* I don’t like leading with Real Life Horror items, but this piece on the New York Times’ treatment of waterboarding blew my fucking mind:
“As the debate over interrogation of terror suspects grew post-9/11, defenders of the practice (including senior officials of the Bush administration) insisted that it did not constitute torture,” a Times spokesman said in a statement. “When using a word amounts to taking sides in a political dispute, our general practice is to supply the readers with the information to decide for themselves.”
That’s totally, mind-meltingly insane, right? Just an abject capitulation of any possible concept of journalistic ethics to outright barbarism, right? Like we’re living in some awful nightmare? It’s not just me? (Via Andrew Sullivan.)
* Anyway.
* Today on Robot 6: It’s Kevin Huizenga’s new book, The Wild Kingdom!;
* Dennis Culver finishes his gallery of Batman rogues;
* Michael DeForge draws Scott Pilgrim;
* and Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman, and–and this is key–the Hulk on Hulk? Sure, I’ll eat it.
* I really dig the left-field questions J. Caleb Mozzocco asks Wally Gropius genius Tim Hensley in his Newsarama interview. (Via Alvin Buenaventura.)
* Neat, a Noel Freibert interview (by Nick Gazin of Vice) and a Noel Freibert comic.
* If there’s one thing Hollywood cinema has taught us over the past several years, it’s that collectively it’s better at making trailers than it is at making actual films. So this is meaningless as a gauge of whether or not the movie will be any good, but yes, the trailer for Let Me In, the remake of Let the Right One In by Cloverfield‘s Matt Reeves, is pretty good. (Via Jason Adams.)
* The RZA filtering his favorite old kung-fu movies through scratchy old soul samples, Marvel Comics, the drug trade, and inside jokes involving his Staten Island neighborhood to create a new sound for hip hop? An artistic triumph. The RZA paying tribute to his favorite old kung-fu movies by shooting a straightforward tribute to them in what looks like a bunch of people’s backyards? Maybe, maybe not. Still and all, here’s the trailer for Wu-Tang vs. the Golden Phoenix. (Via Topless Robot.)
* My collaborator Isaac Moylan’s contribution to the Covered blog was fortuitously timed, eh?
* The best thing about anything that puts Tim and Eric content in front of doctrinaire nerds, like Rich Shivener’s list of 8 Great Cinco Products for Topless Robot, is the ensuing comment-thread ragegasm. Well, that and the excuse to watch “It’s Not Jackie Chan” again.
* I probably should have mentioned this before, but Bowie Loves Beyonce is a going concern again.
* This very prog cover for Kanye West’s latest single, which samples King Crimson’s “20th Century Schizoid Man,” is officially the first Kanye West anything I care about. (Via Mike Barthel.)
* Over the past couple of days the entire Internet posted this compilation of The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time and it made me laugh really, really hard. “I don’t give a tuppenny fuck about your moral conundrum, you meatheaded shitsack.” (Via the Missus.)
* If I could make something sound like Sloane made “Money City Maniacs” sound, I’m not sure I’d ever stop making things sound like that. (Via Nate Patrin.)
Sloan and Scott Pilgrim! It’s Carnival of Souls: Special Canada Day edition!
That ‘Let Me In’ trailer? Makes me less likely to see the remake since it appears to be a note-for-note remake of ‘Let the Right One In’ down to the kid’s haircut, the iced-over winter setting and such scenes the stabbing the tree with the pocketknife. I’m having flashbacks to when I went to see ‘Vanilla Sky’ and realized I was watching a tribute band do ‘Open Your Eyes.’
1 – The only Bat-villain I can’t name off the top of my head from that collection is the lady in the yellow jumpsuit with the mask. Unless the ninja-lady is not Lady Shiva, then it’s two.
2 – I’ve always meant to bring this up to you, Sean, but I always saw Sloan’s “Pretty Together” on your Wizard iTunes and wanted to say that that was the album that made me stop buying Sloan albums. I’ve heard they rebounded since, but I REALLY disliked that record.
Simon: Mine’s the meatheaded shitsack one.
Steven: Every day is Canada Day here at Attentiondeficitdisorderly, in my heart at least.
Mdan: Fair enough.
Kiel:
1. I think it’s Calendar Girl. I don’t know who that is. I also don’t know who the movie-style faux-Batman and Robin are.
2. Weird, I like that record a lot. It may be the only one I own! (I thought I had Navy Blues, but I think I just had the copy I bought my Dad back when I lived with my parents.)