Ha HA! All you obsessive commenters, bragging about your EGOTs and what-not, how many of you have been called out by Gabe anonymously in the Monster's Ball?? Not many, I'd guess!!
Wertrew, take a memo: on the "called out anonymously by Gabe" leader board, Grrg is NUMBER ONE.
LOL, LOL, LOL.
"I find it so interesting that chunky sweaters went from being like the most unfashionable grandpa-wear ever, to being an avant-garde, Stefano-Pilati-at-Dior-Homme sort of item, to a basically mainstream clearance-rack-at-the-Gap garment, all in the space of like five years"
—John Goodman in my imaginary version of The Big Lebowski
I wanted to leave a comment about her Apartheid South African childhood as well, but you guys covered most of the bases. I'd just add that it's easy to forget that growing up white and Afrikaans under Apartheid didn't necessarily mean your were automatically privileged and carefree. I mean, of course, a white kid WAS privileged, technically, with respect the black majority, but as a generation of anti-racist writers have to remind us again and again, a white-supremacist society (of which the Apartheid regime was an extreme example) is toxic and traumatic for whites as well as blacks.
This might seem only tangentially related to a pretty girl getting bullied during her "awkward age," but think about this way: when EVERYTHING about your public, civic identity is completely dictated by your skin color, your hair texture, your accent, etc -- might that not instill some pretty sick and dangerous ideas in children's heads about what superficial "prettiness" means? You see where I'm going with this? (I feel like Coetzee makes a point similar to this in "Disgrace.")
ALSO, you know how in "Silence of the Lambs" Hannibal Lector says to Jodi Foster "You're just one generation away from White Trash"? I feel like Hannibal Lector would tell Charlize Theron "You're just a few different choices away from being an extra in a Die Antwoort video."
Has anyone left a Scissor Sisters comment yet? No?
Gonna take your grandma out all night
Yeah we'll show her what it's all about
We'll get her jacked up on some cheap pop rocks
We'll let the good times all roll out...
DO IT! Take your grandma out all night...
Um I think this was maybe funnier in my head. I'm sort of drunk right now.
Okay but "The Mysterious Island" is actually the name of the Jules Verne book that this is... based? on? in some fashion? But in the book, the titular mysterious island HAS a name, it's "Lincoln Island" (you have to say "Lincoln" with a French accent, because it's funnier that way.)
AND ANOTHER THING -- Michael Caine in this movie has been looking for Jules Verne's Mysterious Island for half of his like, but the Island blows up at the end of the book? So this grandpa apparently believe that Mysterious Island is non-fiction, except then Verne added a FAKE ENDING in which the island is destroyed.
GUH WHY AM I EVEN THINKING ABOUT THIS.
Here is a 12-minute podcast in which Rudnick talks about the essay that you can listen to whether you subscribe or not. Rudnick is so funny! http://www.newyorker.com/online/2009/07/20/090720on_audio_rudnick
Did we all read the Paul Rudnick thing in the New Yorker where he describes writing the script for Sister Act. Or as we will all have to call it from now on "Exhibit A for the Defense." Because Rudnick wrote the movie as A STAR-VEHICLE FOR BETTE MIDLER. Who is NOT BLACK. Here is a link to to story, which you cannot read unless you are a subscriber: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/07/20/090720fa_fact_rudnick
In conclusion HEY LOOK AT ME I READ THE NEW YORKER.
So this isn't about phone calls, but I my sister and I are the only people I've ever met who have this problem: we *cannot use* the earbuds that come with iPods, or any earbuds of that style, because our ears lack on of the... bumps? one of the cartilaginous protrusions that everyone else seem to have that keeps the earbuds in place. It makes e feel like a genetic freak. Is this the biggest first-world problem of all time?
They're not on the show, they're on a totally different show which will re-intersect with the actual show at some point near the end. And also this other show is "secret," so every week the loser will be surprised YET AGAIN that there is a "way to make it back on the show!"
I don't know, why is it that this whole concept just makes me angry?
Awesome lesbian is OUT, trying-too-hard Texan is IN. No but seriously they went from "being on the show while not being on the show" to "not-not on the show but also still on the show" to "on a TOTALLY DIFFERENT WEB-ONLY SECRET show which is sort of still on the show but not really." Ugh, this show!
I refer you to this chart: http://laura.chinet.com/html/titles12.html which allows both versions, although it prefers yours, and calls mine "archaic." The archaic version is familiar from, like, literature and shit, as in Browne's Epitaph on the Countess Dowager [sic] of Pembroke. WE'RE BOTH RIGHT.
So I while ago, when I lived in London, I had a gig writing for a big London culture/events/politics sort of blog, and I took it as a personal point of pride that readers shouldn't be able to guess that I was an expat by reading my posts -- I wouldn't lie, but I'd get the vocabulary and spelling and slang right. And then one day I was doing a write of an exhibition at the British Library and I in passing referred to the Queen as "her highness" which is of course COMPLETELY WRONG because the queen is "her majesty" not "her highness" and blog commenters were all like "what the fuck?" and knew that I was a fraud and basically I felt like I should have been deported on the spot.
This is a long way of telling you that the Downton Abbey character's correct title is "The COUNTESS Dowager" not "The Lady Dowager."
He is the currently international face of Thierry Mugler's fashion line. I can't tell you with any certainty how much a model gig like that pays, but I'm guessing it earns him more than being a Lady Gaga video.
You think that those tattoos happened ON IMPULSE??? I'm all for diagnosing personality disorders in public figures -- I do it all the time! -- but if you read a few of his interviews you'll see how off base you are. I mean, on a basic level, his look was planned out and executed over the course of years, it had brought him fame and success in both his chosen profession (as an entertainer) and in other realms (makeup spokesmodel; face of Thierry Mugler). The most interesting part about his explanation of his own experience is the expectation he had that the tattoos would make strangers avoid him, when in fact his appearance gave license for complete strangers to come up and talk to him, in a way they never would have to a normal-looking person. I guess I'm just not really seeing the "negative impact" you refer to.
This is maybe just a long way to say I, too, want to do sex with this person.
I am really angry that I cannot find the "Hula Balls" commercial that Harry Shearer does at the very end of For Your Consideration. Not a great movie, but definitely some good moments. And the "Hula Balls" turned out to be basically prophetic?
That this American Life segment is fascinating! Because it does exactly the opposite as this video: he gets the implant, and suddenly he experiences sound for the first time! And then the novelty wore off, and then all the sound just annoying. He's like "it got old". The link is here: link.
Somehow it seems relevant to point out here that Anderson Cooper was photographed as a baby by famous photographer-of-freaks Diane Arbus. Really!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZFT8UsMNbUk/RnHcb4ZSUII/AAAAAAAAAZ8/ox-2XzujOqY/s1600-h/andercoopercomp.jpg
Hey remember Kozmo dot com? Where anything you wanted could be delivered to you on an orange scooter 24 hours a day? And there were persistent rumors that if you got the right delivery guy, you could also buy an eighth of pot? And it was all free because of "the new economy"? (For younger readers: 1999 was a different and very strange time.) I miss Kozmo dot com.
I suspect that this comment does not have many upvotes is that the majority of this blog's commenters are too young to even remember when Batman Returns happened. (OMG I feel so old, etc.)
My battle with the inevitable is also a losing one. Also, I congratulate the person who created a youtube account and then uploaded OTHER real brazilian/portuguese commercials to lend the whole enterprise verisimilitude. Good work, everyone!
I've been trying to leave a comment here for the past three days, but... maybe I've been banned from commenting? Or something? In any case, the important thing to know is that Tiny Fuppets is in fact a parody of something very specific, and very real, and very not-a-joke: the movies of Brazilian knock-off artist Vídeo Brinquedo. Previous attempts at typing this comment have included specific youtube links to particular Video Brinquedo movie trailers, and a consideration of the different quality of humor in the "originals" and the FunnyOrDie parodies, using the framework of Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp." But I am too tried to type that same comment for the twelfth time. I very much doubt that this comment will get posted either.
In any case, if anyone sees this, posted as it is many days late, google "Vídeo Brinquedo" and acquire a more complete understanding of the Tiny Fuppets. The end.
HEY GUYS! It helps a lot to know that the thing Tiny Fuppets is parodying, (wikipedia article here), is a totally real thing that is not a joke. Well, not a joke on purpose.
See, for example the trailer for The Tiny Cars, The Tiny Panda Fighter, and Ratatoing (sic?!). Seriously, click and watch them.
Incidentally, the difference between the actual Vídeo Brinquedo films and the FunnyOrDie parodies corresponds really well to the distinction that Susan Sontag draws between "naive" or "pure camp" and "self-conscious camp," in her 1965 essay "Notes on Camp." Not to say that one is better or funnier than the other! But they are funny in profoundly different ways. In summary, LOOK AT ME I WENT TO GRAD SCHOOL.
I'm sure someone, somewhere on the internet has pointed this out about that knife arm-shaving video, but there really is a (semi-)reasonable explanation. It's a standard way for artisan knife-makers to show off how sharp the knives the make are, and is a part of the official exam to earn the title "Master Bladesmith" from the American Bladesmith society. This is from a New Yorker article:
Bob Kramer is one of a hundred and twenty-two people in the world, and the only former chef, to have been certified in the United States as a Master Bladesmith. To earn that title, which is conferred by the American Bladesmith Society, Kramer underwent five years of study, culminating in the manufacture, through hand-forging, of six knives. One of those was a roughly finished, fifteen-inch bowie knife, which Kramer had to use to accomplish four tasks, in this order: cut through an inch-thick piece of Manila rope in a single swipe; chop through a two-by-four, twice; place the blade on his forearm and, with the belly of the blade that had done all the chopping, shave a swath of arm hair; and, finally, lock the knife in a vise and permanently bend it ninety degrees.
I remember being in a West Hollywood gay bar in 1997, and seeing, for the first time, a guy talking on a tiny little flip phone, and I clearly remember laughing at him and saying "it looks like he's talking into a Zippo lighter! Har har!" So.
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