Palin tweets have me back reading twitter. I haven’t really been keeping up, what with all the summer distracting me.
“Honestly, I know nothing about basketball. All I know about is politics… I don’t know who the hoop is, I don’t know who the ball is. I’m confused by the analogy but I’ll let it go because I don’t know anything about sports.”
- Anderson Cooper, during his interview with Palin’s spokeswoman. (via The Awl)
I really like the way Cooper handles this particular batch of crazy.
On Infinite Jest →
The first ten pages of this book are remarkable. The first 100 pages are very good (if sometimes frustrating) but the first ten are amazing, and he deliberately put them there, right at the front, in order to make you a promise. He could have just said this: Listen up. I have a freaking great story to tell you.
This is the final push that I needed to finally read this book. Or at least try.
I’m feeling the same way, all the infinite summer stuff is proving irresistible.
Oh my God, this video of girls in Wildwood, N.J. in 1992 is amaaaaaazing. The pay phone scene at the end is perfection.
I can not relate to this in any way. It feels completely foreign, like an account of a bizarre civilization from hundreds of years ago.
GPOYW, Canada Day edition.
While Canada now means many things to me in the abstract, when I was a kid it meant concrete things, things I did and thought about everyday.
Also, being called the “A&W Root Bears” was so preferable to the later years of “Whitecourt Truckers”, “Munday’s Wreckers” and “McDonald’s Mighty Macs”.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
From the department of canadiana:
The Tragically Hip - Fireworks
If there’s a goal that everyone remembers it was back in ole’ 72
We all squeezed the stick and we all pulled the trigger
And all I remember was sitting beside you
You said you didn’t give a fuck about hockey
And I never saw someone say that before
You held my hand and we walked home the long way
You were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The Hold Steady - Don’t Let Me Explode (Live)
“So about 300 years after Christ died, there lived a woman who is now known as Saint Barbara. Saint Barbara lived in Micronesia, which I’m not exactly sure where it is, but I have a feeling it’s kind of by Indonesia. Anyways, it was a little different back then, ‘cause Saint Barbara’s dad was a wealthy landowner, like an aristocrat, but he was actually fighting wars. That’s sort of one thing they did a little differently: the rich guys fought wars. Anyways, while he was gone, Saint Barbara became a Christian and you know, being a Christian back then isn’t like being a Christian right now. I’d equate it to more like if you had facial tattoos, you know? You’re kind of making a statement being a Christian 300 years after Christ. There wasn’t even Christian rock. Anyways, Saint Barbara’s dad came home from the war and found out his daughter became a Christian and he was pissed, and if you think your dad’s been pissed at you, Saint Barbara’s dad was more pissed, and so he ordered her to be executed. And whoever makes the decisions on those kinds of things in Micronesia back then said, ‘Let’s go a little bit further, ‘cause, you know, we can’t just execute her. Saint Barbara’s dad, why don’t you execute your own daughter?’ And he was like, ‘Awesome, I will.’ So they rolled her into the town square or wherever these things happen and Saint Barbara’s dad beheaded his own daughter. But, it didn’t end up so well for him either, ‘cause he was walking home to go have a feast or whatever you do after an execution, and a bolt of lightning came from the sky, and it struck him dead. Saint Barbara is now the patron saint of land mines, or, more specifically, not stepping on a land mine. And this song is called ‘Don’t Let Me Explode.’”- Craig Finn (Lollapalooza 2006)
Please please more funny female characters in TV and movies. Please.
“Stellaaaaa!”
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Rah Rah — Duet for Emmylou and the Grievous Angel
It is fashionable to be single in big cities, but not in small towns.
In Regina, Saskatchewan, I fell in love with her frown.
Pumped to see them at the Hydeaway tonight. I think I have reblogged this song before but I just love these two lines, especially how “Saskatchewan” sounds sung.
My dad throws one twin under each arm for the family photo. I look down at a shiny object. The beagle bests us all.
