Brian Raftery

"His bed of choice is a remarkable piece of custom Swedish craftsmanship made by a company called..."

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:34:00 -0400

“His bed of choice is a remarkable piece of custom Swedish craftsmanship made by a company called Hästens. Each one takes some 160 hours to produce and is signed by a master bed-maker who lays out the most perfect matrix of horsehair, cotton, flax, and wool. Price after custom framing: $103,000. Kim has three such beds in his New Zealand mansion, one of which faces a series of monitors and hard drives and piles of wires and is flanked on either side by lamps that look like, and may well be, chromed AK-47.”

- From the new Wired cover story on Kim Dotcomm. Clearly, these are exciting times for the makers of oversize luxury beds.

From Parquet Courts’ awesome Light Up Gold album, which I...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:07:00 -0400

From Parquet Courts’ awesome Light Up Gold album, which I have not stopped playing for three days straight. You can buy it here.

One of my favorite of movies of this year—though it...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:52:00 -0400

One of my favorite of movies of this year—though it won’t be released until next year—is Rodney Ascher’s ROOM 237, a documentary that compiles several far-flung (but very compelling!) theories about the secret meaning of Kubrick’s THE SHINING. A few years ago, Ascher made a similarly affectionate/goofy short doc called THE S FROM HELL, which focuses on how a single production-company logo traumatized several impressionable TV watchers in the ’70s. THE S FROM HELL is up on Vimeo; extra points to Ascher for using footage from HALLOWEEN III, easily on my list of the all-time shitty-but-good-but-actually-mostly-shitty horror films from the ’80s.

"Mr. Sandler attempted to ease any discomfort during filming by encouraging his co-stars to gather..."

Sun, 25 May 2008 23:09:00 -0400

“Mr. Sandler attempted to ease any discomfort during filming by encouraging his co-stars to gather outside his trailer at an area furnished with tables and lawn chairs, where they would smoke cigars and talk shop during breaks. Inevitably, some heated debates about Mideast politics occurred during these conversations.”

- Dave Itzkoff’s fascinating and thoroughly reported Times piece on the making of the new Sandler movie, which is secretly a comedy about continuing Arab-Israeli tensions.

Horses vs. Trains

Sun, 25 May 2008 23:02:15 -0400

Horses vs. Trains

This is how I’ve been feeling the last two weeks. If I...

Sun, 25 May 2008 22:57:00 -0400

This is how I’ve been feeling the last two weeks. If I could put all of my pals in one room—and if that room had a chroma key effect—this is what I’d say.

The new Impossible Shapes album, free at eMusic.

Wed, 21 May 2008 22:36:51 -0400

The new Impossible Shapes album, free at eMusic.

IM Caspian

Wed, 21 May 2008 22:34:06 -0400

IM Caspian

I believe in Harvey Dent John McCain.

Wed, 21 May 2008 22:33:00 -0400

I believe in ~~Harvey Dent~~ John McCain.

Can a Dead Brand Live Again?

Sun, 18 May 2008 10:15:36 -0400

Can a Dead Brand Live Again?:

Times Magazine piece on companies that capitalize on the nostalgia for old products—Brim, Salon Selectives, etc.—by re-introducing them to the marketplace. Good news for you, Rap Musk!

IM Speed Racer

Tue, 13 May 2008 18:35:28 -0400

IM Speed Racer

Spotted at eMusic. It’s just one track—which, if you...

Sun, 11 May 2008 13:10:00 -0400

Spotted at eMusic. It’s just one track—which, if you have a 90-download plan, works out to about twenty cents per “God Damn America.”

The cat annoyer.

Fri, 09 May 2008 20:10:56 -0400

The cat annoyer.

Part 2 of the Daily Show’s coverage of the Pollies....

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:38:49 -0400

Part 2 of the Daily Show’s coverage of the Pollies. “Let us remember those whose careers were so tragically lost.”

Leak of the Week: Weezer, "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)"

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:30:24 -0400

Leak of the Week: Weezer, "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)"

”I don’t want to do an impression,” she says....

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:28:15 -0400

”I don’t want to do an impression,” she says. ”I just want to honor her voice, her stillness, and her hairstyle”’ - Elizabeth Banks on the challenges of playing House of Yes-era Parker Posey.

Black Moth Super Rainbow, “Zodiac Girls” (2008)

Wed, 07 May 2008 11:03:02 -0400

Black Moth Super Rainbow, “Zodiac Girls” (2008)

Jay “Tron Guy” Maynard at ROFLcon. I wonder how many...

Tue, 06 May 2008 19:06:28 -0400

Jay “Tron Guy” Maynard at ROFLcon. I wonder how many times he gets the poop question.

Last night’s Daily Show segment on the Pollies, an awards...

Tue, 06 May 2008 18:35:17 -0400

Last night’s Daily Show segment on the Pollies, an awards show recognizing excellence in political advertising. At first I thought John Oliver’s interview with Floyd Brown—creator of the infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad—was a classic bit of DS recontextualized “gotcha,” and that there was no way the guy could really be that brazenly evil. Then I watched Brown’s latest anti-Obama joint. Dukakis got off easy.

IM Iron Man

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:09:30 -0400

IM Iron Man