Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Entries Tagged as 'Culture'

Music: The B-52’s, “Give Me Back My Man”

May 13th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Culture, Music, New Wave, Video

Rare video for “Give Me Back My Man” — not sure why, but I never saw this one on MTV back in the day. Well, never mind, it’s great fun to watch it now. This is still my all-time favorite B-52’s song, and the video really lets you see Cindy work her magic on it. […]

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Happy Fontiversary Helvetica, All About Arial, and Cooper Black: Behind the Typeface

May 13th, 2007 · Comments Off on Happy Fontiversary Helvetica, All About Arial, and Cooper Black: Behind the Typeface · Culture, Design, Film, Internet, News, Software, Tech, Typography, Video

Via an email from my friend Jorjet, I see that Helvetica is celebrating its 50th birthday this year. Helvetica comes from Switzerland, which is fitting considering its essentially neutral personality. We should all be so functional and wildly popular as Helvetica at our half-century mark. Of course, Helvetica has its detractors as well: “When people […]

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Roundup: The Bitch Is Back Edition

May 11th, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: The Bitch Is Back Edition · Apple, Comedy, Comics, Culture, Doctor Who, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Human Rights, LGBT, Media, Music, New Wave, News, Peace, Pet Food, Politics, Science Fiction, Tech, Torture, TV

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Music: New Releases from Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, and Elliott Smith

May 10th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Culture, Film, Music, News

Posthumous releases are on the way from Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, and Elliott Smith. (Wes Anderson, fire up your iPod.) The Jeff Buckley compilation is called So Real: Songs of Jeff Buckley and will include a cover of “I Know It’s Over” by The Smiths, as well as a mix of studio cuts, live tracks, […]

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The Colbert Report on Intolerance Toward Intolerance

May 10th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Comedy, Culture, Hate Crimes, Politics, TV, Video

Stephen Colbert explains why we all need to be more sensitive to the feelings of bigots. (After all, if you prick a homophobic prick, does he not bleed?)

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Roundup: Kansas Twister Edition

May 9th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Comedy, Culture, Doctor Who, Education, Food, Health, HIV/AIDS, Journalism, LGBT, Media, Music, New Wave, News, Politics, Science Fiction, TV, Video

Kansas governor says it’s been harder to deal with the recent tornado disaster because the war in Iraq has put such a drain on the state’s National Guard. Both personnel and equipment that should have been available to the state are currently tied up in Iraq. “Here in Kansas, about 50 percent of our trucks […]

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Music: Amnesty International’s Instant Karma — The Campaign to Save Darfur

May 9th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Activism, Culture, Human Rights, iTunes, Music, New Wave, News

Green Day’s cover version of “Working Class Hero” by John Lennon was released May 1 as the third single from Instant Karma: the Campaign to Save Darfur, Amnesty International’s album of Lennon covers by various artists to raise awareness about the human rights catastrophe in the Sudan. All proceeds from the album will go to […]

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In His House at R’lyeh the Ronald Waits Dreaming

May 8th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Culture, History, LGBT, Lit, News, Politics, Theater

Apparently the Republican candidates spent their recent debate going on and on about how great Ronald Reagan was and blah blah “Morning in America” blah blah Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn! blah. Oh, Republican candidates. You silly creatures. You really should know better than that. Because now I’m going to have to open a […]

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In Chicago: Alt Q, Diane di Prima at the Poetry Center, and Fruity Neo-Futurist Fun

May 8th, 2007 · Comments Off on In Chicago: Alt Q, Diane di Prima at the Poetry Center, and Fruity Neo-Futurist Fun · Chicago, Culture, Fringe, LGBT, Lit, Music, Neo-Futurists, News, Performance, Poetry, Theater

It’s springtime, so naturally Chicago’s fancy is turning toward divorce and debauchery. Oops, I meant to say, fabulous fringe performance, music, and poetry readings! This week the Poetry Center of Chicago is presenting a reading by legendary beat poet Diane di Prima, author of 35 books of poetry and prose, including Pieces of a Song, […]

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EuroTrib on the Sarkozy Victory in France

May 7th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Blogs, Culture, Media, News, Politics

I was looking for some progressive European perspective on the victory of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy in France’s presidential election yesterday, so I went over to the European Tribune (that’s the European sibling blog of The Booman Tribune, for those not familiar with it). Jerome a Paris, whom I know mainly from his excellent environmental diaries […]

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Music: Tim Finn and His Imaginary Kingdom

May 7th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Culture, Music, New Wave, News, Video

I posted a little over a week ago about the forthcoming Crowded House album, Time on Earth, from Neil Finn and his bandmates. But there’s even more Finn news: Last week also saw the U.S. release of a new solo album from the other Finn brother, Tim Finn — the founder of Split Enz and […]

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The Actor’s Side of the Gay Heroes Controversy

May 7th, 2007 · Comments Off on The Actor’s Side of the Gay Heroes Controversy · Culture, Heroes, LGBT, Politics, Science Fiction, TV

Still catching up on stuff I meant to post last week. As a follow-up to my previous post about the gay-character-on-Heroes controversy, Thomas Dekker, the actor who played Zach, has now told his side of the story in a posting to his MySpace site (warning: incoherent, monitor-shredding layout. In other words, it’s a MySpace page.) […]

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Roundup: Sunday Potluck Edition

May 6th, 2007 · 9 Comments · Activism, Blogs, Comics, Culture, Education, Film, Foreign Policy, Hate Crimes, Health, LGBT, Lit, Music, News, Peace, Pet Food, Pets, Poetry, Politics, Tea

Sunday was always potluck day where I grew up, so I hereby present to you this glorious covered casserole of links I didn’t get around to posting this week. With a few fresh ones stirred in, just to keep you guessing. Retired general compares Bush to a deserter: “By vetoing this bill and failing to […]

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TV: A Trashy Little Space Opera Called Quark

May 4th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Comedy, Culture, Journal, Science Fiction, TV, Video

Yeah, I’m still getting caught up with everything I put on the back burner in the lead-up to this week’s Partly Dave Show. So instead of our usual high-minded Ocelopotamus programming, here’s something fun for a Friday that I’ve been saving up for a while. For literally decades now, I’ve been dying for the chance […]

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