I don’t know what it is about Junior Boys that works for me. I mean: yes, I totally love electronica — always have — but their music is far more spare than most of the stuff I keep in heavy rotation. Also, like a lot of gay men (I don’t really understand why), I prefer female vocalists to male. But despite all that, there’s something about JB’s tone and sound that’s just…well, “transporting” is about as good a word as I can think of without waxing totally emo on you guys.

Oh, and their videos don’t hurt, either:

[via The Boyfriend]

Thomas Hoving (seated) with Yousef and Estrellita Karsh

Thomas Hoving, the charismatic showman and treasure hunter whose decade-long tenure as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art fundamentally transformed the institution and helped usher in the era of the museum blockbuster show, died Thursday at his home in Manhattan. He was 78….

He became its seventh director and, at 35, its youngest. And during his tumultuous reign, the museum did many things it had never done before, often for the better, sometimes for the worse: it formed a contemporary art department and displayed Pop painting alongside Poussin and David; regularly draped the now-familiar banners on its facade to advertise shows; created the enlarged front steps that have become Fifth Avenue’s bleachers; paid $5.5 million for a single painting (the Velázquez masterpiece “Juan de Pareja”) while quietly selling works by Van Gogh, Rousseau and others to help pay for it….

In his establishment-rattling mission to make the art museum a more populist institution, Mr. Hoving was “probably the most influential and innovative museum official of the postwar period,” Michael Kimmelman wrote in The New York Times.

–full obituary at NYTimes.com

Remember my adventures in speech-to-text? Well, they’ve gone mobile. Dragon just launched an iPhone version of its NaturallySpeaking software [iTunes link], and it’s free for the time being. Even better: it works like a charm. Look:

C’mon. Like you didn’t know that was going to be the first thing out of my mouth.

Screw the jet packs. I’ll settle for this, thankyouverymuch.

You can purchase this chunk of toasty hotness and 11 of his well-oiled friends by clicking right here. And of course, proceeds from the calendar will help our city’s awesome firemen and firewomen buy new equipment to keep the smoldering in New Orleans limited to our tastefully appointed boudoirs. Let the “hosing”, “stocking stuffing”, and “chimney sliding” puns begin!

Because of my work, I’m on a lot of mailing lists — some are truly weird, some only mildly so. Yesterday, I received a letter from the Pulitzer Prize Board, which sought input on “new musical works of distinction”. After a couple of paragraphs about qualifications of such works, the Board dropped in this bit:

“We enclose a bulletin that contains the current regulations and an entry form for your convenience. Please note that there is a handling charge of $50 for each entry. Entry forms may be photocopied, or you may complete the form on the Pulitzer web site http://www.pulitzer.org, print it and enclose it with your entry.”

So, (a) there’s a fee? I’d always assumed that Pulitzers were doled out by a committee of people who’ve read everything and heard everything and just know what’s best. But apparently the Pulitzers awards are run just like any low-rent poetry contest or fringe festival: if you don’t submit an application and some dough (and possibly a drawing of Tippy the Turtle), you’re SOL. So much for prestige.

And (b) what’s with all the printing? Does the Pulitzer really pair its whole old-skool pay-to-play approach with an even older-skool photocopied application process? They can’t be bothered to enter the 21st century and allow people to send in mp3s and PDFs? Jesus H. Christ on a cracker, who’s on this board? Fucking Matlock?