bailout blues & comic relief

here is a small excerpt from

CORPORATE FOLKTALES: HOW BERNANKE TACKLED THE DEPRESSION, AS RECORDED 150 YEARS FROM NOW BY POST-APOCALYPTIC HOBO FOLKLORISTS

by grant munroe

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"The Scourge of Markets sat glumly, sipping coffee from a nuclear cooling tower just outside of Lansing, Michigan. He was listening to the wails of the unemployed, which to him sounded as pleasing and melancholy as any Coldplay album. Knowing the strength of his enemy was too great to confront on the level field of battle, Bernanke, being a wise and crafty man, disguised himself.

Hey there, greeted Bernanke.

Oh, hey, said Depression with disinterest. He started absently clipping his toenails with the hinged trunk of an unsold 2009 Chevy Impala."
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read the whole thing at mcsweeney's.

"closing time" by veronica diaferia

here is the trailer to veronica diaferia's beautiful/funny/heartwrenching documentary "CLOSING TIME: Storia di un Negozia," which chronicles the final month of one of new york city's oldest, realest stores. when you have 30 minutes, you can watch the whole thing HERE at folkstreams.net.

it will break your heart.

hideout

colleen: aw, i'm going to miss your attic.
me: i know, me too.
colleen: it's so anne frank it's ridiculous.

cowabunga, dude

i love when i rewatch movies from my childhood and they fulfill all of my hopes and expectations. afterwards, i went straight back to north campus video to get TMNT 2: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE. yeahhhhh. that's right. turtle power.

talking to myself

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"I once sat in on a hearing voices class where people were encouraged to articulate their inner dialogues, talk back, and negotiate with them. A pretty twenty-something girl had thought her co-op was compelling her to buy things she had no use for, so she couldn’t walk within 100 meters of the entrance. A Nigerian man’s voices were personified by a six-foot blond transsexual and an angry midget who would constantly argue in his head. And one old lady believed her husband worked for the Secret Service, and that they had kidnapped her and planted a chip in her brain, which made her act out their will. They all agreed the best coping mechanism was using a mobile phone. They held it to their ear when they had the urge to talk to their voices so people didn’t think they were insane."

click here for the full post from VICE

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i use the cell phone trick all the time.

living wonder

"Each of us is aware of far more than we can ever express. Yet those who can persuade themselves to be guided thus in their pursuit of the totality of truth, find themselves rewarded not so much by a surrender of any significant part of the essential mystery, as by its transformation into something accessible as living wonder."

--Laurens van der Post

from wit of the staircase <3

The Music of the Spheres & 100 Hours of Observation

I am blogging live from the back corner of my astrobiology class lecture hall, where my professor was just explaining the ancient geocentric concept of the universe, in which Earth was fixed at the center while the other heavenly bodies moved around it in constant rotation.

Pythagorus, who lived in the days of the geocentric system, suggested that if people sat outside in total silence and listened carefully, they would be able to hear the sound of the sun, moon, and stars rotating around the Earth on their crystalline spheres. If you were in the "right state of mind," as my professor put it, you could listen to this "music of the spheres."

He also informed us that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, and to celebrate, thousands of people around the world will watch the sky for 100 hours between April 2nd and April 5th.

80 observatories around the world will provide live webcasts of the observation event, which will bring astronomy to the masses.