infobong.com

and it makes me smile

My skepticism about The Polyphonic Spree was completely unmerited. I finally broke down and picked up The Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree the other day, and, good gravy, this is a good record. They do sound quite a bit like The Flaming Lips, but Mercury Rev might be a better point of comparison. Oh, its good. If you like The High Llamas or Lee Hazlewood - or if your handle is Loophole - you should check it out. You won't be disappointed.

Update (4:35PM): In their music rating system the late, lamented Might magazine described their top rating as "this album made me like music again." When I was a young, impressionable kid, I read that as a silly hyperbolic joke, but, boy howdy, this album makes me like music again. Its led me to dig out my old Mercury Rev CDs and jump around my studio apartment. Yeah, I like The Polyphonic Spree.

chasing a bee

I've gotten out of the blogging habit, and hopefully this post will prime the pump. At lunch today I was sitting outside Wheatsville Co-op finishing my vegan Frito pie. I took a sip of my Blue Sky Root Beer, felt something weird in my mouth, then a shot of pain in my lip. I spat out my drink, and a soggy dead bee flew out of my mouth. Needless, to say, I was a little excited, so I kept spitting. The paint kept getting worse, so I felt for the stinger with my tongue, found it, and pulled it out with my teeth. I spat some more to get rid of the stinger.

A woman eating nearby noticed my spitting and looked at me disapprovingly. "I drank a bee, and it stung the inside of my mouth!" I exclamed.

She feigned concern and told me to go inside and ask for some baking soda. The guys at the deli counter gave me some, which I promptly applied to my swelling lip.

The pain has largely subsided, but my lip is pretty swollen.

suprisingly cranberry [bog]

Lebanon State Forest, New Jersey

butter cow and butter hog

A blog called the Modern Age - which I presume is named for The Strokes song - documents a real-world session of Hipster Bingo. I sent a link to a friend and remarked, "There is something wrong with the idea that posting your life to the Web is somehow 'hip'."

But I am so, so wrong. Maureen Dowd's latest column provides a rundown of blogs from the field of Democratic politicians. She fires the first salvo by declaring that "Blogs, which sprang up to sass the establishment, have been overrun by the establishment," then notes how Howard Dean initiated the latest craze, which spread to tragic hipsters John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich.

spectacle of society

The New York Times has a story on Flash-Mob projects in Berlin, where groups of people co-ordinate via email and SMS to "spontaneously" meet in a single location. It strikes me as a little odd that the Gray Lady would choose to cover the events in Berlin, since Flash-Mobs began in New York.

If you live in Austin, and you want to get in on the Flash-Mob action, join this Yahoo! Group listserv to receive instructions for a Flash-Mob later this month.

One little axe I have to grind with the Flash-Mob project is the way it purports to be apolitical; as a good postwhateverist, I see ideology embedded in nearly human endeavor, so I think that claim is disingenuous. Technology is core to a Flash-Mob project; in one sense its a way for persons with consumer devices to find new way to use them, but it also seems to be a celebration of technology and consumer culture. The NYTimes story describes a Berlin Flash-Mob where participants spoke nonsense into there cell-phones, making some statement about the use of technology.