Collected Thoughts 01-12-09

• Benjamin Hoste launched This Aint a Scene yesterday. Presumably named for the Henry Clay People song, his new site presents interviews and photos of local artists in a magazine format. If e-readers take off then Hoste will be ahead of the curve. I think his first "issue" (with Aaron Kyle of Le Switch) is pretty impressive.
  
  In the interview Aaron Kyle says his band has moved from a "New Orleans style" to a more rock-oriented style. That's exactly what I observed when I last saw them and I am really, really excited for their new record.
  

• Apparently I am the only one who doesn't think the new Spoon album is all that great. It's fine. I don't know when I'd want to listen to such a thing. Most of my music needs to be heard blasting out of the car windows in the sunshine, or soundtracking a late night drive down the 101 as I return home. Transference satisfies neither of those needs.

• I love this song:

• Spider-Man 4 is canceled. Raimi, Maguire, et al are gone. Sony is going with a reboot set to come out in 2012.
  
  I always defended the first two Spider-Man flicks more than most fanboys. (The third one was just awful. Too many villains. Sandman was perfect, Green Goblin II was mishandled, and Venom was an abomination.) I never minded Raimi's deviations from the source. But maybe this time they can really get it right. Spider-Man needs to be a lot funnier. He should be constantly yapping and bantering when he has the suit-on, maybe even breaking the fourth wall. Gwen Stacy should be the object of his affections well before MJ steps into the picture. We'll see. I think Jud Apatow could be a marvelous, unconventional choice for director.

• Bacterial Horror of Horrors! Serveral things about that TED talk send chills down my spine:
  
  
  1. 90% of the DNA in or on our bodies is bacterial. Our brains become our mind when they meld with our body. So we think of ourselves as singular entities, but were really a mobile cellular circus of all manner of awful things.
     
     
  2. All that bacteria talks to each other. All these little independent critters are speaking in chemical language, with their own kind and their cousin bacteria. There is a global network of microscopic horror in league with each other as they seek biological domination. This has radically altered how I perceive the universe.
     
     
  3. More now than ever I am convinced we must firebomb the ocean.
     

• Colts, Chargers, Vikings, Cardinals.

• Sarah Palin signed a contract with Fox News. Can you imagine if Al Gore had signed a contract with CNN in 2002? There would be Outrage! Sadly, it's not surprising. The wall between the political establishment and the fourth estate is in ruins already.
  

• There are a lot of reasons I'd like Harry Reid to step-down. Being "racist" isn't one of them. His use of the term "Negro" is really unfortunate and insensitive to a mind-numbing degree, but the thought he was articulating was a cynical comment on the way of the electorate, not a judgment on Obama's character based on his skin color. What Reid said shares no common ancestry with Lott's frequent endorsement of a political campaign whose slogan was "Segregation Forever!"