September 28, 2019
Chicano Batman, keeping the Latino rhythm and blues alive and well
“We’re four Latinos breaking through in a market of rock music and succeeding. That’s the face of immigration or migration or however you want to call it. That shifts a lot of people’s preconceived notion of the status quo and that feels good.” From Los Angeles' house band to touring with Jack White (Guardian), Chicano Batman's tropical/ Latino soul sound is getting more recognition, from being picked (Bandcamp interview) for a Johnny Walker spot covering "This Land is Your Land" to bringing the sunshine to sessions on NPR Tiny Desk, KEXP and a song on Conan (YouTube x4). Dive deep into their music on Bandcamp.
From Auto Mechanic to Physician...
Challenging The Stigma Around Skin Conditions
British photographer Sophie Harris-Taylor hopes to break down the stigma [featureshoot.com] around skin issues with Epidermis, her candid new photo series challenging how we view imperfection.
Epidermis [sophieharristaylor.com] features close-up portraits of 20 women from across the UK with varying skin conditions. The models pose in ways familiar from beauty shoots and celebrity Instagram snaps, except they wear no clothing or make-up – and there’s not an airbrush in sight.
Via [digg.com]
Follow the money . . . and stop it!
In my waxed-up hair and my painted shoes
When The Replacements made 1989’s Don’t Tell a Soul, their label was pressuring frontman Paul Westerberg to write songs that could get played on the radio. Producer Matt Wallace’s mixes were dismissed and the label hired hit-maker Chris Lord-Alge (Steve Winwood, Chaka Khan) to put an 80s radio sheen on the songs. "I'll Be You" would become the band's only radio hit, but many fans and even the band members themselves hated the glossy sound. 30 years later, The Replacements’ Don’t Tell a Soul gets the second life it deserves with a new box set, Dead Man’s Pop. [more inside]
Cut from the Same Cloth
Artist Myfanwy Tristram was irritated by her teenage daughter’s extreme fashions — until she took an illustrated journey into their origins. Her influences come from the internet, from fast-spreading pictures on Instagram, from crazy hairstyles on TikTok. Teens’ fashion inspiration is now global, grassroots led, with the commercial interests falling over themselves to catch up... We scroll through her favorite accounts, and I meet the strangers whose fashion tips and product endorsements indirectly result in those Band-Aids in my bed.
The Shaw Family Admission Plan
When it came to college admissions, Wall Street legend David Shaw knew how to hedge his bets. Some wealthy parents donate to one elite school to give their children a boost. Dan L. Golden and Ava Kofman write about a hedge fund billionaire who donated to seven. (SLNYM)
"woo-ooo-ooo-ooo what is that?... the ghost of PacMan"
The rare and mysterious Deepstaria jellyfish looks like a cross between a plastic bag and a Victorian specter (with resident isopod).
(From Nautilus Live. Direct YouTube link) [more inside]
It's A Big Bad Beautiful Day
San Francisco band It's A Beautiful Day's [previously] third album was actually two EPs, one on each side of the record: Choice Quality Stuff/Anytime [full album, 33m]. [more inside]
🌶️ “Second of all...this is literal inedible gross-ass shit.”
The Great Subway Jalapeño Scandal [YouTube] “In a now-archived post on the r/Subway subreddit, someone asked where he could buy the jalapeños that the chain uses on its sandwiches. "The jalapeños are always the best part of the sub for me, and I absolutely need to know what brand they are or how I can get them," he wrote. [...] But according to comic and YouTuber Gus Johnson, the jalapeños are literally the worst, and he's bitten into so many mid-sub pepper stems that he made an entire video about it. In this Dateline-quality investigation into what he calls "The Great Subway Jalapeño Scandal," Johnson visits four Subway restaurants in the Los Angeles area—via A BIRD SCOOTER, no less—and buys 20 footlong subs that are all topped with jalapeños.” [via: Vice News]
The fight to end Roe v. Wade enters its endgame next week
G'day, Chris here
Weird Tales from the 18th Century
Rictor Norton's Gothic Readings: The First Wave, 1764-1840 offers representative excerpts from early Gothic novels--which would eventually connect to everything from Surrealism (Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 26 Feb. 2019: "Dorothea Tanning Review – A Gorgeous Trip Through Gothic Nightmares), to Scooby Doo (Eleni Theodoropoulos, CrimeReads, 13 Sep. 2019: "How Scooby Doo Revived Gothic Storytelling For Generations of Kids"), to innovation in humanities scholarship (Anna Williams, My Gothic Dissertation; Matthew Brown, 9 May 2019, "English PhD completes groundbreaking podcast dissertation")--but lesser-known tales of wonder and terror also appeared in shorter forms throughout the 18th century. [more inside]
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