garfield minus garfield, cop rock, vbs

"it still counts, even though it happened when he was unconscious. it counts doubly because the conscious mind often makes mistakes, falls for the wrong person. but down there in the well, where there is no light and only thousand year-old water, a man has no reason to make mistakes. god says do it and you do it. love her and it is so. /miranda july
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The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor. Don’t have grandparents in Florida? Not Jewish? No problem! You can still become a schlepper and make change happen in 2008, simply by talking to your relatives about Obama.



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Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.










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cop rock seems to be some show aired in 1990 portraying what must be a cop's vision of his own world should said world be the victim of a massive bombing during what could only be described as psychedelic warfare. in 2002, tv guide ranked it #8 among the 50 worst tv shows in history.

"let's be careful out there"

-"several reports of nefarious sorts"


notes:
-nice rhyming of morality/illegality
-"it's a pleasure doing business the american way"
-refers to himself as a baby merchant
-"i'll have your baby for you"

this is not what jail was like:


somewhat related: Basically, VBS will exploit every utopian vision the internet has thus far failed to live up to.

there are some very unexpected guides to places like north korea (below) and afghanistan. i highly recommend watching all the north korea guides, they're uber fascinating.



"it's so surreal. there's nothing normal that happens in this whole country, ever.

things not allowed into north korea:


also from vbs: the vice guide to sex - a piece in the valley



I got bored after a while. When I was getting ready for the shoot I was wondering whether or not I was going to get a boner, cause part of my shtick was interviewing everyone in my black underwear--which is really liberating by the way. And on top of that, everyone has less on than you. Interviewing people in the nude is something I particularly enjoy doing. And the actors are so cavalier about it on porn sets, you could start talking about the new Audi and they're just like, "Oh, fantastic car. The mileage and rack-and-pinion steering is just incredible," and their dick is hanging out. There was one part where she was wiping cum off her mouth while she was talking to us as if it was a little mustard she'd gotten on her face.
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why not:

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at judgeby.com, you can guess a book's Amazon.com reviewer rating by looking at its cover.


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some lhb goodness:

Philip Pullman discusses book banning in the Guardian.

In fact, when it comes to banning books, religion is the worst reason of the lot. Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of private solace, artistic inspiration, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed. The rank stench of oppression wafts from every authoritarian church, chapel, temple, mosque, or synagogue – from every place of worship where the priests have the power to meddle in the social and intellectual lives of their flocks, from every presidential palace or prime ministerial office where civil leaders have to pander to religious ones.
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Downtown Journal interviews Chuck Klosterman about his novel, Downtown Owl.

Why did you decide to try fiction?

...There are certain things you can’t do in nonfiction. There are certain things about writing...If you write in a nonfictional, journalistic context, any sort of opinion or idea you have is going to be associated with the way you view the world. Sometimes it’s sort of nice to be able to create a character, have them say something interesting or entertaining, but isn’t necessarily my perspective or my world view.
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from howitworks.net:

Have you ever heard of a scribbling ring? In sixteenth century England, uncut diamond crystals were set into rings and exchanged by lovers. The wearers of these scribbling rings would use the points of the diamonds to etch (or “scribble”) romantic writings to each other in glass, mirrors or windows.

Another popular ring exchanged during Shakespearian times was called a Posey Ring. Posey rings are inscribed with poetic phrases or dates significant to the wearer.
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i recently added some deviations to my deviantART account.
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from nyt:

Israel From Cliff Top to Desert Bottom

With terrain that ranges from snow-capped mountains and vast desert to lush valleys and continuous coastline, Israel is being recognized as an ideal destination for adventure travelers. “For years, Israel was known in the U.S. as the land of the Bible and a place to visit relatives, but in the last decade we see a major change in the reasons people are coming to visit,” said Arie Sommer, Israel’s tourism commissioner for North and South America. “Between the hiking, biking, snappling” — rappelling — “and jeeping, people are discovering that Israel has a lot to offer.”

chandeliers, mr. brainwash, mrs. brainwashed (R-AK)

"our children are not individuals whose rights and tastes are casually respected from infancy, as they are in some primitive societies...they are fundamentally extensions of our own egos and give a special opportunity for the display of authority." /ruth benedict, 1934
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netherlands4nobel.org is "coordinating the nomination of the Netherlands for a Nobel Peace Prize for its achievements in minimizing drug use in its citizens, while at the same time restricting imprisonment."
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extratasty is a drink recipe website, made by the same guys that run threadless, with all kinds of neat features, like user-submitted drinks, supplies, and the ability to text recipes to your phone. seeing's how i just picked me up a chocolate mint plant, i plan to make some extra tasty mojitos.
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neu black puts "mr. brainwash in league with this generation’s most illusive and notable street artists."


beatles portait made entirely of vinyl records







(slideshow)

more of mr. brainwash from whorange:



and more from la weekly:



and still plenty more from mr. brainwash's flickr account:


(both made entirely out of broken vinyl records)
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Using Old Materials to Put a New Face on a Museum




(slideshow)
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neat chandelier made of mattress springs and light bulbs at the barber shop ryan goes to in la:

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Paul Sacaridiz is head of ceramics and an Assistant Professor in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.




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nyt reviews equus, starring daniel radcliffe:

For Alan Strang is, in a sense, a tidy inversion of Harry Potter. Both come of age in a menacing, magical world where the prospect of being devoured by darkness is always imminent. The difference is that for Harry that world is outside of him; Alan’s is of his own creation.

An Urban Farmer Is Rewarded for His Dream

With a staff of about three dozen full-time workers and 2,000 residents pitching in as volunteers, his operation raises about $500,000 worth of fresh, affordable produce, meat and fish for one of what he calls the “food deserts” of American cities, where the only access to food is corner grocery stories filled with beer, cigarettes and processed foods.
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this chick from project runway looks like a frogerin' idiot.


closely related:

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sarah palin makes me sad.

Palin's response is a collection of hems and haws that are extremely uncomfortable to watch. As she stumbles over word choice, Couric patiently encourages her.

jack cafferty is not impressed, and seems to be permanently scarred from another of her responses to kouric's questions.


kouric was no doubt thinking:


related:

bush vetoing embryonic stem cell research, september 25, 2006:


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from the village voice:




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webehigh analyzes the smokiness of cities around the world, including madison and baltimore.

If you stay in the county to cop buds, go to movie theatres and malls, places where there's stuff going on. Most of the people under 25 anywhere in the county blaze, so you can ask around without too much worry...Baltimore is the meeting place of several major interstates: I-95, I-70, I-83, and I-97, and is also second only to New York as one of the largest seaports on the East Coast. Its strategic location makes it one of the major hubs of the illegal drug trade on the east coast.
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the village voice interviews michael showalter



Right now I’m enjoying standup because a lot of it’s unscripted. With sketch it’s really 100 percent scripted. There’s improvisation and the process of getting to a final draft, but the kind of sketch comedy I do is heavily scripted. For some people, standup is scripted too, but not for me. I’ve been improvising more and more as I go forward. I go on stage, and I’ll have a couple of things I want to talk about and then just kind of let it go—just kind of open up my mind and start to excavate the ruby- and diamond-encrusted treasures hidden inside.
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base jumping off the towers of kuala lumpur:


base jumping off the eiffel tower:


plane to plane skydive:


jumping from 102,800ft:


<3 co

music: high places - 03/07 - 09/07 (7.08)



from sunflower chakra milk:

High Places channels the spirit of school bus sing-a-longs, back country camping trips, and first prize science fair projects, while conjuring dreams of faraway places through the use of field recordings, contact mics on houshold items, wind instruments and electronic thingamabobs.

also: high places - high places (9.08)

guilty pleasures, megapuss

"Well, I have a band — it’s me and the drummer from Priestbird, Greg Rogove. What started off as a joke — 'Let’s start a band and let’s make up song titles' — to our surprise and shock, we started writing songs, and we’ve written eight songs that I’m really really proud of and excited about. We’re gonna record a real record, and we’re called MEGAPUSS." /devendra banhart
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from nyt:

In the Penthouse, a True Garden Apartment

slideshow

In the master bathroom, for example, some 50 square feet of leafy plants grow on vertical panels that conceal drip irrigation tubes. (Every morning when he shaves, Mr. Blesso probably looks more like Tarzan in the jungle than a real estate developer in New York.) And the stairway to the roof, a construction of steel and tajibo wood designed by Mr. Sanders, is set into a thick bed of plants.

Modest Luxuries for Lean Times

It more or less comes down to status and economics. These days, wines under $10 are generally the result of mass production and economies of scale. Wines made in that manner can be decent but are rarely exciting. Wines made on a smaller scale by vignerons have far greater potential to excel. Of course, they cost more to make, which rules out most of the higher status regions...The real treasures lie in areas thought to be of lesser status.

Drug Maker to Report Fees to Doctors

John C. Lechleiter, chief executive of Eli Lilly & Company, announced on Wednesday that starting next year it intended to post in an online database all its payments to doctors for speaking and consulting services. The postings will “likely include” the names of the doctors, or will provide some other identifying information about them, along with the reason for the payments, the company said.
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the baltimore citypaper discusses children's books:

It's not that children's books are pure entertainment, innocent of any didactic goal--what grownups enviously call "Reading for Fun." On the contrary, the reading we do as children may be more serious than any reading we'll ever do again. Books for children and young people are unashamedly prescriptive: They're written, at least in part, to teach us what the world is like, how people are, and how we should behave--as my colleague Megan Kelso (The Squirrel Mother) puts it, "How to be a human being."
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doug mann posted a philosophical guide to waking life.
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from esquire:

guilty pleasures - the etymology of a phrase gone wrong
by chuck klosterman

In and of itself, the phrase "guilty pleasure" seems like a reasonable way to describe certain activities. For example, it is pleasurable to snort cocaine in public restrooms, and it always makes you feel guilty; as such, lavatory cocaine fits perfectly into this category.
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from lhb:

Aside from being opposed to the war in Iraq, the issue I connect with Obama on most strongly is Universal Health Care. Until recently, I wasn't able to afford health care in the US as a touring musician. I used to think "well, if anything goes wrong, I can always go home to Sweden." The idea that there are millions of Americans who can't afford health care is frightening. The health care system we have in Sweden, though not without its own flaws, is a better system than the one we have here.
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politicians and drugs:




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from the wall street journal:

A story is a string of actions occurring over time -- one damn thing after another, as we glibly say in creative writing classes -- and debt happens as a result of actions occurring over time. Therefore, any debt involves a plot line: how you got into debt, what you did, said and thought while you were in there, and then -- depending on whether the ending is to be happy or sad -- how you got out of debt, or else how you got further and further into it until you became overwhelmed by it, and sank from view.

related:

principles of economics

<3 co

music: megapuss - surfing (10.08)





from the passion of indie music:

Megapuss is Devendra Banhart, Greg Rogove (Priestbird), Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes, Little Joy), Noah Georgeson (member of Banhart's band and producer), and Aziz Ansari (actor/comedian). "A legitimate band of talented musicians, capable of effortlessly tossing off the finest in California-style tambourine jams."
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searching for chicken titz:

in ear park live

"a kiss without a beard is like a soup without salt." /okcfv
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from gorilla vs bear:


department of eagles


Department of Eagles - "In Ear Park" (DUMBO Session) from gorillavsbear.net
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pandora was playing a song i didn't really love, so i rated it a thumbs down. out of probably two dozen songs or so, it was the only one i didn't like. here was pandora's explanation:



i felt kind of bad, as though i'd hurt its feelings.
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from answers.com, dead man's hand:

A traditional cure for cysts, wens, scrofula, goitre, and ulcers was the touch of a dead man's hand—preferably, as Reginald Scot wrote in 1584, one who has died an untimely death. Aubrey knew of a man's wen and a child's hunchback cured by this means (Aubrey 1686/1880: 198). Margaret Courtney noted instances in 19th-century Cornwall where the cure was used for persistent sore eyes, for a ‘peculiar tuberous formation’ on a child's nose, and for a sore on a child's leg; she was told that ‘there is no virtue in the dead hand of a near relation’, presumably because that would be too easy of access (Courtney, 1890: 152-3).

Throughout England, the hand of a hanged man was thought to be especially effective. People went to public executions and paid the hangman to let them rub the corpse's hand across their swellings as it hung on the gallows; in 1785, Boswell saw ‘four diseased persons … rubbed with the sweaty hands of malefactors in the agonies of death’.

In the Fens, where families were large and poverty acute, it was thought that if a woman held the hand of a dead man for two minutes, she would not become pregnant during the next two years (Porter, 1969: 11-12, Sutton, 1992: 92).
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from nyt:

French Cuisine, Exalted by Chefs as a World Heritage Treasure

Even inside France, the idea has been ridiculed. Shortly after Mr. Sarkozy made his proposal, François Simon, Le Figaro’s acerbic food critic, wrote that if France wins Unesco status, “Opening the door of a restaurant, making a soufflé rise, shelling an oyster, will become part of cultural activity, like falling asleep at the opera, yawning at the theater or slumping over Joyce’s ‘Ulysses.’ ”
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this personal kaleidescope is very, very fun.
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lovely find:


related: iron and wine at the paradiso in amsterdam, 1/27/08


and:


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beards.






Beekeeper Steve Bryans of Alvinston, Ontario, Canada, gets a kiss from his fiance, Rachel Bannister, with his face full of bees at the Clovermead Bees and Honey, Bee Beard competition in Aylmer, Ontario, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2007. Bryans won the competition.
















Gunnar burst onto the international beard scene at the 2006 European Championships in Amberg, Germany, where he took third in the full beard natural category, traditionally the most competitive. At the 2007 worlds in Brighton, England 2007, where ABBA won the Eurovision SongContest in 1984, he succeeded in taking the silver medal performance in the same category. Gunnar is a peacelover and also a Master of Science in Computer Engineering. He lives in the woods near Gothenburg with his woman and his daughter.



the beard team usa blog
bristly chaps of los angeles
chicago league of bearded gentlemen
gotham city beardsman alliance
oklahoma confederation of flocculent visages
badgerland beards (madison beards!)