Spotify: Delicious Forbidden Fruit
Spotify is everything iTunes should be: Simple, free and completely ubiquitous. The internet positively overflows with shared Spotify playlists. But the damned Europeans have the online music service all to themselves. Well, almost all of it. It's well worth the headaches to finagle a Spotify account from within the U.S. (see instructions below). Spotify is something of a miracle; the service offers a massive, seemingly endless library of music — things you'd find in Apple's iTunes music story for a buck or two — for free, via an advertising-sharing agreement with the music labels. There are plenty of holes in the collection, but we found something to keep us entertained from basically every artist we initially searched for — the original Brigitte Bardot version of Serge Gainsbourgh's "J'taime Moi Non Plus," miles and miles of Bob Dylan tracks, some Manu Chao, Carla Bruni, Mia Doi Todd, etc. Our musical tastes aren't the most eclectic, but what we were in the mood for, we found. Better still, all that power is networked. This means not only can you log on to your music from your work computer, friend's laptop, or (soon) from an iPhone, but you can also sample collections of music assembled by strangers. This is technically possible in iTunes, but only if you're willing to pay for each track — there's no stacking up playlists and running through them as background music, as you can do on Spotigy. A Google search turns up a cornucopia of Spotify shares. The Guardian, for example, published a collection of celebrity playlists (most are humdrum, but Stuart Braithwaite and VV Brown's had some nice discoveries); on one of the indepdent sites aggregating Spotify lists, you can let Pitchfork do the driving, or visit collections that have been heavily upvoted by listeners. Spotify has forecast a U.S. launch by the end of this year, and there are reasons to believe it will actually happen; with owners that include major music labels, the company has seen recent cash infusions valuing it at nearly $240 million. In the meantime, you can get a taste of the music service by following the instructions here to sign up for an account via a British proxy. Unfortunately, after two or three weeks, Spotify will figure out you're a dirty Yank rather than a vacationing Brit, and cut you off. Ouch! Now we understand why our friend, recently returned from a couple of years in London, looked positively heartbroken to be dumped by Spotify. Intriguingly, though, the service will let you keep listening — err, "traveling" from your "home" in the UK — if you pony up for a premium, ad-free account at a cost of 10 pounds a month, or approximately $46,000 worthless American dollars. Kidding! That's not the exchange rate for at least another few weeks, and we're actually thinking about forking it over. Sneaking into a Swedish music jukebox by posing as a Brit might not qualify as punk rock, but it's a lot more fun than you might expect. (Top... MORE >>
Previously on the Upcoming Season of Project Runway...
Backstabbing! Scandal! Lawsuits! And that's before season six of Runway even hit the air. It's been a long slog to get this season on the tube. So, what to expect? Plus, the finalists (we think)! Well, you can expect pretty much the same. Heidi will speak with her telephone operator of doom voice, Tim Gunn will gather the kids around, fashion dominatrix Nina Garcia Fashion Director of Elle Marie Claire magazine will say something bitchy, and Michael Kors will cackle his little cackle and all the children will run and hide. Of course, they are now in L.A. at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising instead of Parsons and there's a new magazine sponsor (way to get fired, Nina!), but they will still shop at Mood and send the models to that palace of beauty, the L'Oreal Paris Makeup Room. Oh, and let us not forget about the All-Star Challenge before the premiere with all of your favorite returning contestants, and the new show Models of the Runway which follows the runway drones do something other than show off the designs. Just what, we're still not sure. The only variable is always the contestants, who we'll all probably hate tomorrow, except for the ones we love, and we will hate them by the middle of next week. Speaking of contestants, the finalists' collections were already shown at Fashion Week last February, so the whole world has already seen them (and you can too). There are only three, which means there is no fourth collection to throw off the dogs about who is in and who is out, or in a cruel twist of fate, there are only two finalists and Lifetime has outsmarted us all. We have a hard time believing that. So, we peeped the looks and compared them to the designer's portfolio's on the show's site and we think we have sussed out just who we're going to be stuck with until the skinny lady sings. Collection 1: Lots of knits and black pants and leggings. Zero color. There's a bit of inventive draping, but there are also those stupid little gloves that don't even go to the wrist. It belongs to: Logan Neitzel, lover of John Galliano. He uses the same shiny fabrics, muted colors and over-sized flourishes. Plus, he looks like the kind of boy who would love those stupid gloves. Collection 2: Lots of draping without a bow, flounce, belt, or asymetrical doo-dad over one shoulder that it doesn't like. It belongs to: Viviane Westwood wannabe Althea Harper, who uses just as much embellishment and loves something over only one shoulder. Just look at the picture. Collection 3: It is black like the tortured heart of a poet. There are lots of pants and shredded things. Oh, and stupid hats. It belongs to: Irinia Shabayeva, who channels Jean Paul Gaultier. She also loves black, and pants and crazy-shaped pants. Though, she does look too fabulous for those hats. MORE >>
Science: Heroin Cures Heroin Addiction
Scientists who were definitely All Fucked Up have found the long-sought treatment that soothes troubled heroin addicts: Heroin. The scientists found that heroin addicts who were given free heroin, in a clinic, "did better" than addicts given methadone. What the fuck does "did better" mean, in a scientific sense? The LAT reports: After one year, 88% of those in the [free heroin] group were still in treatment, compared with 54% in the methadone group. "In treatment" they get free heroin! They were also more likely to curb their illegal behavior – including use of illicit drugs – by a margin of 67% to 48%. Except for the free heroin! Related. MORE >>
The Strange Victimy World of Top Chef Las Vegas
Saludos! My name is Joshua David Stein. Last night Top Chef Las Vegas premiered. I'm still struggling to make sense of it. Let's struggle together. Shucking clams is a whole different project than shucking oysters. It requires a different technique and a new approach. This young Preeti learned in an embarrassing and bracing Quickfire, the mise-en-place relay race, and thus we will not compare Season 6 to Season 5, trying to parse the present with the past. Let's just take a look at the nutters that arrived into an evermore Real World like set. Like the first ten minutes of Up, this season started with a concerted attempt to jerk tears. Cancer! Twice! Single Motherhood! Gay! French! I tuned in to watch cooking and, like poor pixelated Frogger, was hit by an emotional truck. We were all made especially vulnerable by a series of discombobulating events, Bravo's version of waterboarding. In loose chronological order: Tom's soul patch has expanded laterally and he wore a vest, looking more like New Jerseyite Renaissance Faire enthusiast than ever. Sad! Padma Lakshmi seems to have gotten even slower than last season. Now she talks like a skinny overly animated muppet in amber. Magic, over! A parliament of showgirls entered the kitchen and awkwardly gyrated in formation. Tits! Sparkles! A new and confusing pay-to-fillet scheme was introduced wherein contestants are paid per Quickfire challenge but they can gamble that away in some sort of bid to trepan directly into our brains that Las Vegas is fun! [Call for information: Can anyone tell me how much of the production cost is covered by Las Vegas? I have the feeling that hosting Top Chef is the result of a process not dissimilar to hosting the Olympic Games. Anonymity guaranteed.] Then Robin Leventhal revealed she had cancer twice. Thus began a high-stakes game of out-victim. It's like canasta but with adversity! Ash Fulk revealed he was gay. Jennifer Zavala, she of tattoos and large ear holes, hot tempers and seitan, revealed she's doing this all for her kid because she wants the little guy to go to Yale. So, of course, I want all of them to win because they overcame so much and you know when they came so far that if they failed now it would just be that much more tragic. But then the Haitian Ron Duprat told of the time when he was at sea for 26 days on a boat with other immigrants from Haiti and survived cooking fish they caught from the sea. So, suck it up Robin, Ash and Jennifer. You've been officially outvictimed. Despite of the blatant emotional pube pulling, there are some real keepers here. Kevin Gillespie, the winner of last night's challenge, seems head and shoulders above the others. He's smart, bearded and sweet. Jennifer Carroll has an off-center ponytail but other than that is furiously talented (it seems). Those two will make it into the final three, for sure. Three to lose: Mike Isabella, a misogynistic cocky fuck who will later claim that the producers distorted his words but who... MORE >>
Former Bush Admin Official Verifies Crazy Lefty Conspiracy Theory
No, 9/11 was not an inside job (but BUSH KNEW!), but inaugural Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge just wrote a bitchy tell-all, and he makes some crazy claims. Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over. Come on, Tom. Michael Brown was just a symptom of an administration too concerned with exaggerated foreign threats to give a shit about domestic emergency preparedness and too opposed to career civil service to staff FEMA with people who knew what they were doing. He was not actually personally responsible for Katrina, and unless Tom's claiming that Brown's presence alone was the reason why Ridge, as head of the department in charge of FEMA, never bothered to make emergency response a departmental priority that "revelation" is just long-after-the-fact ass-covering. Oh, but the other thing, about changing the terror alert right before the 2004 election? We believe that one. MORE >>
Jayson Blair's Increasingly Unlikely Career Path
Fake reporter Jayson Blair! Did you know he was once a professional Amazon bookseller? It's true! And what is he doing these days? A reasonable guess would be, "Something involving drugs and shattered lives," and that would be totally correct. Jayson Blair is now a certified "life coach." Which one could argue is just as fake a career as his time in journalism was. Or maybe not! "Life coach" of the Blair variety sounds like it has elements of "substance abuse counselor" and "shrink," both of which are real careers—but when they roll up into "life coach," we start to doubt the expertise at work. Then we remember that this is Life Coach Jayson Blair. He tells the AP: "People say, 'Wait a minute. You're a life coach?' That makes no sense,'" says Blair, the ex-journalist best known for foisting plagiarism and fabrications into the pages of The New York Times. "Then they think about my life experiences and what I've been through and they say 'Wait a minute. It does make sense.'" We were with him through the first part there, but when he got to the "It does make sense" part, we lost him. But we should not judge! He's been doing this for two years, and he now works for "one of the most respected mental health practices in northern Virginia." (Strangely, his long bio says nothing of his years at the New York Times). Oftentimes the most fucked up people do make the wisest counselors once they get cleaned up. Jayson Blair could certainly fall in that category. [Ever been life coached by him? Email us.] Here's a little-known fact about Jayson Blair's post-NYT-meltdown career: After he wrote a (not well-reviewed) book, he was a bookseller! On Amazon! Jayson ran Azure Press Books, selling stuff from home. He was just another guy up in the Amazon Seller forums, discussing postal rates. He apparently let his bookselling domain name expire in September of 2007, just as his life coaching practice was really taking off. So, Jayson Blair's career: The world's most famous sham journalist, author of a maybe-not-so-well-thought-out book, Amazon bookseller, and now life coach. We're not mad at ya, Jayson. Redemption is possible for anyone. But not in journalism. [Pic: Getty] MORE >>
Park Slope Mom Who Wants to Ban 'Predatory' Ice Cream Trucks Is a Fried Pudding Pusher
Is there anything more symbolic of the American summer than the ice cream man? No! But some people hate the ice cream man. Who? Dang food-Nazi parents, that's who! Especially one whose Brooklyn restaurant serves deep-fried candy bars to children! On Wednesday the New York Times ran a piece in their Dining section about the growing resentment some insufferable parents of bratty kids have for the ice cream man. One of the parents quoted extensively in the piece was a woman from Park Slope, Brooklyn (Of course!) named Vicki Sell, and she is pissed that the damn ice cream man once made her daughter have an "inconsolable meltdown" after she was denied a tasty frozen treat, so she's now doing everything she can to shit all over everyone else's fun by having them all shut down just so she doesn't have to listen to her kid whine anymore. "I fall into the camp of parents who are irate," Ms. Sell said. She has equal disdain for Mister Softee and the ice cream pop vendor outside the park, but since they are licensed, there is not much she can do about them. "I feel kind of bad about having developed this attitude," she said. "I want Katherine to have the full childhood experience and all. But it's really predatory for them - two of them - to be right inside the playground like this." Ms. Sell says she is not obsessed with health and nutrition. She - and others - feel they have been pushed to the brink by that little bell. Across message boards and playgrounds, soccer fields and day camp exits, parents have been raging. In a greener, more health-conscious, unsafe world, the ice cream man has lost some of his mojo. Toward the end of the piece, Sell is quoted again and this time her occupation is noted: And Ms. Sell owns and runs a restaurant in Brooklyn with her husband, a chef. "I'm not a health freak by any means," Ms. Sell said. "But I notice what happens to my daughter when she eats these sugar-filled things with all these additives." Now, tonight a reader wrote in to point out the restaurant owned by Vicki Sell and her husband is The Chip Shop, a fish and chip joint on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. What sorts of foods does The Chip Shop serve? Fried foods, and lots of them! In fact, they'll fry just about anything that can be battered and placed on a wooden stick! They even have something on their menu called the "Twice Fried Cherry Pie," but the brownshirts at the NYC Health Department banned it! But hey, don't fret, as there's all sorts of other "sugar-filled things with all these additives" that Vicki Sell is more than happy to batter and deep-fry for only $3.50! Here's the menu: Now, in case you're unfamiliar with Park Slope and its geography, The Chip Shop is located in a densely populated area filled with families. There are at least a million and one jokes about Park Slope parents and their strollers in circulation right now! So isn't it sort of "predatory" to open a restaurant that sells crap like fried Twinkies, Snickers bars, Mars bars,... MORE >>
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