September 2010
43 posts
1 tag
Internet: President Bush Killed Tarantino's Editor
Sally Menke, an Academy-Award nominated editor who Quentin Tarantino calls his “number one collaborator” died on Monday after hiking in L.A. during record-high temperatures. When actors in Tarantino’s movies would fluff their lines they’d often give a little “Hello Sally” shout-out directly to camera, talking to Menke, who’d see all the footage, good and...
“New York: a wholesale district with an annex for entertaining the visiting...”
– The Scene Almost Staggers - Lapham’s Quarterly
“Asked why most of the books in Romansh she sells are poetry, she muses: “When a...”
– Chur Journal - Romansh is Resuscitated in Switzerland - NYTimes.com
“There is even a functioning pirate stock exchange in Xarardheere, where locals...”
– Investors in the piracy-bubble ended up losing out big time. And none of the pirates got rich from their buckaneering, with profits being split among so many.
“Alas, things have changed, and it is highly unlikely that I will ever listen to...”
– The Wrestler and the Cornflake Girl - Slate
“Keeping the still life and its punning image together is a technical problem I...”
– Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 174, Guy Davenport
“The Thanksgiving turkey each year is officially granted the name of an Ottoman...”
– Traditions - Ask Metafilter
2 tags
Bonds' License to Kill Doesn't Extend to the...
While immigration and rightward electoral drift continues to dominate the Euronews, the bond market is what’s quietly exciting Europe right now. (Remember: Bonds are the loans that governments take out to finance expenditure that they want to forget about for a decade.)
Timothy Garton Ash, the King Kong columnist of Europe, got very scared when he started asking people about bond markets....
“Women on college campuses are being paid $500 to wear fitted sweatpants with...”
– KFC pays college women for ad space on buns - USATODAY.com
“History suggests that American populists’ rejection of liberalism is a matter of...”
– Boston Review — William Hogeland: Real Americans
“I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to think about working....”
– Getting Made The Scorsese Way: Movies + TV: GQ
“‘My target is to live 700 years,’ he declared. The students...”
“I’m fifty years old and I still haven’t made up my mind whether sex is good or...”
– Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 206, Michel Houellebecq
“Who made the bathwater disgusting? That’s right, the baby. The bathwater was...”
– Andy Borowitz: The Good Enough Baby : The New Yorker
2 tags
"European Muslims are increasingly acting like...
French politicards, a High Lord of German finance, and English soccer hooligans are making the anti-immigration rageface as summertime strikes and budget-slashing announcements give way to autumnal discontent. The English Defense League, mostly comprised of soccer hooligans, were present at protests against the proposed Islamic community centre in New York as they continue to get organized to...
“The first curse between a father and son is a special, necessary moment.”
– Swear Like a Good Man — The Good Men Project Magazine
“Life without music is simply an error, exhausting, an exile.”
– Reconsidering Nietzsche–Six Questions for Julian Young—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)
“It’s a twisting, endlessly-recursive, M.C. Escher-on-LSD three-dimensional hedge...”
– The Pentagon’s Craziest PowerPoint Slide Revealed - Wired
“By relegating beauty to what pleases us, Burke not only cut out its metaphysical...”
– Review-a-Day - History of Beauty by Umberto Eco, reviewed by Harper’s Magazine - Powell’s Books
“If a saloon and bookstore can’t make it on the Upper West Side, what better...”
– In Bookstore’s End, No Joy for Sidewalk Seller - New York Times
1 tag
"Rise up, thou monstrous ant-hill on the plain /...
We will continue to hear that the Internet is killing concentration until the Singularity renders us unable to do anything except concentrate. But 18th century London was similarly feared, writes Stephen Burt, and city-living turned out OK, right?
Appalled observers … react to the web as Wordsworth reacted to London, with its ‘endless stream of men and moving things’ … The hourly...
1 tag
"I was hurtling backwards in a time machine, on a...
TMN’s Todd Levin spoke with Splitsider about Our Bodies, Our Junk, a new book he has co-authored, and about his forthcoming gig writing for Conan.
I really have no idea how different this book would have been with an all-female writing crew. I would imagine the drawing of a vagina might have been more accurate, though, and might not have included so many rows of fangs.
It...
“The female flower then ripens into the fig that you can get at the supermarket,...”
– Edible Symbiosis : Oscillator
“In the city, I can’t separate my grief for what happened from my anger about...”
– In the Weeds: Trees and Plants of Human Use and Significance - The Awl
“I have uncovered a parallel between monster truck fans in Myrtle Beach and...”
– nic’s six: author nic brown provides observations from this year’s uso « tennis served fresh
“Snooki tweeted: “Ugh stuck in newark traffic is no fun,” drawing a...”
– Judge warns Snooki she’s on path to becoming like Lindsay Lohan - NYPOST.com
“Counterfeiting is considered such a threat to the United States that it is one...”
– The inkjet counterfeiter
1 tag
The movie version of Edward Fiszer's life is...
After reading about the $2.7 million fraud allegedly committed by L.A. charter school principal Dr. Edward P Fiszer, I wanted to find out more about the guy.
He was honored as a ‘Champion of Children’ by a child-advocacy organization and wrote three books, one titled Daily Positives: Inspiring Greatness in the next Generation. Hmm!
In a review of Eat, Pray, Love on Amazon he...
“Your act is part of a propaganda state promoting a culture-ideology of...”
– Noam Chomsky to become new X-Factor judge | NewsBiscuit
“the fall of Rome led to a long decline in condiment use, followed by a “dead cat...”
– De Condimentis (1) | HiLobrow
1 tag
And then there's basketball.
The trial has begun in the Philippines of an influential politician accused of orchestrating the massacre of 57 people, including 30 journalists, ambushed and buried in mass graves. It’s the biggest such attack on the press in history.
And then there’s basketball. Don’t just know the Philippines through this act of political violence, know its passions too. Harper’s...
1 tag
Naked Germans and Champagne'd French Protest...
Wealth-mocking activistocrats are holding masked “Fat Rent Parties” at viewings for expensive apartments in Hamburg, while “the Hedonist International” do the same thing with naked dancing in Berlin, and “Jeudi Noir” do it with a champagne and confetti in Paris.
These protests come with such good incentives! But if you’ve got money for masked champagne...
“The U.S. got back what it gave when a cocky, 9½-stone skiffling Scotsman arrived...”
– Music: Git-Gat Skiffle - TIME
“OK, so I clearly did not grow up in the most romantic of places. And I have no...”
– Having fun on a cool day. | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
“The instant gratification provided by being able to have almost any question...”
– Frank Chimero - There is a Horse in the Apple Store
“Europe, for the first time in hundreds of years, has become a strategic...”
– Op-Ed Columnist - Europe and Benign Neglect - NYTimes.com
“…where knights and walls once protected the aristocracy from unwanted...”
– Beyond City Limits - By Parag Khanna | Foreign Policy
“One day, Al Qaeda will fade away, but we will still be left with the swollen...”
– My Trip to Al Qaeda: Six Questions for Lawrence Wright—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)
“Police have arrested Kermit Butts in connection with the murder of Samuel Boob.”
– Butts Arrested in Boob Murder Case - WeAreCentralPA.com
“When he stood next to the scouts I led, he looked like a waterboy for a varsity...”
– As U.S. troops leave Iraq, an officer honors the memory of a young interpreter - Washington Post
1 tag
There's Nothing Like a Snoop Security Team
Snoop Dogg has partnered with Symantec’s Norton for “Hack is Wack,” an anti-cybercrime rap contest. He warns “You know when my team come at you we’re gonna get you.”
His other endorsements include Snoop Dogg Pet Accessory Line, Snoop Dogg 40 Oz Malt liquor, and Snoop Youth Football League, subject of a glorious profile in the Wall Street Journal.
1 tag
"Najaf, the spiritual capital of Shiite Islam, is...
For more than a millennium, the deceased have arrived at its cemetery, the Valley of Peace, seeking blessings in their burial near the golden-domed tomb of Imam Ali, the revered Shiite saint. There are moments of beauty here — finely rendered calligraphy on turquoise tiles, domes of a perfect symmetry that life cannot share. But shades of ocher predominate, the tan brick of headstones stretching...
“I cannot get married and have a family because I may lose them any minute, by a...”
– After Years of War, Few Iraqis Have a Clear View of the Future - NYTimes.com 