Yeesburger

Presidential Photography

Is there some photographers' conspiracy to make Bush look like a ToastMasters International supervillain? If so, extra points for this fireball-from-the-fingers number.

Begone!

Cognitive Dissonance: Heresy, Inclusion, Evangelism, Lobster

After listening to this episode of This American Life about Bishop Carlton Pearson, a former star of the "charismatic Christian" community, since labeled a heretic for his hell-averse doctrine, I went looking for more about him and found his MySpace page, which is worth the visit if only for the testimonials. My favorite, concealed on the third page, is this one:

Thanks for the add Bishop, you should come up to my home State of Maine some time and enjoy God's inclusive love while enjoying some fresh Maine lobster.

Times have changed. Heretics used to get the stake; now they're offered lobster.

Notes For The Gentrifier

1. When parking your car on a dark corner in Brooklyn, beware of automobiles with tinted windows idling at the intersection.
2. If an idling automobile, or multiple automobiles, suddenly screech forward 15 feet around the corner, headed the wrong way up a one-way street, with sirens blaring, do not step out of the vehicle.
3. If a dozen DEA agents should emerge from said automobiles, guns extended towards the SUV parked just opposite your car, do not gawk. Move away.
4. When, in that situation, you choose not to move away, you should really consider whether the plywood construction fence between you, the SUV, and the agents with guns provides enough protection. Not that we know for sure that it doesn't, but just consider it.

Le Ballon Rouge

Ah, my childhood. I have only the vaguest recollection of watching this as a kid. I remember crying. When I watched it in college, years later, I cried again.

The Red Balloon short film 1956 Pt1

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

[via Coudal, from The World Of Kane]

Nick's Dream

"So I had this dream i was talking to a dog.
and i asked the dog 'can you speak to cats too'
and he said 'only if they speak english'
and i was like ... ohh riight."

Look and Feel

I can't stop changing my Vox template. Nervous energy or something.

Cold Weekends Have Their Merits

Among the many thrilling things about this last weekend:

• Running around the city playing a secret game, grinning the entire time, impossibly lucky to have stumbled on it
  
• Matmos, perfectly paired with...
  
• So Percussion, and their performance of
  
• Steve Reich's Drumming
  
• the Attacca String Quartet, at
• the Stone, a concert venue concealed at the bottom of Avenue C
• Concealed glass houses
  
• Chili crab, quail egg shooters, pierogies, dim sum, pizza, pasta, wine
• Fleece blankets
• Late mornings
  

In That Bag

In the tragic tradition of purloined property posts, here are the contents of my luggage, which went missing somewhere between my departure from New York and my arrival in Barcelona (more on that arrival to come):

NON-SENTIMENTAL CONTENTS:

1. Ten pairs of boxers, fourteen pairs of socks
2. One pair of too-expensive jeans
3. One jacket, for fancy dinner
   
4. Two pairs of shorts
5. One crappy pair of swim trunks
6. Various liquids: deodorant, lens cleaning stuff, soaps
   
7. One tripod

SENTIMENTAL AND/OR TROUBLING-WHEN-MISSING CONTENTS

1. A bunch of clothes forgotten by Laurea
2. My ten favorite old t-shirts
3. My favorite sweatshirt, perfectly worn

VALUE OF SENTIMENTAL +/ T.W.M. CONTENTS, APPROXIMATE: $260
VALUE OF NON-SENTIMENTAL CONTENTS, APPROXIMATE: $800

RATIO OF CONCERN FOR SENTIMENTAL VS. NON-SENTIMENTAL MISSING CONTENTS: 8/1

ADJ. VALUE FOR SENTI. & NON-SENTI. CONTENTS, RESPECTIVELY: $2080/$800

Mahfouz

Sad. If you haven't ever read anything by Naguib Mahfouz, start here:

The Harafish

Naguib Mahfouz

Additional Nail In Coffin Of Journalistic Pride

Somebody's having a good morning over at the Times.

Pigs-in-blankets

If it feeds, it leads:

And you can be sure, as this fall’s party season gets under way, that pigs in blankets will be on all the right trays and platters. “They used to be like a joke,” said Ms. Blum, the party planner. “But everyone takes them seriously now.”'

Exaaaaaactly...