October 21, 2013

I Need To Find Roy! This Is The Life Of My Story!

“Las Vegas implodes everything,” Siegfried says as he cups a cigarette in his right hand, smoke seeping mysteriously from his grip as if he’s performing a sleight-of-hand illusion. “But here, we keep building. We will not be knocked down.”
posted by chavenet at 11:55 PM PST - 10 comments

Scream and shout

Arcade Fire - Afterlife (with footage from the 1959 Brazilian film Black Orpheus) [more inside]
posted by mysticreferee at 9:09 PM PST - 12 comments

Science for the epic motherfreaking win

"I’m going to buy this sick t-shirt I found online that says I Fucking Love Science on it. I’m going to literally pay money for that shirt."
posted by escabeche at 9:05 PM PST - 144 comments

Too big to ...?

Matt Levine writes in the Wall Street Journal: Morgan Stanley Now Obeying Rules, Reducing Risks, Eating Cupcakes
So while of course it's possible that this is just next-level perception manipulation and I've fallen for it -- that Morgan Stanley has found a novel way to take on immense amounts of complex risk and hide it behind an army of retail brokers and a layer of cream-cheese frosting -- I think that this story is what it appears to be. Morgan Stanley seems to be de-risking by cutting back on risky activities, and responding to new regulations by obeying them.
On the New Wall Street, Boring Is Better [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:56 PM PST - 27 comments

Some mercy may be discovered

"One of the greatest stories, true or fictional, in all literature is Gibbon’s account of the life and martyrdom of Boethius under the Ostrogoth Theodoric. Senator, poet, philosopher, man of reason, he was the last of his kind in all these categories. The story is an incomparable masterpiece of prose. From the opening sentence, "The Senator Boethius is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman," Gibbon builds a mighty organ toccata. He always seems to see ahead to every echo and resonance and inversion of rhythm, through the idyllic description of The Consolation of Philosophy to the terrible climax — the philosopher garroted and clubbed to death in the last gloomy hours of Theodoric, followed by the swift cadence, and the coda of the martyrdom of his fellow Senator Symmachus — four crowded pages of the most solemn music. Each man speaks in his own style. Gibbon speaks with such sublimity because, sitting in his quiet study, he was totally involved in the defense of reason against the triumph of barbarism and superstition and the ruin of all bright things." [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 7:41 PM PST - 21 comments

No thanks, I use video games to escape my reality

Are your "friends" pushing illegal marijuana cigarettes? Don't let drugs get in the way of your dream car! Keep sober with these snappy comebacks to narcotics. [SLYT Australian PSA]
posted by porn in the woods at 7:08 PM PST - 39 comments

Tiny Time Machine

In the December 2004 issue of SPIN, we published Los Angeles journalist/musician Liam Gowing's detailed, empathetic look at the last years of Elliott Smith's life and the circumstances that led up to the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter's apparent suicide. "Mr. Misery" was difficult to read, a tremendous challenge to edit and fact-check, and one of the most remarkably intimate pieces in the magazine's history. On the 10th anniversary of Smith's death, it's now available for the first time on the site. [more inside]
posted by mannequito at 6:43 PM PST - 13 comments

France in the NSA's crosshairs

Using documents leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, Le Monde reports that the NSA has been intercepting French telephone communications on a massive scale. Under a programme called 'US-985D', the NSA is collecting not only metadata but recordings of telephone calls: From 10 December 2012 to 8 January 2013, 70.3 million French telephone calls were recorded.
These revelations came just as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris on a pre-scheduled visit. Francois Hollande is not pleased.
posted by anemone of the state at 6:08 PM PST - 169 comments

YAD KCOL SPAC

OCTOBER 22 IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!! EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!!
posted by dmd at 5:12 PM PST - 418 comments

Rogue troubadors in my lecture hall.

Singing for a smile at the University of Toronto. [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by simulacra at 5:11 PM PST - 11 comments

Follow the Herpes!

The herpes virus genome may correlate with human migration across the Earth
posted by Renoroc at 4:39 PM PST - 6 comments

I put a mask on a monkey, mask on a monkey...

Street apes of Jakarta
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:45 PM PST - 30 comments

Cyberwar!!!!

The Digital Attack Map from Google and Arbor Networks gives you an amazing dynamic visualization of ongoing Distributed Denial of Service and other cyberattacks. You can also go back to see older attacks - like the 6-day long attack on the US in August, attacks on the anniversary of the Korean War, and others. Slate finds it a bit self-serving for Google, but the helpful video explaining DDoS is useful.
posted by blahblahblah at 2:45 PM PST - 8 comments

Who is Veronika Larsson?

Where a journalist tries to identify TheIneffableSwede, an online commenter on the Guardian website and elsewhere online. A journalist from the Guardian adds more context.
posted by Wordshore at 2:21 PM PST - 46 comments

Now that's a big family

Now we are five: David Sedaris, on the suicide of his sister Tiffany.
posted by Partial Law at 1:32 PM PST - 159 comments

I wonder what happened in all the other timelines?

All seven timelines from the "Remedial Chaos Theory" episode of "Community," all happening at once.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:29 PM PST - 15 comments

J.D. Salinger would have hated every single word and frame

Salinger Betrayed: despite their show-stopping if unattributed revelation of a publication schedule and descriptions for the author's posthumous works, Shane Salerno's tabloid-style documentary film (now recut), and the accompanying biography co-written by David Shields, have been very poorly received. [more inside]
posted by RogerB at 12:02 PM PST - 37 comments

"One line was about whipping someone's toosh."

"She said that there was a plot by the teacher to kill the father and the kids to kill the teacher. There was also a part where a little boy watched a little girl pee. She says that in the episode the whole town goes cannibalistic and begins to eat each other. The mother is advised to kill her daughter, which she does, with the understanding she can apologize to her in hell. The father Simpson is revered as a savior and he sings a song announcing he is gay and advises the population of men to, "find a man!". There was swearing and cursing as well."

Informal complaints received by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the television show ‘The Simpsons,’ 2010-2013 [more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:41 AM PST - 89 comments

More barn!

Graham Nash on hearing Neil Young's 'Harvest' album for the first time.
posted by brokeaspoke at 11:40 AM PST - 19 comments

"Consider dat duh divohce."

Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking requests and performing his famous one liners on YouTube.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:56 AM PST - 93 comments

Round and round we go

"In the 1960s and 1970s London Transport had a flourishing international consultancy arm which made money by advising other cities on on how to go about setting up and running a metro service with a particular emphasis on advising far eastern countries how to plan their fledging metros. Rumour has it their first bit of advice was always: Never, ever run your trains in a circle!" -- So why did it take almost a century and a half for the London Underground to get rid of the Circle Line? Let Pedantic of Purley at London Reconnections explain the history of the Circle Line and why having a circle route is bad news as well as how the Circle Line was uncircled and recreated as a teacup.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:53 AM PST - 30 comments

And here's how we do it!

Glen Weisgerber is a pinstriper letterer for custom bikes, cars etc - Single Stroke Lettering Demo, Roundhand Lettering Demo, Jersey Style Chrome Lettering Demo
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:38 AM PST - 25 comments

…a parable of humanness in the age of pervasive documentation.

"The famous photographs of Lincoln assassination co-conspirator Lewis Powell show modern self-consciousness being born before an indifferent lens."
posted by iamkimiam at 9:35 AM PST - 51 comments

The New York Review of Books turns 50

In February 1963, a new publication took advantage of the New York City printers strike and launched with a daring editorial: It does not, however, seek merely to fill the gap created by the printers’ strike in New York City but to take the opportunity which the strike has presented to publish the sort of literary journal which the editors and contributors feel is needed in America. The New York Review of Books is now 50. [more inside]
posted by mattbucher at 9:32 AM PST - 7 comments

Opening Day of The Guggenheim Museum

Opening Day of The Guggenheim Museum, 3:34 of color film shot on October 21, 1959 in NYC. “Buildings & Crowd” captures the their excitement as lines formed down Fifth Avenue. The end of the film highlights the inaugural exhibition within the rotunda. With works by Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Stuart David, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, and Vasily Kandinsky.
posted by R. Mutt at 8:38 AM PST - 2 comments

DOG SHAMING II: ELECTRIC PUPPYLOO

Maymo and Penny return with another dogshaming compilation of silliness. (SLYT)
posted by elizardbits at 7:59 AM PST - 22 comments

"That's a beautiful mam."

Mamming is the act of laying your (clothed) boobs on a flat surface. Like a counter. Or a bench. Or the body of a person who is #planking. [more inside]
posted by a halcyon day at 7:34 AM PST - 108 comments

"Frankenstein speak zombie..."

Tips For Surviving, Monsters! A puppet based guide for monsters who are tired of being hunted. [slyt | via]
posted by quin at 6:32 AM PST - 8 comments

Why is it so hard to find a job?

A new series from miniatures artist Slinkachu. Slinkachu main site. (Previously, + + +.)
posted by OmieWise at 5:45 AM PST - 4 comments

Bring Back Those Glorious Years

Everything's Coming Up Profits is a new book by Steve Young and Sport Murphy detailing the Industrial, Corporate Musicals of the 50s-70s. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:45 AM PST - 9 comments

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