Tower of Sleep

rj5000: LV - CCTV ft. Dandelion Extremely ill. Amazing how it...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:05:40 -0800

LV - CCTV ft. Dandelion

Extremely ill. Amazing how it sounds so fresh when the beats could easily be a Pole b-side from ‘99. But Stefan Betke never had a good MC.

Oh hey!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:27:01 -0800

It turns out that Horacio Castellanos Moya, the author of the article in Guernica below, is also the Latin-American novelist whose name I have been trying to remember for months.

‘Born in Honduras in 1957, Horacio Castellanos Moya is the author of nine novels, among them El Asco: Thomas Bernhard en San Salvador, about which Roberto Bolaño once wrote, this novel “threatens the hormonal balance of imbeciles, and those who read it feel the irrepressible desire to hang the author in a public plaza. In truth, there is no higher honor for an author.” His novels available in English include Senselessness (New Directions), The She-Devil in the Mirror (New Directions), and Dance with Snakes (Biblioasis). He lives in exile in Tokyo, Japan, and was interviewed in Guernica’sApril 2009 issue.’

Gael García Bernal is portraying Roberto Bolaño in an upcoming film

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:23:04 -0800

I like Bernal but this is pretty much guaranteed to be a travesty.

Latin America Translated (Again): Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives in the United States, by Sarah Pollack

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:17:00 -0800

Latin America Translated (Again): Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives in the United States, by Sarah Pollack:

This essay addresses the cultural and political agendas that influence the selection of Latin American novels to be translated by U.S. publishers and the reception of these novels by U.S.readers. Focusing on two Latin American writers who have had enormous success in the U.S., the author traces the shift from the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, to the gritty realism of Roberto Bolaño, and asks what these different paradigms can tellus about stereotypical U.S. notions of Latin American cultural and political realities. Although Bolaño’s work ostensibly realigns the coordinates of the Latin American novel, breaking with the model of magical realism, it too foments a (pre)conception of alterity that satisfies the fantasies and collective imagination of U.S. cultural consumers. Citing the extremely low numbers of Latin American works translated and published in the U.S.yearly, she attributes this (pre)conception in part to the very small list of Latin American works available to U.S. readers—a list that comprises only a fraction of the total literary production of the region.

Guernica: Bolaño Inc., by Horacio Castellanos Moya

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:16:23 -0800

Guernica: Bolaño Inc., by Horacio Castellanos Moya:

It was no casual fact, then, that the majority of articles profiling the author laid the emphasis on the episodes of his tumultuous youth: his decision to drop out of high school and become a poet; his terrestrial odyssey from Mexico to Chile, where he was jailed during the coup d’état; the formation of the failed infrarealist movement with the poet Mario Santiago; his itinerant existence in Europe; his eventual jobs as camp watchman and dishwasher; a presumed drug addiction; and his premature death. “These iconoclastic episodes coupled with Bolaño’s death at fifty,” writes Pollack, “are too tempting to narrate as anything but a tragedy of mythical proportions: here seems to be someone who actually saw his youthful ideals through to their ultimate consequences.” “Meet the Kurt Cobain of Latin American literature,” wrote Daniel Crimmins in Paste magazine.

No North American journalist highlighted the fact, Sarah Pollack warns, that The Savage Detectives and the greater part of Bolaño’s prose work “were written as a sober family man” during the last ten years of his life—and an excellent father, I’d add, whose major preoccupation was his children, and that if he took a lover at the end of his life, he did it in the most conservative Latin American style, without threatening the preservation of his family. Pollack notes that “Bolaño appears to the reader, even before one crosses the novel’s threshold, as a cross between the Beats and Arthur Rimbaud (another reference for his alter ego Arturo Belano), his life already the stuff of legend.” Yet the majority of critics have passed over the fact that Bolaño didn’t die as a result of drug or alcohol abuse, but from a case of poorly cared-for pancreatitis that had destroyed his liver; or that his case was more similar to those of Balzac or Proust, who also died at fifty after a tremendous work effort, than it was to those of North American pop idols.

THE FRESH & ONLYS

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:38:15 -0800

THE FRESH & ONLYS

wickedknickers: Artist unknown This is fucking hot.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:27:45 -0800

wickedknickers:

Artist unknown

This is fucking hot.

grimmertown:contacthigh: Pheromoans - Suburban Despot

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:23:25 -0800

grimmertown:contacthigh:

Pheromoans - Suburban Despot

jessicaeaton:jennilee: pussy toss - jessica eaton...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:13:53 -0800

jessicaeaton:jennilee:

pussy toss - jessica eaton (2009)

Thanks guys… rewind though. 2006 I think - done for the Vice Photo issue when I had a contributor photo request that had to be “nude”. For samples of other people in the issue they sent me Ryan McGinley and some other dudes photos. Not very inspiring when you have breasts.

Patrik Ervell at Opening Ceremony

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:44:48 -0800

I’ll take one of everything, please. (via Opening Ceremony)

Apparently Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean is getting into...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:37:30 -0800

Apparently Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean is getting into some co-branding. This is his desert boot for Cole, Rood, and Haan. It’s got a really nice low-profile crepe sole, but at $395, I’ll stick with my Clarks, thanks.

okayfine: Opening tonight. Wish I was going to this.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:30:29 -0800

okayfine:

Opening tonight.

Wish I was going to this.

jennilee: she who dies with the most toys, still dies Mmm,...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:19:34 -0800

jennilee:

she who dies with the most toys, still dies

Mmm, gradient.

I’ve blogged this guy before, but he’s worth a...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:17:00 -0800

I’ve blogged this guy before, but he’s worth a re-blog. Plus, since my hair and beard are going kinda nuts right now, I’m looking more like him every day, which is sweet.

Apparently his name is Amir Toos. The Sartorialist has an interview with him today.

Mountain Research Field Jacket

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:49:24 -0800

moclassics:

Lightweight waterproof field jacket (£305) with detachable hood, available at Garbstore.

Is it just me, or does this coat have a big metal penis hanging off the zipper?

Kings of Leon launch clothing line

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:48:00 -0800

Kings of Leon launch clothing line:

And it’s a collaboration with Surface to Air? Wow, there goes the last of S2A’s cred.

(via cameronr) LOL WUT

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:26:24 -0800

(via cameronr)

LOL WUT

badspelling: I glad you picked this one Saelan - as I think...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:22:00 -0800

badspelling:

I glad you picked this one Saelan - as I think it’s their best song to date. admittedly from their previous album.

The thing that’s really pissed me off is that I don’t think they can be rejected as simply “not good” - they’re certainly “good” in all manner of respects. Whether you like them or not is a different matter. I will certainly concede that they’re a bit of a “marmite band” as they like to say.

i just really fucking hate to see them doing good work and not getting recognized for it. they are truly one of the few bands that come from Britain and sound like it. they wear their northern influences and upbringing proudly and correctly - celebrating the heritage of people like Jake Thackray (to choose an obvious example) without slipping into pastiche or cliche.

Jake Thackray is here for reference btw:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaSKICzeTaE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OWdT-i4GFE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etvjzVVfBa4&feature=related

I come from a similar background I recognise stuff like the above in what they do and I fucking think it’s about time. There was good stuff in provincial northern british art and music. a fact that’s too often forgotten, and censored because it’s seen as unfashionable. and it’s nice to see how it spills out when processed through these young folks.

I really think that’s a rare thing and to be championed and cherished. People enjoy having it forced down their fucking throats by the Arctic Monkeys so I really don’t understand why they are sleeping on this band when they are far more intelligent and way more subtle.

I also think that this song is one of the only modern songs i’ve ever heard that might just have made the cutting room floor when Scott Walker was making 4. Oh my god! What heresy am I committing here?!

Well, perhaps I’ve been a bit glib. You’re right, they are not “bad”. I heard their first album regularly on the Zulu iTunes and it is decent and interesting in many respects. I just can’t really get stoked about it and I’ve heard a few of their tunes that I didn’t like at all. They’re definitely not the Arctic Monkeys, though, and that’s something to be thankful for.

grimmertown: Here’s the real good stuff. The...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:57:57 -0800

grimmertown:

Here’s the real good stuff.

The motherfuckin’ Fresh & Onlys, everybody. Interviewed by Mark Richardson and photographed by Gordon Ball in the latest issue of Color magazine, hitting the shelves pretty much any day now.

badspelling: (via sleephouse) YOU ARE FUCKING WRONG Merek...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:23:56 -0800

badspelling:

(via sleephouse)

YOU ARE FUCKING WRONG

Merek presents several arguments in his case. I don’t agree, but I respect his opinion. YOU BE THE JUDGE.