December 25, 2011

As Fran Lebowitz said, “If you’re going to tell the truth, you better be funny. Otherwise, they will kill you.”

"I think Louis has hit on some sort of subterranean undercurrent of emotion that I didn’t realize might be swelling until I listened more closely: shame." [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:22 PM PST - 56 comments

Bap Bah Dah Pah Baah Yap Pah!

Nerdcore rock band I Fight Dragons presents I Fight Ganon, a live performance of the Legend Of Zelda Theme song
posted by The Whelk at 10:58 PM PST - 9 comments

Horace has no end. Only a beginning.

24 games of Christmas, the Amazing Rock Paper Shotgun Advent Calendar. "Here are the rules of the calendar: 1. The games are in no particular order, except number 24, which is our game of the year. 2. That means that number 5 and number 17 are on an equal footing as a game of the Christmas, do you see?"
posted by Sebmojo at 10:12 PM PST - 16 comments

Stencyl

Here is Stencyl, a free creation system for making Flash games. [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 8:30 PM PST - 23 comments

Dancin' ladies don't come cheap, you know.

What's the true cost of Christmas? [more inside]
posted by empath at 7:27 PM PST - 38 comments

Don't become too attached to it, because an insane AI will force you to throw it in a fire when it dries out 12 days from now.

Behold, the Aperture Science Holiday Enrichment Topiary.
posted by schmod at 7:26 PM PST - 11 comments

SEED

SEED. "An egg and an apple build competing broadcast towers that vie for the attention of a transistor radio." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:11 PM PST - 7 comments

The Case for Ebenezer

"Had the spirits been truly desirous of helping the Cratchett family, they would have been better advised to focus their time and energies upon this family rather than upon my client." The Case for Ebenezer by Butler Shaffer
posted by chronkite at 4:35 PM PST - 52 comments

Birthday of - - Quentin Crisp

Today, Christmas day, is the 103rd anniversary of the birth of notorious British bon vivant Quentin Crisp. Previously. He was not noteworthy for any achievements, he was the opposite of an activist, but he was full of very good advice - Ubu web has recently made available his 1979 recording, An Evening With Quentin Crisp.
posted by Abinadab at 3:10 PM PST - 15 comments

British History, Sung at Christmas

The Truth about Christmas Carols -- Howard Goodall uncovers the surprising and often secret history of the Christmas carol in this hour-long BBC documentary.
posted by crunchland at 2:28 PM PST - 9 comments

Fruitcake

Come the apocalypse, the only things that will survive are rats, cockroaches, seagulls, and fruitcake.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:26 PM PST - 37 comments

Let Me Taste Your Wares

As you bake your apple, pumpkin, and mince meat pies, how about some tropical alternatives? Jackfruit, papaya, starfruit, pineapple, mango, durian, and guava.
posted by Xurando at 1:16 PM PST - 21 comments

Prometheus: The Alien prequel trailer is up. Scary.

Prometheus trailer: a dose of holy damn scary [more inside]
posted by angrycat at 12:36 PM PST - 136 comments

Not Letting Sleeping Cats Lie

Sleepy kitten really doesn't want to wake up.
posted by quin at 12:15 PM PST - 33 comments

I now have 100 skulls in my room!

My name is Jake and I am a bone collector. This is his room, where he keeps his more than 100 skulls (a contender for the years most awesome cataloguing and archiving effort [look at that organization!]). How Jake cleans up animal bones [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 11:32 AM PST - 12 comments

The Paris Review interviews William Gibson and Samuel R. Delany

This summer, The Paris Review interviewed two science fiction writers at length, Samuel R. Delany and William Gibson. Below the cut there are two passages, one from each interview. They aren't representative, they are just two of the many, many passages which have been going around in my head for the last few days. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus at 10:57 AM PST - 37 comments

Yuletronics

Silent Night by Robert Fripp
posted by philip-random at 9:36 AM PST - 11 comments

The Man With The 'ANIMAGICAL' Typewriter

Romeo Muller wrote some of the most popular holiday (mostly Christmas) specials of all time for Rankin/Bass, including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (bonus Justin Bieber version with Animagic!), Jack Frost, and Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. The very last special he wrote was Noel, based on a story he told on the radio every year at Christmas. It aired just days before his death on December 30th, 1992. Another special, called The Twelve Days of Christmas, aired in 1993, and was based on a story by him, but was written by someone else. [more inside]
posted by Huck500 at 8:11 AM PST - 6 comments

The Year Secrecy Jumped the Shark

The EFF's Year End Review   The ACLU's This Year in Civil Liberties   Amnesty International's Anual Report (video) [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 7:45 AM PST - 12 comments

The special duty of a Jewish Christmas baby

The special duty of a Jewish Christmas baby by Sheila Heti Most of the people one deals with say, “Oh! You're a Christmas baby! You must get ripped off when it comes to presents, right?” Their eyes light up. It's a hard question to answer. The honest answer is, “I'm a Jew, I don't celebrate Christmas,” but saying this always seems chastising, and the person who asked then feels embarrassed (as they should) and I feel embarrassed that this is my accidental role in the world: reminding everyone that Jews exist. The times I say, gruffly, “I don't know. I'm Jewish,” they usually say, “Oh, I'm sorry!” But this always sounds to me not like, “I'm sorry I assumed you were Christian,” but rather, “I'm sorry that you're Jewish.” Given all this, I usually reply simply, “Yeah, it's awful. I get ripped off every year.” [previously from Sheila Heti]
posted by KokuRyu at 6:26 AM PST - 120 comments

"It's not as though [the ten commandments] were written in stone, darling."

The Powers That Be was a short-lived, irreverent sitcom about a dim US Senator (John Forsythe, in his last major starring role on television) and his dysfunctional family, that aired on NBC between 1992 and 1993. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, who would go on to create Friends, the show co-starred David Hyde Pierce (pre-Frasier) as the Senator's suicidal son-in-law. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:22 AM PST - 21 comments

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