With captions taken from original sources:
Stagehands work on the main stage for the Republican National Convention in New York City’s Madison Square Gardens, Tuesday, August 24, 2004. The Republicans will meet August 30 through September 2. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
The B-2 can respond from domestic US bases to conflicts anywhere in the world within hours.
1. The U.S. basketball team lost in the first round to Puerto Rico, which is apparently some sort of American colony. This was very humiliating.
2. The American softball team took the gold. Softball is played by women. I have no idea what is happening in the baseball realm.
3. I think I saw something about some tremors or an earthquake of sorts striking Athens. That, or I might have been having flashbacks to The Day After Tomorrow.
4. The newly-sovereign state of Iraq sent a team of soccer players to the games this year, alongside one swimmer. I like to imagine that this waterbound fellow is the ultimate Pixies fan and is known to pump himself up before meets by singing “Ride a tire, down the River Euphrates…” He has not stated for the record, however, his opinion on Trompe Le Monde, though I’m fairly sure he would agree that “Alec Eiffel” is a great track.
5. I miss Greg Louganis. That was a human interest story that I could really wrap my head around.
An aerial view of Najaf, which for some reason appears to be shaped like the Millenium Falcon.
FUN FACT #1: According to Reuters, mere hours ago, the American-led team of Iraqi security forces “moved to within 400 meters (yards) of a holy shrine in Najaf on Tuesday, just hours after the government warned Shi’ite rebels inside they would be killed if they did not surrender…An aide to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said his Mehdi Army militia was ready to negotiate to end the fighting, which has killed hundreds, driven oil prices to record highs and touched off clashes in seven other cities.”
FUN FACT #2: “Najaf” means “dry river.” Of course, there’s no way to maneuver “swift boats” in a so-called “dry river”. What, then, do swift boats have to do with the important developments taking place in Najaf right this very moment? Oh, wait, wait, wait…”swift boats” have nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq, the U.S. economy, healthcare, the American class system, or other issues pertaining to a race for the presidency of the United States. Hell, swift boats don’t even have anything to do with gay marriage or constitutional amendments.
It all finally makes sense! God bless you, American media! God bless us, everyone! This is Tiny Tim, signing off from Darfur.
(Thanks to Michael.)
From L to R, the iconographically cute representation of China’s anti-AIDS/clean blood initiative, and America’s favorite sugar warrior, the Kool-Aid Man
From left to right we’ve got whoever the fuck these people are, Daria Werbowy, Natalia Vodianova, Gisele Bundchen, Isabeli Fontana, Karolina Kurkova, Liya Kebede, Hana Soukupova, Gemma Ward, and Karen Elson. (AP Photo/Courtesy Vogue, Steven Meisel)
September approacheth! The all-important ninth month of the year, the introduction to the fall fashion season, when Vogue annually releases their most important issue ever, with all its concomitant power to make or break fashionistas everywhere. And now, here it is: the cover image for their much-anticipated September 2004 issue, and, hold on a minute and put away your excitement stick, because there are fucking models on the cover. Quelle surprise! I, personally, was at least hoping for a shake-up of sorts, maybe some Vanity Fair-esque “celebrities”, but, alas, photographer Steven Meisel is notoriously stronger behind the camera when dealing with your everyday stellar-looking pretty faces than those who are famous for being famous.
Thankfully, we can bear verbal witness to Master Meisel in action due to the release of these exclusive, in-no-way-fictionalized on-set transcripts from the magazine’s cover shoot. All 25 inches thereof.
“Daria, darling, move left more…more…more. Don’t you worry about being obscured by the barcode. I hardly know who you are anyway, but you’re lucky to be on the cover in any form, and we absolutely need to fit more of Gisele in the shot here. Yes, of course. Ms. Bundchen is our star! Yes, my angel. This is the September issue…a triple-gatefold, honies, and there are nine of you, and as I’m sure you’re well aware, you calculus-laden vixens, you, we need an evenly divisible increment of nine, or three ladies per panel. Believe me, if I could chop one of you in half and do a two-paneled 4.5er, I would. But it’s Lancome’s mathematics, ladies! And, if anything, I’m quite nearly positive that Lancome is the guy who discovered the constant ratio of a circle’s radius to its circumference. How many times does pi go into a triple gatefold September cover, I wonder?
And stylists! Stylists! Snap to attention. I need more pink! Rich, vibrant pink! Reds, reds, pinks, whites. Layer gorgeously, ladies, layer it. Shades of pink abound. Bathe in its glorious glow. Wrap yourselves, honies, wrap yourselves. Let these gowns absorb you, cherish you, encapsulate you…And stay on the tape line. Focus, ladies, focus. Gisele, put your mobile away. You can call that little man of yours when you are not on my clock. On, I say, as opposed to over, which is what he is.
Who is that colored woman? Liya? Get her out of the first panel. This is Vogue, not National Geographic. OK, I’m sorry, you’re right. Sorry. Ha ha, I joke! But I am serious nonetheless. This is September, after all, when I am most prone to racist humor. But you ladies knew that already. Now, move her. No, Karolina, you’re in the second panel. No, no, scoot over. Your agency and I agreed to this. I don’t care what she told you. No, I DO NOT CARE about Sports Illustrated. I swear, honey, you need to look more passionate as you clutch Isabeli’s arm. It’s passion, that’s all. Keywords: Desire. Sensuality. Fabric. Threadbare. Discomfit. Petulant. Oblique. Garage. I would hope that each of you can simply clutch a goddamned arm for a few minutes, and continue to look gloriously still and inanimate in the process. I’m a modern-day Vermeer.
Good gracious, where is Karen? Number nine? Anyone? Todd, go check her dressing room. Right now. Go, go, go. Gogogogogogo! Oh, she’s still at Bing’s pad, huh…Goddamn that rascal, I’ve had more of my shoots befouled by that man, directly or indirectly, than Gregory Crewdson’s got issues with his F-stop! Ha, ha, ha! A little joke. September is also the month when I feel free to “dis” my photographic peers, because, yes, I am shooting Vogue magazine. All right, then, we’ll put her in afterwards. How I abhor working digitally, but it’s got to be done.
My, how you lot infuriate me. I’m Steven fucking Meisel, and I’m almost of the mind to subject you to a delicious Meisel-brand ass-raping, but alas, I’ve got another E! network taping to attend at 3 o’clock this afternoon. Bon-bon!”
Though, admittedly, it is easier to hug yourself when you pull in 58 percent of the vote after facing a presidential recall initiative.
In today’s Washington Post, Dana Milbank reflects on the re-emergence of that old staple of Campaign 2000, the “Bushism”. And included in his anecdotal sampling (not to be confused with Jacob Weisberg’s voluminous take on this phenomenon over at Slate) was the following rather strikingly non-humorous bit of insensitivity from a campaign event in Florida last week.
From Remarks by the President at “Ask President Bush” Event, Okaloosa-Walton College, Niceville, Florida, August 10, 2004:
But we’ve got some strong allies, staring with the Prime Minister of Iraq, Prime Minister Allawi. They tell me the story of him. He was in London, England. He was in exile from his country because Saddam hated him. He wakes up one night and an ax-wielding group of men tried to hatchet him to death, or ax him to death. I guess, you don’t hatchet somebody with an ax. (Laughter.) And you don’t ax them with a hatchet. (Laughter.) He wakes up, the glint of the blade coming at him, and he gets cut badly, escapes. The guy hit his wife who never recovered, really.
Reading the transcript, it’s unclear whether he kept the crowd of rancorous Republicans “laughing” with some horribly asinine quip about an “axe wound that never healed.” But one can imagine. And we do.
Today, every unemployed New York freelancer’s favorite website, Mediabistro (okay, second favorite after this), interviews renaissance man Neil Strauss about his latest as-told-to book, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, by New York Magazine zeitgeist girl Jenna Jameson.
Since the interview is sort of boring, I thought I’d help spice it up by selecting the hottest bits and excerpting them for you. So, herewith are the choice cuts sure to excite even the most passive reader:
Tongues wagging… hard time… deviant… comes… oral… atop… mouth… came… came together… comes… Judith Regan asked me if I wanted to do it… hanging out… How did you get her to open up… we were both totally shaken… She couldn’t even sleep that night… very intense… stripper… pimps… get in touch with the female… told Jenna to tweak anything she wanted… David Laskin, took me… mature… Britney Spears… I got started so young… opened… climbing into bed with Jewel… tangled… I’m stuck… restrictive… fucking as an art…
Since we consider ourselves humanitarians at heart, we’re thoughtfully putting forth this helpful list of activities in which you may want to consider engaging, in lieu of seeing the recently-released hokum that is Open Water. Seriously. Any of these options serve as good, worthwhile alternatives. Hell, exhaust the list if you have to.
1. Bask outside near a neighbor’s pool, or a city pool, or whatever. It hardly matters. Study the people flailing about in the water and try and pick out who you think might be the worst actors if you were to go into a career producing community theater workshops and needed to hire these people. While engaging in this impromptu casting session, it could be fucking raining or hailing and you’d still be better off.
2. Oh, and before you go to the pool, or beach, or whatever, take at least twenty to thirty minutes too long to get there, until you’ve bored your mates to death with some asinine and wholly irrelevant setup about how “you need your vacation time to escape this crazy job.” Even if you’re not on vacation, because remember, the only possible goal for this entire exercise is to annoy your audience, unless maybe you’re merely padding the trip’s length, in which case, it’s still not OK, and you, my friend, are an asshole. And when you eventually arrive at the pool, sit around for a good while longer doing nothing more than engaging in some worthless exposition about how nice it is to not be working.
3. Stare at the pool longingly, and mull over the fact that maybe, just maybe, the water is well-heated, and if you were to slit your wrists and just lay there awhile, you might be put out of your misery.
4. Eh, fuck the pool. Throw a dinner/discussion party, and set the evening’s topic to “Examples of Films Being Produced on DV Because They Don’t Deserve a Real Film’s Budget”. If anyone brings up Anniversary Party as an example, come to its defense, and explain how you’d rather watch that film ten consecutive times than have to endure Open Water.
5. As dinner approaches, keep devising stalling tactics to fill up time. For instance, exclaim loudly that you think your leg is getting cramped. Oh, wait, look at that, that cleared up! Phew! Now, however, you’re falling prey to motion sickness, even though you’re seated at a table. Oh, that, too, passed. Wait! Hey, look, I think I saw a car drive by outside this window over here, oh, wait, it turned the corner and is gone now. Shit, I’m getting a cramp again. If your dinner guests start beating you about the face mercilessly, it’s entirely forgivable because they clearly have some understanding of a bad narrative structure.
6. Think about that episode of Magnum, P.I. that was comprised solely of Tom Selleck being stranded in the ocean, having to tread water for hours on end while he endured a torrent of waves and other oceanic dangers for the duration of the entire episode. Make note that this particular episode of what would otherwise be bad network television comes off like fucking Antonioni or Kieslowski compared to Open Water.
7. Check out Maria Full of Grace or Code 46 and marvel at the injustice of studios’ marketing initiatives.