Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Same As the Old Slang

Back to the schooling this week--hopefully that doesn't mean I'll stop posting entirely. It's not as if I was wildly prolific even when I had a lot of time to kill. Now I'm going to have to spend more of my days reading really really long poems about shepherds, so I don't know what's going to happen. But here I am!

Anyway, this made me laugh, from the AV Club's wacky piece on defunct college football bowl games.

6. The Garden State Bowl

Mid-December in New Jersey? Not fun unless you're a Rutgers fan, and unfortunately, Rutgers only played in the inaugural edition of this game, in 1978. The remaining three years were far drearier, except for the time when the PA announcer played The Shins, and totally changed everyone's life.


Apparently that Garden State moment--when Princess Amidala makes JD put on the headphones--has achieved a lame kind of pop-culture transcendence. They're makin' jokes about it on the AV Club, and everybody writing a profile of the Shins feels like they have to at least mention it, if only to be incredulous. Really, Natalie? The Shins? But they seemed so polite!

But I was listening to "Phantom Limb," the new Shins song, on the way to class, and I really did have to, you know, stop and take stock of things. Because this song is basically "New Slang II!" (Or III, if you think that "Saint Simon" from Chutes Too Narrow already took that spot.) The quirky little melody, the "oooooo" chorus, all of that. It'll change your life again! It'll change it back to whatever it was before, maybe! Try it!

Good tune, though. I keep wanting to put it on and play it again, like Ms Portman in the waiting room. This is usually the sure sign of a song I'll be sick of quickly, but we'll see.

1 comment:

david james keaton said...

i played that Phantom Limb single a few times when the station first got it but it left no impression, except that it sounded more poppy and produced than the other stuff. but more importantly, i was watching Star Trek the other night at about 4am and Geordi says to Picard, "Captain, we're heading straight into the neutral zone." and half-asleep i imagined Picard responding sarcastically, "Yeah, I know. There's nothing wrong with MY eyes." and i was cracking myself up so bad i scared the cats.