dear clusterflock
finish this sentence:
I like my ___ like I like my men/women, _________.
lip synch
If a video of Amy singing Beyonce’s Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) with her lady parts is too pornographic for clusterflock, then the terrorists have won.
toothy seabird fossil
exploring logo design with Mathematica
Chris Carlson uses Mathematica to analyze logo design, in this case the Mercedes star.
I was surprised that such a variety of designs would arise from a straightforward parameterization of this simple logo. But that’s often the case. This tiny corner of the design universe contains an infinity within itself. It’s like exploring a drop of pond water with a microscope. The universe within is dazzling.
(via kottke)
Reagraham Lincool
unnamed series
What’s your favorite
anti-war song? I think I’ll go with Edwin Starr’s “War.”
Balls, picnics and parties!
Like Rick, Lucy’s recent comment sent me scurrying to Google for enlightenment.
balls. … 3. Short for balls-up, q.v., esp. as in, e.g., “Well, they’ve made a right balls of it this time” …
balls-up, v. To make a mess or a blunder of; to confuse inexplicably; misunderstand wholly; do altogether wrongly …
(A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, via Google Book Search.)
The thing I’ve found about myself and dictionaries, though, is an inability to find satisfaction reading just one entry. Ahem.
Self-Portrait as Fifteen-Year-Old Stoner Boy
A friend characterized this as “scarily authentic”, albeit he suspected completely accidental, so what else to do but post it here?
NOON 10th Anniversary Edition
The 10th anniversary edition of NOON is due out soon with three short fictions by yours truly.
Noon
READING & PARTY
friday, april 17th at 7PM
REBECCA CURTIS
CLANCY MARTIN
CHRISTINE SCHUTT
The Mercantile Library
17 East 47th Street
created for a bookstore’s fifth birthday
Crony capitalism
Why the student loan industry is so against President Obama’s Access and Completion Incentive Fund:
In other words, we now have a system that works like this: The federal government hands for-profit lenders some money. The lenders put some of that money in their pocket and hand the rest to students in the form of loans. If the students don’t pay it back, the federal government hands the for-profit lenders some more money to cover the loss. If the students do pay it back, the for-profit lenders put some more of that money in their pocket and hand the rest to the federal government. Rinse, repeat. It’s nice work if you can get it.
My Own Personal Jesus
Auburn locks and a heart fenced in by barbed wire. O! dear clusterflock! that’s what melts me down.
Five years ago today . . .
. . . sometime ‘flocker John Buass “took a break from folding laundry and decided, more or less on a whim, that it might be fun to start a blog.”
Blog Meridian is still going, despite an extended absence that is likely to continue for a time, but it is going, and it remains a source of delight and enlightenment. Go take a look if it’s been a while — or if it’s new to you.
While walking Scruffy this evening, I thought about what I might post on by way of looking back over the past five years–Things Accomplished, Lessons Learned, etc. Whatever work this blog represents for me has been in me. It has made me think harder about things that matter to me and has, in some cases, led me to a strengthening of my convictions–I still might be wrong about them, but I like to think I’m more skilled now in expressing my wrongheadedness–and has led to a reassessment of some others. It’s also made me more attentive as I go about my business or read or listen to music or watch films or look at pictures: I’m no longer thinking solely about what I think about these things but about how best to talk about what I think about them. That’s because keeping this blog compels me to think about audience in ways the usual diary or journal would not.
Whatever merits this blog has, therefore, is due in large measure to the fact that people visit it. But more to the point, those of you who visit regularly and make your presence known via comments keep me honest: you are smart, thoughtful people. I don’t want to look dumb or foolish in front of you on too regular a basis if I can help it.
Thanks for helping keep this blog going for as long as it has.
dear clusterflock
p’raps this has already been covered, but what little bit of sexiness in a person absolutely melts you down?
NATO Master Narrative Document
Wikileaks is still doing the thing:
Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled “NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative”, details the “story” NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists.The encrypted document, which is dated October 6, and believed to be current, can be found on the Pentagon Central Command website “oneteam.centcom.mil”
The Pentagon site, apparently, is down now, but the document (.pdf) has been floating around the web.
atlas huh?
Sales of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged have tripled from this time last year:
“Americans are flocking to buy and read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day” said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Americans are rightfully concerned about the economic crisis and government’s increasing intervention and attempts to control the economy. Ayn Rand understood and identified the deeper causes of the crisis we’re facing, and she offered, in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ a principled and practical solution consistent with American values.”
I guess the pool of people I would potentially date has significantly declined.
(via marginal revolution)
Joe the Middle School Teacher
As long as they put a microphone in front of him:
What he really wants to do, though, is teach. Middle-school history, in particular. “I love history, all kinds of history, world history,” he says. Somehow, he wanders to the subject of slavery. “Don’t get me wrong, slavery was a terrible, horrible thing. But you can’t whine and cry about it these days. I mean, Jews were slaves, but they’re not asking for compensation from Egypt. People want to play the victim. …” He trails off. “I should stop.”
not the onion
Michael Steele, head of the RNC: Tonight, we tell America: we know the past, we know we did wrong. My bad.
Michele Bachmann, Republican Representative of Minnesota’s 6th congressional district who thought Anti-American members of congress should be outed by journalists: Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man.
coke or pepsi
Granted, it’s probably been twenty years since I drank a full glass of either of them, but is there anyone here who prefers Pepsi?
punchline from a political cartoon from the late 80s
When I think of you, my Dick Gephardt.
James Spader, Dater
It must be hard for James Spader to date, because
1. he would likely date women familiar with his oeuvre;
2. a woman familiar with his oeuvre would bring certain expectations;
3. sometimes he must feel pressured to go through the motions and sexually humiliate his date, when all he really wants is to watch his “Mad Men” DVDs and not have to plumb the depths of someone’s psyche.
(via)
Ubi sunt
(Via Urban Angle’s Flickr photostream)
Ubi sunt (literally “where are…”) is a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning “Where are those who were before us?” …
A general feeling of ubi sunt radiates from the text of Beowulf. The Anglo-Saxons, at the point in their cultural evolution in which Beowulf was written, experienced an inescapable feeling of doom, symptomatic of ubi sunt yearning. By conquering the Romanized Britons, they were faced with massive stone works and elaborate Celtic designs that seemed to come from a lost era of glory (called the “work of giants” in Seafarer).
(Via Wikipedia)
I spent the afternoon walking the halls of the New York Public Library. I find it overwhelmingly beautiful, but also heartbreaking. Like some great stuffed beast in a museum, no more of its kind will be born into this world.
I could say the same for much of New York; indeed, the city itself. Who were these men who could conjur up such visions and realize them in stone and steel? In the library, the Chrysler Building, Grand Central–I see the human spirit writ large. Glass boxes now tower above them, yet seem lost in their shadow.
More Shrines
Dickeyville Grotto. Dickeyville, Wisconsin. February 2009.
& Gift Shop in Back.
Dear Clusterflock: What’s the best sandwich you ever had?
Ok, so I would do almost anything if I could have this delicious Italian cold-cut hero sandwich to enter my pie hole right now. Unfortunately it lives in NYC, and me in Dallas, so it will remain a long distance love affair for the time being.
So people, if sandwich is one of your favorite food groups like it is mine, tell me what the best sandwich was that you ever had. I’m in need of some food porn right now.