On June 6th, 2013, Mel Brooks will be presented with the 41st AFI Life Achievement Award, but this post is about his Tomato and Onion Omelette.
Bon Appétit talks cooking, coffee, and career with
Mel Brooks, Omelette King.
posted by Room 641-A
on May 19, 2013 -
11 comments
The Weirdest Band in the World is a blog devoted to singers, musicians, and bands that are
crazy,
silly,
improbable,
eccentric,
grotesque,
idiosyncratic,
inexplicable,
insane, or otherwise
unusual. Bloggers Andy and Jake write about bands both
successful and
obscure, whether
metal,
jazz,
hip-hop, or
whatever other genre, always with an unflagging appreciation for what makes these bands unique, and with none of the snark and jeering that often laces articles elsewhere about people doing weird things.
[more inside]
posted by narain
on May 15, 2013 -
21 comments
A blog discussion of Charles Palliser's intriguing novel,
The Quincunx, began in 2003, and
is still going. Despite a wealth of theories, the participants are still no nearer solving the book's key mystery - who
is the hero's father?
posted by low_horrible_immoral
on May 9, 2013 -
24 comments
Back in the day, Ken Segall
helped create Apple's Think Different campaign and
helped name the iMac. More recently he worked on JC Penney's
Yours Truly, commercial, before JCP ousted Ron Johnson as its CEO. He writes a sharp, entertaining blog called
Ken Segall's Observatory, where he offers opinions on advertising and design geekery.
His take on Ron Johnson's failure is interesting, as is
this post on what it takes for an advertisement to stand out in a crowd. He calls attention to surprisingly decent ads from
Microsoft and
Dell, critiques terrible ads (from
Microsoft and
JC Penney and even
Apple, and comments on
whether skeuomorphism has its advantages. He's also
fond of
discussing product names. Give this one a skip if advertising gives you hives, but for those of you who're interested in things like this Segall's blog is especially choice stuff.
posted by Rory Marinich
on May 3, 2013 -
26 comments
The Vivienne Files. "Timeless, Elegant, Classic, Simple, Unique, Beautiful. Working toward carefully curated and deliberately distilled wardrobes that reflect our personal styles and our distinctive contributions to the world."
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posted by drlith
on Apr 27, 2013 -
21 comments
The trip was fine. I've never seen that part of the country from the highway before. There just were a few incidents on my way home that chipped away at my resistance. I really do try to remember how incredibly fortunate I am. I really do. I just can get worn down.
Freddie DeBoer messed up his airline reservation for a conference in Vegas, so ended up taking a bus home to Indiana. He
meditates on the people he encountered on his trip in his blog.
posted by dry white toast
on Mar 19, 2013 -
37 comments
Bangalore based blogger ecophilo
shares his experiences of attending this year's vast gathering of pilgrims at the Maha
Kumbh Mela in Allahabad this year.
Previous thread on the Kumbh Mela,
what it is and why the Maha Kumbh
only takes place every 144 years. Here's
a snippet:
It all began with Twitter. There were a few on my timeline who were tweeting about the Maha Kumbh Mela, 2013 and a thought took root in my mind. Can I make it to the Kumbh Mela this year? After all, it was tempting to be part of the worlds oldest and largest human gathering - and it seemed within reach too. And The Kumbh Mela was not a place that had ever figured in my list of 'things to experience'.
posted by infini
on Mar 9, 2013 -
29 comments
Scarfolk is a town in North West England that did not progress beyond 1979. Instead, the entire decade of the 1970s loops ad infinitum. Here in Scarfolk, pagan rituals blend seamlessly with science; hauntology is a compulsory subject at school, and everyone must be in bed by 8pm because they are perpetually running a slight fever. "Visit Scarfolk today. Our number one priority is keeping rabies at bay." Join their
Learn To Swim program, and enjoy the song that won 2nd place in the 1974 Scarfolk Harvest Festival,
Dormin Slowly Died With The Radio On.
posted by Jimbob
on Feb 18, 2013 -
58 comments
Tweedland has some interesting stories and characters. Here's two to get you started:
Robert de Montesquiou - "Tall, black-haired, rouged, Kaiser-moustached, he cackled and screamed in weird attitudes, giggling in high soprano, hiding his little black teeth behind an exquisitely gloved hand – the poseur absolute. He was said to have slept with Sarah Bernhardt and vomited for a week afterwards."
Lord Berners - "As a child, having heard that if you throw a dog into water it will learn how to swim, he threw his mother's canine companion out of the window on the grounds that if one applies the same logic it should learn how to fly. (The dog was unharmed, and he was "thrashed" by his mother.)"
posted by unliteral
on Dec 13, 2012 -
7 comments
Ariel Meadow Stallings (creator of Offbeat Mama and Offbeat Bride) on
liberal bullying: "...what's the biggest challenge we deal with every day? The challenge that has my editors second-guessing every post and quaking in fear, just waiting for the awfulness to begin? It's attacks from our fellow progressives... Increasingly, I've started recognizing this kind of behavior for what it is: privilege-checking as a form of internet sport. It's a kind of trolling, with all the politics I agree with, but motivations and execution that turns my stomach. It's well-intended (
SO well-intended), but when the motivations seem to be less about opening dialogue about the issues, and more about performance, righteousness, and intolerance for those who don't agree with you… well, I'm not on-board."
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posted by flex
on Dec 2, 2012 -
180 comments
How I Lost Faith In The Pro-Life Movement: "What I want to share here is how I came to this realization. And if you, reader, are one of those who opposes abortion because you believe it is murder and you want to save the lives of unborn babies, well, I hope to persuade you that the pro-life movement is not actually your ally in this, that you have been misled, and that you would be more effective in decreasing the number of abortions that occur if you were to side with pro-choice progressives. If this is you, please hear me out before shaking your head."
[more inside]
posted by flex
on Nov 7, 2012 -
544 comments