Explain this to me

Wherein is it like goatse but audio and nondisgusting


I do not understand how Rickrolling qualifies as a joke. Or why a bait switch link is funny. If Rickrolling makes you laugh, please explain why. I'll accept brain-damaged as an answer. Here's how the thing appears to me:

Person who doesn't understand humor: Hey, Bill! There's this great youtube video of something amazing!!!!! Here's the link !!!!!!!!!!!:)

Me: [click -- Rick Astley video plays] Um, that's "Never Gonna Give You Up." Did you copy the wrong URL?

Person who doesn't understand humor: PSYCH!!!!! You've been rickrolled!!!!!!

Me: Oh, you meant to send me there. I didn't know you were such an Astley fan.

Person who doesn't understand humor: I'm not, I totally burned you!!!!!

Me: Huh?

Person who doesn't understand humor: I tricked you !!!!! You thought you were going one place and I sent you to another!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Me: ..................

Person who doesn't understand humor: I think I crapped my pants.

Let not mankind bogart love

Wherein Comedy Central has a lot of lines in their embed text I bet I could delete half of it and the video would still play

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

A Colbert Christmas: Willie Nelson Sings

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Walk Away Rene

Wherein couldn't find a youtube version I liked so I'm linking to the worst two I found

Personally, I prefer Rickie Lee Jones's live version from Girl at Her Volcano.

Tim Lovelace. The singing almost works, it's the video that offends the most.



Yes, it's the disco version by Pink Lady.

The guy who wrote my favorite Christmas song

Wherein as the household is not a touring road show for Fiddler on the Roof we have few tradition one we do have is that as soon as Santa appears at the end of the Macys' parade we switch to Holiday music jukebox mode and the first song is always "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses


How The Waitresses's "Christmas Wrapping" got 'writ'

Because when making pastry, violence is always the first resort.

Wherein too true

There are also plenty of pictures:

Every laminated dough, be it puff pastry, croissant, flaky pastry or Danish, begins its life as a thick slab of butter encased in a dough "envelope". This 3-layer dough-butter-dough package is then flattened and folded however many times it takes to get the number of layers the maker is after. A folded flaky pastry for say, a galette, can have as few as 27 layers. Croissants often have 81, Danish 243, and puff pastry can have as many as 2187 (though I prefer the less flaky version of 729).

Joe Pastry

Monday Ballet Monday: Turkey

Wherein more on the Monday, less on the ballet

Listening to

Wherein from 1984

Whaddya think?

Wherein who is Red Nichols


I'm ripping the original soundtrack for the movie "The Five Pennies" -- also available on iTunes, though unlike the aborted "Music Man" the vinyl is of good enough quality to continue (this refers to a previous chapter of soquoted and since I assume all of you are reading along I shan't explain further) -- and it occurs to me that Louis Armstrong is reminding me of someone.

For the Louis Armstrong biopic, I suggest Tracy Morgan


I think he has the dramatic chops for it, just consider the following movies:

What Dat Ninja?
Black Cop/White Cop
Black Cavemen
Honky Grandma be Trippin'
President Homeboy
Fat Bitch
Samurai I am Awry
Death Bank

Here's the trailer for his Thomas Jefferson movie,

These are the Dave's I know

Wherein what's with the title there aren't any Dave's here Why won't the voices in my head leave me alone


Three Julius Caesars have served in the United States Congress:

Julius Caesar Alford (1835-1842)
Julius Caesar Burrows (1873-1910
Julius Caesar Watts (1995-2002)

And three Abraham Lincolns:

[THE] Abraham Lincoln (1847-1848)
Abraham Lincoln Brick (1899-1908)
Abraham Lincoln Keister (1913-1916)

Fifty-five George Washingtons, including ten in 1894. My favorite name - George Washington Bonaparte Towns (1838-1846). George Washington is a good name to get one elected, but as most were 1-2 term representatives, it doesn't have much sticking power.

George Washington Anderson (1865-1868)
George Washington Blanchard (1933-1934)
George Washington Bridges (1861-1862)
George Washington Campbell (1803-1818)
George Washington Cate (1875-1876)
George Washington Collins (1969-1972)
George Washington Cook (1907-1908)
George Washington Covington (1881-1884)
George Washington Cowles (1869-1870)
George Washington Cromer (1899-1906)
George Washington Crouse (1887-1888)
George Washington Dorsey (1885-1890)
George Washington Dunlap (1861-1862)
George Washington Edmonds (1913-1934)
George Washington Edwards (1965-1972)
George Washington Faris (1895-1900)
George Washington Fithian (1889-1894)
George Washington Fleeger (1885-1886)
George Washington Geddes (1879-1886)
George Washington Gordon (1907-1912)
George Washington Hopkins (1835-1858)
George Washington Houk (1891-1894)
George Washington Hulick (1893-1896)
George Washington Jones (1843-1858)
George Washington Jones (1879-1880)
George Washington Julian (1849-1870)
George Washington Kipp (1907-1912)
George Washington Kittredge (1853-1854)
George Washington Ladd (1879-1882)
George Washington Lay (1833-1836)
George Washington Lindsay (1923-1934)
George Washington Marr (1817-1818)
George Washington McCrary (1869-1876)
George Washington Morgan (1867-1872)
George Washington Morrison (1849-1854)
George Washington Murray (1893-1896)
George Washington Owen (1823-1828)
George Washington Patterson (1877-1878)
George Washington Peck (1855-1856)
George Washington Prince (1895-1912)
George Washington Rauch (1907-1916)
George Washington Ray (1883-1902)
George Washington Shell (1891-1894)
George Washington Shonk (1891-1892)
George Washington Smith (1889-1908)
George Washington Smyth (1853-1854)
George Washington Steele (1881-1902)
George Washington Taylor (1897-1914)
George Washington Toland (1837-1842)
George Washington Bonaparte Towns (1838-1846)
George Washington Webber (1881-1882)
George Washington Whitmore (1869-1870)
George Washington Wilson (1893-1896)
George Washington Woodward (1867-1870)
George Washington Wright (1849-1850)

These are the Daves Bruce McCulloch knows

“At the end, do I feel bad the family got in trouble? No, not at all.”

Wherein people being people


“because no one feels bad that all I tried to do was buy a house, and I ended up living back with my mother.”:

Like all illegal immigrants, Lorenzo Jimenez knew the knock on the door from immigration agents could come at any time.

Still, he had enough faith in the American dream to buy a house, even though signing the papers meant raising the risk: He put his 2-year-old, American-born daughter’s name and Social Security number on the title.

And it worked, for a while. Jimenez and his family lived happily enough for several years alongside “regular” metro Atlanta citizens in Roswell.

Nicole Griffin’s mom lived a few doors away, and when Griffin visited, she said, her kids played with the Jimenez children. When Jimenez put his four-bedroom, two-bathroom home up for sale last spring, wanting more space, Griffin was immediately interested.

A contract was negotiated but when the sale appeared to go sour, Griffin raised a new issue: that she was a citizen and Jimenez wasn’t. She told local media, immigration officials, his boss and others that he was here illegally. She even put signs in the yard of the house exposing his residency status.

As a result, agents came knocking last month, and now Jimenez is fighting to keep from being deported. He also lost his job.[...]

Locked in a letter war with Meder, Griffin escalated her actions. She contacted the FBI, the Roswell Police Department, local media, the state attorney general’s office and the governor’s office, among others. She asked her congressman, Rep. Tom Price, for help, saying she felt Jimenez and Meder had deceived her. Price’s office, in turn, contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Brendan Buck, a Price spokesman.

“I am a law-abiding American merely trying to purchase a home,” Griffin wrote in mid-July in a letter to American Homebuyers, a nonprofit that helps low- to moderate-income families buy homes. “An illegal family fraudulently obtained a mortgage using a 1 yr old SSN, and appear to have all the rights in this situation — How can this be when they shouldn’t even be in America?”

She said she contacted anyone she could think of who might be able to help the sale go through.

Jimenez said she started making his life a nightmare. He claims she caused cosmetic damage to the house and intentionally clogged the plumbing, both of which she denies.

Griffin also went after Carbonell, the real estate agent. She contacted the Georgia State Real Estate Commission to try to get her license revoked. Carbonell said the threat to her reputation and to her career caused her so much stress she had to take a leave of absence.

Griffin said she reported Carbonell because the agent knew Jimenez’s daughter’s name was on the title from the beginning but didn’t tell her right away. (Carbonell was not the real estate agent who originally advised Jimenez to use his daughter’s name.)

In September, Meder got a judge to order Griffin to pay retroactive rent and get out of the house within a week.

Griffin then went to the upscale Atlanta restaurant where Jimenez worked as a cook and told his boss he was undocumented, which Jimenez said resulted in his firing.

“It was my last resort,” Griffin said, “but once I realized my family had seven days to get out of a house that a family’s not even legally supposed to own, I did go to his employer and I did let his employer know.”

She also put bright red signs in the yard reading, “This house is owned by an illegal alien.” When Jimenez tore them down, she put up new ones.

Griffin said she wanted the neighbors to share her outrage over what was happening.

“I don’t feel bad for anything that happens to the Jimenez family at this point,” Griffin said recently, “because no one feels bad that all I tried to do was buy a house, and I ended up living back with my mother.”[...]

Griffin hasn’t tried to buy another home, in part because she can’t afford to, so she and her kids are still staying with her mother.

Down the street, the Jimenez house sits empty.

What's the matter with credit? It's old-fashioned.

Wherein so I'm ripping the original Broadway cast album originally from one of The Parents and it isn't in as good a condition as I'd hoped and cleaning only accomplishes so much when I decide to check and find that I could just buy the CD from Amazon or download it from iTunes


From the movie, with Robert Preston from the Broadway cast.




Broken Arrow Senior High School, March 2007



I'm fascinated by the fish on the wall



BU on the green line



Practicing

IX Alternative Tuesday Trivia

Wherein real weighty stuff today

1. Why did Serena Williams not vote?
   
   
2. Hey, Superman, who did Lou Reed marry earlier this year? Hint -- she created the tape-bow violin.
   
   
3. What store sold the Tandy TRS-80?
   
   
4. Now spending his time as a Segway polo player, he once used his earnings as an early home computer impresario to fund the US Festivals in 1982 and 1983.
   
   
5. Born Raymond Joseph Teller, the silent half of Penn and Teller claims to possess one of the few United States passports issued in what?
   
   
6. Sally Fields and Burt Reynolds made four movies together. Not counting Smokey and the Bandit (I & II), name one.
   
   
7. For the Academy Award for Best Actress, who received nominations in 1977, 1978, and 1979, winning once.
   
   
8. From 1980-1989, Meryl Streep was nominated 5 times for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Two other actresses were nominated 3 times during the same period, name one.

Monday Ballet Moday: Red Shoes Variations

Wherein mashups and other stuff Not all of it good but I promise no David Duchovny


Bridging the Gap from the Save The Last Dance 2 soundtrack



first batch mixes "The Red Shoes" movie with alternate music.

• Red Shoes mashed with Joy Division.
  
• Red Shoes set to "The Lonely Shepherd" by Zamfir from the Kill Bill soundtrack.
  
• Set to My Chemical Romance by My Chemical Romance.
  
• set to How Far We've Come by Matchbox 20.
  
• Set to Apologize by Timbaland

Kate Bush. This I need to get.

other stuff

• South Korean horror film trailer. Did not need to watch that at 3am.
  
• Elvis Costello, Top Of The Pops 1977
  
• de rode schoentjes, the 1992 dutch house classic.
  
• Community theater burlesque. Mildly NSFW.
  
• Winning video of the 'Prior Pursglove Film Awards 2008'
  
• I don't know

Heavy metal ballet

Boo You Suck

Wherein I blame this on their real jobs


Quitters!

She kicks like a girl

Wherein yeah the opposing keeper did misplay it Got a late jump on it and probably isn't used to the type of bounce you get off artificial turf

We saw her play as a high school freshman and even then she was booming 60 yard punts. One game, with a 4 goal lead, she moved to a forward position late in the 2nd half and scored one goal while assisting on another.

LSU goalie scores on a 90 yard free kick:



On the LSU page, you can watch the ESPN Sportscenter clip.

It's the manual of STYLE not STANDARDS

Wherein truthiness


The The Chicago Manual of Style editors:

many of us here ignore that rule, because it so often seems wrong.

Seems kinda strange hearing them say that, though later they also (properly) comment Readability trumps the rule, so the comma should stay. I've said before that the CMOS editors have a much more fluid relationship and commonsense approach with their manual than many of their readers.

This is from the November Q&A. Since there is no way to link to an individual month, here's the question.

Q. I’ve got a run-in list in which one of the items is a quoted question. The author put the comma after the closing quotation mark, which looks odd, but so does no comma at all. Any suggestions? The sentence: She can ask herself, “Why?”, formulate her own response, and see which option it closely matches.

A. Put the comma inside the quotation marks. Although Chicago style doesn’t call for the comma, many of us here ignore that rule, because it so often seems wrong.

My personal sordid and confusing relationship with the comma is not to be discussed.

Not Watching Top Chef 5

Wherein however we will be watching Life 9pm EST on NBC Damien Lewis is Teh Kool


While I will not be watching, reviewing, or staying up until midnight to create really cool graphs of the Top Chef results, Dominic at Skillet Doux will be. Go read him, he's very, very good.

Great instrument -- needs a better song

Wherein I suppose the appropriate response is heh


Matt Welch

I saw two different two-man brass bands perform enthusiastically received versions of "When the Saints Go Marching In," which is a statement either about Hurricane Katrina, or about the limited repetoire of happy white dudes with trombones.

VIII Alternative Tuesday Trivia

Wherein category is Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

1. For the 1950s, this actor won three to Carl Reiner's two.
   
2. Between the years 1961-1967 (no award was given for '64 and '65), he won five.
   
3. For the 1970s, two actors collected 5 awards for this show.
   
4. For M*A*S*H, Gary Burghoff won one in 1977, name the other M*A*S*H actor who picked one up in 1980.
   
5. In the 1980s, he won four in a row, 1985-1988.
   
6. For the 1990s, Michael Richards and David Hyde Pierce won six. Name one of the other four.

Pastor Jeff, why do you hate short Belgians?

Wherein a post not written two weeks in the past


NY Times had an article on Jean-Claude Van Damme: Hard Body Plays an Old Softie (Himself):

Mr. Van Damme’s more sensitive side is on jaw-dropping display in the movie’s pièce de résistance, a soul-baring six-minute monologue with more emoting than in all his other roles put together. His eyes tearing up and his voice quavering, he reflects on his dreams and failures, and effectively head-butts the fourth wall. (“I truly believe it’s not a movie.”)

As usual, I was way ahead of the curve in discussing his influential talent in this earlier Jean-Claude Van Damme post.

Monday Ballet Monday: Massine

Wherein how come no one has made a ballet of the The Red Shoes


Leonide Massine was one of the more famous Russian dancers of the early 20th century, this biography has some information. I'm reading Choura: the Memoirs of Alexandra Danilova (NY Times review) and in 1937 she joined his Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She attended the same school with George Balachine, was briefly married to him, and later taught at the School of American Ballet. Here, she discusses some of the differences between Massine and Balachine:

Massine was, I think, a genius, but not as great a genius as Balachine. Massine loved, he hated, he did everything in the extreme. By nature, he was a real artist, with volcanic emotions. He was like a monk in his dedication, ascetic and rather violent. Working with him, we were dancing for the Grand Inquistor, who tortured people in the name of God. He had no understanding or forgiveness for dancers who couldn't do what he asked. Every dancer has his or her own best movement -- one is better on the toes, another in allegro, another in adagio. Balachine, if he wanted to make a fast variation, would cast a fast dancer. The choreography, the actual steps, depended on how you could interpret what he showed you. But Massine didn't care who you were or what you could do. If he thought you should dance adagio, you had to do it, regardless. If you turned best to the right, he would give you pirouettes to the left. When he made Zephyr et Flore, he decided that Zephyr had to jump. Zephyr was Lifar, who didn't have a particularly good jump, but Massine made him jump anyway. In Les Matelots, I had to dance so much on the toes, more than we ever had danced on the toes in Russia...If he had an idea, he would absolutely break the dancer before he would change the step.

The result was that in Balachine's ballets, everybody was at his best, while Massine's ballets sometimes suffered because they were miscast.[...]

When he was making a ballet, Balachine was inspired by the dancers, but not Massine -- his inspiration was his own. He refused to explain to us what a ballet was about. "What am I?" I would ask, but would ignore my question. Once, he said in an interview that he didn't tell his dancers the story of the ballet they were working on because if they didn't know the story, they would bring to it their own interpretations, and he didn't want that. I found his attitude insulting. [...]

After Massine studied music composition, I could see that he improved tremendously. He found more phrases in the music to choreograph in his way, for three or four people. Massine's choreography was musical, but not to perfection the way Balachine's was. Balanchine heard everything; he he didn't miss a note. Certainly, Massine heard the music correctly, but I don't think he heard all the parts. Balanchine's steps sometimes made a counterpoint to the music, but not Massine's. Dancing Balanchine's ballets, one has to count, to be right on the music. But in Massine's ballets one could go by ear. I wouldn't say that Massine's choreography was less musical, but it was less musically detailed.

His steps were strange and sometimes awkward. What made Massine's choreography interesting was its fascinating rhythm. The rhythm was all in the feet, the way it is in Spanish dancing, which fascinated him. Where Balanchine would create a rhythm with beats and pointe work, all kinds of pas de bourrees, Massine would use heel work instead. His steps came from character dancing: the farruca, the tarantella -- always ticky-ticky footwork, the talking feet.

Massine himself was not a truly classical dancer. His dancing was demi-caractere, and that was his style as a choreographer, too. But Balanchine's choreography was always classical: he borrowed steps character dancing and applied them to classical ballet. Massine did just the reverse: he took classical ballet techniques and applied it to character dancing. Today, Jerome Robbins does what Massine did.

And can you copyright dance steps?

The steps in danced in Massine's ballets, to his way of thinking, belonged to him. Years after we had both left the Ballet Russe, I appeared on the "The Jack Paar Show," dancing a little piece of my variation from Le Beau Danube. The next morning, I received a telephone call from Massine. "You are dancing my Danube," he said, "so I expect a payment."

"For goodness sake," I told him, "it is such a small amount they paid me" -- three hundred dollars, I think -- "and I need the money."

"I don't care," he said. "Danube belongs to me."

I said "All right, I will think about it."

A few days later, he telephoned a second time. "So, how about Danube?"

"I'm still thinking," I said. After that, he never bothered me again.

part 1 of an unfinished documentary


part 2


As Pulcinella

From the Red Shoes. Massine plays the demented cobbler, dressed in yellow.

Sensations, new and old

Wherein but mostly old


Two songs:

Hey! That's me on the alto sax! Second Piece from Two Pieces in Folksong Style

Lou Reed's New Sensation. I've been listening to this album quite a bit and this is a nice song, he said understatedly.

I want the principles of a timeless muse
I want to eradicate my negative views
And get rid of those people who are always on a down

It's easy enough to tell what is wrong
But that's not what I want to hear all night long
Some people are like human tuinols

Tuinols

Number 1!

Wherein never heard of this website


But why argue.

Chicken Hands and Jazz Fish

Wherein still can't believe this show was canceled after 4 episodes


Screw you! You can't break me. They did this to me in the foster home and it just made me stronger.

This year's chili recipe

Wherein do the google blog search thingy to find the previous recipes


Ingredients

• 2 Large onions, sliced
• 4-5 Anaheim chilli peppers
• 8-10 Dried red chillis, quart of boiling water
• 6 Garlic cloves, minced
• 28oz can Pureed tomatoes
• 1/3 C Ancho chili powder
• 1/4 C Ground cumin
• 3 T Scharffen Berger unsweetened cocoa
• 1T Paprika
• 2 tsp Cayenne pepper
• 2 T Brown sugar
• 1 lb each: ground beef, pork, lamb
• V8 juice
• 2 C Beef broth
• Salt to taste

Steps

1. Toast whole cumin seeds and grind to a fine powder.
   
2. Roast anaheim peppers until skin is blackened. There are a number of ways to do this: (1) under the broiler; (2) if you have a gas stove, hold them over a flame; (3) my favorite, in the backyard with a blowtorch and place them in a covered bowl to steam. Which ever way you choose, the skin should be completely blackened so you can then rub off skin under running water. Then remove the seeds and stem, and fine dice. Feel free to do this ahead of time
   
3. Soak red peppers one to two hours with 1 quart of boiling water to rehydrate. Save water. Remove seeds and stems. Puree peppers and water, strain. Feel free to do this ahead of time.
   
4. Carmelize onions until dark brown, remove and fine dice. Note: this should take about an hour, so you can prep everything else -- including steps 1 & 2 -- while the onions are cooking. Add garlic and diced anaheim peppers to pot and sweat. Add back onions.
   
5. In a separate pot, take the 2 cups of beef stock and reduce to 1 cup. After adding back the onions, use the reduced stock to deglaze the pan. Reduce a little more.
   
6. Add all chili powder, cumin, paprika, cocoa, cayenne pepper, and brown sugar; stir until it’s a paste.
   
7. Add in all meats and stir until completely mixed.
   
8. Add chili water, and tomatoes. Add 2 cups of V8 juice. Bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 2 hours. Add more V8 as necessary. Add salt and adjust spices as needed, and serve.

music for politicians

Wherein what?


Talkin' Loud And Sayin' Nothing




Funk Ensemble 2007/8 of the Zurich Konservatory for Classic and Jazz. While it could be faster, very cool as a student project.




Bootsy Collins on James Brown

VII Alternative Tuesday Trivia

Wherein Don't Vote

1. In April 1989, she played the title role in the music video for Mojo Nixon's "Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child."
   
   
2. On May 10, 1940, this country invaded Iceland.
   
   
3. What do these countries have in common -- Andorra, Costa Rica, Haiti, Iceland, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, Panama, San Marino.
   
   
4. Put in order of surface area, smallest to largest: Belgium, Hudson Bay, Mississippi River.
   
   
5. This 1973 instrumental -- whose first working title was The Double Drum Solo -- topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week before being unseated by Paul McCartney's "My Love.
   
   
6. The October date this quiz was written. Pick a number from 1 to 31.

Recipe for life

Wherein this fits the original idea of this blog of quoting bits of text out of context from the original material


It's good to have a goal:

In a nutshell: we don't worship our own prejudices, and we're more curious than censorious.

Menand on linguistic morality