June 2012
29 posts
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“A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.”
– Groucho Marx
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Ten Things (Plus One!): Extra Crispy
It’s officially summertime (Neil Degrasse Tyson said!) and that means that even as the days are now beginning to shorten again, there are plenty of sunlit days in our future. And, as much as we all love our solar system’s white-hot ball of continuously burning gas, too much of its attention is a decidedly bad thing.
In recent years and with the aid of the examples readily available...
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Sunday Soundtrack: Kate Nash — Mouthwash
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“Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that...”
– Oscar Wilde
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Sunday Soundtrack: Of Monsters and Men —...
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Famous Novelists on Symbolism in Their Work and...
mentalflossr:
It was 1963, and 16-year-old Bruce McAllister was sick of symbol-hunting in English class. Rather than quarrel with his teacher, he went straight to the source: McAllister mailed a crude, four-question survey to 150 novelists, asking if they intentionally planted symbolism in their work. Seventy-five authors responded. Here’s what they had to say.
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13 tips from famous writers →
wordpainting:
Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind. Cicero
Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say. F. Scott Fitzgerald
The most valuable of all talents is that of never...
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“I also don’t trust caribou anymore. They’re out there, on the...”
– Joss Whedon
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Ten Things: Info'Mercial
Once upon a time, I was hanging out with several friends and happened to be watching a commercial about “feminine products.” (By the way, I love how there are almost as many euphemisms tied up into a woman’s reproductive cycle as there are for sex. It makes a certain degree of sense, but it’s still kind of hilarious to me.) A male friend sitting next to me groaned loudly...
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Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling →
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“I don’t know if proud is the right word, but I am somebody who does not,...”
– Neil Gaiman
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“I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.”
– Benedict Cumberbatch (via lovelyintrovert)
National Theatre Live - Frankenstein →
I have now seen both versions of this production on the screen (Johnny Lee Miller as the Creature last year, and Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature tonight) and they are equally arresting and visceral. Go see it if you have the chance! It will not disappoint.
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Ten Things: Policy Makers
Quick disclaimer: I’m not an economist. Neither am I brilliantly on the spot for how individual policy changes will affect the American economy in the near and long term. Thing is, there are some things we need and the current generation of law makers (even those squeaky “fresh” Tea Partiers fall in the same generational grouping as those already serving in Washington) has been...
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The beginnings of the American Revolution,...
BRITISH EMPIRE: All right, fine, your stupid embargo worked. We won’t levy any more taxes-
AMERICAN COLONIES: Huzzah! Time to get drunk!
BRITISH EMPIRE: Except on tea.
AMERICAN COLONIES: What?
BRITISH EMPIRE: Get over it, it’s just tea. Seriously, where do you get this idea that you’re special and should never have to pay taxes? We hope that idea doesn’t go on to infect your political discourse centuries from now.
AMERICAN COLONIES: We’re not buying your stupid tea.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Are you being serious right now? What are you going to do, just stop drinking tea?
AMERICAN COLONIES: Yes. We’ll drink coffee.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Do you even know what that is?
AMERICAN COLONIES: No, but we’ve heard it’s good and we’re feeling surly.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Fine, whatever, we don’t even care what you do anymore.
BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY: Actually, we are pretty much bankrupt, so you need to make them drink the tea.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Oh, for—just drink the tea.
AMERICAN COLONIES: No.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Do it.
AMERICAN COLONIES: NO.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Drink it.
AMERICAN COLONIES: Fuck you.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Drink it or we’ll punch you in the face.
AMERICAN COLONIES: *Boston Tea Party*
BRITISH EMPIRE: What the hell?
AMERICAN COLONIES: We heard it was Indians.
BRITISH EMPIRE: That’s interesting, because we heard it was a bunch of colonists wearing paint and dressed in costumes that were remarkably similar to what a crowd of drunks who wanted to look like Indians would assemble if the only supplies they had were found in an alley behind a bar.
AMERICAN COLONIES: You get all types in Boston.
BRITISH EMPIRE: …*Coercive Acts*
AMERICAN COLONIES: Oh, it is ON.
