Sour Grapes

"Come to think of it, maybe that’s why it’s hard to detect much in the way of palpable..."

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:54:17 +0100

“Come to think of it, maybe that’s why it’s hard to detect much in the way of palpable feeling in Carey’s music. Her singing voice wavers up and down through the octaves, like someone slowly tuning a shortwave radio in search of an authentic emotion. It’s technically amazing, but almost impossible to relate to on a human level – possibly because she no longer experiences anything akin to regular human life. She might not even experience proper emotions these days. She might have people who do that for her. Aides who rush in and hitch up the corners of her mouth each time she starts to smile, and mop down her cheeks with tiny hand-knitted towels when she cries.”

- Charlie Brooker: The life of Mariah Carey sounds terribly demanding | Comment is free | The Guardian

Welcome, Sterling Cooper

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:19:29 +0100

Welcome, Sterling Cooper:

madmenfootnotes:

Well, look at this little past meets present! McCann Erickson, the big bad wolf that bought up Sterling Cooper in the season finale (and screwed over Betts on her big Coca Cola ad!), has put up a video on their main site that cheekily excerpts all the McCann references in “Shut the Door, Have a Seat”.

The video will be up for a week or “until Matthew Weiner yells at us for doing it,” as per a McCann exec in this article.

Of course, they thought they’d be sneaky enough to get the last “there will be diamonds on the doorknobs” line past us, but! not so fast! that line is from season 2, re: the Putnam Powell and Lowe merger.

• footnote - by Natasha Simons

This story totally rocks. I hope Weiner leaves it up, because it’s a great pwned moment.

ilovecharts: naeros: How to kill an idea ( via xmooth )

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:14:24 +0100

ilovecharts:

naeros:

How to kill an idea

( via xmooth )

ilovecharts: via meghalomania I hate Twilight, part 1 of 3

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:12:07 +0100

ilovecharts:

via meghalomania

I hate Twilight, part 1 of 3

Bad bad overwriting

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:03:00 +0100

From Men’s Journal, recommended by Jason Kottke:

On September 6, 2008, a Saturday, Walt took him to Ponce Inlet late in the afternoon. It was his weekend with the kids. As he did every two weeks, he picked up Christopher from the group home where he lived, then picked up Angela, his 14-year-old daughter, at her mom’s house in Oviedo. Christopher sat next to Dad in the front seat of Walt’s red Celica, the top folded back, wind running through Christopher’s short dark-brown hair. Angela sat squished along with two of her friends in the back. It was a perfect day to go to the beach.

They stopped at McDonald’s, Christopher’s favorite, on the way. Christopher ate his double cheeseburgers slowly, maddeningly, the exact same way he did every time. He took off the top bun, held it in his hand, and ate the pickles. Then he ate the lettuce. Then the top bun. Then he ate the meat. Then the bottom bun, then each french fry, one at a time. He chewed vigorously, with his mouth open, loud enough for Walt to ask him to stop. Occasionally, when he became anxious or upset, he might stand beneath the spout of the soda fountain and press the button, and try to catch the spill in his mouth.

"Animal welfare groups voiced outrage today after the restaurant critic AA Gill said he shot a baboon..."

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:59:12 +0100

“

Animal welfare groups voiced outrage today after the restaurant critic AA Gill said he shot a baboon on safari “to get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone”.

In a Sunday Times column, Gill recounted in detail how he shot the creature from 250 yards while hunting in “a truck full of guns and other blokes” in Tanzania. He said he felt the urge to be “a recreational primate killer” before shooting the animal through the lung.

”

- AA Gill shot baboon ‘to see what it would be like to kill someone’ | World news | The Guardian

"I’d recommend everybody try bombing on stage at least once. People are always chasing new highs;..."

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:03:27 +0100

“I’d recommend everybody try bombing on stage at least once. People are always chasing new highs; what about new lows? Dying on your arse is a low you won’t believe. I heard of a guy who died during a benefit gig for victims of miscarriages of justice. An old guy came up and put his arm round him at the bar. He felt a bit better until he realised he had done so badly he was being consoled by one of the Birmingham Six.”

- In a sniper’s sights… : Features 2009 : Chortle : The UK Comedy Guide

(via soupsoup)

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:57:32 +0100

(via soupsoup)

"Now this is blogging: “I mean let’s forget about the fact they’re right wing catholics, let’s..."

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:42:35 +0200

“

Now this is blogging:

“I mean let’s forget about the fact they’re right wing catholics, let’s forget about the fact they hate women, gays and immigrants. Let’s ignore their lies, their scare tactics, their disinformation. Let’s ignore the pasts of the people involved in Cóir. Let’s look aside as the links to the despicable Youth Defence are brought to the fore and let us implicity trust the motley crew of mentalist, pencil licking helpers, they’ll have at the polling stations on Friday as they ‘monitor’ the amount of votes cast.

“This is like that hilarious film Sideways where they go around touring vineyards. You don’t really give a shit what happens once they all die in the end, the tedious cunts.”

”

- Hahaha, I am laughing, but it’s a laugh of not glee | Twenty Major – Still smoking in Dublin bars

"But if weaning means never drinking breastmilk again, then Mongolians are never truly weaned - and..."

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:38:11 +0200

“

But if weaning means never drinking breastmilk again, then Mongolians are never truly weaned - and here’s what surprised me most about breastfeeding in Mongolia. If a woman’s breasts are engorged and her baby is not at hand, she will simply go around and ask a family member, of any age or sex, if they’d like a drink. Often a woman will express a bowlful for her husband as a treat, or leave some in the fridge for anyone to help themselves.

While we’ve all tasted our own breastmilk, given some to our partners to try, maybe used a bit in the coffee in an emergency - haven’t we? - I don’t think many of us have actually drunk it very often. But every Mongolian I ever asked told me that he or she liked breastmilk. The value of breastmilk is so celebrated, so firmly entrenched in their culture, that it’s not considered something that’s only for babies. Breastmilk is commonly used medicinally, given to the elderly as a cure-all, and used to treat eye infections, as well as to (reportedly) make the white of the eye whiter and deepen the brown of the iris.

”

- peaceful parenting: Breastfeeding in the Land of Genghis Khan

Regretsy – Kodiak Moment

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:44:23 +0200

Regretsy – Kodiak Moment

HORACE D - Google Patent Search

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:24:06 +0200

HORACE D - Google Patent Search:

An “appliance for assisting anatomical organs,” or what you and I might call a cock-ring. From 1895.

The number of migratory birds in Flanders is in serious decline,...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:45:38 +0200

The number of migratory birds in Flanders is in serious decline, according to the Flemish agency for the protection of birds, VBV. In November, Dutch ornithologist Bennie van den Brink will go to Zambia to carry out a three-month study of the birds’ habits for VBV. (via Zambia project to count Flanders’ birds | Flanders Today

)

"But in one important way, the movie is better than the book. In the book, Max effortlessly controls..."

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:58:05 +0200

“

But in one important way, the movie is better than the book. In the book, Max effortlessly controls the Wild Things by taming them with “the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once.”

In the movie, Max wants to control the Wild Things. The Wild Things in turn want to be controlled. They want him to build a utopia for them where they won’t feel pain. But in the movie, Max fails as king. He lacks the power to control his Wild Things. The Wild Things come to recognize that he isn’t really a king, and maybe there are no such things as kings.

”

- Op-Ed Columnist - Where the Wild Things Are - NYTimes.com

This guy is a fucking nut. “Max fails as king”? WTF dude? Maybe read the book maybe, you think maybe?

Some magazine editors try to drink like Mad Men. Slate V

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:01:07 +0200

Some magazine editors try to drink like Mad Men.

Slate V

Stop Making That Duckface! you know that face you make when...

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:07:54 +0200

Stop Making That Duckface!

you know that face you make when you’re about to take that perfect shot of yourself for myspace?

you know, the one where you push your mouth out in that weird combination of a pout and a kissy face make it look like you’ve got big pouty lips and model-quality cheekbones?

it’s called “duckface”

"The family silently bearing the large sunflower had never been to the fair before. But this was..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:17:05 +0200

“

The family silently bearing the large sunflower had never been to the fair before.

But this was important.

They finally located the entry table, and asked for a form. They carefully filled it out. Their flower was entered in the seed head category — the one that judges the largest seed head, which is the circular area in the middle of a sunflower.

They wrote down the name of the person who had grown the sunflower:

Wyatt Wilke.

He was their 7-year-old son. He had died earlier that same day, at a few minutes after midnight.

Now, less than 10 hours later, here they were, with Wyatt’s flower.

”

- Commentary: The sunflower boy’s smile - CNN.com

"Here is the abstract of the paper: In slapstick comedy, the worst thing that could happen..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:04:55 +0200

“

Here is the abstract of the paper:

In slapstick comedy, the worst thing that could happen usually does: The person with a sore toe manages to stub it, sometimes twice. Such errors also arise in daily life, and research traces the tendency to do precisely the worst thing to ironic processes of mental control. These monitoring processes keep us watchful for errors of thought, speech, and action and enable us to avoid the worst thing in most situations, but they also increase the likelihood of such errors when we attempt to exert control under mental load (stress, time pressure, or distraction). Ironic errors in attention and memory occur with identifiable brain activity and prompt recurrent unwanted thoughts; attraction to forbidden desires; expression of objectionable social prejudices; production of movement errors; and rebounds of negative experiences such as anxiety, pain, and depression. Such ironies can be overcome when effective control strategies are deployed and mental load is minimized.

Wegner, D. M. (2009). How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion. Science, 325(5936), 48-50. (Freely available in PDF)

”

- How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion

"Eye on Fiction - Where the wild things are Richard Gottlieb analyses Maurice Sendak’s fascinating..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:57:06 +0200

“

Eye on Fiction - Where the wild things are

Richard Gottlieb analyses Maurice Sendak’s fascinating 1963 picture book, on the eve of its cinematic release

”

- Eye on Fiction - Where the wild things are - Vol. 22, Part 10 ( October 2009)

"My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130) by William Shakespeare My..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:41:49 +0200

“

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)
by William Shakespeare

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

”

- My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130) - Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More