Per aspera

It makes me happy when people I know do well for themselves, because it’s important to me that I be able to drop their names in conversation. Melissa Walker has performed admirably in this regard by becoming a published author of young adult fiction. Her first joint, Violet on the Runway, drops today. […]

Oh go fuck yourself, Irwin, if I may enjoy the impertinence of addressing you by your first name.
-James Wolcott
I will state now for the record my intent to steal that joke and use it as my own.

So I have this friend named Graham.
No no, let me revise: Massachusetts has this friend named Graham.
At your service
Meet Graham Campbell, a top 10 kind of guy
…
Campbell wanted to be an officer, not a white-shoe lawyer, from the time he was 5. Loved the sirens. At Buckley, voted “Most Likely to be a Civil […]

Why, I think it’s booty.
(Via not-Ezra-Klein at Ezra Klein)

The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension still exists. It’s one of the first things I found on the web when I went online in 1995. Its technology is current, but it feels the same as it did a decade ago, still dense and weird.
This is immensely pleasing to me. An old friend bearing new ideas […]

Belledame posted a Friday git-yer-groove-on, blessing us whose asses may otherwise tragically have remained stationary with some Sneaker Pimps and some Goldfrapp. Good citizenship demanded that I contribute, but then I got to mining YouTube, and couldn’t stop clicking on the Golden Age hip-hop. Well. I must be who I am.

Burn, Hollywood, […]

Because I love you all and want you to be happy, please find below an mp3 of Jeff Daniels, as Col. Joshua Chamberlain, suggesting to his men that they fix their bayonets in preparation for a charge down Little Round Top, from the film Gettysburg.
Link
If you want to download it, control-click (that’s right-click for my […]

Keith Ellison just got elected to the House of Representatives from the 5th District in Minnesota. This is a bit of a milestone, because he’s the first Muslim ever to be elected to Congress. As he is a Muslim, he’s decided to be sworn into to office on the Q’uran. This is […]

“Buttsex” is just an anagram for “subtext.”

Jennifer, friend of Per Aspera, sent me a link to a trailer for documentary a friend of hers has done. It looks friggin’ great:

And today, it totally got BoingBoinged. Which is kind of unsurprising, actually, because this is straight up their alley.
Nearly concurrently, Eric, who is like a brother to Per Aspera, sent […]

I have a theme in my head, and this Regina Spektor video is one illustration of it (said theme has nothing to do with the title of this post, except in the ways that it does).

Apart from my metaphysic, I would like additionally to link you to another Regina Spektor song, Better, which rocks my […]

In my travels in Intarspace, I frequently come across news that is no longer news,* and am astonished that I’ve made it this many years into my life without encountering this information until now.
I have two from this week:
First, while reading the CNN obituary for Gerald Levert, I discovered that he did a supergroup album […]

For realz!  I was beginning to despair that she would never come to her senses, but she has.  As Nicole brought up in comments, Britney cold filed for divorce.  Finally.  And K-Fed got the news by text message!  ON TAPE!  It’s like the godz were like, “Steve, be cool.  Have a slice of schadenfreude pie […]

I’m pretty sure they’ll revoke my blogging license if I don’t do an election summary. To begin: so much for the genius of Karl Rove.
Anyway, the situation is encouraging. As of right now, AP’s calling the VA senate race for Webb.
Both houses, by fuck. Both.
Democrats have won 29 seats in the house, […]