Friday, February 26, 2010
Iced Out: The End is Near--the Medal Count, Less So
South Korean darling Kim Yu-na was an absolute stunner last night in the ladies free skate, shattering her own world record score and twirling her way to the gold. Aerial ski jumper Jeret Peterson-known assonantly as "Speedy"-landed a "Cirque du Soleil on skis" move called the Hurricane that he had not successfully stuck in competition since 2007; he won a silver. The Canadian women's hockey team boozily Owned The Podium (and almost Drove The Zamboni) after winning their third Olympic gold. And still, all I could think about as I lounged on the couch and let the NBC broadcast team play cat's cradle with my heartstrings was: how the hell did the US go one-two in the Nordic combined!? READ MORE
The Oscars are Next Week and Nope, I Still Haven’t Seen 'Avatar'
No, I'm not some joyless prude. I was once like you, even. Remember when we were sitting around your apartment and decided to watch the trailer online? How we laughed! Someone had tried to adapt early 90s Trapper Keepers® for the screen! And they'd spent a small nation's GDP to make it happen! If, some months from that point, James Cameron Trips Over A Fanboy Wishlist Into The Uncanny Valley wasn't going to be the flop of our young century, jeez, it really should've been.
Then we went about our admittedly terrestrial lives. READ MORE
The 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' of Cat Fight Videos
You know I feel bad, because cats should be about the love. But holy God is this a cat fight. The first 24 seconds are just a good vocal warmup. Then it's off and over the roofs and walls and up and down stairs and man these cats hate each other. Like most fights, it ends just the way it began: without much gained.
Sometimes I'm Happy
Happy people are more selfish and pay less attention to details than do those of us who know that life is an unrelenting slog of boredom, horror, and melancholy, says Science. This obverse of this assertion is looked at in much longer detail in a Times Magazine article on depression this weekend. It examines the idea that depression is an evolutionary strategy aimed at helping us better focus on things. And there is this, on the link between depression and creativity. READ MORE
I will delete the holy shit out of some movie reviews on this site for $400,000. Enquire within! Or best offer! | February 26, 2010
How Many Years Will It Take Us To Get John Yoo's Emails?
The number one thing I am pissed off about this month, right after NBC's Olympics coverage, is the disappeared John Yoo emails, which could probably shed a lot of light on how the previous administration created policies to torture people. This is such an unbelievable scandal, both on the issue of torture but also of government accountability. Pretty much, as a nation, everything should come to a standstill until this is dealt with. This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Gary Grindler, Acting Deputy Attorney General, about the emails, and got total mumbling in response. This is like, pitchforks and subpoenas and prosecution time, people. There are extremely explicit rules about this kind of thing, and in light of the Bush administration email-disappearing shtick, in which everyone had to go to court over and over again simply to get what should have been carefully-conserved White House emails, was bad enough. But these are actual lawyers, at the actual Department of Justice, who have engaged in disappearing critical emails.
"He was two years [old] when the slavers captured him in 1982 and hauled him off to the little town of Victoria, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, in the far Canadian west. And there he met his fellow slaves, Nootka and Haida. Day after day in slave school they learned their tricks."
-Alexander Cockburn "goes there" about the "killer whale" attacks and quotes Frederick Douglass along the way. | February 26, 2010
Half Baked: Snow Day Cookies
It is absolutely no fun out there, unless you're a kid I guess, because kids, like, don't feel weather the way that we feel weather I AM TOTALLY CONVINCED OF THIS. Right? When you were a kid all you needed was a snowsuit and a pair of Freezy Freakies and you were all set to stay outdoors for ten or so hours. Now? The two and a half Midtown blocks between my office and the subway might as well have been a day spent in Pine Barrens chasing a drunk Russian. READ MORE
Shane MacGowan And Pals' Charity Single
Today in music: "Shane MacGowan has gathered together a group of his musician friends to record I Put a Spell on You in aid of Concern Worldwide's work in Haiti. The stellar cast featured vocals from Shane MacGowan, Nick Cave and Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie, the Sex Pistols Glen Matlock, The Pretenders Chrissie Hynde and Paloma Faith and finally Eliza Doolittle. On guitars were James Walbourne, The Clashs Mick Jones and Johnny Depp, who recorded his parts in LA." You know what? Johnny Depp SHREDS. I fully endorse this video. [Via]
Old Person Excited About Old Record, Using The Word "Cocksucker"
One of the best albums of all time-the New York Times once called it "rock 'n' roll's version of the Great American Novel," which makes no sense because its creators are English!-is getting reissued. Come May 18th, Exile on Main Street will be released in an expanded version (with ten new, or newish songs.) There is also a DVD, says the Times, "of a new Rolling Stones documentary, called 'Stones in Exile,' which uses footage from an earlier, unreleased Stones film whose name we cannot print here. (The second part of its title is "Blues.")" We can print it! It's "Cocksucker!" "Cocksucker Blues!" I'm deliriously happy!
A Recent History of Ironic Exclamations for Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Klosterman's last book, from October, has an attack on the use of the exclamation point as a marker of irony. It's making the rounds today online, since someone is reading it. Klosterman's opinion: It's "idiotic. It's the saddest kind of failure." Klosterman is talking overall about the rhetorical practices of feigned ignorance, distancing in general and also about the most convenient punctuation markers to make things clear to the reader-though he believes these markers make things ever more unclear. At least, he approvingly quotes Fitzgerald as against exclamation points. Let's look at some recent history! READ MORE
"The economics of news simply don't support high salaries anymore. This changes the paradigm of desirability from hiring someone who's good-looking and can read to someone who's well-rounded and can present."
-Industry consultant Steve Safran explains that, because of cost-cutting in network news divisions, even the real uggos will now get a shot to report on TV.
| February 26, 2010
The BBC does not do embeddable video, so you will just have to go here to see this story about a volunteer group in Somerset, England, that knits sweaters for bald chickens. I cannot promise that it will be worth your time, but then again I do not know exactly how valuable your time is. | February 26, 2010
"Italy's highest court on Thursday threw out the long-running corruption trial of David Mills, a former lawyer of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in a move that casts doubt over whether a related corruption trial facing the Italian leader will reach a conclusion.... In its ruling, which is final and can't be appealed, the high court said Mr. Mills had received [a $600,000 payment to lie for Berlusconi during a couple of earlier trials]. However, the judges found that lower courts-which had originally convicted Mr. Mills-had improperly interpreted the statute of limitations in the case. Therefore, they threw the case out." Berlusconi's lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, will ask the court to suspend Berlusconi's own trial in the matter. Italians are the world champions at running out the clock. | February 26, 2010
How Brittany Murphy's Menstruation Just Doesn't Make Sense
There are a lot of women out there who have menstrual cycles. Generally, they talk about it amongst themselves. But sometimes menstruation becomes public! Like in Brittany Murphy's autopsy report, which, Us Weekly reports today, her husband has just read. (The magazine notes that he found reading it upsetting.) But women readers will note that there is some really intriguing menses-related information here. READ MORE
