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There's a nice mix of video game and game-related music over at cuechamp. A good chance to hear artists frequently plugged here, including 8-Bit Construction Set and Monotrona, as well as punchy electro tracks such as Knifehandchop's "Ryu vs. Sakura," with samples of a Real Don Steele-type announcer (from "Streetfighter Alpha 3") yelling out stuff like "Select your fighting style!" and "Beat'em up guys!" Here's the link to the .mp3 of the mix; it's a 22MB file so you probably need broadband. And here is the playlist:
1. super mario brothers - london symphony orchestraWhile at cuechamp, I followed the link to Hektor, a graffiti-writing robot that produces some really clean, seductive imagery with a spraycan rigged up on pulleys. The principle recalls the Etch-a-Sketch, or I suppose what happens inside a mouse, only in reverse: the program translates data into sweeping movements of the dangling, spritzing can, within imaginary horizontal and vertical axes. The device is documented on the under-construction website with pop-up jpegs, a quicktime movie and an extensive pdf file. Now to figure out how to get it into the trainyards.
2. video computer system - golden shower
3. bmx kidz theme - input 64
4. saucemaster - 8 bit construction set
5. ah, enemy - monotrona
6. ryu vs. sakura - knifehandchop
7. manhunt (rephlex manhood remix) – lords of the dance
8. computer games - yellow magic orchestra
New Yorker movie critic David Denby's self-lacerating book about losing all his money in the late '90s stock bubble, discussed briefly a few posts back, fits into a larger story, but not the one told here--of Denby the noodge dispensing crappy criticism. No, the real story, according to this month's Vanity Fair, is that Denby's wife left him for a woman, and his daytrading binges grew out of his rage over that, or some such. Katha Pollitt, mentioned here briefly, also has more interesting things to offer than her discussion of the hypocritical standards applied to campaign wives: in this month's New Yorker, she discusses her obsessive cyber-stalking of her ex.
I know people think that weblogs emphasize the confessional and the private over substantive analysis, but the reverse is increasingly true. Lately, if you want to discuss art and politics outside the usual defined boxes, parse the contradictory positions of institutionally compromised critics, and find a wealth of links to Internet metacriticism, you'll likely find that in the blogosphere. If you want a good gossipy wallow in the tawdry personal misfortunes of these same institutional critics, the major media is for you!