Everyone knows Eartha Kitt, but usually for different reasons. Most know her for "Santa Baby" and/or as Catwoman. I know her as the batshit lady in the Emperor's New Groove. Whatever it is, she's awesome.

The animators, by the way, got her to a freakin' T.

tender egos. or, gee, here's a lazy news story/music vid pairing or THE CLASH IS ALWAYS APPROPRIATE K.

HTMLGiant asks how effective is this form of dissent. Berkeley students rioted/set a Dumpster on fire/threw things at cops the other day.

It's effective in terms of what they were doing: trying to make themselves feel better. People protest as a way of assuaging their own ego or conscience, whether it's so they can tell themselves that they have done something (and hopefully are sincerely convinced they did, regardless of the reality of the situation) or so they can tell other people they were in a demonstration or a riot. If they get arrested, even better. Maybe they can write a book about it someday. They can say they went to jail omg. It's their version of owning a brand name purse.

There were hunger strikers on my campus a few years ago. They couldn't come up with anything real to be upset about so they made up a bunch of shit that didn't actually have to do with them (the community board who lived in the threatened community publicly disavowed the strikers; most students, myself included, who would have been effected by the strikers' proposed initiatives disavowed them.) They they hunger striked anyway so they can one day speak with pride about sacrifices they've made and action they've taken in the name of their ideals. How they were always authentic and passionate and authentically passionate and passionately authentic. Louis Vuitton. Coach. Prada. Rodarte. Conspicuous. (Forget people actually die while hunger striking.)

I suppose political change and action is always necessarily selfish. If it doesn't affect you directly, you are still made uncomfortable by the fact that something disagreeable to your ideas is going on somewhere.

It becomes clear--through protesters' actions--when said protesters are in denial of this; when they go for flash and bang over buck because they are more interested in the exposure and personal gain--fame or notoriety, for example-- than for effectiveness and real hard progress. Also, ""There were windows broken, there was spray painting and graffiti on the interior, there was construction equipment that was tossed around," she said." Who do they think has to clean that shit up? Not the fat cats like your mom and dad you think you're sticking it to. Oh, and this? "Officers physically pushed the crowd back so that Berkeley fire personnel could extinguish the flames." Yeah. Ok. You made it so the cops were doing something good.

Also, the Berkeley "riot" started as a dance party.

You need to be pretty smart or sliver-tongued to convince me you were actually protesting something at any point that night, besides your white or PC-liberal or middle-class or capitalist guilt, which you should go work out yourself, quietly.

You also need to explain to me why you waited to protest the UC system's carrying out the budget cuts instead of protesting back when the state government made those cuts.

Get off my lawn.

your new favorite website.

oh yes. [image of Martine Carol via starlet showcase cos ps HOW SAUCY is she?]

a bunch of your favorite singers yowling for haiti.

& it's good.

There's a lovely piece about bookshelves and book collections at The Millions by Kevin Hartnett. I want to quote the last three paragraphs (down there) because I think he hits it on the head and because I found it quite touching. I'm sure most people have had similar experiences. It also states the case for books and bookshelves as displays and catalogues of people's tastes and personalities much better than this snobby bitch does, boo snobby bitches:

if you don’t read, I don’t want to be your friend…I don’t even want you to serve me a drink at a bar. If a stranger came over to our apartment, and there weren’t books, or–oh no!–not enough books, what would that say about me and Patrick? If my copy of Handmaid’s Tale or his copy of The Power Broker weren’t on display, how would anyone understand us? Some people have a cross in their home, or a mezuzah on their doorjamb. I’ve got nine books by Vladimir Nabokov.

I got THIRTY books by Valerie Tripp, bitch. Suck it. I'm kidding. But anyway, ew, not cool. People like this make me want to put all my, like, Dragonlance books in the foyer and make 'em stand next to them at a cocktail party while I talk about how I would never be friends with someone who doesn't read, like all those kids our school system is churning out, those people with empty, empty lives. Minorities, too, mostly the brown ones, though. African orphans. Blind people. "They're not really reading, you know? They're turning a purely intellectually pursuit into a physical activity. Another PBR, you down to earth American original, you?"

I'm also quoting a big chunk of it because I'm becoming an old lady who views all this new technology with deep suspicion and says things like "the rise of the machines" and "corporate creation of instant gratification addiction, just like they gave crack to the ghetto" and "kids on my lawn." Okay, here's the quote. Emph mine.

Of the bookshelves I’ve inspected in my life, two stand out as particularly consequential. The first was my mother’s, which was built into the wall of the bedroom where she grew up. When I would visit my grandparents in the summer I would spend hours inspecting that bookshelf. The books were yellowed and jammed tightly together, as though my mother had known it was time to leave home once she no longer had any room left on her shelves. In the 1960s novels, the Victorian classics, and the freshman year sociology textbooks fossilized on the bookshelf, I got the clearest glimpse I ever had of my mother as a person who existed before me and apart from me, and whose inner life was as bottomless as I knew my own to be.

And then there was my wife, whose bookshelves I first inspected in a humid DC summer, while her parents were away at work. The shelves were stuffed full of novels—Little House on the Prairie, The Andromeda Strain, One Hundred Years of Solitude—that described an arc of discovery I had followed too. At the time we met, her books still quivered from recent use and still radiated traces of the adolescent wonder they’d prompted. In the years since, on visits home for the holidays and to celebrate engagements and births, I’ve watched her bookshelves dim and settle. Lately they’ve begun to resemble a type of monument I recognize from my mother’s room. They sit there waiting for the day when our son will be old enough to spend his own afternoons puzzling out a picture of his mother in the books she left behind.

It remains to be seen how many more generations will have the adventure of getting to know their parents in just this way. One for sure, and maybe two, but not much beyond that I wouldn’t think. To the extent that bookshelves persist, it will be in self-conscious form, as display cases filled with only the books we valued enough to acquire and preserve in hard copy. The more interesting story, however, the open-ended, undirected progression of a life defined by books will surely be lost to a digital world in which there is no such thing as time at all.

This also might explain it. We have 3 more similar shelves in a very small apartment. I like touching books. My parents' house has about a bazillion more. I used to find books that I later had to read at school, the same school by father went to. It was cool.

i don't really have a problem with reggaeton now that i don't live across the street from havana central, but

yeah fuck your reggaeton

i can't imagine that tom waits hasn't read gwendolyn brooks.

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Read more of Gwendolyn Brooks' poems here. I also really like "A Penitent Considers Another Coming of Mary." Hear her read it at Poets.org, via. She explains how the poem had been banned because it contained the word "Jazz." hahaha, those old timey people.

ok ok ok stop everything you're doing.

there is an entire site dedicated to space westerns.

Yeah like that.

Prohibition was crazier than we thought.

"During Prohibition, however, an official sense of higher purpose kept the poisoning program in place. As the Chicago Tribune editorialized in 1927: "Normally, no American government would engage in such business. … It is only in the curious fanaticism of Prohibition that any means, however barbarous, are considered justified." Others, however, accused lawmakers opposed to the poisoning plan of being in cahoots with criminals and argued that bootleggers and their law-breaking alcoholic customers deserved no sympathy. "Must Uncle Sam guarantee safety first for souses?" asked Nebraska's Omaha Bee."

Read a TIME article from 1927 about the poisoning of alcohol.

young indiana jones was awesome ok?

lazy history sunday!

Before World War II, the war was also known as The Great War, The World War, The War to End All Wars, The Kaiser's War, The War of the Nations and The War in Europe. In France and Belgium it was sometimes referred to as La Guerre du Droit (the War for Justice) or La Guerre Pour la Civilisation / de Oorlog tot de Beschaving (the War to Preserve Civilisation), especially on medals and commemorative monuments [. . .]

The earliest known use of the term First World War appeared during the war. German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel wrote shortly after the start of the war:

There is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word.[214]
—Indianapolis Star, 20 September 1914

The term was used again near the end of the war. English journalist Charles A. Repington wrote:

I saw Major Johnstone, the Harvard Professor who is here to lay the bases of an American History. We discussed the right name of the war. I said that we called it now The War, but that this could not last. The Napoleonic War was The Great War. To call it The German War was too much flattery for the Boche. I suggested The World War as a shade better title, and finally we mutually agreed to call it The First World War in order to prevent the millennium folk from forgetting that the history of the world was the history of war.[215]
—The First World War, 1914-1918 (1920), Volume I, Page 391.

The above was directly excerpted from the wikipedia page "World War I," where you can see links to the citations. It's always interesting to see where history sees itself with that kind of awareness before it's actually history.

this was stuck in my head when i woke up.

oh honey you better cut that out

thursday afternoon hijinkery.

I love Jules Verne. So these? There are awesome. Possibly the most awesome senior thesis ever. If you browse his blog you can see the lead-ups to the final product and also some other sweet stuff. This guy has a fantastic eye for design and is worth checking out. [via the millions]

happy lent chickadees.

i'm givin up rollerblading. cos father dick is SO not winning the giving things up contest.

this is awesome and i want it. [ via. ]

"I expect you'll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of your bed," said Herbert, as he bade them goodnight, " and something horrible squatting on top of your wardrobe watching you as you pocket your ill-gotten gains." -- Read the full text of classic horror short story The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs, because never forget. . . monkeys (and wishes and mysterious arcane objects) are evil.

i mighta had to watch "are we done yet?" on a bus to maine but i will still always like this song

happy valentine's day!

ok sweet peas. if you're looking for a love story to read today, i suggest this one:

Mad Love.

how to make sure you won't get in someone's pants today

yep.

187 on the--

It's funny Northern Jon brought this vid up, actually, cos I'm pretty much convinced we ran into an undercover cop at Manitoba's the other day. He never introduced himself to me & roommie when we walked in to meet drunkpants boy, cut his can of beer with 4 cups of water, and when our drunkypants boy turned down his offer to "ride over to the West Village to check out this hookup" he disappeared just like that. "Take a ride." Cop. Or guy with a van. Sketch either way.

"Revolutionaries" by Tony Judt

Was worried I wasn't going to be able to find this online (and I can't find my hard copy right now-- where could it be?) But luckily this Tony Judt piece, 'Revolutionaries." is available on the NYRblog. Huzzah! The following is the last paragraph-- so it might (kinda sorta?) be giving something away and so you might wanna check out the whole piece instead.

No one should feel guilty for being born in the right place at the right time. We in the West were a lucky generation. We did not change the world; rather, the world changed obligingly for us. Everything seemed possible: unlike young people today we never doubted that there would be an interesting job for us, and thus felt no need to fritter away our time on anything as degrading as “business school.” Most of us went on to useful employment in education or public service. We devoted energy to discussing what was wrong with the world and how to change it. We protested the things we didn’t like, and we were right to do so. In our own eyes at least, we were a revolutionary generation. Pity we missed the revolution.

And in other news, some people suck.

wow these would make great gifts for valentine's day

this & this. if you're a dork. (you are.)

au revoir, ma vie en rose, au revoir.

It appears I have been living in a fairytale world where I thought "Wig Wam Bam" was written Gavin Friday for the film Breakfast on Pluto, which features the song on its soundtrack, as well as part of its plot, sorta. So I could say stuff like, See how good this film is, it even has good original songs, go see it! etc. Liam Neeson wheee gays. Though in my defense nobody ever corrected me, so I feel a bit better. Though then comes the argument that I "should have" known-- but no, I shouldn't have. I found out when the time came to find out zen blah blah bullshit.

So yeah, it's a Sweet song. Which brings my knowledge of Sweet songs up to four-- don't get me wrong, I have always loved "Blockbuster" and "Ballroom Blitz" and that "Fox on the Run" song like everyone in the world, but I had never really bothered to look further into them, which I am rectifying now. Okay, now J. just said, "Yeah, I knew. I didn't think you cared." yesicare.

Anyway, I still like the Gavin Friday's version more-- it's more. . . better. Anyway, you can listen to the film version after the jump. And while Cillian Murphy is rather good looking, this kid's video makes me feel a creepy stalker if I keep it up on my screen, so there's your warning because it's the only copy I can find. (At least it's not anime characters.) Continue reading!

ugh whatever.

Okay, so the story about the AUTHENTIC little girl has been circulating around more than I realized and some people are pointing out its relation to the loosening of intellectual property laws and theories.

I disagree. I think credit is highly important, and maybe this is a result of studying history (or any academic subject rather than aaahhhrt), where it is essential to trace sources and ideas in order to form a coherent and valid argument. I don't have a problem with copy & paste if it is done in a manner that recalls citation. Properly sourced, properly credited. I'm not talking about payment and royalties. I'm talking about the necessity of acknowledging your place in an intellectual or artistic tradition. To eschew this is arrogant. You are not special. You are not unique. You are doing what you did when you were five an didn't realize it-- gathering up things, ideas, phrases, shapes verbatim is what children do as they begin to form their own modes of storytelling and ideas.

If you're gonna do it and be dumb enough to get caught, that's your own fault, and a different issue altogether. If you are not willing to admit up front that you brought together a bunch of others' works, you have no firm ground to stand on when you try to argue that you were doing something purposeful and for the sake of art-- all you did was half of the legwork, and then you hid behind the assumption that others wouldn't inquire further and will think you are magical and original-- it's not about the work, it's about you. Also, if you truly respected those ideas and words you stole, wouldn't you want to share this admiration by naming the sources and individuals? Wouldn't you want to bring your use up for comparison, so that each piece might illuminate something about the other that is only revealed through side-by-side observation?

One comment at The Nervous Breakdown points out the cento-- a form of poetry that is based around taking lines from other works. I'm glad I know about this now, because I think it helps indicate what the girl claims she was doing. The cento is different because by adhering to the form, you immediately disclose to your audience that there are lines borrowed-- borrowed, not stolen, because you have via the cento form the implicit permission. Same with collages-- the moment you see a collage you know that it uses objects culled from other sources. The collage artist is not trying to pretend otherwise. Nor the mashup artist, the MC, the DJ. The originality of the work is half based on the ability to bring disparate parts together. It is nothing if you do not recognize what those parts are, if not necessarily where they come from.

ugh can someone tell this guy that the broad in the video

does not have "progressive post-Tegan & Sara" bangs? Hipsters-- keep your hands off yet another subculture-- those are skinhead/chelsea bangs-- you're already selling Fred Perrys at Urban Outfitters, you couldn't stop there? Yeah- I hate you guys enough to defend a scene I don't really like even though I have the world's shaggiest chelsea because our conniving old roommate made off with the hair clippers. I just found out about this website and I hate it already. Never going there again. You shouldn't either-- they have posts about things like worrying about if Pitchfork is selling out.

this song is full of gems. gems i say.

I can't decide which is my favorite:

• Just keep my name outta yo' mouth and we can keep it the same/Nigga, it ain't that I'm too big to listen to the rumors/It's just that I'm too damn big to pay attention to 'em/That's the difference (life advice? he is a doctor. . .)
  

• I be catchin bitches while bitches be catchin feelings (this cracks me up every time)
  

• My style is like the reaction from too much acid - never come down (is this gonna be forever?)
  

• What's the difference between me and you? (What?)/About five bank accounts, three ounces and two vehicles (aw yeah i wish)
  

• Drop the sawed off and beat you wit the piece it was sawed off of [lyrics in the colloquial from sing365]
  

For the vid (live!) . . . Continue reading!

i hate the day after

it snows in NYC. the snow/slush gets gross & dirty. shit, it gets as dirty as this song is.

gangsters.

that's what i'd be doing

via Bleeding Cool.

Warren Ellis: just shot six pages of FELL 10 over to you

Ben Templesmith: Oh you tease me sir.

Warren Ellis: rub it on your fucking nipples son

Ben Templesmith: My gods, he actually did. Warren Ellis sent me some FELL pages. Printing out & rubbing them on my nipples right away.

please be real. i think it is!

these hip kids.

open letter to parent of preschooler ("pre-kindergartener") at elite nondenominational prep school:

dear parent. why are you dressing your child in a RUN DMC shirt and green black & yellow Adidas? are you making a statement? a joke? a clever pop culture reference? perhaps you should explain and describe it to your child before you send him & his nanny off in the morning. yours, b.

*

also, i had entertained the notion of going to see the "who shot rock n roll" exhibit but after flipping through the accompanying coffee table book at the above mentioned family's apartment and coming across a picture of kurt cobain paired with a description that ran something to the effect of "the tears on kurt's face that night are now the tears of his fans who miss him," i think i will pass. anyway, it's probably ended already.

book porn in 4 parts.

yum.

"Although Ms. Hegemann has apologized for not being more open about her sources, she has also defended herself as the representative of a different generation, one that freely mixes and matches from the whirring flood of information across new and old media, to create something new. “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” said Ms. Hegemann in a statement released by her publisher after the scandal broke" [from "Not Plagiarism but Mixing and Matching, says best-selling German Author, 17"]

I have two immediate responses: "What?" and "You're a dumb bitch." Name dropping "authenticity" makes you look pretty foolish, I think-- frantic and juvenile and uncertain-- and proves that you have a prefabricated path towards what is necessarily then a prefabricated authenticity-- an impossibility.

like you need another reason to love Plan59. or be reminded of a time when men were men-- cos this is the least subtle thing I've ever seen. I love it.

I read this over at Annalemma, which has a very good selection of short stories available online, and this one actually made me smile at the end. It's like a country song gone right. Check it out--"Hot" by ZZ Boone

"And if you get hooked, baby, it's nobody else's fault, so don't do it!"

So every so often I am reminded that I don't really like hanging out with blowtarded people. They talk too much, and I am one of those people who are too mortified to either gracefully or awkwardly disentangle myself from bad conversation. So I have to stand there and agree with the points they have been making over and over again for the last ten minutes. About, like, colors, and like, their place in life. Also, people with collapsed noses are scary, and one took my pen at the food stamp office. (Okay, she offered a dollar. I should have taken it. But it's hard to do that when all you can do is stare at her face. And it's not like you ever really take the dollar that guy is offering for that cigarette. Though in NYC that's how much each cigarette comes out to.) I guess I feel about it the way I feel about certain types of, say, clothing-- it's a bit of conspicuous consumption that I find disagreeable, but it's not like I won't let you in my house if you're wearing it. And last, I've been listening to the first song a lot on my commute-- oh wait, I was until my fuckyouPod decided to start fuckyouFREEZING. Eh, it's like 4 years old. What can you expect, except that it was supposed to wait to die when I had gobs of cash in the bank for a new one.

Cocaine-related songs after the jump. Have fun, and don't miss the Johnny Cash tune-- love it.

Continue reading!

fuck you bob marley.

It's been awhile since I last mentioned Bob Marley. I stated that I was moderate on him. I mean we all liked him in high school, right? And then we discovered real reggae, right? And then we realized that not everybody had and that people keep listening to him all throughout college, really loudly, and after college, really loudly, like the fucking Dominican woman on the 1st floor who listens to Bob Marley (and U2) so loud I can hear it all the way on the fifth floor.

So I now hate Bob Marley. And to make matters worse-- notice how in the last few years, bookstores have started playing pop music over the speakers? And how it's irritating and prevents any actual reading (which might be the whole plan) while listening to, say, Motown hits (I love them, but hey, time & place, right?) or gee, I dunno, Bob Marley's greatest hits? Like you can't escape him? Like he's everywhere, forever?

My motherfucking way? Or- I'm scared of Filipinos.

So we already talked about this madness, so that's good-- but what is this?

The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”

The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently sinister in the song?

Whatever the reason, many karaoke bars have removed the song from their playbooks. And the country’s many Sinatra lovers, like Mr. Gregorio here in this city in the southernmost Philippines, are practicing self-censorship out of perceived self-preservation [. . .]

A subset of karaoke bars with G.R.O.’s — short for guest relations officers, a euphemism for female prostitutes — often employ gay men, who are seen as neutral, to defuse the undercurrent of tension among the male patrons. Since the gay men are not considered rivals for the women’s attention — or rivals in singing, which karaoke machines score and rank — they can use humor to forestall macho face-offs among the patrons.

From the NYTimes "Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord." Related: Letters of Note has Frank Sinatra's belligerent response to a news reporter's allegations: "I will allow you to pull my "hairpiece"; if it moves, I will give you another $100,000; if it does not, I punch you in the mouth. How about it?"

you know those friends on facebook that you awkwardly fell out of touch with & how they have an "unemployment" FB photo album?

and how all the photos are of them at shows and going out to eat?

and how come my unemployment album would have just been the below picture over and over again?


because life is not fair. and now you know why you fell out of touch. BUT besides that-- Jim posted about German band the Jeans Team and I love this song now.

my name is b and i don't like hardcore.

We had our place sprayed for bedbugs (that we don't have this time) yesterday so everything is in bags. . . debating whether to take shit out or not, since roomie claims they will come back in 2 weeks and do it again (I hope not.)

So that means my HD is somewhere in the plastic-wrapped bookshelves (that was fun) that are making this place look like the set of the shoot out Children of Men-- I would take a picture but the camera is somewhere behind the plastic, too.

So Youtubing stuff to listen to as I get all our clothes out of their bags-- they had to go through the dryer. I have already unsuccessfully tried to get myself to like hardcore. It won't work, I think. Couldn't go in the apartment all day yesterday and so was drinking at the bar while waiting to go to work with (in proximity, listening to) a guy from Agnostic Front, which inspired this effort. I dunno. I can't do it. "Anthem" is about as far as I'll get.

Clicked on a live Rancid vid-- Lars gives an incomprehensible motivating speech to kick it off that makes me feel better for not liking hardcore- got bored of watching Tim not play his instrument & went over to the album cut-- saw this comment "Rancid is duh best punk band 4ucking ever!!!!! Punkrock ftw!!!! XD" What does "4ucking" mean? Is it "fucking"? Is it a clever portmanteau: "for fucking"-- like they are the best bad for-fucking-ever? Does this kid feel bad about using the f-word on the internet? Am I just too old?

why is the radiator not on?

You know what it means when it says on your MySpace page that your band sounds like "girls reading Beckett" or "cats & girls in the fog" or "machines in the distance" and "your mother's favorite loud noise" or "bleeding girls reading Beckett" or a picture of pop rocks and coke?

It means your band sucks.

you know what? i'm gonna get this out of the way now instead of later.

Continue reading!

Yeah, you knew it was coming.

so here's (one of) my problem with your elite PC school.

The wee kiddies told me yesterday that they are learning about "the New Year" this week and celebrating it to boot. Oh, you mean Chinese (Oriental Lunar) New Year? There are. . . there are no Asian kids in your class. I mean, I love Chinese New Year-- food, money, new clothing, family. Blar blah blar. I also love Mulan. Yeah!

Continue reading!

(See, I do.)

So this school, supposedly secular but stuffed so full of hysterically sensitive people that the kids aren't allowed to wear a Middle Eastern-type hipster scarf to school (a legit & quite beautiful one the father brought back from a business trip in Dubai or somewhere) because it's anti-Semitic, is using "ethnic" holidays to replace things like Christmas, Easter, etc as excuses to have parties in class or whatever. Which is fine, whatever, do what you want-- but don't ignore that these "ethnic" holidays have roots in religion and philosophy. It's not something quaint that slopey-eyed people do because they aren't white. On the other hand if exoticism is your goal than that's fucking weird. SO then how you gonna explain ancestor worship to these kids, hmm?

I remember in 1st grade we learned about Columbus. This was a public school in SoCal in the early 90s. When my father asked me what I had learned, I said something about how Columbus had kidnapped Indians. Because that was the only thing they had stressed. He was pissed, and I understand now what his point was. And I agree. Just telling that one side is as obscuring and damaging no matter what side. Columbus discovered America yay. Ok. Not enough. But it's the same as Columbus came to America and kidnapped Indians boo. Ok. So what. Still not enough. Tell kids why things are important. They're not stupid. And don't tell them the fucking world was flat then. It wasn't.

Or, how about-- a few weeks ago, teaching my nanny-kids gospel songs in an ostensibly secular school because black people sang it during the Civil Rights movement & Martin Luther King Jr is (was) next week. Doing so devalues the lyrics and their power and makes it seem, again, like something those wacky brown people just, you know, do, because it was "then" and they were "them." Taking things out of context is a dangerous thing to do. It is a form of censorship and infantilization. Not what I'd want to get out of 24K/kid/year. Religious, or in general, holidays-- including Christmas, Hanukkah, jeeze, even Kawanza-- are really interesting to learn about. Shying away from dicussing the background is cheating kids out of a real chance to learn about something they would otherwise not have the opportunity of exposure.

so here's my problem with the new apple thing. & then that's it.

Everyone is pointing out that it does exactly what their other products already do without bringing anything new to the table. And it's true. It's like the lame space in the venn diagram that's supposed to be so goddamn special because it represents the overlap, the coming together, unity, hippie bullshit like that. But the biggest problem is that the product will convince people that they actually need something that occupies that space in addition to what they already have (an iPhone, an iPod, a Mac book.) The iPhone convinced people they "needed" something they could watch YouTube clips on-- wherever you are! You don't. No you don't you piece of shit watching motherfucking YouTube videos at the bookstore where I am trying to motherfucking read a motherfucking book.

[I'm just a grouch. I fucked up my haircut/trim (that I was cutting behind my head, where I can't see) and now I'm pretty sure I look like a dyke from San Antonio. Who knew my hair would stick up like that? Nobody around to fix it for me til tomorrow. I guess I can go out in public and see what it's like to be part of another persecuted minority group. Gee.]

If I ever get a tablet, I want it to replace my computer. I don't mind a plug-in keyboard but I need a keyboard. I like the physical pounding of it, I like that it's on my desk and I have to go to it and use it. I have no interest in handwriting things on a screen. That iPad thing needs a camera, too, or else what's the point of the portability? (Though we all know that's coming in 4 months after everyone has bought the other one.) That was one of the things I liked about the Windows one, it showed a "designer" taking a picture of swatches and being able to archive it for reference. I need to be convinced that these machines are helpful in professional or practical settings. All I see now is luxury. (Though THIS is what I really want.)

man john le carre might want to eat my lunch for breakfast cos I'm 'merican but do I ever love this shit:

"The summons came to Smiley that same night, and it is a curious fact, since he had an overall impression of not sleeping at all well during this late period of his life, that the phone had to ring a long time beside the bed before he answered it. He had come home straight from the library, then dined poorly at an Italian restuarant in Kings Road, taking the Voyages of Olearius with him for protection. He had returned to his house in Bywater Street and resumed work on his monograph with the devotion of a man who had nothing else to do. After a couple of hours he had opened a bottle of red Burgundy and drunk half of it, listening to a poor play on the radio. Then dozed, wrestling with troubled dreams. Yet the moment he heard Lacon's voice, he had the feeling of being hauled from a warm and treasured place, where he wished to remain undisturbed for ever. Also, though in fact he was moving swiftly, he had the sensation of taking a long time to dress; and he wondered whether that was what old men did when they heard about a death" [Smiley's People by John LeCarre].