Do shut up.

Megan Fox, please leave Scarlett Johanssen alone. I can't really be bothered about finding quotes and sources on this right now, but I've stumbled across several articles in which Megan Fox is quoted  as criticizing Scarlett for pulling out every SAT word she knows in order to make people take her seriously. What. From what I can gather Miss Johanssen is a very intelligent lady and, y'know, there are people who use an extended vocabulary without thinking about it. They exist. I think she should be applauded for not dumbing herself down for the public. Megan Fox seems to have some strange ideas, I think. I do not approve and I want her to go away and stop complaining about smart people.

Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington

I was at the DMV the other day because I needed to get a smog waiver (long story... my car is always broken in really lame ways) and as I was leaving there was a Hells Angel pulling out of the parking lot. When did they become so law-abiding? I mean, I wasn't all that surprised to see a Hells Angel because we have this Hells Angel house where a lot of them live or hang out or something, so there's quite a few of them in Reno. But at the DMV? Really? The DMV is the ultimate manifestation of The Man. Well, maybe the IRS is. I don't know. But still, a Hells Angel has no business at the DMV. 

Poor little Bessie may soon starve and die

Who is the audience for a version of "Somewhere Out There" sung by a little blind girl named Courtney on her album "Perfect in His Eyes"? Also, what meaning does a particular audience lend to a song like this?
Louis thinks maybe evangelical suburban soccer moms, but I think maybe widows (also evangelical) with lots of angel figurines and commemorative plates. Or, I suppose, another audience would be people such as me and Louis who appreciate these things in an ironic way or an academic way. What we both found surprising was that many members of the grad seminar liked it from the standpoint that she has a really lovely voice for little girl, and, being as many of them are music educators returning to school for their masters degrees, they wish their students could sing like that.
It also reminded me of a recording of the temperance movement era song "Father's a Drunkard and Mother is Dead" by Mrs. E.A. Parkhurst (or something similar) that I first heard at the beginning of last summer.

rock and roll music

Pop music is weird because it's about itself. How many rock songs are about how great rock music is? Or about being in a band, or playing the guitar or whatever. I wonder if this phenomenon is specific to pop music. I'm sure that there are exceptions, but genres like musical theatre or opera don't seem to like to call attention to the fact that they are singing (with exceptions like that fabulous episode of Buffy which is a great example of postmodernism's willingness to point out its medium), nor do "serious" art songs. To my knowledge, anyway.