I played with this a little to see how far it goes back, tragedy-wise. "Ps: the holocaust" works, but "Ps slavery" delivers ads. Google also thinks we've gotten over the triangle shirtwaist factory fire, the Hindenberg, and the sinking of the Titanic. (I could play this game all day, so I'll stop now. That link above is accidentally hilarious, though.)
I'll be writing most of this week (every day but Tuesday) for one of my favorite sites, Jezebel.com. I'll be covering TV and online video, just like old times.
Send me tips!
My friend Whatparty has an Etsy shop where she sells these (and other) hilarious embroideries that are like surreal New Yorker cartoons for less than ten bucks. They are awesome.
I'm off to Atlantic City for a 24-hour adventure! (More on that later.)
One of the summer's most-anticipated books, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Readingby Lizzie Skurnick, came out today! Publisher's Weekly calls it "frequently hilarious" and, though my copy hasn't arrived yet (I loved its inspiration, though: Lizzie's Fine Lines column on Jezebel), I call it the best idea for a book I've ever heard: who doesn't find themselves paging through Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? when you go home for the holidays, and how many times have you discovered, to your delight, that a friend you just met also had all the sex parts dogeared in Clan Of The Cave Bear? Check out the table of contents: if you were a voracious reader in the '70s, '80s or '90s, you're sure to have an "Oh my god ME TOO!" moment. It's ten bucks. Let's buy it. Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler would want us to.
I can't believe how actually interesting this behind-the-scenes of the Mad Men Season 3 poster photoshoot is! (Unfortunately the pee question is never answered -- or addressed -- but let's just assume he did because it's funnier that way):
I like at the end when they explain that Don Draper being submerged in rising water is a metaphor for what's happening to him on the show. And all week we've all thought it was just a pretty picture!
Also, click here and scroll down for the funniest animated .gif I've ever seen (which is, I guess, somewhat of a Season 2 spoiler, but whatever.)
It's week two of HBO's summer of new documentaries every Monday night, and tonight's premiere is the much-anticipated Sundance hit Prom Night In Mississippi, about the segregated proms in the small town of Charleston, and the resistance Morgan Freeman came up against when he offered to pay for one prom for all students. From what I've heard from people who've seen it, it will not be a triumphant ode to the beauty of humanity, and will go to some unexpected places. It doesn't have a decent trailer anywhere, but here are some clips from YouTube:
I'll be watching this tonight, and, to lighten what will clearly be a depressing 90 minutes, taking a drink every time someone says "Meexed prom."
I'm guest-co-blogging today on one of my favorite sites, New York Magazine's Vulture blog, while the great Mark Graham takes a much-deserved day off. Fun!
So probably like most kids in 1990, I was assigned to write a math rap in the seventh grade, but I hated rap (And country! Right, other former closed-minded seventh graders?) But my favorite thing in the world at the time was "We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel, so I performed my rap while slapping my hands on a table on the stage of the sanctuary of the church that my school was part of. Here are the lyrics that I remember:
Whole numbers, rounding off Think about it, Gorbachev (Something something) (blah blah blah) Marilyn Mon-roe!
We didn't start equations, They were always goin' since the world's been flowin' We didn't start equations, But when we are gone, they will still go on and on and on and on...
Yeah. Kids are dumb. I hope Gorbachev thought about it. Also, only tangentially related, but there should be a contest where today's rappers compete to write the best song that starts out with the creatively limiting "My name is ____ and I'm here to say." Like, for charity. FUN! (Oops, time to break out the old "Highdeas" tag.)
The trailer for An Education, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Carey Mulligan, and written by Nick Hornby, finally hit the internet last night. Carey Mulligan is the rare (or possibly non-existent in 2009) intelligent-seeming very young actress. I can't think of a single other one in popular culture right now. (And she doesn't even have an official IMDB picture yet!) Even if this movie contains no surprises, couldn't you just stare at her for DAYS?) October 9th, guys!:
I can already tell this would have been my favorite movie ever if it came out when I was 15, and, sight unseen, that's enough. (And considering that Defamer fell all over itself over this movie at Sundance, predicting nothing less than "canonical immortality," it seems like it'll be worth the ticket price.)
The gentleman in charge of last week's Anthrocon spoke on an insider panel about how furries can protect themselves from being accurately portrayed as sexual fetishists in the press. As usual, they're not fooling anybody, but the fun is in watching them try:
The doctor's lab coat must be part of a side-fetish.
When I worked at Videogum I was a little bit obsessed with the mysterious trailer for a movie called After Last Season, which opened in a few cities for a few days last month. A lot of other people got obsessed with ALS too, as evidenced by this video birthday invite parody made by some funny people with time on their hands:
Adorable! If you haven't seen the original, you really should -- and keep in mind that this was a real feature film. (Thanks for the tip, Tamara!)
It was only a matter of time before Hot Topic started selling Keyboard Cat tshirts, but since keyboard cat meme creator and Videogum tipster extraordinaire Brad O'Farrell gets part of the money, let's make this the next Frankie Says Relax. Years from now, it would be pretty hilarious if the summer of '09 could be visually referenced on film by a character wearing this shirt.
A 23 year old who sends me links to funny videos just sent me a link to a funny video: Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" video. He said: "I didn't realize it was the same Paula from American Idol."
I don't know why this isn't out there yet, but I guess the internet has been distracted this week. Last weekend a local news reporter in DC tried to interview bloggers standing outside the Real World house in Dupont Circle, and a Real World cameraman came out and stuck his camera in her face to block her shot. One of the bloggers got it on video and the reporter linked it from the WUSA9 site. So quiet and creepy and intimidating and weird! How rude!:
So that's what a person on The Real World has in his or her face all day every day. That guy. Creeepy.
One of the year's most anticipated movies, Robert Siegel's Big Fan starring Patton Oswalt, finally has a trailer. If anyone was worried (like I was) that Patton's face and voice are so fully associated with his world view that he could never play anyone but himself, we can all worry no more. SO EXCITED:
It's been getting rave reviews for months, of course, but finally: video proof that it looks sooo good. It's gonna get dark soon! (Via Vulture.)
HAHAHAHA. CNN sent a reporter to the anthrocon (furry/plushie convention) in Pittsburgh. The resulting report uses defensive language, but never comes out and says what it is the convention's leaders are trying to stop being associated with:
Speaking of furries, where is that furry documentary that's been "in progress" for four years?
Today is the one-week anniversary of The Funny Looking Clouds (And Light) Over Manhattan At Sunset. I've reviewed the (many) videos on YouTube of this event, and found my favorite. It includes not only the clouds, but two fixtures of the Lower East Side: a manic pixie dream girl who opines about the meaning of the clouds ("I love that he's celebrating...crazy trilogy of death and God is talking to us") and an old man walking around without a shirt:
When my friends and I left a bar on Allen street to investigate why everyone on the street was taking pictures of the sky and saw the clouds, we reached for our own cameras before realizing, wait, nevermind, it'll be all over the internet in an hour. And it was. I love that! We can just go through life, enjoying it, without feeling the burden of having to document every moment of collective awe. We enjoyed the clouds, and watching the people watching the clouds, and then went inside and finished our beers with total faith that we didn't have to do anything -- everyone else was on this. It's like how we've all outsourced at least a little brain space to google and wikipedia. We don't own the knowledge but we know where to find it, and we don't own pictures of the Radiohead concert or the rainbow or whatever (or have to miss out on the full experience of each because we're filming them), but we will in an hour or two. What strange times we live in, with what strange clouds!
An elementary school teacher in Elk Grove, CA sent her students home this week with a DVD she made with footage from the school year, and apparently, several seconds of her own personal porn at the end. This local news report is classic! First they tell you they can't tell you anything, then they just keep everyone talking until little details start to leak out and we all use our imaginations to come up with scenarios that are probably far worse than what was on the DVD:First off, I don't even know how you accidentally put the wrong footage on a DVD. Second: the principal LAUGHING at :59, third: this reminds me of some kind of extremely subtle parody of local news. The internet needs to see this video!
Dear People Playing Connect Four And Very Loudly Screaming Things Like "In Your FACE!" Every Time They Won A Game At The Zombie Hut On Smith Street Last Night:
My friends (wisely) held me back from saying anything at the time, but, um, you do know that the person who goes first in the very middle can always force a win, right? If you didn't already suspect something was up when you were, like, 8, it's right there on Wikipedia.
(I suggest Yahtzee! for future bar-screaming sessions, because, bonus: yelling is actually part of the game!)
Unrelated Things That Were Slightly Too Long To Twitter Today:
* While researching an epic screed about how much Pinot Grigio tastes like ass, or sweat, or a combination of both, I learned that Gary Vaynerchuk got in trouble last year for saying "Pinot Grigio sucks." Scooped! Pinot Grigio of the type served in bars is a great substitute for syrup of Ipecac, though. Someone should really look into whatever it is in cheap Pinot Grigio that triggers the human gag reflex, because this is a very real thing.
* Ariel Levy is indeed the best. Ever since my friend Emily made me read Female Chauvinist Pigs I've been having embarrassing daydreams about being her protege.
* If you're bored this weekend, rent Dead Snow (the Norweigan zombie Nazi movie) on Movies On Demand for $5.99. It's worth it, I promise. It's dubbed in English, but in a way that only makes it better/sillier/campier, and it's one of those weird movies that's both intentionally bad and funny and (it seems) unintentionally bad and funny.
* If everyone who gets a bra fitting finds out that she's been wearing
bras exactly two cup sizes too small for her entire adult life, why
don't we all just start buying bras two cup sizes bigger and skip the
tupperware parties? (I think it's this kind of logic/lack of fun that
got me politely asked to stop attending a regular SATC viewing party in
2002.)
(If you think this post sounds like the work of a bored person, wait 'til you see the next one.)
(Whoops, accidentally published part of the NY Mag gossip roundup HERE early this morning, using typepad as an html shortcut, and then ran off to run errands. Disregard! It's here. Where it belongs. Duh.)
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