Author: cocokeevan

The Dunce Cap: Oct. 11, 2010

in: heavy rotation

 

On the upswing, pup!

 

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 24: She got gold doorknobs where her eyes used to be, yeah. (click on link to listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “All I Know” – Free Energy
2. “Heavy Metal” – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
3. “40 Day Dream” – Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
4. “Let’s Get Out of This Country” – Camera Obscura
5. “Pin Your Heart to Me” – Jacobites
6. “P.Y.T.” – Michael Jackson
7. “Call It Off” – Tegan and Sara
8. “The Walls are Coming Down” – Fanfarlo
9. “Silver Lining” – Rilo Kiley
10. “The Youth” – MGMT

Alright, I admit it. I am a filthy, rotten liar. I can’t seem to get my act together to post. I know, it’s simple etiquette to follow through on promises. And, believe me, I’ve wanted to. Desperately wanted to. My life has been nothing short, though, of totally insane, so please continue to pardon me. I promise to be back soon with rollicking good posts of hilarity and strange pop culture news.

And, for your enjoyment (and also to appease you, darlings):

“Change is Cumming” with Canadian political candidate Ian Cumming.
Cumming with diligence and stability.
Cumming with care for details.

et. al. [Ian-Cumming.com via The Frisky]

The Dunce Cap: Sept. 23, 2010

in: heavy rotation

Punishment.

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 23: You got that kind of beauty that makes people nervous. (click on link to listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “Our Riotous Defects” – of Montreal
2. “Secret Meeting” – The National
3. “On Large Amusements” – Zoos of Berlin
4. “Falling For You” – Weezer
5. “It’s All Gonna Break” – Broken Social Scene
6. “Ponce De Leon Ave.” – Butch Walker
7. “Slapped Actress” – The Hold Steady
8. “If You Were Here” – Cary Brothers
9. “No One’s Gonna Love You” – Cee-Lo Green
10. “We Can Be Good” – Via Audio

It’s the long overdue return of the Dunce Cap! Welcome back to the knotty musings on all things (un)popular culture! I owe you so many apologies, passing readers. First I promised you a series, then I promised you a weekly mix and then I promised I’d be back. And I didn’t come back.

But I am back! I am back for good! And my first task? A Dunce Cap, of course!

This is, as the first title suggests, a riotous journey of joyous musical skipping! I’m a crazy girrrrrl at the start of a brand spankin’ new school year, and I’ve got lots to say. It’s going to be good.

This isn’t just a rollicking mix of high-fives and tail-shaking. This is also a hxc preview of what’s to come. There’s an of Montreal concert review for their show last Saturday at the Riviera. There’s a nice little message to the sweethearts in Zoos of Berlin. There’s a squeal-inducing Weezer announcement. There’s a Hold Steady concert preview. There’s a review of Easy A, a movie I’ve seen twice in theaters. And there’s Butch Walker. There’s always Butch Walker.

So, the Girl in the Dunce Cap is back. And I’ve got a lot to say. Let’s hope it’s all still timely when I get it up. Heh.

Happy listening.

The Dunce Cap: August 30, 2010

in: heavy rotation

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 22: I guess he’s an X-box and I’m more Atari. (click on link to listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “Fuck You” – Cee-Lo Green
2. “Teenage Dream” – Katy Perry
3. “Walking the Dog” – fun.
4. “All Hail Dracula!” – Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
5. “House of Cards” – Butch Walker
6. “Cold War” – Janelle Monae
7. “I Want To” – Best Coast
8. “Shutterbugg” – Big Boi
9. “Magic” – B.o.B.
10. “Love the Way You Lie” – Eminem

Happy 9/02/10! That’s right: Today is 90210 day! That’s right. It’s September 2, 2010, and it’s time to celebrate those crazy kids in California’s wealthiest zip code. Dylan McKay? Brandon Walsh? Yum-my. I won’t speak too much to the original teen primetime soap, as People does it best. Also, New York Mag. Win.

Regardless, last week I missed a Dunce Cap. I’m sorry, y’all. It was a week without wifi, and it was a week without music. Or, at least, chronicled and playlisted music.

But, alas, I’ve returned! It’s Labor Day weekend and the unofficial end of summer, so The Dunce Cap is back in full force with the ten best tracks of the summer. From Big Boi to B.o.B, these are ten tracks which have truly captivated my attention this summer. There’s the recently released Cee-Lo track, the ’60s girl group sweet sing-along kiss-off “Fuck You,” which is making me unceremoniously giddy. There’s the Someone Still Loves You vampire track from Let It Sway. There’s that infectious and delightfully irritating Katy Perry title track, “Teenage Dream.” There’s Butch Walker! There’s fun.! There’s Best Coast!

Hell, I’m feeling the heat in stereo.

Arguably, the last track on this mix, Eminem’s collaboration with Rihanna, “Love the Way You Lie,” doesn’t quite fit with the rest of this happy-go-lucky (if you can count Cee-Lo’s own “Since U Been Gone” anthem as such), but it’s been quite a force this summer and aligns the mix with my current state of emotion. By bookending this Dunce Cap with the aforementioned Cee-Lo and this Eminem track, it makes for a great summer sayonara to all of the boogie oogie feelings of a breakup.

What are your favorite tracks from summer 2010? Post ’em in the comments.

Happy listening.

P.S. I owe you a fair number of Third Year Thirties. Coming soon, hopefully.

Dunce Flash: Paste – the print version – folds

in: the press

The first issue of Paste I ever owned

I’m deeply saddened to report that my beloved Paste magazine is suspending its print publication. I read the news via NY Mag, who in turn heard it when Gawker broke the story this afternoon.

The magazine, which had been struggling amidst the print crisis brought on by this miserable recession, had remained afloat with the help of generous reader contributions. Alas, the donations weren’t enough. Gawker is reporting that the staff was given two hours to clean out their desks.

Pastemagazine.com will remain up and running by a “skeleton staff,” but all of my favorite Paste staffers – like the wonderful and sweet Rachael Maddux! – are reporting their unemployment.

I’m heartbroken. Well wishes to all of the folks at Paste, and thanks for all the years of reading solid, interesting pop culture reporting. It was always one of my dreams to write for Paste. What a shame.

And for Tilda Swinton to be their last cover… [Gawker via NYMag, Paste]

The Dunce Cap’s Third Year Thirty: Day 3

in: due time

Gin Blossoms

Aug. 24, 2010:

day 3: jazzercise.

Okay, not actually. But in spirit. Yesterday was the day of rest. Today is the day of motivational atonement. Carpe diem, move your feet, yadda yadda. It’s not earth-shattering, but it’s a step in the right direction, no?

Today, I drove nearly a hundred miles in that Georgia sunlight, squawking along to the sounds from my speakers. I completed three big projects at work. I baked cookies. And I wrote. I remembered to write.

It was a day of forward motion. And, though it’s trite, there are few things more important than that.

But, if you want to – you can really jazzercise, too.

And, for a band who so acutely describes the bumbleshoot of emotions (I mean, c’mon, “Congratulations, I’m Sorry”? Best album name ever.):

Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy”

P.S. My couples photoshopped shots were starting to skeeve me out. I’ll try and replace them with photos of artists, but maybe I’ll stick in a hilarrrious photo where it’s appropriate.

(editor’s note: The Girl with the Dunce Cap isn’t normally this emotionally overwrought. Seriously. Scour the rest of the site for normal content.)

No Brainer: John Hodgman

in: fatuation, on: journalistic writing

Why we love: John Hodgman

I’m considering a legal name change to “Holy Hannah Hottentot-Smythe,” the Christian name I’d surely be called by if I were a hobo, and name no. 349 on John Hodgman’s list of “SEVEN HUNDRED HOBO NAMES.” Hodgman, a former correspondent and “PROFESSIONAL LITERARY AGENT” (as his book declares) is best known as your personal computer, the adorably desperate customer monger in Apple’s Mac commercial, competing with suave and sleek Justin Long by disguising himself in cartoon form, burrowing deep inside pizza boxes.

He is also a “PROFESSIONAL WRITER,” a talented Renaissance man and humorist. His novels The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require include extensive listings of hobo signs (the symbols hoboes leave for each other), a timeline of the American lobster and charts of types of werewolves. He is a connoisseur of fake knowledge, and, best of all, he is The Daily Show’s Resident Expert, reporting on everything. Seriously.

It clicked one evening, as yet another clever 15-second Apple ad caught my attention on the television. I shifted my focus from the lanky frame of Long to the pudgy, self-effacing countenance of Hodgman—and I fell in love.

I want to wrap him up in the box he came in, that cute little PC, and unpack him into my breast pocket. I hope he’ll whisper sweet nothings of knowledge into my ears and feed me lines of hobo code during those long, unwieldy and terrifying late night jaunts down Sherman. He’ll star in all my films as “The Guy With Glasses,” sharing his genius in chats of Battlestar Galactica and Complete World Knowledge.

Even without his perpetual presence, Hodgman is my guru. I simply need to watch out for the Apple commercials to catch a glimpse of his face, stodgy and absurd. Take that, former almost Mr. Barrymore.

this piece originally ran in the weekly, a supplement of the daily northwestern thursday, on may 20, 2009

The Dunce Cap’s Third Year Thirty: Day 2

in: due time

Jen and Brad.

Aug. 23, 2010:

day 2: eschew responsibility.

Only for a day, duh. Barring the loss of of a job, the failure of a class or immediate danger, take a single-day stay-cation. Breakups are emotionally taxing, and a girl deserves a day of rest. Especially a girl who doesn’t really recognize the Sabbath. Oops.

My day didn’t consist of much, honestly. I didn’t have to work, so I slept in late and spent the afternoon on the couch in my pjs, heating up microwave dinners and watching Buffy. Few things help more than drooling over an ages-old vampire… Wait. I think I just lent credence to Twilight. Aw, shucks. I didn’t mean to.

Mostly, though, I rummaged through my old stuff for something I hadn’t really needed in quite some time. And I found it: an old CD-R with Sharpied handwritten titles, “BREAK-UP CD/TAKE 1/<3 SAM AND COCO.” I know this one’s a winner – it’s got Avril on it not once but twice. Pop punk and girrrrrrl power aplenty!

Basically, today was a solid day of nothing. And it felt like a reprieve.

The track listing from this exemplary piece of mixtape, circa summer 2005:

1. “Time Turn Fragile” – Motion City Soundtrack
2. “Move Along” – The All-American Rejects
3. “Love and Be Loved” – Charlie Mars
4. “Paper Rock Scissors” – JamisonParker
5. “On My Way” – Ingram Hill
6. “Since U Been Gone” – Kelly Clarkson
7. “Good Will Hunting By Myself” – Ludo
8. “My Happy Ending” – Avril Lavigne
9. “Too Little Too Late” – Barenaked Ladies
10. “Grenade Jumper” – Fall Out Boy
11. “Dammit” – Blink 182
12. “Life After Lisa” – Bowling For Soup
13. “Complicated” – Avril Lavigne
14. “Song for the Dumped” – Ben Folds Five
15. “I Will Survive” – Cake
16. “On My Own” – Don’t Look Down
17. “Laid” – James
18. “Bitch” – Meredith Brooks
19. “Find Comfort in Yourself” – Midtown
20. “A Year on an Airplane” – Daphne Loves Derby

And today’s track, something a bit more grown up:

The Flaming Lips, “All We Have Is Now”

The Dunce Cap’s Third Year Thirty: Day 1

in: due time

A song a day for thirty days.

Felicity and Noel

Heartbreak is hard. Moving on is harder.

Without giving away too many gruesome details (this is a pop culture blog, after all!), I’m launching a daily feature which will, in addition to providing you kids with groovy tunes, help me get through a bit of a rough patch.

In thirty days, classes will commence at Northwestern, and I will begin my third year. And thirty days is the perfect length of time for, you know, getting over things. Each day, beginning today and concluding September 21, I’m going to blog to share a song and a goal/accomplishment for the day, depending on the time of day which I choose to write. In thirty days time, the assumption is, I’ll feel whole again, mostly.

Sound cheesy? There’s no telling just how cheesy this’ll become. But, rejoice! This will be a project replete with pretty and not-so-pretty tracks, and, with a little luck, at the end, I’ll release a mixtape version of the whole dang thing.

Breaking up is hard to do. But, like most things, it seems to get easier over time. And when accompanied by a handful of Kelly Clarkson tracks.

So what exactly is the Third Year Thirty? It’s a musical how-to guide for releasing all kinds of relationship-related frustrations and anguish, followed by tongue-in-cheek pieces of advice and even cheekier poorly Photoshopped pictures of relationships that ended too soon. It’s my shoddy example at making lemonade. And, for a more established breakup guide, may I recommend The Frisky’s 30 Day Breakup Guide.

Day 1 after the jump.

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