Author: Aaron Weber

Cabinet of Natural Curiosities

A cabinet of natural curiosities was basically a renaissance man’s collection of weird and unexplained goodies from around the world: taxidermied exotic (or fictional) animals, religious relics, that sort of thing. My friend Jasmine started a band called the Cabinet of Natural Curiosities in the same vein: a collection of strange and interesting sounds turned into songs.

She’s based in Missoula, MT right now but had a gig in San Francisco at the House of Shields last weekend, and because I happened to be out there for work I got to see her play. Good show. Instruments included wind chimes, an alarm clock, guitars with a lot of different effects pedals, a child’s electronic keyboard, and some Christmas lights.

I don’t see her much: we had lunch a few years ago, and before that it had been at least a decade, probably more. She told me I ought to be writing poetry. I laughed.

I can’t decide between outrage and cynical resignation

Bush just let Libby out of jail. It’s not, technically, a pardon, but it’s enough to make me want to throw things. Can you say conflict of interest?

“Hey, Scooter! Thanks for obstructing justice when they were investigating my cronies and me– I can’t pardon you but I should be able to get rid of everything involving some kind of actual punishment for you.”

You want to talk about the obstruction of justice? I want Scooter to face justice, and by justice I mean I want him to join Paris Hilton and nonviolent drug offenders in making the US the country with the largest prison population in the world!

How is this different from the media landscape of today?

The Cult Of The Amateur: In his view Web 2.0 is changing the cultural landscape and not for the better. By undermining mainstream media and intellectual property rights, he says, it is creating a world in which we will “live to see the bulk of our music coming from amateur garage bands, our movies and television from glorified YouTubes, and our news made up of hyperactive celebrity gossip, served up as mere dressing for advertising.” This is what happens, he suggests, “when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule.”

Ignorance, egoism, bad taste, and mob rule have been the order of the day since at least 1945, and quite possibly longer. I don’t know what he’s complaining about.

Every Day Is A Gift

It is a quarter past ten in the morning and I am in Burlingame, CA at the MeeVee offices. Three of us are sitting around a wide-screen TV watching an advance screener of televised trainwreck “Hey Paula.” I am shocked that I am watching TV at ten in the morning. Also I can’t sit still because Paula is so horrible. Everyone else loves it, but I am beginning to despair for all of humanity. At the end, Paula says “I’m tired of people not treating me like the gift that I am.” What kind of a gift is that, Paula?

See also: acquired situational narcissism.

Update: Here’s my review/commentary over at MeeVee. Yes, I get mean about it.

Cranky Letter To The Editor

Dear The Onion:

What’s with the right-wing, unfunny editorial cartoons? I could forgive the conservatism if they were actually funny, but they’re not. In most cases, they don’t even have an “editorial” point, like the farewell to the Sopranos. But mostly, they just seem to be illustrations of the ideas “I’m a grumpy old man who doesn’t get enough respect” or “won’t somebody think of the children?”

Perhaps most egregious is the one that says having kids home from school is like having terrorists in the house. That’s like some sort of foul-mouthed Family Circus drawing, and not in the funny way, either. It may be offensive and poorly drawn, but it’s not funny and it’s certainly not an editorial commentary in cartoon form.

Is the guy an investor’s relative or something? There’s no reason to put those up on The Onion otherwise.

Yours,
Aaron Weber