An Illustrated History of the Batmobile
headline of the day, II
Noted Pick-Up Artist Allegedly Shoots A Woman In The Face
headline of the day / quote out of context
Driver, 67, Allegedly Tried to Run over Cop during Officer’s Funeral Procession
Officers soon located the driver, who allegedly fought them. The woman told investigators she acted out because she had taken only one Xanax in the morning, rather than two, police said.
I guess that’s context.
Color Swatch Knob, for the ladies
Somewhere in comments, Amanda said something about “Girls love Riesling” and if I am a student of the fairer sex, they also love Anthropologie — am I right, ladies? (Hi guys.) Anyway, we put the finishing touches on the newly completed medicine cabinet with a Color Swatch Knob. It’s hard not to sub-communicate. (Hi guys.)
things I hadn’t posted
20th century financial titan Neuberger dies at 107
An Answer To The Times’ Titans Of Industry Mystery
Blood test to spot cancer gets big boost from J&J
Brother disputes sale of Lee Harvey Oswald coffin
Cache in Chinese Mountain Reveals 20,000 Prehistoric Fossils
Crashvertising coming soon to a traffic jam near you?
1915 van Blerck Special Speedster is 18′ long with 17-liter engine
Fossilized Bird Brains May Yield Secret of First Flights
French model known for anti-anorexia ads dies
Jamestown unearths 400-year-old pipes for patrons
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist Tells the Tale of the World’s First Computer
Saturn’s Moon Made Mountains Out of Moonlets
The Postman Always Pings Twice
Phoenix Jones, Guardian of Seattle
Last Sunday, an attempted car theft in Seattle was thwarted by a super-hero, and when I say “a super-hero,” I don’t mean that in the sense that, as Superman says, we can all be super-heroes if we do the right thing and care about each other. I mean a dude in a bulletproof costume with a codename and a secret identity.
from the comments
I remember going to a cocktail party at a person’s home in Highland Park after a big literary reading at SMU (in the late 70s) I was an undergraduate then (at a different university), and was very grateful to hear the likes of Saul Bellow, Jerzy Kosinski, and a number of well-known poets of the day. I was also very happy to go to any event that provided free food and drink. The house was one of those small ones of only seven or eight thousand square feet, not counting guest quarters and pool cabanas littered about. The main crowd had Kosinski cornered in the living room, asking him questions about Hollywood debaucheries; Bellow didn’t attend. Among the featured poets was none other than Alan Dugan. People smiled at him and then quickly turned away, probably because of his average working class middle-aged-guy looks. My friend Sparky nudged me and we got Dugan by the elbow and took him to a little table in the smaller kitchen at the back of the house, where there was a fridge full of beer, and the three of us drank freely and talked late into the night. Sparky and I heard wonderful stories of such things as how Dugan had been supporting himself (when he won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award at the age of 39) by working for a planned parenthood-funded factory that made plastic models of male and female genitalia for sex education demonstrations. I can’t speak for the well-dressed ones in the front room, but I had a great time. And that experience definitely shaped my perception of what is good and what is bad about cocktail parties.
Somewhere lost in the arch of my boot
I read dispatches from Texas friends,
all full of talk about 68 degrees and such, and I see them just settin’ on they porches, drinkin’ sweet tea, waitin’ for the postman, fannin’ theyselves. Enjoying they languid afternoons . . .
while we in the brutal north battle wind and snow and pain just to trudge out of our sod cabins
(and nurse an unattractive envy that we clumsily disguise as fortitude).
Coupon Code
(Thanks to Erin T.)
Harry Nilsson: “Pussy Cats” Promo
Martin Mull — Renaissance Man
Did you know Martin Mull was an artist?
And, apparently, a musician.
Dennis Hopper Shot a Warhol
Dennis Hopper’s art collection — which includes a Warhol silkscreen of Mao Hopper shot twice — is going to auction.
The shooting incident involving “Mao” occurred sometime in the early 1970s at Hopper’s Los Angeles home, said Alex Hitz, a family friend and a trustee of the estate.
“One night in the shadows, Dennis, out of the corner of his eyes, saw the Mao and he was so spooked by it that he got up and shot at it, twice, putting two bullet holes in it,” Hitz told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. “Andy saw it, loved it and annotated those holes” labeling them “warning shot” and “bullet hole.”
Why do I get the feeling the story of the shooting has been edited?
Nevada’s Shoe Tree Is No More
Someone chopped down what has come to be known as the shoe tree along a desolate stretch of Nevada highway.
The tree along what has been called the loneliest road in America has been an attraction for decades. Sneakers, cowboy boots, high heels, flip-flops, sandals, clogs – even fishing waders and roller skates – hung in tangled clumps from its branches.
Some people removed footwear rather than adding it. Snowshoes and a pair of skis weren’t there for long.
Here are a bunch of pictures.
Lee Friedlander
I spent a good deal of time over the holidays looking through, and thinking about, Lee Friedlander’s work. It really gets going in the 60s and carries on strong at least for three decades. Masterful work.
C A R S O N
Fans of the icon of 90s graphic design will be pleased to know David Carson has a new magazine coming out.
David Byrne said of Carson’s work: “It communicates. But on a level beyond words. Just like music does – slipping in there before anyone has a chance to stop it at the border and ask for papers.”
A six issue subscription is $20.
(via kottke)
Mr. Damon’s abs double
The story of how Buster Coen, Ethan Coen’s 15-year-old son, became Matt Damon’s abs double on the set of True Grit.
One funny note: when the end credits were rolling, I noticed a job described as “Mr. Damon’s abs double” — even though Mr. Damon’s abs are never seen in the film — that was attributed to one “Buster Coen.” Towards the end of the evening, I asked Damon what that was all about, and he laughingly told me that Ethan’s 15-year-old son Buster had served as an assistant to the script supervisor on the set during the making of the film, but had indicated that he wanted a more important-sounding credit than that, and had apparently requested that one!
If you have Parkinson’s, pee like a girl
Signage spotted in the bathroom of a restaurant somewhere in Puglia (in the heel of Italy) … it says “if you suffer from Parkinson’s disease then sit down”:
I had no idea Parkinson’s was contagious, let alone transmitted through urine.
Also, the yellow sign above it I’m assuming reflects the Arabic influence of Puglia (only in Muslim countries have I noticed footprints on toilet seats).
(Mostly I’m posting this just to beef up the Piss category).
headline of the day
Saudi Arabia nabbed Israeli-tagged vulture for being Mossad spy
The God-Given Gift of a Great Voice
Groban sings Kanye’s tweets
the old are more happy
I have met many old fools in my day, but, generally speaking, with age does come wisdom and, consequently, happiness:
People, studies show, behave differently at different ages. Older people have fewer rows and come up with better solutions to conflict. They are better at controlling their emotions, better at accepting misfortune and less prone to anger. In one study, for instance, subjects were asked to listen to recordings of people supposedly saying disparaging things about them. Older and younger people were similarly saddened, but older people less angry and less inclined to pass judgment, taking the view, as one put it, that “you can’t please all the people all the time.”
There are various theories as to why this might be so. Laura Carstensen, professor of psychology at Stanford University, talks of “the uniquely human ability to recognise our own mortality and monitor our own time horizons”. Because the old know they are closer to death, she argues, they grow better at living for the present. They come to focus on things that matter now—such as feelings—and less on long-term goals. “When young people look at older people, they think how terrifying it must be to be nearing the end of your life. But older people know what matters most.” For instance, she says, “young people will go to cocktail parties because they might meet somebody who will be useful to them in the future, even though nobody I know actually likes going to cocktail parties.”
Bonus dear clusterflock: What do you hate most about cocktail parties?
Bored Enthusiasts
Or, rather, boredom enthusiasts:
Boring 2010 sprang to life when Mr. Ward heard that an event called the Interesting Conference had been canceled, and he sent out a joke tweet about the need to have a Boring Conference instead. He was taken aback when dozens of people responded enthusiastically. Soon, he was hatching plans for the first-ever meet-up of the like-mindedly mundane. The first 50 tickets for Boring 2010 sold in seven minutes.
“I guess the joke is on me,” said the laid-back Mr. Ward. “I’ve created this trap and there’s no way out.”
Proceedings at the sell-out event were kicked off by Mr. Ward himself, who discussed his tie collection at great length, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation He noted that as of June 2010, he owned 55 ties, and 45.5% of them were of a single color. By December, his tie collection had jumped by 36%, although the share of single-color ties fell by 1.5%.
“Ties are getting slightly more colorful,” he noted. Also, apparently, his taste was improving. By December, only 64% of his ties were polyester, down from 73% in June.
As a man who finds himself staring at a coffee shop wall with a book in front of him for more than four hours a week (when not on the internet), this, in particular, makes complete sense to me:
“We’re all overstimulated,” said Ms. Lee. “I think it’s important to stop all that for a while and see what several hours of being bored really feels like.”
Dear clusterflock
Is there a word for that feeling of slicing through a stick of cold butter? If it doesn’t exist, I think it could also be used to describe the experience of riding in a very expensive car or how a bite of perfectly cooked lamb shank melts in a mouth.
New Luxury Hotel at Versailles
In January 2012, when the Hotel de l’Orangerie is completed, overnight guests will be able to drink champagne and stroll in the gardens of Versailles for the first time in 300 years.
Just yesterday I was day dreaming about what it would be like to stay at Versailles.
