Your mind subconsciously interprets
this line drawing of an impossible cube as a three-dimensional object, even though it is not actually possible for such an object to exist.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on Jan 10, 2012 -
49 comments
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
on Dec 25, 2011 -
119 comments
South African fast food chain Nando's ran
an amusing ad featuring Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe enjoying himself with a range of deceased despots, to the tune "Those were the days". The Zimbabwean
"government
" was not amused.
posted by wilful
on Dec 4, 2011 -
47 comments
Radio Spiritworld (Inter-dimensional) is the only station broadcasting from the afterlife into the living world. Well, actually it's a half an hour of wonderfully inventive audio-comedy from Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper, writers and creators of Look Around You, who between them have worked on or appeared in all the recent British comedies you love.
[iTunes download link]
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 31, 2010 -
12 comments
A 3 hour podcast interview (
part 2 here) with British comics legend Pat Mills, most famous for the anti-war WW1 strip
Charley's War, the creation 2000ad and many of the most enduring characters within it, superhero hunter
Marshall Law and
numerous other comics. His work usually combines combines dark humour, a dash of left wing politics and ludicrous amounts of violence, now as much as ever with puritan zombie hunter
Defoe. Subjects discussed in the intreview include the death of artist
John Hicklenton, being Irish-English,
Sláine and the comparitive lack of celtic heroes in modern popular culture, Oliver Cromwell and the
Levellers. Bonus link:
20 pages of Metalzoic, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neills "lost" story.
posted by Artw
on Dec 19, 2010 -
18 comments
PORTRAIT-DEX! Cartoonists create Pokémon self-portraits, with all three evolved forms. Featuring, among other fine artists,
Scott Kurtz (PVP),
Box Brown (Everything Dies, Bellen!),
Anthony Clark (Nedroid),
Aaron Diaz (Dresden Codak), and
Steve Wolfhard (Cat Rackham), who also runs the project.
posted by Gator
on Oct 27, 2010 -
13 comments
The "
Benign Violation Theory" posits that for something to be funny, three conditions must be met. First, there must be a violation of the norm. Second, the violation must be perceived to be benign. Last, both these perceptions must occur simultaneously.
[more inside]
posted by cosmac
on Aug 27, 2010 -
106 comments
The Goon Show was a highly popular and immensely influential radio show on the BBC in the 1950s featuring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan. They would sometimes do live readings of episodes, here's a video recording of The Whistling Spy Enigma (parts
1,
2,
3) and a much later recording of Tales of Men's Shirts (parts
1,
2,
3). The first features Ray Ellington, musical director of the Goon Show, and the second John Cleese, who, like his fellow Pythons, was a huge fan of The Goon Show growing up. In the 50s BBC turned The Goon Show into a TV show with puppets, called Telegoons. A number of shows exist online: The Lurgi Strikes Britain (
1,
2), The Nadger Plague (
1,
2), Captain Seagoon RN (
1,
2), Tales of Montmartre (
1,
2), The First Albert Memorial to the Moon (
1,
2), The Hastings Flyer (
1,
2), The Affair of the Lone Banana (
1,
2), The Africa Ship Canal (
1,
2), The Booted Gorilla (
1,
2), The Ascent of Mount Everest (
1,
2), The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill on Sea (
1,
2), Fort Knight (
1,
2), The Terrible Revenge of Fred Fu Manchu (
1,
2), The Lost Colony (
1,
2) and, finally, back where we first began, the Telegoons version of The Whistling Spy Enigma (
1,
2).
posted by Kattullus
on Mar 8, 2010 -
43 comments
"I leave with a heavy heart as part of the changes that have, in my humble opinion, destroyed the station that I helped to set up 29 years ago."
Radio Fail documents (mostly UK) radio bloopers and cock-ups.
posted by hnnrs
on Oct 21, 2009 -
11 comments
