Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 05/13/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: April Smith and the Great Picture Show
“I was the surprise,” says April Smith, the bonus baby her parents won late and whose moxie and dash astounded everyone she met. Today, she remains a welcome bolt: a loose-lipped, cocked-hip gal whose music and mien could buoy the Titanic.
As she took her place in the family, April developed a muscular, mellifluous voice and high-flying showmanship. Her mom adored Queen (”If you didn’t know a Brian May solo in the first few notes, you weren’t her child”) and her dad gave her his old 8-track tape player, letting her buy Elvis and Led Zeppelin tapes at yard sales. During summer vacations with Aunt Cricket and Uncle Fred, April discovered songwriters like Tom Waits and Kinky Friedman, stealing Fred’s cassettes and absorbing observational story-songs in a backyard tent. Waits …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 05/12/2012
Saturday Vids: The Truth with Hasan Minhaj
The best take on Ashton Kutcher’s racist Popchips commercial I’ve seen yet.
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 05/11/2012
The Problem with “Hot Problems”
I would be lying if I said that while watching the recent viral video “Hot Problems” (or, to be accurate, about 45 seconds of “Hot Problems” before I gave up), I didn’t blankly stare in disbelief, then roll my eyes and feel more than a little bit disheartened. And yet, despite comments made by YouTube viewers as well as the mainstream media, the depression I felt after watching the musical attempts of 17-year-olds Drew Garrett and Lauren Willey was not based on the concept of this video representing a generation of conceited, vapid young women. As a teen myself, it’s blatantly apparent that there’s a much more concerning problem at the heart of this video, and, more specifically, the vitriolic response to it.
We live in a society that relentlessly …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Mareike S on 05/7/2012
Why Does Exceptionally Smart = Crazy On TV?
Now, before launching into this, let me make one thing clear: I love the TV show Bones and have for a long time. I also kind of like Rizzoli & Isles, but there’s one thing that’s been irking me about these two series, even though they feature women in the leading roles and (especially in the case of Bones) have diverse casts. My problem is the fact that while both Temperance Brennan of Bones and Maura Isles of Rizzoli & Isles are portrayed as unusually smart and gifted females, they are also portrayed as socially awkward to a point that borders on a psychological disorder.
As anyone who has read The Yellow Wallpaper might know, there’s been a long standing tradition of portraying women as crazy and in need of psychiatric …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 05/5/2012
Saturday Vids: Clinton Foundation – Celebrity Division
Kristen Wiig is in this video. That’s really enough.
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 04/29/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: Nina Storey
Nina Storey uses the phrase “21st-century soul” to describe her music, “because it’s rooted in a soul sound with bluesy overtones,” she explained to AfterEllen.com. “The music that I write is a mix of singer-songwriter acoustic stuff, and then there’s rock, and then there’s quirky stuff that’s totally out of the box.”
A Boulder, Colo., native now living in Los Angeles, Storey has been singing pretty much her whole life — professionally since the age of 12. She is self-taught, but grew up in a very musical family: Her mother is a songwriter and producer (and also acts as her manager and publicist), and her dad is a sound engineer. Her parents always encouraged her to pursue her craft.
Storey said she hasn’t talked about her sexual orientation in interviews …
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Feminism, Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 04/28/2012
Saturday Vids: The Conversation
The Conversation, hosted by Amanda de Cadenet, premiered on Lifetime this past Thursday. If you watched it I would love to hear your feedback, and if you haven’t check out the Conversation’s page on Lifetime’s website. Also check out the blog extension of the show, where I (along with some other amazing contributors) am also blogging!
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 04/22/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: Nite Jewel
Nite Jewel is the performing moniker of Ramona Gonzalez. She is a composer, songwriter, and multimedia artist from Los Angeles, California, where she has exhibited a number of video and sound installation pieces. A recent sound installation entitled “The Question Concerning Technology” has been transcribed to traditional notation by Human Ear Music founder, Jason Grier. She has collaborated with Julia Holter and Cole M.G.N. of Haunted Graffiti, curated two exhibitions at the Tiny Creatures gallery, and performed the work of Michael Pisaro. She was a philosophy student at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles.
The Nite Jewel project is a remarkable combination of revisionist Bronx pop and hazy musical impressionism. Like her ex-pop peers, Ariel Rosenberg and Geneva Jacuzzi, she records solely on portable 8-track cassette deck, often composing …
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