Well, actually, the 40 Greatest Magazine Covers of the past ... 40 years ... published in America (which leaves out the overwhelming majority of the world's magazines, but anyway... ). The 40 covers were recently selected by the American Society of Magazine Editors at its annual conference. We were surprised to see so many covers from the past few years (the New Yorker and Time magazine Sept. 11 Twin Towers covers, the nude Dixie Chicks cover for Rolling Stone) included among the 40, but that's perhaps because, by virtue of being recent these were more readily recalled by memory. We were expecting to see more fashion magazine covers than the few examples from Vogue, Harpers and the like that were selected. We also had expected more from small, lesser known publications, like the famous cover by David Carson for Beach Culture magazine in the early 1990's. Naturally, there's a heavy contingent of those classic Esquire mag covers with Muhammed Ali and Andy Warhol of the 1960's that even in 2005 stand out as powerful and clever imagery. Our favorite -- without a doubt -- is The Economist cover (see above) showing two camels mating to illustrate the topic of that issue's feature: mergers. There's an excellent critique of the covers on the blog Under Consideration (the article is called "Dangling Listicles").

Essential Links

ASME Unveils Top 40 Magazine Covers
Display of The Top 40 Magazine Covers
Dangling Listicles Critique of "40 Greatest Magazine Covers"

The humor weekly The Onion has a list of the most underrated films of the past decade in its critically literate and readable Onion A.V. Club section. The list is a straightforward set of blurby reviews laying out the merits for the most underated films, one for each year from 1996 to 2004. Additional cinematic examples are presented for each year surveyed. Not surprisingly, the critically-lashed Vincent Gallo film The Brown Bunny is the pick for most underated flick of 2004. Also listed and reviewed are Office Space, Starship Troopers, American Psycho, Dead Man, and Josie and the Pussycats. We've seen about half the films on the list, and except for a one, we agree that the films we've seen probably deserved more critical or commercial acclaim (or ideally both) at the time of theatrical release. It's nice to see that some of these films (Office Space being the prime example) age like fine wine and find a legion of fans many years later via DVD, cable, etc.

Essential Links

Who Will Love the Brown Bunny? A Decade Of Underrated Movies [The Onion A.V. Club]
Vincent Gallo Official Website

Among Japan's diverse multitudes of otaku collectors, the anonymous blogger who posts by the moniker Not Wild Style stands out for his exhaustive, colorful and seemingly endless online graphical catalog of various brands of blank cassette tape designs from the likes of Sony, Panasonic, TDK, AGFA, etc. The tape designs appear to be from the 1970's, 80's, and 90's. Part of "Project C-90," this mind-boggling collection of cassette graphics from the analog audio era is dubbed "Cassette Jam '05." You've got to check this out, kids!

Essential Links

Cassette Jam '05 - Not Wild Style

There's a slideshow over at Cargo mag's site that gives a taste of the great things to come games-wise when the new Microsoft XBox 360 console rolls out. According to Cargo, the short-list of the final half-dozen-plus titles was vetted a couple of weeks ago to attendees of X05, this year's annual European X Event for developers in Amsterdam. Cargo previews Dead or Alive 4, Kameo: Elements of Power, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Perfect Dark Zero, and Project Gotham Racing 3. Other games reported to be bundled for the XBox at launch are Amped 3, Full Auto, Gears of War, King Kong, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06, Call of Duty 2, and Condemned: Criminal Origins.

Essential Links

Cargo Mag XBox 360 Games Slideshow

This past week was a tough one at Massive HQ. A couple of us got slammed hard by this season's flu bug (if that's what it really was -- or, at very least, slammed by a gang of viscious cold symptoms). Our illness had us on our backs, confined to our apartments and shackled to our living room sofas for most of the week. This is not the most depressing way to spend four days, but it damn well sucks and we got little work done.

But being feverish, supine and doped up on Day-Quil allowed us to do a couple of good and bad things we don't do as much when we're healthy and fit -- 1.) read highly-addictive pulp novels about American magazine journalists fighing crime in Japan; and 2.) watch junk-food caliber cable TV programming. Case in point of the latter, VH1's Best Week Ever. Case in point of the former: the novel "Dreaming Pachinko" by Isaac Adamson (published by Perennial).

Dreaming Pachinko is a mystery, but not quite in the vein of Agatha Christie or Sue Grafton. Like Adamson's previous two novels, "Tokyo Suckerpunch" and "Hokkaido Popsicle," Dreaming chronicles the misadventures of Billy Chaka, a journalist for the Cleveland-based "Youth in Asia" magazine (whose name can be read as a grim, clever play on "euthenasia").

Chaka's beat is the obscure and sometimes ridiculous, the people and events in teen-oriented pop culture in far corners of East Asia, but mostly, it seems, in Japan. The journo-as-gumshoe-in-hardboiled-Tokyo world of Billy Chaka is highly entertaining, funny and as often accurate and illuminating about Japan as it is absurd. Adamson's prose style reads like Raymond Chandler, Haruki Murakami, and Elmore Leonard (with a dash of Kurt Vonnegut) all rolled up into one giant literary dragon roll of punk storytelling.

We loved Tokyo Suckerpunch and Hokkaido Popsicle when we read them a couple of years ago. Now that we've been through Dreaming Pachinko, we're hungry for more. The good news is that Adamson has a new, fourth Billy Chaka book out in Perennial paperback called "Kinki Lullaby." Can't wait.

Essential Links

Official Isaac Adamson Billy Chaka Website

We were thrilled last week to see the release of the new Deerhoof album "The Runners Four." True, we've always had a soft spot in our sonic heart for this San francisco-based quartet. But their previous release, this year's EP "Green Cosmos," sealed the deal. Deerhoof are the most stimulating, refreshing, experimental, idiosyncratic, contrarian -- and yet surprisingly accessible! -- indie-rock-pop band on the American music landscape. The group has been around for roughly a decade, so it's great to see them really maturing with creative brilliance, finding their feet and getting their critical due. As soon as we heard "Wrong Time Capsule" on "The Runners Four," we were hooked on the disc. You will be, too.

Essential Links

Deerhoof Web Site

A Good Word with the T-Bird is a hilarious online series of DIY interviews with mostly B-list music and comedy celebrities, as well as a string of standard man-on-the-street type of imromptu Q&A. But instead of talking about the celebrities' new single or movie, the interviewer throws totally off-topic oddball questions. The responses are a riot. It's kind of like the Daily Show but without any of the satircal journalistic posing. Included are conversations with Method Man, the comedian and VH1 regular Judah, rapper Pit Bull, the Late Show's Max Weinberg, and, our favorite, Andrew WK.

Essential Links

A Good Word with the T-Bird

In our revived ongoing series where we keep tabs on the supernova fabulosity of Kimora Lee Simmons, we came across an item in last week's Chicago Sun-Times about the former runway model in her efforts to promote her new Baby Phat perfume at a store in St. Louis. From the quotes in the article alone, it's easy to see that the world's greatest glamazon has picked up fluency in the language of corporate marketing. As the empress of all things Baby Phat, Kimora Lee has set herself up not only as a brand icon but as living proof of the working mom as sex symbol. But don't call her the "Martha of bling" (save that for our next Kimora update).

Essential Links

Baby Phat's goddess fills women's need [Chicago Sun-Times]
Kimora Lee Simmons Official Web Site

Time magazine has done a piece on the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923. Included on Time's list are some surprisingly recent works by "young" authors such as Zadie Smith and Jonathan Franzen. We were also surprised by just how many of the books on the list are novels we've actually read -- at quick count, it looks like we've read about 20 of them. But the real kicker for us was the inclusion of two 1990's cyberpunk classics, "Neuromancer" by Willam Gibson and "Snowcrash" by Neal Stephenson, both of which we've read. Of all of Gibson's novels, we wouldn't have expected "Neuromancer" to be so well-regarded so as to be included on such a list. Our pick would have been "Virtual Light," Gibson's most elegant and crossover literary work IMHO. "Snowcrash" is definitely a breakthrough work of the genre, though Stephenson's most recent novel, "Cryptonomicon," was as fascinating, complex and satisfying a novel as any by the author.

Essential Links
All Time 100 Novels [Time]
Time Magazine Review of "Snowcrash"
Time Magazine Review of "Neuromancer"

Check out this index page listing a bunch of MP3s of mostly 1980's TV show theme songs -- everything from Knight Rider to Airwolf is here. We like the Knight Rider theme esepcially. Even though Puff Daddy ... er, P. Diddy ... er, Diddy sampled the theme in one of his mid-nineties mainstream hip-hop mega singles, we still shiver with a frightening degree of nostalgia that defies intellect.

Looking back, it's unbelieveable that Knight Rider -- a show with a concept truly retarded -- could ever have been greenlit by a major network, but there was probably a cadre of TV execs to felt the show's premise and stars (Baywatch's David Hasselhoff and an IA-enhanced sportscar with a HAL-like voice called "KIT") would play well in the fly-over states (though they probably didn't use the phrase "fly-over states" back then).

Essential Links

MP3s of Television Theme Songs
Knight Rider TV Show Theme Music MP3
Knight Rider Online Website

Ricky Gervais is best known by US audiences for his ground-breaking BBC comedic series The Office. We've been watching his new situational comedic series, Extras, which premiered in the US on HBO a couple of weeks ago.

We've warmed to the show. It's clever, it's funny. As its name suggests, Extras is about a couple of British movie and TV extras -- actors who serve as background scenery. The program's story revolves around these extras' on-set attempts to advance their otherwise anemic acting careers in spite of the humiliations wrought on them by their lowly status in the movie and TV business.

Gervais has a way of brilliantly playing characters shackled with social insecurities and a stunted by a desperate need for protective pretense. Gervais's brilliance is in his subtlety. He rejects the overblown way of playing his characters and in doing so gives them credibility to which the audience can relate. Therein lies part of his cringing humor.

Extras is a solid, well-written and entertaining show, and Gervais's talent shines, but the show doesn't match the truly original and captivating TV comedy of The Office.

Essential Links

"Extras" BBC Homepage
"Extras" HBO Homepage
Official Ricky Gervais Web Site
IMDb Rick Gervais Biography/Filmography

Now we really, really, REALLY want a Cooper Mini. Actually, we had orginally wanted one of those Cooper Mini convertibles, but we had some serious reservations about driving a car as small as the Mini in a nation filled with big, tall and bulky SUVs barreling down the the country's highways (not to mention the inherent safety issues with convertibles in general). But in the end, what attracts us to the car most is its style. Now with its new series of customizable rooftops, style has won us over completely. Not only can you select a design for your Mini rooftop, but you can create your very own design via the Rooftop Studio website. check it out via the link below. Cheerio!

Essential Linkage

Mini USA Roof Studio

There's one in Stockholm. Now there's one in London. And soon there will be more in major cities around the world. Absolut Icebar has hung out it's Nordic shingle in the UK capital and is now open for punters seeking a taste of the world's most famous brand of Swedish vodka in a a sub-zero boite made of ice. The bar is ice. The walls are ice, The stools are ice. Well, that's the impression at least. What's more, the Icebar is filed with ice sculpture and art from some very well-known artists. It's a novel idea and a clever -- if not genius -- marketing showpiece.

Britney Spears is auctioning a whole lot of personal wardrobe items online in the name of charity. Among the many clothing items are several pairs of flip flops, including the pair of J. Crew flippers pictured above. Proceeds go to victims of Hurrican Katrina. The auction is admirable and generous on Spears' part, and it's a nod to her Louisiana roots. But, dude, you've got to draw the line somewhere. And that somewhere is a degree less personal and more hygenic than, say, undergarments. (Unless, of course, you're one of that subset of middle-aged Japanese salarymen with a panty fetish who pay top dollar that sort of thing.) We draw the line at footwear -- sneakers, socks, sandals, flip flops, basically anything that can be affected by fungi or become permanently malodorous is off limits. We mean, people, look at those gross foot stains on those J. Crew flip flops Spears is offering. We don't care if she wore these while gving birth to her first child last month. Hmm ... now we wonder, will there be a spike in the sale of (new) J. Crew flip flops due to the publicity of Spears' auction? And, by the way, who would have thought of Britney wearing anything by J. Crew ... it's just so not-Britney!

Essential Links

Spears Opens Closet to Help Storm Victim [AP/MetroMix]
Britney Spears Official Website
EBay

Air Massive sister website Global Graphica, as usual, has some awesome new photos of street art and graf from New York City and Paris. Their recent post and photo on a street artwork called "Lafayette Street Girl" just caught our eye. Here's the text from the site (photo courtesy of Ivan Corsa, aka "Supercore") ...

Love this. That instance when you experience that mix of surprise and excitement you feel when you see a clever or beautiful piece of street art (or art in general, or anything, for that matter) -- that's what we felt when we saw this wheat-paste of a girl's face on Lafayette Street in Soho, New York City. (We've dubbed her "Lafayette Street Girl.") Note the the Sharpie marker tag/graf scrawled on her forward. Since we snapped this shot a few days ago, we've seen this wheat-paste elsewhere downtown, more precisely, we saw her in the chic Nolita nabe, where apartments and lofts are now very valuable New York real estate.

So true.

It was only a mattter of time. But we know you're gonna wanna watch it. Yes, video footage of Kate Moss snorting "cola" has hit the Internet. Those images, the ones you saw on television and in tabloids a couple of weeks ago when the story broke, were pulled from a video tape that captured Moss and a number of people -- some of them well-known musicians -- in a recording studio doing coke, smoking spliffs and drinking like there was no tomorrow. And given the fall out from this episode, that is, the cancelling of many lucrative endorsement and modelling contracts with companies like H&M and Chanel, there may not be a tomorrow for Kate Moss when all is said and done.

That video tape found its merry way into the media's hands, and, now, thanks to Italian TV, the Netizenry, or, rather, the blogosphere, that original Italian news "package" is out on the Web. (As if we're surprised and embarrassed for being grateful. Ha! )

You can watch it here via this link courtesy of the blog What Would Tyler Durden Do.

Thank you ... er, grazi, ... Italian television!

Essential Links

Italian News Video: Kate Moss Snorting Coke

Storm Model Agency Web Site - Kate Moss Page
Kate Moss Wikipedia Page
Kate Moss Fansite

Nate Harrison is an "interdisciplinary artist" in Los Angeles whose projects explore electronic music culture and media. One of his projects from 2004 is called "Can I Get An Amen?" and it explains the fascinating history of one of the most commnly used musical breaks -- looped drum samples taken from other song recordings -- often used by DJs, early hip-hop artists and electronic musicians, notably those creating drum 'n' bass in the 1990's.

In fact, the "Amen" break is virtually a sonic icon, it is arguably the most recognizable beat of the entire drum 'n' bass genre and is largely synonymous with it. The break has found its way into TV commercials and soundtracks, further burrowing into the ground of the pop-culture soundscape. The "Amen" break takes its name from the original song from which it was sampled, a 1969 hit that is now as obscure as its creators, a funk-soul group called The Winstons.

Nate Harrison's history is illuminating. It's as clever an exposition as it is a work of media art in and of itself. (Technically, the artist's media used for this artwork is listed as follows: "recording on acetate, turntable, PA system, paper documents.") The story is told via a turntable playing a vinyl dub-plate recording of the artist speaking (we assume it's the artist who is speaking) and this is in turn videotaped and edited into a QuickTime movie you can view online at Harrison's Web site. Really good stuff, this.

Essential Links

"Can I Get An Amen?" (2004) by Nate Harrison
Nate Harrison Web Site