Where has this album been all my life?

Sublime new release by Sigur Ros. I could write the album name out here in Icelandic but really, what would be the point? It’s the one with a long foreign title and lanky, bare-assed men jumping over a fence. Kinda can’t miss it.

Table envy.

Paint Or Die But Love Me table by French designer John Nouanesing. From Core77.

Egads, Giles! Hand me my binoculars!

I went on an urban safari last night, bar hopping in the meatpacking district. I wish I’d gotten a better picture of that dude’s graphic tee with silkscreened gold chains on it, it was pret-ty sweet.

We had to get our hands stamped to go to the bathroom!! I mean, it was a nice bathroom and all but….

The trouble with bicoastiality.

Just returned from a weekend in San Francisco and I gotta say, it was SO GOOD to be back in that godforsaken city. Somehow the incessant wind was refreshing, not annoying, the bland, blue-sky vibe soothing, not boring, the travel by car liberating, not confining. Is it just a case of always wanting what you can’t have? Grass is always greener syndrome? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was there for a wonderful weekend (’end’ being the operative suffix), and that we spent it at our most romantic getaway spot 3 hours north of the city, driving up, down and around 101 in our beloved beat-up old Saab, “blissed out” at the lithium-charged nudie hot springs, and cozied up at our favorite neighborhood sushi bar, feasting on chef’s choice with the chopsticks they keep for us behind the bar. Oh, and passed out at an airport Comfort Inn, but that’s a story for another time.

Birds of a feather.

Very cool photographic study of multiple cultures and identity groups within a single diverse city (Rotterdam). From a review on the photographers’ website Exactitudes:

“By dragging the repertory of the street kicking and screaming to the studio backdrop, the series offers a purposely absurd response to the sentimentality of Jamal Shabazz (“Back in the days”) and the beloved and utterly bogus spontaneity of the photo booth. It’s a perfect fit for an age that’s made the “cool hunt” a corporate pursuit. Of course the photos are starchy and obdurately posed and ever so consciously styled, because there can be no meaningful limit to the cross-contamination between those notions of a authenticity and supreme self-awareness.”

This is not supposed to happen in real life.

One of my best friends got engaged about a month ago. This is an excerpt from the email I just got from him:

“Things with [the fiance] are so good tho. I look at her ring sometimes and just can’t believe that we are engaged. I still feel like such a kid! I just want to make babies with her so badly! I have had this paternal instinct lately …. but I know we are waiting at least 3 years. You will be Aunt Kelly! NOt to be toooo cheesy but could you imagine if we had kids around the same age? that would be sick. Those little buggers would be best buds.”

I don’t know whether to cry or puke or both. Pretty boy player born with a silver spoon in his mouth dates a million beautiful but mildly-retarded thoroughbreds, finally falls head over heels for a girl who does her own nails and digs a sale (and, I should say, isn’t so awful-looking herself), proposes years earlier than originally intended and wants to have babies NOW. It’s almost farcical.

I’m truly thrilled for them nonetheless. (Hmmph.)

Wal-Mart - er, Walmart: so cool it blogs!

STOP WAL-MART

Originally uploaded by Lone Primate

I thought Walmart had a fresh new blog to go with their fresh new logo but it looks like this thing’s been up and running for the better part of the year! Who knew? More importantly - who’s reading it?? And who’s writing it? Bizarro. At least it’s well-designed.

http://checkoutblog.com/

Also.

Soccer Mom

Originally uploaded by Allaniux

I think I inadvertently got a soccer mom haircut yesterday.

That’s unfortunate.

Reckless.

OBAMA NEW YORKER

Originally uploaded by themillersofliverpool

This is my take on the whole terrorist fist jab New Yorker cover hullabaloo: people are idiots. Not so much the the editor who ran the illustration (just grossly irresponsible), not his readers (duh, it’s satire, I like, wrote my senior thesis on that topic), but an unfortunately large number of people outside their target demographic for whom it will only serve to solidify the fantasy that Obama is a closet Muslim looking to subvert, convert and otherwise corrupt this great Christian nation (’did you know his middle name was Hussein??’). They had to know that this was going to wind up on the 5 o’clock news and in the hands of the same people who think he’s a terrorist in the first place, and then what? What of their undecided neighbors, the skeptical, right-leaning might-be swing voters? I repeat: PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS. To reinvigorate this controversy with this type of highbrow ‘the joke’s on you’ mockery was irresponsible and self-serving and New Yorker, you should be ashamed of yourself! I don’t have a subscription because I can’t understand a damn word but I’m definitely not starting one now.

The father, the son, and the holy crap, they cannot be serious.

Do NOT Turn Jesus On.

Originally uploaded by sepultura

Truth be told I’m a little bit of a Jesus freak. I think being raised without religion made me perversely fascinated by the whole thing: the folklore, the bizarre subcultures, the everyday hypocrisies. Currently on my bedside radiator is The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which picks apart the argument for a higher being bit by hilarious bit. My favorite part so far are the logical proofs for god’s existence borrowed from Godlessgeeks.com. A few gems:

ARGUMENT FROM EXODUS
(1) If the Exodus story has any basis in historical fact, then God exists.
(2) Some guy found some chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea.
(3) There is absolutely no other way that chariots could get to the bottom of the Red Sea.
(4) This means the Exodus story is true.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM INCOMPLETE DEVASTATION
(1) A plane crashed killing 143 passengers and crew.
(2) But one child survived with only third-degree burns.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM FEAR
(1) If there is no God then we’re all going to not exist after we die.
(2) I’m afraid of that.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM SHEER WILL
(1) I DO believe in God! I DO believe in God! I do I do I do I DO believe in God!
(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM EUROPEAN HISTORY
(1) Many prominent thinkers in pre-modern Europe believed in God.
(2) Let’s just forget about the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM INCOHERENT BABBLE
(1) See that person spazzing on the church floor babbling incoherently?
(2) That’s how infinite wisdom reveals itself.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

Oooh the list just goes on and on.