Lyrics

I love these lyrics from the 1920s: “Still the Census taker tarried/ With a poised and ready pen; / ‘One more question, Are you married?’ / Came the answer, ‘Now and then.”
--cited in DiFonzo, Beneath the Fault Line, 18.

New to me

New book: The Moonstone. My favorite part is a cheeky slam of women's benevolence societies: "We had a meeting that evening of the Select Committee of the Mothers'-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society. The object of this excellent Charity is--as all serious people know--to rescue unredeemed fathers' trousers from the pawnbroker, and to prevent their resumption, on the
part of the irreclaimable parent, by abridging them immediately to suit the proportions of the innocent son." It takes a huge dork to find this amusing. And I am that dork.
New music: XX. Stephan's favorite new album since adopted as my favorite new album.
New artist: Avercamp. I went to the Little Ice Age exhibit at the National Gallery of Art and fell in love. It turns out I love boring Flemish and Dutch paintings best. Then Spanish. Then the rest.

Gaga

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Lady Gaga was inspired by Matthew Barney, but I was still a little excited to realize that the video for 'Bad Romance' seems to be a tribute to Cremaster 3. I love Lady Gaga--the hermaphrodite rumors and her encouragement of them, this explanation of Poker Face, her love of Hitchcock, and her random Yankees references.

Jessica Rabbit

Two unrelated references to Jessica Rabbit today; both oddly thrilling. You have to love Jessica Rabbit!
A review of the Book of Eli
An introduction to Lil Green

Embarrassment of Riches

All of November, in one post:
FDR probably died of cancer. Discovered by brilliant neurologist and journalist.

Gorgeous dollhouse.
The best movies et al of the 00s. I might do this soon.
Jezebel reminded me of this Lisa Simpson quote, which would look nice under my theoretical Lisa Simpson-as-Jolly Roger tattoo: "beneath my goody two shoes lie some very dark socks."
Five comics I'm not reading, but might read soon.
Another fascinating story on autism.
And more weird things about the brain.
Possible inspiration for twitter.

Snapshot: Listening, Watching, Reading, Wearing, Wanting

The nogoodforme blog always does this feature, which is my favorite.

Listening:Fresh Air (from February 2008); Tegan and Sarah.
Watching: Blazing Saddles, Bladerunner, 30 Rock, American Teen, Rachel Getting Married.
Reading: Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations; either Coraline or 13 Clocks; The Bell Jar.
Wearing: new socks, a white button down Stephan gave me for Xmas; jeans his mom gave me a few Xmas-es ago; boots.
Wanting: these shoes, a basil plant.

Samson and Delilah

I got super psyched watching The Sarah Connor Chronicles--not because it was a good episode, because it wasn't--but because they played "Samson and Delilah" for the first few minutes of the episode. My dad used to play that song on the guitar when I was a kid, and it was the only one of many many folk songs in his repertoire that didn't make me cry. And hence, the only one where he was allowed to sing the words. It turns out that Battlestar Master Bear McCreary is responsible for this adaptation, another of my favorite tv-music moments of all time. Between this and "All Along the Watchtower," I might want to marry that man. Thanks Michael on Alan Sepinwall's blog for the tip. Image by Lucas Cranach, 1529.

Good Neighbor Sam

The first movie I saw Jack Lemmon in was Under the Yum Yum Tree, and he was not so endearing. But since then, somewhat randomly, I've seen several Jack Lemmon pics including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and Good Neighbor Sam. He definitely won me over with Some Like It Hot and in particular, the Apartment. But this moment from Good Neighbor Sam is pretty much the best, even though the movie's not my favorite. So here is Jack Lemmon as a Peanuts character courtesy of Youtube. Also, I love the song.

The Best of Youtube

This Flight of the Conchords song, which unfortunately didn't make it onto the cd.


Also, this video by She & Him.

And last, but not least, cell phones popping popcorn.

Unplugged

Stephan and I are watching Nirvana Unplugged, and I suddenly realized that we are now older than Kurt Cobain when he died. Image.