wonderland allusions, but cool.
Danny: Mirrors are a tremendous part of what's going on in Lost.

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