drat fink

only a quilted northern song

can anyone recall the ad i saw this morning that would have had me doubled over in laughter had i not been supine? non? me neither. guess ill have to settle for the guffaw i encountered when i was introduced to the concept of a "personal lubricant" courtesy of the good people at k-y. k-y is out of the closet.....and loving it!

also, i had a random televisual encounter with a former housemate. the chanceness of the encounter can not be overstated. i was not watching the credits roll for a show i hadnt watched. i lifted my head above the persistent fog long enough to notice my old friends stage name flash across the screen. and a flash it was, could not have been onscreen for more than a second. so i scrolled back through the tivo cache, and there she was, all agrimace, an expression i had assuredly inspired on numerous occassions and which would gratify me to no end if ever memories of said were drawn upon for inspiration. over at imdb i see that her character has recurred for an entire season on six feet under. pretty impressive. despite her driven nature, im surprised she stuck with her acting pursuits. thought she would find some other mountain to climb, that it was a post-collegiate artistic indulgence soon to be supplanted by another whim. maybe i was projecting. just another chapter in the book of persistence pays, i guess.

(the novelty is not lost on me.)

the longish march

i think i might win the award for the sweatiest person on the lower east side this morning. it was bad enough when it was just expelling the daily toxins, now i have flubber to contend with as well. i think i need to be airlifted somewhere and forced to hike back. wheres mao when you need him?

i, terrorist

they hate us for our freedom.

i apologize for spreading the virus

i dont watch mtv so i doubt i see the cutting edge of hipster youth ads but i just saw a minute long ad from burger kings "coqroq" campaign. and while ripping off nirvana and its angsty posture is nothing new, doing so for the sake of chicken sticks might be. (the "video" on the music link is the ad.)

shits and giggles

"John Derbyshire gets naughty at National Review's Corner:

Given that the four London suicide bombers were all raised -- in at least one case, born and raised -- in Britain, the quintessential liberal democracy; and given that the entire premise of current U.S. policy is that we can end suicide bombing and other terrorism by bringing liberal democracy to the Middle East; shouldn't we be re-thinking our policy?"

who said it?

"My mind and heart are, like those of so many Americans, focused on the Gulf and Iraq tonight. I am thinking about all those brave young men and women in the US and British armed forces whose lives are on the line, and send them my warm support. And I am thinking about all the innocent Iraqis in the line of fire, who fear what awaits them. I remain convinced that, for all the concerns one might have about the aftermath, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the murderous Baath regime from power will be worth the sacrifices that are about to be made on all sides. The rest of us have a responsibility to work to see that the lives lost are redeemed by the building of a genuinely democratic and independent Iraq in the coming years."

skipping stones

"Oh dear. I can see I'm going to have to go pedagogical on everyone's ass. Just when I was enjoying my Saturday, what with the Orioles bopping the Red Sox and the new CBGB's book in my satchel. But blog duty is blog duty.

Jeff Jarvis, who ought to know better and probably does(nt), writes:

"Conspiracy nutjob, has-been, and bad filmmaker Oliver Stone is making the first movie about 9/11."

No, no, this will never do. "

sigh oops

"Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies to come to the right decisions," Gardiner explains. Consequently, "Truth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage." For the first time in US history, "we allowed strategic psychological operations to become part of public affairs... [W]hat has happened is that information warfare, strategic influence, [and] strategic psychological operations pushed their way into the important process of informing the peoples of our two democracies."

unsound and the furies

EXTRAVERSION: 1 (Low)
Friendliness: 7
Gregariousness: 8
Assertiveness: 1
Activity Level: 1
Excitement-Seeking: 4
Cheerfulness: 1

AGREEABLENESS: 18 (Low)
Trust: 42
Morality: 11
Altruism: 5
Co-operation: 11
Modesty: 35
Sympathy: 82

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: 1 (Low)
Self-Efficacy: 1
Orderliness: 33
Dutifulness: 28
Achievement-Striving: 1
Self-Discipline: 0
Cautiousness: 64

NEUROTICISM: 99 (High)
Anxiety: 88
Anger: 88
Depression: 99
Self-Consciousness: 89
Immoderation: 68
Vulnerability: 99

OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE: 88 (High)
Imagination: 72
Artistic Interests: 60
Emotionality: 65
Adventurousness: 58
Intellect: 79
Liberalism: 99

marx my words

"Which brings me to something like a serious point about those old Marxist days. Is DTN suggesting that after the fall of Communism, cultural critics should give up on trying to understand the historicity of works of art, and that people who persist in asking such questions are secretly longing for the gulag? What a strange suggestion that would be. And you know, I’ve always been puzzled about why there is so little “conservative” historicism in the humanities. Why, exactly, should the division of intellectual labor have fallen out this way, in which the intellectual left says, “let’s try to understand how feudalism, mercantile capitalism, industrial capitalism, post-industrial capitalism, etc. inflected the production and reception of works of art,” and the intellectual right says, “no! works of art are timeless, timeless, timeless”? And then the intellectual left says, “but aren’t you curious as to why some works of art survive and remain powerful for centuries, whereas others gradually drop out of sight, and still others are acknowledged only long after their creators are dead?” And the right replies, “there’s nothing to be curious about! Some authors are great and some aren’t, that’s all.” In this as in other schools of cultural criticism, the intellectual right hasn’t brought anything to the table in decades. Instead, they’ve met each new school of criticism and theory since the advent of structuralism by singing that immortal Groucho Marx tune from Horse Feathers, “I’m Against It.” Why they think this suffices as a mode of intellectual exchange, I’ll never know. But as far as I’m concerned, if we’re going to use terms like “modernism” and “postmodernism”—or, indeed, if we’re going to talk about historical periods at all—it only makes sense to try to determine what makes one period distinct from another, and how art responds (and contributes) to historical change."