Friday Ephemera
It didn’t go as planned and was a tad embarrassing. || Bee rears. || A brief history of peanut butter. || Goldfish playing football. || Formal wear, I guess. || Indoor weather detected. || When the delightful scenery attacks you. || And who here wouldn’t? (h/t, Julia) || “We hope you are as excited as we are.” || Today’s words are “angry cock energy.” || Assorted background noises. (h/t, Things) || Upmarket scented bubbles. || At last, a Rubik’s Cube movie. || Modernity is a hell of a thing. || The thrill of car park security footage. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || The joys of public transport, part 276. || Tokyo’s museum of parasites. || A brief history of the violin bow. || Noisy birds. || And finally, activate black polo-neck.
“Formal wear, I guess.”
So… I’m guessing that’s a bird which pretends it’s a flower to catch flies? Evolution is weird.
“And who here wouldn’t?”
“Nyeeeeeeow! Nyyyeeeeeeoooww!”
“Assorted background noises.”
Offline alternative.
A brief history of peanut butter
Smithsonian: …but peanut butter reappeared in the modern world because of an American, the doctor, nutritionist and cereal pioneer John Harvey Kellogg, who filed a patent for a proto-peanut butter in 1895.
Wikipedia: Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, obtained a patent for a method of producing peanut butter from roasted peanuts using heated surfaces in 1884. (But supposedly this was more of a “paste”)
I’m guessing that’s a bird which pretends it’s a flower to catch flies?
I prefer to think he’s just been given command of his own century.
It didn’t go as planned and was a tad embarrassing.
Toyota Yaris not the best getaway car.
Morning, all.
Ambition. Via Damian.
Toyota Yaris not the best getaway car.
Apparently not.
But remember, according to our betters, we’re supposed to deride the person being robbed, and to sneer at whatever possessions are being stolen, while gushing with pretentious sympathy for the thief.
I prefer to think he’s just been given command of his own century.
Can’t recall seeing birds on the planet Gallifrey, but if they have them, they almost certainly look like that.
angry cock energy
Band name.
It didn’t go as planned…
Yup, that’s a very graphic demonstration of the engineering problems which arise with front wheel drive.
Some people prefer FWD: “The horse should pull the cart, not push it”.
Me: “Maybe, but have you seen the way a horse & cart goes around corners?”
And in toilet-related news.
angry cock energy
Maybe related — https://nypost.com/2021/01/06/denmark-airs-kids-cartoon-about-man-with-super-long-penis/
The name’s Willyman, John Willyman.
And in toilet-related news.
“analprint scanners”
“analprint scanners”
I’m sure they’ll soon be on all the new phones. For banking apps and suchlike.
[ Scene: a busy high-street sandwich shop. ]
“That’ll be £4.40, please.”
“Yes, of course. Just a sec…”
[ Starts undoing trousers. ]
You’re the one responsible for sending me down the rabbit hole of Luna Lee and her gayageum and now you turn around and find another Korean doing the same sort of thing on a different instrument… I have only so many hours to waste, damn you!
You’re the one responsible for sending me down the rabbit hole of Luna Lee and her gayageum
No refunds. Credit note only.
Can’t recall seeing birds on the planet Gallifrey
Not that kind of century.
Not that kind of century.
I learn so much from our little chats.
Goldfish playing football.
You can’t fool me – that’s not football, it’s soccer.
brief history of the violin bow
No mention of Eddie Phillips of The Creation or Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin playing the electric guitar with one? Good thing it’s not billed as a *complete* history, I suppose.
Upmarket scented bubbles
The most evocative one is missing – the smell of earth after rain.
“People say to me all the time, ‘When did you know that you had fully become an American?’” Ana Navarro, a Nicaraguan-born political commentator, told NPR in 2017. “And I say, ‘The day I realized I loved peanut butter.’”
Huh. I always thought it was the moment she internalized the systemic racism underlying the system. You know, the sort of racism that would keep a talentless immigrant latincks from achieving any sort of success.
Mark Hersey, a historian at Mississippi State University, says Carver’s most prescient innovation was a truly holistic approach to farming. “Well before there was an environmental justice movement, black environmental thinkers connected land exploitation and racial exploitation,” says Hersey.
George Washington Carver dedicated his life to helping black farmers exploit their land more efficiently. Does that make Carver a hero or a villain? I need to track down this historian for some clarification.
the smell of earth after rain.
You want evocative? Try the smell of the city bus the morning after St. Patrick’s, when everybody overindulged on beer and corned beef and cabbage. Talk about a shared experience that really brings people together…
Oik,
Fwd has its issues, but in Snow country there’s no substitute for honest 4wd.
Even AWD is a poor deal. I once high-centered my all-wheel-drive onto packed snow, and it took me half an hour to dig enough out to get traction on all 4 corners. It’s great in the rain and on light snow, but that’s all.
Spork,
Ever see Laurie Anderson playing “violin” with audiotape in place of the bow hair?
And in toilet-related news.
“analprint scanners”
It’s not what it’s cracked up to be…
I’ve been to the Parasite Museum. It’s small but fascinating. My wife and I gave the director a copy of our parasite-themed card game (Parasites Unleashed), and I bought a T-shirt. Great place.
museum of parasites
Found in every university: the rows of offices in the departments of English, Sociology, Grievance Studies, etc.
Analprint Scanners – band name, a particulary nasty death metal band.
Museum Of Parasites – album title, from a less nasty death metal band.
@Fred: I had not. That’s a wonderful concept which needs (much as the whole “vanta black” thing) to be developed much further than one artistic project can take it.
Analprint Scanners – band name, a particulary nasty death metal band.
Especially when this is the first thing you think of when you hear “Scanners.”
‘Do you have a minute to talk about our Lord and saviour, the bunyip..?’
http://twitter.com/crk5/status/1347367527752499203
a less nasty death metal band.
From the jollier, more whimsical end of the death-metal spectrum.
our parasite-themed card game
I own a non-trivial amount of your RPG work, sir. Well met.
I learn so much from our little chats.
I suppose it’s not inconceivable that, having been given responsibility for 100BCE – 0CE, our Gallifravian friend made some pointed suggestions to Gaius Marius leading to his magnificent crest being seen as exactly the kind of thing a Roman centurion ought to wear to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy.
Look, you write your fanfic and I’ll write mine, is all I’m saying.
our Lord and saviour, the bunyip..?
Wouldn’t that be our Lord and Devourer?
“The name’s Willyman, John Willyman.”
Truly, the world is evolving beyond satire. Mind you, it is run by the Modern Parents, Student Grant, and Millie Tant these days (possibly also Terry Fuckwitt), so I suppose it’s to be expected.
Anyhoo, on a more edifying note, how the Tube lines got their names. I don’t know… I’ve never been to London, but I find this stuff fascinating.
Serious contender for worst movie trailer ever made.
Serious contender for worst movie trailer ever made.
Oh dear. I’ve a vague impression of having seen at least some of the film itself, decades ago, though I can’t recall much about it.
I’ll just leave this here, I think.
Also, this.
I’ve a vague impression of having seen at least some of the film
I’ve seen other Robert Altman films, but never that one.
MASH is absolutely awful, that much I recall.
I quite enjoyed both the The Player and Short Cuts as a student in the 90s, but suspect I would be much less impressed seeing either of them again now.
I’ll just leave this here, I think … Also, this.
For some reason, I was reminded of all those detective dramas where the LAPD or the FBI or whoever finally break down the door of the crime boss’s secret warehouse only to arrive too late and discover it completely empty, just a shell, with the real operation going on elsewhere.
Can’t think why.
(This is the last one I promise!)
An unusually ebullient Paul Mason.
(This is the last one I promise!)
Don’t hold back on my account. It’s why this place is here, and it takes the pressure to entertain off me.
”The name’s Willyman, John Willyman.”
Ran into a chap who said his name was Smithy-Mann today and I was momentarily not sure if he was taking the piss.
“MASH is absolutely awful, that much I recall.”
I can’t remember who it was, but I listened to a podcast recently where it came up, and the general feeling was that the TV show, at least in its early years before it became the Alan Alda Self Indulgence Hour, was infinitely superior, and closer in spirit to the original books. Which, from what I know of them, I can readily believe.
Heh.
WTH?
Also heh.
This:
https://mobile.twitter.com/chadfelixg/status/1347912743605698560
Serious contender . . .
Great film, lousy trailer. The voiceover seems to be nervously priming audiences for nonstop zany huh-huh-hilarity. It’s not that kind of movie.
I’m trying to imagine, though, what it would be like to see it for the first time now, forty-five years on — and I can’t, quite. Not only for the usual reasons of changed mores, forgotten tacit assumptions, and so on. Nashville, like almost every great movie, is unabashedly a show; going to it, with a date or friends, among semi-strangers and total strangers, watching together: this is essential.
But our way of seeing movies has been becoming perversely solitary for a decade or more; and since last year the solitary way has force of “law” (actually, lawless regulation, with threats and menaces).
Losing the experience of moviegoing is a disaster: if we don’t restore it soon it will be a cultural destruction comparable to the Puritan closing of the theatres in 1642 — a historical event the likes of which I never wished or expected have first-hand knowledge of.
[ Fondly remembers visiting cinema. ]
Except for Avengers: Endgame and Thor: Ragnarok. Those were, respectively, tedious and grating.
Except for Avengers: Endgame and Thor: Ragnarok. Those were, respectively, tedious and grating.
I had an interesting experience the other day. My video game reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and I find myself playing more and more “kid’s” games to pass the time. The LEGO series of games is good silly fun, full of funny little silent sketches and a brightly coloured aesthetic. They’re a nice escape.
LEGO Marvel’s Avengers was released between LEGO Marvel Superheroes 1 & 2. It’s the same game, really, using the same engine, the same characters and some of the same levels, even. LMSH1 was some of the most fun I’ve had in a video game. Halfway through LEGO Marvel’s Avengers I quit, because it was all so damn grim. The levels are copies of scenes from the movies, all the voice work is just clips of the actors from the films, and there are no interstitial silent comedy clips (probably due to the license terms).
It was a stark[1] reminder that somewhere along the way the MCU movies forgot how to be fun.
[1] Pun intended
Islamic Science:
“The Prophet Muhammad Said: ‘If a Fly Falls Into Your Drink, You Should Dip It in the Drink, And Then Dispose of the Fly – Because One of its Wings Bears a Disease, and the Other Bears the Cure”
British banks and bankers: I’ve been watching the old BBC TV adaptations of All Creatures Great and Small. The bankers and government officials come off as excruciatingly condescending, treating people like children or like peasants who must tug their forelocks. I wonder how accurate a portrayal this is of the culture in the first half of the 20th Century–accurate, or a BBC distortion of reality?
somewhere along the way the MCU movies forgot how to be fun
There is no fun in progressivism, comrade. Revolution is a serious business.
British banks and bankers
Quite accurate.
Managers of branches, when banks had branches in every shopping street and managers had considerable discretion and freedom, were frequently pompous pillars of society.
In the days before easy credit, their job was to issue loans begrudgingly and with pursed lips.
They were pillars of respectable society- men who were capable of enduring the monotony of working in suburban bank branches, where the only excitement was failure to tally at close of business.
Bank Managers were invariably prominent in golf clubs.
Captain Mainwaring, of Dads Army, is one of the great British comedy characters: a pompous, socially insecure idiot of limited intelligence- and a bank manager.
Quite accurate
Thank you for the explication. Everything in the UK is a bit blurred from here, thousands of miles away, and the events of 60-80 years ago even more so.
Captain Mainwaring, of Dads Army
Thank you very much for reminding me of that: Now that I have more free time I will give it a look.
the TV show, at least in its early years before it became the Alan Alda Self Indulgence Hour, was infinitely superior, and closer in spirit to the original books
Richard Hooker, the author of M*A*S*H, despised Alan Alda and his depiction of Hawkeye. I’m not sure what he thought of Altman’s film, although he was upset he sold the film rights for peanuts.
reminder that somewhere along the way the MCU movies forgot how to be fun.
Well, Ragnarok seemed desperate to be fun and in the process kicked the legs out from under any drama or hope of suspense. Its director certainly seemed to think the film was funnier than it was. Endgame, on the other hand, was weighed down by awful pacing, unsatisfying convolution, and its own air of self-importance.
the TV show, at least in its early years before it became the Alan Alda Self Indulgence Hour, was infinitely superior
I have read that Korean Americans (very understandably) despise the show. I suppose that means they get an early insight into the defects of the American entertainment industry.
What amuses me about Mash is how leftists loved it yet so much of its humor was based on what would today be denounced as being horribly racist and sexist…among other sins. Odd that for something so enormously popular in its day, I haven’t seen it in syndication. Unlike, say…Hogan’s Heroes . Odd. Or not.
Odd that for something so enormously popular in its day, I haven’t seen it in syndication.
Probably a recency bias thing. Syndication isn’t what it once was and there are so many places to view content that shows often get lost in the noise.
M*A*S*H was one of the most profitable shows in syndication of all time. At one point the show was running 16 times per week in some markets. When it’s production run ended, the show was already running 3 to 4 times per day as a re-run on the network. These re-runs mostly continued. So looking back the line between production run and and syndication gets a little fuzzy.
Here’s a good synopsis of M*A*S*H in syndication.
Richard Hooker, the author of M*A*S*H, despised Alan Alda and his depiction of Hawkeye. I’m not sure what he thought of Altman’s film, although he was upset he sold the film rights for peanuts.
IMO Donald Sutherland’s Hawkeye was much closer to Hooker’s character. The bigger tragedy is what they did to Trapper John who was as big a character as Hawkeye. The TV production kept squeezing Trapper until he was nothing more than a side-show foil for Alda. Wayne Rogers knew what was going on and was right to leave the show.
There is no fun in progressivism, comrade. Revolution is a serious business.
“There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy.”