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Media
August 7, 2008
Brother, Can You Spare an Olympiad?
The upcoming Beijing Olympics will see a major investment from any number of media outlets. While the Olympics are undoubtedly big news, and the China angle makes them all the bigger, Gelf couldn't help but wonder how cash-strapped newspapers are using the resources being poured into coverage of the 2008 Summer Games. A brief look at coverage from three such papers indicates that some are using the money wisely. Others, not so much.
Media
August 6, 2008
Obama's Weight Problem (and Other Bogus Trends)
When a big trend story in a major newspaper about the presidential election strikes many people as laughable, at least one person as racist, and reminds still others of a satirical news segment, there's a problem. But the biggest problem is that trend stories based on offhand anecdotes are still published in the first place.
Sports
August 4, 2008
Manny Bleeding Manny
Pointing out that the Boston sports media can be particularly obnoxious and venomous is kind of like saying that the The Love Guru sucks; everybody knows it's true, but it's fun to do anyway. And so, as Manny Ramirez continues to settle in comfortably in LA (he wants to finish his career there!), Boston sportswriters are dialing up their anti-Manny hate rhetoric in an attempt to convince themselves that it was a good idea to trade away one of the best hitters in the game, pay his contract, and ship out prospects all for a guy described by NL scouts as "bland."
Varsity Letters
August 4, 2008
August 7: Gelf's Varsity Letters
Gelf's Varsity Letters sports reading series returns to New York on August 7 at 8 p.m., for an evening of the Olympics and the NFL. At this free monthly event at a Lower East Side bar, hosted by Gelf, Tom Caraccioli, Stefan Fatsis, and Aaron Schatz will read from and talk about their work, and take questions. Caraccioli will profile athletes whose dreams were lost when the US boycotted the 1980 Olympics, Fatsis will describe his brief-lived adventure as a sportswriter-turned-NFL kicker, and Schatz will offer a tour of the brave new world of football stats.
Internet
August 1, 2008
Hasbro's Triple Turd Score
Imagine you're a major board game manufacturer, specifically marketing an old tried-and-true word game. Competing with video games and all sorts of other attention-hogging entertainment products can't be good for business. It looks like you're looking at a future of grandmas, word nerds, and collecting dust in the basement. But then, by some chance miracle, two software engineers in India decide to adapt your game to a popular social networking site, and it takes off like wildfire.
World
July 31, 2008
The Pumper of Prayer
We're not all that religious. But maybe the recent slight drop in gas prices will help us to see the light. Yes, the breathlessly covered 14-cent-per-gallon drop in gas prices that has occurred over the past couple of weeks may have a more divine explanation than droll supply and demand—the will of Almighty God.
Arts
July 29, 2008
The New, Miserable Bubblegum Pop
Everyone seems to like Chris Brown. And why shouldn't they? He's easy on the eyes and smooth as hell. Just look at his music videos—the man doesn't walk in his Nike high-tops; he glides. We can't forget his delightful supporting role in 2007's urban coming-of-age story Stomp the Yard. And yet, Chris Brown is not as infallible as he appears on life-size posters across America's teenage girls' bedrooms.
Full article » | by Max Lakin
Arts
July 28, 2008
Dancing Queens in the Aisles
As any regular reader of Gelf's Blurb Racket could tell you, film critics are always letting us know how we're going to physically react to movies. Stepbrothers will have you holding your sides with laughter! The Dark Knight will send chills down your spine! Journey to the Center of the Earth will have you hanging on to your seat! The Love Guru will make you violently ill! And so it should come as no surprise that Mamma Mia! will have us dancing in the aisles. But does everyone have to say it?
Media
July 28, 2008
Douche-a-Rama
You're a douchebag, I'm a douchebag, and everyone else is a douchebag, too. Except that we should really stop calling each other that, as the word is so overused that it has lost any meaning or cachet it once had. Lately, though, it seems that denouncing the word for being overused has become a relatively douchebag-y thing to do, too. The circle of douche continues.
Arts
July 25, 2008
You've Got to Not Read This!
OK, I'll admit it. I've never read Aeschylus in the original Greek. Nor Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata. No, not even in translation, if you can believe it. And I know I should be hanged for this, but I haven't even read the complete works of Shakespeare. I just can't get through the third act of Titus Andronicus. One of the most insufferable ways that people proclaim their literary worth is by feigning embarrassment over not having read an obscure work of literature. Of course—as they'll proudly note—they've gleaned enough from conversation to hold their own at cocktail parties.
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