amanda latona has a voice, but she needs a sound. this article presents a refreshingly unsentimental look behind the business of manufacturing music as a culture product. while the article may be abhorrent to those who believe in pop music strictly as an art form, it presents an uneasy truth: imagebuilding for the masses.
for more philosophical thinking on culture products, start with nobrow: the culture of marketing—the marketing of culture by john seabrook. he addresses america’s loss of cultural classes through first-hand experiences during his tenure as a new yorker writer stuck between two guards: gottleib’s (which made exactly no money but had piles of taste) and brown’s (which was trashier but made bank). the ideas in his book ain’t new, but they’re a good primer. besides, it’s fun to watch a rich boy wallow in shit for the first time with the rest of us unwashed. reading about a ninny like seabrook get in touch with his inner wal-mart shopper is excruciating—but it’s so much fun.
i’ve always thought the best gay fiction makes equal use of camp, fable, morality, and archetype. reality is a bore.
just got through watching a silly-assed film called “the wolves of kromer,” in which the above formula is put to cacklingly funny use. it’s based on a stage play in which a pair of busybodied old hens are trying to rid themselves of another old hen in a small village. the village is surrounded by wolves—hunky young ones wearing full-length furs and not much more—who want nothing more than to be left alone to their midnight howling, yet are spoken of with deep suspicion. and easier setup isn’t to be had. narrated by boy george, expertly played by a equal number of dreamy male models and besotted old hags, and home to pages and pages of priceless lines such as “does pussy want mummy to scratch her?”
yes, mummy, please. pussy wants very much to be scratched.
in an amazingly tacky promotional move, spirit airlines is offering free flights on september eleventh of this year. as was not-oft-reported, spirit was the airline responsible for a few highjackers making their date with destiny around the same time last year. i’m sure some degree of corporate guilt due to this factoid spurred the promotion. regardless of the motivations behind this gem, a free flight from spirit is worth about as much as you’ll pay for it. if anyone’s planning on flying with them…beware. from my firsthand experience around the same time, the airline’s a nightmare. (initial link via metafilter)
