Aug 07 2008
∞
Jul 24 2008
∞
“ Of course, it’s a bit of a jump, isn’t it? I mean, er… chartered accountancy to lion taming in one go. You don’t think it might be better if you worked your way towards lion taming, say via banking?
— Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Jul 23 2008
∞
Jul 14 2008
∞
excerpt from "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
As far back as Yossarian could recall, he explained to Clevinger with a patient smile, somebody was always hatching a plot to kill him. There were people who cared for him and people who didn’t, and those who didn’t hated him and were out to get him. They hated him because he was Assyrian.But they couldn’t touch him, he told Clevinger, because he had a sound mind in a pure body and was as strong as an ox. They couldn’t touch him because he was Tarzan, Mandrake, Flash Gordon. He was Bill Shakespeare. He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Deirdre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees. He was miracle ingredient Z-247. He was -
‘Crazy!’ Clevinger interrupted, shrieking. ‘That’s what you are! Crazy!
’- immense. I’m a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I’m a bona fide supraman.’
‘Superman?’ Clevinger cried. ‘Superman?’
‘Supraman,’ Yossarian corrected.
‘Hey, fellas, cut it out,’ Nately begged with embarrassment. ‘Everybody’s looking at us.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Clevinger shouted vehemently, his eyes filling with tears. ‘You’ve got a Jehovah complex.’
‘I think everyone is Nathaniel.’
Clevinger arrested himself in mid-declamation, suspiciously. ‘Who’s Nathaniel?’
‘Nathaniel who?’ inquired Yossarian innocently.
Clevinger skirted the trap neatly. ‘You think everybody is Jehovah. You’re no better than Raskolnikov -‘
‘Who?’
’- yes, Raskolnikov, who -‘
‘Raskolnikov!’
’- who - I mean it - who felt he could justify killing an old woman -‘
‘No better than?’
’- yes, justify, that’s right - with an ax! And I can prove it to you!’ Gasping furiously for air, Clevinger enumerated Yossarian’s symptoms: an unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers, retrospective falsification, an unfounded suspicion that people hated him and were conspiring to kill him.
But Yossarian knew he was right, because, as he explained to Clevinger, to the best of his knowledge he had never been wrong. Everywhere he looked was a nut, and it was all a sensible young gentleman like himself could do to maintain his perspective amid so much madness. And it was urgent that he did, for he knew his life was in peril.
Jun 03 2008
∞
May 29 2008
∞
longtime follower of tatsuya ishida’s work.
May 28 2008
∞
eddie izzard rocks my world.
May 27 2008
∞
Huey: Granddad, have you asked yourself why a 20-year-old girl would wanna go out with a man your age?
Granddad: Because I laid my game down quite flat.
Riley: Game? What you know about the game, Granddad?
Granddad: I know the game.
Riley: Takin’ women out to eat, givin’ ‘em free meals? What part of the game is that? You takin’ her to Red Lobster with the cheddar biscuits. The fam ain’t eatin’ cheddar biscuits but this random broad is eatin’ cheddar biscuits.
Granddad: I know the game. Your granddaddy knows the game.
Riley: Game recognize game, Granddad.
Granddad: I recognize game! Your granddaddy recognize game!
Riley: Game recognize game and you lookin’ kinda unfamiliar right now. I - I can’t… Where’s Granddad? Can I help you, sir?
May 26 2008
∞
pomo at its finest
Hipster (1940s): “Hipster, as used in the 1940s, referred to aficionados of jazz, in particular modern jazz, which became popular in the early ’40s. The hipster adopted the lifestyle of the jazz musician, including some or all of the following: manner of dress, slang terminology, use of cannabis and other drugs, relaxed attitude, sarcastic humor, self-imposed poverty, and relaxed sexual codes. Early hipsters were generally white youths adopting many of the ways of urban blacks of the time, but later hipsters often copied the early ones without knowing the origins of the culture.”
Hipster (now): “In the 1990s and 2000s, the 1940s slang term hipster began being used in North America to describe young, well-educated urban middle class and upper class adults with leftist, liberal, or libertarian social and political views and interests in a non-mainstream fashion and cultural aesthetic. While definitions vary, hipsters are often associated with alternative music, “indie” culture (independent rock and independent film), and other non-mainstream products, such as vintage clothing. Hipsters may dress in a campy or ironic manner, pairing expensive vintage clothes with working-class clothing. The social scene in some major cities is centered in a gentrified downtown area where DJ clubs, fair-trade coffee cafés, and organic restaurants sit side-by-side with thrift stores and working class taverns.”
Simulacrum: “an image without the substance or qualities of the original.”
(all definitions sourced from Wikipedia).
+
∞
