FlitDecember 16, 2002
JUST ANOTHER OF MY PET
JUST ANOTHER OF MY PET PEEVES
I don't really care how much Christina Aguilera reveals in her music videos. What does kind of bother me is her latest blatant nickname theft (she calls herself "X-tina" now) from a much more interesting and talented artist, Xtina X, of the Grim Faeries: a band that has been my favourite underrecognized indy musical treasure for some time. Sadly, it's typical of Aguilera Inc., who was always entirely a product of savvy youth marketing and soulless copycatism. Branding can frequently be the face of big capitalism at its worst: here in Canada, a little known story of the creation of the Chapters megabookstore chain was that all the little mom-and-pop bookshops called "Chapters" were driven out of business by an unleashed legion of lawyers. One wonders if the original Xtina has been served with a similar notice to change her name yet by the Aguilera brand conglomerate.
THE OLD GUY STILL CAN
THE OLD GUY STILL CAN GET FIRED UP NOW AND THEN
Dean of Canadian conservative journalism Peter Worthington is hot and cold in his dotage (his bizarre obsessions with the Kleinburg art gallery and the Toronto Humane Society always turned me off) but he's written the best column on the Bill Sampson imprisonment issue I've seen yet. Keep them on the bounce, Peter.
A sole product of BruceR and Jantar Mantar Communications. Opinions expressed within are in no way the responsibility of anyone's employers or facilitating agencies and should by rights be taken as nothing more than one person's half-informed viewpoint on the world.