11/1

Who are the 1%? The .1%? The .01%?


You should be distressed if you wear those ridiculous-looking distressed look jeans. They're deadly to the workers making them.


 And BPA is in all the paper you touch. Except in Japan.


The Redskins have a history that is racist as all hell:

[T]he [Redskins’] name was dreamed up by the sport’s most overtly racist figure, who even in his will (he died in 1969) stipulated that the Redskins Foundation that was to be created with most of his estate not direct a single dollar toward “any purpose which supports or employs the principle of racial integration in any form.”

Nevertheless, the District's African-American football fans have come to embrace them.


If I were John Huntsman, I'd be scared of the cheering-for-people-being-executed-and/or-dying-because-they-don't-have-health-insurance crowd, too.


The upcoming album from The Roots was partially inspired by, and features vocal contributions from, Sufjan Stevens, says ?uestlove:

We've always loved the song "Redford" from Michigan. So we close the new album with a cover of "Redford." We stretched it out into this four-part movement. Part 1 is Sufjan at the piano performing it. And then Part 2 is a string quartet that we had interpret it. Part 3 is myself and D.D. Jackson, who is an avant-garde piano player. He's probably one of the most dangerous pianists — I don't know how he doesn't have carpal tunnel now. But he just destroys, literally, destroys the piano. The final movement, which ends the record, is essentially the beginning of the story. But it's the last thing you hear. It's a very powerful piece of work. Dare I say that undun is probably as good as it's going to get for the Roots. Our songwriting can't get better. Our production can't get better. I hate to sound like Kanye, like "This is the best…" But as a music consumer, I always make records that I would like to purchase.

Violinist Hilary Hahn gives a fascinating interview to NewMusicBox.


Tom Waits, whose recently-released Bad As Me is the best album released this year, gives a great interview to Terry Gross.


And please don't understate John Hodgman’s “writing of 700 ridiculous hobo nicknames.” That is all.