Category Archives: this & that

Caffeinated Links

this & that September 11, 2013 Leave a comment

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New Van Gogh Identified –  A painting that sat for six decades in a Norwegian industrialist’s attic after he was told it was a fake Van Gogh was pronounced the real thing Monday, making it the first full-size canvas by the tortured Dutch artist to be discovered since 1928. RT Yahoo

This has been everywhere today, but is also the most joy-filled, magical, breathtaking celebration of the human body and the art of motion that I’ve seen in years.  Photographer Jordan Matter crafted a stunning series of ballet dancers striking poses in mundane situations. Gorgeous and magical. RT Dancers Among Us

The Millions reviews J.M. Coetzee’s The Childhood of Jesus–

“That’s just gibberish. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does mean something. It means something to me.”

“That may be so but it doesn’t mean anything to me. Language has to mean something to me as well as to you, otherwise it doesn’t count as language.”

In a gesture that he must have picked up from Inés, the boy tosses his head dismissively. “La la fa fa yam ying! Look at me!”

He looks into the boy’s eyes. For the briefest of moments he sees something there. He has no name for it. It is like — that is what occurs to him in the moment. Like a fish that wriggles loose as you try to grasp it. But not like a fish — no, like like a fish. Or like like like a fish. On and on. Then the moment is over, and he is simply standing in silence, staring.

“Did you see?” says the boy. RT The Millions

Last but not least, on the tenth anniversary of The X-Files, Gillian Anderson writes the most adorable letter ever to the world, in which she thanks David Duchovny for wearing those speedos. RT Pajiba

Hey, Los Angeles (Caffeinated Break)

film & television, this & that August 30, 2013 Leave a comment

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Hugh Laurie’s love letter to Los Angeles in The Telegraph is the kind of defense I wish I could give of LA to the (many) unbelievers I’ve encountered since leaving the City of Angels.

“I love you, I hate you: you might call it a mixed message, if the message weren’t so unmixed. You’re allowed to love Paris, up to a point, New York, more or less, Dublin and Glasgow, definitely, but loving Los Angeles is just plain wrong. Oxymoronic, in fact – if you promise to go easy on the oxy.

…And then, as the drowned man said, there’s the weather. Great, fat dollops of it. On the eighth day, God reached down and set southern California’s thermostat to “lovely”, and he hasn’t really touched it since.

But Los Angeles, if it’s anything, is a place of reinvention, the edge of a continent, both inner and outer, from which you can step off into a new life and a new way of looking at things. Or, if you prefer, you can decide that your old life was just fine. Either way, you end up better off.”

–Hugh Laurie’s Los Angeles

And the Huffington Post has a fairly brilliant analysis of a troubling aspect of the ever-increasing collisions between nerd culture and “pop” (as in “popular”) entertainment.

“I enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness, but the worst part of the movie was the almost complete recreation of the Kirk-Spock death scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It’s not so much that J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof did recreate that scene, it’s that they did so in an effort to make people watching say, “Oh, I get it.” Great! I mean, of course you “get it.” How could you not get it? Everyone gets it. That’s the problem. The best kind of fan service is when very few people get it. Being beat over the head with a reference to a prior movie isn’t fun for anyone.

I keep thinking about Whedon’s sentence, “I feel that’s what all of culture is becoming — it’s becoming that moment.”

-Joss Whedon Is Right About ‘Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom’

Hello Gorgeous: Audrey Hepburn

this & that August 30, 2013 Leave a comment

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Hello Gorgeous: Kristen Bell

this & that August 23, 2013 Leave a comment

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Garnet Hill

this & that August 21, 2013 Leave a comment

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Garnet Hill’s 2012 catalog cover. A gorgeous blend of grays and blues, metal and nature.

Caffeinated Links: Peter Capaldi, Disable Youtube Ads, Mayer

film & television, this & that August 21, 2013 Leave a comment

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23 Reasons to Love Peter Capaldi RT Buzzfeed

This took 10 seconds and actually worked. Love. Disable Ads on YouTube With This Simple Command, RT Lifehacker

Mayer’s crime wasn’t prejudice, it was hubris. When he subsequently came down with a throat condition that threatened to rob him of his voice and prematurely end his career, Mayer’s post-interview punishment seemed to take a biblical turn. RT Grantland

“I didn’t do it for awhile because I didn’t think that I could do it. Until Short Term 12, I didn’t find myself all that interesting. I sit with myself all the time, it’s really hard, I think, for any sort of person with an intelligence to look in the mirror and say, yeah, aren’t I great enough to be followed around for twenty days and then make a movie about it? And with a movie that’s in so many ways so subtle and a character that’s so subtle, I think it was hard for me to grasp that that would be worthy of a film, I guess.”  FSR Interviews Brie Larson

Hello Gorgeous

this & that August 16, 2013 Leave a comment

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Hello Gorgeous

this & that August 9, 2013 Leave a comment

adele

Peace

this & that August 7, 2013 1 Comment

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Caffeinated Links: Franzen, BB Cream, Creativity, and Women in Media

books poetry lit, creativity, this & that August 7, 2013 Leave a comment

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What you’re left with is a funny film that never gets really funny. It’s fine, but not thrilling, the film version of eating at Chili’s. – FSR on “We’re the Millers”

Gratified to see that there’s a reason I don’t like Jonathan Franzen – “I think she was surprised that I wasn’t moaning with shock and pleasure,” Jonathan Franzen says of his phone call with Oprah Winfrey in Boris Kachka’s Hothouse, recently excerpted at Slate. “I’d been working nine years on the book and FSG had spent a year trying to make a best-seller of it. It was our thing. She was an interloper, coming late, and with an expectation of slavish gratitude and devotion for the favor she was bestowing.” -A Handy Guide to Why Jonathan Franzen Pisses You Off, RT Flavorwire

“Creativity requires giving myself away. It involves nicking an artery somewhere and seeing what bleeds out, then using what’s there constructively and thoughtfully. In this way, creation is the very opposite of consumption; it’s a generous outward motion. There is no greed in it. It’s communication, born of a desire to participate in and engage with the world, instead of merely absorbing it.” – RT Lawless Gentile

Birchbox presents an incredibly helpful guide explaining what BB cream, CC cream, and the like are – “Unlike lipstick, which is meant to be seen, base makeup is supposed to be your invisible ally, masking imperfections, evening out skin tone, and creating a perfect canvas for the rest of your makeup—without anyone knowing it’s actually there. Since that’s easier said than done, we’ve created a coverage guide to help you choose which formula is right for you.”  –The Base Makeup Coverage

Woot! No words to describe this awesome. “Good news for people who like to watch people other than white men host their evening news programs: PBS has grabbed Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff to co-host NewsHour, the channel’s long-running nightly news program. According to PBS, “This will mark the first time a network broadcast has had a female co-anchor team.” Bonus diversity points because one of them isn’t white!” – RT Jezebel