Last night I went to check out Kanye West’s projection project at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. It’s a historical, gothic style prison that’s 184 years old and hasn’t held prisoners since the 1960’s.
When I arrived there were already 100 or so people lingering around the entrance of the prison, just looking up at a blank wall. Everyone had an idea of what was going to happen but didn’t really have a clue of how it would happen.
Next thing you know, a black van with NY license plates rolled up out of nowhere. I’m sure their plan was to open the door, turn on the projector, let Kanye’s projected face do its thing then leave. Things didn’t exactly go as plan, though.
The van door got stuck and wouldn’t open. The people running the show tried their hardest to get the door open but it just wouldn’t open. As time went on, the crowd grew larger around the van, blocking Fairmount Ave. Cars either took a detour or inched their way through the crowd.
10 minutes went by and they finally got the door open with a little help from crowd members. Everyone cheered when that happened(see second photo above) and finally, we all got to see Kanye West’s projected face perform “New Slaves” on the side of the Eastern State Penitentiary. - Philadelphia, PA - 05/24/2013
"Nobody gets married to a clever song, let alone falls in love to one."
— Paul Westerberg, from a New York Times editorial on songwriting.
Watch Vampire Weekend’s episode of “Over/Under” to get the band’s take on yoga, suntan lotion, crocs, and other very random things.
Pitchfork’s comma use suggests they may have been bought out by The Guardian. Most American style guides recommend keeping punctuation inside quotes, while many blogs seem to follow the British approach, which is certainly more logical (it avoids making punctuation an accomplice), even though I find it aesthetically discomforting (and anti-American!). There is one incongruity: Ed Droste’s first quote conforms to common rules of attribution (he said, she said, etc.), keeping the comma inside the quote. The visual inconsistency irks me, in spite of its logic. I would also like to point out an unfortunate “missed opportunity” for a semi-colon (the most provocative of punctuation marks whose prevalence on grad school dissertations is now vindicated by its near absence on Twitter). Otherwise, the post reflects solid grammar (album titles in italics, song titles in “quotes,” and intelligent distinction between “their” and “they are.”) I should point out that TV shows should technically be in italics, but who’s keeping track? Apocalypse Wow. (Just one more thing: whatever happened to “smart quotes”?)
It is nice to know people out there are paying as much attention to our punctuation as we do! For the record, as a rule, we keep commas and periods outside of song and TV show titles, but inside of normal quotes (the final period in the story cited above is outside of the quotes because Ed Droste did not end his original tweet with a period and we wanted to quote him as accurately as possible). For those interested in reading even more about this sort of thing (millions, surely!), please check out this Slate piece about logical punctuation featuring insight from our own editor-in-chief, Mark Richardson.
Today, a re-assessment of Four Tet’s 2003 album, Rounds. A week prior, a long chat with Kieran Hebden about the making of that album, which as it turns out, was built entirely on samples.
Dirty Beaches’ harrowing and experimental new double album, Drifters/Love Is the Devil, is named Best New Music. Read Larry Fitzmaurice’s review.
(Source: Spotify)
These custom Lil B platform sneakers are part of a new Based God-inspired fashion project, via Fader.
Read Jayson Greene’s review of the dauntingly personal new album by Majical Cloudz, Impersonator.
(Source: Spotify)
The wonderful Jessie Ware joined us onstage at Night+Day in Berlin. We did a version of Modjo ‘Lady’ + Stardust ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ over Jamie’s edit of Sunset. It was such a joy to share the stage with her, she has an incredible voice! Here is a video filmed from side of stage.
xx The xx
