Happy birthday, Robert E. Lee, traitor and scoundrel

If the removal of statues of Confederate generals has led people to the work of Eric Foner, David W. Blight, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, then a public good has been achieved.

Steve King is not the only racist in the GOP caucus

I suppose my heart should swell with the news that the GOP minority in Congress (by the way — what sweet relief to write that phrase!) has moved to strip Rep. Steve King of committee assignments. But if Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wanted an Aegean stables moment, he needs to start immediately from the bottom up.

Won’t take nothing but a memory: The best of Miranda Lambert

Possessing a voice too thin and high for crooning but ideal for a conversation in which she reaches for sardonicism as if it were a glass of water, Miranda Lambert writes and finds songs whose characters keep their heads even when last night they were out of theirs.

The best of Pedro Almodóvar

One of the late twentieth century’s most devoted purveyors of erotic pleasure on film, Pedro Almodóvar hasn’t yet recovered from the dreariness of Franco’s dictatorship.

Entries in Miami Jewish Film Festival 2019 grapple with identity and history

In its twenty-second year, the Miami Jewish Film Festival, which began on January 10, has set a new benchmark: of eighty films from twenty-five countries, twenty-seven of them were directed by women.

New Order show how to avoid kitsch creep

The Stones did not play five tracks from A Bigger Bang on their last tour, nor did they in 2005 when the album was fresher than Ron Wood’s dimples.

Singles 1/11

Our first set of reviews of the new year, comprised of 2018 odds and ends published during the break and tracks chosen for BBC Music Sound Of 2019 that were not, I trust, auspicatory. Already I regret the high vote for “Really Bad Boy,” grade inflation based on my affection for their catalog, and the low vote for Post Malone’s best radio hit.

Click on links for full reviews.

King Princess – Pussy is God (8)
Flohio ft. Cadenza & Clams Casino – Pounce (7)
Grimes ft. HANA – We Appreciate Power (7)
Anderson .Paak ft. Kendrick Lamar – Tints (6)
Meek Mill ft. Drake – Going Bad (6)
Red Velvet – RBB (Really Bad Boy) (6)
Rosalía – Bagdad (5)
Octavian – Move Faster (4)
Thomas Rhett – Sixteen (3)
Dermot Kennedy – Power Over Me (3)
Grace Carter – Why Her Not Me (3)
Post Malone – Wow (3)
Kodak Black – Calling My Spirit (2)
Twice – The Best Thing I Ever Did (2)
Sea Girls – All I Want to Hear You Say (1)

The history of the world: the best Pet Shop Boys B-sides

“We’ve always used the B-side as a way of learning to produce,” Chris Lowe said in the liner notes to the smashing compilation Alternative. “When we started the B-side was where we learned to do things ourselves. So it wasn’t a throwaway, ever. It’s been fundamental to how we progress.” Besides alluding to a future album title, these remarks elucidate how he and Neil Tennant might have created a complementary timeline to Pet Shop Boys’ development: ever dafter English synth pop duo, no doubt, Edith Sitwells on Emulators. The B-sides below are a barmy lot, mixing literary and historical references as a way of clouding indeterminate lusts. I could have easily tripled this list, but let’s stop at sixteen.

1. Paninaro (b/w Suburbia)
2. That’s My Impression (b/w Love Comes Quickly)
3. Decadence (b/w Liberation)
4. A Man Could Get Arrested (7″ remix; West End Girls)
5. The Truck Driver and His Mate (b/w Before)
6. Some Speculation (b/w Yesterday, When I Was Mad)
7. Do I Have To? (b/w Rent)
8. Bet She’s Not Your Girlfriend [b/w Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You)]
9. You Know Where You Went Wrong (b/w It’s a Sin)
10. The Ghost of Myself (b/w New York City Boy)
11. Sexy Northerner (b/w Home and Dry)
12. Jack the Lad (b/w Suburbia)
13. The Resurrectionist (b/w I’m With Stupid)
14. I Get Excited (You Get Excited Too) (b/w Heart)
15. The Sound of the Atom Splitting (b/w Left to My Own Devices)
16. In the Night (b/w Opportunities)

On the luridness of gay conservatives

The New York Times‘ Sunday magazine has run a story about the frustrations of gay conservatives. One Ben Holden, a Suffolk University student, explains himself:

Though he said he is liberal on most social issues and wishes the Republican Party would take climate change seriously, Holden aligns himself with conservatives and libertarians in many other ways — he’s anti-abortion, free-market-oriented and skeptical of big government. But perhaps above all else, Holden rejects what he considers a bedrock of contemporary liberalism: that, as he put it, your “immutable characteristics” — race, ethnicity, sexual orientation — “should determine what your position is on every political issue, or what you’re allowed to express an opinion about.” He added that he feels alienated from progressives on his campus and across the country, many of whom he believes are unwilling to debate issues “without resorting to shaming or name-calling.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: the message, not the messenger

At the Vacuum, we haven’t dwelt on the daily outrage machine’s flutterings whenever Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opens her phone and starts thumbing.

C·60 C·90 C 100 Go!

A Twitter discussion tangentially about, what else, music in the Poppy Bush Interzone led me to a plastic bin in which I keep the remains of an impressive cassette collection.

The stink of climate change

To buy property in South Florida is folly, and here is more proof: