Try this.
Cartoonist Roz Chast has been a staff cartoonist for the New Yorker since 1979. She likes to list things alphabetically to help her fall asleep at night. With all the anecdotes, I’ve never heard of this one. As much as I’d like to try it out, I hope I don’t have to.
Tonight on Fox the Simpsons will air their 450th episode, “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special: In 3-D! On Ice!” I actually just set my DV-R to it. First there is an episode that makes no big deal about it, then an hour long “documentary” -if you will- by the one and only Morgan Spurlock. You know him because he chose to eat McDonalds for an entire month proving to the world that we are shit heads in the way that we eat (please, eat better.) He says that “the world may end in 2012, but this show won’t,” Spurlock seems like just the character to make this kind of film.
Officially its the longest running show in prime-time history. It first appeared on the Tracy Ullman show in 1987, pre-my-existence, as a series of shorts. The Simpsons has won 25 Emmy Awards, we all saw The Simpsons Movie in 2007 and don’t forget that the Oxford English Dictionary included D’oh! as a word. The show has, kind of, changed the world and changed television and the way we watch (write) it. Something like this only comes along every twenty years or so.
Point being is, check it out! I love cultural phenomenons- they are my favorite thing, literally. And when something is as easy to be a part of as a television show, you can’t help but watch.
It was about a year ago that I was leaving the sixteen-degree wind and snow of New England for Los Angeles. There was a beautiful pool at the end of my building, a convenience store stocked with beer a stumble away, and the first week welcomed us with a heat wave of eighty- and ninety-degree afternoons. These were obvious perks of the ICLA program. The apartments were nicer than any students deserve, and there was just something about those counters.
They were about waist-high (for someone who stands six foot two), with white tiles and a large counter space below it. Remember the pull-out cutting board? We didn’t find ours until April! Social gatherings centered around these counters. Bottles of rum, pens, cell phones, keys and old copies of the Ithacan’t were common.
Looking through old cell phone pictures from the past year, I’ve been reminded of the fun we had around the counters.
similar colors about the counter
truly, a work of art
These creations atop the counter are the result of tinkering, malt liquor, and wonder, really.
Three cheers, this new year, to an unsung hero of Los Angeles – the Oakwood Apartment countertops!
Fall Break has come and gone. But it was a great time for us to stray away from campus and create or find our own art. Let’s see what’s been done in the Thursday and Friday we students have stretched into a five-day bender…
Medium: Chalk on Iron
I found this angry chalk monster on the metal bridge on E. Clinton Street. If you’re leaving the police station after paying an exorbitant ticket for having a party at your apartment, or coming home from the Commons, keep your eyes open.
Medium: Spray Paint on Wood
Don’t know what this means or why it was created. “Chee Dung” it says, with the former word’s letters taking the shape of a pile of the latter word. Looks homemade, though. Rock on!
Medium: Paint on Cement
Junior TV-R major Anthony Palma sent me this “fresh” graffiti straight from East Brunswick, New Jersey. If you can’t read it, I’ll help you decode; NF&ES^>TZ@,{ *.
Medium: Caution Tape on Wood and Air
The least conventional art I came across was Thursday night, when I enter a Grandview basement to find Nate Scull meandering a spider web of caution tape. Cheers to you Scull.
Fall Break is a mere two days off from classes, not even enough time to warrant my five-hour drive back home. Thanksgiving break is just over four weeks away, and oh, the art we’ll come across with nine days away from campus.
pg 24 of this week's new yoker
If it’s not clear enough for you, one of our own contributors won himself every season of Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD. Mr. Michael Sokol is in the running for world’s biggest Larry David Fan.
Congratulations!
I am not trying to take Fed’s idea of making a remote out of a gun. In fact I did not even think of this idea- a tremendous human being sent this one to me.
Going along with the new Harry Potter theme park that is being developed in Orlando, FL– we now have this.
the wand
It is a wand that functions as a remote control for your television. There are no buttons on this guy, you just flick your wrist in the common motions of up, down, back and forth, sideways, over, sideways, under, clockwise, counter and down. (Whatever.) I am sure once kinks get worked out, it will be mass produced? Maybe we have a future of funny remotes to look forward to. Fed’s gun is a prime/hilarious choice, but like this one- I prefer the less violent. Check it out.
Yo La Tengo- their new record, Popular Songs, is incredible. You can audio sample it here.
in his genius SNL days
sharpie ninja
Saw about a dozen of these fellas drawn upon the walls of the port-o-potties at Grassroots.
Maybe it was just six. I was seeing double.