Week in Review: ZOWEE

Photo of Ida Maria plus models by David Wentworth.

In the week "I'mma Let You Finish" became the new "WAZZUP!" (see how well that one aged!), we leaned back, helpless as the Maxwell Man (our references are old today, huh?) as Kanye annihilated his own website and the hopes and dreams of a 19-year-old millionaire. We live-blogged it. Kanye apologized for it, deleted it, apologized again, had his Wikipedia page defaced, exposed half the internet as latent racists, endured having the "what would your dead mom think" card played against him on Leno, then had the "jackass" card played against him by our nation's sitting president, apologized again, and retreated to a cave, where he'll live out his days muttering "I'm sorry" to the bears and wolves that will prove, in the end, to be his only true friends.

Oh, and internet spectacle pt. II: Pavement reunited in a elaborately choreographed public stroking of slacker nostalgia, beginning with a whisper, tumescing into a fully grown fact, and then exploding in a spray of first one, then two, then three (and now four!) Central Park shows that will take place on a series of days on which we'll all be a year older than we are now.

Pt III? All Tomorrow's Parties, where Jim Jarmusch got down to the Caribou Variation Ensemble, Panda Bear got bootlegged, and No Age got caught on film eating vending machine noodles. We collected a tremendous amount of attendee's memories here.

Meanwhile, in the pedestrian world all the rest of us were forced to live in, we caught The Rapture's secret show at Matchless, Ida Maria, pre-Perez meltdown, at a Plaza Hotel fashion week party, Owl City (and Taylor Swift!!!) at Bowery Ballroom, and the somewhat disastrous Twitter Festival.

Yes In My Backyard offered Bear In Heaven's "Wholehearted Mess" and Helado Negro's "Deja." Bonus download, which again, we assert is completely real: Mary Gaitskill rapping Das Racist's "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" at the Brooklyn Book Festival. Quoth Gaitskill: "If I'd known this would happen I would've tried to make it better, this doesn't deserve to be called a rap even as a joke!"

R.I.P. Mary Travers and Jim Carroll.

Plus, Jay-Z's triumphant turn at MSG, followed by his triumphant turn on the charts; a new record from Vampire Weekend; super porny videos from Ghostface and Rammstein (note to my co-workers: let's not do this again); new videos and/or music from Glass Ghost, Julian Casablancas, Transformation Surprise, and Vivian Girls.

We're done here. [Insert Kanye shrug.] Back on Monday!