“With your feet in the air and your head on the ground.”

Posted by Marco Sparks on November 14, 2010

From the internet:

Bill Clinton to be in The Hangover 2.

How the CIA used modern art as a weapon.

Darren Aronofsky’s Wolverine sequel to be called simply The Wolverine.

Carey Mulligan considered the front runner for Daisy in the Baz Luhrmann/Leonardo Dicaprio adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

The reign of right-wing primetime.

J. J. Abrams’ Undercovers canceled.

Thankfully: Satoshi Kon’s last movie to be completed by Madhouse.

The future of reviews.

Previously on Counterforce: Gravity Girls.

Pictures in this post by Stephen Morris, from here.

Six x-rated comics you can read without shame.

Six steps to being the coolest person at media/tech parties.

My crush is engaged!

Facebook’s “gmail killer” coming on Monday?

Aaron Sorkin’s four big problems with the WGA.

Natalie Portman wasn’t the “Deep Throat” for The Social Network.

…but she has written a new “raunchy comedy.”

Kanye West’s “media trainer” reportedly quit within a week.

According to John Lennon: Yoko does not sweat.

The words “Thom Yorke” and “photobomb” are always funny in the same sentence.

“Try this trick and spin it, yeah.”

After the tragic death of Party Down, Rob Thomas (no, not that cunt) has a new FOX sitcom.

When Tyler Coates met Modern Family‘s Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

Iain M. Banks on uploading oneself and living forever.

Jonathan Lethem on They Live.

Caveman science fiction.

“Embarrassing Moments” by Megan Boyle.

We wouldn’t have this pithy little thing you call “civilization” if it weren’t for beer.

Psychic wars.

A comprehensive glossary of GIFs.

Can we see into the future?

Nobody told me there’d be days like these.

Posted by Marco Sparks on October 9, 2010

As mentioned yesterday, today is/would’ve been John Lennon’s 70th birthday.

via YouTube.

I keep seeing little shrines to and admirations of the man all over the internet too. That’s amazing to me. Amazing that we stop and think about that still, this musical and pop artist from decades and decades ago, that he’s still affecting us with his music and ideas and persona even now. I mean, I can understand why people like my mother are still thinking about Lennon but it shocks me whenever I notice people younger than me talking about or listening to the Beatles or the various members’ solo material.

It shocks me but it pleases me as well. It’s natural to dislike the music of the younger generations because most of it is, at best, loud raw bullshit. My generation had the 90s and the glorious music of that time (that’s what our memories keeping assuring us) but the kids these days have… what? Paramore? Justin Bieber. It’s a shame.

But it’s also natural, I think to dislike when the younger generation starts coming up on you, encroaching on your scene, professing admiration of the music you hold so dear, that has become a part of your genetic make up, and yet they don’t know the singer’s name or don’t know the title of track 3 on that band or artist’s second album or don’t know all the lyrics like you. It’s like when you would hear Avril Lavigne tell you that Nirvana was the greatest band in the world. She didn’t know what she was talking about and it made the things you like feel cheaper because of it, because she hadn’t earned it.

And yet we forget about the act of discovery that comes with music, both with hearing an artist for the first time on the radio, if that kind of thing still happens, or playing over that sad scene with lots of crying in your favorite network drama. Or discovering an older artist, someone before your time, quite by accident. It’s amazing to you. It shows you that this great big world that you finally felt like you had a handle on perhaps has a little more depth, a little more beauty and gorgeous weirdness in it than you could’ve guessed. And it’s time to explore all of that.

And yet, Lennon’s music should come with a history lesson attached. He wasn’t just an artist with a discography, his story was a fucking saga. There’s so many facets to his tale and his life that you feel like a fucking Star Trek nerd just for taking all those details in and holding onto them. Or, at least, I do.

Growing up I was that weird little kid who adored his parent’s Beatles records and would spend long afternoons and late nights just sitting by the turntables, which that thing spin around and being mesmerized by their music. I read all the books I could on the Beatles, delved into all the ridiculous anecdotes and bizarre peripheral characters in their tale.

I’ve always been an oddity at the party (though the attendees at most parties are all oddities, or should be, I know). While everyone else knows everything about what’s going on with some bullshit famous NYC hipster or what’s happening on the latest episode of Real Housewives Of Wherever, I was always the guy who had far too many factoids about the heroes of classic rock. Amongst many others, that was always just one of my things.

To their fans, either those who grew up as the band was growing up or those who discovered the much later, they felt like your favorite characters in a story that was happening in and around you. There were ups and downs and turmoil and laughs and joy and you escape into one of their albums and it’d become a part of your life. John Lennon died months before I was even born and I still took their break up hard almost 30 years after it happened.

But as for the band themselves, I always took the question “who’s your favorite Beatle?” to be a kind of basic personality test. It wasn’t just a matter of “the one with the pointy nose” or “the shy one” or “the cute one” or “Jesus, Ringo is fucking weird looking,” it was about who you identified. Who personified all your weirdness and abstract traits. Who managed to be as much like you, but better.

I guess for us John fans, it was the romantic idea of the intellectual rebel. That’s why we liked him. It felt like he was against something, but nobly. Through him our character flaws and quirks and all the ways we didn’t fit with others, all of that became just a part of our affectation.

Of course now I imagine, in a way, that John Lennon is more like Che Guevara…

He’s more of a symbol, an artistic flourish, than a real person who once existed. Or… is he?

from here.

John came off as an asshole perfectionist, not too different from Paul in that regard, but there was something more off putting about John. It felt like he’d rather offend you than make you laugh along with him. He wasn’t a chameleon like Bob Dylan, constantly discovering himself by changing identities and styles, but John seemed more interested in dealing with his issues by shaving away all the human parts of himself and becoming sharper, crueler. He found his issues and rather than making peace with them, he just become them, he inserted himself deeper into them. He could be charming, he could be disarming, he could be cruel, but it felt like he would never surrender to the working class sadness the world had seemed to be laying out for him. His personality was the perfect prototype for someone like Kanye West (or, to a lesser extent, someone like Billy Corgan maybe). His past was not a particularly great one, nor was he always satisfied with the present it seemed, so he kept pushing forward, never resting, never giving up the rhythm. He was a poet and a genius, and seemed to take the world about as half as seriously as it had ever taken him, and in that regard, I think he saw the world more clearer than most insulated, influenced musicians ever do. That’s why I think his songs can seem absurd sometimes, or like the work of a bored artist, but at times they cut deep, slicing into a vein that feels all too familiar.

But I think John was, in the classic style of British musicians, pretty good at selling you a lot of bullshit when he felt like it. And while I don’t think you could question or belittle his impact or his talent, I think I just gave you about 900 words of bullshit as well. Enjoy.

Three last things about this man from Liverpool…

Do you think you’re a genius?

Yes, if there is such a thing as one, I am one. When did you realize that what you were doing transcended — People like me are aware of their so-called genius at ten, eight, nine. . . . I always wondered, “Why has nobody discovered me?” In school, didn’t they see that I’m cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers are stupid, too? That all they had was information that I didn’t need? I got fuckin’ lost in being at high school. I used to say to me auntie, “You throw my fuckin’ poetry out, and you’ll regret it when I’m famous, ” and she threw the bastard stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a fuckin’ genius or whatever I was, when I was a child. It was obvious to me. Why didn’t they put me in art school? Why didn’t they train me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a fuckin’ cowboy like the rest of them? I was different, I was always different. Why didn’t anybody notice me? A couple of teachers would notice me, encourage me to be something or other, to draw or to paint – express myself. But most of the time they were trying to beat me into being a fuckin’ dentist or a teacher. And then the fuckin’ fans tried to beat me into being a fuckin’ Beatle or an Engelbert Humperdinck, and the critics tried to beat me into being Paul McCartney.

That’s from Lennon’s 1971 interview with Rolling Stone.

This is me talking about May Pang and Lennon’s brief “lost weekend” phase. This is me talking about Lennon entering the world of comics as godhead/musical deity. This is me talking about mind games, of course.

And lastly one of my absolute favorite of John Lennon’s songs…

…the sadly underrated “Look At Me.” I point these kinds of songs out whenever I see them but if ever there was a song about bloggers, that’s definitely one of them.

And we all shine on.

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

Posted by Marco Sparks on October 8, 2010

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

-George Orwell in Animal Farm.

Mad linkage:

Good Christian Bitches.

The 10 unanswerable questions answered.

The 10 songs most likely to make a man cry.

Compare The Onion AV Club’s 50 best movies of the 00s to those selected by your friendly neighborhood Counterforce.

The pictures in this post (except one) are all by Dave Eggers., from a portfolio of his entitled “It Is Right To Draw Their Fur.”

Inconceivable vs. unthinkable.

Geeks vs. hipsters.

Criminals steal Interpol chief’s Facebook identity.

The beginning of the backlash against Joanathan Franzen?

Tao Lin parodies that Franzen profile in Time.

The FBI is still all up in John Lennon’s junk, whose birthday would’ve been tomorrow. “Nobody told me there would be days like these!” See:

via Google.

This is no longer relevant, but still humor to me: Jared Leto hitting on Lady Gaga.

Tony Gilroy is directing the next Jason Bourne movie, which may or may not include Matt Damon.

Talking comics with Jason.

The first ten pages of The Social Network.

Also, Fincher close to getting a deal similar to that which gave us “The Night Chronicles.”

“I change shapes just to hide in this place but I’m still an animal.”

Mark Z. Danielewski putting out a 27 volume masterpiece about lost cats?

David E. Kelley working on a new Wonder Woman TV show.

Maria Diaz quoted in LA Times.

Mark David Chapman had to go into protective custody to have conjugal visit sex with his wife.

“There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them.”

-Voltaire.

“It’s good to see you out of those chains.”

Posted by Marco Sparks on February 3, 2010

I’m going to be as eloquent as possible here, okay?

HOLY FUCK, LOST IS BACK!

Last night’s premiere episode, “LA X, parts 1 and 2,” which was #10 on our Top 100 Moments Of Lost, if you didn’t notice, was easily the most anticipated two hours of television this year (so far, at least), right? And, to me, it was extremely satisfying, and in typical Lost fashion, frustrating with the new questions it sets up, and anticipation it builds.

Did Jughead explode and reset the timeline?

The answer is yes! We see our favorite characters right back there on Oceanic flight 815, flying from Sydney to Los Angeles, encountering a bit of turbulence as it soars over the submerged Island we’ve been getting to know so well over the last 5 years.

We see a few familiar faces, and notice some absent ones, and learn that this timeline wasn’t born out of Oceanic 815 not crashing on the Island, it’s was created specifically by the explosion on the Island in 1977.

That’s 30 years of a whole new world to explore, and one that we’ll get to do flash… sideways… backs (technically we’re flashing back to an alternate universe 2004 from 2008, right?) all the while…

We’re in our regular “timeline” on the show, on the Island, with our favorite castaways, and those wacky, crazy Others. Jacob’s dead. Sayid is dead, then not. And the Jacob’s nemesis? Turns out HE IS ACTUALLY THE FUCKING SMOKE MONSTER. And also kind of badass, right?

And more than a little scary, which is, not surprisingly, a nice fit.

High praise should be more than paid to Terry O’Quinn, who has played the broken and weary but always hopeful John Locke so perfectly the past 5 years only to turn it all on it’s head, to be a new character, seemingly evil incarnate with a masterful ability to fool and manipulate. That mad gleam that Locke always had in his eye? Now it’s fully shiny.

And we’ve spoken volumes before about Matthew Fox’s performance as Jack, who’s always been a little broken, a little deranged, and he’s the same here, always feeling hunched over with grief and the vapors of failure that hang over like black Smoke Monster clouds. He just feels like an outsider, in the “real” timeline and in that “sideways” timeline, as he watches Rose and Bernard canoodling across the aisle from him. The only real shine that enters his eyes is his momentary passing Kate on the plane and later when he meets wheelchair-confined alterna-John Locke, a man who did go on his walkabout and maybe feels that bit of hope again when the spinal surgeon tells him nothing’s irreversible.

That looks suspiciously like connective tissue to a looming mystery, friends and readers. That, or Jack really missed a spot when he was shaving his chest.

Also, I would love it if our only glimpses of sideways Charlie are just those as he’s being lead away to jail for trying to kill himself in the airplane bathroom.

RIP Juliet. Oh, and Sawyer and Juliet’s love.

Also, the Others! Well, no just the Others, but the temple dwelling Others. With their leader, Dogen, who only speaks Japanese because English leaves a nasty taste on his tongue, his aide and translator, Lennon (named for the fact that he wears the same glasses as the famous Beatle?), and the return of Cindy and those fucking kids, with their waters of life that are seemingly polluted by their messianic figure’s demise. And with the news of Jacob’s passing, they’re afraid of the rise of the Smoke monster? Isn’t he the security system for the temple? And if he’s a smoke monster, is it possible that Jacob was also a smoke monster in some natural form?

It wouldn’t be a Lost season premiere without new mysterious characters, new mysterious locations, and well… new mystery, right? And also this:

And we’re all here, on the edge of our seats, ready to discover it together. Now, I’ve said too much, way more than I had intended to, but the excitement and the curiosity, it just springs forth. More importantly, what did you think?

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

Posted by Marco Sparks on January 28, 2010

“What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse.”

from here.

“That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write ‘Fuck you’ right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say ‘Holden Caulfield’ on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say ‘Fuck you.’ I’m positive, in fact.”

RIP J. D. Salinger, 91 year old reclusive author of 1951′s The Catcher In The Rye, which is almost universally and immortally beloved, and several other books, including his collection, Nine Stories, featuring the fantastic short story, “A Perfect Day For Bananafish.” And, you can find more of his short stories here. He’s been on the run from fame and possibly the rest of society since 1965, being both a hater of the world of phonies and drawing inspiration from it. Salinger is a writer that loved the art of writing, but just for himself, and it’s said that he’s written as many as 15 books since he stepped away from the public eye.

from here.

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddamn cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

Einstein on the beach.

Posted by Marco Sparks on November 12, 2009

Shattering Glass

Four videos in a series of Philip Glass video resource dumping…

Helo and Starbuck walking through the shadows of the...

1. “Metamorphosis One,” from Solo Piano, and used in that episode of Battlestar Galactica. It was used quite effectively and also, in that one episode in the last episode where Starbuck jams with the piano player, if you didn’t think that guy was supposed to be her dad after having seen this episode, well…

…then again, with the butchering of “All Along The Watchtower” that was so heavily incorporated in the final cycle of that show, I think I have to remain incredibly happy that Glass was used at all. It gave this show a certain touch of class that so many people mistakenly thought it retained it’s entire four seasons (and well into straight-to-DVD money grabs). But I digress. See a little of how “Metamorphosis One” was used here and here.

2. The trailer for Glass: A Portrait Of Phillip In Twelve Parts, the documentary on the composer who is a master of “existential dread” and “repetitive structures” by director Scott Hicks.

3. Einstein On The Beach, the approximately five or so hour long opera composed by Glass.

…of which there is an excerpt above. The opera is where the Counting Crows got the title for their song, “Einstein On The Beach (For An Eggman)” from. I don’t really like the Counting Crows except for just a handful of songs, but there’s just something infectiously wonderful about that one.

Einstein On The Beach.

Though, musical side note: When I think of their song, with that subtitle in parentheses, I can’t help but think of, of course, the Beatles’ “I Am The Walrus,” a lovely bit of juvenile Lewis Carrolling about and complaining abotu capitalism, and the eternal debate that followed over who exactly the Walrus was and who was the fucking Eggman. In “Glass Onion” on The White Album, it’s suggested that the Walrus was Paul, though in John Lennon’s solo song, “God,” naturally, he suggests that it was himself. But the Eggman was actually Eric Burdon.

Goo goo goo joob

4. How to play piano like Philip Glass.

Just fascinating. If I had ever taught myself how to play piano, well… now I’d be playing like Glass, wouldn’t I? Well, more soon, I imagine, but for now, enjoy the Phillip Glass. And… suck it, Michael Nyman, ha ha.

Knee plays.

“How do you say ‘Hamburger’ in Japanese?”

Posted by August Bravo & Marco Sparks on October 12, 2009

We want to get hammered on Prohibition-era hair tonic and open a hotel on the moon and make the rock full of cheese as American as possible (and be greeted as liberators)(before we blow it up) and maybe, just maybe, Conrad Hilton agrees with us. With a little bit of “wow!” as a lady friend of mine once said, between our dreams and our desires, we existed with last night’s new episode of Mad Men in the “Wee Small Hours.”

August Bravo: That Betty sure is a dreamer…

Marco Sparks: You may say she’s a dreamer, but she’s not the only one…

It’s really shaping up that this season is all about the meeting of dreams with desires, two things that aren’t necessarily the same thing.

August: So it seems. Betty is afraid to give into these desires. Don, however, is not.

Marco: I think Betty’s a smart person, a worldly person of sorts, but not a person of depth. Is she really afraid to to combine her wants and dreams of a silver fox lover from the Governor’s office, or is she just trapped within the boundaries of her princess mindset? It seemed like she would’ve fucked that guy (had the show been set in the present day, they would’ve been twittering naughty little missives towards each other) as long as it hadn’t been so “tawdry.”

But that aside, I loved that the episode started off with Betty laying in the dark with her dreams and ended with Don finally asleep in bed with the thing he wanted.

August: I think she’s still trying to see if she still has it. Don neglects her because, let’s face it, he doesn’t seem to give a fuck anymore…

Marco: They’re practically roommates raising kids together.

August: Yeah, and she wants some attention. Some naughty play on the side to get excited about. Reminds me of my ex-girlfriend, actually.

Marco: Which one?

August: Actually, all of them!

Marco: Yikes. Betty just reminded me of my feeling for this show, at least this season, when she’s patronizing her nanny/housekeeper Carla about “her station” and talking about those four dead girls in Birmingham. “This has really made me wonder about civil rights. Maybe it’s not supposed to happen right now.”

And I feel like when you really get down to it, everything Don does is a reaction to something. Quite probably everything.

August: Betty may actually want the guy from the Governor’s office, but she’s just reacting too, I think. Betty is slowly becoming a more interesting character to me as this season progresses. And more like Don.

Marco: He is one of the most influential characters on TV or in real like in, like, forever.

August: I think Betty wants without thought towards consequences, and last night she got lucky in her covering of them and not getting too caught up by them.

Marco: I loved that Betty A) of course had a hard time discussing civil rights with Carla, but B) threw that fundraiser pretty much to cover herself with Carla, who had Henry Francis, the man from the Governor’s office, coming over for an illicit hello.

August: I don’t think Betty’s going to be so lucky in the future. And yeah, Don does just react. I don’t think he starts a lot of the situations he finds himself in. They just present themselves and he does what he can to craft them, to shape them. He is crafty. But for now, Don isn’t going to stop doing, getting, or taking what he wants. He’s in that 1960s mindset, and why wouldn’t he be?

Marco: The 1960s were like a theme park for insecure men with money to walk around just being better than everyone. Especially their women. And the women of Mad Men have to be careful because they can be let go when they reach their full potential.

August: Yeah, really. Don is the man, quite literally, so therefore he’s accepted as being better than Betty. He deserves more.

Marco: And takes more.

August: He brings home the bacon. And sometimes he wants a woman to play with that bacon. And why shouldn’t they?

Marco: He is Don Draper, after all.

August: He works hard, he plays hard. I think that’s how he feels.

Marco: Don Draper is secure enough in his awesomeness to show up to work late pretty much all the time.

August: But usually because he’s at home reading the bible with his family, of course.

Marco: Oh, of course. You’re really feeling Don, aren’t you? So is Don beginning the relationship with teacher, the very “close to home” relationship, based on the disapproval of his new father figure with unrealistic desires (like the moon), Conrad Hilton?

August: Oh yeah, definitely. I think Don’s just fed up with everything lately. “Give me more ideas to reject,” he says.

Marco: “Now that I can finally understand you, I am less impressed with what you have to say.”

August: Having to say things like that daily and put up with your underlings while constantly being jerked around by a powerful man like Hilton can stress a guy out. At that point, Don really needed something his life to go right, and go right the way he wanted it to. He needed a good powerfuck.

Marco: And the teacher was perfect for him because she presents herself to the world he lives in like she’s from another planet. And I’d like to think that, deep down, she’s outing herself as being from the same planet Don is from, or heading to as the show progresses, but who knows.

She jobs along lonely stretches of highway at all hours of the night, she lives above somebody’s garage, and she advocates not staring right into the sun. And she’s seen their entire affair, and knows exactly how it’s going to end. Who knows what Don Draper’s views on fate and predestination are, but I think he knows the one thing he can control, whether doing so is a reaction or something else or not, is to fuck this woman’s brains out, especially if there’s a higher risk of him being caught than ever before. “Doesn’t that mean anything to a person like you?”

August: You can tell that Don’s giving less and less of a shit about Betty, it seems. She asks if it’s okay to have the fundraiser there and he says sure, as long as he doesn’t have to go. Don’s a little like Betty in that he wants what he wants, and right now it’s the teacher. He’s drinking too much coffee, he’s not sleeping, he’s giving more and more of himself over to Connie, I don’t know.

Marco: Everyone’s walking around hunched over, with burnt fuses sticking out of their necks.

August: Exactly. Everything, especially everything with Don is a ticking time bomb at this point. Especially when it comes to Conrad Hilton. Don may want Connie’s approval, but I don’t he’ll be able to give Connie the love he wants.

Marco: Speaking of time bombs, I feel like yet another fuse was lit last night in the coming hardcore show down with Roger and Don.

August: Seriously. Even though Don and Roger technically agreed on aspects of the Sal situation last night, there’s still going to be a showdown. I’m hoping for a fistfight!

Marco: More American bloodlust as usual, huh?

And Don did cause all of us to step back a little with the way he treated Sal in this episode, wouldn’t you agree?

August: He knows about Sal, knows about what went down on in that hotel room with the bellhop and Sal, or was about to go down in that hotel room when they were out of town together. Sal’s being bit in the ass for not having given in. Don’s a cool guy with a lot of the things that flow outside what is currently considered the social norm of his time, but it seems he doesn’t trust that lifestyle. The way he mutters to Sal, “You people.”

Marco: It was absolutely chilling, wasn’t it? It’s kind of funny that when Don is mean to people like Pete Campbell or Ken Cosgrove or Kurt or Smitty, Kinsey and Crane, and the rest, we kind of cheer it on. We want to see more of it. Maybe even with Peggy, a little. But when I said that Joan was the spine of this show in a lot of ways, I think you could make the argument that Sal’s part of the ribs of the thing.

From his first scene in the first episode, when he walks in and you can tell he’s gay, and you instantly know how hard his life has to be in this time period, I think there was too much of a chance that this character could’ve been a joke, but he’s always been written well and Bryan Batt has played him with such class. And I think we’ve come to realize how much we like Sal this season just by watching him suffer so. Especially at the hands of Don Draper.

August: But Don had to do what he had to do. Lucky Strike is their biggest client, after all.

Marco: They were there since the pilot too, weren’t they? They’re “toasted.” But in Lee Garner, Jr. we have a villain you can really hate. A bully. He wants what he wants, as do all the characters on this show, and he won’t be told no too.

August: You upset him and Lucky Strikes and you’re fucked. Like Sal is now.

Marco: I blame it all on Harry Crane, who looks more like young Isaac Asimov to me than Perry Mason.

August: When I said that Sal was fucked, well, it was Harry Crane who did the fucking. He should’ve done something when he got that phone call, and his silence is what did Sal in.

Marco: Yeah, it is. It’s funny to me that a majority of the other characters all have better gaydar than Sal, in that they can all tell that Sal is gay and he’s clueless about them. But then again, that commercial was super homoerotic, so maybe it wasn’t so hard to figure out.

But, to be fair to Don, it seemed like Don and Sal never talked about Sal’s sexuality, so with Don witnessing Sal’s hookup with a bellhop out of town, he may’ve assumed that it was a regular thing with him (as I think you could call all of Don’s extramarital partying around) and Don may be upset that Sal didn’t follow his vague advice of: “Cover your exposure.” Eh… then again, maybe not.

I just hope that Sal finds some temporary solace there in Central Park…

August: Seriously.

Marco: …and then teams up with Joan for a comeback at Sterling-Cooper.

August: Is it too late to make a comment about Sal being shafted? Sal got shafted!

Marco: I guess it’s never too late.

What about the moon?

August: And you reminded me, where the fuck was Cosgrove? I think I liked Roger’s line the best, the one about what the company is going to be known for…

Marco: ”That’s what you want this place to be known for? That and some guy losing his foot in the lawnmower.”

August: Yes!

Marco: I think that Betty actually got not just the line of the night, about the meta-statement of the season, maybe the entire show itself when she was referring to Baby Eugene and Connie at the same time…

August: “‘I want what I want when I want it,” as she feeds the baby in the wee small hours…

Marco: “…and you don’t care what it does to the rest of us.”

09/09/09!

Posted by Marco Sparks on September 9, 2009

Today is September 9, 2009. 09/09/09, everybody!

It’s a precursor to the end of the world! Crazy numerology voodoo! Math and numbers gone crazy! Ahhhh.

But it’s mostly pretty cool. Be prepared!

Supposedly today is a good day to get married.

And the Beatles Rock Band game comes out today also, I guess?

“>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwQiQLqAKOA]

Revolution #9. Is Paul Dead? Turn Me On, Dead Man! “#9 Dream” and Number9Dream.

Famous events on this day in history: A bunch of war shit, particularly in World War II, but HUD was also established, California was admitted into the union, and Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time way back in 1956. Oh, and the Sega Dreamcast came out ten years ago.

“>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_MUNdvP35s]

“As a great philosopher once said…” Elvis, you’re an asshole. Just ask the Beatles.

Famous births acknowledged today: Emperor Aurelian, William Bligh, Cliff Robertson, Sylvia Miles, Chaim Topol, Inez Foxx, Jeffrey Combs, Michelle Williams, Eric Serra, Hugh Grant, Adam Sandler, Rachel Hunter, Goran Visnjic, and Michael Bublé. So, really, Sept. 9 is the OFFICIAL B-CELEBRITY BIRTHDAY.

Famous deaths on this day in history: A lot of history’s only so so interesting people, some of the standouts including English serial killers and Chairman Mao.

Also today: This movie, 9, comes out today. Ehhh.

And not to be confused with Nine, the musical with the mega all start cast of Oscar Winners based on Fellini’s 8 1/2.

“>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cOWQYwVhXU]

And on the same summer that District 9 came out!

Creepy coincidence city!

Much like a lot of the coincidence that are bound to pop up with the number 9 or a date like today’s. Personally, I just think it’s cool to see 09/09/09 wherever the date is written.

I read the news today, oh boy.

Posted by Marco Sparks on August 30, 2009

from here.

Sunday (catch up) reading list:

Firstly, the Rolling Stone article on whys and hows of the Beatles breaking up. I knew a lot of this stuff from my youthful days as a Beatles fan and just a nerdy kid with a lot of classic rock trivia stored in my melon, but it’s still interesting to take it all back in.

The Beatles’ likeness from their incarnation of Rock Band.

Especially since it really narrows all three and a half of them (sorry, Ringo, but you may as well have been a cardboard cutout or on luudes throughout the 60s) to their sincerely petty little faults and jealousies. Paul comes off as a control freak who put both his three mates and the music ahead of how his three mates felt about him or the music, and John Lennon, whom we always knew was a little messed up guy, finally went overboard and tried to change who he was while battling Paul for either the soul of the band or the right to be the one who finally killed it dead. While there was definitely “the Yoko factor,” it was more just a tool of John’s used against the rest of the band, especially Paul who he felt had taken more power and was more creative/talented/happier than he. Talk about two guys who needed each other, but couldn’t express it…

On an only semi-related note: Liam Gallagher has quit Oasis for like the seven billionth time. “I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer,” he says. Sounds like somebody needs themselves a champagne supernova.

Secondly, this quote: “Craig Newmark] already has a parking space, a hummingbird feeder, a small home with a view, and a shower with strong water pressure. What else is he supposed to want?” That’s from an article in Wired about the founder of Craigslist that I started the other day and haven’t quite finished yet. So far, though, it’s interesting.

Also in the magazine is an article I’ve also only skimmed about people who’ve faked their own deaths and essentially vanished or disappeared or gone on the run (though, obviously, not totally successfully). What a fascinating idea. Like you haven’t thought about it before. How would you fake your own death? How would you disappear?

Yes/No/As Above/So Be Low.

Posted by Marco Sparks on August 10, 2009

Seeing the invisible.

Space shuttle docked at Space Station looks like a tattoo on the sun.

The ghost cinema of Norwich.

What else is on during Shark Week?

Can Pluto become a planet again?

As above, so below. As within, s0 without.

The mystery of 10:10.

Charles Manson wants to work with Phil Spector.

The three biggest reasons music magazines are dying.

Chemtrails and weather warfare.

When is it okay for kids to run around naked?

from here.

Canadian doughnut chain enters NYC donut wars.

The “Wide-open” future of journalism, according to Ira Glass.

Genes, memes, and the third replicator.

Greatest headline ever: Call for debate on Killer Robots.

A challenge to the comet extinction theory.

We should build a wall to stop the spread of deserts, and also that giant fucking sandworms from Dune.

Hanzo The Razor: “The Snare” and “Sword Of Justice.”

PLAYBOY: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell us the story of how the wondrous mystic prince and the exotic Oriental dragon lady met.

LENNON: It was in 1966 in England. I’d been told about this “event” — this Japanese avant-garde artist coming from America. I was looking around the gallery and I saw this ladder and climbed up and got a look in this spyglass on the top of the ladder — you feel like a fool — and it just said, Yes. Now, at the time, all the avant-garde was smash the piano with a hammer and break the sculpture and anti-, anti-, anti-, anti-, anti. It was all boring negative crap, you know. And just that Yes made me stay in a gallery full of apples and nails. There was a sign that said, Hammer A Nail In, so I said, “Can I hammer a nail in?” But Yoko said no, because the show wasn’t opening until the next day. But the owner came up and whispered to her, “Let him hammer a nail in. You know, he’s a millionaire. He might buy it.” And so there was this little conference, and finally she said, “OK, you can hammer a nail in for five shillings.” So smartass says, “Well, I’ll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in.” And that’s when we really met. That’s when we locked eyes and she got it and I got it and, as they say in all the interviews we do, the rest is history.

PLAYBOY: What happened next?

Good question, from here.

from here.