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How To Kill the Fun of LOLCat

Salon explicates the LOLcat:

In one classic example, one cat is crying, and another is hugging it and saying, "Don't crai. We'll get cheezburger someday." It's sweet and poignant and wistful all at the same time. Life can be hard, it says, and we don't always get what we want, but even as we long for things we may never have, we draw succor from the reassurances of those we love. Sure, it's ridiculous that what the cat is yearning for is a cheeseburger. But the cheeseburger is not really a cheeseburger -- it's a symbol.

[Via]

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News Bits

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Treatise Against Foodies

"Foodies" give Jessi Klein indigestion.

I remember the first time I heard a co-worker refer to himself as a foodie. It immediately irritated me. Was he implying that he appreciated food more than other people? That his love of eating was somehow more evolved than mine? Don’t all people love the thing we can’t live without? The word strikes me as absurd. It’s as if I called myself an “Airie.” Because I’m simply nuts for air.

[...]

I’m sick of the foodies who need every morsel that goes into their mouth to be a Picasso painting, a Giacometti sculpture, a Proust novel, evoking the world with each crumb. Foodies who need everything to be caramelized, sauteed in a blabla reduction, nested in a bed of shredded whatevers, served with a mushroom top hat and a julienne of leeks that have been knitted into a sequined scarf. It’s not that wonderful food doesn’t make me drool—I’m a bit of a St Bernard when I start thinking about cheese—it’s just the foodie chatter I can’t stand, the circle jerking in print and on an ever growing number of websites over this new place and that revamped old place, the obsessive fawning over such and such amuse-bouche, the kerfuffle over truffles.

I've always been slightly annoyed by the term foodie, even though I use it in my vocabulary, but mainly due to its acceptance at large. It strikes me as affected colloquialism. How about epicurist? Or simply gourmet or gastronome?

Anyway, with Klein's opening salvo I predict it's going to get "hot" in the blogosphere kitchen with foodies setting their stove to flame.

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Artist Studio Visits

Video tours of various artists' studios. Side effects may include apartment envy and pangs of regret at not going to art school Ida Applebroog's space:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_T4mHBMn-4]

View more here.

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Inuit Man versus Wild

Bear Grylls has nothing on an old Inuit grandfather. Ethnographer and anthropologist Wade Davis explains:

During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.

I just finished reading Dan Simmons' historical fiction The Terror where he details the almost fantastical ingenuity of the "esquimaux" which mirrors Davis's anecdote. Hm, maybe Simmons read or spoke with Davis while researching for his book.

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Helvetica Monopoly

Aprops I've really been wanting to play Monopoly lately. This might be related to the current economic downturn. After all the original game was invented during the tail end of the Great Depression...

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News Bits

Emptying the contents of my RSS reblog recycle can.

Phew.

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Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

On Friday night on my way to the gym I was fortunate enough to catch a performance by the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble on the west side of Union Square. This young eight piece band--composed of seven sons of Sun Ra Arkestra trumpeter Kelan Phil Cohran in addition to the drummer who is practically an unofficial member of the family--is one of the standouts among the static of New York City street performers and buskers. The New York Times describes their sound as follows:

Their syncopated, often lyrical tone — incorporating jazz, funk, soul and hip-hop — is produced by horns that now look like world-worn hand-me-downs. Still, the instruments do the job, resonating off buildings blocks away.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/2253211]

Listen to a few tracks from one of their albums. Enjoy.

[audio http://www.switchpod.com/users/mrod/01Track01.m4a]

[audio http://www.switchpod.com//users/mrod/04Track04.m4a]

[audio http://www.switchpod.com/users/mrod/07Track07.m4a]

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Create Your Own Superhero

This is my super hero I created over at Marvel's Create Your Own Super Hero website.

Recently called out of retirement The Bailout last saw action during the 1930s. While his effectiveness during that depressing period is debated to this day as his rival the New Deal grabbed most of the headlines, The Bailout has reappeared for another go, this time against the evil Dr. Subprime Mortgage whose dastardly actions has led to global economic instability.

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Quote

"You know, I don't really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn't feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life," Sykes told a crowd at a gay rights rally in Las Vegas on Saturday. "Everybody that knows me personally they know I'm gay. But that's the way people should be able to live their lives. Now, I gotta get in their face. I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman, and I'm proud to be gay." - Wanda Sykes at yesterday's nationwide Prop 8 protest rally in Las Vegas.

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