New York Times breaks typographic barriers...

...with largest point font, ever.

Sarcastigate.com

This is where the action's at now: http://sarcastigate.com.

"Toxic substance" does not include...

Excerpt from the Wisconsin Department of Commerce Regulation of Industry, Buildings and Safety, Sections 101.58 to 101.599 (The “Employees’ Right to Know Law”):

2. “Toxic substance” does not include:
a. Any article, including but not limited to an item of equip-
ment or hardware, which contains a substance regulated by the
federal occupational safety and health administration under title
29 of the code of federal regulations part 1910, subpart z, if the
substance is present in a solid form which does not cause any acute
or chronic health hazard as a result of being handled by an
employee.
b. Any mixture containing a substance regulated under title
29 of the code of federal regulations part 1910, subpart z, if the
substance is less than one percent, or, if the substance is an impu-
rity, less than 2%, of the product.
c. Any consumer product packaged for distribution to and
used by the general public, for which the employee’s exposure
during use is not significantly greater than the consumer’s expo-
sure occurring during the principal use of the product.
d. Any substance received by an employer in a sealed package
and subsequently sold or transferred in that package, if the seal
remains intact while the substance is in the employer’s workplace.
e. Any waste material regulated under the federal resource
conservation and recovery act, P.L. 94−580.
f. Lutefisk.
(k) “Workplace” means any location where an employee per-
forms a work−related duty in the course of his or her employment,
except a personal residence.

Little Beauties:

I guess the usual reaction to this is to think it's exploitative and deviant, which I do, but I also think it's kind of weak to point to it and suggest that it somehow evinces a deeper cultural psychology. I think this is a fringe practice, and I don't think it was created to please men. Instead, I think it was created to officialize and sanction an obsession with cuteness that is mostly harbored by older women. The sexualization of the girls is, I think, part of the usual topsy-turvy of the cute factor: like a puppy in sunglasses, or a little boy in a suit. Little kids dressing up like or acting like adults has a definite charm.

But, as with dolls and the Uncanny Valley, this charming precocity can spill over into seriously creepy territory.

Sneezing at the sun.

Photic sneeze reflex is a genetic autosomal dominant trait, which causes sneezing when exposed suddenly to bright light, possibly many times consecutively. It is also referred to as photic sneeze response, sun sneezing, photogenic sneezing, the photosternutatory reflex, being photo sensitive, ACHOO syndrome, and "Achooism," with its related backronym Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst syndrome. The condition affects 17 to 35 percent of humans.[citation needed]

The first mention of the phenomenon is probably in the later work attributed to Aristotle (Problems, book XXXIII).

Continue reading: Wikipedia

Rote Memorization for Obama!

Barry Sanders.

Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are.

“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.

In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand. [...]

Considering the family’s long history of association with liberalism and progressive ideals, it should come as no surprise that Ms. Maverick insists that John McCain, who has voted so often with his party, “is in no way a maverick, in uppercase or lowercase.”

“It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again.’ ”

“He’s a Republican,” she said. “He’s branded.”

Continue reading at the New York Times.

Obama Mural Madness!

No political messages allowed! Unless, of course, they were purchased.

Street justice.

“From two very senior sources – one incredibly senior source – that [Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Bros.] went to the gym after … Lehman was announced as going under. He was on a treadmill with a heart monitor on. Someone was in the corner, pumping iron and he walked over and he knocked him out cold. And frankly after having watched this, I’d have done the same too.”

From the Consumerist.

The lord wants their balls on a platter. Today.

Days after federal officials agreed to an $85 billion bailout of American International Group, the insurance firm spent more than $440,000 for a corporate retreat at a swanky California resort. An invoice from the week-long getaway, a copy of which you'll find below, was obtained by the congressional panel that has been holding hearings this week about Wall Street collapses and executive excess. The late-September AIG gathering at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach cost $443,343, according to the invoice. The six-figure sum covered hotel rooms, banquets, golf fees, and spa services at the resort south of Los Angeles. However, company funds apparently were not spent on exploding cakes or urinating ice statues.

From the Smoking Gun.

My contribution to the meme.

Jack Cafferty is my new hero.

Tina Fey as VPILF.

VPILF reads all of them.

How we discovered our desire for the uncontacted savage.

The photos of grass-roofed shelters and hostile, body-painted Indians brandishing bows and arrows spread like brushfire around the globe. Survival International, an indigenous rights advocacy group, described the group as "uncontacted," summoning celluloid fantasies of lost savages who had never seen civilization. Reporters began to describe them as "Earth's last uncontacted tribe" who reacted violently to the "bird god" in the sky. But then the story collapsed. Meirelles stated in an interview that he had been following the group for two decades. The tribe was neither lost nor undiscovered — the outside world had known of them since 1910. It should have been clear from the beginning; the initial Portuguese reports never claimed the group was "uncontacted." Introduced by sloppy reporting, this error fanned suspicions that the photos were just a hoax.

The crucial issue raised by these photos of a remote group isolated from our society is not whether, in an age of worldwide connectivity, surveillance satellites, and explosive population growth, we might still have undiscovered neighbors on a shrinking globe — we don't. In fact, one of Meirelles's friends first noticed the clearing where the tribe was found while browsing Google Earth. In truth, our reactions to and perceptions of these people reveal far more about us than about them. We easily believe that a band of hostile Indians confronting an airplane from a clearing do so out of ignorance and fear. But the likely truth is harder to face: The tribe might have threatened the observers precisely because they had encountered some of the worst aspects of our culture before, and suffered grievously. These images of a people courageously standing against us are not symbols of their ignorance, but of ours.

Meirelles says he released the photos only because petroleum executives and state authorities in Peru claimed that the forests where they wished to drill for oil were empty. A spokesperson for Peru's state oil company, Petroperu, said that nomadic Indians were a figment of activists' imaginations, "like the Loch Ness Monster," and last year even Peru's President, Alan García, questioned their existence.

The publicity may backfire; global curiosity about the tribes could prove insatiable. Since the release, Meirelles has endured a torrent of media requests and business solicitations; travel agents call him to propose "Savage Tourism." A film team already slipped into an Indian reservation on the Peruvian side this past year, violating their travel permits while scouting locations for a reality television program, "World's Lost Tribes." Shortly afterward, a respiratory infection they may have brought with them killed four Indians.

Continue reading at Seed Magazine.

I've had my passport longer than Sarah Palin.

I counted. There are, as of this morning, at least 36 facebook groups mocking VPILF's only recent acquisition of a passport.

From the New York Times:

"Ms. Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States. In July 2007, she had to get a passport before she visited members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait, according to her deputy communications director, Sharon Leighow. She also visited wounded troops in Germany during that trip."

Also, peep VPILF in a one-piece the year I was born:

That's some Erin Brockovich shit.

The Environmental Protection Agency, under pressure from the White House and the Pentagon, is poised to rule as early as today that it will not set a drinking water safety standard for perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that has been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns, and young children across the nation.

According to a near-final document obtained by the Washington Post, EPA's "preliminary regulatory determination" - which was extensively edited by White House officials - marks the final step in a six-year battle between career EPA scientists who advocate regulating the chemical and White House and Pentagon officials who oppose it. The document estimates that up to 16.6 million Americans are exposed to perchlorate at a level many scientists consider unsafe; independent researchers, using federal and state data, put the number at between 20 million and 40 million.

"They have distorted the science to such an extent that they can justify not regulating" the chemical, said University of Massachusetts professor Robert Zoeller, an endocrinologist who specializes in thyroid hormone and brain development and who has a copy of the EPA proposal. "Infants and children will continue to be damaged, and that damage is significant."

Continue reading.

I kind of want that sweater on the far right.

And how about those crazy leather jackets these kids got on?

Egomania + internet fuckwithery = profound unreliability.

The top rated professor on ratemyprofessors.com, Robert M. Citino, has been receiving suspiciously grammatical (and square) reviews. I don't buy it.

His ratemyprofessers entry. And his wikipedia entry. Who's managing his web image, and since it's likely him, who spends this much time on his wikipedia entry and isn't a likely candidate for futzing with his ratemyprofessors results? Maybe they're unfuckwithable. But I'm just saying: maybe not.

(On a tangentially related note, some clown already has unfuckwithable.com. I just checked godaddy.)


Oh, and here's what he looks like:

Who's afraid of the evangelical voting bloc?

It helps to make some sense of arguments made by Michael Lindsay and Rebecca Sager, also on The Immanent Frame, that there are “new types” of evangelicals, often relatively progressive in their politics. And with the newly articulated concerns on, for example, poverty, AIDS, and global warming, by Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and others. So, understanding variation, and finding shades of gray in the “evangelical” monolith, may have significant political implications. [...]

Now it is true that in an electorate fairly neatly divided, one need not persuade very many people in order to win an election. Just a few cracks in the Republican base, including that part composed of conservative Protestants, may tip the balance. So perhaps I should not doubt the importance of the actual variation among those Christians who consider themselves “evangelicals.” But after the Saddleback Church “conversations” hosted by Rick Warren, where Obama spoke easily and sincerely about his faith, few churchgoers who attended (and spoke to reporters afterward) seemed to be persuaded to actually vote for a Democrat. He was still too different, too unknown, and, some said, still not right about the “core” social issue of abortion. For many people, there is now almost 30 years of associating evangelical Protestantism with voting Republican—it may well have become a part of evangelical identity for many, a core affiliation.

Thus, at least in an election year, when elected officials, aspiring candidates, consultants, and media all have a lot at stake on shaping their appeals effectively, this practical outcome seems to me to swamp the scholarly concerns scholars have with precision and definition. If we want to know who evangelicals are, how many there are, and what they believe and how they practice, I am all for precision, nuance, and variation. But if we need to know how “they” are going to pull a voting lever regarding an either/or choice in a divided electorate, it seems to me that the global term bandied about in the media tells us what we want to know.

From Rhys H. Williams at The Immanent Frame.

Also see:

A new kind of evangelical.

A progressive evangelical movement?

My increasing guilt surrounding consumption of octopi.

Octopuses are highly intelligent and can learn new tasks even as adults. The learning power of an octopus is only restricted by its short life span, which ranges from six months to a few years. They often manipulate their environment in ways that suggest playing in addition to regular life tasks. In captivity, they play with toys such a Rubik’s cube, and even have preferences like Louis, who is attached to a Mr. Potato Head.

Continue reading at mental_floss.

The artistic subgenre of the visual double entendre.

One day I'll be so wealthy I won't even have to remember anymore.

Someone will edit my memories and remember for me, just how it should've happened in the first place.

Kawaii desu yo!

Awkward, alienating, possibly brilliant (I never decided).

A guy whom I knew in Japan:

What happens if my bank fails?

Answer: The FDIC's got my back because I'm poor and shit, and I don't have over $100k in the bank.

via Yahoo Finance:

Amid the recent collapse and government seizure of savings and loan giant IndyMac Bank and heightened anxiety this week over the financial stability of No. 1 thrift Washington Mutual Inc., consumers are concerned about the safety of their bank deposits.

As of June 30, Seattle-based WaMu and its subsidiaries had assets of $309.73 billion and $181.92 billion in deposits. By comparison, Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac had $32 billion in assets and $19 billion in deposits when it was shut down by federal regulators on July 11.

If Washington Mutual were to tumble, the magnitude of its failure would dwarf the largest bank collapse in U.S. history -- that of Continental Illinois National Bank in 1984, with $33.6 billion in assets.

Besides IndyMac, 10 more federally insured banks and thrifts have failed this year and were closed by regulators, compared with three in all of 2007. Federal banking officials say more institutions are in danger of collapsing as turbulence from the housing slump, mounting defaults on mortgages, and the yearlong credit crisis continues to pile on soured loans for banks.

But officials also are assuring depositors that accounts are secure: Some 98 percent of the 8,450 government-insured U.S. banks and thrifts are strong, and $45.2 billion is in the federal deposit insurance fund -- replenished by premiums paid by the institutions.

Still, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair has said she will propose next month to FDIC directors an increase in premiums charged to banks and thrifts.

Some questions that bank customers may be asking:

Q. What is the maximum dollar amount that can be insured at my bank? Does it vary based on the type of accounts involved?

A. The basic insurance amount is $100,000 per depositor per bank. Individual retirement accounts, or IRAs, held in banks are insured up to $250,000. In addition, you may qualify for more than $100,000 in coverage at one bank if you have deposit accounts in different ownership categories, such as single accounts, retirement accounts, joint accounts and revocable trust accounts.

Q. What if my family has multiple individual accounts of those types, but our total deposits exceed the limits?

A. If the accounts are properly structured, a married couple could have as much as $1.1 million in deposits fully insured at one bank, according to the FDIC. With accounts for two children added, up to $1.5 million could be covered.

Q. If my bank closes, what happens to my money in deposit accounts that exceeds the insured limits?

A. You become essentially a creditor of the failed bank. You will eventually recover some of your money, but the amount can range anywhere from 40 cents on the dollar up to a full 100. Recovery of the money could take months. At IndyMac, there are an estimated $541 million in deposits of the total $19 billion that exceed the insurance limits.

Q. How has that worked out for past bank failures?

A. The average return for a depositor in that situation has been about 72 cents on the dollar, according to the FDIC. The amount that depositors recoup can depend on the amount and quality of the failed bank's assets.

Q. What else happens if my bank is shut down: Will the ATMs work? Will my automatic payments for mortgages, utilities and the like be affected?

A. Automated teller machines normally remain available after a bank closure. Checks will be processed as usual, services such as online banking and safe deposit boxes will continue to be available, and interest on accounts will accrue at the current rates. Terms of loans from the bank won't change, according to the FDIC.

Q. What can I do now, before any possible closure of my bank, to protect my assets?

A. The best way is to structure the accounts carefully. The FDIC has a calculator on its Web site, called the electronic deposit insurance estimator, or EDIE, that can help determine how much money, if any, in deposit accounts exceeds the insurance limits.

Sperm's Morphologic Survival After 16 Days in the Vagina of a Dead Body:

Abstract from the Journal of Forensic Sciences backfile:

Sperm's Morphologic Survival After 16 Days in the Vagina of a Dead Body
Wilson, EF
Lane County Assistant Medical Examiner, P.O. Box 369, Eugene, Ore. 97401. Formerly, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, State of Utah, Utah State Division of Health, and Department of Pathology, University of Utah Medical Center, Salt Lake City, Utah.

In preparation for a murder trial a few years ago, a number of textbooks and the recent English-speaking literature dealing with forensic pathology were reviewed for information concerning length of survival of spermatozoa in the vagina of a dead body. This literature review has been ongoing and has included examination of the most recently published textbook in forensic pathology [1], where it is written, "Even though a definite time scale for the identification of spermatozoa cannot be furnished, it is apparent that a number of days can elapse between the time of death and time of examination with identifiable spermatozoa being present."

Inventors killed by their own inventions:

A list on wikipedia, including:

-Henry Winstanley (1644-1703) was killed in a storm while inside the lighthouse of his own design, after expressing a wish to be inside it during "the greatest storm there ever was."

-Thomas Midgley, Jr. accidentally strangled himself with the cord of a pulley-operated mechanical bed of his own design in 1944.
(It is worth noting that he also invented leaded petrol and may well have died from polio (had he not been killed) which was attributed to him being weakened by lead poisoning.)

-Contrary to popular belief Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the supposed inventor of the guillotine, did not himself directly invent it and did not die by it, nor did Haman invent the gallows — he was simply hanged on the particular gallows he had built.

Boiled peanuts:

Look sketchy, taste delish: http://www.nutsonline.com/nuts/peanuts/boiled.html

What happens to all the things I've never seen and only heard about.

When large container ships can contain or ship no more, they're sent halfway round the world to so-called "breaking yards," where they're dismantled (basically by hand), their metal is salvaged, and their intact structures, down to the doors and toilet seats, are put back onto the global marketplace. Today, these yards tend to be in Bangladesh or India – but location is just a question of cheap labor and (nonexistent) environmental regulations.

via BLDG BLOG.

By the time I get to Arizona.

What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. 'He had no idea he was being lit from below,' Greenberg says. And his handlers didn't seem to notice it either. 'I guess they're not very sophisticated,' she adds.


Bonus: Public Enemy calls out John McCain et al. for being AGAINST honoring MLK, Jr.

Just a hominid tryin' to get a piece of that pie.

Fuck Damien Hirst. This here's a bargain.

This is a capitalistic society, and I definitely want to capitalize.

VPILF media summary.

Face to a name and a song.

Suicide bombing is so passé.

“Among all the bombs, explosives and guns, the number of martyred dead is rising. Though this is the will of Allah, it is nevertheless possible to cause the enemy greater damage without exposing the Muslims to danger. How is it to be done?”

Despite countless attempts by Western intelligence agencies, and the many projects by psychologists trying to draw the profile of the average suicide terrorist, we have failed miserably in finding a solution to the “poor man’s smart bomb.” Now, however, attrition may achieve what the experts have not: after years of battle in two main arenas — Iraq and Afghanistan — Al Qaeda’s suicide-recruitment mechanisms are beginning to wear out.

“Martyrdom operations are legitimate, and they are among the greatest acts of combat for Allah’s cause,” said Bashir bin Fahd al-Bashir, a Saudi preacher and one of Al Qaeda’s most popular religious authorities, in a recent sermon. “But they should not be allowed excessively. They should be allowed strictly on two conditions: 1. The commander is convinced they can definitely inflict serious losses on the enemy. 2. This cannot be achieved otherwise.”

The meaning of such dictates is clear: carrying out suicide attacks when there are alternatives that would allow the bomber to survive should be considered “intihar,” the ultimate sin of taking one’s own life without religious justification.

From the New York Times.

So what if I cried while watching this.

Mimic octopus:

In the continuing spirit of marine skin-crawlery:

Strapped 4 Life.

Mid-Century Suppers

http://flickr.com/groups/midcenturysupperclub/pool/

LOL!

Columbia is bleeding / This is the Ivy League

Something so literally gay; what more can I say?

In our Museum we are showing several art reproductions, concerning the various aspects of Homoerotic Art, both in History and around the World.

Not all the pieces were originally made by or for gay people, also because in ancient times there was not such a labeling as "homosexual" or "gay". And not all authors were necessarily people who preferred to love their own sex.

But what we are collecting here, and showing among the masterpieces of the past and of our days, are those we feel more appealing to our homoerotic sensibility.

Of course we cannot expose all the pieces produced in thousands and thousands of years and all over the world, in so many civilizations and made by so many people. But we hope that the choice we made is a good documentation about a feeling we share with other civilizations, other people, and other times.

PS: If you have data about this fruit, please send us an e-mail. Thank you.

Famous (NOLA) GLTB.

Born Kenyon Carter, Katey Red is one of the first openly homosexual, cross-dressing, rap and bounce-music artists to earn respect in this notoriously homophobic world. Katey Red first realized that he wasn't like his friends at age 5, when he put on his mother's fingernail polish.

At 13, he first had sex with a gir, and didn't get nothing out of it. He was always thinking about boys. So he had sex with a man when 15. Then, when he made 16, he had sex with a girl again to make sure he really didn't want it.

Lately, the Times ran a truly bizarre and confused profile of Katey. Writer Neil Strauss refused to accept his subject's preferred pronoun, "she," stubbornly calling Katey a "he" throughout the piece. Strauss never used the terms "transsexual," transgender," or even "cross-dresser". Instead, he referred to Katey as "openly homosexual" - as if that alone explained Red's desire to be a woman.

And he seemed so enchanted by Katey's novelty that he didn't seem to question the odd claims about homosexuality made by some of his interviewees - among them, that "homosexuals" would be drawn to Red in throngs simply because of her sexuality; and that Katey's lack of success outside of her hometown of New Orleans is attributable to D.J.s' fear that playing her records will make people think they were gay.

RNC protest blotter.

Via the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

• Local police are using a combination of pepper spray, concussion grenades and tear gas on a group of breakaway protesters gathered on Kellogg Boulevard in downtown St. Paul. The group of about 150 protesters, many thought to be with the group "Funk the War," had been blocking traffic for much of the afternoon.

• The exit at Seventh Street off Interstate 94 was blocked by a group of about 10 protesters who chained themselves together with lockboxes. The protesters said they were part of the Pittsburgh branch of the Northeast Anarchist Network. "(The purpose) was to shut down the delegates from getting to the RNC," one said. The police have officially shut down the exit.

• There was a Minneapolis police car at Sixth and Wabasha with the windshield bashed in and tires slashed.

• "They've disrupted the lives of so many people, Iraqis, New Orleaners, they didn't help them. The least we could do is disrupt their day for a couple of hours," said Joe, who declined to give his last name.

• One protester was asked: "Why are you doing this?" -- "You're writing about it, aren't you?" he said.

• On Seventh Street near Main, eleven local citizens, clad in bright yellow bibs, assembled themselves with a goal of preventing violence by inserting themselves between cops and protesters. They were mostly middle-aged adults and they talked with authorities to let them know their purpose. They wore armbands that say: "I will not hurt you."

• The crowd was far short of the 50,000 that organizers had hoped to attract, but officers in riot gear were stationed along the route of the march to Xcel Energy Center. Police initially estimated the crowd at 10,000, but then revised it sharply downward an hour later.

• An anarchist group known as the RNC Welcoming Committee had worked for months on strategies to disrupt the convention. Despite preemptive police searches over the weekend that resulted in six arrests, the group issued a statement Monday saying it was "moving forward with a national call to crash the convention."

• At the rally, a 25-foot-long ice sculpture rose 3 feet in the air and spelled "Democracy." Some protesters flew kites, waved American and peace-sign flags and carried homemade anti-war signs.

• Alan Rybak, a real estate agent from Lakeville, Minn., stood along the protest route carrying a sign that read "Support Our Troops." "I'm here to support our troops and to tell (protesters) to get a job and go home," said Rybak, a Republican Party activist.

Surinam Toad:

This makes me itch.

VPILF Update:

Kind of awesome, or, something Obama could never do.

The seduction community is a loose-knit subculture of men.

The pick-up artists come across as nerdy, emotionally underdeveloped men, usually young, who have chosen to reinvent themselves as sexually irresistible predators by analyzing the nuances of social behavior and "running programs" that hijack these social structures. [...]
Other PUAs employ other techniques, including the "Mystery Method," a technique based on the concept of an "indirect approach," befriending the companions of a target while ignoring her in order to make the PUA more attractive. Strauss befriends Mystery, a profoundly damaged professional magician, who developed this technique, and learns his secrets. After learning and some practice, Strauss shaves his head, trades in his clothing, and becomes "Style." Style successfully hits on dozens of women, possibly hundreds-if this story is to be believed. (Strauss insists that this is a true story.) Continued...
See also: Become Alpha
And also: Neil Strauss writing for the New York Times

Truckasauras - Fak!!!

The first minute of this is awesome. It's a video from some kind of art collective in Seattle that records as Truckasauras (that last a really annoys shit out of me, honestly). The song's called "Fak!!!". On another note, I'd still like to figure out a way to soundtrack a boxing match.

Such a good response to a telemarketer.

Tracy Morgan is unbelievably clever.

Again with the whole alien humor thing.

Sometimes I encounter a sense of humor so alien to my own, yet so keenly developed and all the more startling.

Highly digestible synopses in graphic form are better than in-depth essays, so bite me.

Fart dot Blogspot dot Com

is run by high school students. And is awesome:

http://fart.blogspot.com/

Italian ice is not shaved ice.

So in case anyone else didn't know this, just a heads up: italian ice is not the same as shaved ice. It is, however, the same as sorbet. Fuck what ya heard.

AKA:

From the NY Times:

IN the understated town of Cornish, N.H., where it is considered bad form to exhibit your wealth, the man calling himself Clark Rockefeller was driven around in an armored black Cadillac with bulletproof windows. He affected silk ascots and bragged that when it came to acquiring property, he could outbid anyone. He said that Helmut Kohl and Britney Spears were coming to dinner.

The man with the eccentric accent, the tantalizing hints of family fortune and the impressive conversational knowledge of everything from physics to art to the stock market is actually Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who grew up in Germany, came to the United States as a teenage exchange student and never left, not even contacting his family back home for the last 20 years.

“He made such a show of himself, which is so antithetical to New England,” said Jean Burling, the wife of Mr. Burling, the state senator, recalling a welcome party for the couple. “He started telling me he was collecting art, and asking me, did I know what Abstract Expressionism was? He was instructing me that he knew about Motherwells and Rothkos.”

For a blue blood, he seemed oddly lacking in social skills. “He talked about money,” she said. “He was a name-dropper.”

Please don't fill this in:

Not like I care or anything.

From the NY Times:
A recent review in The Archives of Dermatology concludes that three anti-aging treatments are proven clinically effective: the topical application of retinol; carbon dioxide laser resurfacing; and injection of hyaluronic acid, a moisture-retaining acid that occurs naturally in the skin. Each depends on the same mechanism, the interaction of skin cells called fibroblasts with the collagen they produce.

Burj Dubai

Ganked from Gizmodo:

WORD GOLF

This is a plug for my other, super nerdy blog: WORD GOLF.

Potential Bday Cake for Mini.

Proportionality.

Shibawankohina:

This is from an entire YouTube channel devoted to someone feeding their dog. And, seriously, this dog eats better than I do on most days. If I could be owned by a Japanese person and fed platters of fish and noodles all day, I'd have no problem with them videotaping the whole thing.

Digitally enhanced threats of imperialism.

This is the second "fake" story about the opening ceremony

Viewers around the world saw a display in which 29 firework "footprints" travelled across Beijing from south to north.

But a senior official from the Beijing organising committee (Bocog) confirmed on Tuesday that footage of the display had been produced before the big night.

This was provided to broadcasters for "convenience and theatrical effects", according to Wang Wei, Bocog's executive vice-president.

"Because of poor visibility, some previously recorded footage may have been used," he told a daily press conference.

Continued...

You down with OCD? (Yeah... you know me.)

Biting more content from the new shelton wet/dry:

"The Rev. Robert W. Shields, a preacher and teacher who for a quarter-century spent four hours a day recording his life in five-minute segments — from changing light bulbs to pondering God to visiting the bathroom — and ended up with a 37.5-million-word diary, perhaps the most verbose one ever, died on Oct. 15 at his home in Dayton, Wash."

Continued...

Brown University, circa 2001.

WHEN Nicholas James Brown prepares to go out for cocktails at the Tribeca Grand or to a clambake in the Hamptons, he sticks on a few boldly patterned Band-Aids by the Brazilian fashion designer Alexandre Herchcovitch.

To Mr. Brown, 24, who works at Esquire magazine in New York, the colorful strips are an important accessory, and he’s careful to coordinate them with his Kris Van Assche sweater or his Balenciaga bag. He generally wears one on his left hand or arm and balances it out with two or three on his right leg.

He doesn’t put them on his face because, he said, “I don’t want people thinking, ‘What happened?’ ” And if anyone does ask what he’s done to himself to need all of those bandages?

“I’ll lie and say, ‘I have a cut,’ ” he said.

Continued...

My theory points to Imp.

Ganked from stereohell.com (the less formal counterpart of the new shelton wet/dry):

MOMA’s founding director and “intellectual creator” viewed Johns’ first solo show at Leo Castelli and telephoned MOMA curator Dorothy Miller to come right over so they could select works. They purchased Johns’ 1954 Flag, Green Target, Target with Four Faces and White Numbers (thus anointing the 28-year-old into the modernist pantheon).

https://findlayart.com/magazine_pre2000/features/boettger/boettger11-12-96.asp

Rauschenberg opened up the possibilities that are now being mined by contemporary con-artists such as Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, and Jeff Koons. Rauschenberg didn’t poeticize the ordinary. He aggrandized the ordinary, he put a high-art style price tag on the ordinary.

http://tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=66843dca-95e0-45de-aba9-4da3ae73ffc2

$12 million, that’s how much Damien Hirst’s famous shark sold for in 2005. …. It’s not just about the work of art; rather, the value placed on a particular work derives from how it feels to own that art. Most art dealers know that art buying is all about what tier of buyers you aspire to join, about establishing a self-identity and, yes, getting some publicity. The network of galleries and auction houses spends a lot of its time, money, and energy giving artworks just the right image. Remarkably, buyers support the process in the interest of coming out on top, rather than fighting it and trying to get the lower prices. ….

art critics don’t matter much anymore. If the magazine Art in America pays $200 for a review article, why listen to that writer? We have a much richer and generally more accessible guide to the value of art — namely the market itself. ….

Damien Hirst is now worth more than Dali, Picasso, and Warhol were at the same age, put together. The point isn’t whether, in aesthetic terms, he deserves that compensation. The question is whether this way of organizing the art market makes overall sense.

http://www.nysun.com/arts/bubbles-booms-and-busts-the-art-market-in-2008/81581

Earlier this year, hedge-fund millionaire Daniel Loeb made a sweet trade. The 43-year-old partner at Third Point LLC had purchased a rare asset in 2003. He found a buyer in January and sold it for a 500% profit, making a quick $1 million. …

Hedge-fund managers are reinventing the art of the art deal. With their sudden riches, quest for status and big houses in need of adornment, fund managers have become some of the most active buyers and sellers in the art world.

They have been buying up hundreds of millions of dollars of paintings, sculptures and pop-art installations. They have helped turn middling artists into media stars. … where others see art, many fund managers see another market ripe for trading, buying, selling and flipping. Many invest heavily in one or two artists, to build up a “position.” They promote the value of the artists, help boost their prices and sometimes later unload pieces through a tax-favorable gift or sale.

http://www.realestatejournal.com/homegarden/20050519-frank.html

“Who makes that kind of money in the stock market?” said Sender, 38, as he swiveled round the 21 screens at his desk in New York. “In the hedge-fund business these days, you’re having a great year if you make 20 percent.”

Sender revamped his hedge fund Exis Capital Management Inc. last year, returning some investors’ money after losses in 2004 and 2006. Meanwhile, the value of his art, with works by Richard Prince, Mike Kelley and Andreas Gursky, has continued to rise, quadrupling in 10 years.

Art is now his biggest single asset — 800 works that Sender values at more than $100 million. He said he recouped most of the $25 million he spent in the past 10 years on art with the sale of about 40 pieces.

Sender is a new type of financier collector, with Steven Cohen and Daniel Loeb. Their gains on works by Prince and Martin Kippenberger aren’t just dumb luck in a boom. They apply rules for buying art, as well as stocks.

Sender tries to buy the best works of artists he admires, whose pieces also are being acquired by museums and other collectors.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a7Ke6UuweaxE

When a big-name artist has a gallery show at a big-name gallery like White Cube or Gagosian, his best paintings aren’t even on public view: “The new buyer has little chance of even seeing the hot paintings, which will be kept in a small private room. What is hung in public areas is available for purchase but of lesser significance.” ….

One of the things which fascinates me about the recent run-up in contemporary art prices is that it’s meant a huge change in the way that many artists work: it’s commonplace nowadays for artists to have dozens of assistants, something which was a decidedly unusual and controversial practice back in the days of Warhol. With prices for new works regularly breaking into seven figures, art has become bigger and more polished; it often uses much more expensive materials and can draw on resources which would have been unthinkable 15 years ago.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/07/28/the-economic-paradoxes-of-contemporary-art

To Mr. Galenson markets are what make the 20th century completely different from other eras for art. In earlier periods artists created works for rich patrons generally in the court or the church, which functioned as a monopoly. Only in the 20th century did art enter the marketplace and become a commodity, like a stick of butter or an Hermès bag. In this system, he said, breaking the rules became the most valued attribute. The greatest rewards went to conceptual innovators who frequently changed styles and invented genres. For the first time the idea behind the work of art became more important than the physical object itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/arts/design/04pica.html

An interview with Dubai.

Via the New Yorker.

CARTOON LOUNGE: Dude, what are you doing?

DUBAI: What?

CL: With all these flashy glass towers? You look like an idiot.

D: No, it’s awesome.

CL: No, man. It’s not awesome. You’re totally trying way too hard. You’re like a sixteen-year-old kid in West Virginia driving a Porsche—or even worse, like a monster truck made of diamonds.

Dubai: That would be tight.

CL: No man, that would be stupid.

Dubai: Whatever, but at least you’d get people’s attention.

CL: Yeah, for being a huge tool.

Dubai: You’re just jealous, man.

CL: Oh, yeah, what I really want is a bunch of huge glass skyscrapers that practically scream out to the entire world that I have a small penis. O.K., maybe I wish I had your cash. But I’ll tell you this, if I did I have your gazillion dollars I’d spend it with a little more class‚ even a little responsibility.

Dubai: Like how? You gonna buy some world peace?

CL: I don’t know—maybe some hospitals or just some really expensive medical procedures for everyone. Or what would be wrong with a museum or something?

Dubai: Nothing as long as it’s really really tall…

CL: Right.

Dubai: …and has pictures of naked ladies in it.

CL: You’re such an idiot.

(Pause.)

Dubai: Seriously though, can they really make a car out of diamonds?

CL: I don’t know, man. Probably.

Dubai: Sweet.

CL: See that’s exactly what I’m saying. Just because you can do something, if you have the money to do it, doesn’t mean you should do it.

Dubai: Uh, what?

CL: Because it makes you look like a shallow moron. Don’t be that guy. Nobody likes that guy.

Dubai: I’ve got tons of friends.

CL: Look, man, I wouldn’t be a real friend to you right now if I didn’t tell you this: You’re surrounded by people that only like you for your money.

Dubai: Yep.

CL: Dude, that’s not a good thing. You should try to actually learn to do something to distinguish yourself that doesn’t involve throwing a lot of cash around. Sure some equally shallow idiots might like you, for a little while, but… See the thing is, money isn’t the best basis to build relationships on.

Dubai: How would you know? Your idea of a good time is, like, a book.

CL: Uh yeah, touché. You really got me there.

Dubai: Besides, my gross national product is in excess of thirty-seven billion, so screw you.

CL: Yeah, but that’s nearly all oil. What happens when your oil reserves dry up in less than twenty years, which is what everyone’s saying, by the way.

Dubai: Who cares, man. That’s twenty years from now. Anyway, we’ve got tourism too.

CL: Your tourism is based entirely on people coming to gawk at your colossal stacks of glass. What happens when you can’t afford to keep the lights on. I’m just telling you—you want to be known for producing something of real value not just something that’s expensive. I mean if you were a musician, who would you rather be, Dylan or Diddy?

Dubai: Uh, Diddy, obviously. Have you seen his house?

CL: I don’t even know why we’re friends. I really don’t.

Dubai: You don’t need to worry about me, dude. I’ve got a couple other things up my sleeve.

CL: What, casinos? The world’s tallest dog track?

Dubai: No, check this out. We’re making a bunch of islands in the shape of the world. Here’s a pic.

CL: What the hell? Is that for real?

Dubai: Yeah, bro, it’s gonna be awesome. People can buy each island and own, like, part of the world. It’s gonna be crazy expensive, too.

CL: You’ve got to be kidding me. You really think there are people in the world with so much money and so little taste that they’ll actually want to buy some tiny concrete continent.

Dubai: Tommy Lee just bought Greece for him and Pamela Anderson to hang out on.

(Long pause.)

CL: O.K., You’re right. I’m wrong. Do whatever you want, I guess.

Dubai: Yeaaah boyz!

—Matthew Diffee

People I hope to avoid in NYC.

E.g., the founders of coolhunting.com. Heads up, people: being super sincere about being cool and making money off cool: not cool. In fact, it's disconcerting to others while being overtly hierarchical (also not cool). How about you fucking relax and stop talking about how cool you are? Links to bios:

Josh Rubin
Evan Orensten
Ami Kealoha
Tim Yu

That Ami person's bio isn't bad, actually. It's the others that are symptoms of the kind of shit I really I hope to avoid dealing with, but will undoubtedly face.

True Norwegian Black Metal, or: the truth about Rob Semmer's stupidity.

This is (to be frank) a poorly executed documentary piece on Norwegian black metal. The bulk of the footage across the five short videos is an interview with this guy named Gaahl, the lead singer of the band Gorgoroth (see all five here). If you can make it through to the end of the interviews, it's well worth it. Gaahl is so much smarter (or at least way more thoughtful) than the people interviewing him that he just loses them--or at least the central guy, Rob Semmer, the producer for this vbs.tv website that made the thing. Even from the brief clips, I can understand what the guy's driving at, but after spending several days with him, Semmer's unable to get it. It's a pretty simple Nietzschean philosophy about social hierarchies and slave morality, but Semmer's obviously not catching on. The last segment shows him asking Gaahl a really dumb question, and he's just like, I don't know how to answer you because you don't understand what I'm saying, and then proceeds to stare silently for a couple minutes, probably hoping that in the quiet time, Semmer will think about what he asked and stop being such a fucking tool. Here's a segment from an interview where Semmer's talking about hanging out with Gaahl:

Rob: "Gaahl really believes in this whole ideology behind what he’s doing—he’s not just some rockstar fronting a band. The thing with Black Metal is, in Norway, everybody is exactly the same. There’s nothing to rebel against, because everybody’s really well off. It’s one of the richest countries in Europe. There is no lower class, it’s like middle-class white kids everywhere—no one has anything to complain about. And he’s this sort of eccentric figure amidst this sea of contentment and sameness. The way I see it is, in America you have guys like 50 Cent who are supposed to be the 'villain.' Kids like him cause they’re parents hate him, and that’s basically what Gaahl is. He’s their musical villain so to speak. But there’s a lot of different sides to the scene."

Rob Semmer: philosopher, anthropologist, and all around dumb ass. Below is the first video in the series, via youtube.

Marjoe.

Biting some content from the LORDS of APATHY:

Catch Phrase:

Beating the snake? Buffing the banana? Pumping the python???

Why I give a shit about October, and other things having to do with Dan Deacon.

Awesomeness forthcoming.

A building fire by a building fired by Donald Trump:

News goofs are funny. Someone systematically compiling one anchorwoman's goofs is scary and kind of awesome.

Imagine you were making love to this girl. Imagine you were making love to this boy.

Three holes, two women, one serious misunderstanding.

Bollypop!

My brother made this.

Endearingly, Obama.

Girl Talk presumably avoids lawsuits by becoming some kind of non-profit.

Get it while it's hot, and get it for free, if you'd like.

The HPLHS is killing it.

No, really. H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has made like, a million H.P. Lovecraft-oriented fonts, and they're selling them. It's inspiring, really. I think I'll have my own font soon. I must!

The album I didn't know would exist and am suddenly looking forward to.

First off, thanks to the Fader, from whom I ganked this. Also, how about this album art? Some guy at some website called twosee says he art directed that shit, and while that's an unfortunate verb, congratulations.

Here's the only track I can find off Simon Bookish's forthcoming Everything/Everything:
Simon Bookish - Dumb Terminal

Dream Log #2

This dream is a little simpler than the last. It's basically a nightmare in which Ashton Kutcher has become a celebrated novelist. At the point where I encounter him, he's written three books, all of which have been quite successful and critically respected. I don't know the details of the first and third, but the second book is a remake of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He had starred in the film adaption of the book, and then he had written his own version of the story, stripping away the actual intellectual content and replacing it with pseudo-intellectualism that appeals to people my dream-self considers half-wits. Whether or not the book has any intellectual merit, my waking self is left to speculate. It's also of note that he has three books. There was one book acclaimed before the remake of the Kundera classic, and then another book written after and well received. He's solidly established.

When I actually meet Kutcher, we're in a large green field with trees, which I take to be a golf course. We're not golfing, and it seems like maybe there are some buildings somewhere behind us, but nowhere within the frame of my view. He's sitting on a fence, talking to some high school girls, and within moments they're fondling him through his pink and yellow plaid shorts while he half-heartedly discourages them. It's at this point that I wake from the dream, wide-eyed and upset.

Dream Log #1

This is the first entry in what I hope will be a series in which I write down my dreams. Sometimes my dreams are kinda awesome, so if I'm gonna write them down, why not share them with absolutely everyone who can access a computer and read English? (Also, if anyone wants to translate these into other languages, I give you permission on the condition that you tell me what you're up to.)

I had a dream the other night about being in an orphanage. It wasn't exactly an orphanage, but we were basically a bunch of kids hiding out in an enormous attic that must've been for a mansion, or some building that was quite large yet presumably residential. All of us were male. I was about ten or eleven, and my best friend was a boy my own age. We were very close, and while we seemed to have other friends, too, our relationship was set apart.

Everything in the dream appeared very dull and shabby, but also very sharp. Everything in our orphanage was gray and shabby, and our clothes were tattered and covered in dust. They looked somewhat like civil war uniforms, except small and less bulky. The place was lit by skylights that appeared frosted, and the light above them seemed to come from a cloudy sky. Despite all the gray, there were bright reds and blues that were part of our clothing. My jacket had a red inner hem, and though it was dusty and tattered, it was clearly once a very deep and brilliant red.

There was another boy about my age who was very much a bully, and his group of kids would give my friend and me a hard time, as well as make life difficult for other kids. So one morning, this bully goes up behind my friend and grabs at his curly hair and pulls it up into a sort of afro on top of his head. He mocks him when he does this and calls him a Jew. Some or all of us seem to know he actually is a Jew, but this is very upsetting, and it's understood that we're not supposed to talk about this thing.

I become irate when the bully does this, and I run around the table and run after him. I follow him into a room, and there I find him crying, along with a very small boy who is always with him who is probably about three years old. I go over to the boy and I pull him onto my lap because he's smaller than me, and I tell him that I know, and that I understand.

It's in this moment that I realize I've known all along that this boy is actually a girl, and he's been pretending to be a boy in order to avoid apprehension. I'm uncertain as to who all knows that he's actually a girl. She cries in my lap and never says a word, and I know that I've conveyed very much by telling her that I know and understand, and so I don't speak again. She knows that I forgive her for all the times she's been cruel because I understand why she did it, and I know that she had to do something hard to live in our hard little world in the attic. The little boy is holding my left arm and leaning against it, and he doesn't say anything, but just holds on. She falls asleep, and then sometime after the boy and I do as well.

I get the impression that time is passing, that I'm asleep. A part of my waking brain realizes this and becomes a little confused and wakes up, so that I'm sort of awake, watching myself as this little boy sleeping with this little girl and the smaller boy. Suddenly I wake up screaming and in pain, but it's within the context of the dream. One of the other little boys had come in the room with a bow and arrow he'd made from things lying around the attic, and upon seeing us, he'd shot at us with it. A bright blue projectile he'd fired went into my cheek, piercing it and hanging from the side of my face. The boy was alarmed and told me immediately that he didn't think it would work.

Some panic ensues, and one of the older boys steps in to calm me down. He grabs a book that is sort of our Bible because it tells us all kinds of things we need to do in situations like this. He looks up what to do and begins bandaging my face, and it's at this time that I wake up.