from the comments
I watched him empty the little packets onto the nuggets. He first dumped the nuggets from their little Chick-fil-a box onto his styrofoam tray. Then he emptied four little mayo packets onto them. Then he dumped both containers of fries onto the tray beside the nuggets. He ate the fries unadorned.
He appeared to be about my age or a bit younger–maybe late 40s. He watched me watching him.
Destruction Party, on the set, day one
If you haven’t had a chance to watch the behind the scenes footage from The Destruction Party set, day one, pay special attention to a young actor around 1:50. I’m pretty sure this won’t be the last we’ll be seeing of him in years to come. Magic.
friggin’ lobster
R.I.P. Cy Twombly (1928-2011)
Cy Twombly, whose spare child-like scribbles and poetic engagement with antiquity left him stubbornly out of step with the movements of post-war American art even as he became one of the era’s most important painters, died in Rome Tuesday. He was 83.
Today at the hospital cafeteria
A man wearing a portable heart monitor ate chicken nuggets smothered in mayonnaise and two orders of waffle fries.
photo out of context
dear clusterflock
I can’t decide if Shia LaBeouf is attractive.
they ate well, but died young
The medieval recipe book of the Benedictine monks of Evesham Abbey has been published and the diet is insane(ly tasty):
The monks also had a very sweet tooth and even ate sweet porridge served with meat.
Deserts were often soaked in honey and included fritters and nutmeg cookies.
“They also liked soft cheeses – baked cheesecake was very much a medieval dish,” said Mr Snowden.
Other favourites included mussels cooked with leeks and Saracen’s sauce, a spicy red sauce used for cooking meat.
“They also loved to have a dish made with white crab meat fried in olive oil and mixed into scrambled eggs with a herb base,” said Mr Snowden.
He said the monks’ diet lacked fruit and vegetables because that food group was seen as something to eat when there was nothing else handy.
The average age of the monk, according to the article, was thirty-five.
a comic book with invisible ink
Comics break the rules of storytelling, invent new ones, and break them again – more often than almost any other medium. This graphic novella is about looking – an investigation into perception, storytelling and optical experimentation that inherits some of the curiosities behind the previous work of BERG.
Litho printed on 115gsm silk paper in tones of black and blue, SVK uses a third ink invisible without the SVK object. The object is a UV light source which unlocks hidden layers woven throughout the comic book. Reading SVK becomes a unique and strange experience as you see the story unfold through the eyes of Thomas Woodwind.
First and foremost SVK is a modern detective story, one that Ellis describes as “Franz Kafka’s Bourne Identity”.
It’s a story about cities, technology and surveillance, mixed with human themes of the power, corruption and lies that lurk in the data-smog of our near-future.
Be sure to click through the link, scroll down a bit, and hover over the sample comic with your cursor for a test drive. (via Dave Gray)
The Great Dismal Swamp
A national park composed of vast acres of swampland, straddling the border of North Carolina and Virginia, was once home to runaway slaves, an anti-oasis of sorts in the South for people to disappear to.
The site was long known as a haven for escapees and members of Indian tribes avoiding European encroachment. Advertisements seeking the return of escaped slaves from the 1700s mention the swamp, and Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about it as a place of refuge in the novel “Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.” The North Carolina legislature was even petitioned to do something about the settlements in the swamp, said Wanda Hunt-McLean, a local historian who studies the underground railroad.
“Many people were warned about traveling near the edge of the swamp because of stories about blacks living there,” she said.
But the only significant attempt to recapture slaves in the swamp came after the violent slave uprising led by Nat Turner in 1831, and that barely reached the fringes of the wilderness, Sayers said. The swamp was simply too dense and treacherous to make sustained efforts to capture slaves or their descendants worthwhile.
Super 8
I’ve been asking in various places about recommendations for movies that are highly entertaining and well crafted, like the first two Ocean’s movies and the Bourne movies. Last night we saw Super 8, and it fits this genre perfectly. It’s like one of the good Spielberg movies from my childood, set in the era of my childhood. I’m sure that was part of J.J. Abrams’ intention. Anyway, what are movies you’ve seen that fit this description? (The second link will show you what has been suggested so far.)
from the moderated comments
my mom was goin out wit da neighbor so i thought wat da hell, let her b happy, then he decides that he can yell at me and kick my friends out da house and accuse them of stealing shit, which they never did,and i hate his guts and hate being in da same room as him, well guess wat i find out,dat shes trying to buy a house and move in wit him in a whole nother city, and i really dnt wanna go, i can barley look at him let alone live under da same roof as him,and he changed my mom about 100%, well i want my mom back,shes always doin shytt wit him and his kids,always takin his kids places they wanna go, always cookin 4 them when he tell her 2,always tryin 2 treat her like shytt, and hes imtimadated by me cuz he tried 2 get me sent away cuz he thought i was gettin in da middle of their relationship,i only moved once in my life wen i was 3, now im jus starting 2 have everything go 4 me, and now its getting all taken away, like seriously, F.M.L, F.M.L F.M.L F.M.L,the only reason y i havent killed myself yet is cuz i have a pet that i love and she loves me i hope, and i wuldnt wanna put her or my aunt and grandparents thru that, but as soon ias i loose them im letting go of the little string i call my life and going 2 death, the letter will read, mom this was all u and ur stupid as boyfriends fauld u took away everything from me so, i have nothing more 2 live 4 i hate u and him burn in hell, but id never really have da balls 2 kill my self so ill just live in grief all da rest of my life and probly go insane.
Bon Iver covers Bonnie Raitt
All that Auguring Finally Broke the Sky
Various angles of a summer squall that just rolled through Rome.
from the moderated comments
I say horse pucky! Sorry but this country’s fruits are for my kids and other kids of legal residents of this country. Those who came by the law , obeyed the traditions and culture of this country and assimilated into its fabric, as opposed to those who fly the Mexican flag, humiliate the national soccer team supporting Mexico and deride those who support the USA. Not to mention thrust their language on us when the language of the country is known to be ENGLISH!
Did Amanda just interview Errol Morris?
Previously on clusterflock.
dear clusterflock
What are you doing today?
from the comments
I remember a time (and I bet you do too, Deron) when you could walk through neighborhoods in Austin and see several people playing guitars on a porch with lots of dogs ranging about in the yard. And the music would be good, and they would be intent on its making, but would nod as you walked by, and only later would you see them performing on Austin City Limits.
from the comments
Woke up this mornin’
Sun in my eyes
Headed to the bathroom
And to my surpriseI pooped a boot
I pooped a boot
I pooped a boot
I pooped a bootNow, I ain’t from Canada
Ain’t from Paris, France
But I got me some talent
This here asshole can danceI pooped a boot
I pooped a boot
B-b-b-b-b-boot
B-b-b-b-b-boot
I pooped a boot
I pooped a boot
It Gets Even Worse
From a recent NYT editorial:
If you thought the do-it-yourself anti-immigrant schemes couldn’t get any more repellent, you were wrong. New laws in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina are following — and in some ways outdoing — Arizona’s attempt to engineer the mass expulsion of the undocumented, no matter the damage to the Constitution, public safety, local economies and immigrant families.
The laws vary in their details but share a common strategy: to make it impossible for people without papers to live without fear.
Las Reinas Chulas: “Que Suave Patria”
Please don’t turn aside take a look even if no hablas español (not even dumbass texan spanish).
¡Las Reinas Chulas reglan!
Dozens of plastic foam heads rain onto the stage. Four drug traffickers in fringed jackets and sparkly pink cowboy hats bat them into the audience with toy AK-47s. All the while, the cast croons, “Let them slit our throats, let them pack us up . . . let them not ask any questions, let them not investigate.”
This is cabaret, Mexico style. Las Reinas Chulas, or the Beautiful Queens, parody drug violence in a show the women first produced in 2005 and that still fills nightclubs around Mexico, including a performance in the tourist town of Taxco this weekend.
Willie Nelson at the Austin Opry House 1983
I’m watching a concert of Willie Nelson at the Austin Opry House, 1983, on the local PBS affiliate. You should see the looks on the women’s faces.
Update: Shit, this must be way older than ’83. I watched the footage from ’83 at the Opry House I was going to post, but he’s typical Willie by that point. (Which is a national treasure, by the way.)
START TODAY
MAKE NO DELAY
TRUTH will out!
This is Mr Curtis’s shop window in Barrack Street, Waterford, dressed for a competition. (Circa: 1930.)
Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
O Canada!
I pooped a boot.
from Sheila’s email
A peaceful Saturday morning on Portland’s tree-lined downtown Park Blocks, the sound of a shrill female voice at an angry volume:
“I’M FIFTY-TWO YEARS OLD! THEY CAN’T PUT A WOMAN LIKE ME IN SHOES LIKE THIS!”
. . . repeated ad infinitum.
