Sheila’s Oak Park Walking Tour
Called to mind by the Where we are today thread.
Friend #1: I can’t believe these are all single-family houses.
Friend #2 (sotto voce): Ah, the voice of the eternal proletariat. “Why, five families could live in that house!”
Richard Dawkins’ thoughts on Rick Perry, and by extension on a frighteningly large American political class
A politician’s attitude to evolution is perhaps not directly important in itself. It can have unfortunate consequences on education and science policy but, compared to Perry’s and the Tea Party’s pronouncements on other topics such as economics, taxation, history and sexual politics, their ignorance of evolutionary science might be overlooked. Except that a politician’s attitude to evolution, however peripheral it might seem, is a surprisingly apposite litmus test of more general inadequacy. This is because unlike, say, string theory where scientific opinion is genuinely divided, there is about the fact of evolution no doubt at all. Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Evolution is not some recondite backwater of science, ignorance of which would be pardonable. It is the stunningly simple but elegant explanation of our very existence and the existence of every living creature on the planet. Thanks to Darwin, we now understand why we are here and why we are the way we are. You cannot be ignorant of evolution and be a cultivated and adequate citizen of today.
I think I found a Dawkins article Andrew can get behind?
Dear ‘The Situation’, the situation is…
Abercrombie says a connection to The Situation goes against the “aspirational nature” of its brand and may be “distressing” to customers. The Ohio-based retailer says it has offered a “substantial payment” to Sorrentino and producers of the MTV show so he’ll wear something else.
Artifice and foam rubber
In fact, so much artifice and foam rubber is often used to create the sexually alluring woman that it’s sometimes difficult to know where the lady ends and the foam rubber begins.
Via dangerous minds by way of Roger Ebert.
Sack
You heard me, “a sack.”
“Sack” began innocently enough, a subversive way of making a polite conversation vulgar. “Do you need a sack to carry your books home?” I ask. “Come again?” And I repeat, “A sack, to put your books in?” “Oh. Only if you have a small one.” To which I respond, “Of course!” with the most subtle evidence of a smirk.
Just a Quick Postcard…
Danny has the most accepting, loving family in the world. (I’m convinced, prove me wrong.) We’re in Rockton, on the Wisconsin/Illinois border half-way between Chicago (East edge of Northern Illinois) and Galena (West edge. Sheila might lead you to believe Galena is a suburb of Chicago, and in many respects, it is, but it could be counted an outlier.)
I was born near here, in Rockford. Today there was a celebration of Holly’s birthday and Uncle Doug’s (Holly is Danny’s niece, a 29 year-old Danish beauty, Doug is Danny’s 60-year-old brother–with a beauty that can’t be matched in song.) Today while celebrating, Danny and I also got notice for our having been together 24 years, today.
Y’all I hope I’m not being too sappy. But I’m so happy I could bust. Y’all, this family Loves.
Dear Clusterflock
86-ed?
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.
Peter Falk || Gena Rowlands || “A Woman Under the Influence” || (1974) || d. John Cassavetes
There is a Criterion version available.
What do you want the web to be?
At one of the Open Source Bridge afterparties this week, attendees were asked what they hoped the Web would become.
Images © Michael Morgan.
WE ARE THE PEOPLE, AND WE ARE OUTSTANDING.
6. Intangibles (15 points): This is everything else about the candidate — a swirling jambalaya of all that makes a musician essential: smarts, chemistry, sexuality, drug use, infidelity, insanity, a bizarre origin story, a propensity for crime, memorable dance moves, inappropriate joking about fatal diseases, their personal taste in guitar strings, a strident unwillingness to sell out, a charming willingness to sell-out immediately, high-profile ownership of dragon pants, involvement with the H.O.R.D.E festival, involvement with Farm Aid, involvement with Hear ‘n Aid, boating accidents, cult membership, nonmembership in the Cult, emaciation, obesity, a willingness to wear neckties for promotional photographs, a willingness to compose the theme song to That Thing You Do!, a willingness to collaborate with Bob Ezrin, a checkered history of collaborating with Lenny Kravitz, anachronistic facial hair, and/or the inability to be the person in the band who is not Joe Walsh.
Chuck Klosterman introduces the Rock VORM, the Gross Rock VORM, the Adjusted Rock VORM, and the “Real” Rock VORM stat.
this is a metaphor for something
Mike Lee on Victimhood
This is not going to be a good essay. This is going to be a terrible essay, which you should not read, for two reasons.
It deserves to be read anyway.
Dad takes embarrassing teenage son to a new level
Oddly, it isn’t a Onion article (via):
“You don’t want to see your dad dressing up in a wedding dress, waving at you on the bus,” Rain said.
And never did his dad use the same character more than once. Several props aided interpretation as well. Like the day he hauled a porcelain toilet onto the porch. One of the days he was sick, so a cardboard cut-out of a Lord of the Rings character stood outside in his place.
Charlie Chaplin and Helen Keller
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.
Was I Bored?
“No, I wasn’t fuckin’ bored. I’m never bored. That’s the trouble with everybody–you’re all so bored. You’ve had nature explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the living body explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the universe explained to you and you’re bored with it, so now you just want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn’t matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it’s new as long as it’s new as long as it flashes and fuckin’ bleeps in forty fuckin’ different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I’m not fuckin’ bored.”
Nothing meant to nobody round here. Seriously. Just a clip from a favorite film.
headline of the day
Horse herpes outbreak forces rodeo queens to ride stick ponies
For those who hate musicals…
…you might become a believer. So certainly NSFW.
Can(nes) of Worms
Lars von Trier made a monkey of himself this past week and no lie. Yeah yeah sure sure, he was indulging in low-key Scandihoovian humor. It just wasn’t funny. “Where’s my rubber chicken?”
But for the Cannes festival’s board of directors to issue the equivalent of a restraining order? C’mon, people. You just opened a can of wriggly worms.
words I wish I wrote
James Richardson from Interglacial:
First I have to learn to love myself, always make me writhe. I’m the last person I want to hear I love you from, the last I want to say it to. The part of myself I like is the part that works, like a good tool. The part of myself I love is the part that loves you.
tweet of the day
Quote out of context
Once, at a hardware store, he stared up at the glittery chandeliers and wept, “I don’t want to be a daddy! I want to be a mommy!”
Pointy Boots
Girls can wear pointy boots, too.
this picture of Faulkner always cracks me up
