bone machine

in today's l.a. times i have a feature about black francis, a.k.a. frank black, in which he expounds upon the inspiration for his latest album, bluefinger, and gently dashes hopes for a new pixies album. in addition to being typically insightful and well-written, the article is also, i am informed by my editor, the last "long" pop feature that will grace the pages of weekend, as it will be morphing into a section of shorter, hotter, hipper bits. once again i'm in the rearguard of the old ways, how fucking appropriate.

due, again, to the irregular-to-nonexistent posting, i've neglected to note my recent silly citybeat column on "the evolution of chuck." and today i have a rumination on my bout last week with jury duty.

in other news, the house of representatives passed a resolution that the u.s. officially recognize the turkish genocide against armenians as a genocide. the genocide is already considered fact by most of the world. even the l.a. times has a policy of referring to it as a fact -- except when it doesn't, like as recently as last week, when a reporter engaged in the ol' "armenians say..." construction, prompting a "for the record" correction the next day.

interestingly, i also saw this phrasing in an AP story via the international herald tribune. my quick research indicates that the AP has in the past stated that it also considers the genocide a fact. someone ought to remind the reporters and editors, then.

on the same front page today, in some sort of horrible irony, we learn that an iraqi woman of armenian heritage was murdered by u.s.-hired mercenaries in baghdad -- for the suspicious activity of driving a cab. it's just another war crime to toss on the pile like so much cordwood. the article quotes one iraqi as saying they now all fear being shot whenever they go outside. boy, we've really done an amazing job of liberating them, haven't we?