Word: postal
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...drug Provigil. Carolyn Moncel, 36, who works as a virtual assistant from her computer in Paris, France, fuels her 16-hour shifts with two or three liters a day of Coca-Cola supplemented by 10-minute naps. Betty Sanders, who has worked the graveyard shift at the Dallas U.S. Postal Service Processing Center for more than 18 years, has rejiggered her entire metabolism. She eats dinner at 5 p.m., hits the mattress from 7 until 10, and naps for 15 minutes during her 4 a.m. break. She clocks out at 8:30 in the morning and, except...
Chris: Who ever said that commercial tie-ins are a good thing? When the Postal Service—a popular band on Subpop combining the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Gibbard (who is as portly as he is whiny) with the poppy glitches of Jimmy Tamborello from Dntel—agreed to a deal with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), politically correct crunchies everywhere praised this indie-rock spirit of compromise. But they seem to critically overlook the fact that by this deal, an allegedly DIY band and an allegedly DIY branch of the U.S. government have...
Bill: My friend, you forget that the (music-making) Postal Service never adhered to a DIY ethic in the first place. Subpop’s a good label, but thanks to those lovable longhairs from Seattle it’s anything but underground these days, as recent successes like The Shins will attest. You sign with Subpop, you lose your DIY card. For most bands this is not a problem because Subpop gives them such a nice deal: They get big distribution and decent promotion while still maintaining their indie credibility; they get immediate...
...wider audience when I am skeptical at the new audience’s willingness to accept the music as the artist intends, and when I feel that an artist would be likely to compromise their art for the sake of filthy lucre. In this example I can see the Postal Service going either way. The popularity of the first album was buoyed on the strength of “Such Great Heights,” an excellent single that condenses everything good about the Postal Service into a compact pop window; the album sticks to that sound entirely...
Bill: I can certainly understand your fears of a sophomore slump from the Postal Service, considering how well they managed to capture that weird sound of theirs on the debut. Half their initial appeal to me was how different they sounded from most of what else I was listening to at the time, and of course that card is played out now. It’s completely possible that they’ve peaked, that their good luck will sour and that the follow-up will be quickly and deservedly disowned. But even if they’re headed down...