Here Lies Love, the David Byrne/Fatboy Slim collaboration “about Imelda Marcos and Estrella Cumpas, the woman who raised her,” hits shelves on February 23. Guest vocalists include Santigold, Natalie Merchant, Steve Earle, Tori Amos, and Cyndi Lauper.

I think it is well past time that I boned up on Russian culture.

Scientists in Queensland, Australia, stuck Band-Aids on 65 volunteers and ripped them off at varying speeds to discover how ouchy they felt. The results: It is, in fact, more painful to rip a Band-Aid off slowly than to give it one quick yank. But, “some other aspects of the results may cause more disputes than they solve: the tests showed that men rated plaster removal as 80 per cent more painful than did women, a finding the authors linked to thicker male body hair.” Tell me about it! Also: “The fact that scores were different between groups suggests that removal of dressings may be operator-dependent, and there may be skilled Band-Aid removers and less-skilled or unskilled Band-Aid removers,” noted the study’s author. Anyway, now you know!

“Let’s acknowledge that the Oscars are bullshit and we hate them…. Crash as best picture? What the fuck.” -The wonderful New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis.

New Rap Song (And Its Complicated Roots): Red Cafe, “I’m Ill”

How rap builds itself on itself: Brooklyn MC Red Cafe has a new song out called “I’m Ill.” I like it. But not everyone does. (The Pigeons and Planes website says “This track might be Mr. Marty Mediocre’s favorite new song.” Ha! Marty Mediocre must hang out with Plain Jane McLame and Norman McNormalson.) The song is interesting, though, at the very least, as a study of how production trends work. The beat is built around a vocal sample of Jay-Z saying “I’m Ill” on a record he released last year called “A Billie.” “A Billie” featured Jay rhyming over the beat from Lil Wayne’s hit “A Milli.” (“I’m Ill” samples Wayne saying “I’m Ill,” too. Wayne has said that when he originally heard the beat for “A Milli”-which was made by Atlanta-based producer Bangladesh, off a sample from an old remix of A Tribe Called Quest’s “I Left My Wallet In El Segundo”-he thought the phrase was “I’m Illi,” which brings us back to the lovely espresso Red Cafe might enjoy at the quaint little French place from whence he takes his name.)

“A Milli” was a huge hit. By far the most-jacked beat of 2008. (Meaning many, many rappers rapped their own new rhymes over it.) And it has proved very influential. “I’m Ill” is only the most recent of many songs that have been similarly built around a vocal snippet. Jay’s “Jockin’ Jay-Z (Dope Boy Fresh)” and T.I.’s “Swagga Like Us,” both produced by Kanye West, come to mind. As does Papoose’s “I Just Want The Paper.” Even Kid Cudi’s comparatively antiquated, analog-sounding “Make Her Say,” also produced by the prolific Kanye, off a Lady Gaga clip.

Of course, in their minimalism and record-scratching, “A Milli” and all its followers hearken back to golden-era 1980s rap. “I’m Ill” makes the nostalgia explicit, incorporating the famous call-and-response shouts from Rob Base and DJ E Z Rock’s 1988 classic “It Takes Two.” But if you check out Eric B. and Rakim’s, “My Melody,” from 1987, you can hear the seeds of the whole style.

The Chicago Tribune’s list of hangover remedies (water, wheatgrass, some other stuff) probably doesn’t contain anything you haven’t heard before, but the suggestion of “tomato juice with a shot of lime juice and sugar” intrigues: I’ve been drinking a glass of V8 every morning for the last month or so and my hangovers-Lord knows I’m not drinking any less these days-have been considerably more tolerable. Maybe I’ll try adding sugar and lime. And a little vodka, just to balance it out. [Via Pat’s Papers, which includes a choice Kinglsey Amis quote.]

Kinda cool: “Octopuses have been observed carrying coconut shells in what researchers claim is the first recorded example of tool use in invertebrates.”

Here’s an ad that appeared in today’s Financial Times. The copy, in part: “The gulf between North and South in Copenhagen can still be bridged — if three key leaders, Obama, Hatoyama, and Merkel, face their responsibilities and wield their true powers. With their leadership, the richest nations can muster the $200 billion a year by 2020 needed to free developing countries, and the world, from enslavement to fossil-fuel-powered machines.” SEE? There’s nothing you can’t do with it.

Buzzfeed ranks the ten most depressing Christmas songs. Surprisingly, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” does not make the cut.

Why is Joe Lieberman such a miserable prick? Maybe, in part, he’s just not that bright: “I suspect that Lieberman is the beneficiary, or possibly the victim, of a cultural stereotype that Jews are smart and good with numbers. Trust me, it’s not true.”