Tongue-Typed
A troupe of actors who act out snippets of instant message conversations. They are looking for submissions.
Unlikely Playmates
That Junior Miss Spirit
Vapid Girls + Ridiculous 70s fashion= Pure Gold
Part One
Dazian Fabrics
I have been loving these people ever since I learned of them decades ago.
Seuss via Zimmerman
Okay, now this is just awesome.
(hat tip to ECRR)
Really?
“Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others,” he said.
Update: See also ECRR on the subject.
S.A.D.
If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.
If you don’t like the weatherman, wait five months.
Scott Walker’s The Drift
Cooper Renner, writing of his adventures in Atlanta at the AWP conference, notes his purchase of Scott Walker’s The Drift — “a very odd record on first listen,” he observes.
To cut to the chase: The Drift is terrifying. Scott Walker exaggerates his legendary baritone to the point of grotesqueness. He croaks and croons passionlessly, floating wraith-like around his shadowy compositions. The songs groan and swell and collapse and awful, nightmarish noises spiral up through the blackness. Guitars flex slow and icy like skeletal fingers; the thundering, urgent drumming sounds like someone trying frantically to kick their way out of a coffin. It’s a kind of orchestral Grand Guignol, a full-on waking nightmare.
And not only that, on the cut “Clara”, a percussionist wallops a side of pork to suggest the sound of abuse visited on the corpses of Mussolini and his mistress.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering: I recommend The Drift.
Stuck Squirrel
Daryl, are you and Deron responsible for this?
Chillin’ in Atlanta
Arrived here yesterday for the AWP writers’ conference. Went to the conference hotel this afternoon to get my registration packet and set up books on the Ravenna Press and elimae table.
Whole Lotta Shakin’
The Penthouse Executive Club about which Andrew just posted sounds swellegant but kinda lacking in the heart and soul department — unlike the now-defunct southern Illinois establishment known as The Chalet. Till a couple of years ago The Chalet sat just outside Murphysboro in a couple of low conjoined buildings that just hollered ‘roadhouse’ and featured, in addition to strip shows in the bar, country cookin’ in a family-restaurant atmosphere. What really distinguished The Chalet was its friendly, down-home feel and the easy come-and-go, so to speak, between the strip club and the restaurant. (Dallas Flockers: Imagine a sit-down-and-be-served Luby’s where once you’d mopped up the last puddle of chicken-fried steak gravy, you could wander over into the next room to watch girls get nekkid and shimmy. Or vice versa, I guess.)
NY Strip Steak
You can find bliss in the soulless cradle of a strip mall. Why not the topless clutch of a strip club? And so, early this month, I gathered three friends for an initial trip (dare I call it a maiden voyage?) to the Penthouse club — or, more specifically, to the restaurant, Robert’s Steakhouse, nestled inside it.
Link (thanks erin)
Philosophers Exposed
A Mint Reply
My friends R & T told me of a friend they had, a French woman who was for years a restorer of pre-Columbian pots; she worked for Neiman Marcus for years. She had a precocious little grandson whose parents were artists and art dealers. At just three years of age the boy was disconcertingly bright, having already learned how to raise an eyebrow at much that he encountered. Once, while walking with the boy, the grandmother found a shiny penny. She gave it to him and asked if he knew whose face was stamped on it. The child pondered the coin for a few moments, then looked up. “Schubert?” he offered.
Need an Enema?
Read about “The Clyster Craze” here.
Interchange Tiles
Stolen Picassos
Online Steroid Ring
“I understand that the involvement of athletes and celebrities makes this a sexy story, but I assure you we are not, at this point, we are not concerned with the celebrity factor,” Soares said. “Our focus here is to shut down distribution channels.”
From Sheila
Last year here on clusterflock I detailed some highlights of a trip to west Texas. Among the sights I failed to include was the fellow who, having parked on the shoulder of a two-lane highway for a pee stop, neglected to conceal himself even by such a simple expedient as using an open car door as a screen. But what was really striking was that as he let fly, sunlight caught the arc of urine and transformed it into a rainbow.
I’m not sure you could have achieved this effect with Alabama sunlight, though.
The Prophet of Garbage
Joseph Longo’s Plasma Converter turns our most vile and toxic trash into clean energy—and promises to make a relic of the landfill. Startech’s trash converter uses superheated plasma to reduce garbage to its molecuar components.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan - after Faruk’s post
Curved street in winter, Istanbul, 2004, copyright Nuri Bilge Ceylan
A selection of Ceylan’s photographs are being exhibited in London to coincide
with the UK release of Climates. The exhibition is up until Saturday 3rd March 2007
at the National Theatre of London in the South Bank.
Beautiful photographs of an amazing country. This one for some strange reason reminds me of the painter L.S. Lowry
Thanks Faruk for the original post
The burning issue
After centuries of forbidding the cremation of its followers, the GreekOrthodox Church may be softening its stance
“And there is another problem in this country. For the burial service [nekrosimi liturgy] to be carried out, there needs to be a burial permit from the municipality. And that permit has to have written on it ‘permission to bury’. That would need to be changed to ‘permission to cremate’. These are among the considerations that will be discussed.”
Scarcross
Ein film von Manuel Schiner
Anyone know German?
Bierkatapult
spray more, get fucked you asshole
Firstly, I hate it because it made me do something I swore years ago I would never do. It came on the television at the Saloon and I said to a coworker, “You know, I really hate that commercial. I’ve been meaning to blog about it.” That’s right, I used the word *blog* in actual conversation. Dear. God. I am a giant nerd, and I know this, but seriously. Using *blog* in serious conversation? That shit’s only for hipsters, and there’s nothing more irritating than hipsters. Excuse me while I hide my shame.