The Spirit: “Why won’t this damn ghost stop followin’ me around?”
One of 1,229.
Earlier: Thanksgiving 2003: The Mourn of Plenty
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Author: matt
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Como se wha?: Well, a few anyway.
Hi, loyal readers who couldn’t get the full week off for Thanksgiving. (Or “Thanks-taking,” as my friend Sam likes to call it.) We apologize to the three of you who emailed us to say you can’t post comments, and the other three of you who noticed, but couldn’t be bothered to send us a complaint. (Thanks for that, actually.) Once again, it’s something beyond our control, and we’re looking into the issue right now. We’d invite you to use our comments area to offer your suggestions, but (ha!) comments don’t work.
So, this Thanks-taking, when you sit down to enjoy the cascading bounty of the American horn-of-plenty, say an extra little thanks for all the terrible, hackneyed, totally worthless blogs that never seem to crash or have software problems. God bless them, for we know not why their sites function so well.
Now, excuse us while we throw another small pox blanket over our server.
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Shaggy Dog Joke
I’ll admit right upfront that I have not read all of Chris Bachelder‘s Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography (since it’s 161 pages long and my brain has atrophied to the point where I can only ingest 150-word blog entries, soundbites on VH1 clip shows, and charts in Entertainment Weekly), but from what I’ve seen, it’s some weird, funny shit.
Download the .pdf version from McSweeneys.net and you’ll get some great advice like this (from Lesson 5 “How to Have Sex With The Estranged Girlfriend”):
1. Do not, under any circumstances, expect or hope to have sex with The Estranged Girlfriend. You can’t just roll into town without warning in the middle of a weeknight and expect to entwine as in the days of yore. You’re unbelievable. You’re just so fucking unbelievable.
2. Go to the bathroom. Wash your face. Stare at yourself in the mirror. Immediately, and without intent, start thinking about the act of staring at yourself in the mirror. A self-consciousness about staring at yourself. Get so weary.
3. Open the mirror cabinet and look for her pills. Assuage your guilt by imagining the very tight camera shot. There’s no music here, just the soft sounds you make as you explore the contents of the cabinet. You’re not alone and this is not a real transgression. It just looks real. Your job, as an actor, is to make it look convincingly real…
Related: Bear v. Shark: The Novel, also by Chris Bachelder.
“I’m Lovin’ It”: President Bush meets the future outsourced workers for the only jobs left when he leaves office.
“After enduring a brutally fought election campaign, Americans are optimistic about the next four years under President Bush, but have reservations about central elements of the second-term agenda he presented in defeating Senator John Kerry, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.”
– Americans Show Clear Concerns on Bush Agenda, by Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder, The New York Times, Nov. 23, 2004.
“President Bush is heading into his second term, with his job approval rising to 55 percent, a new poll shows.
“Bush’s post-election bounce and growing public support come at a time when 72 percent of Americans say the country is deeply divided, according to the nationwide Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll.”
–W. SOARS IN POST-VOTE POLL, Deborah Orin, The New York Post, Nov. 23, 2004.
And they say there’s no consensus in this country.
Parties don’t get more glamorous than this:
Henry Kissinger
Brian “Kato” Kaelin
Geraldo Rivera
Tina Louise
Don King
Donald Trump (Senior and Junior)
Mickey Sherman
and,
“a variety of celebrities of all ilk and importance including Stephen Baldwin, Jaid Barrymore, astronaut Buzz Aldrin and singer Michael Bolton.”
And, of course, Roger Friedman.
What, Sylvia Miles had something else that night?
Life and Debt (Less of Both, Actually): Finally, they’ll be able to own a home.
“The world’s leading industrial nations agreed Sunday to cancel 80 percent of the nearly $39 billion debt owed them by Iraq, a critical step in rebuilding the country’s devastated economy and an important precedent for its other creditors to follow.”
Major Creditors in Accord to Waive 80% of Iraq Debt, by Craig S. Smith, The New York Times, Oct. 22, 2004.
Related: Life and Debt, which is a fantastic film.
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A World Gone Mad
Is Beyoncé technically even allowed to appear off-center in photos? Suddenly, nothing makes sense to me anymore.
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I Am Trying to Ape Your Art
The Wilco Book, October 2004… Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, April 2000
Okay, so I should’ve written about this when the book came out a month ago. I would’ve, but we were busy trying to avert an electoral disaster. (Lotta good that did. I’m filing that experience along with college and my last two jobs under ‘H’ for ‘Heartbreaking Failures.’)
So, let’s chalk this up to the science of Amazon recommendations: If you listen to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on your iPod, you might like carrying around Infinite Jest. (And, yes, you might be the coolest fucking person ever. At least in your own mind, man.)
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What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
“NBC’s Saturday morning block is getting a new series that plays like a kiddie version of the ABC primetime hit Lost. Discovery Kids on NBC has given the go-ahead to 13 episodes of 29 Down, which chronicles the adventures of a group of kids whose airplane crashes on a deserted island. Shooting in Hawaii, Down will join NBC’s Saturday morning lineup—programmed by Discovery Networks—next year.”
–Hotline: Latest Hollywood creative coincidence, Boston Herald, Nov. 18, 2004.
[via TVTattle]