“Lifestyle blogs often have a PC bent; it will be refreshing to have one for the rest of us.”
– Dr. Helen Smith, in her first post here at the new PJ Lifestyle blog.
Speaking of which, welcome onboard! This is the place where we’ll be discussing movies, TV, music, the sort of food and tobacco products that would cause Michelle Obama and Michael Bloomberg to have a serious case of the vapors, and anything else that doesn’t fit into the rest of the PJM homepage or the Tatler. Not to mention the pop culture of the past, and the gadgets of the future. As you can see on this section’s homepage, you’ll be hearing from many of our PJM and PJTV all-stars on these topics.
And we’ll be having a fair amount of video and audio podcasts as well. First up, to give us a sense of the pop culture of the past and present, and the seismic shifts in the culture over the years is columnist, pioneering blogger and multimedia maven extraordinaire James Lileks:
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(18 minutes long; 16.3 MB. Want to download instead of streaming? Click here to download this week’s show. Or click here to download the 5 MB lo-fi edition.)
James and I discuss:
- How much can you learn about a time and a place by observing its pop culture?
- What is the “Overculture” — and what is its current state of health?
- What an era’s fashions say about it.
- And Interior Desecrations, both then — and now.
For more from James, stop by The Bleat at Lileks.com, and his daily Pop Crush blog at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Skinny ties optional; no jacket — with or without skinny lapels required.
I remember when I was young I wished that Agatha Christie could be thrown into a jail cell, for the express purpose of pumping out Hercule Poirot stories day and night, free from the distractions of the outside world.
Lileks must retain his contact with the outside world in order to maintain his pop culture creds – and I would never begrudge him his time with his family, but he’s another person (along with VDH) whose writing (and speaking) I just can’t enough of. Well done PJM!!
I need a Lileks/Klavan radio talk show.
I was born in 1970. For the most part all I can recall is dirty green deep shag carpet, huge bean bags chairs and our parents water bed.
Glenn Reynolds has been a linkster from the hand of God. It is interesting to watch over the years as the Lileks, Hewitts, Klavans, Iowahawk, legal insurection, Althouse, and so many more that are rising in the media. God bless you Guys and Dolls.
A special thanks to you Glenn and of course the Dr. Look forward to Life Style.
A rare font error from James – the image macro font is usually Impact, not Arial/Helvetica.
I was born in 1970. For the most part all I can recall is dirty green deep shag carpet, huge bean bags chairs and our parents water bed.
A time which, in future, will come to be known as the Shapeless Age.
link and audio stopped for me after less than a minute
are you on itunes as a podcast?
Same here.
Same deal. Download provides a fragment, less than two minutes. Podcast starts fine, then dies out.
Sorry, everyone, I’m not a podcast person. I’d much prefer a transcript.
My ears aren’t as good as they used to be.
Transcript? Me too. I can bear about 30 seconds of hearing Lileks do his “radio voice” before my brain tries to make me claw my own ears out.
It’s like, whoa, a little less on the crispness knob there, bud.
Popular culture is what people do when they’re not working.
That’s my favorite definition of pop culture–but not mine, came across it somewhere in a book years ago.
I don’t do POD casts either. There ARE Pop Culture Luddites.
maggy