Posted in Uncategorized, tagged infinite jest, Raymond Chandler, Victorians, work on July 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Raymond Chandler had a cameo in Double Indemnity. Nobody noticed for 65 years.
From the Wellcome Collection in London’s new exhibition, Exquisite Bodies, on Victorian representations of human anatomy, comes this pastoral depiction of placental extraction. (Will she eat it?)
At Significant Objects, authors are paired with weird objects and asked to write a story that [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Mattel tries to market Ken’s friend Allen so that they can all go on picnics and trade clothes. From the sixties, the first-ever TV commercials for Barbie, Ken, and Friends.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cool stuff, leftovers, less blogged against than blogging on July 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Brain scrubbing: it’s the latest thing. Soon Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind will be a mind-bending tearjerker no longer—just expunge the past at a Walmart near you. From ReasonOnline.
My current obsession, the flying fox, a.k.a. the biggest bat in the world. Pictured below, although I couldn’t quite get the scale right. Here is a [...]
Posted in Spectacles, tagged Bill Cosby, comedy, Jay Smooth, old commercials, race, Television, the concept of smiling on July 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Dear CF,
In light of your Jay Smooth crush (he is indeed braintastic and marvelous) and my newfound obsession with smiling as a shortcut to building a certain kind of empathic resolution that satisfies an audience, I thought it might be interesting to look at Bill Cosby in his youth. He’s the ultimate smiler and the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged activism and responsibility, articulate gents, Jay Smooth, newfound crushes, Sixteen Candles and other crush tropes, the anti jaded robot on July 22, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I first heard of Mr. Smooth over at Feministing, and hemmed and hawed about clicking on any video with the title “Jay Smooth,” but with each one I have become more and more smitten. So, world, I announce this crush. Jay Smooth, you [...]
Posted in Lady Parts, Movies, tagged Angela Chase, Apatow, Freaks and Geeks, Lindsay Weir, My So-Called Life, Seth Rogen, Show don't Tell, the concept of smiling on July 20, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Hullo darlin’,
Were the Funny People poster-people fabrics, Leslie Mann would be cotton, Sandler pleats and Rogen polyester: shiny and smooth even where we want and expect wrinkles. (That shot of him is a bit cetaceous, no? Like he’s looking forward to spinning a multi-colored ball on the tip of his nose to make it all [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged For reals, Funny People, Random ires in public space, Show don't Tell, The Third Film by Judd Apatow on July 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Dear Millicent,
Quick question/rant for you: why do the promotional materials for Apatow’s new movie Funny People throw me into instant crank?
Exhibit A:
Note the immense effort to have a slack face? They want us to know they aren’t funny, but they are real, tender and sour (just like us!).
Exhibit b:
Note the vague teariness? The soft necks? Like [...]
Posted in Movies, Nitpicks, Uncategorized, tagged Away We Go, dave eggers, marriage on July 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Dear CF,
I’m choked up with thoughts. I’ve started five letters to you and finished none of them. This I want to fix. So much to talk about: let’s start with Away We Go, which I finally watched.
I’d forgotten that Eggers and wife wrote the script. The moment those credits flashed on the screen I understood [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Darling CF,
Your thoughts on placenta-eating alerted me to an interesting category problem: are placentas things that feed us—in which case it might make sense to continue the tradition—or are they the containers (or rather, conduits) through which nourishment is delivered, in which case the problem is more a case of nesting baskets? One more empty [...]
