Charlotte Gainsbourg, an actress I only knew from the film The Science of Sleep, but also happens to be a singer- songwriter, collaborated with Beck on this song called “Heaven Can Wait”. The song is from Gainsbourg soon to be released third album, which Beck has been producing.
Posted in November 2009 …
Forget Rule No. 1
The film Fight Club is celebrating its ten year anniversary. A special collectors Blue Ray edition was released for the occasion. People have reported that it comes with a Project Mayhem-like prank. The Ny Times article takes a look at how the film has maintained its cult status for all these years.
The secret to the enduring allure of “Fight Club” may be that it is, as Mr. Norton put it, quoting Mr. Fincher, “a serious film made by deeply unserious people.” In other words, a film as willing to take on profound questions as it is to laugh at and contradict itself: what is “Fight Club” if not the most fashionable commercial imaginable for anti-materialism? A movie of big ideas and abundant ambiguities, it can be read and reread in many ways.
It’s OK to Eat Fish Because They Don’t Have Any Feelings
New Yorker profiles Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals.
Foer was just nine years old when the problem of being an “eating animal” first presented itself. One evening, his parents left him and his older brother with a babysitter and a platter of chicken. The babysitter declined to join the boys for dinner.
“You know that chicken is chicken, right?” she pointed out. Foer’s older brother sniggered. Where had their parents found this moron? But Foer was shaken. That chicken was a chicken! Why had he never thought of this before? He put down his fork.
Citizen Journalism with Youtube Direct
Youtube Direct is a new platform with the intention of letting news organizations get direct access to the Youtube community. You can read more info about it here.
Unfriend Officially Added to Dictionary
The New Oxford American Dictionary has officially added unfriend as a verb meaning “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook”. I know it’s easier to write and say, “I unfriended Bob” than “I removed Bob as a friend”, but I just find this a little creepy and “Orwellian”. Soon we will be untalking, unlaughing, and unsurprised.
Your Brain on Books
Scientific American interviews Stanislas Dehaene, author of The Number Sense and Reading in the Brain. Dehaane talks a little about what happens in the brain when we read and how it’s almost a miracle that we can read at all. From the article:
One of my long-time interests concerns how the human brain is changed by education and culture. Learning to read seems to be one of the more important changes that we impose to our children’s brain. The impact that it has on us is tantalizing. It raises very fundamental issues of how the brain and culture interact.
As I started to do experimental research in this domain, using the different tools at my disposal (from behavior to patients, fMRI, event-related potentials, and even intracranial electrodes), I was struck that we always found the same areas involved in the reading process. I began to wonder how it was even possible that our brain could adapt to reading, given it obviously never evolved for that purpose. The search for an answer resulted in this book. And, in the end, reading forces us to propose a very different view of the relationship between culture and the brain.
The Thin Line Between Douchebags and Bros
How might we come to a more objective definition of “douchebag”? Perhaps the key lies in studying the term’s closest relatives. Take “bro.” On UrbanDictionary.com, bro has been externally defined by the same characteristics as Bans’ douche: bros join fraternities, wear baseball caps, spike their hair, pop their collars, clutch red plastic cups, and are proud of it. But unlike “douchebag,” people actually call themselves “bros.” Is it possible that the term “bro” functions as a way for douchebags to reveal their “pretentious pride” in their fratty lifestyles without admitting how douchey it all is?
The answer to the last question is a definite yes.
Decluttering Myths
Key things to keep in mind when one is getting rid of crap. Number six is just classic:
6. “I might get that gizmo fixed.” Face it. If you’ve had something for more than six months, and it’s still not repaired, it’s clutter.
Shit My Dad Says Gets TV Deal
Justin opened a Twitter account in which he literally posted shit his dad says. Now he has a TV deal.
