My awesome little sister Katie worked as a production assistant for this film. The screenplay has really good buzz, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing it when it’s released on April 15, 2011.
(Source: youtube.com)
And to think, I used to be impressed by videos of dogs who could just walk on two legs.
(Source: youtube.com)
Well, it’s not really the right word, but freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I’ll spend to find out how to get people more of it.
— “Flashback: Penn Jillette Calls Cops on Groping TSA Agent” (via Jack Shedd)
Gold and the Periodic Table of the Elements →
An interesting Planet Money piece exploring the various reasons why humans have used gold as money instead of other elements.
Humphrey Bogart in publicity still for Dead Reckoning (1947, dir. John Cromwell)
“Bogart did drink. ‘I think the whole world is three drinks behind,’ he used to say, ‘and it’s high time it caught up.’ On one occasion he and a friend bought two enormous stuffed panda bears and took them as their dates to El Morocco. They sat them in chairs at a table for four and when an ambitious young lady came over and touched Bogart’s bear, he shoved her away. ‘I’m a happily married man,’ he said, ‘and don’t touch my panda.’
The woman brought assault charges against him, and when asked if he was drunk at four o’clock in the morning, he replied, ‘Sure, isn’t everybody?’ (The judge ruled that since the panda was Bogart’s personal property, he could defend it.)”
-excerpted from Peter Bogdanovich’s Who the Hell’s In It
In a 1949 LA Times article about Pandagate, Bogart defended his drunken misbehavior on constitutional grounds: “So we get stiff once in a while. So we have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? This is a free country, isn’t it? I can take my panda any place I want to. And if I wanna buy it a drink, that’s my business.”
(TIME magazine’s original 1949 article about the incident can be read here)
I’m not sure which quotation I like more, the “three drinks behind” or the “don’t touch my panda.”
The 'Israelification' of Airports: High Security, Little Bother →
“Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes … and that’s how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys.”
It’s clear that the Israelis have an impressive track record on maintaining airport security without sacrificing efficiency, but I’m still somewhat uncomfortable with a set of security protocols based primarily on looking into passengers’ eyes to see if they look shifty, nervous, or guilty.
Boston Tea Party: Protectionist Sabotage →
The Boston Tea Party was organized to protest trade liberalization, not excessive taxation. Interesting that ignorance is behind the modern movement’s decision to co-opt its legacy.
I’m not too excited about Tangled, mostly because I think the whole princess thing has played itself out by now. I am, however, counting the days until the 2011 release of Winnie the Pooh. Disney will be printing money with this one.
(Source: youtube.com)
Hakuna Matata as Heard Around the World
This clip shows that Disney really doesn’t mess around when it comes to dubbing character voices for foreign markets:
Andy Warhol on America and Coca-Cola
I came across an interesting passage today, from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol by Andy Warhol:
What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
I don’t necessarily agree that this is an American “tradition” per se, but I do think it’s fascinating that there are certain established brands that don’t need to concern themselves with selling elitism and exclusivity.
