the british aren’t coming
He who warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.
Update: Roger Ebert posts this response from a voter who listened to Sarah Palin’s recap of Paul Revere’s history:
quote out of context
Pilsner should be in Roman type, and begin with a capital.
So you have an awesome idea for a website…
It takes a while to parse, but it’s completely spot on.
Elaine Morgan, my new favorite octagenarian
Watch her. She’s intoxicating. I like her theory, I also like hearing her explain it.
tweet of the day
quote out of context
Playing the game with names such as Alice, Dallas, Tucker, Chuck, Buck, Huck, Bart, Art, Marty, Mitch, Rich, Richie, Maggie, Ruby, or, in British English, Danny or Annie, results in profanity or rude language.
1. Make List; 2. Do Stuff
This is a flaming brilliant concept for an exhibition. (It’s based on a recently published book.) At the Morgan Library & Museum through October 2, 2011. Drawn from the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art.
The more you study the Morgan exhibition, the more you realize that lists are everywhere, and that list making is an essential human activity — a way not just of keeping track but also of imposing order on what would otherwise be chaos. Your address book, a restaurant menu, the instructions on the MetroCard machine, prescription-drug ads spelling out possible side effects: they’re all lists. So are those annoying thoughts at the back of your head reminding you that you have books overdue at the library and still haven’t sent a thank-you note to Aunt Gert. Artists are no different, no less preoccupied with keeping track, though most of them have better handwriting than the rest of us, and their lists tend to be a little neater.
Words I just said out loud
“In Hawaii, Hawaiian shirts are just called ‘shirts’.”
“Playing Pool with a Dual-Armed Robot”
from the comments
Once Daryl and I were having breakfast in a coffee shop in New York. An elderly woman was talking to herself over her breakfast. At one point she left abruptly, and her table was cleared. She returned around 20 minutes later, obviously unaware that she had been in earlier. She ordered her meal, and the proprietor quietly fetched her plate from her prior visit, which he had slipped behind the counter. We realized that this dance probably played out several times each day.
That man’s kindness has stayed with me in a way that he will never know.
from the comments
I had a similar experience at Starbucks not long ago. In front of me was an older and obviously homeless man with a battered reusable mug. He asked for a simple brewed coffee and the barista smiled at him as his shaky hands fumbled with loose change trying to find the $1.95 he knew the coffee would cost. She smiled at him kindly and very softly said, “I think I saw you in here earlier, right?” He just looked at her and half shook his head, confused. “Yeah,” she said, “you were in earlier, so this would be a refill.”
It was a small kindness, ringing up a $.50 refill instead of a full priced coffee, but it was one of those moments that renews my faith in the goodness of people.
from the comments
I love the way crawdads make bubbles around their little ugly mouths.
Mike Mills, Beginners
Filmmaker Mike Mills’ parents met in junior high school. For 45 years, they lived together, raising Mills and his older sisters, until Mills’ mother died in 1999. Six months later, Mills’ father — a 75-year-old retired museum director — announced that he’s gay.
I heard this interview with Mills on Fresh Air yesterday.
from the spam
Decadent Erotic Greedy Girl Parties For Girls & Couples Seeking “Men”
Remembering Scott, 5
From Mark.
I figured that it would be the last time I visited him. Charlene asked me to find out “what he wants.” She needs to know if he wants a funeral, and if he does, what kind of funeral. She also wants to know what kind of medical treatment he wants at the end—if he wants to be “kept alive” with medical machinery. I tell her that I’ll ask. Truthfully, I’m happy to be a part of his dying in this intimate way. So here I am now on Ross Avenue in his living room with a Chinese carved wood sculpture, an Empire sofa upholstered in dark pink silk, and a coffee table consisting of a square piece of glass resting on an antique wooden box. The house was dark and smelled like sickness, or medicine, or both, but I didn’t mention it to him. I sit in the living room while he’s in the kitchen mixing vodka and grapefruit juice and sprinkling salt into mismatched glasses. I hear him opening metal ice trays, I hear ice drop on the floor and I picture him picking up ice cubes and chucking them into the glasses and hear his internal thought “what the fuck.” Nina Simone is playing on the record player. He bought this album at the dusty old record store on Broadway, just below 8th Street, when he was in New York visiting me in January of 1978 for our 21st birthdays. Scott brings the drinks and a bag of Fritos into the living room and sets everything down on the coffee table in front of us. We played this record in my one room apartment on Tompkins Square and drank cheap bodega wine. We went to the Mudd Club and we danced with Sylvia Miles to Grace Jones’ Warm Leatherette. And now, 9 years later, we sit on the floor next to each other, resting our backs against the Empire sofa that used to be in his mother’s living room and drink Salty Dogs, and I try to find a way to ask him what kind of funeral he wants. Read more
Rare Frank Sinatra Documentary from 1965
As if anyone needed more proof that the Chairman of the Board was cool.
headline of the day
‘Sovereign Citizen’ Opens Fire On Store Because It Ran Out Of Crawfish
Hey, Deron
Guy with shotgun: “You boys have any last words before I kill you?”
Butthead: “Uh. I have a couple. Butt cheek.”
An Unexpected Reaction
On my way home from the Post Office today I stopped at Starbucks to treat myself to an iced coffee. In front of me at the counter was an older woman in a wheelchair — maybe 65 years old. She appeared apprehensive of the whole experience, and seemed to be having trouble deciphering the menu choices. After making her selection and being rung up by the barista, she simply shook her head “no” at the $4.00 price of the small latte she had ordered. The line behind me was growing longer, and other customers were beginning to fidget and roll their eyes. The cashier was kind and apologetic to the woman as she began backing away from the counter before finally reaching into her purse for a neatly-folded $5 bill.
I handed the cashier my card and told the woman to enjoy her coffee. Her reaction made it apparent that not many people have extended kindnesses to her. Her voice reminded me of my grandmother’s.
I took my iced coffee and left hastily, where I cried in my car for about 10 minutes.
“it’s like a nutshell towing a mountain”
Since he was hired in the ’70s by Saudi prince Mohammad al-Faisal, French engineer Georges Mougin has tried to figure out a way to tow freshwater icebergs across the Arctic. Now, with 3-D tech, declassified satellite data, and tugboats, he might have cracked the way to quench the world’s thirst.
Donkeying to Nzambani rock
For Cindy.
More from the Kitui region of Kenya (reading Alain Robbe-Grillet & Alan Moorehead).
from the spam
Find a Lady, Email her. Have Fun with Her Tonight!
Real animals will be kept on the second floor, with a raised viewing area for visitors
A dude in the Netherlands has built what he thinks is a replica of Noah’s ark and will park it on the Thames for the 2012 Olympics.
Built on the shores of Dordrecht, about 60 miles south of Amsterdam, the ark will contain real, stuffed and animatronic animals — all in pairs, of course — with the idea of teaching visitors about Christianity and inspiring schoolchildren.
For Daryl.
from the comments
Oh my. This song. Mr. B. became obsessed at 5, a girl at school taught it to him. He would sing “drove my cheby to the leby but the leby was dry.” He was spooky quiet with the line “this’ll be the day that I die.” I would think okay, not playing Barney songs in the car, mistake. So I’d ramp up the Allmans about then. Something cheerful like “Whipping Post.”
Santogold, L.E.S. Artistes
I’m crushing pretty hard.
