Shrewd Machine

Some books I'm looking forward to

2010-01-20T20:48:00.002-05:00

The Surrendered, Change-rae Lee. While Lee’s last (and most commercially successful) book Aloft was a little cheesy, his first book, Native Speaker, is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. The haunting, sometimes agonizing A Gesture Life is also one of my favorites.

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan. Another writer whose last work fell somewhat flat, but Look at Me is one of those books I’ve recommended to many people.

Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart. Absurdistan showed Shteyngart’s gift for black comedy.

Invisible, Paul Auster. I read an excerpt of this in a literary magazine a while ago, and it reminded me of the uncanny tone of his masterfully noir New York Trilogy (as opposed to Auster’s quite more recent works, which are frankly inferior). This book actually came out last fall, but I’m cheap, and Paul Auster doesn’t need my money, so I’m in queue at the good old BPL for this one.

Imperial Bedrooms, Bret Easton Ellis. Because I will never forget the summer I read Less than Zero. The movie sucked, obviously, though it did boast an awesome Bangles song. While I had pretty much given up on BEE after the name-droppy piece of crap that was Glamorama (and yes, I am aware that the name-droppiness was a stylistic device etc. etc.), he redeemed himself with Lunar Park.

(Cross-posted from tumblr)

Five years ago today...

2010-01-16T12:51:00.002-05:00

I drove halfway across Massachusetts to adopt a little tuxedo...

Happy Gotcha Day to my best Weezie.

I was a terrible graduate student

2009-12-07T19:24:00.005-05:00

...because I refused to give up my fun reading. Which is not to say that I was eschewing the Franz Fanon for Danielle Steele rubbish, but the fact that I would spend a Saturday afternoon reading a literary novel written after *gasp* 1851 made me something of a pariah. "God, I wish I had the TIME to read for fun."

Which is probably the main reason I left grad school. I love books, and loving books is considered a very naive attitude, very "undergraduate," as one loathsome, full-of-himself professor used to say.

I spent some of my most enjoyable hours working the checkout desk at my undergraduate library (a tedious job made so much more entertaining by the constant stream of friends and classmates coming by, sometimes with a spiked coffee or two, to gossip and talk trash. God, I miss college.) My last year as an undergrad, I was taking a bunch of senior seminars, and I would stay at the library until 3, 4 in the morning slaving over an art history presentation or an English project, but the memories are fond because I was so excited about what I was writing. I still think that paper on Josephine Baker rivals most of the content I ever produced.

My memories of my grad school's library, on the other hand, are miserable and exactly as Lord Tumbledry describes them in the previous post, "smell[ing] of debt and despair and performance anxiety." Mostly because I was so unhappy and felt like a piece of dog turd all the time, since my focus and interest wasn't (and isn't) in the masturbatory, impenetrable lit theory that focused always, always on the fucking phallus. Whatever interests I had as an undergraduate were considered passe, because academia is not unlike the fashion industry in determining certain areas of study "in." Also, I sucked at teaching and hated what was basically a glorified baby-sitting gig for over privileged children from Long Island.

So, like my colleague Seedy, I've rekindled my love of libraries once I'd wrenched myself free of the academic noose. I've been going to the Boston Public Library at least a couple of times a week since I started working at Company X (it's a block away), and it's one of my favorite places in the city.

(originally posted)

Gear up the crank

2009-12-06T15:40:00.006-05:00

I realized I hadn't had a library card from the public library in at least six years, since I began patronizing the university library and the town library switched over to, I don't know, computers or lasers or something and my old Hollerith card got shredded. Besides, over the last three years in particular I'd been too burned out on books to read anything but what I needed to be conversant for coursework (not doing anything but procrastinating between reading and writing will do that to you). Oh, and I was so up on that shit, let me tell you. You would have just laughed in wonder to see how professional I was. In the sense that Gary Hart was professional. I was just the best graduate student ever.

Anyway, now that I'm done paying a bankrupt state thousands of dollars to go to their public university to read what the Sons of Liberty or whoever used to write on the cleaner sides of their cocktail napkins (Penguin Classics edition), and have had an entire summer and autumn to summon the strength to read even a grocery receipt again, I decided I'd better rectify the situation with respect to the old library card. Especially since I can't borrow from the university because I still have one of the university's books, or maybe they just terminated my borrowing privileges because I graduated. (Yeah, true story.)

So into town I went. It was a rainy Friday, and day off for a lot of people. And a lot of those people were at the library. The last place they should be, if you believe gleeful cable news polls that prove that people don't read anymore because they are watching cable news. There were childrens, and their parents, and old folks, and aging hippies sleeping in beat up plaid chairs in the corner, with books in their laps. It's saying a lot that all these people were there, because while the library waits for renovation, most of the collection is in storage in the next state and the remainder of the collection is shoved into two rooms, together with the DVDs and magazines, everything hanging off book trucks.

It had been such a long time since I'd been in a library that didn't smell of debt and despair and performance anxiety, and that had a new book shelf (truck) without a single title with winking quotation marks, a jazz-hands colon and a paragraph-long subtitle. And that had crinkly cellophane dust jackets, I love that shit. Granted, there was also a lot of crap on that truck BUT STILL. Novels. Novels written after 1851. Not only do they exist (I sort of knew about that) but lots of people read them as well. It's my fault completely for not trying harder to get this, for assuming only my family and my friends really read, buying into the Dumb American stereotype, even though it's true that we're not doing much to help people not to be Dumb Americans. And it's also my fault for using that as an excuse to stick to what I should be reading, because, you know, contemporary novels are badly written by too-clever-by-half (or not) Philip Roth wannabes, crammed full of pathetic sex scenes, speciously empowered women and self-important-self-pitying men. And, of course, they're only cranked out to make a buck, something that, for example, Dickens nev--

I found this form (God I love blank forms) on the back flap of a book called Hotel On the Corner Of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford. This is not the post in which to review the book, so I won't. What was interesting was how the form became so much a part of my reading it. Every few chapters I would take it out of the back of the book, look at the rating system, read the different handwriting on the slip; the scratched out bit and the cursive "Great!" on the last line. CURSIVE. The form made me miss the old date due stamps, which lots of libraries have stopped pasting in the backs of books. You could always see how many hands the book passed through, and since when. You could identify when people loved a book, or at least cared enough about it that it went through a period of being borrowed constantly. And you could see when it had become less popular, but was still borrowed every now and then. Reading something someone else had read before you was a reminder that reading is never a solitary act, that at least a dozen people were walking around town, at some level having shared an experience with you. This slip was a reminder of that too. While I ultimately enjoyed the novel, I wouldn't give Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet a 10; but clearly it meant something to at least five people who rated it. That made me react less viscerally to some of the problems that I would otherwise have dismissed as undermining the book, and it allowed me to begin to think about it without my opinion alone in mind.

It will be a while before I stop being ambivalent about contemporary novels. Maybe it's because they so often don't diverge enough from their predecessors, at least in the ways that I want them to. I still have the unfair sense that they haven't passed some sort of test of time, even given the outrageousness of that prejudice. So despite the form's quirkiness (in the not-applied-to-a-Julia-Roberts-character sense of the word), it made me think about the fact that we read these books now, that the test of time is up to us to start, and that we have every right to enjoy them now for what they are, and not for what they will become.

And it's no accident that since I PICKED UP AN EVERLOVIN NOVEL I've had more ideas for posts.

But I was talking about cranks? I guess? I thought I was going to get cranky.

You know that cliche, "It's funny because it's true"?

2009-12-05T12:12:00.007-05:00

A former coworker of mine used to say that whenever she misses Company X (where I currently work), she watches an episode of The Office.

Personally, I don't think it's a coincidence that I didn't start watching the show until I got my own office job, complete with cubicle, coworkers with strange customs and a telephone that never quite did what it was supposed to. (It also helps that the show is now syndicated on 20 different channels, so its presence on the telly is rivaled only by the 15 different franchises of Law & Order). At work, we've had extended debates over who's the "Jim" and who's the "Pam" of our office (I know I'm an Angela -- the Facebook quiz said so! Although I've got Meredith's "Fuck you, where's my drink" attitude.)

Still, after we're done joking about what a spaz Diwght is and how The Boss did something so quintessentially Michael Scott-esque, there's a silence that falls as we collectively think to ourselves, I gotta get the fuck out of here. Then we go back to our ridiculously over-decorated cubicles, many of them complete with "I Heart Jim" mugs and "That's What She Said" notepads and dry-erase boards featuring a smug Michael Scott.

It's funny because it's true. And that's really, really sad. I mean it is really sad. I need a drink. Gloomy day like this really calls for a tea with bourbon. Do I have any bourbon left from my Loner's Thanksgiving?

Sorry, sometimes things get really really sad and I have to think about alcohol and/or shoes to get myself into a better place.

I've recently ended a boycott of The Office because Michael Scott's bumbling ineptitude was so "real" it was making me angry. What kind of deeply fucked culture would find this man -- and the cruelty of having to work under such conditions -- funny? I suppose that was the humorless Marxist in me ready to rise up with fists and whatnot. I've simmered down a bit -- lulled back to uncomfortable numbness by the people on the tube who look too much like my worst nightmare.

Which is why I found a recent article from The Awl particularly intriguing. In a piece called "The Office is the Most Depressing Show on Television," Meghan Keene writes,

For audiences, Jim—more so than Pam—has served as a pressure valve for all of the overstimulated personalities on the show by responding to his absurd coworkers the only rational way: with sarcasm and bafflement. The whole point of Jim was that he held the promise that at some point he would get his act together enough to break out of the confines of Dunder Mifflin. He's the relatable protagonist for anyone (read: everyone) who has ever been trapped in a middling situation and found the only defense to be sarcasm and bemusement.

Now Jim has developed into the most depressing archetype: a mediocre man who has already realized his full potential.

Gone is Jim's charming lack of enthusiasm for his job. Now he's proving exactly where a lack of drive is likely to lead you—to the mediocrity of middle management, where one is gripped by the fear of losing whatever corner of inanity you've carved for yourself in the workplace.
(emphasis mine)

Us thinky, superior types enjoy shows like Rock of Love and whatever band of over-tanned and under-fed miscreants MTV has thrown together for our ironic entertainment because we feel, well, superior. This is what happens to girls who don't read, we think to ourselves as a bleached blonde mother of two drapes herself over a past-his-prime rock star. And, more problematically, This is why they invented birth control.

But unless you're one of a chosen few smart kitties who's managed to snag an honest-to-cat, "real" writing/designing/underwater basket weaving job, you're probably sitting in a cube, nursing a hangover with designer flavored water and bitching about a desk job you'd be lost without.

Or maybe that's just me.

Books + Art + New Zealand = one very shrewd video

2009-11-29T21:21:00.001-05:00

(via)

American Tragic

2009-11-29T19:42:00.003-05:00

36 million people are on food stamps, Black Friday sales are up, and pious, self-righteous indignation from every angle wants to either burn, shame, or starve the suffering. The operative word there being: suffering. And where there's smoke (the discourse online) there's fire (everywhere else). The danger in this isn't that people are starving, or that people might be stealing from the community chest, or that the people who're well on their way to going hungry are lighting sparks under the Hindenburg of their personal finances by lining up at Best Buy earlier than they've ever arrived to work, though, that's all fairly disturbing. No: the real American Tragedy here's that people are castigating and savoring the suffering of others, without discretion or discrimination. It ends in either a whimper or a bang; until then, there's a lot of very loud, angry noise drowning out anything remotely resembling the sound of progress.

--Gawker's Foster Kamer discussing a New York Times profile of the food stamp program

Continuing with the holiday weekend programming

2009-11-27T17:24:00.004-05:00

I'm not a big fan of Jimmy Fallon, but this impression of Neil Young covering the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme is pomo perfection:

And on a lighter note

2009-11-26T13:05:00.001-05:00

How To: Cranberry Sauce for Thanksgiving from The Awl on Vimeo.

(via)

Thanks on this most problematic of holidays

2009-11-26T11:01:00.002-05:00

(via)

The best rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody since Wayne & Garth

2009-11-24T21:00:00.002-05:00

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Look, it's a post, and it has stuff about the Cold War and other stuff

2009-11-17T22:40:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure I actually need therapy, because therapists can't force you to improve behaviors that you know already are wrong, stupid, ridiculous, harmful, and so on. So, for example, if my therapist said, "You know, as regards your anger at and simultaneous fixation on history, your relative inefficacy as a human being, and your dubious sense of humor, you should probably consider an outlet for your thoughts and feelings other than making Blingees of pictures of dead world figures," he'd be totally right, and there's no way I would argue with him. But that wouldn't change my actions. I consider the fact that I haven't downloaded the Blingee Plus program to be a sign that my grip on reality, or "the present" or whatever, is hanging on not by one only, but in fact by several threads!

So instead of any of that wacky, faddish "going to bed" shit, here are a few Blingees I've made over the past few weeks. I know, I know, I may be a "square," but I think learning about history is really important, so that mistakes such as the ones the thirty-fifth president of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), made vis-à-vis the U.S.S.R. during the early 196os are never repeated. We must leave our unquestioning fond, nostalgic image of JFK behind and come to terms with the fact that he was all too human, and made many mistakes as a result of self-absorption. For example, would it have been so hard for him to get the Kremlin on the horn and find out whether or not Nikita Khruschev (1894-1971), Premier of the Soviet Union and "Time" Man of the Year 1957, actually liked electric blue water lilies? Because then look what all happened.

If the Cold War (c. 1949-1991) taught us (1981-) anything, it's that sentiment ain't worth a dime if the sincerity of the gesture isn't there.

. . .

Actually, sincerity had no place in the Cold War in even the most minor capacities, and it certainly has no place in this post. Moving on.

When confronting the Cold War and the harmful, perverse and violent attitudes and policies that went along with it, it may be tempting for an American to recollect a time in U.S. history when a man was a man, and a patriot was a patriot, and the phallic symbols didn't get any bigger or more lethal than flintlock rifles. But since the Revolution wasn't like that, and was, of course, not short in terms of sucking in its own right (especially for the like, 90% of people on the continent who, to say the least, didn't get anything out of it anyway), here, have a Blingee of the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), the delightful young French dandy who had the touching and deluded habit of trying to convince people in America and in France to not wantonly kill one another too much. Except with fierceness. I, with help from my therapist, share your vision, young Lafayette.

That's just sad

2009-11-16T20:00:00.000-05:00

The New Oxford American Dictionary has announced the word of the year for 2009.

And the winner is

*drum roll*

UNFRIEND.

I know, right? The kitty kats at OUP explain the decision thusly:

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”

Ok, "Senior Lexicographer" is just about the coolest job title ever. Also, I can't believe that "funemployed" "sexting," "teabagger" and "Obamalicious" lost out to "unfriend." Oxford FAIL.

(via)

ETA: See fun poll to the side!

Evidence that I am unfit for polite society

2009-11-15T18:39:00.001-05:00

This sign has been posted in the kitchen at work for a few days.

Most people (because you know I asked) see this for what it is: a flyer for a charity fundraiser.

It's just the sick fucks (like yours truly) who take one look at this and immediately think, PUMPKIN PIE IS PEOPLE!!!

I see what you did there

2009-11-15T16:05:00.001-05:00

(via)

Everything this person has to say is made of WIN

2009-11-12T12:55:00.000-05:00

Carrie Prejean is a hateful bigot who will not tolerate being called on her shit. And we should not give her any amount of credence for it. That any member of the media, old Triceratops Larry King included, would give her any kind of due is just another shameful and sad example of the fact that rhetoric against gay people in this country is tacitly tolerated by popular media, because some wingnut idiots who believe that someone lived inside a whale for a few months threaten righteous rage if said media doesn't give lip service to their ridiculous, completely untrue, ancient assertions about what makes people's sexuality.

The tyranny of religion in this country MUST END if we expect to get anything good and decent and progressive done in this fucked up swamp of a nation we live in. I've had it with this spectacular waste of life, and I've had it with people like Larry King putting up with her bullshit to meet a bottom line.

--the inimitable Richard Lawson commenting at Gawker

Well shut your mouth and say it ain't so!

2009-11-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

The two ANTM finalists (hey! spoiler alert with the linky links there!) are pretty awesome. I can't remember the last season (yes, Tyra, they're SEASONS) the finale looked fairly promising.

And, somewhat apropos:

I want to see the "Billy Jean" version of this

2009-11-10T21:27:00.000-05:00

(ETA: The "Single Ladies" version is pretty magical.)

(via)

Like my Modern Studies prof once said, Culture eats counter culture for breakfast

2009-11-10T20:59:00.001-05:00

Congratulations to Justin Halpern, author of the hilarious "Shit My Dad Says" twitter page. According to Mediabistro, he's just scored a sitcom deal with CBS based on his tweets. Let's just hope that gems such as these don't get translated into the kind of toothless crap that tv executives seem to think makes for good tv, grumpy old man as the noughties' rapping grannies. (I bet they get Jerry Stiller for the lead.)

Oh my, is my bitter showing? What can I say, I was all set with a "Shit My Boss Says" twitter, when, at my attorney's* advice, I had to cancel the account. Something about defamation of character and whatnot. Now that is crazy. Shit, I bet she would've been thrilled when they got Glenn Close to play her in the made-for-Lifetime movie.

*drunk guy at the bar who flunked out of law school

Because Cat knows we need one...

2009-11-09T17:21:00.000-05:00

But what are these young men saying yes too? We've all failed to envision an alternative...

Many young men, it seems, are stuck in stage one of gender consciousness. They want to prove that they are one of the "good ones" and separate themselves from all the gendered behaviors and beliefs that they now see as oppressive. That, or they wallow in guilt. (This is not unlike the stage many white kids get stuck in upon fully realizing their role in perpetuating racism.) At worst, this point of view is paralyzing. At best, it leads to burnout. It's not until privileged folks, men in this case, can own the ways in which they have a self-interest in resisting systems of oppression that their work becomes sustainable.

-- Courtney E. Martin, "What's the Alternative to Tucker Max?"

(via)

Speaking of cat news

2009-11-08T13:44:00.001-05:00

On the home front, Coco and the Weez called a temporary truce to watch some cat tv:

But Coco is easily distracted:

And Eloise realizes she's late for a meeting with her World Domination Task Force:

Iowa kitteh gets the oinks

2009-11-08T13:12:00.000-05:00

For serious, a cat in Iowa has been diagnosed with what is believed to be the first case of swine flu in a feline. Chilling stuff from the CDC:

"We've known certainly it's possible this could happen," said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner. "This may be the first instance where we have documentation that transmission occurred involving cats or dogs."

(emphasis added)

Wait, what? WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THIS??? I've been going around licking door handles and groping strangers, because you know I love to follow the trends and would (cue Rachel Zoe voice) LITERALLY DIE for a "Swine '09" tshirt.

Between this apparent risk to my beloved furbags, as well as a rather mediocre novel I just finished about an outbreak of "Phoenix Flu" that wipes out the basic infrastructure of North America, I'm thinking maybe I should get this H1N1 vaccine. Apparently it's not a shot, but something you snort. So '80's glam! I'll show up to the clinic in a glittery night club frock, crimped hair and purple mascara.

(via)

Because eating your friends is the hardest

2009-11-03T20:32:00.000-05:00

Of all the ways to tell if your loved ones plan to eat you, this one is my favorite:

You talk good for a furriner

2009-11-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

As the inimitable Margaret Cho says in the clip below, Sometimes, in gets racial.

Suffice it to say that, as a Middle Eastern woman growing up in an area with a large Hispanic population, I've fielded queries that range from the inane (Yes, I do ride my camel to school! Didn't you see him parked by the basketball court?) to the offensive ("No, Dad doesn't have four wives, he says one is a big enough pain in the ass as it is") to the ubiquitous question about my English language skills ("Nope, don't speak a word. I'm doing my PhD work in lit mostly through miming and lucky guesses").

The assumption with that last point being that:

any non-white person = a furriner

all furriners = Mexicans, because those are all the ones that the teevee tells us are stealing all our jobs (never mind that, in Northern Virginia, most of the Hispanic population is from El Salvador and Guatemala. In Boston, the South American population is largely Brazilian. But hey, all look same!)

"Mexicans" = those people don't speak English

Not speaking English = inferior intellect (Jesus can't these people LEARN OUR OFFICAL LANGUAGE?!)

Ergo, non-white = inferior intellect.

So yeah, it gets racial.

I can't claim to have suffered the brutal, systemic racism inflicted on people of color in this country (need an example? Look up the stats on life on a reservation). At the risk of sounding like a douchebaguette, I grew up with a certain amount of privilege (boarding school, ponies, trips to Europe), have degrees from what I am informed are "top schools," and work a white-collar job at a faceless corporate monolith. I apparently don't "look Arab," whatever the fuck that means, so I'm not the most obvious target for racist attacks.

Still, my mother's home phone has been tapped since 9/11 (at this point I can only feel sorry for the CIA flunkie who has to go through tapes and tapes of my mother and I talking about how long my hair should be and what the cats did). I've been relegated to that line at Customs more than a few times. I had a landlord who tried to charge me extra rent because my mother stayed at my apartment for a week's visit. "I know you people have whole families in a one-bedroom apartment," he sneered. Never mind that I couldn't fit all my shoes in the sedan-sized flat, let alone a family. Coworkers want to know why I don't wear the hijab. (Because I'm not Muslim?) I once had to spend a significant amount of time explaining to someone that I couldn't translate a document because it was in Farsi, not Arabic. Yes, they're two different languages.

A few years ago, I was at my mother's house for the weekend, and a neighbor came to the door. He wanted to invite my mother to a barbecue his family was throwing in their backyard. "Bring something with you," he said. "Some ethnic dish."

I said, "My mom makes a wicked tasty apple pie."

Which she does. It's as good as her hummus, though I don't recommend eating the two together.

(video via)

Rhetorical question from the Tarjay clearance bin

2009-10-28T20:48:00.001-04:00

It's like telling a kid there's no Santa Claus

2009-10-27T21:15:00.000-04:00

(via)

The story of my life

2009-10-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

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And just because no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist

2009-10-25T21:03:00.000-04:00

Also also, while we're on the recession/hipsters topic: having ProTools and large headphones does not make you a musician. Writing poetry in your house about your ex-girlfriend does not make you a poet. If your novel is unpublished, you are not a novelist. If, however, you wait tables in a cafe, you are definitively a waiter. There is no shame in admitting this, especially if you're also going to trumpet your broke-ness on a T-shirt. Thanks.

-Ephraim Gadsby on Gawker.com

Feminists and vegetarians

2009-10-22T22:21:00.000-04:00

I love this woman. If you've never heard of Nellie McKay, you need to check out her super shrewd music ASAP.

Hey, that's no martini

2009-10-20T21:11:00.000-04:00

A martini has gin, vermouth and and olive. Anything else may be a damn tasty adult beverage, but it is not a martini. And no, you can't replace the gin with, uh, McNuggets:

Since I'm a vegetarian, you'd think it would be the McNuggets I find revolting. Not so, not so. Those things are delish, especially with the BBQ sauce. Oh man, I miss McNuggets. And KFC.

No, the worst part of this concoction is by far the vanilla vodka. That stuff is nasty. I had a rough run-in with an inadvisable amount of Vanilla Stoli a few years ago, and since then I haven't been able to look at a bottle of the stuff without begging for mommy.

(Via)

Your Monday lolz

2009-10-19T20:15:00.000-04:00

courtesy of Garfunkel & Oates:

Literary things

2009-10-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

Being the pretentious book nerd that I am, I love a good literary allusion. My cats have literary names -- Eloise and Cordelia. If I have children, I plan to name them Neville and Ennui. And though I am not likely to ever get a tattoo, if I were, I'm certain that a choice line from Marlowe or a John Tenniel illustration from Alice in Wonderland would be strong contenders.

The folks at the Bookworms with Ink blog share my affinity for holding Ulysses close to your heart (or, er, crotch). And while many of these quotes have lost most of their meaning due to over-exposure, I'd still rather someone painted themselves with lines from Yeats, as opposed to, say, the image of a tacky reality-tv star.

These Catcher in the Rye tats are pretty cool. (Yeah, I know, I know, but come on...at some point in all our lives, Holden C. was boss. Anyway, it beats a Dan Brown tattoo.) And I love the Leonard Cohen quote in this one, although the music notes are pretty cheesy.

They don't call in the Prison INDUSTRIAL Complex for nothing

2009-10-18T18:21:00.000-04:00

"The United States puts a higher percentage of its citizens behind bars than does any other country in the world; it also incarcerates a larger absolute number—2.3 million in 2008. Most of these inmates languish in jail because of harsh sentencing laws and drug-related arrests. By 1997, county, state, and federal prisons had become the third-largest employer in the country."

--Kim Phillips-Fein in her review of Loic Wacquant's Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity

That's what she said

2009-10-18T15:57:00.000-04:00

"...[N]either marriage nor children make women happy. (The results are not in yet on nipple piercing.) Nor, for that matter, does there seem to be any problem with "too many choices," "work-life balance," or the "second shift." If you believe Stevenson and Wolfers, women's happiness is supremely indifferent to the actual conditions of their lives, including poverty and racial discrimination. Whatever "happiness" is...
So why all the sudden fuss about the Wharton study, which first leaked out two years ago anyway? Mostly because it's become a launching pad for a new book by the prolific management consultant Marcus Buckingham, best known for First, Break All the Rules and Now, Find Your Strengths. His new book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, is a cookie-cutter classic of the positive-thinking self-help genre: First, the heart-wrenching quotes from unhappy women identified only by their email names (Countess1, Luveyduvy, etc.), then the stories of "successful" women, followed by the obligatory self-administered test to discover "the role you were bound to play" (Creator, Caretaker, Influencer, etc.), all bookended with an ad for the many related products you can buy, including a "video introduction" from Buckingham, a "participant's guide" containing "exercises" to get you to happiness, and a handsome set of "Eight Strong Life Plans" to pick from. The Huffington Post has given Buckingham a column in which to continue his marketing campaign.
It's an old story: If you want to sell something, first find the terrible affliction that it cures."

--Barbara Ehrenreich, whose latest book Bright-Sided investigates the pitfalls of "positive thinking."

(via)

I saw the best toys of my generation destroyed

2009-10-18T13:32:00.000-04:00

by corporate greed, hypersexualizing the young 'uns, false plasticine ideals of beauty, goodness, truth...

Last year they ravaged Strawberry Shortcake, who's been upgraded from bloomer-clad apple-cheeked cutie to Carrie Bradshaw's younger sister.

Now it's time for Rainbow Brite to lose the chub, grow several inches and become Bratz-ified. Check it out:

BEFORE

AFTER:

WHAT KIND OF FUCKERY IS THIS?! This one really hits close to home because Rainbow Brite was my absolute favorite as a kid (sorry, Barbie, but you lost your shoes all the time and it drove me nuts). One of my earliest memories is getting a Shy Violet doll for my sixth birthday (early feminist sympathies meant she was my favorite -- she wore glasses and was wicked smart and could fix stuff!).

I can't wait until Hello Kitty gets "updated" with a big rack and Manolos. Maybe Sanrio will finally give her a mouth, albeit one collagened and slathered in gloss.

(via)

Someday, everything's gonna be smooth as a rhapsody

2009-10-12T21:37:00.001-04:00

when I write a real blog post full of original thinky thoughts.

In the meantime, here is yet another metaphor of the toilsome, futile turmoil of my daily existence, as expressed through someone else's talent:

Tom Fun Orchestra-Bottom of the River from trunk animation on Vimeo.

(via)

You've been warned

2009-10-10T16:53:00.000-04:00

Damn Yankees

2009-10-08T00:15:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I shared some photos of a certain American city with a pen-friend from a certain other country. My friend enjoyed the photos and remarked that the city is beautiful. He's right, but this city continues to have terrible problems, some of which have been portrayed in a certain American television show. Because this is 'Murrica and this is how we do it. Using my devastating--and I do mean devastating--language skills, I explained this, and suggested that my pen-friend watch the show for an idea of the troubles the city and many of its people face. It should be seen. And because, ya know, it's a show that I like and appreciate.

I waffled a bit, hit "send" after all, and regretted this in the next moment, because WAIT OH MY GOD THIS SHOW CONTAINS SO MUCH SWEARING I'M SORRYYYY NOOOOO. To the point that it surprises even my foul-mouthed self. Not just a four letter word in every other scene, but whole scenes in which the dialogue is constructed around and consists only of a particular nasty word and its many variants, suggestions regarding what a character might do with another character's two middle fingers, etc.

[NSFW, depending on your office culture wait this is America and swearing is WHAT WE DO DAMN IT I'm reporting your boss]

To paraphrase my pen-friend's response: "The show was interesting and seemed to be true to life. Were those subtitles ACCURATE!?!?"

I have yet to write back. Because I will have to say, "No. No they were not. Those subtitles were bland."

So how much of my worrying is due to that fickle, two-faced American moralism raising its face in shame? I can't tell. I have no perspective on this matter, or I haven't had until now. I'm aware that swearing (and, worse, baseball metaphors) are a somewhat accepted part of how we speak here, or at and that people in other nations speaking other languages don't spit out obscenities as thoughtlessly as we do, at least not in public. I'm tempted to argue that there are layers of reasons for swearing in English, beyond an initial outburst of anger or the compulsion to use "motherfucking" as a definite article. I'm tempted to say that we get creative; that an English language insult is a traditional art of many forms; that a nasty word can just as easily be used as a term of endearment and signifier of social inclusion, or reclaimed as an instrument for gaining visibility and polticial power; that swearing is part of our kind of cynicism and our humor; that we don't swear that much, really. Or maybe I'm just really sensitive about being seen as a crass Yank, and I need to stop trying to explain these things even if I could.

In any case, I'm a lot less quick to open my mouth lately. You should have met my grandmother. (But I mean, come on, I'm so serious, if you didn't laugh at the dialogue or whatever in that clip, you're not a Real American.)

In yer soshul media, bein a gooroo

2009-10-06T13:11:00.000-04:00

Yeah, pretty much:

Slightly NSFW for language
(via)

And we sang every song that driver knew

2009-10-05T21:53:00.000-04:00

My taste in music hasn't changed significantly since I first started cultivating a collection of folksy-maudlin-poetish-heroin addicted jingle janglings all doused in whiskey, irreverence and ennui in high school. Dylan. Cohen. Cake. The Doors. Phil Ochs. The Velvet Underground (the LP with the famous Andy Warhol cover was one of my most prized posessions). And Janis Joplin. Ah, Janis.

The poster girl for us unpretty, disnenfrachised girls who burned candles and wore chunky silver rings on every finger and read Plath and couldn't figure out what the hell Mariah Carey was moaning about. Yeah, those girls. (And if you're reading this and saying, "Ugh, those girls," I say, FUCK YOU. Those girls are awesome.) If Janis could get out of the shithole that was Port Arthur, Texas and make it to Californ-i-a, then we too could jettison our mall-stippled suburbs and just go, man. Summers meant driving with the windows down, blazed to high heaven and slugging Slurpees while Janis played and if we drove far enough we'd hit open road flanked by fields of horses. The melancholy undercurrents of Janis singing, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" would only occur to me years later.

Well, I've left the mall-stippled suburb for a more liberal city, but I'm still trapped in the cube farm, where my creative output is limited to lolcats and composing emails where really bad news is presented as only sort of bad news. I am lucky in many ways, but it is not a life of freedom, of the open road. The roads I drive are pockmarked with potholes, twisty veins through an unorganized city where herds of overprivileged children of marginal intelligence rule. I think not of my next adventure, but where the hell I'm going to park and if I have quarters for the meter.

Anyway, all this is somewhat apropos because a) I've been generally going through a nostalgic phase where I've been flagellating myself over how much I've failed the angry boot-stomping poet I was at 15 and b) Janis's CD has been playing in my car pretty much non-stop. So.

I came across this video on YouTube.

I can't tell if it's an advertisement for Solo Mercedes (the website is defunct) or a Mercedes enthusiast's tribute video. The "remix" of "Mercedes Benz" is inexcusably awful. I was ready to dismiss this as yet another grotesque but straightforward appropriation of '60's counterculture, when I noticed the clip of Arab men flipping through piles of money. Other intermitten clips include a government (?) meeting of some sort spotlighting a suited man signing a document, brief images of the poverty-stricken parts of the third world (an outstretched hand, closeup of a child's grief-stricken face) intercut with images of the figureheads of white patriarchal power.

The video becomes more pointedly political, drawing on images of military power (tanks, etc.), UN meetings (with, importantly, a Middle Eastern delegate gesticulating), beauty pageants, demonstrations, poverty and strife. Through all this, a retro-chic posh couple is driving a 70's era (as far as I can tell) Mercedes through winding roads, all smiles and holding hands and other staples of your average car commercial.

Really quite intrigued by this piece. If it's a Mercedes ad, it's certainly bringing up a lot of stuff you generally don't want the consumer to think about: blood oil, Middle Eastern dictatorships supported by our dependence on oil, the blight of brainless consumerism, neo-imperialism and its discontents, the increased corporatization of our governments. The video itself is a compelling interpretation of Joplin's song (despite the unfortunate techno-ization of the track) and its potent anti-materialist message. I suppose this could be the world's most ironic car ad. And I hear that irony is all the rage with the damn kids these days.

Seriously, what he said

2009-10-05T15:55:00.000-04:00

"Does anyone your age know how to comb their fucking hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their head and started fucking."

shitmydadsays on twitter

Aw hell no! Steve Irwin never had to put up with this shit!

2009-10-04T22:42:00.000-04:00

One wonders if the rarity of this parrot is related to its unorthodox sexual preferences.

Also, this is quite possibly one of Stephen Fry's finest performances.

(via)

That's what she (played by Owen Wilson) said

2009-10-04T17:11:00.000-04:00

"Maybe Wes Anderson signed in an ironic, slow-mo, '60s music way."

lafleur, commenter at Jezebel, responding to this (apparently frequently misunderstood) piece reflecting on how to respond to Polanski apologists and their works.

I want to see the "Black Hole Sun" version of this

2009-10-04T12:44:00.000-04:00

In case you've been wondering

2009-10-04T11:43:00.000-04:00

what would make a perfect gift for yours truly, look no further than Regretsy. While some of the readers at Jezebel find the site mean-spirited, I think it's a rather amusing celebration of the possibilities of "gloriously ugly."

I've been a big fan of the gloriously ugly since high school, when I wore ill-fitting argyle sweaters from Pringle's, floor-length skirts and a faux-fur coat salvaged from the clearance bin at Marks and Sparks, much to the bemusement of my classmates and boarding-school minders. (Incidentally, some of my greatest gloriously ugly finds were from the U.K., including a deliciously atrocious pink-paisley halter-style dress that I picked up for a mere quid at a shop that was going out of business in Edinburgh.)

And since I'm still 12 years old in spirit (and maturity), I would totally set out this lovely pillow right before my mother came up for a visit:

My cubicle at work is missing this:

This is what a feminist's kitschy sensibilities look like!

Now this makes me wish I were still in grad skool so I could work it into a seminar paper:

Because what epitomizes the modern condition more accurately than a kitten/amputee hybrid? That retails for $99K??

Hello Frankenstein

2009-10-02T11:46:00.000-04:00

(via)

Ancients

2009-10-01T21:43:00.000-04:00

Look at Rachel Sussman's set of photos of some of the most ancient living things in the world.

As I wrote to the Allied Source who shared the link with me: so often we hear only of things that are both ancient and physically impressive or imposing, or beautiful, or a man-made monument. These organisms are remarkable simply for their age and continued vitality. They are sometimes beautiful or physically impressive (beyond being ancient)--but that's not the point, and they don't have to be.

From io9 via that Allied Source.

Как он говорил!

2009-10-01T21:34:00.000-04:00

"This has become Beck's latest anti-Obama crusade, that these czars, with their unchecked, unaccountable, nearly unlimited power, represent a threat to the life and liberty of every American. Though no actual Cossacks have been seen pillaging heartland towns, we should be vigilant."

Shrewd sarcasm from Paul Waldman at The American Prospect

My life according to lol

2009-10-01T15:40:00.001-04:00

Pretty much.

Stranger on a Train

2009-09-30T22:14:00.000-04:00

Here's a wonderful short film from our friends in Canada (America's hat!) titled Madame Tutli-Putli:

It's part Amelie, part Nightmare Before Christmas as imagined by David Lynch -- which is not to say this Cannes Film Festival winner is derivative.

(via Kate Beaton's twitter. Beaton draws very shrewd cartoons that you should totally check out)

That's what she said

2009-09-30T21:46:00.000-04:00

Bitch has a great post on their blog about the Showtime program Dexter. The succinct comments on Debra Morgan put my own scattered thoughts to shame:

Even more puzzling is this is a camp show, a morbid show, a vigilante show that has... some great female characters. In particular I'm obviously thinking of Jennifer Carpenter's Debra Morgan, who is a goofball tomboy the likes of which you won't see anywhere else on television these days. Carpenter's female-jock speech patterns annoy some of my friends, but it's been a long time since I've seen someone inhabit a role as physically, totally, as she does.

The season premiere of Season 4 can be viewed online here (NSFW).

Mid-week LOL

2009-09-30T20:03:00.000-04:00

The Telegraph UK has a great collection of toilet signs from around the world. A few of my favorites:

Because no one's reaching down there to get you out, ok?

We know you're loaded. No need to show off by wiping your ass with money.

And this one's my favorite: they make you earn that trip to the loo by performing for the local pervs! Charming.

He said something, then she said

2009-09-30T16:18:00.000-04:00

"If Only There Were A Public Option...For Killer Stand-Up!"

Juli Weiner at Wonkette

You'll need a Venti

2009-09-30T14:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my ~~comrade~~ colleague wrote this excellent post about how fat, lazy, self-destructing Americans deserve everything they get, and should be belittled as often as possible.

Oh wait. She was actually really pissed off. And so I started swearing a lot in response.

Yeah, you know what? AMERICANS NEED TO FUCKING WORK MORE. We don't work enough. And when we take time off, we're not spending enough of that off time thinking of working. Anyone who doesn't have a BlackBerry or an iPhone so that her boss can email her at 9:45 p.m. is a Red Communist. This goes double for those weak bitches who get off work and then complain about having to start making dinner at 8.

What is it about this culture that it hates itself so much while remaining unaware of how much it hates itself (deliberately or otherwise, while transforming that hate into false patriotism on one end or pointless moving-to-Canadaism on the other)? When we waste so much time hating ourselves for things like being fat, perhaps we begin to think that we might not actually deserve public health care. Hey, we don't take care of ourselves anyway! Or any of those other whipped-cream-and-sprinkles-please "rights" we have. Who needs those?

Why can't we stop beating up ourselves and each other over this sort of thing and, I don't know, start beating ourselves up for tolerating leaders who enjoy invading a country or two here and there? Or we could ridicule into submission the racist, ignorant dbags who can't be fucked to learn what socialism and/or communism and/or fascism really is. Or we could at least, you know, hate on Tucker Max a lot more than we have been doing.

(Originally posted)

Yahoo fail

2009-09-29T21:18:00.000-04:00

The top story on Yahoo.com as of this post is a feature on French women's secret to staying slim (and no, these do not involve ciggie-and-wine diets). Apparently the French ladies have a smaller waist-line than their American counterparts.

You know what else the French have? ACCESS TO PUBLIC HEALTHCARE!! Not that the nimrods at Yahoo think this is relevant, since the story of the Senate panel's rejection of the public healthcare option is tucked somewhere in the bottom quarter of the rather disorienting homepage.

But really, why would anyone need free or inexpensive, government-sponsored healthcare? If you eat healthy, excercise (like the French!) and work hard, you'll never get sick (or, heaven forbid, FAT!) or lose your employer-sponsored insurance. Should you find yourself sick and then broke from getting sick, you have no one else to blame but yourself.

Yes, many of us eat poorly, and some of us don't exercise as often as we should. (And some of us are organic-veggie-loving vegetarians who happen to be built like trucks, but that's another post for another day.) To blame this entirely on lack of self-will -- and not, say, the high cost and/or paucity of fresh, healthy foods and exercise options for people who work 18 hours a day -- is lazy analysis. For a population so enamored with free speech, we are bafflingly (fuck you, Firefox, that IS a word) reluctant to blame anyone -- not our government, not our corporations -- but each other.

At least Granny and Pop pop can rest easy that the Youth in Asia won't be killing them. Yet.

From the "wish I'd thought of that" files

2009-09-29T19:56:00.000-04:00

Ah, the book industry. That gracelessly dying animal, leaving a trail strewn with folly.

Sure, that's harsh. Some books rock my world; other books pay my mortgage. And some books, as the folks at Bookfail.com will show you, just fail in spectacular sunbursts of mediocrity and bad ideas.

I ask you, do we need a Bro-cabulary: The New Man-i-festo of Dude Talk? Hasn't the walking cliche that is Tucker Max done enough damage with his ridiculous book and even more ridiculous movie, which is, unfortunately, not called "I Hope They Serve Rose in Fire Island"? There are a few of these interchangeable "I am penis, hear me roar!" tomes, but this particular title even has a promo video. According to the YouTube clip, it's all about the guy-namics amongst guy-amese twins. And now that I've heard that, I can die happy.

(Although this Pornogami book is one of those so-failed-it's-gone-back-to-win. If your sense of humor has been so deadened by cubicle life that the thought of making a hooha out of post-it notes is hilarious. Which mine has been, and it is!)

And, um, somewhat apropos:

My mom claims that they used to eat sheep testicles for breakfast growing up. So I guess I come from a long line of castrating bitches. Ba-da-bing!

And speaking of bitches:

Yes, but what I really want is a cape made of hair from a goat I fucking loathe. Hope there's a sequel in the works!

And here's the perfect book for when Fido's shed his last sweater:

I imagine this title is very popular amongst the teenage vampire wannabes whose parents won't shell out the bucks for the classy Costco pine boxes.

(via)

That's What She Said

2009-09-29T16:45:00.000-04:00

"Remember, kids: Kanye West interrupting at the VMAs? Hue and Cry! Raping a child? Eh, he's suffered enough!"

M. LeBlanc (via)

And another one

2009-09-28T12:07:00.001-04:00

This beautifully melancholy, enchanting video is from the show Ukraine's Got Talent:

Your Sunday afternoon entertainment

2009-09-27T13:54:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of this really cool stop-animation video:

I <3 the LOC

2009-09-24T13:16:00.000-04:00

There are thousands of photos uploaded at the Library of Congress flickr stream. My favorite set by far is this collection of over 1500 color photos from the 1930s and '40s. It's clear that seeing the Depression in color directly changes conceptions of that period for those who did not experience it except through images. Remembering that these photos were contemporary with the black and white photos with which we're more familiar helps us experience the latter more immediately as well.

Two highlights:

And, as always, I remind you to spend hours looking at the LOC's collection of WPA posters.

Goddamn youths! Get off my lawn!

2009-09-23T16:48:00.000-04:00

Those immigrants and their tasty cuisine will totally kill your nana with diabetes, heart disease and whatnot.

Wait, what?

(via)

And now you know

2009-09-22T21:59:00.001-04:00

(click for bigger view)

P. 23 of the training manual your boss received on the Souls Crushing Inc. corporate retreat.

/actually, it's your run o' the mill US Air Force propaganda circa 1952. Tomato, tomaaaato.

(via)

On some level they must all feel like this

2009-09-22T21:38:00.001-04:00

Cat post!

See, trawling the depths of Lamebook = Posts For the People!

Maybe we'll find someone who cares behind this gently lapping wave

2009-09-22T20:29:00.000-04:00

I meant to post earlier, but then I had to spend three hours looking at Lamebook. It was urgent.

Engagement photos aren't a new trend, but the way they're being produced these days is definitely novel. And disturbing. These people aren't self-aware enough to be pomo. They're just plain old self-regarding. Even better: I can't figure out whether the engagement photo genre is inherently not so friendly to the ladies, or whether the pictures just...turn out that way sometimes.

Please, everyone, if you must take that step, do it with more class! Call Leslie Hall!

(From the Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Twitter feed, via An Allied Source.)

I heard that you like websites

2009-09-21T12:41:00.001-04:00

This video clip wins on several grounds, not least of which is that it's on the interwebz AND is actually funny. Plus, haven't you ever wondered how the ridiculously handsome (though somewhat unfortunately named) Jon Hamm can stand to look at his ridiculously handsome mug every morning?

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

The sad thing is if you took away a) Don Draper and b) any semblance of humor, this would be a pretty accurate re-enactment of my last job interview.

Mandatory Cat Post, September 20, 2009

2009-09-20T15:51:00.000-04:00

My current theory is that, because we U.S. folks live in a culture fearful of even minor interpersonal conflict, one reason we love cats so much is because they fit the role of the Nemesis so many of us lack in life.

At least, that's the role my cat fits. It's like having a mini, non-awful Cold War in my own home. For an approximation of the full experience, click on the image to enlarge.

Hypothetically speaking

2009-09-20T13:33:00.000-04:00

If -- and that's a big if -- I were to get married, I always figured I'd go with an old-fashioned dirty weekend in Vegas. But now that the super shrewd Leslie Hall (of Gem Sweater and Leslie and the Ly's fame, amongst other things) is offering customized wedding packages, I may have to readjust the location of my hypothetical nuptials to Ames, Iowa. As long as I can walk down the aisle to this song:

(via)

I heart Yoko Ono

2009-09-19T13:45:00.001-04:00

"Imagine a dolphin dancing in the sky. Let it dance with joy. Think of yourself at the bottom of the ocean watching."

You should follow Yoko's Twitter feed. Her musings can be soothing as a single plum floating in perfume served in a man's hat.

Arrrrrrr mateys! Talk Like a Pirate Day it be!

2009-09-19T12:40:00.001-04:00

Friday Fierce!

2009-09-18T19:35:00.000-04:00

You know how we feel about gas mask chic...

(via)

This is a pretty apt metaphor for my life

2009-09-18T10:33:00.000-04:00

Required viewing

2009-09-17T21:04:00.000-04:00

(via)

These are the real issues, folks

2009-09-17T15:09:00.001-04:00

(via)

Dan Brown saves the publishing industry, YAY!

2009-09-17T14:44:00.001-04:00

Brown's latest door-stopper has sold 1 million copies in one day. Whoa! Imagine if you lined up all those bad boys for a game of dominoes. Seriously though, the Kreepy Kats totally called this one last year in their brilliant plan for saving the bookamajig industry.

Meanwhile, the kitty kats at Random House are celebrating with a Lost Symbol cake:
Luckily for us cake-lovers, Slate.com has devised a simple way to garner your own million-copy fame. Because it's time to expose the shenanigans of the U.S. Postal system.

(Via)

Mandatory Cat Post, September 17, 2009

2009-09-17T11:16:00.000-04:00

Today's Mandatory Cat Post is brought to you by the shrewd folks at AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. Follow them on Twitter!

I'm not sure of the kittens' role in the game. Are they weapons? Captured enemy spies? Innocent bystanders? Undercover G-men? Note that the kid holding the cats is wearing camo pants. Straight-leg camo pants. Pleated straight-leg camo pants. I don't want to know what happens next.

Happy hump day!

2009-09-16T20:55:00.001-04:00

The pugilist at Fashion Week

2009-09-16T20:02:00.000-04:00

The formerly (and gloriously) flaxen-haired Mickey Rourke has been making the rounds at Fashion Week; and while some question his presence, he is clearly the antidote to the vapid clusterfuck that is the fashion industry. Besides, have you seen his cheekbones? The man is quintessential sexy ugly.

Sure, I like the dudes rough around the edges, a little damaged, a little crazy. That's just me. And even the most cynical of us loves a good Hollywood comeback. Travolta in Pulp Fiction? Perfection. Rourke's comeback film, The Wrestler, features one of my favorite scenes in film history. I've rarely seen such brilliant pairing of film and music as when the past-his-prime wrestler bursts into the arena, his mustered bravado (it's pretty obvious at this point that this fight will kill him) synchronized to the twanging into of Guns'N'Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine."

Speaking of which, it's time for Axl to shimmy back into the spotlight. And not in some cheesy vh1 reality show way (though I am the first to admit that I would totally audition for Rose of Love). I mean, remember when MTV was about the videos? And the spandex-clad men wearing eyeliner and poodle perms? Bring it back, man.

(photo via)

Maybe those Borders kids were on to something

2009-09-16T12:58:00.000-04:00

Salon.com's Steve Almond argues that right-wing pundits create "texts [that] are not the psychotic, fact-challenged rants of the mad, but carefully crafted metafictions in which the mundane terrors of cultural dislocation are recast as riveting epics of paranoia." He continues:

As such, they fit into a long literary tradition, one that extends from the rhapsodic delusions of "Don Quixote" to the airborne toxic events of Don DeLillo, from the surreal prophecy of Revelation to the post-apocalyptic visions of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." Though written in different eras and wildly divergent styles, these works are all about the incursion of sinister forces on an unsuspecting populace.
Which brings us back to Beck and Co. Rather than accepting the standard narrative -- that a disillusioned electorate rejected eight years of conservative mismanagement in favor of a pragmatic (and frankly wonky) Democrat with an inspirational pedigree -- they have created a vivid "counternarrative" in which the events of November 2008 represent a coup d'état.

How very...postmodern! (Pomo?) In that vein, these scenes must be epically twisted acts of performance art.

Though I'm not sure Mr. Beck would care to be categorized with Don Quixote. He's some kind of Spanish, isn't he?

Office Spaces

2009-09-16T12:54:00.000-04:00

This short animated feature makes me glad that there's no communal music listening of my office. Just the endless blather about whose offspring did what super adorable diaper trick.

(via)

It works for some people

2009-09-15T13:59:00.000-04:00

Since I don't eat what most people know as "breakfast" myself, I live vicariously through those who do. So I like this series of photographs by John Huck.

Actually, I'm not so much living vicariously through many of Huck's subjects as I am uh. Right there with them. Grabbing a handful of jelly beans and two cups of coffee and then heading on out there to keep it together for the rest of the country. And then collapsing in a shaking fit of vexed tears by 3 o'clock.

Good morning cats, kittens, children of the revolution

2009-09-15T10:54:00.001-04:00

This morning's entertainment brought to you by the good folks at Urlesque:

I spent a big chunk of last weekend watching Season 3 of Dexter. I've been meaning to write something about Debra as a character, specifically in a feminist context. On the one hand, she's a woman in a male-dominated profession who takes no bullshit and tells it like it is. On the other hand, her actions are frequently orchestrated by brother Dex, in his continuing effort to cover his tracks.

On the third hand, Dexter is a serial killer, and isn't that what serial killers do?

I see Deb as a grittier Bridget Jones, but I hope the writers start to give her a bit of a clue.

This political commentary brought to you by the clever folks at Borders bookstore

2009-09-14T21:47:00.001-04:00

See what they did there? Though the placement is an offense to Jane Austen and zombies.

welcome to the occupation

2009-09-14T20:42:00.000-04:00

Let's start off with a pair of rather wonderful videos I recently came across:

More of artist Keith Newstead's nifty creations here.