Paula Deen, Slower
Paula Deen makes that awful doughnut sandwich. Just, slower and with more appropriate music.
otter overload
headline of the day
The True Size of Africa
(via marginal revolution)
Joni Mitchell – Woodstock (Big Sur, CA 1969)
I’m sure I’ve posted this at least once.
things I hadn’t posted
Buffalo family’s painting could be a Michelangelo
Census shows connectedness of world’s marine life
Real-Life ‘Iron Man’ Mechanical Suit Unveiled
One Man’s Discarded Ticket Can Be Another Man’s Salary
Stonehenge skeleton came from Mediterranean
Study shows how scientists can find missing species
US often weighed North Korea ‘nuke option’
‘Flying Car’ Approved for Production
Where does the dollar symbol come from?
Sometime Last Night
we were in Afghanistan, and the place we toured was an extensive compound that was almost a town. Cooper and I spent more time in the library than I think our guide had allowed for, but he was gracious about it. Phil was taken with some antiquities in a little shop and made arrangements to have them shipped back to England.
Then we were in another place, and my mother asked why I was always on the computer and why I was emailing Melanie when I could phone her. I explained that I was going to phone her, too. When Melanie arrived, I introduced her to Lucy. Melanie explained that she had been walking the elephant because that was what she did. Lucy and Melanie spoke gravely of the elephant and agreed that it would be fun to go out busking in the street. And so just as it began to snow, that is what they did.
After, some of us went to see the new Clint Eastwood movie.
Weathervane by Joaquín Cociña
For those that enjoyed the Kentridge stuff, here’s one in a similar vein:
By Joaquín Cociña, 1/3 of the Chilean trio, Diluvio, that brought you the amazing Luis & Lucia (not to be confused the forthcoming feature-length Lucia by another 1/3rd, Niles Atallah).
Christmas is comin’!
All this can be yours, for only $298.
Abandoned hotels of the Catskills
Today, such escapes can’t exist. They are no longer relevant, nor are they economically sustainable. When a JetBlue flight to Las Vegas costs about the same as a drive to the Mecca of early 20th-century Jewish leisure, one can easily assume that one or the other will fall by the way-side. Chances are, it’s the one that is closer to home that becomes disposable.
Wilco – Radio Cure
You know the song, I just found myself listening to it tonight.
What’re you?
Sorry if this got posted while I was on my trip.
from the moderated comments
I have a problem with stones and I contracted gonorrhea from my girl and am stopped up. I need to use a catheter.
“Only old ladies answer the phone”
Political polls may become increasingly suspect and unhelpful in the future:
The immediate problem is the rapid growth in the number of people who have only a mobile phone, and are thus excluded from surveys conducted by landline. About a quarter of Americans are now “cellphone-onlys” (CPOs) in the industry jargon, and this poses both practical and statistical difficulties. They are less likely to answer their phones, and less likely to participate in a survey when they do, says Frank Newport of Gallup, another polling firm. They often retain their telephone numbers, including the area code, when they move from state to state, so it is hard to know where they are. And it costs more to call a mobile phone in the first place.
I can’t ever think of a time I participated in a poll.
Bigmouth Strikes Again
A cappella, this time:
06 Bigmouth Strikes Again by blackpiano
Janice Whaley’s The Smiths Project: “Layered vocal arrangements of every Smiths song.”
Read more
A radical pessimist’s guide to the next 10 years
Douglas Coupland’s guide to the next 10 years is terrifying.
We will still be annoyed by people who pun, but we will be able to show them mercy because punning will be revealed to be some sort of connectopathic glitch: The punner, like someone with Tourette’s, has no medical ability not to pun
Tiny Furniture
Privilege has its advantages, but it doesn’t solve the basic math of becoming who you are supposed to be.
Best movie of the year, more on this later.
recommended: Chokeville
Chokeville is “sundry tales of awesome adventure” by Joshua Allen:
This morning I started a new site called Chokeville. Someone just asked me to summarize it succinctly (like, let’s keep this short, weisenheimer, can’t be jawing about blogs all day when there’s tail to nail) and I said well, man, I guess it’s ten thousand little stories about a made-up city and — but he was already gone.
979-997-3041
That’s the number for Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena’s The Urban Speaker:
The Urban Speaker is an art installation that transforms public space into an instant stage for mass communication. This portable urban furniture allows people to broadcast their voice in public by calling a telephone number from their mobile phones.
Home, 3
The third house I would like to live in is comprised of a series of smaller structures spread over the space of an open field. Each structure is connected by underground, elevated, or open-air walkways. In my original conception they were simple ship-lap construction. I realize now they can be minimalist as well, modernist, depending on the version. Regardless, the first image I had was of the entrance as a single space, small, maybe eight by eight, that took you underground. Well lit, however, with many camouflaged skylights.
quote out of context
Rejection Therapy is a real life game with one rule: to be rejected by someone every single day, for 30 days consecutive. There are even suggestion cards available for “rejection attempts” (although they are not essential to the game).
from the comments
Cindy. Your second paragraph regarding the eating of ice cream could be entitled “The Amanda Mae Story.” I eat things on sticks with great trepidation and much careful planning. I have to wrap the packaging carefully around the stick, and I will sacrifice any ice cream that lives near the stick, because it is also stick-flavoured. The top part of the ice cream is blissfully stick-free and then about 1/3rd of the way down the real sadness begins as what was once a happy ice cream eating turns into a song and dance wherein I avoid the Worst Thing That Could Happen.
Beautiful Inside My Head Forever
Damien Hirst, Sotheby’s, how it’s done, Saatchi, old money, new money, Jeff Koons, art vs the stock market, Andy Warhol, the royal family of Qatar, Korea, Taiwan, mainland China, Oedipus, and more:
The goal of making the primary works more expensive may benefit Mr Hirst’s personal income in the short-term, but it makes no sense from the perspective of his market. Part of the reason that art costs more than wallpaper is the expectation that it might appreciate in value. Flooding the market with new work is like debasing the coinage, a strategy used from Nero to the Weimar Republic with disastrous consequences. If Mr Hirst were managing a quoted company, he would be unable to enrich himself at the expense of his investors in quite the same way. But Mr Hirst is an artist and, in Western countries, artists are valued as rule-breaking rogues.
(via marginal revolution)
Susan McKeown | Singing in the dark
Susan McKeown is one of Ireland’s best kept secrets, though she’s been living in New York for half her life and she’s won a Grammy so the secret’s spreading. She’s been recording her new album, Singing In The Dark, at Ross’ studio for the past few months and she’s releasing it at the end of this month.
I’ve heard some rough mixes of the record and it’s beautiful and ambitious and searingly passionate. Susan’s devastating, keening voice transforms poems written by a number of writers suffering from depression and mental ill health into searing flights of lyrical and melodic beauty, featuring some of New York’s finest musicians. It’s an extraordinary record. And she needs to finish it. She has, yes, a Kickstarter project to help her do this.
Susan is 3 days away from her funding deadline and she’s really close to making it. Take a minute to listen to what she says in the video and listen to some excerpts of the songs. She tells a compelling story about this album.
Ian Hamilton Finlay
“I like the poems you sent for this collection. My own feeling would be that you should set out less, I mean say less, and leave more to emerge — but I may be quite wrong — this I say on the basis that I like the poems: beyond that, I feel you tend to use the didactic level too much, like, if you could, use more making and less saying — I don’t know how to explain this feeling, I want to condense your poems — Tell me if you think I am wrong, but I feel you tend to write about a thing, instead of writing it. On the other hand, your writing is very un-nasty and un-corrupt, and its big open movement is plainly connected with its big open feeling, so I may be quite wrong, do you see? I feel you could keep the generosity and goodness and YET have more magic. But could one, I don’t know?”
– letter to Gael Turnbull, 1961, included in A Model of Order: Selected Letters on Poetry and Making by Ian Hamilton Finlay.
(Requested link here. Sorry.) (Well, heck, someone added a link before I saw the request for a link. So take your pick!)
