“At a meeting of the Geological Society of London on 18 December 1912, Charles Dawson claimed that a workman at the Piltdown gravel pit had given him a fragment of the skull four years earlier…. Woodward announced that a reconstruction of the fragments indicated that the skull was in many ways similar to that of a modern human, except for the occiput (the part of the skull that sits on the spinal column) and for brain size, which was about two-thirds that of a modern human. He went on to indicate that save for the presence of two human-like molar teeth, the jaw bone found would be indistinguishable from that of a modern, young chimpanzee. From the British Museum’s reconstruction of the skull, [Arthur Smith Woodward, keeper of the geological department at the British Museum] proposed that Piltdown man represented an evolutionary missing link between apes and humans, since the combination of a human-like cranium with an ape-like jaw tended to support the notion then prevailing in England that human evolution began with the brain.”
 — The Piltdown Man hoax — after the ideas of “God” and “happiness,” the third greatest fraud to take advantage of the gullibility of man — was first perpetrated on this day one hundred years ago. What steaming pile of lies are you going to swallow today just because it is easier to do so than think critically? Tell us in the comments.

“I’m a Sagittarius, half-man, half-horse, with a license to shit in the street.”
 — The revered English memoirist Keith Richards, who has also been known to strum a song or two, turns 69 today. Ordinarily we would wait until a nice round number to celebrate his birth, but with a man who lives as recklessly as Mr. Richards — who knows the next time he might fall out of a tree, or slip while reaching for a book perched high atop his library? — one takes whatever chance one can to acknowledge the passing of another year.

Tricky choices today. Your first choice is likely to not go see Leonard Cohen at Madison Square Garden, so as to let the legend remain as a picture in your mind. Your second choice is: Berlioz at Carnegie Hall v. a documentary about the Federal Reserve at Lincoln Center.

Not that you asked, but I’m in favor of immigrants in this country. Mostly because of all the imported-type food items they produce in restaurants devoted to the cuisine of their homelands. I am pro-Melting Pot, and if there’s some cheese in that pot, or some nice soup, then Welcome and God Bless America. Also, I believe the only people who may legitimately continue to bitch about immigrants in this country are the Indigenous Peoples who walked over the land bridge from Asia and ended up living all over the western hemisphere. According to Science, they are the original human inhabitants, so they get to complain all they want about the other humans who found their way over here to ruin everything. Everybody else needs to be quiet or prove to me you really have a strong desire to wash cars, dishes, toilets, etc., and your Dream of loading dishwashers at Chez Whitey was stolen from you by a greedy immigrant.

Furthermore, I don’t care what language the immigrants speak, as long as they can speak a language and read and write a language, and get a job and an education and a better job and, if they are not citizens but they are somehow earning a living here in The Land of Opportunity, they should start paying some taxes up in here most riki-tik. That’s the real mark of Citizenry, man, paying taxes. People should look at that as a Status Symbol, instead of whining, you should be like, “look at all the Infrastructure I am able to pay for around here with my giant tax bill!”

There’s other Good Citizen stuff, though, like not burning household refuse in your backyard and, most importantly, obeying all local traffic ordinances, such as driving on the correct side of the road, par example. That’s pretty reasonable, eh? Like, in England, if you were to go there and become an Immigrant, you hafta drive on the left-hand side of the road. Japan also, I think, you got the car with the steering wheel on the right-hand side of the automobile and you drive on the left. These are the practical rules of a civilization, so we will all move along in an orderly fashion with our stupid lives, doing stuff we think is Important, efficiently. Be civilized, in a Local manner, you know? Errbody’s all het-up these days about eating Local, well good, let’s behave Local, see how that works.

And it’s not just the Immigrants here. We have a Serious Problem during this time of Holiday Shopping concerning the simple Egress and Ingress of buildings. Look, if you are getting ready to enter a building, and you see people getting ready to exit the same building, through the very same entrance-hole you are approaching, you need to find a different way in, preferably to the right, or slow your fucking roll and let the people come out of the building before you go trying to get in there, OK? It’s like the building is a container, and there’s stuff you want to put inside the container (your person) but at the same time, through the same portal, there is stuff pouring out of the container (other persons). Let’s empty the container before we try and fill it, shall we? And if you are in the process of egesting from said container, poop yourself out via the right-hand side of the building’s doors, and pour your ass in the same way, to the right.

And when you are on the goddamn escalator, why do you stop walking up the steps? You will go twice as fast if you simply lift up your stupid lazy goddamn fucking feet! It’s boring standing still on an escalator! Or, OK, you’re exhausted, you can’t walk up another step, fine, then please to stay the hell to the right on the escalator step you are occupying so people who know how to do things can walk past your suddenly paralyzed form. And this goes double-triple for the “moving sidewalk” at the fucking airport. It is a moving sidewalk! Designed to maximize your speed going to airport places! Why the hell are you alla sudden standing still when you were just walking so good? Hurry the fuck up! “Hurrying up” in an airport means you should walk with your feet on the moving sidewalk, not just fucking stand there looking at the Hudson News! Make an effort with all this, for the sake of Civilization, seriously, I have places to go and things to eat.

Previously: Rich People, Only You Can Save Us With Your Holiday Shopping

Mr. Wrong can converse with you via many medias. Photo by Gane.

[No stars] Not enough morning light to wake anyone. Outside was wet, but not particularly raw at first, with a heavy brown quality to the light: like sheltering inside a rain-soaked paper bag. Then even that mixed and minor blessing shredded away, in favor of a thick, hard-blown drizzle. At the bread counter, a sudden, arresting vision came of lugging a baguette, tilting and lurching, back down soggy Broadway. So a pane francese fit snugly and compactly at the bottom of the plastic sack, as the water beaded and ran down the outside. The kindergartener, hood up, turned himself away from the wind and walked backward. After an explanation of the importance of moving faster, to spend less time in it, he settled for trailing behind a grownup, in the moving lee.

11. Parental Guidance. Starring Zombie Billy Crystal.

10. The Impossible. Upside: Ewan McGregor likely to be shirtless. Downside: distressing death and dying and disaster, in a real-life thing that happened, but was actually so much worse than even this. (This movie is supposed to be very, very good, but I cannot.)

9. On the Road. “Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel about the Beat Generation comes to the big screen starring Kristen Stewart.”

8. Jack Reacher. LOL IDK with this. But what if it’s another Tom Cruise awesome surprise movie, like Knight and Day? WHAT THEN?

7. Amour. I adore you, Michael Haneke. But I need my incredibly glacial films about mortality to be punctuated with sudden unexpected moments of horrific violence.

6. Anna Karenina. Hurry, train.

5. The Guilt Trip. (“An inventor and his mom hit the road together so he can sell his latest invention.”)

4. Lincoln. I love you Tony Kushner. Someday I will watch this with my eyes closed, just to listen to your script.

3. Les Miserables. “FUCKING PONDEROUS.” — Casey Kasem

2. Cirque de Soleil: Worlds Away. “Mia and the aerialist become separated and travel in a place that exists between life and death to find each other again.”

1. Zero Dark Thirty. “The movie begins at the primal moment: the screen is black as we hear the frightened voices of people trapped in the World Trade Center on 9/11.” PASS.

The 10 Best Music Videos Of 2012 That Are Not Gangnam Style

by Eric Spiegelman

• Justice — “New Lands”

A summary of the rules of the futuresport played in Justice’s video for “New Lands”:

Play begins when batter hits the neutron ball fired at him by the cannon-pitcher. A successful hit finds its way into the possession of the roller-lacrosse attackman, who skates around the banked circumference track while avoiding the opposing team’s motocross defensemen and safeties armed with warhammers. The attackman passes the ball to the wide receiver, who runs downfield toward the end zone. A touchdown is worth 12 points, except when it’s worth 8 points.

This list of the 10 best music videos of 2012 are in no particular order, but they are divided into two rough categories, one of stories, the other of portraits. “New Lands” is a modern classic of the stylized dramatic nonsense story. There’s a room full of wealthy men who intend to win at all costs. They have a cyborg who kills the underdog team’s wide receiver. In a final act of defiance and pure will, the underdogs rally after halftime, and their star batter destroys the cyborg by smashing him in the face with a bat, which is, apparently, a legal maneuver.

• Aimee Mann — “Charmer”

The next great story video of 2012 is “Charmer,” by Aimee Mann. Aimee Mann is weary of the obligations that come from being a star musician. So at the recommendation of John Hodgman, she buys her own robot, an Aimee Mann lookalike, who also looks like Laura Linney. The robot is good at the job — too good. It takes over Aimee Mann’s career, overshadowing her, and, in a final indignity, signs autographs but spells Aimee Mann’s name wrong. Perhaps this isn’t a mistake. Perhaps the robot has become self aware, and is building a name for itself as Amy Mann. This is a cautionary tale about letting the soulless automatons of the music industry run your career for you, maybe.

• Father John Misty — “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings”

“Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” is my personal favorite of the year but I won’t put that kind of pressure on you to agree or disagree. I was transfixed by Aubrey Plaza’s portrayal of someone so distraught by death that she goes a little crazy. Unless I’m completely making this up, Father John Misty changed the video several months after initially uploading it. In the original version, Aubrey Plaza runs into the forest after the grief party (note to anyone who still knows me in 60 years: I want my funeral to have a grief party) and has sex with some phantasm succubus. In the new version, the succubus is replaced with one of the party guests, whom Aubrey Plaza kills. Oddly, I think the first version made more sense. Inexplicable bits of absurdity always seem to pop up during periods of grief. I’d prefer to believe whatever Aubrey Plaza went through was so intense that things got supernatural.

• Die Antwoord — “Baby’s On Fire”

Die Antwoord’s “Baby’s On Fire” tells the story of a little sister who stands up against the sexist hypocrisy of her family’s moral code. Her big brother spends all his time in the naked company of tarted-up pairs and quartets of women, yet he won’t let his sister have a boyfriend, whom she selects exclusively from a pool of talented motorists. The brother gets his in the end, and the Die Antwoord brand of feminism carries the day.

• Kanye West — “No Church In The Wild”

Kanye West’s “No Church In The Wild” is the Occupy movement taken to its most violent extreme. The video’s director, Romain Gavras, has a talent for choreographed violence and its portraying its relationship to authority. In his video for Justice’s “Stress,” a roving gang of outcasts extracts authority from wanton destruction. In M.I.A.’s “Born Free,”, the police who harness indiscriminate violence to enforce security (against some unspecified ginger threat). “No Church in the Wild” puts these two forces into direct conflict. It ends with no clear victor, which is perhaps the message. It ends also with an elephant.

• Major Lazer — “Get Free”

Away from the stories, and on to the portraits! The video for “Get Free” by Major Lazer is my other favorite, on account of it being the single most delightful dose of cinema to cross my Internet this year. One of the lyrics is, “we could never get free” — but the action is all Jamaicans doing simple joyous things. In that way it comes off as defiant, a “this world will never get me down” bit of rebellion. Try to watch this and not feel happy with what you have.

• Odd Future — “Oldie”

This video was mostly unplanned. Terry Richardson was shooting the Odd Future Wolf Gang Etc. Etc. kids for something, and Tyler the Creator decided to turn the entire thing into an impromptu video shoot for the ten-minute-long “Oldie.” The result is something similar to watching any Beastie Boys interview from 30 years ago. So much fun, it makes you wish you were one of the gang.

• Joey Bada$$ — “Waves”

I’ve placed a lot of expectation — unfairly, I’m sure — on the shoulders of Joey Bada$$: that his Pro Era crew will be, if not the anti-Wolf Gang, then at least the East Coast equivalent, sparking an east/west “rivalry” reminiscent of Tupac/Biggie although hopefully less violent. Maybe that would heal us. More likely it would feel like things are being glossed over. Either way, Joey Bada$$ sounds like the hip hop I grew up with, from a time just before murder was marketing, and this video is half nostalgic, even though he probably doesn’t care what some old guy thinks he’s reminiscent of. Whatever. It’s chill as fuck.

• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — “Thrift Shop”

Here is a list of items found by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in their video for “Thrift Shop” that I wish I owned: A DeLorean. A leopard mink (preferably one that does not smell of urine). A sweater with a ten-point buck on it. Velcro sneakers. Various JFK tapestries. A Wild Wild West pinball machine. A t-shirt with Kurt Cobain’s face on it. A globe that lights up.

I do have a bag of my grandfather’s ties. They’re all very wide and have government seals on them. Bald eagles and such. I should wear them.

• LOL Boys — “Changes”

I have a soft spot for DIY videos, where people take whatever means they have at their disposal and make things with it. “Changes” by the Tumblrcore ensemble “LOL Boys” is a particularly good example of this. Filmed entirely in screengrabs and with iSight cameras built into MacBooks and iMacs, it reflects the culture from which their music buds with a kind of honesty and openness that you really want to see in any form of filmed entertainment. But most of all it’s just people having fun in this Internet world that’s become the new norm.

• Bonus 11th Video: Killer Mike — “Reagan”

Dave Bry and I had an argument about which of the best rap videos belong on this list. He recommended “Reagan” by Killer Mike. I thought it was “too conspiracy theory,” to which Dave responded: “The politics of a piece of art has nothing to do with the success or failure of that art as art. And that video looks amazing — like a hip-hop ‘The Wall.’ And the song is great. Whether or not you buy into its message.”

So, you decide.

Previously in 2012 In Review: 100 Fantastic (Not Best!) Songs From 2012

Eric Spiegelman is a web producer in Los Angeles and the proprietor of Awl Music.

Zooey Deschanel, when she was blonde and kind of snarly! Will Ferrell in barely controlled hyper-idiotic hilarity. Bob Newhart! Christmas in New York City. An inexplicable subplot involving an independent publishing house specializing in children’s board books. This movie has everything good about the holidays. A little entertainment enhancement goes a long way, too.

A Christmas Story is the Internet’s favorite holiday movie, which means it is not quite as good as the Internet thinks it is, but it’s still very good. I think we can deal with the longing for a BB gun, despite everything. But if not, skip A Christmas Story this year.

Scrooged! Like a lot of 1980s’ “classic SNL cast movies,” this one didn’t seem very good at the time. But in comparison with, uh, everything that’s happened since, it’s genius! Really.

Here’s a movie with “nightmare” in the title that is actually not terrifying. Yes, of course, eventually anti-aircraft guns are used to shoot “Santa” (Jack Skellington) out of the sky on Christmas Eve, but he falls harmlessly into a graveyard. Mostly this is songs, and stop-motion animation, and it’s fun! Except for the violence?

Trading Places is the ultimate capitalist Christmas movie, but sadly all the YouTube clips show Dan Ackroyd despondent with a handgun, sooooooo, think twice, etc.

Nora Ephron (RIP) wrote and directed this 1994 “ensemble of crazy California stereotypes” holiday movie that holds up pretty well, despite how late 1980s everybody looks. But, like apparently EVERY CHRISTMAS MOVIE, this one includes comical suicides and violence, like when Steven Wright puts a gun to his head, because he’s a suicidal maniac, ha ha.

And, with that, we will stop, because these are all guns/crime movies. Bad Santa, The Ref, Jesus Christ what is wrong with this country? Did we miss a “good” holiday movie? Please tell us, because ugh ….

“The evils of alcohol abuse have long been known and preached against by the more sober-minded, but for a period of about two hundred years imbibers had a particularly dire consequence to fear: that too much drinking would cause them to catch fire and be reduced to a small pile of greasy ash. “

“Spectators and participants alike marvelled at the impressive race times clocked up at an indoor marathon in Vienna, Austria, on Sunday. But it turned out that the runners weren’t particularly fast after all — the race course had been too short.”
 — A brief moment of joy; the crushing realization that the pleasure was illusory, and the acknowledgment of unexpected brevity… remind you of anything?