the serial # on his binoculars spells "hubble"

4000 dpi, my friends. In answer to my "Age of Irony" dates & footprints plea, Steven Shaviro--self-described "academic whose research/writing is based on the premise that science fiction novels are the most accurate source of social theory for the 21st century"--writes:

"You might want to look at a not-quite-science-fiction novel by Alex Shakar called THE SAVAGE GIRL, particularly pp. 136-142. This traces the prevalence of irony in American popular culture of the last 50 years as an effect of marketing/advertising. According to Shakar, or I should say one of his characters, the American Age of Irony began in 1961, when the Volkswagen was advertised in Life Magazine precisely on the basis that it was ugly, uncool, etc. (p. 138)...

"Basically, the marketing research analyst who is giving a speech on the pages I indicated describes the 1961 Volkswagen ad, goes on to explain why irony is a successful marketing technique, and ends by saying that "it was the successful incorporation of irony [into marketing and mass culture] that won the Cold War."

GRAZIE.

Meanwhile, Marx: still the dude. "Like Molière's bourgeois gentleman who discovered to his amazement that for more than 40 years he had been speaking prose without knowing it, much of the Western bourgeoisie absorbed Marx's ideas without ever noticing."

Finally, in the "and the band plays on" category, I am slightly hot for this Jay 211 track "Ox". The Jay 211 verse is like ZZZzzzzzz, but Coolwadda, of the normally underrated (if rated at all?) Chico and Coolwadda, breathes a little fire (and homophobia... sigh. jesu christe)--All crtsy the left coast megaphone Dub CNN.