We have found it.

Truth be told, we didn’t even know we were looking for it. For that matter, we didn’t know we needed it. We could have happily gone for days, weeks, months, not knowing, not caring, not realizing something was missing, because consciousness has a way of hiding the seams of reality.

Really. Ever notice your blind spot? Why doesn’t it show up as a hole in your vision, like a missing pixel?

Anyway, that’s where it was hiding, in our blind spot. And when we found it, we couldn’t look away, and we can’t stop looking away.

For we have found the most precious of treasures in these dark times. We have found…

A Distraction.

Read more »

Flying Spaghetti Monster knows this moment was coming, and the Grey Lady and all other media outlets had the obit ready to go within seconds, but fuck if it still didn’t hurt.

After her husband Jim Brady was shot and paralyzed in the assassination attempt on Reagan, she became a relentless campaigner for gun control, pissing off millions of gun nuts in the process, and  saving hundreds of thousands of lives with the limits on gun ownership of the Brady Law of 1993 that was enacted as a result of her tireless work.

By now you all know that Mickey Rooney is dead. I direct your attention to this fine obit in the N. Y. Times.

In the early 70s I saw him in a production of the English farce See How they Run at the Westport Country Playhouse. He was in his 50s, playing a young English flyer. If the casting wasn’t ideal, Mr Rooney fixed that problem by ignoring the play. He clearly didn’t know the lines or blocking; the rest of the cast, huddled on the opposite side of the stage, just as clearly hated him; but I remember it as being one of the funniest evenings I’ve ever spent in a theatre. By the end he was soaked in sweat, the buttons had popped on his shirt, his pants had split and the audience had laughed itself silly. I saw him again in Sugar Babies, three times, and if the show was past its first flush of youth and there were some episodes of planned corpseing, he was blissfully, outrageously low.

A giant talent seen in his youth when the world was young in this clip from Words and Music. He’s playing — ahem — Larry Hart. Tom Drake is Richard Rogers. Janet Leigh as Dorothy Rogers seems to be entirely shot from behind. They look like children playing at being grown-ups. And if we haven’t seen National Velvet I recommend it.

You really have to see the full page…

Here’s how to play the Home Game:

1. Grab the URL from any web page.

2. Add “http://translate-pirate.com/cgi-bin/xlate.cgi?page=” in front of it.

3. Fire!

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re about to blow off three deadlines.

[Translate-Pirate.com]

Our guest colloquists are Ralph Gilles, Senior Vice President of Design at Chrysler, and Donald Trump, a Short-Fingered Vulgarian.

@realdonaldtrump you are full of shit!

— Ralph Gilles (@RalphGilles) November 1, 2012

[Jalopnik, via @pourmecoffee]