flickering pictures

After an impromptu beatboxing lesson from a pro, Paul MacInnes, the Guardian’s slightly disheveled entertainment editor, takes the stage and delivers a valiant if somewhat silly-looking live performance. I gotta say: it’s good to see a reporter who doesn’t take himself too seriously.
“They’ve got a special bit for me in the second half,” he […]

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I spent a bit of time in South Korea last year, and if you could sum the place up in one word — which you can’t — it would be “busy.” South Koreans work an average of 2,390 hours a year, compared to 1,777 in the U.S.A., 1,717 in Canada and 1,652 in the […]

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Probably not. But tell that to this guy.
Jay Weidner at Reality Sandwich compares the cinematic style of Stanley Kubrick’s work to the famous moon landing footage, and says he’s convinced beyond any doubt that Kubrick was enlisted to show up the Russians, NASA stole flying saucer technology from the Nazis, and JFK was assassinated […]

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The clip above is from Mr. T’s motivational teen video, awesomely entitled “Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool,” and it’s about as painfully 1984 as it’s possible to be. This segment has Mr. T telling teens to express themselves, “table the label,” write their names on some duct tape, and stick it on their […]

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So you’re an advertising exec at Burger King. In these tough economic times, you reason, Burger King needs a children’s commercial that will grab attention and boost sales. Kids, you know, like Spongebob Squarepants. They also like rap. And lord knows, they totally dig a nice big bedonkadonk. There’s really […]

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It’s a sign of time times — the economy’s in the toilet, America lost 694,000 jobs in March, and a three-bedroom bungalow in Detroit will set you back a cool $500. The natural response to all this? A reality show, of course.
And no, Donald Trump isn’t in it.
Proving yet again that America will […]

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Writing for an awesome-sounding newspaper called the Tulane Hullabaloo, Jeff Silberman has put together a fine op-ed piece on the silliness of a media culture that bombards us with violent music, TV shows and video games but gets squeamish when somebody says the word “nipple.”
Here’s an excerpt:

On television, for every 10,000 murders, we see one […]

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Mao would be pissed.
Along with a bar and hair salon, the store offers 38,000 square feet of blonde-haired, big-boobed dolls. Despite its location, only 10 per cent of the store’s dolls will look Asian, apparently because of Mattel research that indicates Chinese girls and young women want American-looking Barbies.
The GlobalPost reports:

The plan is to […]

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This year marks the 40th anniversary of the six-second drum loop that forever changed the face of modern music. Plucked from the middle of “Amen Brother,” a 1969 B-side version of the Winstons’ Grammy-winning “Color Him Father,” those six seconds shaped drum and bass, hip hop, jungle, and a huge chunk of the music […]

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Much to the consternation of the poor woman who tried to teach me a British literature course in college, I never could get into Jane Austen. Still, I like to think I’ve done some growing since those years, and I think I’ve finally found an Austen novel that I can really sink my teeth […]

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