June 2012
28 posts
“
The problem with the Happy Nakba Day joke was not that a white non-Muslim Canadian told it. The problem was that it was told at all. In Qatar, as in other Arab countries, the “catastrophe” is a crime against humanity that cannot be joked about. Halal Bilal, however, has found a way to weave an Israel joke into his routine. At the Katara show, Bilal riffed on trying to get into the Palestinian territories:
“Any Palestinians here? I wanted to go to Palestine, but to get there I had to go through Israel. I get to the border, and the Israeli soldier says to me, ‘What are you doing here?’ I was like, ‘Dude, I could ask you the same question!’ ” Then he paused. (In his notebook, Bilal had instructions to himself to look for someone in the crowd who was not laughing and make a joke about that.) Then he went on: “I lie — I actually said I’m Jewish! You’re shocked? So was he! He didn’t believe me. I said: ‘Dude, I am Jewish. I have evidence, but it’s circum-stantial.’ Get it?”
” —Yes, There Are Comedians in Qatar - NYTimes.com
There isn’t just one comedy. What works here doesn’t work everywhere. Starting a stand-up comedy scene from almost nothing in Qatar.
“I think, in retrospect, in a very genuine way I was at the end of the rope when I started that show. I really had no other options in my life. I was very depressed. I was very broke. I didn’t have a lot of options performing-wise, because I had marginalized myself one way or the other through radio or just bad social politics. I kind of hit a wall. So I think in a very real way I needed to continue talking”
—
The Believer - Interview with Marc Maron
I’m there too, painted in a corner. Isn’t much of adulthood really about weaseling out of bad decisions you made in the past, trying to make amends to yourself and to your loved ones? That and being able to eat cake and ice cream for breakfast if that’s what you want.
Very great interview with Marc Maron, whose podcast is a must-subscribe gem.
“The thing that I love, and I had this experience on a lesser scale when I was putting out Tiny Furniture, was that I spent so much of my time when I was younger feeling like such a weirdo that it was hard for me to imagine that anybody was sharing my experiences. And the fact I put out this thing so personal and specific, where the character is going through emotions that feel so mine, and so many girls have gone, “That’s what it’s like to be me” or “You and I are the same,” it’s really been heartening.”
—
Girls season finale: Lena Dunham interviewed by Meghan O’Rourke. - Slate Magazine
As a somewhat pre-Internet fossil, I am surprised someone in her mid-20s growing up with the Internet could still feel isolated and unlike anyone else in the world.
But then again, I think people inside my computer box and phone contraption don’t count as real people, so the sense of disconnection makes sense.
“Furthermore, courts have acknowledged that online forums such as blogs generally create amore relaxed communication environment where statements are less likely to be understood ascontaining assertions of fact.”
—
FunnyJunk — The Oatmeal Response
If you run a website, including a dinky ol’ Tumblr, you should peruse this letter The Oatmeal’s lawyer sent to FunnyJunk, who is suing The Oatmeal for defamation amongst other things. It touches upon important issues like defamation, copyright infringement, etc.
“Each year in December, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announces how much of such controlled substances may be produced in the country in the following year. For 2012, the DEA has set the quota for oxycodone at 98 million grams, or about 108 tons, and for hydrocodone at 59 million grams, or 65 tons.”
—
American Pain: The Largest U.S. Pill Mill’s Rise and Fall - Businessweek
Pill quotas: did you know about this? If you’ve wondered about “urgent care” or “wellness center” clinics in strip malls, read this piece.
“[On a hill,] a sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: “My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses”. The horses said: “Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool”. Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.”
—
Schleicher’s fable - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Schleicher’s fable in a proto Indo-European language appears in Prometheus when David studies ancient languages.
For most of my adult life, I feel like the sheep, shorn of wool, fleeing into the plain.
“
In 2008, the Hershey Company began to change the ingredients for some of its products, replacing the relatively expensive cocoa butter with cheaper oil substitutes. Such cost cutting was done to avoid price increases for the affected products.
Hershey’s changed the description of the product and altered the packaging slightly along with the ingredients. Though the new formula still contains chocolate, according to United States Food and Drug Administration food labeling laws, products that do not contain cocoa butter cannot legally be described as milk chocolate. Instead, such products are often referred to as chocolate candy.
Other products that no longer contain cocoa butter (and thus cannot, in the United States, be described as containing milk chocolate) include: Hershey’s Kissables, Krackel, Milk Duds, and Mr. Goodbar.
” —Whatchamacallit (candy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How chocolate candy bars cannot be called “milk chocolate” as per food labeling rules.
“‘See you in Basel, bitch.’ Art is like joining a biker gang; you have to wear a certain outfit and learn a certain lingo. It’s a special club.”
—
Frieze Magazine | Archive | Experience & Innocence
Rule in life: read every John Waters interview you come across.
“
Eddie: Well, the crux of the issue for me is this… Immigrants, my parents and myself included, are exposed to years of ridicule. I was made fun of for my stinky lunch upwards of 10 years. Immigrants of our parents’ generation have largely given up any hope that Americans will like their food.
Francis: Word.
Eddie: Then, to have these CIA grads come through, repackage the food, and sell it back to me at a premium is just ludicrous.
” —Is it Fair for Chefs to Cook Other Cultures’ Foods?
Conversation between food writer Francis Lam and chef Eddie Huang about immigrant food and fancyfying immigrant food to suit American upper middle class palates.
“The Southwest Research Institute and other like-minded groups are planning a string of bake sales (and car washes) on Saturday in a rather endearing PR stunt aimed at protesting the Obama administration’s proposed 2013 NASA budget cuts, which the spacy agency says will shrink its planetary science division by 20 percent.”
—
NASA Bake Sale: Scientists, students to stage bake sale to protest proposed budget cuts.
Space bake sale!! Government agencies should be required to raise a certain percentage of their budget via bake sale or car wash, just so they don’t get too comfortable with our tax monies.
“I think with Stringer, I brought an English sensibility to an American character, and with Luther, I bring American sensibilities to an English character. Stringer, on the page, he read like the consigliore, the man next to the man. But I sophisticated Stringer up with how subtle he was. Luther — he’s way bigger [in his reactions] than an English cop would ever be. He’s very American-esque in that way. I think part of the TV show’s popularity in England is that it’s sort of ridiculous to see an Englishman that big in a lot of these scenes.”
—
Idris Elba on Prometheus, Learning to Box, and His Party House — Vulture
A nice, long Idris Elba interview. Stringer Bell is one of my most beloved fictional characters. Each new bit of information about him resurrects him in my mind.
“Some Dum Dums have wrappers with question marks where the flavor is normally printed. This was a marketing idea that made the production process run more smoothly and made eating Dum Dums more fun. The Mystery Flavor pop is a mixture of two flavors that come together when the end of one batch of candy meets the beginning of the next batch. Rather than shutting down to clean out the candy equipment between flavors, Spangler turned lemons into lemonade and made pops out of the combination of flavors”
—
What Is the Mystery Flavor of Dum Dums? - Mental Floss
Whenever a mystery is solved, there is a bit of relief and a little more sadness. What does a relief and sadness Dum Dum taste like?
