Why Kitsch Sells, II

There is a story behind everyone's taste.
That is at the core of Carl Wilson's book Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste.
I first blogged about this a couple of years ago. See that post here.

Carl Wilson was on the Colbert Report this week promoting the same book.

It's a short read. Give it a try. I am almost certain that you also know people who strangely like things like Celine Dion's music or Paulie Shore movies. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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Maddow on Leno

Here's Rachel Maddow on Leno. She discusses AIG, Wall Street, and as most everybody else these days, Rush.

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New Podcast Series

HetPer is proud to announce a second podcast series called De Amore: On Love. This series will focus on the concept of courtly love in the Middle Ages and how it is transmitted and received in later times.

These podcasts will be strictly literary in nature and the majority of the direct and indirect literary and historical references will come out of the European Middle Ages. The focus will mostly be on German, French, and Italian texts.

Stay tuned for the upcoming first episode which should become available in a few days.

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Detroit and Music

Just saw this via Twitter. R. Florida is quoted in here. As is Mitch Albom.
A bit says:

'"Bare in Mind..... We All Find Behind, From Time To Time", is a popular quote from dance rockers, LCD Soundsystem and although these lyrics are uttered carefree, they conjure the sense of profound clairvoyance from the perspective a Detroiter.'

Seeing that I am an LCD Soundsystem loyal fan, I rarely find their lyrics carefree. But that is beside the point here. Having lived in Detroit myself for about half a year, I have often wondered about the sorry state of affairs in this city that once had so much promise. And the difficult economy has only made things harsher for this city.
Here's to hoping that the car industry fares better and that Detroit can re-capture the magic that it once was.

The link is here.

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