Entries from November 2008 ↓

As reported by the Associated Press, Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin-Laden’s No. 2 man, has released a video—”al-Qaeda’s first response to Obama’s victory”—in which he

called the president-elect — along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — “house Negroes.”

Continue reading →

Forget Crank Yankers. Using this flash soundboard stuffed with audio quotes from the The Dr. Phil Show, these goofballs prank call a woman to tears…or to a breakthrough reconnection with her inner self, I can’t really tell. It’s hilarious, either way. Plus, when you’re done, the late Fred Rogers, from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, gets in on the action.

The new Star Trek trailer, above, is finally out…and it’s kinda bananas.

Continue reading →

Notes one Black female writer in Salon.com, on January 20th, Michelle Obama will not only become America’s premiere Black First Lady, but she’ll also be the first to shake what our Mama (Africa) gave her: An authentic, 3-dimensional, fully-realized butt.

Continue reading →

This is a mile late, but I didn’t think about it until after the election, and I have to ask: Why didn’t the Obama campaign use the Pointer Sisters’, above, 1973 hit “Yes We Can Can” as their unofficial campaign theme song, as opposed to Stevie Wonder’s 1970 classic “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours”?

Continue reading →

Fan fiction, or fanfic, is a literary subgenre where super-obsessed viewers of a given TV show or film write their own stories, based on the characters and conventions of that film or show, exploring new or different narrative directions that don’t appear in the original. (For example, in Lord of the Rings, having Frodo and Sam trying to kill, and take the throne from the king, Aragorn.)

Slash is a subunit of fanfic, typically written by women, that enages the otherwise straight male characters of a narrative in homosexual sex with each other. For example, at each rest stop, having Frodo toss Sam’s salad.

Without question, one of the longest ongoing and most voluminous bodies of slash belongs to the original Star Trek universe, which, for some reason, compels fans to create bodice-rippers based on the misadventures of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.

Continue reading →

Dag! Some people don’t wanna give the brotha a break! This eye-catching baseball jersey, urging the removal from office of a man who has never held it, comes in classic Run-DMC logo style with red sleeves, above, as well as black or blue ones…because that’s how anybody who messes with Obama is gonna end up—red…then black and blue!

Made of 100% cotton. S-XL, $19.99; XXL, $22.99, from CafeExpress. Order now. Wear yours with pride on January 20.

Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen remains one of the most heralded, inventive artists of the 20th century. For example, when William Hewitt, below, CEO of the John Deere tractor company, hired the bespectacled builder in 1956 to fashion their Moline IL world headquarters,

Hewitt emphasized that, while he wanted a headquarters that was unique, it must reflect the character of the company and its employees. “The several buildings should be thoroughly modern in concept but should not give the effect of being especially sophisticated or glossy. Instead, they should be more ‘down to earth’ and rugged,” he wrote. …

Saarinen satisfied Hewitt’s instruction that the buildings look down to earth by using Cor-ten steel for the exterior structure of the building. Cor-ten®, a material that resists corrosion by forming a protective coating of iron oxide, develops an earthy color as it ages, much like newly plowed soil. Developed for railroad track construction and other uses, this marked the first use of Cor-ten® in an architectural application.

The results, above, completed in 1964, three years after Saarinen’s death, were so imaginative they moved one critic to note that, having made something apt and fit for a farm equipment manufacturer, Saarinen had also created a site whose “strong yet artfully detailed lines bear a curious resemblance to Japanese temple architecture.”

Working almost continuously with Saarinen, photographer Balthazar Korab documented every aspect of the great man’s creative process. Over 800 of his images form the massive backbone of a new book, Eero Saarinen: Buildings From The Balthazar Korab Archive, edited by David G. DeLong and C. Ford Peatross.

C. Ford Peatross, a curator with the Library of Congress, is the guest today on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, November 14, at 2 pm ET.

Not only did Korab richly, beautifully record Saarinen’s work, argues Peatross—the lush book represents less than 10% of the photog’s archives—but Korab’s proficiency captured the earliest moments of Saarinen’s elusive method, enabling him to look more profoundly into his own deep thinking.

You can hear this original scholar’s ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, you can check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, check out our archive for up to two weeks after broadcast.

GRACE: Ooh! Speakin’ of butts, had another sex dream last night. This time I was in the shower with Barack Obama. Oh-bama, he was ba-rocking my world.

—Will & Grace, “Queens For A Day,” 11/25/2004

I think it speaks to the general quality of Racialicious that what, for them, is a mere side illustration is, for me, my whole act: The Head O State Sex Toy.

Continue reading →

Despite a lot of post-jumping on sofa, post-Scientology video blowback, Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie, in which he plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, above, an operative sent on an impossible mission to assassinate der Fuehrer, is looking kinda hot, if the trailers are to be believed.

Plus, I’m kinda feelin’ the one-sheet poster, right, designed by BLT & Associates, whose classic pieces for Star Trek, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Transformers, Sin City, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the X-Men series, the Mission: Impossible series, the Spider Man series, Brokeback Mountain, The Silence of the Lambs, Saving Private Ryan, 12 Monkeys, Kill Bill, Titanic—whew!—have made them H’wood royalty. (Take a look at their web site, or their IMPA page, for a trip through contemporary movie poster art history.) It’s $20 from MoviePoster.com. Come December 26, maybe Hitler will be feelin’ deez…pieces of shrapnel. He definitely won’t be celebrating Kwanzaa.