Hyperbole and A Half‘s Allie Brosh has a book to sell!
And so she will be doing interviews, smart ones, like this one in Salon explaining why “Good comedy has a lot in common with good horror“.
Meanwhile, from her blog, Menace: The dinosaur costume was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me…
Randy P
I saw that one a couple of days after she posted it, when I checked on impulse. She still only updates rarely. There are obviously a lot of people monitoring Hyperbole and a Half, because every time she does one of her rare posts she gets 500+ comments within hours.
I worry about that young lady, since her last couple posts when she popped up in May before disappearing again were about crushing depression.
OzarkHillbilly
Couldn’t help laughing at this:
I was infuriated at the injustice of it all. I had become quite dependent on the costume, and it felt like part of my humanity was being forcibly and maliciously stripped away. I cursed my piddling human powers and their uselessness in the situation. If only I could put on the costume . . . just one more time.
Good stuff.
Scott S.
My copy just arrived in the mail yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to crack it open yet, ’cause (a) SO MANY BOOKS and (b) have to read scary stories ’til tomorrow.
Amir Khalid
I might be more of a fan, if some of Allie Brosh’s stories didn’t ring so painfully true.
NotMax
Happy Halloween (Zacherle)
Also too: Screaming Lord Sutch
Last, a version of Night On Bald Mountain that’s just a bit different.
geg6
@Amir Khalid:
Just so you know, not a single person who answered your question about why it’s called the World Series was correct. It’s called that because back in 190-something, it was sponsored by a newspaper, The World (either Boston or New York, can’t remember which), so they called it the World Series and the name stuck. Look it up.
And to think it took a not-much-of-a-baseball fan from Pittsburgh to get that right. Jeez, you people are usually better than this!
SiubhanDuinne
@Scott S.:
Mine too! I’m waiting until the weekend to crack it, because I know going in I’ll be lost for hours once I start.
Physically, I love the look of it. Every chapter/story/post in printed on a different colour paper, so the page edges are a kind of random rainbow. And the paper is good thick quality stuff, so the book is surprisingly hefty.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
The last one is “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (Grieg), not “Night on Bald Mountain” (Mussorgsky), but yes, it is a bit different! Thanks!
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
@geg6:
I’m sorry I missed seeing Amir’s question and all the wrong answers. I’ve long believed that the World Series was named for the New York World newspaper, but according to Wikipedia (yeah, I know), maybe not so much:
PurpleGirl
@NotMax: Did you watch Zacherle’s TV show? My mother couldn’t understand how I could enjoy it. But hey, I was a kid…. (He was only one of the influences that warped me.)
ETA: Added bonus to the song was the YouTube screen with the picture of Paul Ryan next to Eddie from the Munsters.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, The World did actually sponsor the series back then. So I’m not sure that’s how it got the name, but it wasn’t called that before The World sponsored it. And that’s what all the baseball histories say. Not sure who’s disputing but it makes the most sense.
Randy P
I’ve always wondered why there isn’t an actual World Series as in World championship in baseball. Why not more international competition other than the occasional exhibition game? Are we afraid of getting crushed in our own game, like the English with cricket?
Actually, the Little League does have a world championship, doesn’t it?
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
Oh, yes, I agree with you. And that would be my answer to Randy P‘s question.
raven
@Randy P: Yes, there is also the World Baseball Classic. The Little League World Series, IMHO, sucks. It forces all the “leagues” to end their play early in the summer so they can have the endless elimination tournament that leads to the series itself. That means millions of kids play night games on school nights and the season is over when they should be playing ball.
SiubhanDuinne
For anyone who wants to be scared silly by classical music on this Hallowe’en 2013, this may be the spookiest bit of pianistic virtuosity ever.
Elizabelle
Boo! Good morning.
Watching “The Curse of Frankenstein”, a Hammer Studios movie, on TCM.
Beats “The Curse of Manufactured Consensus” on Morning Ghoul any day.
SiubhanDuinne
Moderation? For what? Only one link, no forbidden spam-bait words. What’d I do?
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
D’oh! Of course it is. Brain knew that, but somehow didn’t pass it along to the fingers. Bad brain, bad!
Thanks for the correction.
@PurpleGirl
Yes, was an avid watcher (“Good night, whatever you are!”). He’s still among the living, too. Met him once during the 70s, at the after-party for a movie premiere. Still don’t know what the drink was he ordered, just that it was an odd dark gray colored concoction.
PsiFighter37
I suppose the only thing that makes me feel better about the Sux winning the WS is that my team (yes, it’s the Yankees) were offensively bad (both literally and from a sensibility standpoint) that we had no realistic shot of winning.
I just really dislike how Ortiz’s steroid test got totally whitewashed over. Double standard much, Bud?
BGK
A very twenty-first century thing:
I became estranged from my step-siblings (two brothers, one sister, all considerably older), which is to say they stopped talking to me, after my father died in 2006. I now have confirmed that this was mostly from resentments that started before I was born.
Fueled by a little gin and bored curiosity, this past Sunday night I poked around Facebook with my sockpuppet account. In short, I learned the younger of my two brothers died a year ago July. No one from that part of the family told my mother or me. (I learned later that the “rest” of the extended family also didn’t know) I found the contact information for one of his children, and talked for a while to a niece whom I’d never met. I told her up front I didn’t want to drag her into anything that was between my siblings and me, but she was certainly outgoing and told me about how my brother died.
I called my surviving brother last night, as I’m pretty sure my sister’s gone around the bend in at least several ways. I was reminded about every 15 seconds during this 45 minute call why I wasn’t that eager to reach out to him in the last seven years. We ended the call on decidedly ambiguous terms: apparently I wait on while he decides how he feels. I expected nothing more from the call than to learn why no one told me (the answer: “we just didn’t think about you.”), so I got what I needed.
Family, as ever, is a very difficult thing.
ObBaloonJuice: surviving brother is an investment banker. He’s also one of those unvarnished pricks who thinks it’s somehow charming and all-in-good fun because he’s so up front about being an unvarnished prick. I also think any of my cats has more empathy. Do pricks tend to go into investment banking, or do investment bankers become pricks environmentally?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@geg6:
The footnote on that Wikipedia article leads to Snopes, which in turn quotes then-Hall of Fame researcher Eric Enders.
Matt McIrvin
@Randy P: Unfortunately, I think worrying about Allie Brosh is an inherent part of being a fan of Allie Brosh.
Elizabelle
@BGK:
I’m sorry for the pain your family has brought you. You don’t deserve that.
As to investment banking and prickdom: can’t say it’s causation, but there’s some correlation there.
raven
@Matt McIrvin: I wonder what Ken Burns said in his “Baseball”?
geg6
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Well, there’s a lesson for me there not to believe everything I’ve read in multiple sources, I guess.
Botsplainer
More on Pure Progressive Hero Anthony Weiner:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/weiner-blames-reporter-for-not-grlling-him-on-sexting
Dolly Llama
I was on a plane going to and from a conference last week, and there’s a (bad, teaspoon-shallow) feature on Allie Brosh in Sky-something, whatever the hell Delta’s on-plane glossy magazine is called. She’s acknowledged her at-times-paralyzing issues, but damn if her publisher hasn’t given her a hell of a publicist.
Elizabelle
@BGK:
Daniel Goleman: Rich People Just Care Less
Opinionator column from NYTimes, October 5, 2013
NonyNony
@BGK:
Sorry to hear about the family issues – families are rough. I barely speak to my brothers these days and we don’t have anything nearly as heavy in our background.
Natural selection. Lots of folks go into banking, but the best will be heartless bastards who are willing to stab people in the back to turn an extra nickel in profit, so they’ll stay in while those who don’t enjoy it will get depressed and hopefully eventually leave to find a more fulfilling job.
Same with corporate hired-gun CEOs (the kind that operate large publicly traded companies that someone else has already built – the folks who operate privately held companies and the ones building new companies have different selection pressure on them) – you need to be a certain kind of ruthless mercenary bastard to take those kinds of jobs and be good at them. So the folks in those positions are typically are ruthless mercenary bastards that, in a previous era, would have roamed the high seas plundering other people’s ships. Perhaps with a letter of marque, perhaps not.
As with so much in the world it’s all about the incentives. Perverse incentives lead to perverse outcomes, and there’s nothing more perverse these days than the reward structure for large corporations and financial institutions.
Linda Featheringill
@BGK:
My sympathy to a child resented before birth.
I also was resented in my family. I blame my parents for that. One of my family tried to smother me to death with a pillow when I was a toddler [but obviously didn’t do a good enough job]. I don’t know which one but I remember discerning that he was male.
Anyway, one of the advantages of being the youngest is that if you live long enough, the rest of the assholes will die off.
ETA: Remember, living well is still the best revenge.
Manyakitty
I got my copy yesterday and it took all my self-control not to shut out the world and read it. I did, however, bring it to work with me. Muahaha! Allie has some publicity/signings scheduled, but it’s mostly west-coast stuff. If she gets anywhere near NEOhio, I’mma get my copy signed.
But first, I must do all the things–how do you make the face for “yay?”
Valdivia
Leading the morning over at Wonkblog (Klein’s joint) we have the Obamacare has problems you haven’t even heard about.
I can’t take this anymore.
Elizabelle
@Valdivia:
Hello there.
Maybe email Ezra to let him know he’s training you not to read his column?
I am sick of the political Kabuki around Obamacare. So grateful the President and great majority of Democrats have the political will to make it work, in the long run.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
My stupid $4900 medical bill was whittled to $200 after wending it’s way through my wife’s insurance.
I was thinking of dropping my employer’s insurance, but my wife is telling me that her insurer (health partners) is offering a 2% reduction in premiums if they can drop the Mayo Clinic from their provider list. Mind you my wife doesn’t pay premiums, so her employer is trying to remove her health care provider of thirty years in order for them to save 2%. Greedy fucks.
Luckily my wife has appealed to her bargaining team, and they are going to the mat for her.
Hopefully it will all get sorted before my open enrollment ends in two weeks.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle:
Hi there. Good idea–I am going to do that. It seems his goal now isn’t to see if it can work better but to get the most sensationalist spin on it. Like yesterday saying Sibelius lied about not being eligible for the exchange when in reality she is in Medicare therefore unable to register for Obamacare. Ugh.
John S.
Looks like GOP Peggy Lee woke up and decided it was a good day to take more hostages (Yellen’s nomination and every nomination to the DC circuit court).
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@geg6: If one person got it wrong, and everyone else cited him, ….
Baud
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
That’s how wingnut media works.
OzarkHillbilly
Never thought the day would come, but I think I like this Pope.
Luke 18:16: “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
Manyakitty
@OzarkHillbilly: Me too! The more I learn about him, the better he gets. How did such a one get elected by the establishment of Holy Mother the Church?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@OzarkHillbilly:
Agreed. He’s done some pretty shitty things in the past, but has really redeemed himself now that he’s in a position of real power.
BULLY PULPIT!
PeakVT
@Manyakitty: New Pope™ is starting to look like the the David Souter of the Vatican.
BGK
I should point out that I feel tremendously unburdened this morning. My brother’s become a thoroughly warped personality, at least compared to actual humans whose company I get to enjoy regularly. He came lately to objectivism and enthusiastic Fox News viewing, and has pretty much left any pretensions of not being a one-percenter behind. I have more in common with a random South American aboriginal. The resentments he’s collected were pretty much set in granite before my mother or I came into the picture, and we’re just collateral damage. There’s really no malice in it, we just simply don’t matter, as with everything else my brother either doesn’t hold personally valuable, or is not worth his however-he-calculates-valuable time. He’s old enough that he’s not going to change. I don’t expect I could do anything to become “worthwhile,” so I don’t have to go through the gut-wrenching process of trying. I’ll be cordial if the occasion calls for it, but I expect my next and possibly last contact with him will be when my mother dies.
handsmile
@Elizabelle:
I was late to that particular thread but I do hope you ignored the meh-sayers and went to that screening yesterday of The Shining. It’s one of the greatest horror films ever made and the complaint that it didn’t adhere to King’s novel is rather missing the point. Too be “bored” by it, as one of BJ’s movie mavens claimed, beggars belief.
Like so many of Kubrick’s films, its thematic complexities and technical innovations have been recognized and more fully appreciated over time. In a recent Guardian column of the “Top 10 Horror Films” (its selections and ranking would not have been my own), The Shining was ranked #5 with this fine summary:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/oct/14/top-10-horror-movies
The film has such legion of fans and its content/themes considered so enigmatic that a recent documentary film, Room 237, was produced to explore it. Disclosure: Bill Blakemore, who proposes that The Shining is, in part, a critique of Native American genocide, is an acquaintance of mine. (and I think he’s a little wacky on this)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_237
Happy All-Hallows Eve! If Werner Herzog’s film, Nosferatu, is playing anywhere in town, DO NOT miss it!!
I expect you’ll don a wicked costume for tonight’s festivities. And enjoy the sugar rush!
BGK
@OzarkHillbilly:
Is it too much to hope for that he, on his first U.S. visit, dispenses it’s-for-your-own-good paddling, or at least noogies, to “practicing Catholics” Boehner and Ryan?
MomSense
@handsmile:
I can’t imagine anyone being bored by The Shining. Still the scariest movie I have ever seen. That I grew up in a Maine resort town with several inns that looked exactly like the one in the movie (also rumors of haunting and strange winter care takers) just added to the fear factor. All these years later, I still can’t watch it again.
ericblair
@handsmile:
I saw that documentary. It was pretty interesting, mostly from a meta point of view, by figuring out how much was really planned by Kubrick and how much of it is people seeing patterns where they want to see patterns. Some of the fans were a bit much: one starts making a case about the Apollo rocket on the boy’s shirt (ok, interesting), and then segues into “…and that’s how Kubrick is showing that he helped fake the Apollo moon landing footage!” (uh, oooooookay).
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Baud: Ayup.
aimai
@BGK: So very sorry. If you are female, you might want to take your experiences over to the DWIL–google “dealing with in laws and family of origin.” I learned a lot about this kind of sibling estrangement from reading people’s accounts of identical situations over there. Its a bit like rubbernecking at a train wreck but it might be comforting, too, to know how common this is.
raven
In some really great new we got word from the city that the sewer project on which or addition depends will take another YEAR to do. Back yard destroyed, deck torn down trees cut down and ZIPOLA!
shelly
What was your best/favorite Halloween costume when you were a kid?
As a young teenager I went all out on my last year trick or treating and made a pretty cool Headless Horseman costume.
shelly
Yes! I wonder if they’re available anywhere?
JPL
@raven: Since you are far to polite, I’ll add, that really sucks.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
This is an old BS story. If you try looking it up in the most reliable sources (e.g. SABR) they’ll tell you it’s nonsense. The name “World Series” actually goes back to the 1880s. The winners from the NL and the (old, Major League) AA met for post-season championship series that was first billed as the championship of the US and then hyped into the world championship or “World’s Series”. The 19th Century version of the World Series was less successful than the current version because there was no set format and the games were not always played as seriously as they should have been. Only the 1886 Series between the Chicago White Stockings (now Cubs) and St. Louis Browns (now Cardinals) was a genuine success.
After the demise of the AA, the title fell out of use, with the championship first being just the pennant and then the Temple Cup and Chronicle Telegraph Cup, which were played between the first and second place finishers in the NL. The format of letting the second place team challenge the pennant winners and the habit of teams to agree to split their shares evenly no matter who won watered down the competition and made people pine for the 1880s version. When a new series between the NL and AL was agreed to, they decided to name it after the more successful 1880s championships and called it the “World Series”.
See also Snopes.
handsmile
@MomSense:
“Danny not’s here, Mrs. Torrance.”
Kubrick’s one of my favorites, so I’ve seen The Shining many times. I think it seeps in and gets creepier.
As for “fear and haunting,” I trust you know of the Portland bookshop and blog, “Strange Maine”: http://strangemaine.blogspot.com/
Happy tricks or treats (as you prefer)!
@ericblair:
I’m glad you saw Room 237. Your reaction, “people seeing patterns where they want to see patterns” was largely my own, but there was a larger pathos to it that made me reflect upon my own obsessive interests.
Manyakitty
@BGK: That would be the BEST EVER, especially if Paul Ryan gets put in his place.
raven
@JPL: I have to say I’m a bit in shock right now. The princess has been having such physical problems and this was really something to look forward to. I have more than two weeks off in December so I can rebuild the fence and steps and see where it goes from there.
Randy P
@shelly: I can clearly remember my worst. I wanted to be a headless guy and stuck a piece of cardboard inside a shirt across the shoulders and neck, the idea being it would sit on top of my head.
Unfortunately I misjudged the strain on said cardboard, it immediately collapsed and lost shape, and the effect was -ghost-with-sheet-over-head instead, about the most boring costume you could imagine. By the 3rd house I was ready to die of mortification from being called a “ghost”.
I think that was the last time I tried a costume. Seeing the amazing things people did in college confirmed my suspicions that I am really bad at both costume ideas AND execution.
Betty Cracker
@shelly:
I may steal that topic for an open thread later today. My mom used to make our costumes. One time, she made me a grandfather clock costume out of a long cardboard box. It was very difficult to walk because the box came down all the way to my shins, so I didn’t like that one much.
Another time she made a rat costume for me and a cockroach costume for my little sister so we could ride on the Florida Pest Control float in the town parade. I think that was my favorite, but mostly because my sister had to be a roach and she didn’t want to be. We got to throw candy to the parade watchers, and even though I was six, it occurred to me that I wouldn’t want candy dispensed by a roach.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker:
While candy dispensed by a rat is completely plague-free.*
*I know. You were six.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
You have to know the quality of your sources. I’m fairly serious about baseball history and a former member of both the 19th Century and Deadball Era Committees (really interest groups) of SABR. I’ve seen the New York World version of the World Series name crop up, but only from third and fourth hand sources. I’ve never seen it mentioned in anything from a serious, reputable baseball historian, but I’ve seen more than one or two from serious people trying to refute the story.
OzarkHillbilly
@BGK: If he did he would be accused of meddling in American politics… By the very same people who stand up and cheer every time the bishops get on one of their “pro-life before birth” rants.
Roger Moore
@Manyakitty:
My suspicion is that he was chosen as a direct rejection of Benedict XVI’s insider approach. The Cardinals wanted somebody who was going to focus on the pastoral mission of the church rather than the Vatican hierarchy. I think they got what they wanted, even if he’s going a bit further than expected.
Elizabelle
@handsmile: Thank you for asking.
Yes, I did see “The Shining” the first time yesterday, and it was superb. Big screen, five people scattered throughout a big theatre. (2 pm showing)
Going in, knew only that the Nicholson character went beserk. Had seen stills of him with axe, Shelly Duvall cowering with knife in bathroom, the two eerie girls, and “Redrum.”
Film was excellent. Loved the soundtrack, the menacing electronic music. Loved the hotel itself (Timberline Hotel in Oregon, per credits), which reminded me of the Ahwahnee in Yosemite and a few other gorgeous properties.
Jack Nicholson was excellent, as was the kid. I found Shelly Duvall’s character to be a vacuum; she protected her son but was way slow on the uptake throughout. (And FWIW, as a property owner/insurer, I would not have allowed a character who smoked to be winter caretaker to my wooden hotel, miles away from any help and inaccessible in heavy snow. It was the 70s, I guess.)
I wondered if subtheme was Nicholson/Torrance being consumed by his unrealized potential — he could not write, even with solitude. He needed more meaning and status in his life than teaching. He and his wife seemed more roommates sharing parenting duties than a couple. He was too dominant.
Also wondered how any of us would fare in such enforced solitude.
(Although would love to try, for a few weeks! Particularly in those surroundings.)
Found myself smiling as the suspense built. It was easy to remember that this one was only a movie, and a good one at that.
Thanks for telling me about the Room 237 documentary. This makes me want to read the Stephen King novel too.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: You lucky bstrd! What I wouldn’t give to have my back yard destroyed, deck torn down, trees cut down, just so I could wait another year!
(think Monty Python)
Ash Can
@Betty Cracker: OMG hilarious — and too cute!
@Randy P: My son found a headless-guy costume recipe in a Klutz book of fun and interesting things for kids to do. You’re absolutely right about the strength of the cardboard; the instructions were very specific about what kind of cardboard to use and how to configure it. We followed the instructions, I got him a bunch of old, extremely cheap men’s clothes at tag sales, and the costume was a howling success. :)
handsmile
@Betty Cracker:
Costumes aside, I’m trying to wrap my head around a “Pest Control Float.” That’s one innovative Chamber of Commerce! With NYC’s current bedbug “epidemic,” maybe I should propose this as a new entry for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Also too, I can’t help but wonder what some Floridians (and some NYers too to be sure) might regard as “Pest Control” today. (with Gramps McCain as parade head marshall)
Mike E
@handsmile: Don’t forget Shadow of the Vampire!
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I hear ya. I did leave out that we were 4 years from paying off our mortgage and refinanced the house!
Roger Moore
@shelly:
My personal favorite was going as a sack of flour. It was a school costume that tied into a bit of local history trivia I had learned in my local history class a few years before, and my old teacher was floored I had remembered it well enough to turn it into a Halloween costume years later. I also had a very nice Catholic bishop costume that was ever so much more elaborate than anything my classmates had.
Mike E
@Roger Moore: Baseball, like US history, is not so much “written by the victors” as it’s a residual of passing through the golden goose of crass commercialism. If that makes any sense!
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore:
What you said re Francis.
I was sick to learn Joseph Ratzinger had been elected Pope. I don’t hold JP II in such high regard, since he was obviously an enabler of archconservatism, and totally bunted on the child sexual abuse scandals. (It amuses me that JP2 and John 23rd are on the “fast track” to sainthood — I think they had to speed John 23rd along to avoid dissension.)
Jorge Maria Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) was apparently always 2nd in votes at the 2005 convocation, but behind by a wide margin.
I’d suggest ejecting ALL of the cardinals who voted for Ratzinger, those whom time and mortality has not already taken.
The greatest thing Ratzinger aka Benedict ever did was to resign.
different-church-lady
I’m glad to see you taking over the blog, now that Cole has abandoned it.
different-church-lady
This didn’t happen — please tell me this didn’t happen:
Ted Cruz’s Dad: I’d Like To See Obama Go ‘Back To Kenya’
Irony is not just dead, she is cremated and her ashes have been blasted into space.
drkrick
Favorite costume: I was 10 and obsessed with politics in 1968. We pinned some fabric around an umbrella and I went as a voting booth. I’m not sure anyone else was impressed, but I liked it.
The worst was the year before when the costume involved a rubber over-the-head grotesque mask and my mom got the brilliant idea to spray the inside with Lysol right before I put it on. Thought I was gonna die. From the look on his face, my Dad might have thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever seen her do. In my case, putting it on was not even close.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
Oh Jeebus, Maria, and Jose. That really sucks. We just paid ours off.
different-church-lady
@Randy P:
Actually, there is — in fact, “are” — but hardly anyone gives a poop.
Belafon
@different-church-lady: Considering Cruz’s dad is a Dominionist preacher, I wouldn’t listen to anything he says.
drkrick
The Pope can leave Boehner alone. He should concentrate on making it possible to tell the US Bishops apart from a local Republican Party platform committee.
NotMax
Am so old that remember back to when it was still common be ushered inside and have to do something other than knock or ring to get a treat. Sing a song, do a dance, recite something, etc.
Elizabelle
On shooting locations for “The Shining”:
The opening shots — beautiful road through mountains — are from Kalispell, Montana.
http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/s/Shining.html#.UnJpiSh97lI
handsmile
@Elizabelle:
So pleased to read that you saw and appreciated The Shining. Yes, the soundtrack (as so often the case in Kubrick films) is a key element.
Enjoyed reading your “review,” and I must say that as many times as I’ve seen the movie, the insurance angle (remote wooden hotel, smoker) had never occurred to me. :) “Mr. Keys” (Edward G. Robinson) of Double Indemnity would be impressed.
Doris Grumbach’s memoir, Fifty Days of Solitude, affectingly explores her experience as a writer with a period of extended solitude, and I’d enthusiastically recommend it to you.
http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Days-Solitude-Doris-Grumbach/dp/0807070610
different-church-lady
BATLIGHT!
Cassidy
@drkrick: I cut a skull symbol out of a white pillowcase, pinned it to my blue sweatshirt and wore said blue sweat suit as the Punisher. That’s not even my worst one. The year before I wore the vinyl Rambo costume, with mask, of the cartoon Rambo.
elmo
In today’s proof of the unremitting vastness of the Internet, I will reveal that I had never heard of Allie or of Hyperbole and a Half, and now I am going to steal my employer’s time ALL DAY to go through her archives. I ordered the book this morning as soon as I saw the link. ZOMG teh funneeeeeee….
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
I don’t hate Ratzinger quite that badly, if only because his actions as Cardinal are mostly the fault of his carrying out John Paul II’s orders. I didn’t like him much as pope, but more because he seems to have treated his term there as an extension of his time as head of the
InquisitionCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Francis doesn’t seem set to change any of the doctrine, but he at least wants to promote ministry to the faithful above doctrinal enforcement.Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
Sadly, no. Irony is dead, and the Republicans are desecrating her corpse.
handsmile
@Mike E:
Each one of that film’s leads – Malkovich, Dafoe, Kier – could be and have been utterly menacing. Together with Klaus Kinski, they could convincingly portray the Four Men of the Apocalypse.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_19.73.209.jpg&imgrefu
For me at least, Shadow…was more a cleverly-conceived comedy than a horror/suspense film. though Dafoe’s role was hilarious and his performance among his best.
handsmile
@NotMax:
And to do all of that by candlelight must have been really arduous! Hope the gruel you earned for it wasn’t too thin. :)
Rorgg
Got out pre-ordered copy in the mail yesterday. Mrs. Rorgg finished it during the game, I read it after. About 50-50 new stuff and old favourites. Most of the new tends to be more introsective, serious things, but it’s all, as always, brilliant. Never stop loving The Party.
Parp? MOUM?
Randy P
@elmo: Balloon Juice recommendations have vastly improved my coolness rating with my kids. “Wow, Dad, you read xkcd?” “Wow, you read Hyperbole and a Half?”
You are about to lose all track of time when you start going through the archives. Try to remember to eat and sleep every 24 hours.
fuckwit
Publish all the books! I saw all of Brosh’s stuff years ago, and enjoyed and read it all, and was concerned and puzzled when she disappeared. Was very happy last month when she came back online again, and now happily surprised to hear that her book is done! She’s brilliant and hilarious. I’m very happy for her.
Morbo
So hey, the IAF and Syrian Air Force apparently traded a few missiles and airspace violations in and around the Golan Heights yesterday. And Israel took out an AA missile site in Northern Syria. Fun times.
MomSense
@elmo:
OH MY!! You are going to read ALL THE THINGS today! I love them all but especially her slightly retarded dog.
Liberty60
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m an ex-Catholic turned Episcopal, but I too am liking this new pope.
Interestingly enough, I am working my way thru a book of Catholic Social teaching, and damned if the Church’s history isn’t chock full of socialists.
No, not totebaggers, not middling liberals, but most of the influential bishops and theologians since the 1890s were honest to God socialists.
One tidbit, in case anyone wants to torment their tea party Catholic uncle at Thanksgiving- Pope Paul VI admired Saul Alinsky so much he invited him to the Vatican in the late 1960’s to discuss community organizing.
Elizabelle
@handsmile:
Grumbach’s book does sound good. Thank you.
Lex
Our copy of the book arrived Tuesday. My wife, who was only recently diagnosed with ADD at age 51, is taking her meds and devouring it. I heart Ally so hard. Her posts about depression got it just right. I have no idea what kind of person she is, but as an artist and memoirist, I hope she gets big bank off this. Her blog is either the best fictional humor since Twain or else the bravest memoir since Betty Ford’s.
Manyakitty
@Roger Moore: Fair enough. That’s the first actual answer I’ve heard, despite the many times I’ve asked the question.
Comrade Mary
Hey, remember Rob Ford?
Elizabelle
@handsmile:
Incidentally, just saw “The Matrix” on big screen (same theatre — the Rave 14 in Fairfax Corner) two weeks before.
Liked it, although some of technology looked old and who cares what “the matrix” is? (I hear the second and third movies are not as good. Oh well.)
Liked the costumes and characters’ swaggering in them. Laurence Fishburne is always worth watching.
aimai
@Lex: I read that post right around the time that a dear friend took his own life after having struggled with depression (without my knowing it) for years and years. What incredible insight she offers! It meant a ton to me. I’m ordering her book just to support her.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Curse of Frankenstein is interesting because, if you pay attention, you realize that every single person who he says actually saw the monster dies before Frankenstein starts telling his story, so you could easily interpret it as Frankenstein being an insane killer who did it all himself and then blamed it on an imaginary “monster.”
That’s how you do a reboot. ;-)
@handsmile:
I’m the one who was bored by The Shining, but I think we already know that you and I have pretty different taste in movies. ;-) For comparison, the movie that scares the hell out of me every. single. time. is the 1963 version of The Haunting, with Julie Harris, especially when she starts waltzing by herself (or is she?) in the conservatory.
Also, three, my best Halloween costume was when my (now late) mom re-dyed a store-bought costume and made me a Batgirl costume since I was absolutely obsessed with the reruns of the series. I even had the red wig like Yvonne Craig.
schrodinger's cat
Halloween open thread, needs a Halloween Kitteh!
karen marie
@Amir Khalid: like this one? I’m freaking a newish friend out because I can’t leave the house right now except to walk the dog. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
karen marie
@Amir Khalid: like this one? I’m freaking a newish friend out because I can’t leave the house right now except to walk the dog. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
A Humble Lurker
@Linda Featheringill:
O.O
Son of a bitch. I don’t know how you turned into the person you seem to be with some of the stuff you mention sometimes.
Carl W
I didn’t know until I started reading Allie Brosh interviews that she has a YouTube channel. This is hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW-5-1WK9dc
(And thanks for the link to her book, which I didn’t know about. I’m going to the Seattle book signing event.)
Waldo
@Carl W: Also … I just noticed her book is in the Amazon top 10 at no. 9, not far behind Rush and Billo.