Shock and Sadness in Video Form

There's nothing exciting going on in my life right now, but the world is full of exciting things. Among them:

CNN inexplicably posting the whole audio of the Jonestown Massacre. It's like near an hour long, so unless you're in for about 48 minutes of bummer you can skip it.



Miriam Makeba passing away. :-(


For an even better video click here.


Also, Chris Russell has notified me that Barack Obama is actually not American/Kenyan, he is in fact Irish.

French Miaou

So I went to Dublin this weekend and now I'm back. While I was there I went to the Museum of Modern Art and saw a display of some of the films by Russian/French animator Ladislas Starevich's, which I didn't know existed. The awesome ones I saw there aren't on the internet, but here's a taste for everyone else who likes puppets.


This is from his first feature-length. It's a musical number sung by a fox to a lioness. I don't know what else is going on. Rachel?




For this one turn the sound off because I'm pretty sure the music accompaniment is not right or synced up. You'd be better off just turning on your own poignant music and enjoying this nice little short. It's also about royal lions and it's very sad.

A New Era

I have to go to Dublin tomorrow with my study abroad group, which will be fun for the photo opportunities at least. Can you believe that I've been blogging every day for the past month or so? What a pathetic achievement! Also, four people commented on my last entry, which is almost a record. This truly is a new era.

I watched Hard Candy today. I'd put that movie off for a while, but it had always been on my radar. I generally enjoy any button-pushing movie that can walk a line between arty-pretension and exploitation without falling either way, but I'm not sure if this movie succeeded. It sure started out creepy enough. It's like, as the cat-and-mouse game goes on and more things come to light, it goes from being a great movie down a couple notches to pretty good. But it's hard to beat the two performances. Noted non-uggo Ellen Page was amazing, and she was only 15-years-old (imdb tells me). She's the same age as me! What the hell am I doing with my life? The stench of perpetual failure never comes off!

In other news, I finally got the new BFP today. I was so happy because I had assumed it'd been "lost in the mail." Maybe it sounds like a) I think that my college newspaper staff should/do care what I think and b) I'm scared of people I don't know bringing my dick-sucking to light if I say that this edition is one of the best I can remember, but it honestly is. Having an election to write about probably helped. Since my last post was a snarkfest and there's so much hope in the air, let's look at what went right. If you don't go to Bennington and you're reading this then bail out now; it won't make enough sense to be worth your time, and your time is very valuable:

Imagine my shock to find Senator Apple-Potatohead himself leering at me from the front page as if paper-McCain had frozen in time upon hearing the news that his real-life twin had just got his ass handed to him. I guess not enough people followed the first part of Geoff Pigman's plea to "choose experience," opting instead for the latter bit, "choose judgement."
Meanwhile Brian Morrice, official Obama Student Representative, takes some time to remind the laymen who haven't worked closely with the President-elect that there were lower-level races to be won as well and provides a handy little guide to them, which is nice to see.

The politics continued throughout, but, oh my God, it's like all my BFP wishes came true: they were all unique opinion pieces and not dry reporting! I was happy to see:

• Sarah Palin's full name (Sarah Louise Heath Palin McLoserstien)
• Chris Matthews' earnestness compared to Ralph Wiggum
• That the young Panzariellos were brought up to call Bill Clinton "the monster." Honestly, if you think back on most of our recent presidents as "the monsters" and put yourself in a child's shoes it doesn't take much imagination-stretching to make them seem pretty scary looking (except Obama, who is dreamy). Incidentally, it's always best to put on the shoes of children when thinking about politics. (Just ask Dennis Kucinich! Zingggg!!!!kill me)
  
• The headline "Late-breaking newts" made me extremely happy.
  

In even better news, Zimmer's angry screed against dining hall problems is back, in more succinct form. I agree with every statement in it except for the bit about vegans eating meat - Michael, just because Kilpat wishes it lived in a barbecue grease trap instead of a house doesn't mean the rest of us do. Will change come to the Dining Hall? Er... doubtful.

Also, Baking With Faith is now hand-drawn and adorable, featuring a cartoon Amanda Vorce and the personification of Baking. Question: why does Baking have to wear a mask? What has she done previously in life that she needs to hide her identity? My guess is that she sold her soul to the Devil to ascend from life as a verb to that of a person. Amanda, for her part, must've sold her soul for that sweet harmonica that plays itself.

Two complaints:

• Big Guy/Little Guy has taken over the paper, spreading over four pages like a virus. I think the lot of the Guys is a sad one: perpetually floating in space, talking in elliptical conversations with no endings. Now that politics has entered the scene the conversations are going to become more and more insufferable. I guess there's not much to do while waiting for the rest of your head to materialize.
• Where's Dr. Randy's column? Is Geoff Pigman the new Dr. Randy?? Is Geoff Pigman a liscenced gynocologist???? The women of Bennington deserve answers!
  

Heaven's Snoogle-Fleejer, Hell's Ying Yang

Big news in America last night: Sasha and Malia Obama are getting a puppy! Only time will tell if Obama follows in John Adams' footsteps and names his dog Satan. I was looking at the wikipedia article about presidential pets - totally fascinating.

My favorite: Jimmy Carter's cat, Misty Malarky Ying Yang, seen here with his daughter, Amy.



Also, did you know that in 1995 Jimmy and Amy Carter collaborated on a childrens' book together called The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer? Now you do.


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In other exciting news, walking home from class yesterday some old men from a fundamentalist church handed me two exciting documents! The first was everyone's favorite family newspaper, End Times, which, apparently, proves Richard Dawkins wrong about the theory of evolution. You see, in 2005 Dawkins said in a lecture that he believes everything in the universe is the product of Darwinian natural selection, but he technically can't prove it. Why? For starters I'm going to guess that cataloging everything that ever existed in the universe and proving it's origin is a bit ambitious, but what do I know?
The End Times contrasts this with a letter that Dawkins sent to his daughter on her tenth birthday.
(I'm going to give that a second to sink in)


In the letter Dawkins tells his ten-year-old daughter:

"Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?"

Ah-ha! Caught in your own snare, Dawkins! (On a side note, that's a pretty heady message for a ten-year-old, isn't it?)

The other wonderful pamphlet I was handed was an invitation to see the Christian theatrical guilt-o-rama Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flames next Sunday. If you haven't heard of it before, HGHF is basically a live Chick tract where people die in the middle of overwrought sin scenarios (gay drug abortions! prostitute Eucharist smashings! I actually don't know the particulars 'cuz I haven't seen it) and proceed to St. Peter's to be judged accordingly. I'll let this youtube clip do the rest of the talking. Either way, I'm totally psyched about going. Now I just need to find an Irish friend who appreciates irony. "Right on, baby! I hear this is Snake territory!"



"Joey you can't die! I didn't tell you about Jesus!" Here's a full trailer for more sweet, sweet madness.

Tuning-Peg Carrot vs. Lumpy Sack: Election Megapost in Three Parts

Hey did you know you can leave me comments on my blog just using your AIM screen name? You don't even need a blog! There's no excuse not to love me!



In other news, did you hear? There's apparently an election today. Some black fella is running against a greased-up baby. Or is it the lovechild of an apple-head doll and Mr. Potatohead?



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Speaking of elevated political discourse...

When I was young my parents subscribed to Newsweek. When it came I always turned to the page that had three political cartoons on it. I read them because I liked cartoons not because I cared about politics or really understood them all the time. That I understood them at all is really a testament to the nature of political cartoons, not intelligence on my part; even an 8-year-old gets the basic message of, say, a man crushed under a thousand lb. weight labeled "taxes."

Political cartoons are often unfunny, unclever metaphors scrawled by some grumpy, old, sectarian fuck who only goes outside his house to drop off his latest ravings at a publication. Despite (or because of) this, I really enjoy them. At their best they are funny and at their worst they are much funnier.

To catch up on the latest political cartoons I usually head over to Slate Magazine's website, where they're compiled in a little unwieldy ghetto of a page by subject. You can troll through the issues, scoffing at the bad cartoons from the far right, feeling vindicated by the also-bad cartoons from the far left and scratching your head at the cartoons from other countries.

Some of my latest favorites:




This representation of Palin is just mind-blowingly bad. Jesus Christ, Gary Markstein, have you ever seen the woman? You didn't even get the hair right!



Speaking of bizarre Palin drawings, what happened to her face in this Irish cartoon? She's like some malevolent ape. Which might explain the bone in her hair.



Heinous.



By contrast, this guy makes most political cartoonists look like Michelangelo. He's turned these three recognizable men into bizarre simplifications of themselves. Barack Obama is a carrot with tuning pegs for ears. John McCain is a lumpy sack. George Bush is a... butterfly on a stick? Or, like, an angel for the top of a Christmas tree without a head...? Or...?



This one is not only unfunny, but it also telegraphs pretty clearly that Joel Pett is some kind of self-loathing racist who thinks that his inner conflict is common within the reading public. It really says nothing about politics but volumes about it's artist. Sad volumes.

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But maybe the most baffling to me are the Obama-alarmist cartoons. I understand disagreeing with the man, but surely he can't be as scary as these cartoons make him out... or is he?


Subtle.


He's really malevolent when you take his head off.


I like how, here, McCain looks like Joe Everyman while Obama is like the Nightmare King of Black Supremacy.


"Hey, I'm Gary Varvel! I can do caricatures! Available for birthday parties and street fairs! What, you don't want to leaf through my portfolio?? What about just one cartoon?"


In case you missed it, Obama is Stalin, the devil is a liberal and Batman is George Bush.


Just like Obama, always playing the race card.


Obama's not just Stalin, he's also Dr. Moreau.



It just goes on and on doesn't it? Don't forget to vote!

Photojournal #5

Hey, guess what happened yesterday? A big ol' parade in the middle of Belfast chock full of sectarian drama. Exactly the kind of thing that I came to Belfast to experience. It's the kind of thing you really can't see anywhere else.

Hey, guess where I was yesterday? Taking pictures of cats.




That's right, in between reading more boringness from Margery Kempe and twiddling my thumbs I took a walk through a little 'burb of Belfast called Dullsville.
I probably wouldn't have been awake for the parade anyways.

And can you get comedy like this anywhere else?





Bwahahahaha....ha....ha..
I'm, like, the worst tourist ever.

That Lame Guy Stole My Lame Move!

Like my sleeping habits, another thing I get called out for by the people who care for me is my one non-dance move. I have pitch and rhythm like a motherfucker, but when I'm dancing my arms do some sort of ski-pole maneuver. I know exactly where it came from, too:



I think when I was hitting puberty and my body was figuring out how humans move it placed the first five seconds of John Travolta's dance into it's sense-memory and called it a life. That's also why I'm a Scientologist.

So imagine my surprise and horror when, this morning, I was watching an old video of the Firehouse Five Plus Two playing and I saw my move! The lamest guy in the audience held a lame mirror up to my lame face. If you skip to 2:15 minutes in you'll be shocked and awed:



I like how, when he notices the girl is looking at him, he decides that head-nodding is probably a safer choice. To be fair to me, I never do the around-the-world thing with my hands, I can move my feet alright, and I don't wear backwards children's fireman's hats. To be fair to him, though, it's obviously working, cuz that girl is hooked - although it's possible that her smile just froze on her face when she was paralyzed by his whiteness.

Another embarrassing thing I do when I dance: I snap. It's uncontrollable! Don't try and change me, I'm lost. My body is a machine made for dancing at shows, that is all. As long as I can look head-banging/hurky-jerky I'm fine - it's when I have to look suave/human that things go wrong.