Sick, Nervous, Discouraged. Then, 18 Bottles Later: “I am Feeling Fine.”
February 21, 2010
This is a leading hack.
This is a leading hack.
Order us a case of what Mrs. Cora Love, 3722 S. Wigger Street, Marion, Ind is drinking. . .
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OK, Now He’s Just Piling On! George Orwell on American coloured comic books, Part 3
February 21, 2010
“On the front page there is a picture of of what is either an ape-like lunatic, or an actual ape dressed up as a man, strangling a woman so realistically that her tongue is sticking four inches out of her mouth.”
Here is the splash page (left) that George Orwell is referring to from Hangman Comics #8, Fall 1943, pencils and inks by Bob Fujitani. Click on images for larger size. This issue includes “The Case of the Python’s Curse” also referred to by Orwell.
We’ve covered this repeat offender’s anti-comics rants before, here and here.
“A correspondent has sent me a copy of one the disgusting American ‘comics’ which I referred to a few weeks ago. The two main stories in it are about a beautiful creature called the Hangman, who has a green face, and, like so many characters in American strips, can fly. On the front page there is a picture of of what is either an ape-like lunatic, or an actual ape dressed up as a man, strangling a woman so realistically that her tongue is sticking four inches out of her mouth. Another item is a python looping itself around a man’s neck and then hanging him by suspending itself over a balustrade. Another is a man jumping out of a skyscraper window and hitting the pavement with a splash. There is much else of the same kind. . . Certainly I would keep these things out of children’s hands if possible. But I would not be in favour of actually prohibiting their sale. The precedent is too dangerous.”
Excerpt from As I Please 67, Tribune, 27 December 1946
George Orwell knocks American Comic Books Again, Nov. 22, 1946
February 20, 2010
“. . .and platinum blondes are raped, or very nearly, by steel robots and fifty-foot dinosaurs?”
George Orwell had already trashed American comic books, a year earlier, as filled with “Magic and Sadism”. Now he’s back to take another swing at the funny books. Ah, lay off, George, you big English bully! But much as he seems to despise them as sub-literate and borderline immoral, Orwell finds evidence in comic books for some of our better qualities too.
“English children are still Americanised by way of the films. but it would no longer be generally claimed that American books are the best ones for children. Who, without misgivings, would bring up a child on the coloured ‘comics’ in which sinister professors manufacture atomic bombs in underground laboratories while Superman whizzes through the clouds, the machine-gun bullets bouncing off his chest like peas, and platinum blondes are raped, or very nearly, by steel robots and fifty-foot dinosaurs? It is a far cry from Superman to the Bible and the woodpile.”
Comparing children’s literature like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Women and Black Beauty to the post-war comic book, Orwell explains,
“The society described in the one is subdued, bookish, and home-loving, while the other tells of a crazy world of bandits, gold mines, duels, drunkeness and gambling hells; but in both one can detect an underlying confidence in the future, a sense of freedom and opportunity.”
Excerpts from Orwell’s essay Riding Down From Bangor, Tribune, 22 November 1946
Wasabi-scented Smoke Alarm for the Deaf
February 20, 2010
Here’s a Japanese product that initially sounds weird but actually makes a lot of sense: a smoke alarm for the deaf with an alert that’s based on smell.
When this alarm senses smoke it emits allyl isothiocyanate, the chemical compound that powers horseradish, mustard, and wasabi.
Certainly sounds like a good way to get someone’s attention quickly, as anyone who has overindulged in H, M, or W will agree. But wait, there’s more! This scent alarm will even rouse people from sleep!
This new alarm was co-developed by Kobe-based fire extinguisher company Air Water Safety Service and Seems, a bioventure in Tokyo. For the complete story on CNET, go here.
The Day Jazz Died in Harlem? – New York Times book review
February 20, 2010
“Some people still scratch their heads, for example, about why jazz in Harlem went off the boil. The answer is more than 60 years old, and Fletcher tells the story well: It was the Police Department’s temporary closing of the Savoy in 1943, and the subsequent Harlem riots that year — ignited by a white cop’s shooting of a black soldier, but foreshadowed by a growing frustration with institutional racism in the wartime economy. These events ruined many businesses along 125th Street and made white customers stay away; club owners sought surer business downtown, and that was the end of a scene.”
All Hopped Up and Ready to Go; Music from the Streets of New York 1927-77 by Tony Fletcher, reviewed by Ben Ratliff, New York Times Sunday Book review
James Arthur Ray “Spirit Warrior” Misled Public About His Wealth?
February 20, 2010
“Many participants have said Ray chided them for wanting to leave, even as people were vomiting, getting burned by hot rocks and lying unconscious on the ground.”
— by Felicia Fonseca, Associated Press Writer
James Arthur Ray in 2008
- Tells Fortune magazine that his goal is $21 million a year
- Claims to be “not aware” of any limits to his financial success
James Arthur Ray in 2009
- Claims an estimated $10 million in revenue
- $1,000,000+ advance for book, “Harmonic Wealth” a New York Times Bestseller, May 2008
James Arthur Ray in 2010
- Held on $5 million dollar bond for manslaughter charges for the deaths of three people in a “Spirit Warrior” sweat lodge therapy session
- Faces 12 1/2 years for each death
- Has a net worth of negative $4.2 million
- Has liabilities of more than $8.5 million — and you have to love this —
- “much of which was unexplained in a statement of net worth.”
James Arthur Ray “Spiritual Warrior” and promoter of “Practical Mysticism” Arrested and Charged in 3 Deaths
February 4, 2010
We’ve written about James Arthur Ray previously here and should add that our disgust for this class of New Age hucksters and con-men (and women) knows no bounds. We’re glad that criminal charges have been filed.
You don’t have to be a medical doctor to dispute his attorney’s claim that “no one could have foreseen” this possible outcome when you read the details leading up to these three deaths.
[After spending 36 hours in the desert without food or water, a buffet breakfast was served and 64 people were packed into a “Sweat Lodge” 24 feet wide and 4 1/2 tall for two hours. 21 people were taken to hospitals after this ‘re-birthing’ ceremony ended. Three people died.]
There is no indication that Mr. Ray put himself through the same ordeal he charged his clients $10,000 for.
People like James Arthur Ray are the moral equivalent of child predators in that they exploit emotionally vulnerable and intellectually weak-minded individuals who are genuine in their desire for self-improvement but lack the critical thinking skills to see through the con.
Let me be clear: these self-proclaimed gurus prey upon adults and no one has accused Mr. Ray of molesting children. But for me, personally, this is a difference without much of a distinction. Exploitation of the vulnerable is reprehensible and those who do it, knowingly and for profit, deserve the severest sanctions society can mete out.
A defense attorney might make the case that a child molester suffers from a psychological disorder but the James Arthur Ray’s of the world are simply greedy and have developed a good line of patter.
A measure of blame and complicity should also be laid at the doors of Rhonda Byrne (author of The Secret), Larry King, The Today Show and Oprah Winfrey for their uncritical promotion of Ray.
Let’s remember that when Winfrey turned on fraudulent memoirist James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) no one died as a result of his duplicity. Will Oprah take a public stand on James Arthur Ray?
State of the Internet 2009 by the Editors of FOCUS
February 3, 2010
The editors of FOCUS have produced their annual infographic on the State of the Internet for the year just past and it packs a great deal of information in a very compact space.
Although we have to gag over the self-reporting by bloggers, 75% of whom describe their style as “sincere.” Right. And pigeons are flying art critics who only poop on bad public sculpture.
FOCUS is a a site where you can find expert advice and read research briefs on a wide variety of business topics like information technology, sales, marketing, customer service, human resources, and small business ideas. If you need targeted info in any of these areas their site is well worth checking out. You can even ask your own question of their experts.
Plus, we have to give props to their graphic team for this cool design. Click on image for larger size.
5 Songs by Warren Zevon — “Enjoy Every Sandwich”
February 3, 2010
I Dreamed I Conquered the World in my Maidenform Bra
January 31, 2010
I rarely remember any of my dreams, unless I’m woken up unexpectedly during the night and I don’t place any stock in them as predictive or even especially insightful. The latest word on them from scientific research is that they are somehow connected with the consolidation of long-term memory. Consistently interrupt someone’s dream cycle and their ability to learn new skills plummets. Click on images for larger size.
Still incompletely understood, dreams may be the by-product of a shuffling and filing system that the brain uses to store information. The symbolic analysis promoted by that cocaine-addicted doctor from Vienna, among many others, has been thoroughly demolished by recent fMRI studies and the explosion of information in brain research in general over the last 15 years. Like anyone ever really believed that a dream about a train going into a tunnel was about fucking.
For some reason I’ve been waking up around 4 or 5:00 am for the past several nights. As a result I’ve been able to recall what I was just dreaming about. Here’s one of them:
I’m a background player on Saturday Night Live in 1977. Buck Henry is the host and we’re rehearsing a sketch about a naive young couple, Buck and Gilda Radner, who’ve walked into an underground head shop, mistaking it for a store selling religious paraphernalia.
The jokes are along the lines of the owner, played by Dan Ackroyd, explaining that the black light poster of Jim Morrison is Jesus before he grew his beard, etc.
It has the feel of the classic SNL Greek Diner sketch — Cheeburger, Cheeburger, Cheeburger, No Coke, Pepsi — funny in an observational way, without punch lines. When John Belushi pulls out a huge baggie of pot from behind the counter, the “joke” is that you’ll need “a pretty big incense burner” to use up all that incense. Apparently, “a pretty big incense burner” is a running catch-phrase.
At one point I ad lib a line, a bold move as I don’t have a speaking part, and Ackroyd and Belushi crack up. My personal comedy gods have smiled on me and I’m in Seventh Heaven. “We’ve got to keep that in, it’s great!” says Danny. Life does not get better than this, I’m thinking.
Running through the sketch for the umpteenth time, Belushi fumbles the ‘pot as incense’ gag and angrily exclaims, “Ah, what the fuck! It doesn’t matter. I’m going to OD on this or something else, anyway.”
For the second time, I speak up and say in a completely straight and somewhat sad voice, “Yes, that’s right. That’s exactly what’s going to happen.” This stops everyone in their tracks. They all look at me uncomfortably, including Belushi. Somehow it’s understood by every person on that stage that what I’ve just said is absolutely true.
At that moment I wake up and find that I’m crying.