Getting a literature Ph.D. will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a professor. "Who wouldn’t want a job where you only have to work five hours a week, you get summers off, your whole job is reading and talking about books, and you can never be fired? Such is the enviable life of the tenured college literature professor, and all you have to do to get it is earn a Ph.D. So perhaps you, literature lover, are considering pursuing this path.
Well, what if I told you that by 'five hours' I mean '80 hours,' and by 'summers off' I mean 'two months of unpaid research sequestration and curriculum planning'..."
posted by dfm500
on Apr 5, 2013 -
190 comments
Canal Zone Images is a collection of stories and images about the Panama Canal Zone. Did you know that the construction workers were paid in
gold and silver ('spiggoty' dollars)?
"Paper money was not used on the pay car at all. In the first place, there was always a danger of its blowing away, and in the second place paper money in the hands of negro workmen soon assumed a most unsanitary condition." [more inside]
posted by tellurian
on Feb 25, 2008 -
12 comments
The Room: The Movie. Triple-threat (actor/writer/director)
Tommy Wiseau made his cinematic debut in 2003 with the
The Room (see
trailer and
various scenes),
"a blend between a
softcore porn flick and a Tennessee Williams stageplay." Wiseau ("who's not just one of the most unusual
looking and
sounding-with
an unidentifiable Eastern European accent-leading men ever to
grace the screen, but a narcissist nonpareil whose movie makes
Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" seem
the apotheosis of cinematic self-restraint...may be something of a first: A movie that
prompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back-before even
30 minutes have passed." -
Variety),
allegedly raised $6 million outside Hollywood to cover production and marketing costs of the self-described "black comedy about love, passion, betrayal and lies" (see
various rough dress rehersals).
Audience members, including comedian
David Cross, have been
"marveling at the bizarre editing, bad bluescreen, uncomfortably explicit
sex scenes and, of course, the enigma of Wiseau himself" as the film
played monthly for years in Los Angeles. Available on
DVD, diehard "roomies"
swear by the
theatrical experience,
shout out their own commentary,
hurl spoons at the screen and singalong to the
soundtrack. Some call it
"The Rocky Horror of the New Millenium" and stage
"Room"
parties. If you look at the
marketing campaign or
survived a screening you might see The Room as
"a seminar on how
NOT to make a movie." [Inspired by
Boing Boing]
posted by boost ventilator
on Jun 1, 2006 -
28 comments
When
a runaway train crashed through the floor in Washington, DC's Union Station back in January 1953, the Pennsylvania Railroad immediately started to cover it up. But this coverup was in all the newspapers: the railroad just built a temporary floor over a locomotive and two railroad cars, because of all the traffic for Eisenhower's inauguration. A few weeks later, the locomotive was retrieved, repaired, and running again, like nothing had ever happened.
Another page includes some pictures (scroll down).
posted by Godbert
on May 11, 2006 -
14 comments
