From the vomitorium | for Jonathan
Larry, Darryl, and Darryl, perhaps?
This image is literally from the decorations at a Roman Vomitorium, and is not intended to infer anything about Jonathan’s private parts. Thank you.
How an Intern Stole NASA’s Moon Rocks
I just wish I was that crazy when I was a kid:
Building 31 North’s white halls are empty, because it is the middle of the night. NASA interns Thad Roberts and Tiffany duck inside a bathroom, and tear off their clothing. Then they change into the contents of their duffel bags—2mm thick neoprene bodysuits. Like in a bad movie, the suits will help Thad and Tiffany avoid heat sensors armed to feel out threatening climate changes inside a vault. The adrenaline, their attraction, the smell of rubber suits and the fear of failure is almost overwhelming. After pulling on the thermally shielded gear, Tiffany and Thad step back into the corridor, moving toward the turnstile lock that guards their target: NASA’s prized stash of moon rocks.
Ben Folds Five – Philosophy
Pompeii tchochke | For Cindy, obviously
Windchimes!
dear clusterflock
At Rick Neece’s behest (though, I obviously should’ve thought of this myself), we’ve got business to attend to:
What should Phil Bebbington’s one-eyed wonder worm be called? We need good names here, people. And, in case it makes a difference name-wise, said member is fully intact.
Some people are just filthy, I don’t care if it was two thousand years ago
Detail: socks.
She shore is purdy for one o’ them heermaphrodites.
Tasteful lighting of course helps with most of these sorts of ambiguities.
Sleeping Hermaphroditus, a Roman, second-century copy of the original Greek statue, cast in Greek marble.
dear clusterflock
Are there songs with parts you find sublime but as a whole you find annoying?
Chris Bliss Juggling Routine
It’s sort of the interpretive dance video of juggling videos.
(thanks, Mike)
A frank statement of his feelings | for the goatlovers in the flock
And we know there are many. Don’t be shy, now. Your feelings have roots! This is Pan. He has been doing this for a Long Time Now. A Roman statue from the 2nd century (AD).
Garfunkel’s reading list.
Art Garfunkel kept a list of every book he has read in the last forty years (via):
Since the 1960′s, Art Garfunkel has been a voracious reader. We are pleased to present a listing of every book Art has read over the last 40 years. To view a list of Art Garfunkel’s favorite books, go to Favorites. This book list has been divided into several pages to allow easy downloading. Each page indicates the author, title, date of publication and number of pages (when available).
His favorites extend far and wide, ranging from Herodutus’ The Histories to Bukowski’s Post Office.
five dollar footlong
This was the image I was going to add to the The Venus of Hohle Fels post I was scheming last night.
a classic text-book macroeconomic problem
The price of prostitution in Latvia:
Anyway the problem is that most industries have contractual arrangements which fix prices. Wages are very hard to flex downwards. Rents are fixed over sustained periods and the like. All of this means that people go bust rather than reduce prices – simply because prices are sticky.
Well – most prices. The contractual terms of prostitution are short (an hour, a night) and entry to the industry is unconstrained. That means that the prices are very flexible. Extraordinarily flexible.
The price – looking at websites I will not link for decency’s sake – has fallen by at least two thirds in the past year – and the advertised price (for a non-English speaking young woman) is LVL30 – or less than 60 US dollars. I am sure the rip-offs are still there – but anecdotal evidence suggests the hookers no longer cost too much.
former Powell advisor speaks
It is becoming clear that the Bush administration used torture to justify the invasion of Iraq. To put it another way, not only were they not using it to protect the United States from an attack, they were using it as other regimes have done, to secure false confessions.
Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 — well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion — its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.
So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.
There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)
Erect Priest and Disciple (startled) | For Sheila
This is a little Mochican number from Peru. It was crafted between the first and sixth centuries AD.
The first thing we did was make fire, then porn.
They’ve found the oldest known piece of human made art. It was made 35,000 years ago, when Homo Sapiens (that’s us!) were “spreading throughout Europe”. Some will call it porn, some will call it sensible. Others will try to eat it (that’s you, Utah!). But here she is… The Venus of Hohle Fels. Who said archaeologists don’t have a sense of humour?
He added: “It is clear that the sexually symbolic dimension in European, and indeed worldwide, art has a long ancestry in the evolution of our species.”
And that’s official. All we know about her is that grandma was titty. Remember folks: clusterflock is a Safe Space for you to explore your feelings about evolution.
Dear clusterflock,
Dear clustermen,
Dear clusterguys,
If you have a cock/dick/penis . . . Johnson . . . this post is for you.
“I count myself thankful I no longer have mine,” said Rick.
Wait. No. Not right. Cooper? Cooper? Can you help me?
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To all y’all
Heaps o’ deep-fried lovin’, smothered in cream gravy.
American Idol
Pop music is weird.
goats, doing their thing
Alphonso Bow
Friend of clusterflock M Sarki writes:
Alphonso Bow has been accepted into the Los Angeles 2009 Dances With Films festival. A Nut Bucket Film produced by BEBO Productions, and directed by Sarki’s son Lije, the film will premiere at the festival Monday June 8. Lije Sarki now works and lives in Los Angeles, but spent his middle school years in Louisville. He is a working actor and is the principal owner of Nut Bucket Films. Alphonso Bow is his first film working out of the director’s chair.
The screenwriter M Sarki is a native of Michigan who has lived in Louisville for the last twenty-five years. Sarki is also an accomplished poet with three collections to his name. He is also a painter and photographer who maintains a studio in the local Mellwood Arts Center.
Oh my hair.
It’s hard to really comprehend my hair in a mirror. It’s a very different thing to see it in a photo or a video. Do you have that?
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Pregnant Women are Smug by Garfunkel and Oates
(thanks, Erin, and congrats!)
“Sorry about that, I just didn’t make it to the gym this morning.”
An eyeful a day keeps the doctor away:
Researchers have discovered that a 10-minute ogle at women’s breasts is as healthy as half-an-hour in the gym.
UPDATE: The article orginally comes from the Daily Mirror, a British pop culture rag (via). Whether it is true or not is besides the point, I just love that somebody wrote about it as if it were.
The credit card companies are getting clever.
The credit card companies are getting clever and are taking more time to understand their customers’ lifestyles:
So credit-card firms are changing their business plans. Gone are the days of handing out cards willy-nilly and hoping that the cardholders who dutifully pay up will offset the losses from those who default. Today companies are focusing on those customers most likely to honor their debts. And they are looking for ways to convince existing cardholders that if they only have enough money to pay one bill, it’s wiser to pay off their credit card than, say, the phone.
Put another way, credit-card companies are becoming much more interested in understanding their customers’ lives and psyches, because, the theory goes, knowing what makes cardholders tick will help firms determine who is a good bet and who should be shown the door as quickly as possible.
