You know Big Boi is incredible. You know he loves penguins and that he discovered the phenomenal Janelle Monáe and that his album Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son Of Chico Dusty comes out July 6. But did you know how well he can freestyle? (I didn’t. That particular talent always blows me away. How do people think that fast?) In this clip, he riffs on the black-and-white tiles that make up the floor of the New York barber shop that serves as the setting for the latest installment of Pitchfork TV’s highly stylized hip-hop series Selector. Also, in the accompanying interview, he reaffirms his abiding love for Kate Bush. “She’s one of my all-time favorite artists,” he says. “She’s number one, Bob Marley is number two to me.” Please, God, smile upon Sir Lucious’ quest to go and find his fair maiden “somewhere in the Loch Ness Monster’s forest in London” so Big Boi and Kate Bush can work together someday.

Dear Hollywood: Please do not under any circumstances — even or especially those involving the interest of Robert Pattinson — remake the 1991 soap-opera campfest Soapdish. It is pretty much a perfect (and perfectly cast) movie and updating it for the TMZ era will just make the whole enterprise sad, and probably full of anachronisms not caught by the fifth rewriter to boot. If you don’t believe me, the entire movie is available on Hulu for free. (BRB for the next 1:40, everybody!) [Via]

I have some issues with hyphens. I am, at best, skeptical of them, which is no doubt a prejudice borne of ignorance concerning their usage. I most frequently fuck them up when it comes to modifiers, hyphenating that which should not be joined together and leaving asunder those words which do indeed require a connection. I would probably be happier if we got rid of hyphenation altogether, but I think we need at least another 20 years of texting and whatever comes after to totally destroy standard punctuation, at which point it will be too late for me. Anyway, here’s a couple of pointers on hyphens from the associate managing editor for standards at the New York Times who, while not sharing my bias toward their complete eradication, does at least seem dubious in certain cases. Bite me, hyphens!

“I don’t want to say people shouldn’t be eating raw vegetables, but everything in moderation-even things that are good for us. This probably wouldn’t have happened if the vegetables were cooked.”
–NYU physician Dr. Michael Chu, who last year treated a patient with myxedema coma, “a life-threatening condition caused by extreme hypothyroidism, or low thyroid function,” that had been brought about by the glucosinolates in all the bok choy she was eating to battle her diabetes.

I’m not sure if “disturbing” or “depressing” is the more appropriate word in this case, but this clip of Philippe Cousteau Jr. and ABC’s Sam Champion diving into the water near Louisiana to see what the oil slick looks like from below is… well, it’s not going to make your day any better.

A Los Angeles resident who cashed a $1,000 money order at a local post office got a bit of an unpleasant surprise — as it turned out, his payday included eight counterfeit Benjamins, which turned out to be $5 bills that had been bleached and altered. According to the police officers who were called in when David Lipin’s bill got rejected at a gas station, holding the bills up to the light would have revealed the visage of Abe Lincoln. Would the special relationship that the Postal Service and the Federal Government have resulted in Lipin getting his money back, the Los Angeles Times wondered? “Not really. The post office operates as a business. It takes in money from customers,” a deputy special agent of the Secret Service said. “Postal workers don’t really have special equipment or training to spot counterfeit bills. Unless they’re in on it, this isn’t their responsibility.” Hmm, I don’t know — I smell something funny about this story, given that I’ve had $20 bills inspected by cashiers at Duane Reade. Either I look super-suspicious, or this is some sort of stealth campaign for the new, non-greenback $100 bill coming to a bank near you soon!

Remember last year (seriously, the last one was in June of 2009) when we were sending out an e-mail newsletter that delivered all sorts of tidbits from Choire and Alex’s brains into your inboxes (and hearts)? Well, a few months later than we promised we would, we’re doing the newsletter things once again! Just go here and sign up for our mailing list to read their musings on all sorts of fun topics! We’ve already done two this week! One about ‘zines and the other about wives!

“I live in Philadelphia where the Betsy Ross House-in which Ross, who probably didn’t sew the first American flag, may not have actually lived-is considered a national landmark, yet my former home of Portsmouth boasts not so much as a plaque trumpeting it as the irrefutable birthplace of Ronnie James Dio, the Black Sabbath/Rainbow/Dio frontman who not only penned such timeless anthems as ‘Rainbow in the Dark’ and ‘Neon Knights,’ but also popularized the iconic ‘devil’s horns’ as heavy metaldom’s official salute.”
-Portsmouth New Hampshire-born music writer Shawn Macomber insists that his hometown must honor its dearly departed like Cortland, New York-where Dio spent his teenage years-has (since 1988!) with a street called Dio Way. At least one reader agrees. There’s a movement afoot!

Sure, spraying some rancid-coconut-smelling chemicals all over your skin before you go out in the sunshine might prevent you from getting a sunburn and the attendant itchiness and peeling. But is it preventing you from getting cancer? A new study from the Environmental Working Group says no, and that those SPF numbers you use to deduce which sunscreen is right for you are pretty much useless. (To be fair, in a world where “Doppler 4000” exists, the idea of numbers being inflated for the sole purpose of marketing doesn’t really surprise.) And it might be even worse if your sunscreen has Vitamin A, which even though it supposedly decelerates the aging process might actually result in accelerating sunlight’s ability to cause cancerous tumors. So much for “antioxidants” being good for you, right?

The EWG is actually accusing the Food & Drug Administration of sitting on findings that linked Vitamin A and cancer from a 10-year-old study in which “tumors and lesions developed up to 21 percent faster in lab animals coated in a vitamin A-laced cream than animals treated with a vitamin-free cream.” The FDA is denying the study’s existence, although documents on its own website would seem to counteract that claim.

What’s a fair-skinned person to do? Well, we could import our sunscreens from Europe; the EWG claims the chemical blends that protect without harm are available over there. But that seems kind of expensive. I’m leaning toward “never leaving the house,” because if I’m going to get cancer, I may as well have it come from whatever carcinogens are already in my home. At the very least, this plan will save me money.

“As an attorney and the former attorney general of Florida, Governor Crist knows better. A political candidate may not incorporate the artistry of musicians and a songwriter into a campaign commercial without getting a license.”
-Attorney, Lawrence Iser, representing David Byrne in lawsuit against Charlie Crist for using the Talking Heads song “Road to Nowhere” without permission in his now-abandoned Senate campaign against fellow Republican Marco Rubio. Here’s the rule: No Springsteen, no Heart, no Jackson Browne, no Talking Heads. At this point, Republican ad departments would be better off just sticking with the Nuge. Just score every single ad with “Stranglehold” and call it a day.