#12: 10,000 Votes, Secret Twins, People Talkin' Funny, Camera Obscura.

First off, a pat on our collective back for passing the 10,000 vote mark! At this point, Jacksonville, FL is still in the lead, but as we've already witnessed many times, there is no such thing as a solid lead so early on in the proceedings. You can vote here.

Apropos of nothing, I'd also like to point out that British comedian Jimmy Carr reminds me an awful lot of British singer/songwriter Lloyd Cole. Separated at birth?

October's edition of Smithsonian Magazine has an article stating that, despite the seemingly contradictory effects of national media outlets like radio and television, regional dialects are actually becoming stronger across the United States. I wonder how much this has to do with the relatively short time elapsed between the rise of television and the current generation of parents and children, but hey, who am I to argue with linguists. Their argument is that people cling to dialects because they want to emulate their friends and bosses but I suspect it has more to do with the sheer volume of certain speech patterns and pronunciations one hears growing up someplace. See how the folks in your neck of the woods talk funny by using this map.

But hey, speaking of Lloyd Cole, the first single from Camera Obscura's latest record, Let's Get Out of This Country has a neat video. "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" is a not-so-coded reference to Cole's stellar 1984 single, "Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken" (click to download); the song is fantastic, though, and the video is a campy send-up of the mod/twee trappings the band's fanbase has wrapped them up in:


And since I mentioned the man twice in one post, here's a classic from Mr. Cole, the long-forgotten video for his moody "Forest Fire":


One last item from the Department of Crazy Huh What: the New York Times writes that outspoken superstar wide receiver Terrell Owens of the Dallas Cowboys tried to commit suicide yesterday. The T.O. story only gets stranger, it seems.

xoxox
Danny