Nate Haduch

A TEDx talk by John Baugh about his research on linguistic profiling: when someone’s denied goods or services, typically over the telephone, sight unseen, based on the sound of their voice. 

A park in Tel Aviv hosted a concert that drew an estimated 3,000 attendees on Thursday, as Billboard reports, The event was organized not as an official concert, which are still banned, but as a protest, which are permitted. It was referred to as "Behind The Scenes: An Assembly Of Solidarity" and included … More »

You will think this is a lie but Roald Dahl's daughter just came by my house unannounced and dropped off a signed copy of James and the Giant Peach as a random act of kindness.

Did Grimes and Elon Musk really name their son X Æ A-12, or is it all a ruse and the baby is really named Jason or something? For now, given that both Musk and Grimes have confirmed the X Æ A-12 name on Twitter, we will assume it's really the child's … More »

Grimes and Elon Musk are parents now. Grimes announced her pregnancy on Instagram in January. Last night, she and her billionaire tech guy/part-time SoundCloud producer boyfriend Musk welcomed a baby boy into the world. The kid is Grimes' first; Musk reportedly has five sons from his previous marriage. Musk tweeted that … More »

The good thing about Drake being so open about his personal life in his music is that it's super-easy to beat him in a game of "Never Have I Ever." Never have I gotten in a fight at Cheesecake Factory. Never have I ever gotten up at 5 a.m. to shoot Degrassi up at Morningside. Never have I ever dated a girl named Courtney who worked at Hooters on Peachtree. Never have I ever left the city and wondered if my ex was bending over backwards for someone else, wondered if they're rolling up a backwoods for someone else, doing things I taught them, getting nasty for someone else. Oh, and if Jared Leto's there, just ask questions about waxing. Boom, you've beat them, just like that.

Gaslighter, the long-awaited Dixie Chicks comeback LP, is one many albums initially scheduled for spring release that have been pushed back indefinitely while the world at large -- and the music industry in particular -- adjusts to coronavirus. The trio came back strong with the title track in early March, but that's all … More »

We were supposed to have RTJ4 by now. It was not to be. Run The Jewels, the brick-throwing duo of Killer Mike and El-P, are still sitting on their fourth album, which they'd promised before Coachella and their summer tour with Rage Against The Machine. Since neither of those things is happening on schedule, we … More »

Boston music venue Great Scott, a longtime Allston institution, will not reopen once the pandemic passes. "It is with a heavy heart today that I announce that Great Scott will not reopen," general manager Tim Philbin wrote in a statement on Twitter. Read his full statement below. It is with a heavy heart today that … More »

The beginning: just a normal photo wall of memories: Almost everyone is bored out of their minds during this quarantine. Well, Kristen Vogler found a way to keep herself busy. She decided to mess with her parents with an innocent prank by replacing their family photos with pictures drawn with crayons.

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Oded Balilty/AP Each spring, Hayarkon Park usually comes alive with joggers, children playing, young families and 20-somethings picnicking and sunbathing, but these days virtually the only sign of life in the sprawling park is the jackals. h/t: independent Oded Balilty/AP The animals arrive just before nightfall, but while they may look like they are having fun – lying in the grass and chasing...

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Video games aren't the only kind of pop culture that Dogleg can reference! The Michigan punk band's new black-and-white music video for "Wartortle," a track off of their great new album Melee, is an elaborate riff on Kevin Smith's beloved 1994 movie Clerks. Dante, played by frontman Alex Stoitsiadis, is called in to … More »

Fiona Apple's new album Fetch The Bolt Cutters is out today, and everyone is freaking out about how good it is. In addition to the torrent of reviews to complement your listening experience, Vulture has published a new interview with Apple, her second lengthy chat about the new LP following More »

The reigning queen of country AND disco music, Kacey Musgraves, graced the Ellen stage with her regal presence. She broke out "High Horse," the upbeat, Bee Gees-inspired single that turned heads when it dropped a few weeks ago. Musgraves' new album, Golden Hour, is out now and we really love it. More »

Future Nostalgia was meant for the club. This much is clear. Even before she released lead single "Don't Start Now" last fall, Dua Lipa was talking about taking inspiration from the disco era: "I feel like you could dance through the whole record," she told The Face. The British pop star has been … More »

Describing themselves as “Gutterfolk for the masses” this duo from Pennsylvania may have created a new category of Americana. If by ‘Gutter’ they mean sticking up for the underdog, that looks right. And in its context of absorbing stories ‘folk’ is accurate too. Whatever, Driftwood Soldier draw from their personal experience to a broader observation of injustice. Sonically they are on the verge of combustion with vocals that rasp their lyrics and around mandolin, bass and foot percussion their sound redefines stripped back. At times their force overwhelms but Driftwood Soldier certainly leave a lasting impression.
What most defines Driftwood Soldier is Owen Lyman-Schmidt’s voice. Whether he is singing or speaking in his spooky semi-announcer…

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…tones he conveys fury, emotion, love and desperation. There are times when you almost scream back at him to stop but his purpose is not to make a polite point but to shock. Lyman-Schmidt’s mandolin playing comes at a similarly frenetic pace. Bobby Szafranski’s bass lines keep order as do their respective percussion contributions. Tom Waits comes first to mind then Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave.

Lyman-Schmidt lures the listener into the record with ‘All My Friends’, opening with his barely audible picking then he breaks into a haunting, “all my friends are falling like leaves”. Sparse banjo and bass add to the pathos as he builds momentum in both tempo and intensity.

‘John Henry’ is a new song about an old theme. Driftwood Soldier cleverly bring the old story of John Henry’s pick versus the steam drill up to date. The racism stays but the steam drill is replaced by contemporary corporate greed. Lyman-Schmidt comes very close to exploding.

Driftwood Soldier lose none of that potency in the slower tracks. ‘Marietta’ tells of a man left stranded after a car crash in remote Wyoming. It is a song about loss as the relationship that made him stay did not meet his unrealistic expectations.

The tension does not lessen when Lyman-Schmidt switches to his spoken voice style in ‘Topeka’. The story begins with his “emptying a half pint of rum”, was interrupted by a three legged dog called Topeka warning of “an impending violent confrontation”. Again, he plunges into a completely absorbing tale of corruption and injustice.

But outrage is what Driftwood Solder do best. As a title, the album’s only cover, Greg Cartwight’s ‘Banker and a Liar’ offers much scope which Lyman-Schmidt maximises. He excels in melding emotions, “your prophet is a banker and a liar” is primarily anger but also pity and scorn. An edgy fiddle line adds intensity to Lyman-Schmidt’s vocals as together they pursue the target of their ire culminating in a howl of protest.

Live is the way to get the full Driftwood Soldier experience but put on this record, stop what you are doing and let them pull you into their world. That basement dive bar feel beckons. — AmericanaUK

Going through spring break withdrawal? These films will bring the bikinis, beaches and belly flops right to your screen.

Kieran Hebden, the veteran electronic music producer who records under the name Four Tet, never goes too long without releasing anything. But today we're finally getting Sixteen Oceans, the first proper Four Tet LP since 2017's New Energy. We've already heard three very good early tracks, "Teenage Birdsong," the Ellie Goulding … More »

Tech companies including Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Apple pulled out of SXSW this week due to concerns over the spread of coronavirus. Artists like Ozzy Osbourne, Trent Reznor, and the Beastie Boys also cancelled their scheduled appearances. And now, the Verge reports, the city of Austin has decided to … More »

With the release of her most recent album, Miss Anthropocene, Grimes is now at the level of famous where she participates in those well-edited YouTube videos for glossy fashion magazines. Last month, she talked about her makeup routine with Vogue, and this month she's shared her food diary with Harper's Bazaar. More »

Joe Pera Talks With You Returns for Second Season on Adult Swim, starring Joe Pera, Jo Firestone, and Connor O’Malley.

Bezos at the opening of Amazon Spheres in 2018 (Seattle City Council/)

On Monday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that he was launching a $10 billion dollar fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, to address climate change. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “This global initiative will fund scientists, activists, NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.” Bezos said that he’d start distributing grants this summer.

After initially dragging their feet, Bezos and Amazon seem to be attempting to use their power to address the climate crisis. However, the announcement is scant on details, and the real impact of these changes depends on how that money is spent—and whether Bezos can follow through on plans to clean up his own company.

A group of the company’s own employees, for their part, aren’t totally satisfied. “As history has taught us, true visionaries stand up against entrenched systems, often at great cost to themselves,” wrote the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice in a statement. “We applaud Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy, but one hand cannot give what the other is taking away.” The group went on to mention Amazon’s business of offering cloud computing services to oil and gas companies, their funding of climate-denying think tanks, and how diesel exhaust from their shipping trucks harms the lungs of those living near Amazon warehouses.

Amazon’s climate action to date seems to stem from the organizing of the company’s employees, writes Brian Merchant in a Gizmodo article. In December 2018, workers posted a letter online calling for the company to adopt a climate plan, racking up over 8,000 signatures. After that, Amazon began to announce concrete goals for reducing delivery emissions and switching to clean power. In September 2019, the company unveiled its commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2040, as well as its carbon footprint—a whopping 44.4 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions in 2018.

That’s more than the emissions of some countries, or about the same as a small fossil fuel producer. For comparison, oil company Pioneer has an annual footprint of about 40 million tons, while Exxon’s is 604, explains Richard Heede, co-director of the Climate Accountability Institute, who published an analysis last year on the most polluting fossil fuel companies.

Even so, Heede says he applauds Bezos’ latest commitment. “I thought it was a worthy amount to donate to the world’s most critical issue,” he says. But, he emphasizes, what comes next for climate change largely depends on the fossil fuel industry, since 103 firms are responsible for nearly 70 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. While business leaders like Bezos have made pledges to cut their industry’s emissions, Heede says “we have to fund systemic changes as well on the supply side [of fossil fuels], which is a much tougher nut to crack than reducing net emissions.”

Climate scientists say that that’s the best use of all that cash—using it as capital for market and political shifts that can uproot our fossil fuel fed status quo. Jonathan Foley, executive director of climate change-focused Project Drawdown, says that investing in energy efficiency and transportation improvements is the low-hanging fruit of climate action. If Bezos, for example, used that money to provide start up capital for the electric heat pump industry, that could foster a huge transition in American homes and businesses, which mostly use polluting natural gas for heating. Buildings represent 40 percent of U.S. energy use, and 35 percent of that goes into heating, cooling, and ventilation. Scaling up an existing, energy-efficient technology like heat pumps could create fast benefits for the planet.

Transportation, which generates more greenhouse gases than any other source in America, also needs a revamp if we’re going to curb the climate crisis. That’s why ramping up electric-powered vehicles and public transit infrastructure would also provide immediate benefits to the planet. “I think energy efficiency, buildings, and transportation are the next frontiers,” says Foley. “I would strongly encourage [Bezos] to spend the money immediately, in the next five years.” With swift action, we might stand a chance of meeting the 50 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030 we need if we’re to avert the worst consequences of climate change.

Leah Stokes, political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara studying environmental policy, also thinks that money could go far for the climate, adding that the total may be more than twice the amount of funding currently out there for tackling climate change. Her suggestion for spending it is to help reshape politics, using donations and campaigns to accelerate policies and candidates that support climate action. “My own view is that we really need to catalyze government policy,” she says. She points to Michael Bloomberg’s donation of tens of millions of dollars to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, which lobbies to stop new coal plants and shut down existing ones. The campaign credits itself with the retirement of 289 coal plants. “Bezos could take a similar approach aimed at changing climate policy,” she says.

Helping seed climate policy through political donations could reap big climate rewards down the line, says Stokes. If some of that $10 billion was used to help pass a carbon tax, for example, it would raise around $200 billion every year. And some Democratic presidential candidates have proposed spending trillions on climate action. “If you can get the federal government to start acting on climate change,” she says. “You can get a lot more than 10 billion for climate action.”

Though the outsized power and influence of billionaires may make us uncomfortable, $10 billion toward the planet is a big deal. “At the end of the day I think the world is better because someone decided to put $10 billion toward climate solutions,” says Foley. “If invested wisely, it could make a big difference.”

The latest exhibition by art duo FriendsWithYou is currently on view at Dallas Contemporary and includes a piece called The Dance that features two fuzzy orb-ish heads that slowly bobble around the room.

An interactive and communal experience, the exhibition actively incorporates audiences: two moving orbs serve as ambassadors as they meander along in a spiritual, cleansing, and comforting ritual set to a custom soundtrack in celebration of the beauty and power of togetherness.

You can see The Dance in motion on FriendsWithYou’s Instagram here and here. Natalie Gempel wrote about what it was like to pilot one of the orbs.

Submerged in my pink bubble, I spin, wobble, and drift aimlessly. Between the darkness and the humming of the air compressor, it’s almost like being in a sensory deprivation tank. I’m brought out of my haze when Carolina Alvares-Mathies, the Contemporary’s new Deputy Director, comes to check on me. It’s been cool, but I’m ready to exit.

The zipper opens and I stumble out. I don’t remember being born, but I assume it’s a similarly jarring feeling. Everything is too bright and I’m a little queasy. Still, I reentered the real world with the information I needed: It was weird in there, but I did have fun.

(thx, jenni)

Tags: art   FriendsWithYou

noun: 1. The spiraling groove between two strands of a rope. 2. The space between bilges (the widest part) of two casks stowed side by side.

There will come a day when Post Malone has no more free real estate on his face left to tattoo. He, and we, will have to contend with this fact eventually. Fortunately, and/or unfortunately, that day is not today. More »

Bieber season is not just approaching, it's here -- #1 hit or not. Thursday night at LA's Village Studios, Justin Bieber hosted a listening party for his new album with a guestlist including journalists, Def Jam employees, and other music industry people. Rolling Stone's report has some fascinating details. More »

Using their extensive database of member ratings, Letterboxd averaged the ratings for the Best Picture nominees for each year to determine which years ranked highest. The top five are (official Academy winners marked w/ an asterisk):

1. 1975 (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest*, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville)
2. 2019 (Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Parasite)
3. 1976 (Rocky*, All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Taxi Driver)
4. 1974 (The Godfather Part II*, Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, The Towering Inferno)
5. 1994 (Forrest Gump*, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption)

1975 was apparently the clear winner but 2019 in the #2 spot is a very strong showing, especially considering there are the ratings of nine nominees to average instead of just five. But as this analysis shows, the Academy and Letterboxd users do not often agree on which Picture is “actually” Best:

It is often said that The Academy doesn’t always choose the nominee that *actually* deserves Best Picture. And according to the average ratings of the nominees on Letterboxd, that is true about 76% of the time!

I’d guess there’s also a recency bias at work (newer films tend to get rated higher), as well as age-related (I’d guess Letterboxd skews young-ish?) and gender-related (majority male, but probably not as much as IMDB) biases. It would be neat to see how controlling for those effects would affect the average ratings. (via @mrgan)

Tags: best of   lists   movies   Oscars

The audience for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women is running about 2/3 women and 1/3 men. Bruce Handy has some suggestions for a title change that would entice more men to check the movie out.

“Star Wars, Episode X: The Rise of Amy”
“Four Girls, One Teacup”
“Into the Marchverse”
“The Jo Supremacy”

I saw Little Women on New Year’s Day and loved it — one of my favorite 2019 movies for sure. It’s idiotic that Gerwig didn’t get nominated for a Best Director Oscar.

See also Kaitlyn Greenidge’s opinion piece, The Bearable Whiteness of ‘Little Women’.

Tags: Bruce Handy   Greta Gerwig   Kaitlyn Greenidge   Little Women   movies   remix

therussianmajor:

Interpretation! And! Translation! Are! Hard! F*cking! Work!

These fields deserve so much more respect and reverence.

Well, here's some big news. Timothée Chalamet -- the internet's favorite actor and also everyone else's -- is apparently taking on the role of one of the most iconic musicians of all time. Deadline reports that Searchlight Pictures has closed a deal with director James Mangold for a Bob Dylan biopic, and Chalamet … More »