Shared posts

23 Oct 20:37

Finally, a Padded Push-Up Bra for Men

by Callie Beusman

Finally, a Padded Push-Up Bra for Men

The immemorial struggle for gender parity has finally been reached with the invention of the "Funkybod muscle enhancing top," a garment that masquerades as a tank top but is, in actuality, perhaps the world's first bra for men.

Read more...

23 Oct 16:30

UPDATE! Help Name Oregon Zoo's Lion Cubs

by Andrew Bleiman
1 lion

Oregon Zoo's lions cubs are growing up strong. The three females are now one month old, healthy and playful. The littlest cub, who had some health issues and received some supplemental bottle-feeding, is still the smallest of the trio, but she is doing much better.

See our original story about the cubs here.
 
Want to vote for your favorite potential names? The lions' keepers have picked out their favorites, and want to know yours. 

2 lion

Lion

3 lion
Photo credits: Michael Durham / Oregon Zoo

See more photos after the fold.

4 lion

5 lion

6 lion

7 lion

23 Oct 15:11

Parks And Recreation Says Buh Bye November 21

by ent lawyer
With the NBC schedule already in the toilet and Rob Lowe and Rashida Jones headed out the door, the network has decided that November 21st will be the last episode of parks ever aired. They won't say that publicly of course. The only thing they will say publicly is that all the episodes will be filmed because they can sell them to syndication but the only two episodes they will show are November 14 and November 21st. Unless a meteor hits The Voice and knocks them out there will be no more Parks And Recreation. It never found an audience but it did stick around long enough to air its episodes forever. Do you think maybe Ron Swanson could get his own show?

I know many of you think it will be back in January but between now and January NBC is planning on finding anything to fill that time slot and hope they will have something in place. Anything would be better than the ratings they are getting now.
23 Oct 12:01

These Dogs Go All Baywatch on Us in Slow Motion Shaking Video

by Laura Beck
Kevespada

i want to die, but jo is probably into this horrible thing

These dogs like to move it, move it!

Read more...

23 Oct 04:19

Theater Review: The Miraculous Fun Home

by Jesse Green
Kevespada

amy


Musical-theater training programs fetishize the “I Want” song — the number that comes soon after the opening of many shows and lays out the protagonist’s predicament. (Think of “Something’s Coming” in West Side Story or “The Wizard and I” in Wicked.) It says everything about the intelligence behind the new musical Fun Home that its authors have taken a good look at such musical storytelling traditions and mostly chucked them.

Or more interestingly, reinvented them, in this case by twisting the “I Want” cliché into something wholly original: a “He Wants” song. Offered in the usual spot, it is sung by the family of Bruce Bechdel: a home-restoration martinet who has turned his wife and three kids into assistant curators in the museum of his mania:

He wants the real feather duster used on the bookcase
Find all the books we read and carefully restore
He wants them alphabetized by classification
A volume out of place could start a third world war

Much will be out of place before the evening is over, and the question of who is the actual protagonist will form an important part of the drama. But this sideways approach to introducing unusual characters and issues is more than just an effective way to set up an unusual story; it also signals the show’s radical formal intentions. That Fun Home carries them out so thoroughly, while retaining the musical theater’s unparalleled capability for expressing emotion and color, is something of a miracle.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the authors — Lisa Kron wrote the book and lyrics, Jeanine Tesori the music — had to find new tools to build Fun Home. It is based, almost but not quite uniquely, on a graphic novel: Alison Bechdel’s 2006 memoir of life with father, subtitled “A Family Tragicomic.” In it, Bechdel looks back on earlier versions of herself as she and “they” try to understand the blustery enigma of Bruce, who aside from being more Martha Stewart that Jimmy Stewart is a high school English teacher, runs the local funeral home (hence the title) and is, in retrospect, quite obviously gay. That Alison learns this only as she is discovering her own lesbianism at college is just one of the story’s many wrenching ironies. The flowering of her identity through sexuality coincides with (and perhaps, she thinks, even causes) the collapse of his.

Kron, whose breakthrough plays (The 2.5 Minute Ride, Well) were themselves memoiristic, had the daunting job of exploding Bechdel’s densely interwoven and often highly literary narrative in order to rebuild it as theater. Among her most consequential choices was dividing the character of Alison into three Alisons at different ages, each played by a different actor: the adult Alison at 43, trying to write her book; “Medium Alison” at 19, coming out at Oberlin; and “Small Alison,” around 8, desperate for her father’s attention but also chafing under it. (He forces her to wear girly dresses and barrettes, when all she wants are jeans and a crew cut.) As the story moves back and forth among the three timeframes, this approach not only allows us to maintain our bearings but also solves certain problems of age appropriateness. The 43-year-old Alison would be absurd singing the hilarious title number, in which the young Bechdel kids create a Jackson 5–style commercial for the family business: “We got Kleenex and your choice of psalm . . . Think of Bechdel when you need to embalm.” And the 8-year-old Allison could hardly be expected to make out with Joan, 19-year-old Alison’s hot Oberlin classmate.

There’s a trade-off, of course: a slight loss of narrative power because you have to invest in the three Alisons separately, as each one is introduced on her own and dominates a different part of the action. But narrative power is not generally lacking. Partly this is because Kron’s lyrics, tailored directly onto the story instead of struggling to fill predetermined song slots, are, like adult Alison, shorn and frank, without an ounce of fat. They are witty only where wit is called for; when gawky, bookish Medium Alison finally experiences, with that hot classmate, the all-consuming pleasure of sex, Kron comes up with a song whose catchy refrain is “I’m changing my major to Joan.” 

Tesori, whose exhilarating music for Caroline, or Change sounded like a ten-car pile-up of period styles, switches gears here to match what Kron is doing. Except for those numbers that require it — “Raincoat Made of Love” is a trippy fantasy of happy family life that sounds an awful lot like The Partridge Family’s “Come On, Get Happy” — she entirely abjures pastiche, the Hamburger Helper of contemporary musicals. For the most part she abjures traditional song forms as well, opting instead for yearning fragments and bits of refrains that clump like cells into musicalized scenes: a smart parallel to the way Bechdel builds pages from individual panels. It also feels right, in portraying people who can’t find their way to happiness, to postpone the emotional payoff a conventionally turned melody can offer. And when recognizable verse-and-chorus numbers do arrive, they are all the more effective for being unusual.

Despite the care obviously lavished on its theoretical underpinnings, and despite its seriousness, Fun House is neither gloomy nor crabbed. At first you think it might be, with David Zinn’s set mostly empty except for piles of furniture lined up at the back of the stage. Gradually, though, Bruce’s dream house — his family’s nightmare — assembles itself before your eyes in all its fussy glory. Similarly, director Sam Gold is willing to let the show take its time, and ride out a few longueurs, to build naturally from its own premises. Even the unusual choice to reveal the outcome of the drama nearly at the beginning — a choice that has a very different effect onstage than it does in Bechdel’s novel — pays off eventually. The comedy is richer for the foreboding, and the last half-hour deepens as it hurtles toward the unbearable ending you already know is coming.

As has become almost unremarkable for new musicals at the Public, the production is topnotch, from wigs to orchestrations. And Gold has assembled a cast of singing actors doing some of the best work of their careers. Judy Kuhn makes the role of Alison’s stifled mother, a somewhat shadowy figure in the novel, a living warning. (Her song “Days,” admitting the waste of her life, is devastating.) The three Alisons are spot-on: Beth Malone with her adult angst and perfect Tintin coif; Alexandra Socha, raw and self-mocking; and especially an astonishing young actress named Sydney Lucas. Has a child ever been asked to play such feelings as Small Alison’s infatuation with a butch deliverywoman? This is new.

But it’s Michael Cerveris as Bruce who gives the show its spectacular wallop of sadness. He renders the bravado and self-distortion of this bizarre character, whose viciousness somehow feels as inevitable as it is unforgivable, with an insinuating body language that’s partly preening and partly writhing in shame. It’s as if Bruce’s overrefined taste had turned itself on him. Yet what would he, or the musical, be without such discernment? Early on, as Bruce sifts through a box he’s salvaged from a neighbor’s attic, he holds up a coffee pot and asks, with annoyance, “Is this junk or silver?” In the context of Alison’s story, it’s a comment on the vagaries of memory: What parts of the past are valuable, or even real? But it’s also a reflection of the way gifted artists can pick through the remnants of a tarnished art form to make a new kind of story shine.

Fun Home is at the Public Theater through November 17.

Read more posts by Jesse Green

Filed Under: theater ,theater review ,fun home ,the public theater ,alison bechdel ,michael cerveris ,stage dive

23 Oct 02:23

Quaking: An old Japanese legend says that...

by Adrian Glick Kudler

2013.10_oarfish.jpgAn old Japanese legend says that oarfish are a sign of a coming earthquake, and two big-ass dead oarfish have washed up on SoCal shores in the past week (one on Catalina, one near Oceanside), neither with "any visible signs of injury or disease." You can't predict an earthquake, of course, but … maybe you can? One researcher who's looking into it says "It's theoretically possible" because a pre-earthquake pressure build-up in the rocks can end up creating toxic hydrogen peroxide that kills the fish or forces them out of the water." [The Independent]

23 Oct 02:17

Baby Alpaca Takes Wobbly First Steps at Children's Zoo

by Andrew Bleiman

1 alpaca

A baby alpaca—also called a cria— was born on the morning of October 16 at The Children’s Zoo at Celebration Square in Michigan. The little boy, named Cypress, was standing on his own wobbly legs just two hours after birth. He started walking and nursing with a little bit of encouragement from a keeper. 

Lily, his mother, is doing very well after the birth and is naturally very caring and nurturing. (She is the white alpaca in the pictures.) Cypress' one-year-old sister, Rose, was immediately jealous and kept nosing her way into all of his photos. But it didn't take too before she seemed to be more accepting of sharing the limelight and played nice on camera, even planting big kiss on her baby brother's face. 

2 alpaca

3 alpaca

4 alpaca

5 alpaca

6 alpacaPhoto credits: Children's Zoo

See a video of Cyprus' first steps:

 

See more photos of the alpaca family after the fold.

7 alpaca

8 alpaca

9 alpaca

10 alpaca

11 alpaca

12 alpaca

13 alpaca

23 Oct 00:15

Pauly D Has a Smush Child

by Tracie Egan Morrissey

Pauly D Has a Smush Child

Pauly D impregnated a woman and now there's a little baby girl, a few months old, crawling around near the Jersey shore. The mother filed court documents to officially establish paternity, but according to TMZ, Pauly already took a DNA test to find out if the child is his and the results came back as: "Yeeeeeah buddy!"

Read more...

22 Oct 23:00

That’s Your Halloween Costume: The Entire Disneyland Park Costume

by Kelly Conaboy

Oh my gosh, you must have worked so hard on that costume! What is it — I mean, I know it’s a theme park, but– Oh, Disneyland? Ahaha! That’s great! Oh, do I like it? Of course I do! No, really! It’s great. You put so much work into it, I can tell. No, I mean, I know that doesn’t necessarily mean that I like it, but I’m telling you that I do. I promise! No, really! AAAAND cut! (Via ViralViral.)


    






22 Oct 22:41

UFC launches new anti-HIV awareness campaign

by Nate Wilcox

From the UFC press release:

The Ultimate Fighting Championship® and the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada ("The Center") have announced a dynamic new partnership, designed to raise awareness of the realities of HIV among young individuals under 30.

In the 1990s, there were major breakthroughs in both the treatment of and education about the HIV pandemic. Because of anti-viral drugs, HIV is no longer the death sentence it once was; and because of the tremendous mainstream media focus on the disease in the 1990s there was an educated population who practiced safe sex. The result was infection rates fell significantly.

Over the last 15-years complacency has set in, however, resulting in a younger generation ill-informed about the dangers and realities of the disease. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated the ignorance of young Americans on the realities of HIV and AIDS is "shocking", "astonishing" and "just unacceptable". Last year, half of the 50,000 Americans infected with the disease were under the age of 30.

The UFC and The Center are now picking a fight with that ignorance by launching an awareness campaign called "Protect Yourself At All Times".

UFC COO Ike Lawrence Epstein said: "As someone who grew up in the 1980s and saw the virus beaten back with education in the 1990s, I was stunned to learn from our friends at The Center that HIV is still having such a dramatic impact on young people. No other sport reaches the under 35 demographic like the UFC does and the UFC felt a duty to try and do something about this situation. It gives me great pride to announce the UFC will be partnering with The Center, LBGTQ+ and other organizations for a project we are calling "Protect Yourself At All Times". This will be a local, national and ultimately international campaign designed to educate the UFC's vast core audience of under 35s about the realities of HIV."

Robert ("Bob") Elkins, CEO of The Center, said: "HIV stopped being a ‘gay issue' long ago but, unfortunately, it has now very much become a ‘young issue'. The jarring fact is that young gay men are becoming infected at a much higher rate. The lack of both awareness and accessible information for teenagers and young adults is truly frightening. It's like the 1990s never happened in terms of education and public awareness. In the UFC, we have the perfect partner to fight this ignorance, and we thank them for joining us in this battle."

Elkins, who is openly HIV positive after contracting the virus 27 years ago, added: "When I first found I was HIV positive, my friends and family thought it was a death sentence. But I wouldn't accept that and started anti-retroviral treatment which I've continued ever since. Today, my viral load is virtually undetectable, thanks to my doctors and the meds. But through education and medical advances we began to fight back against the disease. Living with HIV is manageable, but we cannot allow advancements to take away our focus on preventing new infections through public awareness and education."

Protect Yourself At All Times has two key messages:

  • Get tested; know your status
  • Protect yourself with safe sex practices

UFC Hall of Famer Forrest Griffin will serve as a spokesman for the campaign. He said: "I had 15 fights in the UFC Octagon during my career, and before each and every one of them, I had a HIV test. I'm encouraging everybody to show themselves and their partners the same respect I showed my opponents by getting tested and protecting themselves at all times."

UFC No.5 ranked women's bantamweight Liz Carmouche, who is also a spokesperson, added: "There's a feeling of invincibility that comes with being young, with being fit and the prime of your life. But I learned when I was in the US Marines just like I've learned as a UFC fighter, no-one is invincible, and that you have to project yourself at all times."

The on-going Protect Yourself At All Times campaign will be rolled out during the lead-up to World AIDS Day on December 1 and will include:

  • The UFC will fully support The Center'sLGBTQ+programme, which offers free HIV tests to the wider Las Vegas community
  • UFC athletes and personalities visiting centers nationwide who offer free HIV tests and educational initiatives
  • The UFC will be creating public service announcements which will be distributed across its powerful media platforms
  • The UFC will also be donating promotional inventory to the campaign, beginning with a full-page ad in next month'sUFC 360magazine, and ask its partners to donate similar space to raise issue awareness.

For more information on The Center's efforts with LGBTQ+ visit www.lgbtqpoz.org.


22 Oct 22:22

No thank you RT @mojo1980: @iJesseWilliams u would make the perfect Christian grey in the film fifty

by Laura Beck

No thank you RT @mojo1980: @iJesseWilliams u would make the perfect Christian grey in the film fifty shades of grey x

— jesseWilliams. (@iJesseWilliams) October 18, 2013

Read more...

22 Oct 15:45

You're Gonna Drool Over This Pure, Perfect Library Porn

by Laura Beck

You're Gonna Drool Over This Pure, Perfect Library Porn

The new book_ Library: A World History_, is filled with gorgeous photography of book palaces around the world. That one above is the grand Philosophical Hall, at Strahov Abbey in Prague, and it's straight up Beauty and the Beast-style._ _I half expect Belle to come flying by on a rolling staircase talking about the book with the far-off places and a prince in disguise. It's her favorite!

Read more...

22 Oct 15:41

A Pug Dressed as a Wrecking Ball Won $25,000 in a Costume Contest

by Laura Beck

A Pug Dressed as a Wrecking Ball Won $25,000 in a Costume Contest

And what have you done with your life?

Read more...

22 Oct 15:39

Living The Dream: A Billionaire Paid Guy Fieri $100,000 To Be His Friend For A Day

by Kelly Conaboy

Guy Fieri is an incredibly successful garbage mouth with a dumpster body who wears wraparound sunglasses on the back of his grease-filled pufferfish head, has a problem with gay people, and a problem being around women without making lewd comments and staring at their boobs, which is all a long way of saying: Guy Fieri is the dream best friend. Oh the places we’d go! If we were friends! Probably a diner for two seconds, and then we’d slide on our greasy bellies to a cocaine strip club forever? I don’t know, but hedge-fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen does! From Page Six:

Embattled hedge-fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen, whose SAC Capital Advisors is charged with insider trading, paid spiky-haired chef Guy Fieri $100,000 “to be his friend for a day,” a new book reveals.

Cohen paid Fieri to drive around Connecticut with him to reenact a fantasy episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” reveals Allen Salkin in his book, “From Scratch: Inside the Food Network.”

But after “Cohen paid Guy Fieri $100,000 to be his friend for a day,” Salkin writes the odd couple became so close that the chef’s top-rated show even featured Cohen’s favorite hot-dog spot, the (perhaps appropriately titled) Super Duper Weenie.

What does “to reenact a fantasy episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” even mean, do you think? Did they reenact an episode that aired that became Steven A. Cohen’s fantasy, or did they just drive around to Steven A. Cohen’s favorite spots and pretend they were filming an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, because that was his fantasy? “I just wanted so bad to see Guy Fieri shove this specific food into his face. I mean– I REALLY wanted it. This is my fantasy. I love my friend.” Cool fantasy! Cool friend! Glad you’re friends now! I’m sure you’re both perfect!! (Thanks for the tip, badideajeans!)


    






22 Oct 06:24

There Was a Mini–Friday Night Lights Reunion

by Lindsey Weber

Instead of the East Dillon versus West Dillon Panthers, it's Crocs versus Flip-Flops at this mini–Friday Night Lights reunion. (Please check out Saracen and Street's feet.) Coach Taylor was busy with a new squad of young'uns (Oh God, can you imagine?) and Tami Taylor somehow managed to become a famous country singer — so they couldn't make it. Even though some of these Panthers didn't actually play together, it's nice to see the gang (Left to right: Luke Cafferty, Brian "Smash" Williams, Matt Saracen, Jason Street, and Herc) back together. Now get started on those drills.

Read more posts by Lindsey Weber

Filed Under: friday night lights ,reunions ,tv

22 Oct 06:22

Racist 21st Birthday Party Gleefully Documented on Facebook

by Dodai Stewart

Racist 21st Birthday Party Gleefully Documented on Facebook

A young white Australian woman turned 21 and decided to have an "African" themed birthday party. After the festivities, she posted photos to Facebook. Ignorance, insensitivity and racism ahoy!

Read more...

22 Oct 03:27

NBC Has Quietly Put Parks and Recreation on Hiatus for Most of the Rest of the Year

by Josef Adalian

Late on Friday, NBC announced a slew of schedule changes, as well as the cancellations of newbies Ironside and Welcome to the Family. Somewhat lost among all the shifting was this sad fact: Parks and Recreation is going on hiatus, effective immediately. This week's planned episode is being replaced by a repeat of The Voice, next week will feature an SNL Halloween clip show, and November 7 will offer a long-scheduled live episode of The Voice. Parks will then return on November 14, but only for two weeks, with back-to-back episodes airing that night and on November 21. (This means the show's planned Halloween/election episode will now air two weeks after Halloween and a week after Election Day.) After its two-week return, Parks disappears again, this time staying off the air completely until early 2014. NBC will fill the Parks time slot until then with a mix of football, a live broadcast of The Sound of Music, two weeks of The Sing-Off, and the hour-long return of Community on January 2. Unless NBC changes its mind, Parks will be back on January 9 in its new/old 8:30 p.m. time slot.

If you're wondering why NBC is futzing with Parks, it's actually pretty simple: The network desperately wants to get more viewers to sample 9 p.m. comedy Sean Saves the World. It's betting that all of the special programming it's planned for the 8 p.m. hour will do better than Parks, thus boosting Sean. It's also a very clear sign than NBC, perhaps not unreasonably, has given up on the idea that Parks will ever grow its audience. What this doesn't mean, at least not yet, is that this will be the final season for Parks. The failure, so far, of NBC's new comedies means that the Peacock has not yet proven it can do better than Parks on Thursdays. That doesn't mean NBC still won't decide to move on, but for now, its comedy choices are pretty limited.

Read more posts by Josef Adalian

Filed Under: tv ,parks and recreation ,nbc ,tragedy ,sean saves the world

21 Oct 19:55

Blind Item #8

by ent lawyer
This male Gossip Girl actor who was one of the main stars of the show went to a red carpet event in the past few weeks with a woman who was passing out her card and said she half hour specials too. Nice.
21 Oct 19:52

Blind Items Revealed

by ent lawyer
Kevespada

What does "he doesn't like opening the presents so to speak" mean?

December 3, 2009

This A list tweener has a problem. Well more than one problem but there are some things that can never be taught. Anyway, she had a boyfriend. Not exactly being a role model she got his name tattooed on her body in a place most people won't see for a few more months. Now though, she has a bigger problem than what people say about her tattoo and its location. She has a different boyfriend and he doesn't like opening the presents so to speak and seeing another name so our tweener is going to change it but can't decide if it should be the new boyfriend's name or something generic like don't chew gum with your mouth open.

Miley Cyrus/Justin tattoo which she turned into just breathe.
21 Oct 08:09

Albuquerque Charity Holds Walter White's Funeral

by Halle Kiefer

Looks like Albuquerque wasn't truly ready to say goodbye to their most famous fictional son until Saturday, when Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless threw Walter White a charity funeral, complete with hearse, coffin and grave site. While some might argue that holding a funeral for a fictional character is simply a natural albeit insane step in the growth of intense fandoms, some local residents objected to the fact the fundraising event was held in an actual cemetery. On the other hand, the faux Breaking Bad funeral raised almost $17,000. We're sure Walter would be pleased to know that even in death, he was printing money.

Read more posts by Halle Kiefer

Filed Under: stunts ,breaking bad ,superfans ,r.i.p. walter white

21 Oct 02:07

Meet Zoo Berlin’s Blue-eyed Baby Caracal Quadruplets

by Andrew Bleiman
Kevespada

Laura?

4b7b096ba3
Four fluffy Caracal kittens were born on July 21 at Germany’s Zoo Berlin.  The two male and two female cubs, with their rusty-colored coats, bright blue eyes, and long black ear-tips, are now out of the nest box and charming zoo visitors.

B677f4a54f
16f0c92e72
Photo Credit:  Zoo Berlin

Parents Sarek and Amanda came to the zoo from South Africa in 2004, and have reliably produced offspring nearly every year since. Quadruplets are rare in Caracals, making this litter of kittens unique.  The subspecies living at Zoo Berlin has an intense cinnamon-red coat color.

The name Caracal is derived from the Turkish “kara kulak,” which means “black ear,” referring to the black ear tufts, which can be nearly half the length of the ear itself.  These tufts probably aid in sound detection.

Caracals, also known as Desert Lynx, are widely distributed throughout Africa, Central Asia, and parts of India.  They inhabit dry steppes and rocky terrain.  Caracals are becoming rare in parts of their range, particularly in North Africa, Central Asia, and India.

 

 

21 Oct 01:28

The Return of the Codex Seraphinianus

by Christopher Bonanos

In 1981, a 31-year-old artist named Luigi Serafini published a very large, very peculiar book called the Codex Seraphinianus. It’s liberally illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings finished with precise colored penciling. Many pages show fantastical scenes, rows of small objects in what seem to be taxonomies, or explanatory graphics. The text, though, is where it goes totally around the bend: It’s written in an untranslated language of vaguely cursive, highly mannered loops, squiggles, and dots. Nobody (except Serafini, presumably) knows what it means, and he’s cagey. In 2009, he semi-explained it thus in a lecture: “The book creates a feeling of illiteracy which, in turn, encourages imagination, like children seeing a book: They cannot yet read it, but they realize that it must make sense (and that it does in fact make sense to grown-ups) and imagine what its meaning must be.”

That has not stopped a variety of grown-ups from trying to figure it out. An under­ground following has sprung up—copies of the first printing sell for several thousand dollars—and next week, Rizzoli brings the Codex back into print at a mere $125. Among its enthusiasts are Italo Calvino (whose preface to one edition offered that Serafini “believes in the continuity and permeability of all areas of existence” and compared him to Ovid) and the writer Justin Taylor, who elaborated on the book’s mystery in The Believer a few years ago and arranged for the translation of Calvino’s essay into English.

So what the hell does this thing say? There is speculation all over the Internet, the consensus being that the glyphs are neither a pure letter-by-letter cryptogram nor a syllable-based system but something in between. Most “readers” agree that it does translate into actual language rather than gibberish. A Bulgarian linguist has figured out the distinctive code of the page numbers. One site devoted to the Codex claims that the book contains several Rosetta stones—but that they simply lead translators from Serafini’s glyphs into another weird language. Then again, that site also suggests that the author intends us to communicate with actual aliens.

The Rizzoli edition has a booklet tucked inside the back cover tantalizingly called “Decodex” and containing text in English and several other (familiar) tongues, but it doesn’t do much decoding. Serafini did offer this clue, in that speech a few years back: “The writing of the Codex is a writing, not a language, although it conveys the impression of being one. It looks like it means something, but it does not.” But of course that may be one giant red herring of misdirection, and maybe that’s the book’s point. Philologists can take their best shots; stoners can spark up; and the rest of us can simply ride along, appreciating the visuals. Caveat translator.

*This article originally appeared in the October 28, 2013 issue of New York Magazine.

Read more posts by Christopher Bonanos

Filed Under: luigi serafini ,codex seraphinianus ,books ,new york magazine ,italo calvino ,justin taylor ,rizzoli

18 Oct 23:21

Oh God Dolly Parton What Are You Doing?

by Rich Juzwiak on Gawker, shared by Jessica Coen to Jezebel

Rapping. The woman who wrote "Jolene," "I Will Always Love You," several dead-baby jams in the early part of her career, and the rhythm of "9 to 5" on her nails, is turning a new musical corner and rapping. In a white afro. On the talk show of a woman who was once among the greatest rappers of her time.

Read more...

18 Oct 16:13

100 Men Explain Why They Think Vaginas Are Awesome and Important

by Jazmine Hughes

The cast of the Vagina Monologues at the Connecticut College for Oreos recently released a video in which they asked 100 men on campus, "Why are vaginas important to you?" Cue some adorably awkward young men talking about the role and importance of the vagina: as a vessel toward creation ("spent some time in a vagina in '92 — it was homey"), as representation of the women they care for ("vaginas were there for me when penises were not"), and the idea that "vaginas are the future." (Hillary's vagina for 2016?!) The video aims to not only celebrate the vag, but also raise awareness of gender-based violence.

Read more...

17 Oct 19:45

'Shark Week' Is Your New Favorite Rap Track About Menstrual Blood

by Dodai Stewart
Kevespada

nice ghost world callback

"My bed looks like the elevator from the shining… Contemplate, don't hate/Cause I look like Sharon Tate/or a piece of rare steak/when I masturbate." Just a few of the many amazing lines in "Shark Week," a track by a group of rappers called Hand Job Academy.

Read more...

17 Oct 19:19

Banksy's Ronald McDonald Sculpture Makes its Way Around NYC

by Erin Jackson
Kevespada

banksy is andy kaufman

From A Hamburger Today

270007-banksy-ronald-mcdonald-nyc.jpg

[Photograph: Banksy]

Banksy, a pseudo-anonymous graffiti artist, is back in New York, turning moving trucks into mobile gardens, touring the meatpacking district with a slaughterhouse truck full of adorable stuffed animals, and sparking social commentary about McDonald's with a frowning fiberglass sculpture of Ronald McDonald accompanied by a bedraggled, barefoot actor who sits at his feet, solemnly polishing the clown's oversized red boots. Ronald's likeness will be visiting a different McDonald's location every day during lunchtime until next Wednesday. So far, he's been spotted at several locations in the Bronx.

270007-banksy-ronald-mcdonald-nyc-1.jpg

Outside the Seabury Avenue McDonald's [Photograph: Nic Garcia / Gothamist]

Here's a transcription of the recording that plays when you call the 1-800 number associated with the piece, or visit banksy.co.uk:

What you see before you is a sculpture entitled 'Shoeshine' dating from the summer of 2013, depicting the powerful figure of Ronald McDonald waitng impassively as his ridiculously oversized clown shoes are buffed to a fine shine. Ronald was adopted as the official mascot of the McDonald's fast food corporation chain in 1966. Fiberglass versions of his likeness have been installed outside restaurants ever since. Thus, making Ronald arguably the most sculpted figure in history after Christ. For this piece, the artist has reproduced Ronald McDonald in perfect detail, singlehandedly. If, by perfect detail, you mean 'roughly', and by singlehandedly, you mean with two people helping. The result is a critique of the heavy labor required to sustain the polished image of a mega-corporation. Is Ronald's statuesque pose indicative of how corporations have become the historical figures of our era? Does this hero have feet of clay and a massively large footprint to boot? But, take a closer look and you may notice something familiar about this clown. His face is that of the Greek god Hermes, carved by Praxiteles in 340 BC. Is this a wry, oblique reference to Greek mythology? Or did the artist have such difficulty trying to sculpt the face he simply pronged on the nearest replica bust he could find? We will never know. (whispered) It's the second one!

For more photos of Ronald's tour around NYC, check out the gallery on Gothamist.

About the author: Erin Jackson is a food writer and photographer who is obsessed with discovering the best eats in San Diego. You can find all of her discoveries on her San Diego food blog EJeats.com. On Twitter, she's @ErinJax

Love hamburgers? Then you'll Like AHT on Facebook! And go follow us on Twitter while you're at it!

17 Oct 17:35

Michael Bay Assaulted on Transformers 4’s Hong Kong Set

by Jesse David Fox

Reuters reports that two brothers, 27 and 28, attacked Michael Bay on the Hong Kong set of Transformers 4 (a.k.a. Trans4mers). At first, the younger brother came up to the director and asked for HK$100,000 ($12,900). When he wouldn't pay, the older brother attacked Bay and then assaulted the three police offers who tried to stop him. The brothers were arrested, as well as a third man who was at the scene. Bay sustained injuries to the right side of his face, but the spokeswoman for the police did not believe it was anything serious. In other news, Bay just had a new idea for a movie in which the Rock travels to Hong Kong to exact revenge on siblings that messed with his friend, Bike El May.

Read more posts by Jesse David Fox

Filed Under: michael bay ,transformers 4 ,movies ,surprise attack

17 Oct 15:25

Dr. Butt



Dr. Butt

17 Oct 07:32

Pregnancy Fucks Up Your Bones and Muscles

by Tracie Egan Morrissey
Kevespada

yeah no thanks

Pregnancy Fucks Up Your Bones and Muscles

Depression or losing the baby weight are the more publicized concerns of the postpartum woman, but anyone who's had a baby knows how trying pregnancy is on the body, with long-lasting, painful physical effects involving muscle strain and misaligned bones. It's the kind of stuff that can't be fixed by getting back into a bikini three weeks after giving birth.

Read more...

17 Oct 02:09

Just The Tiniest Tae Kwon Do Match

by Kelly Conaboy

It’s always so sad to see young girls fighting against each other. (Via reddit.)