I don’t have any mega-limited edition indie-rock baseball caps or running-shoes to give away, but I’ll tell you what I do have: Destroyer refrigerator magnets (more fun that the hit-refresh pleasures of The Bejar Family Circus!”). Merge sent along three sets of these Destroyer magnetic poetry sets, and obvs I only need one, so I’ll be happy to get these other 2 sets out to other folks. Just drop a blank e-mail to REDACTED, and I’ll pick a few names out in a few days. Thanks all, will pick some winners out very soon.

A 12-minute mashup using only the intros to songs, “Intro-Spection.”

There’s an interesting piece on the new book, Against The Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob by Lee Siegel, over at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. As you read it, just replace “literary bloggers” with “music bloggers.”

With all its various centers of power and checks and balances, [old media] is a lot less biased — for all its commercial pressures — and a lot less susceptible to hostile influences than the unchecked ego and will of a single blogger… Bloggers have no responsibility or obligation, except their own personal integrity, to [fact-check, correct mistakes, remain impartial in the face of perquisites, etc.]

(bracketed paraphrasing mine.)

There’s some joke to be made about Brooklyn and this artist’s name in relation to this blog-adored band’s name but frankly, I’m too lazy to think up a funny right now.

An Advertising Age guy on Vampire Weekend:

In certain circles these days, liking or hating is less and less about liking or hating a specific phenomenon (e.g., a band or a movie or a politician) but about whether or not you like or hate the people who like or hate that phenomenon.

Kind of similar to this old gem of an internal conflict: If douchebags all love Band X, and I love Band X, then won’t I be perceived as a douchebag, simply by association?

The key to getting around this, of course, is to stop giving a shit what other people think.