Educate and excite, inform and infuriate.
July 23rd, 2008 — Fashion
From the I’m-Just-The-Mailman Department, and BoingBoing, but, apparently, not from the people who brought you VULVA Original, comes something for men: Pretentiously accented Bálla Powder: Scented Scrotum Talc for Men, just $15 for 3.5 oz. on Amazon.com.
Because you’re wondering, yes, Bálla is “lightly fragranced,” designed “for ‘nether region’ freshness,” and “also great for sweaty buttocks, armpits and feet.”
Aaaahh…. Sweet relief.
July 22nd, 2008 — Fashion, Politics
I completely did not catch this until the adroit Living in Small Sizes pointed it out: Did anybody notice that when Hillary Clinton emerged from her lair, under a conciliatory agreement to campaign with Barack Obama for his presidential run, she did so only under the completely humiliating condition that Obama’s ties match her pantsuits?
July 21st, 2008 — Controversy, Politics, Race
Not exactly the best white father to his Black sons: Thomas Jefferson
Jesse Jackson was completely and absolutely correct: Of course, Barack Obama was, and is, talking down to Black people. If there’s any doubt about this, compare the tenor of very first major speech he gave after he effectively captured the Democratic nomination—one to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) Annual Policy Conference on June 4th—to that of the one he gave at Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on Father’s Day, June 15th.
July 18th, 2008 — Advertising, Architecture, Controversy, Film, Music, NONFICTION
Director James Marsh’s new movie, Man on Wire: A Tale of High Crime, documents French high wire artist Philippe Petit’s August 7, 1974 tightrope walk between the then new, 1350-foot-high twin towers of the World Trade Center.
The film opens next week, Friday, July 25th. Marsh is a guest today on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, July 18th, 2 pm ET.
July 18th, 2008 — Controversy, Government, Sports
Someone went through a lot of trouble to fake this protest against the Beijing Olympics, above, and get it to look like an Amnesty International effort. (Click on the image to see its details—like the AI logo and eratz URL—at full size.) But even after the organization disclaimed it, via Boing Boing, it still retains its primal power.
July 18th, 2008 — Fashion, Humor
Yeah, that caption (“Where’s me Aye-pod?”) is dumber than a bag of hammers. But I love it. Or, should I say “aye” love it?
Thirteen colors. Only $18.95; $2 more for larger sizes.
July 17th, 2008 — Politics, Race
Bele (Frank Gorshin), Star Trek, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.”
Surprise, surprise: Even with Barack Obama’s pleas against “divisiveness” and affirmations that we are “one people,” a New York Times/CBS News poll reveals what everybody, especially Black people, knows: The needle hasn’t been budged an inch, and Americans, white and non-white, still see the issue of race in an almost opposing way.
The survey suggests that even as the nation crosses a racial threshold when it comes to politics — Mr. Obama, a Democrat, is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas — many of the racial patterns in society remain unchanged in recent years.
Indeed, the poll showed markedly little change in the racial components of people’s daily lives since 2000, when The Times examined race relations in an extensive series of articles called “How Race Is Lived in America.”
July 17th, 2008 — Controversy, Politics, Satire
(Thanks to the everlasting gobstopper called BoingBoing for pulling this, above, from betwixt Living in Small Sizes‘s low-hanging fruit.)
I’m tellin’ ya, Barry: These techies do not like you moonwalking on the FISA bill. But you didn’t even need David Axelrod to tell you that!
I’m taking bets: How many of these banners do you think we’ll see in Denver at the Democratic National Convention next month?
Also, if they get within camera view during his speech, like Shimaa Abdelfadeel and Hebba Aref nearly did in Detroit, what will “volunteers” do?
July 17th, 2008 — Education, Humor
Patton Oswalt is an actor / writer / voiceover artist / comedian perhaps best known, at least to me, for playing “Spence Olchin” on The King of Queens, and the lead rat, “Remy,” below, on Pixar’s animated 2007 hit, Ratatouille.
In short, he’s a funny guy that I notice from time to time, probably once every three months. That’s pretty much it.
At least, that was it. I just read Oswalt’s commencement address to the 2008 graduating class of Broad Run High School in Ashburn, VA, his alma mater, and…whoa…it’s one of the most profound graduation speeches I’ve ever come across.
July 16th, 2008 — Advertising, Design, Entertainment, Film, Pop Culture
On September 11th, people repeatedly said that the destruction of the World Trade Center “looked like a movie.” But no one had ever seen a movie before during which an exploding building powerfully, suddenly, ejects thousands of reams of paper with a woeful, confetti-like bloom. That sight was completely unexpected, a detail few would have anticipated, the random visual white noise that reality adds to a disastrous purview.
I thought of 9/11 while scoping this incredible, horizontally-formatted poster for The Dark Knight (double-sided, 40″ x 30″, rolled, $75.00, MoviePoster.com). Of course, that’s director Christopher Nolan’s sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and the late Heath Ledger in his final movie role, opening this Friday, July 18th.
I’m conviced that, especially as we get more and more distance between us and that horrible fall day, imagery straight from the Towers’s deaths will infest our cinematic visions as the only universally credible depictions of apocalypse.
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