Karl 
LUCINDA WILLIAMS, TIMOTHY LEARY, LEADBELLY, THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS AND A CAST OF THOUSANDS: MSN Music has teamed up with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings to make nearly 35,000 historic songs available for download. The Suburbs Are Killing Me has details and recommendations, plus info on how you can also buy custom-made CDs of material from the Folkways vaults (including tons of stuff not on MSN yet).
WE LOVE IT WHEN RAPPERS GET INTO COPYRIGHT LITIGATION: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a district court ruling that Juvenile's “Back That Azz Up” does not infringe on D.J. Jubilee's “Back That Ass Up.” Chief Judge Carolyn Dineen King, who wrote the opinion, says she listened to both rap songs. “I don't know that I had to,” says King, who admits she's not very familiar with rap music. “I'm interested in Brahms, but I did listen to it.”
THE OSCAR NOMINATIONS are announced. Daniel Drezner has a good list of the snubbed; Gawker has a different list. While I agree with Drezner that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind deserved more nominations, the real crime here is the snubbing of Paul Giamatti for Best Actor, because Paul Giamatti is The Man. Why nominate Johnny Depp for Finding Neverland when he really deserved it last year for his turn as Captain Jack Sparrow? And Natalie Portman really should have been nominated for Garden State instead of Closer, despite the fact that she wears less clothing in the latter. Apparently, Mike Nichols has more clout in Tinseltown than Zach Braff; who knew?
Actually, the nominations say a great deal about the politics of the Oscars. In one sense they are conservative: controversial movies like Fahrenheit 9/11, The Passion of the Christ and even Kinsey are less likely to get many nominations. Vera Drake recieved a couple, but few people watching the Oscars will know its subject matter. Indeed, I would not be surprised if the fine folks at Miramax (backing The Aviator) will not quietly put out word that the theme in Million Dollar Baby might prove controversial once the movie opens in wider release and people learn of its plot twist.
In another sense, the politics of the Oscars is not unlike high school. Thus, if you are popular, you stand a better shot at nominations and awards. The Aviator may be Scorsese's best movie in years, but it is not as good as his best and may not be the best movie of the year. Nevertheless, the odds favor both the picture and Scorsese. Similarly, the snub of Paul Giamatti for Best Actor probably has something to do with the popularity of Clint Eastwood and Don Cheadle. It probably also has to do with the fact that movie critics may have loved Sideways in part because Giamatti's Miles reminds them of themselves. It would follow that Academy members may have not loved Miles in part because he reminded them of movie critics. Conversely, the Academy might nominate Thomas Hayden Church for Best Supporting Actor in Sideways in part because his portrayal of an insecure actor probably struck close to home.
Also, as a rule, the Academy prefers movies about show business: Ray, The Aviator, Finding Neverland, and Being Julia all fit into this category. It also tends to prefer movies and roles that project the image that Hollywood is filled with Great Artists doing Deep, Meaningful Work, which is why comedies almost never win Best Picture. Thus, while Kate Winslet was rightly nominated for Eternal Sunshine instead of Finding Neverland because she was better in the former, the latter is more the type of role that gets an Oscar, which suggests she has little chance of winning. Jamie Foxx was great as Ray Charles and probably deserves the Oscar; the fact that Ray Charles was blind helps Foxx also. There is at least one other major award that I think will be similarly influenced, but I won't give it away.
SUNDANCE turns out to be a showcase for tech companies marketing to low-budget filmmakers.
THE WILSON QUARTERLY reviews The Shakespeare Comany, 1594-1642, which assesses the importance of Shakespeare's team of fellow actors to his work. It turns out that Will was one of Lord Chamberlain’s Men, along with Richard Burbage, which means that Shakespeare In Love is not a documentary.
DIRTY BOOKS: The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the one-time owners of Penthouse magazine cooked the books, defrauded investors and illegally used an electronic signature of founder Bob Guccione Sr. on government filings that he never saw. Al Goldstein, former publisher of Screw magazine, saw his publishing empire evaporate for a different reason, albeit one that also helped send Penthouse into bankruptcy: “The Internet made pornography available for free and I couldn't compete,” said Goldstein, who is now a cold-calling bagel salesman.
ROLLING STONE decides to run an ad for the “updated” Bible, claiming that internal miscommunications led to a misstatement of company policy on the matter. Of course, the magazine claimed the policy was “unwritten,” so we will never know, will we?
DAN GILLMOR, who has left a career in journalism to promote “grassroots journalism,” argues that the policy of most major newspapers on the internet of allowing free access to recent news, but charging for archives, is exactly backwards.
RFK, Jr. will not run for New York state attorney general, taking him out of a race that could have set him against his estranged brother-in-law, Andrew Cuomo.
IRAQ ELECTION: Yesterday, I suggested that the New York Times misstated the level of interest in the January 30th election. Now the paper is reporting that “[t]he Iraqi Islamic Party's announcement of withdrawal [from the election] in late December was considered a big blow to the elections because the party is popular among Sunni Arabs. But the party never removed its slate of candidates from the ballot. Mr. Abdul-Hameed [the leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party] said that if the slate won national assembly seats, he would not bar his candidates from taking them, as long as the candidates were not official party members.” The NYT is also reporting that “[w]ith the Shiites on the brink of capturing power here for the first time, their political leaders say they have decided to put a secular face on the new Iraqi government they plan to form, relegating Islam to a supporting role.” This second story adds that Iranians warned the Iraqis against putting clerics in the government. So perhaps the NYT is discovering that the election may not be a complete disaster. ALSO: ABC News has done another installment in its series on “Where Things Stand” in Iraq, covering security, availability of goods and jobs, water supply, electricity, health care, education and more. It's lengthy (even before you get into the sidebar pieces), but well worth a read.
CHA CHA BOOM: Consuelo Velazquez, composer of the oft-covered “Besame Mucho,” died at 88 of respiratory problems in Mexico City on Saturday. The author of the lyrics “Kiss me over and over, as if this night were the last time,” confessed in a 2003 interview that when she penned those words at the age of 25 she had never been kissed.
MADONNA brought her own lighting crew to the BBC's tsunami aid benefit show, so that she wouldn't look all wrinkly. But she paid for the crew herself, which is quite charitable.
MUSICIANS PICK THEIR “PERFECT SONGS” at NPR's All Songs Considered. The list includes songs from artists including, The Beatles, Pete Seeger and The Archies.
COMPUTER LEARNS to play rock, paper, scissors by observing and mimicking human players. And there actually may be practical applications for the technology.
GOOGLE is using its searching technology to find information and images broadcast on television. Search engine analyst Charlene Li of Forrester Research said Google's latest innovation is likely to disappoint many people because it doesn't provide a direct link to watch the previously broadcast programming. Li said Yahoo's similar service is flawed, too, because “most of the (video) that you can see on the Web isn't the stuff that you really want to see.” I think the folks at BoingBoing would beg to differ.
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES want a raise. In an interview with America's PEOPLE magazine last month, Nicollette Sheridan complained, “I'm the poorest actress on television.” I dunno… she's a lame actress, but there's a lot of competition for that title.
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: Fashion mavens offer their advice on how he could butch up his look.
BRITISH POLICE called in a spotter plane, helicopter and video-equipped patrol car to help convict a woman who ate an apple while driving to work. “You would think they had better things to do,” the woman said. If the new HBO film Dirty War is any indication, they do.
ILLINOIS ELECTION FALLOUT: The voter fraud/murder investigation moves forward, as the indictment of an East St. Louis official of attempted murder of a witness officially acknowledges for the first time that federal authorities are investigating voter fraud in the city.
WISCONSIN ELECTION FALLOUT: The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel finds over 1,200 ballots cast from invalid addresses in the city, including many cases in which the voter could not be located at all. A spot check of addresses that came back as invalid found cases where the address in question is a park, a baseball diamond and at or near the W. Wisconsin Ave. bridge. A baseball diamond? Did Elwood Blues break out of Joliet and move to Wisconsin?
THE FRENCH HOTEL: I've avoided mentioning her for a while but Page Six got its hands on her love letters to Aaron Carter, which are simply too good to pass up. If you thought that Paris was simply playing the role of the slutty skank for The Simple Life, read her undying declaration of affection: “You are the [bleep] and I love you to death.”
THE DAILY ILLINI takes a look at record labels using “street teams” to promote their product.
