Monthly Archives: February 2012

Somewhat Popular Culture

A Brief History of Kraftwerk Performing Live

February 20, 2012 – 10:16 AM

This Wednesday at noon, tickets go on sale for MoMA’s Kraftwerk – Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, which will find the legendary German electronic band performing eight of its studio albums on consecutive nights starting April 10. The competition for purchasing tickets online is likely to be fierce, so fans like me will have to make some difficult choices. Do you try for Trans-Europe Express, Kraftwerk’s most widely loved—and arguably its best—album, but risk getting so hung up in the online purchasing crush that you lose out on tickets altogether? Or do you give up on your favorites and go for a slightly less classic album—say, 1981’s Computer World—or even one of the decidedly-not-classic albums from the 2000s, boosting your chances of seeing the band at the expense of the ideal Kraftwerk experience?

It’s going to be a tough call. In the meantime, here is a timeline of Kraftwerk live performances over the course of its 40-year career, from a short-lived early incarnation of the band to one of its last tours with founding members Ralf and Florian.  read more »

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Stories I Wish I Had Written

Martin Amis’s Disowned Video Game Guide

February 17, 2012 – 8:28 AM

There is a terrific article by Mark O’Connell in The Millions about Martin Amis’s disowned, out-of-print 1982 book, Invasion of the Space Invaders: An Addict’s Guide to Battle Tactics, Big Scores and the Best Machines, which Amis apparently wrote as an easy way to make some extra cash during the period when he was working on his fifth novel, Money. O’Connell discovered a copy in a university library and he makes a compelling case that it is “a bizarro-world extracanonical oddity” that actually contains some “very solid gaming advice” as well as “a number of peripheral pleasures” for Amis fans. Read the full store here. (And, for more samples of the book, check out this  PDF excerpt on the Martin Amis Web.)

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Somewhat Popular Culture

Remembering Great Chefs

February 11, 2012 – 1:15 PM

The painter Francis Bacon liked to read and reread classic cookbooks to relax. I prefer Great Chefs. For a couple semesters in college, the now-defunct television series was one of my most reliable daily pleasures. Two episodes aired back-to-back every weekday right around the time I was getting done with classes, and I rarely missed a viewing, even as it provided an excruciating contrast with dinners in the school cafeteria. read more »

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