the age of the blog

A brief check-in, taking the form of a rather belated PSA: notable Internet user and Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, 32, has taken down the final post on his erstwhile blog "Internet Vibes"—yes, the post entitled "I HATE BLOGGING," after which we never heard from Mr. Koenig again.

30 July 2016

(It's a well-known post, previously referenced on this very blog.)

You see the lone difference between the two snapshots, barring their dimensions. "New Age Family Vacation Alert" simply preceded "I HATE BLOGGING" chronologically; it's not new material. (When are we getting that from Vampire Weekend, by the way?) It seems that "I HATE BLOGGING" (the post) has disappeared from the blog. It's not much of a reach to thus presume that "I HATE BLOGGING" (the sentiment) has disappeared from Mr. Koenig's heart.

5 October 2016

Perhaps Mr. Koenig sensed the winds of change before the rest of us and used that simple "delete post" operation to tell us—us being his fans, who all tend to skim the headlines every morning, by choice or not—this. The age of the press is, sadly, over. The age of the blog (or the one-man newspaper, take your pick) has begun anew. Stay tuned.

here lies harry potter (1997-2016)

(his creator killed him)

Let's get this out of the way: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them isn't a particularly good film. It's like J.K. Rowling tried to combine the childlike whimsy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with the rather grown-up plots and characters of her Cormoran Strike novels. If that sounds like it wouldn't work -- well, it didn't work. Fantastic Beasts doesn't have a cohesive "feel": it never quite decides whether it wants to embody the spirit of its namesake book or be, uh, vaguely American Gothic? (Who knows, honestly?) Rowling also seems to have attempted to write a novel instead of a screenplay: Fantastic Beasts is full of throwaway dialogue that works beautifully as character development in her later, 800-page Harry Potter books, but that sort of thing doesn't work so beautifully in a two-hour film whose most interesting character is a Niffler.

Now, if you ask the Harry Potter fanbase, many of the eight Harry Potter movies aren't particularly good films either -- but the books they're based on are wonderful. After all, that's why Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone became a film in the first place. Fantastic Beasts is a blatant attempt to cash in on the franchise's enduring popularity, and its inspiration isn't a beloved children's story, but a spin-off book that was itself a blatant attempt to cash in on the franchise's popularity (for charity, so I won't complain too much). Like most mistakes, the Fantastic Beasts film would be forgivable if Rowling and Yates promised to never do anything like it again, but --