Media diet

Went to see Sith and was amazed that George Lucas is such an inept director that he couldn't make me care about the death of Padme (Natalie Portman), a character whose story arc I have followed over three feature-length movies. I couldn't even remember the character's name just now and had to look it up on IMDB.

A name I did fortunately remember is Kirsty Maccoll, who sang with the Pogues on the unforgettable track 'Fairytale of New York.' I spotted her greatest hits CD in a bin at Rebel, Rebel, where I was on an errand to request a certain Rufus Wainwright poster for a friend. (After telling me no, the clerk eyed me suspiciously and added: "Now don't go breaking the window after hours trying to get it!")

So I am now enjoying the most luscious slice of 60s girl-group pop as processed through the hyperactive 1980s imagination of a girl from Croydon. According to the liner notes, Maccoll (who unfortunately died a couple years back), recorded songs with Tracy Ullman. Ullman performed 60s girl-group style pop? There is a God!

[Books in: J. Afary and K.B. Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism. Comes with blurbs from both Fredric Jameson and Mark Lilla, an academic odd couple if ever I saw one.

Books being read:: Brett Levinson, Market and Thought. I picked this up on a whim at St. Mark's Bookshop and have been dipping into it with pleasure for a couple weeks now. Smart and accessible overviews of contemporary intellectual developments of the sort British academics typically excel at, which Levinson may be for all I know.]