Cr4Bdbgs

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Mon Nov 9

“ The G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit. Paul Krugman lays down the law, one half-sentence at a time. Link

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All I want is a glass of ice water.

feminally:

crannybananny:

That’s all I want. Just plain ice cold water.

But the water from my fridge still tastes like plastic because it’s new and I never drink the water from it…..because it tastes like plastic.

It’s a vicious cycle and I’m too much of a baby to drink the water from the sink unless it’s mixed with something like crystal light.

And I had crystal light last week. But I ran out. And I went to the store and was like, “Holy shit this crystal light costs $5 for one tube thingy!” so I bought some off brand (because they didn’t have a store brand of the crystal light) of peach flavored tea.

And it’s gross.

And I just want a glass of water.

Glass pitcher. Wouldn’t it be nice if they made Britas with glass pitchers. Anyway, filter your water then throw it in a glass pitcher.

Tried to read the post but could only imagine the final shot of Danny DeVito as the Penguin in Batman Returns oozing black blood and falling into the sewer water.

CLAIM: Batman Returns is the best of the Batman films by approx. 3 miles. Heath, love ya but you were handily out-villained by DANNY FUCKING DEVITO. Trufax.

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Sat Nov 7

Stupak

abbyjean:

sexartandpolitics:

Uhh…. this tally is distressing with 2:30 left.

UH THIS TALLY IS DISTRESSING WITH 0:00 LEFT

wtf, congress.

Anyone who can vote in a Democratic primary has a moral obligation to help destroy anyone who supported this and/or other similarly heinous legislation. Even if it ultimately means narrowing the Dem majority — “strong 51 over a weak 60” argument, etc.

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Best Documentaries of the 00's

This is basically what I “do,” and I’ve been shamefully behind on it. I go to film screenings about as often as I go to live shows (i.e. never). I’ve found that I can figure out if a doc is going to make it anywhere near my critical radar within about 10 minutes (basic structure, subject, and sledgehammerness all accounted for by then), but this isn’t totally fair. I’d rather go by rec’s from y’all — name one documentary that MOST PEOPLE would not put on a best of the 00’s list (yeah, yeah, we all saw Morgan Freeman lay down the family values in March of the Penguins NEXT).

Good discussion about this topic, particularly in comments, here.

For reference, here’s my list of tennish:

S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (forced re-enactment of procedures in Khmer Rouge death camps — haven’t brought myself to watch it again in a few years)
Control Room
In the Realms of the Unreal (poetic and non-condescending look at Harvey Darger, as good a biopic as it is an animation project)
This Is What Democracy Looks Like (Y’know, like “Battle in Seattle,” except without Woody Harrelson!)
Ford Transit (Hany Abu-Assad’s doc/fiction mix of Palestinian transport through occupied territory via Ford Transit cars.)
The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda doc)
The Five Obstructions (Lars von Trier acts like a dick to his old prof, gets resoundingly pwned)
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (Metallica act like dicks, get resoundingly pwned by this film!)
Street Fight (NJ mayoral race is a better depiction of hope goes to Washington [er, Newark] than Obama will likely ever get)
=10. Touching the Void (almost entirely for the Boney M song sequence…)
=10. Rivers and Tides (the only glorified screensaver I’d maybe stick on the list — this was a pretty potent subgenre of the decade and this one’s the best for its relative lack of pretense)

11th place nepotism — my friends Jeremy Levine and Landon von Soest made a great film on the Minutemen right-wing militia/pseudo-border-police group (nee Ranch Rescue) before they got media-savvy. It’s called Walking the Line and you should try to find it! A bizarre “remake” (not literally, just the exact subject and many of the same interview subjects) was done a few years later and had more critical acclaim, but the Minutemen had already cleaned up their media act and the film is way more falsely “even-handed” toward ‘em than they actually deserve.

Honorable Mentions (distant twelfth): Winged Migration Murderball An Inconvenient Truth Bright Leaves Lost in La Mancha Comedian Jackass: The Movie

Good post here on the subject, particularly in comments.

No — Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Adam Curtis, Robert Greenwald, Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, “Darwin’s Nightmare,” “Jesus Camp,” and Borat/Bruno aren’t getting a spot on my list; they were not oversights. Also not a fan of most “quirkumentaries,” so no profiles of the group of adorable elderly rock ‘n’ rollers who ate the most hamburgers ever while simultaneously getting the high score in Pac Man.

EDIT #1: Ah, abbyjean points out “Favela Rising,” which I haven’t seen. I thought “Rize” was great, would probably make my hon. mentions. (Glorified screensaver doc or no? Brain says yes, heart says STFU BRAIN YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD)

What was the best documentary of the decade?

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Stupak (n)

The sepsis commonly experienced after unsafe back alley abortions.

(via Atrios)

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Frank Kogan on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (ongoing)

Been a while since your last intellekshual musings on BtVS? Check out some of Frank Kogan’s excellent analysis as he goes episode-by-episode through the series (which he’s never seen — if you comment there no spoilers!). EDIT: No spoilers in this comment thread, either, plz.

I’m just now finishing the series for the first time myself, have a few musings in comments. The most important one is this:

The magic of Buffy, which starts to become clear, I think, as this season [Season 2] goes on, is that it puts its characters in a kind of psychology-space that’s more compelling than the “real” space (single mom! step-dad! etc.!) OR the “fantasy” space (vampires! demons! etc.!). The middle-ground is a kind of internal world that doesn’t cleanly connect back to Real-World but also doesn’t quite make it wholesale into a Sci Fi world. It starts to ride on pure character, and on pure(r?) emulation of a sort of teenaged mind-state (in this case junior year of high school — senior year is VERY “senior year” feeling, tho, because the show’s voice is more assured).

And among my favorite observations so far from Frank:

—On the mechanics of the Sunnydale High courtyard:

I love that courtyard: cheap functional “pillars,” a bush, and a tree of some sort, you see its trunk only (eucalyptus? palm?), hard to tell if it’s regular bark or metal mesh atop the bark to protect it from students. Courtyard convos are always so great; the courtyard seems to be the truth spot, the characters hidden in full view, the multicultural swirl going by (a couple of Chicanos on a bench, an Asian teacher, diverse ethnicities and all colors but still mostly white) while Xander or Buffy or Willow or Rupert speaks to one of the others about what he or she is most troubled by. This entire school is suggested by: a lawn, two classrooms, a hallway, a principal’s office, a library, a locker room, a gymnasium, a boiler room, a closet, a girl’s lavatory, and a few more nondescript rooms as needed. I recall in one episode there was also a media room with several computers. Also an episode with stage and auditorium. (Other places?)

— On Cordelia, Artist of Style:

What I really want Cordy to be is not just a pleasure center and a reality principle, but an artist of style. She’s not merely a girl with an eye to fashion, but a girl with her own individual look. Irl that would be required in her social set anyway, that people represent their own style as well as the group’s. In her great speech where she declares herself not a sheep, she’s not only standing up to her friends, she’s reflecting their values. But nonetheless, in declaring those values she really is declaring her own mind, her determination to judge for herself. As pleasure principle and reality principle and Artist Of Style she’s setting her own standards, no matter how typical of her class. And in representing a pleasure principle she stands for her own sense of fun. (Yes, this would give her coherence that the show doesn’t yet know how to.) Maybe some of this has already been going on in her dress and her body language and I’ve not consciously noticed it, being poor at such consciousness. Could I have taken some of this in subliminally?

And tons more. Well worth a read, for “Buffy” fans and semi-fans and non-fans alike (the criticisms are often more illuminating in helping me figure out why I like the show than the praise).

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#guccicollective

Join the #guccicollective game on Twitter — M.I.A. has described her new album as a mix between Gucci Mane and Animal Collective, so me ‘n’ Alex O. (in italics) figured out what it would sound like (“deedly-dee-deedly-dee” dream-dissolve):

“Ice like BRRR, livin’ in an igloo, got adobe sluts I call my girls, who I did, too.”

“Who could win a rabbit, mane, who could win a chicken, who can slice it fatter, mane, call it finger-lickin’”

“Keep findin’ these rocks, you can call me a geologist, fuck with Gucci you gon’ need a proctologist.”

“Open up open up open up your throat, honey. Sucks that daddy’s gone, but brother Gucci gets that sports money.”

“Your girl on my dick like my Aston Martin ride, Gucci Mane’s peacebone adjusts her insides”

“You fuckin’ with a leaf house, I’m fuckin’ with a trap house, goofy motherfuckers too fruity like Mickey Mouse”

“Gucci dressed tight in those summertime clothes. Gettin’ sex so tight from them summertime hos.”

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Fri Nov 6

Whoa.

fireengines:

HOLY FUCK.

IT IS NATIONAL NACHOS DAY?

WHAT WHAT WHAT

NACHOFEST. NOW.

We totally just had tacos tonight for the first time in YEARS. YEARS. We had to get all the ingredients special-like from the grocery store and everything!!

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Thu Nov 5

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Shakira - Mon Amour

As promised, Shakira makes an indie noise on the last (English-language) track on her new album. Which you should listen to if you haven’t yet.

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takethecityandrun:

robot-heart-politics:

chuckmore:abbyjean:

Looking for a single post that sums up the irrational, polarized, go-team mindset of modern political discussion? Well, look no further than A Picture Worth A Thousand Words on the Say Anything Blog. As if the simple number of pages something uses speaks to its value. Of course, that first smaller pile isn’t weighed down with pesky unnecessary pages like those requiring coverage for preexisting conditions. (sauer)

GOP say “Specificity bad! Fire good!”

I mean JAYSUS, just look at the MARGINS on this format! It’s like a Blogspot template (maybe bills need sidebars). And who knows what other boilerplate bullshit is doing to beef up a GOP document that looks to me more like a screenplay more than a bill.