headline of the day, II
Democrat chastised for saying ‘uterus’ on House floor
Dear clusterflock
I keep discovering Asian packages of fruits, like spiced mango or salted lychee, which I immediately purchase and try to consume. And yet, not a single one of these delightfully marketed products is remotely edible . . . if you like fruit, or sugar, or pickles.
Am I alone in this willful impulsivity with exotic foods or do you find yourself chewing on bitter, pickled rot at regular intervals too? Where do you shock yourself into an awareness of some blind, reckless faith?
tweet of the day
Prada Marfa in trouble
This makes me very sad.
1620 East Route 66 Blvd, Tucumcari, NM 88401
Midlake – Young Bride
Ask a law librarian
Tall, blond man walks out of an L.L. Bean catalog and into the library: “I need to correct the father’s name on my son’s birth certificate.”
Librarian: “Is it just a misspelling, or a different person?”
Tall Blonde: “I’m Robert Hamilton,* but the birth certificate says Buck Hamilton.”
Librarian: “So uh, was this a DNA testing type situation with Buck?”
Tall Blonde: “Well, it’s complicated. Buck was my alter identity for about 10 years while I was doing all the crimes I committed. And Buck is on the birth certificate. But now Buck is dead.”
Librarian (thinking well I be gawddamn, this is a new one): “Well it sounds like Buck needed to been doin’ a name change. I mean, because you’re sayin’ the issue is not your son’s name. Normally they change the father’s name on a birth certificate because there’s two people and one name on the birth certificate. Yer sayin’ there’s one person and two names.”
Tall Blonde: “I’ve settled everything else. This is the last thing I need to take care of. I don’t know how I would go about it.”
Librarian: “I don’t know either. The usual situation involves paternity. Have you ever taken a paternity test?”
Tall Blonde: “I would be willing to do that. I could do that.”
Librarian: “Here’s all the papers.”
Tall Blonde: “Is there any place in these papers where Buck would need to sign?”
*The names have been changed because, you know.
up and down
In the first study they found that twice as many mall shoppers who had just ridden an up escalator contributed to the Salvation Army than shoppers who had just ridden the down escalator. In a second study, participants who had been taken up a short flight of stairs to an auditorium stage to complete a series of questionnaires volunteered more than 50 percent more of their time than participants who had been led down to the orchestra pit.
A third study took yet another approach. Participants were to decide how much hot sauce to give to a participant purportedly taking part in a food-tasting study. Those who were up on the stage gave only half as much of the painfully hot sauce to the other person as did those who were sitting down in the orchestra pit.
In a final study, participants watched film clips of scenes taken from an airplane above the clouds, or through the window of a passenger car. Participants who had watched the clip of flying up above the clouds were 50 percent more cooperative in a computer game than those who had watched the car ride down on the ground.
(via marginal revolution)
1938 Hispano-Suiza Dubonnet Xenia
Currently on display at the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, California, the Xenia was based on the Hispano-Suiza H6 heavily modified with independent suspension designed by driver, pilot and aperitif heir Andre Dubonnet. Each wheel was mounted on a single arm extending forward from kingpins at the end of the axle, while sealed, oil-lubricated coil springs and shock absorbers ensured a smooth ride.
Amanda reminded me of this the other day, and as I was making the post, I couldn’t help thinking I’d posted it before, but fuck it, it’s beautiful.
headline of the day
Fla. honors student pistol-whips mom, demands sports car
we embarrass ourselves
I think of some of the stories I have asked people to listen to, or opinions about music I have had, or questions I have heard myself ask when interviewing someone. This is good medicine.
drawergeeks was so cool
Re: this post on imaginawesome, the now defunct drawergeeks collaboration did a similar thing in 2006.
quote out of context
We are all the massive beneficiaries of millennia of accumulated human scientific knowledge and cultural output, and not one of us did anything do deserve a jot of it. We’re all just extremely lucky not to have been born cavemen. The greatest creative genius alive would be hard pressed to create a smiley faced smeared in dung on a tree trunk without that huge and completely undeserved inheritance.
Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir’s “BORDERS”
Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir’s “BORDERS” is finally on display at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza in New York City.
You should go to there.
The installation runs from March 24 through September 30. (But if you wait until summer, the diplomats will have let their kids leave boogers everywhere, the little shits. Maybe you’re into that though. I don’t know. I’m not here to judge.)
Anyway — the installation consists of twenty-six androgynous, life-size sculptures — thirteen aluminum and thirteen cast iron.
There’s likely a deeper meaning but I’m the wrong dude to ask about that.
In any case, this feels important.
You should go to there.
fyi
You red it hear first
My typing has worsened over the past year. At first I thought it was because I’m living in an apartment furnished by someone else and have been stupidly making do with positioning my laptop on various tables and on a badly designed piece of “computer furniture.” One way or another, I strain a little to reach the keyboard. So far I’ve caught most of my typos and haven’t worried.
Lately, though, I’ve noticed that I’ve begun typing homonyms for the words I mean to use. Read for red. Hear for here. This morning I stretched the definition of a homonym when, in typing “a dollar short,” I typed “a darling short.” Caught it in time.
I tell myself that these errors pop up when I sit down at the computer the very first thing in the morning, before the caffeine has kicked in. I am, after all, one of those people who is not quite all there for the first hour.
But I remember reading a recent essay by a man whose mental functions have been slipping as some form of senile dementia makes its relentless progress. He said that the earliest evidence of his decline was a falling-off in his typing.
I can’t remember where I read the essay. Nor who wrote it.
Amy said
I’m not saying no to you. I’m saying yes to everything else but your fucked up idea.
Bill Callahan Tour Dates!
Launchpad, Albuquerque, NM, 14 June 2011
Rhythm Room, Phoenix, AZ, 15 June 2011
Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA, 16 June 2011
SoHo, Santa Barbara, CA, 17 June 2011
The Independent, San Francisco, CA, 18 June 2011
Henry Miller Library, Big Sur, CA, 19 June 2011
Neumo’s, Seattle, WA, 22 June 2011
Hi Dive, Denver, CO, 27 June 2011
Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, MN, 1 July 2011
Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL, 3 July 2011
Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, 8 July 2011
Brighton Music Hall, Boston, MA, 10 July 2011
Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, 11 July 2011
Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY, 12 July 2011
(via)
Imaginawesome
Friend of clusterflock, Garrett Miller, wants your children’s drawings so he can make them extra awesome.
Alasdair Gray drawing
I was meaning to contribute a picture to a small show of famous Glaswegians or “famous weegies”. When I helped out Alasdair with his mural last year I wanted to do a picture of him working in his West end flat (such high ceilings) at his desk with his books and paintings. I missed the show running out of time but wanted to finish it anyhow.
The first image of Mercury
This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System’s innermost planet.
The Only Frank Lloyd Wright in Detroit
Stumbling upon an abandoned Frank Lloyd Wright in their neighborhood of 25 years, Norman Silk and Dale Morgan had a vision to restore the mid-century gem to its grandeur.
(via marginal revolution)
image out of context
In and Out with Dick and Jane
Ross MacDonald, the award-winning illustrator, and James Victore, the celebrated graphic designer, have gotten together to create a parody featuring the classic kids’ book characters Dick and Jane. This time around, though, our straitlaced protagonists are venturing into some rather dark, twisted, and bawdy places. The images are perfectly rendered in warm, nostalgic shades, and the tone of the text is sweet and simple, but the content leans toward sex, drugs, and violence, with healthy doses of innuendo. To top it off, this laugh-out-loud satire is situated inside a handsome, imitation-cloth volume resembling an old-fashioned kids’ book.
You can buy the book here.
(via @gary_hustwit)
from the comments
I want my guy card back.
Give it back, Deron.
