Reviewing Mike Judge's Idiocracy. By Reihan Salam - Slate Magazine

Of course it's not going to be popular. The truth rarely is, even in farce.

Whatever: How to Make a Schadenfreude Pie

Whatever: How to Make a Schadenfreude Pie

Gotta love it. Gotta love it.

Even the rain bows down, let us pray

Tori performing "Cruel" live on Jools Holland.


I ran into this surfing. I first heard Tori listening to WVUM on the way to waste time somewhere. I don't remember much about it, just that it was on Bird Rd. and the song was "God" and I fell in love with the feedback guitars and the sweet and ethereal bitch-voice. I loved Tori from then on, and she remains probably the only musical act I've seen more than once (others being Tool and Smashing Pumpkins). Tori's the reason I'm good friends with LauraChikon; I posted on usenet's rec.music.tori-amos asking for a bootleg of the first show I'd seen (from '96's "Boys for Pele" tour) and she answered. We've been friends over ten years now. That show was the first time I met Cecie, one of the three times that music so touched me that I felt completely numb and the first time I saw girls kissing in public. I can still remember the girl a few rows in front of me, shaking and screaming "can you believe it? sick! sick!" during "Precious Things". And the guy dressed as a priest. Who showed up at the next show. I started losing interest in Tori's music after she got a half-assed band and started wandering. Maybe I got too serious for the music. Whatever. "From the Choirgirl Hotel" is possibly the last album I enjoyed, and I barely like half of it ... "Spark", "She's Your Cocaine", some of the b-sides ("Purple People") and this song, "Cruel". At the time I remember not getting it; I just didn't feel it, I guess. So I ran into this link for "Cruel" and I didn't even know what album that song was on but I listened to it and goddamn but I felt it. I can be cruel. A well-intentioned friend trying to fix a broken glass called me, cajoling me into trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube. quote-unquote: "I think you're being stupidly hard-headed about this". And I'm not just being spiteful, although that's there too. I don't feel it anymore. I don't want it anymore. The poison worked it's way in. The cynic inside wants me to say that Sterling just wants a peace accord so that things will be better, back to where they were. But I'm not being spiteful for the sake of it and I'm not going to be a chump either, and I have so far resisted temptation to be cruel even though I want to very, very badly. I'm done with having my friendship wasted and returned with feigned concern. I was lied to, lied about and hurt...and in the bullshit insincere apology, lied to again. I mean c'mon: Too bad, so sad. No rancor...I mean, would you blame a dog for biting you? That's just what a dumb animal does. You try to heal yourself, and maybe heel it (ha ha, only serious), but all crows under heaven are black, after all.

So don’t give me respect / don’t give me a piece of your preciousness
Flaunt all she’s got in our old neighbourhood / I’m sure she’ll make a few friends
Even the rain bows down let us pray / as you cock-cock-cock your mane
No cigarettes only peeled havanas for you

I can be cruel / I don’t know why
Why can’t my balloon stay up in a perfectly windy sky
I can be cruel / I don’t know why

Dance with the sufis celebrate your top ten in the charts of pain
Lover brother bogenvilla my vine twists around your need
Even the rain is sharp like today as you sh-sh-shock me sane
No cigarettes only peeled havanas for you

off your cross, son

So. I was recently very hurt, and got the opportunity to speak to the person-impersonator who did the hurt. She said, seemingly apropos of nothing, "I found my soul".

What. The. Fuck?

i have no mouth and i must scream

So, one of the most famous paintings in the world, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" has finally been recovered.

I don't want to like that painting, but you know, there's something comforting about knowing that even a long time ago, someone somewhere was feeling like that. There's a bit of solace in being able to say "yes, this is Not Fun, but it's completely normal."