There’s a new fad sweeping Providence, Rhode Island. And boy is it retarded. We’re just hoping it doesn’t make its way to New York. Click here for video. [Via Gawker]

Via Pitchfork

American V: A Hundred Highways, culled from sessions Cash was in the process of recording with producer Rick Rubin before his death in 2003, will be released on July 4 through American Recordings on Lost Highway Records. While this release has the distinction of being the last album of new material Cash ever produced, the upcoming May 23 Columbia/Legacy release Personal File, also shares the pedigree of unreleased original material.
Selected from sessions various sessions recorded between 1973 and 1982 at his House of Cash studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Personal File contains stripped-down, solo acoustic recordings that foreshadowed the raw tone of his later Rick Rubin recordings. The material is intimate and sketch-like, with Cash switching between covers, gospel spirituals, and originals. The recordings were never issued by Cash, remaining untouched inside his archives until his passing.

In case you haven’t seen this, it’s essential. And wonderfully uncomfortable to watch.
[via Democratic Underground]
Video 1 | Video 2
Best (and most uncomfortable) line:
“I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”

Wholphin 1
Eggers has already conquered the hipster literati world. Now he’s moving on to DVDs. Next step, the moon. Wholphin 2 is set for release. The name is derived from combining the words whale and dolphin. Dorky names notwithstanding, this actually sounds pretty cool. From Wholpin’s Press Release:

MCSWEENEY’S 2nd ISSUE OF WHOLPHIN: DVD Magazine of Unseen Things
Steven Soderbergh, Errol Morris, John Dolan, Andrew Jay Cohen and others contribute to anticipated second issue. BONUS: The Power of Nightmares- “The film US TV Networks dare not show”
Celebrated publishing house McSweeney’s Press is on the verge of releasing a second issue to the critically acclaimed DVD Magazine, Wholphin. The first issue, a complimentary issue for McSweeney’s subscribers bundled in The Believer and McSweeney’s Quarterly, caught national acclaim from esteemed publications for its short films, namely the Spike Jonze documentary that gave the US people an outlook into the softer and more human side of Al Gore around the 2000 election….
The content runs the gambit from a Japanese version of Bewitched dubbed by the hilarious Daily Show writers Rich Blomquist, Scott Jacobson and Jason Reich (Okusama Wa Maju), a film by Andrew Jay Cohen with Martin Starr called American Storage, an Oscar-nominated claymation short that question the age old question “What do we compromise of ourselves by trying to achieve a greater vision for humanity? called More, even Donald Trump makes an appearance narrating an aborted film by Errol Morris called The Movie Movie based on the premise “Isn’t it possible that in an alternative universe Donald Trump actually started in Citizen Kane?” But Wholphin No. 2 does not stop there. An endearing look at human expression by simply placing a powerful sour gobstopper in their mouths, Sour Death Balls, and an unaired TV pilot called The Pity Card, by the co-creator of the hilarious Mr. Show…
However, the most powerful of releases in this issue is the bonus 1st of 3 installments of the film, The Power of Nightmares, directed by Adam Curtis. In this extravagantly provocative film, arguably the most important and most timely documentaries of the last several years, the film focuses itself on today’s most endlessly debated subject parallel to the US’s current War on Terror. Ultimately, this film traces a parallel history of two seemingly disparate movements: Middle Eastern Islamic Fundamentalism vs. American Neo-conservatism. This film has not been able to find a way to expose itself to the American public as it has been turned down by TV networks, shut off at film festivals, and has shown fleeting presence on the internet.

Click here for more info.

… but they’re beginning to sound kind of tired. Scenestars has the new Ryan Adams/Willie Nelson gap ad. Watch it. Mock it. Buy a vest and some jeans.

“This Bird Has Absolutely No Face” by John Lurie
We paid a visit to the John Lurie opening at PS1 yesterday. (You may remember Lurie from Stranger Than Paradise or Fishing With John). His new art show is not to be missed. Yesterday, Willem Dafoe, Steve Bushemi, John Malkovitch, John Ventimiglia, and many more celebs all showed up to toast John’s new show. Prints will soon be available on his website. We’ll be picking up a few. Lurie is the rare artist who manages to merge a beautiful aesthetic with a laugh-out-loud sense of humor. Check out his new work at PS1. [Incidentally, Lurie is HUGE in Russia, though we're still not sure why.]
We attended the event with Cakehead, who has an hilarious musing on cubed cheese, the standard (but puzzling) fare found at every art opening.

“Dog Is Blind. Who Will Help?” by John Lurie