remix

I’m a carnie huckster, you know it and I know it, but that’s OK

The title is a quote from Seth Stevenson Slate.com piece on pitchman Vince Offer, where he explains that Vince’s “smooth-talking condescension” is the most appropriate sales tactic in today’s cynical world. “Jaded consumers expect to get snowed and almost distrust the very pretense of trustworthiness.” The Rap Chop remix of Vince’s Slap Chop actually ran […] » about 100 words

Top Gun: A Requiem For Goose

TeamTigerAwesome‘s Top Gun: A Requiem For Goose is more than funny, it’s the sort of thing a person should mine for insults and one-liners to use later. Of course, the recent Tom Cruise flap doesn’t dampen it any.

From the title cards:

On March 3, 1919 President Harding established the swingenest, scientologist, dew drop of a flight school in all 38.

Now, you boys may think that you are the high-hattenest group of flyboys ever to shoot down a Mrs. Grundy.

I’m gonna make you better.

So I ask of you?

Who among you wish to fornicate with immortality?

I dare say, me and my favorite Irishman, Goose, are the Real McCoy.

See that Sock Dollager over there?

The skirts call him Iced-Man.

She has misplaced feelings of love.

I despise it when she has misplaced feelings of love.

That Jester didn’t have a flapper’s chance against us Protestants!

I dare say you, you could call me Grover Cleveland…For I just orgazimized, on non-consecutive terms.

You’re still a splifficated, piker as I ever saw. But you can be my wing man anytime.

Applesauce. You can be mine.

WPopac Gets Googled

A discussion on Web4Lib last month raised the issue of Google indexing our library catalogs. My answer spoke of the huge number of searches being done in search engines every day and the way that people increasingly expect that anything worth finding can be found in Google. There were doubts about the effectiveness of such […] » about 800 words

Queen Mashups Are All The Rage

Michael Sauers pointed out Q-Unit, a mashup of Queen and 50 Cent. They’re sure to have Disney (the rights owner for Queen’s catalog) on their back soon. At least, it didn’t take Disney long to shut down The Kleptones, whose “A Night At The Hip-Hopera” has a spot on my iPod.

And that’s where the story comes around, are we at the point where we can say Queen’s music has taken on the status of a modern fairy tale? And are these artists — The Kleptones and Q-Unit — the new Disneys, remaking old tales for new times?

The Failures Of Permission Culture

Donna Wentworth, over at Copyfight pointed out a JD Lasica piece detailing the responses from seven studios to his requests to use short (10-30 seconds) clips of their films in a non-commercial project he was working on with his child. …four of the studios refused outright, two refused to respond, and the seventh wobbled. This […] » about 300 words