Metafilter

How to describe Metafilter to a novice?

Well, say there’s a video with a guy doing high speed rapping about pancakes: Metafilter is great place to discuss….the spatula.

Metafilter user not_that_epiphanius explains exactly why I love Metafilter

From a Vauxhall Velox

Her mother read her mail

And her Dad was a Policeman

Which I must say worried me

But some things have just got to be

So we passed very fast like ships in the night

Or cars in a contraflow system

– Billy Bragg, From a Vauxhall Velox

Not only is this a perfect simile, it’s goddamned ballsy to drop a term like “contraflow system” into a pop song.

Future of Literature

Saying that 3D movies are the future of cinema is like saying that Magic Eye books were the future of literature.

Why 3D movies need to die - The Oatmeal

Fussy

Thus at the next cocktail hour, I reached for the bottle of Poland’s finest in my freezer. (Of course I keep vodka in the freezer. As Jack Donaghy would say, “What am I, a farmer?”) Staring at the frosty bottle, however, caused flashbacks to Unpleasant Speculums I Have Known. Instead, I rooted around in a kitchen cupboard for some cheap (but warm) vodka left over from a party. There it was, in a jug. Not even my kids would sneak sips of this stuff. And I didn’t think that that particular area of my body would be especially fussy about brands.

Skeptical of the story going around the internet about teenagers using booze-soaked tampons to get drunk, HuffPo writer Danielle Crittenden decides to try it for herself.

Quentin Tarantino is our Woodie Guthrie

What I’m saying, basically, is that Quentin Tarantino is our Woody Guthrie; he is the Woody Guthrie of mondo and the midnight movie.

Regardless of how you feel about Tarantino and his movies, I recommend that everyone reads Christian Thorne’s amazing essay “Tarantino, Nazis, and Movies That Can Kill You” (part 1, part 2).

Britta'd it

NBC is pulling Community from its mid-season schedule to make room in January for the return of 30 Rock and a new comedy based on the life of Chelsea Handler.

Really? As Donald Glover put it: Britta’d it. Community Benched in NBC Mid-Season Shuffle

Just wearing a funny hat

I was trying to prove something to myself, too. It was like, "Am I genuinely eccentric? Or am I just wearing a funny hat?

Tom Waits

It's just what it is

A waltz called “Last Leaf” — with Mr. Richards joining on vocals — celebrates the image of a lone leaf clinging to a tree: “The autumn took the rest but they won’t take me,” Mr. Waits sings. It’s tempting to hear it as a manifesto of stubborn persistence, but Mr. Waits shrugged that off.

“It was a tree, and there was one leaf left on the tree, and I wondered: ‘Wow, if you can make it through winter, you may be here until next year. Wouldn’t that be great, if you were just the only guy that hung on?’ ” he said. “I guess you could say everything’s a metaphor for everything else, but sometimes it’s just what it is. It’s just what it’s about — about a tree.”

New York Times - A Grizzled Troubadour Dusts Off His Bowler

No YOU'RE crying

“It was really strange, they were holding hands, and dad stopped breathing but I couldn’t figure out what was going on because the heart monitor was still going,” said Dennis Yeager. “But we were like, he isn’t breathing. How does he still have a heart beat? The nurse checked and said that’s because they were holding hands and it’s going through them. Her heart was beating through him and picking it up.”

“They were still getting her heartbeat through him,” said Donna Sheets. …

“They just loved being together,” said Dennis Yeager.

Couple Married 72 Years Dies Holding Hands

No. Just no.

I had been obliged to watch two hours of literally senseless violence being perpetrated on something I loved dearly. In fact, the sense of violation was so strong that it felt as though I had witnessed a rape.

There are a few, horrible cases where this sentence would be justified. Sorry, Nicholas Lezard, but watching Tintin is not one of them.