New Zealand is a very strange country. This will be all over NZ by the time this blog goes live, so I’m including it for international friends – it’s a charity song linking to the Rugby World Cup, featuring All Blacks on unicorns and dressed as wizards and running away from giant ants, and there’s Flight of the Conchords and Lorde and Kimbra and Peter Jackson and all the other usual suspects plus loads of cool NZ creative sorts without big international profiles and just watch it and love it. And then donate!
I love this story about a cute teenage couple in an online relationship in the 90s. So much of this resonates – online was different in the 90s, kids. *makes modem sound*
Are you a famous comedian worried about political correctness? This essay says it’s time to take a lesson from the Beastie Boys.
Deeply weird & fascinating photo essay of the City of London financial district (via George Monbiot)
A Grauniad film reviewer’s two-star review made it on to the film’s poster in a very sly way. Here’s what he has to say about it… (via David Ritchie)
Grab the audio from a legendary 1992 Sonic Youth concert
Why do we suddenly care about Syrian refugees? That photo of course, but what else is going on? An enlightening assessment.
Before you sit a test in a stereotypically male domain, imagine you’re a stereotypical male. (This MIT student blogger is marvellous – thanks Jamie for sending it my way.)
Download the audiobooks of your favourite movie novelizations.
Nabokov gave clear instructions on what should be on the cover of Lolita. YOU’LL NEVAR GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.
Cool fan art: Disney Princesses, Star Wars style
Vox has an interesting explainer on what the heck is going on in the Republican party right now, including what “cuckservative” means. Spoiler: it makes no sense, they are well out of the zone of reason.
This Atlantic piece says J.K. Rowling’s habit of continuing her fiction in random twitter updates is basically the same as George Lucas writing over his Star Wars films. I link to it as this week’s example of being completely wrong.
Speaking of being completely wrong, an article by Jonathan Chait! But this time I hope he is right: the planet is starting to get on top of the climate change challenge. (If he had just managed to avoid scolding the “despairing left” at the end I might have made it through the whole piece without rolling my eyes. Chaits gotta Chait I guess.)
Fascinating tale of an American who was thrown out of teaching for being anti-government, and ended up coaching the Ugandan basketball team as a spy for the CIA. (If there aren’t a dozen spec scripts being written RIGHT NOW based on this story, I’ll eat a copy of Save The Cat.) Excerpt: “At dinner one night, without warning, he broke into the New Zealand national anthem”.
And finally, a Pinky & the Brain supercut: are you pondering what I’m pondering?
This is my first foray online today and the first thing I see is Team Ball Player Thing. I can now go to bed.
“I think so, Brain, but how do we get the Spice Girls into the paella?”