I just started to rewatch it and it's truly amazing. I pay...
@tmcgev I just started to rewatch it and it's truly amazing. I pay more attention to the sets than anything. It feels like this specific interval in culture and thought never got a name.
Was just subsumed. You got this ironic New Deal/labor/Jean...
@BuzzFeedBen@tmcgev Was just subsumed. You got this ironic New Deal/labor/Jean Shepherd Methodist east coast everyman thing going. And then a zillion boomers showed up with weed and guitars and clear skin and the Whole Earth Catalog.
Lehrer 10000% my mom knew them all by heart (my wife had...
@BuzzFeedBen@tmcgev Lehrer 10000% my mom knew them all by heart (my wife had him as a math teacher). Both parents poets so Larkin too popular. Kenneth Rexroth Chinese translations though.
This is me too--my parents were in this tiny cohort at the...
@tmcgev This is me too--my parents were in this tiny cohort at the tail end of the silent generation with pre-boomer college educated bohemian aesthetics. Brecht, Beckett, Jung, Fanny & Alexander, Zorba, Mann, Frankl, puppets, E.F. Schumacher, Perelandra/Screwtape Letters, Benj. Britten.
I mean if ever there were an ideal environment in which to...
@RickWebb I mean if ever there were an ideal environment in which to watch Arto Lindsay and chat amiably about Paul Auster while all around you people were contributing to IronMinds...
Panels are bad, but our stuff aims more for "lively kickoff...
Panels are bad, but our stuff aims more for "lively kickoff conversation of a half hour followed by two hours of people hanging out having beers or soda and snacks and talking in friendly groups."
We are gonna do a fun evening event/reception at work about...
We are gonna do a fun evening event/reception at work about how to build software in this new weird age of machine learning. I'm moderating. We have some great panelists but who else should we invite to the panel? (we give a nice honorarium and make it pleasant)
I like to discuss this whenever people talk about how to...
@vboykis I like to discuss this whenever people talk about how to get The Youngs into computing. “On Park Ave today maybe a few billion dollars will be transacted based on Excel and MSWord.” Blank stares!
According to Star Wars is Bees theory you could make the...
@PJVogt According to Star Wars is Bees theory you could make the argument that since the queen was offworld the loss of the hive can be ameliorated; Leia just needs to molt a new brood. tor.com/...
I hope all the relatively anonymous and underpaid imperfect...
I hope all the relatively anonymous and underpaid imperfect but hopeful government employees who are doing their best to deliver services to constituents in the middle of this shitshow know that we celebrate and respect your service.
It's sort of a wonderful eulogy every time. “We have shown...
It's sort of a wonderful eulogy every time. “We have shown you all the suffering. The girls are back at their house, the astronauts are buried, and the president is out of the hospital. Now it's time for Doritos and Knight Rider and commercials for Prell.”
“We now return to our regularly scheduled programming” is...
“We now return to our regularly scheduled programming” is the single phrase you need to understand to understand America. They should just make them the 28th amendment.
There's a video on here where it shows a very somber news...
There's a video on here where it shows a very somber news farewell to John McCain, then cuts back to the regularly scheduled programming, which is two obese men in dolphin masks engaging in erotic dolphin foreplay, and I just want to say: That's MY America.
This is very kind, thank you. (It also reminded me that it...
@krmaher This is very kind, thank you. (It also reminded me that it was time to set up that recurring monthly donation to WF—effective microtargeting.)
yeah it's weirdly better that they don't take us very...
@drunkenbee yeah it's weirdly better that they don't take us very seriously when we yell. "put on your shoes FOR THE LAST FREAKING TIME PLEASE GOD PUT THEM ON" is nbd. the only thing that makes them cry/get upset is real punishments/timeout for actual trash behavior, which is life.
Before they were born I promised myself I wouldn't yell. I...
@drunkenbee Before they were born I promised myself I wouldn't yell. I yell all the time. I also promised myself I wouldn't say LAUGHING ENDS UP IN CRYING like my dad. I have broken all the promises so terribly.
I would like to formally and publicly apologize to my...
I would like to formally and publicly apologize to my daughter for toasting her bagel so that it was too crunch. As she noted, now she will never have breakfast, and we will be late and miss the bus, and even if we had another bagel, she had already put the butter on this one.
The next copywriter who writes a website module with the...
The next copywriter who writes a website module with the hed, “Did someone say agile?” (or whatever) gets a wedgie. No one said agile. No one even whispered agile. Stop pretending there's a conversation happening and you just showed up with your software as a service.
There's something so off about this picture. There's...
There's something so off about this picture. There's something deeply horrific and eldritch about the room and the darkness and the way that Jackie O and Joe K are positioned with JFK, and yet it's just a mundane family photo, except it's the freaking Kennedy family.
I've only skimmed it once and this is the single most...
I've only skimmed it once and this is the single most conveniently critique-able digitally-centric text I've ever come across. What fruit flies are to geneticists this thing is to an undergraduate humanities critique.
Me: Google show me ONE 15-minute video I can analyze for...
Me: Google show me ONE 15-minute video I can analyze for the pivotal chapter in my PhD thesis to demonstrate how technocapitalist futurism reinforces itself via post-colonial global narratives of gender, race, and class.
When things work out you no longer bother patrolling the...
When things work out you no longer bother patrolling the boundaries of your craft. When you see a writer talking about all the fake writers at the coffeeshop that's a lack of confidence. Successful writers don't have time for that. They're too busy trying to get health insurance.
I'd argue that a big part of making it is when you start...
I'd argue that a big part of making it is when you start the understand the actual differences between the thing you pretend you are and the real thing. The only way you can do that is through a mix of cruel self-evaluation, steady practice, and humiliatingly specific fantasies.
I disagree with this cartoon. Go ahead and say you are...
I disagree with this cartoon. Go ahead and say you are whatever the hell you want to be. Everyone in the arts who isn't rich begins as a self-important dork with narcissistic fantasies of incredible success. Pretending is becoming too.
New York City feels like the inside of a dog's mouth but on...
New York City feels like the inside of a dog's mouth but on the upside I saw a bearded dude walking down 6th ave wearing a black T-shirt that just said PANCAKES and vaping.
One of the best cures for night terrors is to wake the...
One of the best cures for night terrors is to wake the little girl up every hour before midnight and ask her nonsense questions, so tonight I put a flashlight on her, gave her a wet willy, and asked if owls play ukelele.
This dad is always here for a good sign typo. Partly...
This dad is always here for a good sign typo. Partly because I grew up near the Amish country and you've never imagined how many ways people who leave school after 8th grade can spell canteloupe.
This photo is nine years old now, and they fixed it a few...
This photo is nine years old now, and they fixed it a few days after, but I still think about what this bodega would be like if it hadn't been a typo. twitter.com/...
i...really am not being ironic. i think that's how they see...
@theodoreross@max_read i...really am not being ironic. i think that's how they see things. we need to build our own platforms because no one will save us.
Zero revenue, constant bad PR, endless asking for favors,...
@max_read Zero revenue, constant bad PR, endless asking for favors, and a total misunderstanding of the true FB mission to create a new, just society of all world humans engaging with each other on one publicly-traded ad-powered platform.
Plus publishers insist on using their own utter shit...
@max_read Plus publishers insist on using their own utter shit platforms instead of just using FB like a self-respecting brand that cared about social would. They just treat FB like shit and deserve to be punished while they die of stupidity.
Facebook cares about brands and insofar as publishers are...
@max_read Facebook cares about brands and insofar as publishers are brands they are valuable, as are celebrity dogs and sneakers. But they don't pay money, actually ASK for money, while really great brands like Smithfield Hams deliver great engagement free.
This has been New Yorker Cartoon Backstories with Paul...
This has been New Yorker Cartoon Backstories with Paul Ford. Next up, the dog that actually ran a BBS and started one of the earliest dog-controlled ISPs on the Internet.
I'm not blaming Rigatoni. Rigatoni isn't pad pasta. But...
I'm not blaming Rigatoni. Rigatoni isn't pad pasta. But it's important to acknowledge the truth about pasta, which is what you imagine would be a very far fall is just as often a farfalle.
When Rigatoni gets the news it just becomes a story for him...
When Rigatoni gets the news it just becomes a story for him about the way things could have turned out. Gets a picture of all the pasta friends by some Connecticut lake house. But Fusilli deserves more than to be a cautionary tale. Fusilli wasn't good pasta but he was pasta.
When he called his friend Rigatoni he was actually...
When he called his friend Rigatoni he was actually splitting up with Spaghetti and needed any kind hand. He was hoping Rigatoni would help him find some freelance work. The crazy bastard conversation ended hours later, but Rigatoni never sent that next email.
Eventually he gets a job in the in-house ad agency at the...
Eventually he gets a job in the in-house ad agency at the family's giant Pasta Insurance Company, and married Spaghetti, which everyone thought was a huge step down. Self-medicated with white wine sauce. Firm got sold in the early 90s and he lost his job.
I have a mental canon of that crazy bastard Fusilli who was...
I have a mental canon of that crazy bastard Fusilli who was a HILARIOUS Pasta Yale student '73 who wrote great sketches for the Pasta Record/kept sending little pieces to his friends as they rose through the ranks at glossies, but undiagnosed bipolar kept catching up with him.
coincidentally that's where that image came from—see...
@brianvan coincidentally that's where that image came from—see en.wikipedia.org/... I think it's reductive but real. text allows for a density and clarity that visual “languages” just don't
First of all, when we talk about American history without...
First of all, when we talk about American history without contextualizing the fact of AT&T's monopoly we are participating in a fallacy. It's no coincidence that American identity began to self-destruct in 1984, at the same time that a single monopolistic network was dismantled.
“This is completely over the top,” I laughed, “there's a...
“This is completely over the top,” I laughed, “there's a special three-bottle Jaegermeister dispenser here in this lake house.” But then 8:30pm rolled around. Anyway I hope you all like TH ET RU TH.
Daughter: What has two hands and no legs?
Me: I don't...
Daughter: What has two hands and no legs? Me: I don't know. Daughter: I can't tell you until I've eaten the whole thing. (I look up in horror, then realize she's reading a joke off a popsicle stick and not done eating it yet.)
I can see people are replying to this but I've muted so...
I can see people are replying to this but I've muted so many related words I can't see your tweets. I'm sorry, I hope you are doing great, maybe we can discuss it in person sometime.
Stop! It is a terrible waste of your time and energy! Don't...
Stop! It is a terrible waste of your time and energy! Don't fall for it, don't retweet it! We know it's bad! But no matter how many words you mute, the tweets roll through.
Desperately trying to avoid all discussion of Elon Musk on...
Desperately trying to avoid all discussion of Elon Musk on Twitter has taught me what it must be like for others when we talk about the New York Times here.