None of the Taylors in Duran Duran are related

Timbaland produced Duran Duran track featuring Justin Timberlake. And I SHIT YOU NOT Nelly Furtado is recording a track on their new album recently renamed Red Carpet Massacre. What the fuck is up with the triplets of fucking pop these days? Jeez. I don’t know, I’m actually uncertain as to whether or not Furtado was available to do the song but Simon LeBon seemed very confident that she’d be included. Shit. Justin, Tim, and Nelly have each other on speed-dial – they’re practically a package deal.

 

Anyway, things have shifted a lot since Duran Duran announced that they were working with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland as producers for a few songs on their new album – thirteenth studio release, sheesh. Nate Hills, Timbaland’s “protege,” produced most of the album proving that it’s not what you know, it’s who. From the get-go it was announced that Jay Tee would be singing on a track entitled, “Nite Runner,” and the album’s previous incarnation Nite Runner was to come out this summer. Due to Andy Taylor’s second departure from Dee Dee {creative differences again, this time less about genres and more about management and perhaps in part because of the band’s decision to include Timberlake in songwriting and maybe something to do with Epic Records}, half of the formerly eponymous album had to be scrapped.

 

Red Carpet Massacre “drops” October 30th. It also includes a song called “Skin Diver”?! Also, though “Nite Runner” is their lead single, Entertainment Weekly was given another Timberlake-written song, “Falling Down” as their single {streaming here}. Epic Records seems to like fucking up left and right.

 

It’s okay, I guess: Nite Runner

 

Also, Simon Le Bon has the best life ever. He’s married to Yasmin Parvaneh.

Someone’s Just Knocked on the Door

Dear Andy,

My roommate’s roommate whose name is also Jesse just showed up outside. He just came back from China, where he was doing a government-sponsored program somewhat affiliated with the CIA. It’s been about fifteen or twenty minutes since he knocked on the door and we ate some omlettes and decided to start drinking Cape Cods out of wine glasses. It’s been a pretty random adventure since coming here, and I really need to get cracking on the job front, as well as the semi-permanent housing front. But for now, I’m drinking and listening to some ridiculous booty bass/ghettotech that our subletter makes. His name is Craig Anderson and he goes by the name of Mr. Andersonic. Apparently he’s fairly well-known and he gave us the first copy of his upcoming mix that he is now distributing in France.

I wanted to tell you a random image that’s made me happy in the past few days, so here it is:

 

I was on the train heading back from New Haven to Grand Central. We were waiting for the train to leave the platform and I saw this couple in the next car. They were whispering and kissing and laughing and alternately giving each other knowing looks and intentionally looking away. At the last second, as the doors were closing and the bell was sounding, the girl jumped up and just barely made it off the train. She waved goodbye and he did too, both of them with ridiculous grins on their faces. The doors closed and she stood on the platform awkwardly as he settled into his seat with his grin stretched to his eyes. For some reason it was incredibly endearing, as well as being one of the most youthful things I’ve seen in a long time. It’s kept me smiling and hopeful since Sunday.

Anyway, my address is ### _____ Street, Brooklyn NY ######.

Hope you’re well,

Rachel

the start of something.

I’ve been stumbling and tagging along and laughing and being a general mess these days. I should be chronicling the fuck out of this new start of mine. I should be taking pictures and writing down every place I’ve eaten and been drunk. But old habits die hard, I guess. Well I’m starting now, and I’ve got a terrible memory against me, but I’m hoping a few of you want to fight the good fight with me.

It’s been a week and a day since I flew across the country looking for something I haven’t been able to define for myself, let alone anyone else. I guess after pulling myself out of a rut I hit the ground running, but that’s not accurate. These days, nothing I say is terribly accurate. I’m a little lacking in clarity at present. Pretty fucking foolish of me to think that the fog would dissipate for one big question. And so I moved away from the fog {I’m abandoning the metaphor at this point, keep up}.

There will most definitely be more later, but somehow I’m in Connecticut, alone in a girl’s dorm room, surrounded by boxes. To the right of me is a croquet set that appears to have all of the appropriate equipment and it’s a fall-down, eyes-closed, goddamn beautiful day out. My plans include showering the hangover smell out of my pores and maybe playing the gentleman’s sport. Hopefully.

Good Lord willing and the crik don’t rise.

Ib Kofoed-Larsen and Skitch

Recently, I’ve been a huge fan of mid-century modern furniture, houses, and…fuck, the design principles in general. On top of being totally new to the subject, I’m also incredibly clueless; I pretty much go on personal opinion alone.

 

When I was linked to design.addict‘s items on eBay, my stomach lurched at the premonition of me spending hours window-shopping online, just drooling and clicking. It’s a shame Microsoft sucks, because then I could say Windows-shopping. Anyway. Recently, a cabinet was up for sale that really caught my eye, but for its novelty a little bit more than its beauty. It was actually around the time that I was talking with my brother about modifying his room set-up with regards to the Ikea kitchen cabinet he calls a dresser.

 

On top of this thing, he also has an LCD flat-panel television with cable tv, hooked up to his overclocked computer with a wireless mouse and keyboard. He’s a nerdy little high schooler:

So Calvin and I were joking around about putting a refrigerator somewhere in his set-up, and a few days later, I find this.

It’s a cabinet designed by Ib Kofoed-Larsen, and I’d be lying if I told you any more details without giving propers to the eBay description. It says it all there, but just in case you want the short of it {or you don’t want to squint}, here goes. It’s a Brazilian rosewood sideboard design that houses a fridge, freezer, and a bar. The bar side opens hydraulically and the refrigerator side contains two small shelves above the freezer. The brass handles and keys are all the originals, and it’s insanely cool. I’m not a huge fan of the dramatic grain thing going on, but the design is amazing.

Luckily for us poor kids, it was taken off the market so we don’t have to contemplate how many little old ladies we’d have to mug to be able to afford it.

Moving on to the second part of this post’s title, Skitch. Skitch is a phenomenally simple application I used for this post to capture, crop, and web-host the above images. From the way I talk about it, you’d think they were paying me. I wish. Skitch is just insanely easy to use, insanely intuitive, and insanely in beta right now. I like to think that they’re working on a feature that allows you to collage several images, because then it’d pretty much be unstoppable. I’ve got four more invitations, so let me know if you’d like to mess around with it.

The video, in case I didn’t explain it well at all:

Things I’ve Learned About the Spice Girls Through Their Debut Album Spice

1. They cannot stand having emotions thrown at them.

2. They seem to be fine with ambiguous wording when it comes to serious relationship matters:

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta ‘get with’ my friends.

3. As a matter of fact, they’re not that easy.

4. Advocates of safe sex, but only through loose innuendo:

Are you a little bit wiser baby?

Put it on, put it on.

5. They will show you the door if you’re bad at fuzzy math:

If you put 2 and 2 together you will see what our friendship is 4.

If you can’t work that equation then I guess I’ll have to show you the door.

6. Sometimes, they think they’re Salt N Pepa {Last Time Lover}.

7. They love sending mixed messages.

Basically, Spice is a list of things that the Spice Girls will and won’t tolerate. Can’t dance? Sorry, can’t do nothing for you baby.

And also, they love their mothers.

Believing Through Seeing

Eighties Honda scooter commercials starring Lou Reed, Grace Jones, and Devo.

“Hey. Don’t settle for walking.” – Lou Reed