Graffiti happens at the intersection of ambition and incompetence: people want to make their mark on the world, but have no other way to do it than literally making a mark on the world.
If you're as baffled by the whole Lana Del Rey as I am, this is a good place to start. I just wish the author had expanded it a bit more - five lengthy paragraphs about the ways in which people are hating her, barely a mention of why.
“I have dreams of a rose, and a long flight of stairs. Incidentally, who is this Damien you speak of?”
If I could have one wish, it would be that Blatty got the chance to assemble his original cut of Legion, the way he envisioned it before studio meddling turned it into The Exorcist III. Despite the final versions flaws, it’s still one of my favorite movies.
It might be a hot mess, but Exorcist III is still one of the most terrifically creepy movies I've ever seen. It gets under your skin and stays there. There are scenes -- single shots, even -- that still manage to give me shivers when I think of them. It's criminally underrated/overlooked as a horror film.
Although, you just know he boned both of those girls. And probably that girl in the background too.
Yes, I've started listening to Christmas songs. And this weekend I fully intend to watch Scrooged and maybe Elf. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop me.
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.
Along with his other show, Hardcore History, Dan Carlin's Common Sense is one of my favourite podcasts right now. In the latest episode, "The Very Velvet Fist", he gives one of the best takes on the whole "Occupy" movement, especially given the whole UC Davis debacle last weekend.
First, this is just awful. The Awl usually has a fairly high standard for its articles, but this is a hot mess. When it isn't rambling to the point of incoherency, it's just plain wrong. For example, the first line of the second paragraph, where the author launches into the actual thesis:
The widespread admiration for Apple’s design ethos is in two parts: one functional, the other aesthetic.
Only dullards crippled into cretinism by a fear of being thought pretentious could be so dumb as to believe that there is a distinction between design and use, between form and function, between style and substance
(Although I don't think anyone who feels like dropping a bit of irrelevant trivia about John Ruskin into an article about Apple's design philosophy can legitimately invoke the 'fear of being thought pretentious' defence.)
Secondly, I don't know if this is happening to anyone else, but I'm getting this thing where a flash ad for the Chevy Volt is actually hijacking my entire browser session, reloading the entire article in an iframe on the Chevy site. This completely breaks Instapaper and means you can't send someone the URL without giving the Chevy site an extra hit. Earlier this week, Brent Simmons wrote a terrific article about how certain publications have become almost hostile towards their readers with the amount of intrusive ads on their pages. It's genuinely disappointing to see The Awl going down the same road.