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I read recently in Time magazine that the 2011 Oscar race for Best Picture might be a done deal: The King’s Speech is the one to beat. It’s a period film about how George VI, King-Emperor of the British Empire, overcame a crippling stammer, with the help of his speech therapist Lionel Logue, and led the country through World War II.
Richard Pryor brilliantly laid bare the undercurrent of sadness in comedy when he did sets that unexpectedly took a serious turn, without segue or explanation, and if you watch some of his videos you can hear the crowd growing quieter and quieter…
I don’t even really understand what CMJ is. All I know is that every October, New York gets inundated with new bands and everyone gets super stressed out. People tell me things like, “Oh God, CMJ is back. I’m going to be so busy for the next week. It’s going to be insane.”
Antoine Dodson was having a bad day: he had just saved his sister, Kelly, from being raped by “some idiot in the projects.” And when the news crew showed up, he was visibly distraught: “Hide ya kids, hide wife,” he warned the residents of Huntsville, Alabama.
I feel inspired as I drive back home. Inspired that work can be fun, a place where I can be eccentric and ironic and have my ego reinflated a little. But, I realize, coming to every shift totally sleep-deprived in a state of delirium is unrealistic.
The term itself is absurd: Influencer. Any reasonable person would laugh at such a title, perhaps go as far as classify it as a fairly pretentious way to view one’s self. But it turns out more and more “young creatives” have adopted the moniker as a badge of honor, an indicator of how they perceive their role in life.
The plural of grill is not grills but “grillz”; such liberty in spelling has rhetorical agenda which stem from disenfranchised urban communities asserting their own vernacular as a form of cultural dissent and self-empowerment. The usurpation of plural ‘s’ to ‘z’ is recognized as “street cred.”
I was the Editor In Chief for two issues before we folded, but I SWEAR it wasn’t my fault. Or was it? I don’t know, but the founder kept her promise and was not mad at me. Staff morale was low because they missed they old editor and I didn’t do coke afterhours. The recession hit and someone said “PRINT IS DEAD!” and everyone suddenly believed it.
Star Wars: The Old Republic was released in December 2011 and has been given an expansion Rise of the Hutt Cartel in spring 2013.
Thought controlled computing is an interface that allows an individual to affect his or her physical reality by the sole act of thinking. At the forefront of consumer-centric thought controlled computing is Ontario-based company InteraXon, who produced the video inside.
Then I turned and saw that Olivia was recording with her camera. She texted and took photos throughout the entire show. She seemed bored, but I figured that’s just how kids were these days. Always texting.
These days marketers are saying sentences like: “well our orange soda commercial got 1800 ‘likes’ on Facebook (i.e. “i do, i do, i do-oo’s”), but I’m not really sure what that is going to mean in terms of actual sales”; or “our webside got 1 million views in the first week but it is unclear how many of those viewers are actually going to buy.”
Norwich is a born storyteller with a narrative gift and very considerable charm. It may just be that his own beloved nanny told him what Nancy Mitford’s told her before pushing her into a room full of people: “Remember, you are the least important person in that room.”
Picture someone at a large publishing company rejecting Gary Lutz because he is “too difficult to read” before going to lunch at the Four Seasons, laughing something-something sucking snails going “this guy thinks he’s Proust or some shit but I need the numbers where are the numbers you’ve got the numbers” over a pair of sparkling cocktails with Nicholas Sparks or whoever is topping the charts…
In a Western story, an individual or a group overcome certain odds and some sort of resolution is reached. In an Ozu film and other classical Japanese cinema about middle class life it’s more about families facing everyday struggles and disappointments.
But that’s not all that’s bugging me today. What about those phrases that are sturdily constructed, perfectly spelled, but nonetheless make little sense? Here are the worst repeat offenders, some of the strangest things people say in English.
Last Friday, Atomic Tom attempted to go viral by employing in a YouTube clip the ever-growing iPhone-as-instrument, subway performance, and Brooklyn hipster memes. And it worked. The clip has garnered 1.3 million views and their new single jumped to no. 86 on the iTunes single chart. Video after the jump.
The pinkness of this annual drama annoys me. Cancer isn’t cute or cuddly, something to tame and prettify with a new lipstick or lapel ribbon. No amount of feel-good marketing can alter the fact that women are dying daily of this disease and all the millions, if not billions, of dollars already raised and spent to cure them, hasn’t changed this.
I was in my car and on my way to buy an Airport Express when my lung collapsed. I decided to go ahead with the purchase, partially because I wasn’t sure what was happening to me, and partially because I had driven 45 minutes in traffic to get to the computer store.
Engineered to lambaste Facebook gaming products as spearheaded by arguably the most popular Facebook game, ‘FarmVille,’ Cow Clicker simply required of players who install the game to click on a picture of a cow, the picture of a cow then appears in the player’s Facebook feed with the notification ‘[Facebook user] is clicking their cow.’
Facebook CEO and recent focus of mega-attention Mark Zuckerberg is questioned about David Fincher’s The Social Network in front of a large audience and explains what the film got wrong. Sadly, he didn’t go on a rampage. Video after the jump.
Ask him out online. Be very nervous and think about the possibility of getting rejected. You don’t feel cute enough to be loved so you would understand if he said no way, Jose, and stopped talking to you. Luckily, this doesn’t happen and after a three-hour conversation on AIM, you have somebody to be in a relationship with on Facebook.
It’s 117 degrees in downtown LA. The hottest day in recorded history. My dress has long sleeves. The line stretches from the studio gate, down the street and around the corner. We are separated by gender. I’ve just entered the world of the “paid audience member.”
“Whip My Hair” opens in a sterile, all white cafeteria with everybody wearing the same outfits. Y-A-W-N. But! In comes Little Miss Willow to save the day with her bedazzled eyes, lips, and nails and a gigantesque heart shaped braid pouring out of her head.
Lookbook.nu is a hugely successful fashion aggregator that allows teens, tweens, and young adults all across the globe to submit photographs of themselves in extremely trendy outfits. The community, while once exclusive, is now open to all interested users regardless of their style credentials.
Ever more pigeon-holed as the “stressed out protagonist,” what follows is an in depth analysis of some of Leonardo DiCaprio’s more notable works, from which the said description is derived. This contributor apologizes for any glibness, a tone employed in aid of pedestrian honesty.
Question of the day: Are you still a couch potato if what you’re doing on that sofa doesn’t involve channel surfing with a remote control, spending hours watching videos on YouTube, or simply napping? What I mean to ask is this: Do couch potatoes read, too?
I finally took in the film this morning however, and holy shit. It’s easy to see the moth-to-light appeal of Ninja (Watkin Tudor Jones), Die Antwoord’s cartoon-like emcee who can’t speak three words without saying fuck, and lines like this: “If you don’t know what I’m saying, don’t worry about it, it’s like we’re in the fucking future now.”
22-year-old Los Angeles native Clay “Clayton Clayton” Hawkins calls himself the “King of Hard Pop.” He is a relentless self-promoter, a glitter-gun toting and gladiator mask wearing glam-rocker, a hardcore documentary addict, an unsung singing superstar and a fierce dresser. Don’t google him.
He credited her with teaching him how to breathe, and his voice became what we all now remember. She was an ethereal Violetta to his Alfredo, a magnificent Lucia to his Edgardo, a melting Desdemona to his Otello. When they were joined by the brilliant American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, the fireworks never stopped.
This past weekend, 150+ contemporary artists came together from across the country to take part in RE:FORM SCHOOL, a combination group art exhibition, event series and public awareness campaign in a call for the reform of the American Public Education System.
Zsa Zsa Zsu is fabulous. It makes our stomach spin and our eyes go starry and it makes us feel young and ebullient and hopeful. But the thing about it is this: it is entirely divorced from those rational characteristics we want in a man. Remember those? Smart, cute, funny, kind? Yeah, didn’t think so.
In celebration of the sci-fi classic Back to the Future‘s 25th anniversary, Micheal J. Fox has recreated its theatrical trailer. Video of both the new and original trailers after the jump.
French writer Jean Cocteau once wrote, “The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.” I say, sure — if you’re a whore. Twain had it much more spot-on. According to him — an American, by the way — clothes make the man… naked people have little or no influence on society.
It was a different kind of scary, so different that I don’t even know if it really qualifies as a horror movie, but my gut was clenched the whole time and Joe kept swatting my hands away from my face: “Don’t cover your eyes! Don’t cover your eyes!”
Henry James is an author that many people love to hate. The scars of reading James too early or too quickly––or reading the wrong Henry James altogether––can take a lifetime to heal, which is a shame, because his stories are some of the most memorable in fiction.
At another point in the article, after admitting that it seems kind of bad to wipe out a species, or a bunch of species, McMahon then backtracks and says, essentially, but what is a species, anyway?
All the windows were closed, and because the air conditioning was turned off, it was around ninety degrees inside. In the living room, there was a kiddy-pool filled with brown water, which the family apparently put there for the animals to drink from.
In my life I’ve done 3 zines. I found about zines from going to punk/hardcore shows in Long Island. Either that, or from Sassy magazine. I can’t remember which came first but in my memory I’d like it to be from going to shows so I’ll stick with that story.
Americans happily blurt out the most private details of their addictions or surgeries or family dramas within minutes to total strangers — the sort of emotional revelations that, in many other places, are held private for years, or decades, and shared only with intimates.
Have a Livejournal and post polaroids of your friends flying kites and playing on swingsets. In real life, these activities will be tedious and lame, but on the Internet and in photographs, they’ll come across as adorable and hip. People will begin to be jealous of you.
Otherwise, while partygoers are known to follow a BYOB rule or find a cheap bodega nearby if necessary, cheap apartment parties consume themselves, quickly expending available resources.
Towards the end of the video she even starts going “wheeeee!” Like it’s such fun. Like it’s a normal thing to do. To see these little puppies flying through the air, it’s mentally staining. It’s a brain stain.
Another description of Super Pii Pii Brothers reads “promotes good bathroom skills and allows women to experience for the first time the pleasure of urinating while standing,” and Freud is dragged on stage yet again to talk about penis envy.
As I walked down the street, I looked at all the people going about their daily lives: Men, women, children, young and old, some of them fat, some of them sick, some beautiful, some destitute. I thought about smiling at each person – really pulling them aside, one by one, maybe with a touch on the arm or with a stern but quiet: “Hey, come with me.”
Last night, Virginia democratic congressional candidate Dr. Wynn LeGrow announced (via advisor and Vanity Fair contributor Barrett Brown) on Reddit that if he’s elected, he’ll create a Reddit forum that his aides will monitor for suggested legislation and input…
There is no painkiller man can make that can kill this pain. Isn’t that unimaginable? They have to put me unconscious when the headache gets too bad and I go to the emergency room. They got a drip of Goodnight! waiting for me, my goddamn name on it.
Fall and winter fashion looks as if it’s headed toward “seems bleak” territory. That comes as no surprise, as fashion has been reflecting our sluggish (but chic) economic decline for the past several years. Words such as “classic” and “conservative” and “minimalistic” are being used heavily in winter fashion editorials. It’s making me sleepy.
It’s called the Flextuality test, and in a little under 15 minutes you can finally pinpoint your real sexual orientation once and for all. Take the test and you’ll see that there’s basically a range of twelve sexual types, starting with the “heteroflexibles” and the “supersexuals” ending with the last, very vanilla label of “straight.”
Without fail the parents lumber toward me, their dead eyes locked on me like tetanus. My pale face a beacon of terror and confusion in a sea of multi-colored playground equipment. It draws them in.
