Snob

Un surtido de turrones, mazapanes y peladillas navideñas apuntando hacia el rocknroll. ¡Feliz navidad! Playlist; The Connection (Rock’n’Roll Christmas), Jackie and the Cedrics (Santa Claus is coming to town), Flat Duo Jets (It’s Christmas time, hey we’re gonna rock), The Monsters (Jingle bells), Los Tsunamis (Campanas de Belén), Charlie Rich (Santa Claus daughter), JD McPherson (Twinkle little Christmas time), The Yobs (Rub a dum ddum), Melopea (Nochebuena en la playa), Siniestro Total (A funfún a fanfán), The Gruesomes (Santa Claus), Andy Shernoff (Fuck Christmas), The Fleshtones (I still believe in Christmas), Nathaniel Mayer (Mr Santa Claus bring me my baby), Santiago Delgado y los Runaway Lovers (En esta navidad), Weeping Willows featuring Anikka Norlin (Merry Christmas I don’t want to fight tonight, versión de Ramones), The Cosmonauts (It’s Christmas Day) e Iggy Pop (White Christmas). 

 

 

It’s that time of year again! Time to get cozy and tuck in with Josh and Chuck as they spread glad tidings and warm Christmas cheer. Tune in to hear about Letters to Santa, A Christmas Story, mulled wine and more neat stuff.

To celebrate the holiday, here's a few downloads of cheer! ps. all of the images make a CD cover if in need!

Just Click Here

1. Otis Redding: Merry Christmas Baby
2. The Woggles: Back Door Santa
3. Otis & Carla: New Year’s Resolution
4. James Brown: Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto
5. Ike & Tina: Christmas Everyday
6. The Orioles: What Are You Doing New Years
7. Chuck Edwards: Rock ‘n Roll Aulde Lang Syne
8. The Sherwoods: Happy Holiday
9. Bobbie & Boobie: Cool, Cool Christmas
10. Vinnie Monte: Hey, Look at the Winter Snow
11. Diane Renay: Snow Man
12. Connie Francis: I’m Gonna Be Warm This Winter
13. Patty Page: Boogie Woogie Santa Claus
14. Ubangies: Chickens For Christmas
15. Chet Atkins: Jolly Old St. Nicholas
16. Bill Anderson: Po’ Folks Christmas
17. Loretta Lynn: Christmas Without Daddy
18. Irene Treadwell: Dear Santa, Bring Back My Daddy To Me!
19. Buck Owens: All I Want For Christmas Is My Daddy
20. Hank Thompson: Gonna Wrap My Heart In Ribbons
21. Jim Beasy: Christmas
22. Oscar McLollie & His Honey Jumpers: Dig That Crazy Santa Claus
23. The Woggles: Santa’s Comin’ Ho Ho Ho

We've got even more Christmas! Just click here

1. The Rockin’ Stockings: Yulesville
2. The Youngsters: Christmas In Jail
3. Chip Fisher: Snow Job
4. Buck Owens: Christmas Is A Comin’
5. Marlene Paul: I Wanna Spend Christmas With Elvis
6. Elvis Presley: Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me
7. The Husky Team: Santa’s Beard
8. Eartha Kitt: Santa Baby
9. The Barbary Coasters: I’ve Been Naughty
10. The Hepsters: Rock ‘n Roll Santa Claus
11. The Marcels: Merry Twistmas
12. The Ventures: Winter Wonderland
13. The Uniques: Rock’n Rudolph
14. Fats Domino: Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
15. Jose Gonzales: Pancho Claus
16. Tony Dodell: Cool Yule
17. Baby Gonzales: Be Bob Santa Claus
18. Homer & Jethro: Christmas Ornaments
19. The Bomboras: Little Drummer Boy
20. The Turtles: Santa & The Sidewalk Surfers
21. The Beach Boys: Merry Christmas Baby
22. The Surfari’s: Surfers Christmas List
23. The Crystals: Parade of the Wooden Soldiers
24. Sunny Cole: Santa To The Moon
25. Brenda Lee: Rock’n Around The Christmas Tree
26. Cordell Jackson: Rock’n Roll Christmas
27. The Moonglows: Hey Santa Claus

And here's our last gift for you! Just click here one last time!

1. Booker T. & The MG’s: We Wish You A Merry Christmas
2. Patsy Ray: A Beatnik Wish
3. Edd Byrnes: Yulesville
4. Buck Owens: Jingle Bells
5. Untamed Youth Santa’s Gonna Shut ‘em Down
6. The Ventures: Hark The Herald Angels Sing
7. Bobby Boris Picket: Monster Holiday
8. Annette Funicello: Surfers Holiday
9. Saturday’s Children: Christmas Sounds
10. Paul Revere & The Raiders: Wear A Christmas Smile
11. The Royal Guardsman: It Kinda Looks Like Christmas
12. The Barbary Coasters: Twistin’ Bells
13. Cathy Sharpe: North Pole Rock
14. Barry Richards: Baby Sittin’ Santa
15. Judy Brown: Dear Santa
16. Los Straightjackets: Sleigh Ride
17. The Fleshtones: Canadian Christmas
18. The Swinging’ Neckbreakers: Under The Christmas Tree
19. Bob Seger: Sock It To Me Santa
20. The New Breed: Green Eyed Woman
21. The Jolly Green Giants: Caught You Red Handed
22. The Kingsmen: Jolly Green Giant
23. The Livin’ End: Turkey Stomp
24. The Crossfires: 1 Potato, 2 Potato
25. Dee Dee Sharp: Gravy
26. John Greer: We Wanna See Santa Do The Mambo
27. JB Summers: I Want a Present For Christmas
28. Jackie & The Cedric’s: Santa Claus
29. Shirley Field: We’re Going Skiing
30. Hugo Wintherhall: Christmas Cha Cha Song
31. Supremes: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

and don't forget! Tonight (and every Wednesday!) it's an All Girl Christmas on Crayons to Perfume at 7pm, and then an all garage and psychedelic Holiday Happening with the Fringe Factory at 8pm live on Ichiban!!! Plus there's plenty more Christmas in the mix today. We'll be Christmas free tomorrow!

greggorysshocktheater:

A Charles Addams Christmas

Yesterday, home for the holidays and assigned an attic chore, I stumbled upon a box—well-taped up, covered in dust, and clearly labeled as “TIM’S STUFF” with two underlines. Oh yeah. That box.

When I graduated high school, I decided to gather up everything I owned that had meaning to me and put it in a big cardboard box. That was 14 years ago.

With almost no memory of what was in the box, I decided to open it up. Inside I found old schoolwork, report cards, things I had written, things my friends had written, pictures, audio and video recordings, tickets of things I had gone to, and a ton of letters. It quickly turned into a very weird day for me.

First, it’s been fascinating—it’s amazing how many things you remember incorrectly, and I’ve been doing a lot of revising of off-base memories.

Second, I’m a slight emotional wreck—right on the edge of doing this.

But mostly, I spent seven straight hours cringing. Looking at yourself from the outside always has the potential to be mortifying, but looking at yourself and your friends as teenagers is like watching the least endearing, most excruciating reality show ever made. Here’s why:

Anyone who knows 9 to 23-year-olds knows that they tend to detract more value from the world than they add, but as you can see on this graph, the teen years, and especially ages 12 to 16, are a full train wreck. The reason we sometimes forget this is that the only people who spend time with teens are other, equally un-self-aware teens, parents of teens (whose judgment is clouded by their love for their kid), and professionals who have chosen to work with teens because they have an inexplicable soft spot for them. All the people in a position to see teenagers for who they actually are don’t come into much contact with them, so we often forget what kind of people they are.

But there was no forgetting yesterday, as I pored through this mound of primary sources—especially since in this case, it brought back all the inner thinking behind the way my friends and I were.

So all teens reading this, especially those on the younger side: You have a right to live your life, but at least do so with the knowledge that you’re probably bringing down the general quality of the world by being the way you are. I can’t fix you—no one can—but I’ll try to offer some basic suggestions that will help you minimize the amount of embarrassment you’re causing to our species and to your future self:

1) Don’t attempt to be profound, for any reason whatsoever. Profound is not for teenagers, and you’re 100% not an exception. In particular, if one day at the age of 16, you decide to write a short philosophical story in red ink in all tiny capital letters and you’re quivering by the end with a sense of sublime connection to something bigger than yourself, what you should do is A) stop feeling this way, B) keep this whole experience to yourself, and C) throw the story away, since reading it later in life, once you have clarity, will shatter the incorrect, more impressive image you have of yourself as a teen.

2) Don’t be such a dick to your parents, you entitled little shit. You live in a world where 99.9999999% of humans care more about how their hair looks than whether you live or die, and then there’s this person, or two if you’re lucky, who’d give their lives for you. And how do you feel about all this? You feel the exact levels of entitlement and gratitude of this horse:

3) Girls between 11 and 13 and boys between 13 and 15 should implement a strict no-photography policy. For your future self, it’s like being reminded how the hot dog was made.

4) 13-14-year old boys: Your newfound sexuality is extremely icky and upsetting to everyone else. 

Just a year or two ago, you had a high voice, a microscopic penis, and people found you endearing. A lot of changes have happened in your life since then, and none of them are appealing to the rest of the world. Even your parents are kind of sickened by your whole vibe these days. Here’s the issue:

There’s not really anything you can do to shield humanity from what you’re thinking about, since everyone can see it on your greasy little face, so I’m not sure there’s any advice here—just try not to hurt yourself.

5) 12-14-year-old girls: Try to form one notch less of a medieval empire of sadism and tears. There are a few people crueler to their peers than 12-14-year-old girls—

—but not many. One of the things I found in the cardboard box was a photo of some Play-Doh creation of a human head with a bunch of little red spheres stuck to it, which at the time was made by an acne-ridden girl’s peers and passed around the entire 7th grade at school. Another finding was a letter a friend had written me while I was away the summer after 8th grade, telling me that a girl we knew had been crying yesterday because a bunch of people had been hanging out at a house, but they hadn’t invited this one ostracized member of the group, and the girl whose house it was wouldn’t let her in the door when she showed up.

No one else can quite understand the psychology of a 12-14-year-old girl, just like we can’t understand the way medieval dictators thought—all you can do is remain wary when you’re around them and be careful never to show weakness.

6) Be aware that there are no winners when a 14-year-old boy decides to grow his hair into a shoulder-length bowl cut.

7) 16-18-year-olds: You’re not in love. You’re in something—I understand that—but that thing you’re in is very likely not love. What’s happening is that you’re a basket of hormones that has become infatuated with another basket of hormones, and that’s fine—go for it. But if you find yourself tempted to do something like sever an old, otherwise-strong friendship of yours over it, or alter your college-application plans in order to go to college together as a couple, or write some horrifying love note about this person in your high school yearbook—the thing you need to be made clear on is that friends, and college, and paper are real, and your relationship is fictional:

This is a graph of a group of sample relationships I created based on no actual data (the graph seemed like a good idea in my head, but then when I made it, it came out totally weird and confusing. Luckily, that’s your problem and not mine). Anyway the point is, when it comes to high school couples, a vast majority of them who are still together after high school ends will be finished by Thanksgiving (late November) of their freshman year of college—the high school relationship wall. The problem is, lots of high school couples are pretty sure that they just might be that one outlier couple on the graph who actually will end up together forever—except then they won’t make it past the wall. So keep this in mind and try not to bump something over in the realm of long-lasting things for the sake of this relationship.

And if, for some incredible reason, you decide to write a song related to this situation of yours, and you choose to write the lyrics on a physical piece of long-lasting paper, and before you graduate you decide to put a bunch of things into a box for the future, understand that you’re only hurting yourself by putting the paper with the lyrics on it into the box, because it’ll cause you to read them when you’re 33 when you had otherwise completely forgotten about the incident.

8) You’re not a Communist, you’re not a Marxist, you’re not an Anarchist, you’re not a Nihilist. No one likes a teenage zealot. Just stop.

9) When your 7th grade girlfriend gives you this note—

—realize that A) it means she’s incredibly not into you, and B) if she has to write her last name, it means your relationship was lacking in the first place. You should also explain to her how to do the “It’s not you, it’s me” thing correctly, instead of basically saying, “It’s not you, it’s me—me not liking you.” Whatever you do, don’t convince her to get back together with you, since that’ll just result in you going through all the pain again two weeks later—

If someone you’ve spoken to no more than three times in your life A) is acting like she’s divorcing you after 20 years of marriage, averaging 2.5 sorry’s per note, because of how devastated she thinks you’ll be when you read this, and B) feels the need to use the word “look” with you, which is the step right below a restraining order—and all this from someone who thinks it’s okay to hyphenate the word “would”—you need to make some big changes.

So, teenagers, I suggest you take a long look in the mirror and understand the perils you face by being you. Your entire existence is like a drunk person dancing at a wedding—fun from the inside, horrifying from the outside—so just think about that when you’re choosing what to put in writing, put online, and gather into the box at the end of high school. Your future self might be better off without all the details.

Related Wait But Why Posts

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The post The Teen Years: 9 Cringe-Inducing Realizations appeared first on Wait But Why.

by Luke Kelly-Clyne

You're going to see a lot of lists over the next 2 weeks. "Best of This" and "Best of That." Everything you've consumed or thought about consuming this year will be put into a sort of arbitrary context by some oaf who doesn't much like spending time with family and does like listing the 10 or 20 or 100 things he or she thinks are "super legit." It's pathetic, presumptuous, and totally subjective. This is not one of those lists for one reason and one reason only: it's definitive, objective, and 100% right in every way. You could argue with the selections, but you'd be wrong. So don't embarrass yourself. Read below and get in the know (#rhyme2014). These are the five best web series of the year.

(Listen: if you disagree, that's totally cool. There's a ton of really great stuff that came out this year. These are just straight up gut calls. I actually had a list of like 75 at first. Then I chopped it down because Adam Frucci yelled. He wasn't mad, he just…Anyway, everyone this column covered this year is great and should feel really proud. Don't let lists like this define you.)

Do not test me on this. These are the 5 and I'm VERY sure of that. Get it?

(Happy New Year and thanks for reading!)

1. Written It Down

It's tough to top improv this consistently hilarious.

2. Small, Medium, Tall

It's tough to top an ensemble with this kind of chemistry.

3. Business Work

It's tough to top episodes this beautifully absurd.

4. BedHead

It's tough to top writing that rings this true.

5. Gary Saves the Graveyard

It's tough to top comedy that makes you feel this much.

Luke is a writer for CollegeHumor and a watcher of many web videos. Send him yours @LKellyClyne.

0 Comments

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Last year I posted my top ten comics of 2013 and it was far more popular than any of my other comics columns. I guess people really love lists that they can either get excited about or strongly criticize and disagree with. The comments section was full of people asking how I could have forgotten to mention a comic they liked or in some cases a shitty comic that they had made. Top ten lists are a crock of shit and I hope that all of you who read this understand that this list is just the opinion of me, Nick Gazin. You are free to make your own list of the best comics of 2014 and it will be more correct than mine because you made it.

Comics is a noble medium where no one makes any real money and it's incredibly hard to get attention and exposure. All these people worked really hard to make something great and they deserve our recognition—and if you haven't gotten a present yet for the comics fan in your life, consider this a gift guide.

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#11

Loose Joints 1
Jonny Negron
Space Face

This neat little book is mostly made up of comics that originally appeared on this very website. I liked them when we ran them, and I like seeing them in print.

Jonny Negron is known best for drawing thick R. Crumb–style ladies. Picturebox published a great book of his that was mostly drawings with a few comics. This book is mostly comics with a few drawings.

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Jonny has skill, vision, and a definite attitude he brings to the work. There's a lack of structure to his comics and they sort of start and stop without exposition or conclusions most of the time. This book shows Jonny trying a lot of different techniques and it's interesting to see him testing out who he is as an artist.

Get Loose Joints here.

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#10

Transformers Vs. GI Joe #1–3
Tom Scioli and John Barber
IDW

It is ridiculous that a comic called Transformers Vs. GI Joe is this beautiful. Instead of trying to take 80s toy nostalgia and make it sexy and modern, Tom Scioli and John Barber have made a comic that feels like playing with action figures in your backyard and looks like Gary Panter, Jack Kirby, and Anya Davidson's art. All the panels and pages are just a joy to stare at; it's like a Sears Christmas catalogue.

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This comic succeeds as very successful nostalgia while also being sophisticatedly drawn. The art is so beautiful that I sometimes find it difficult to follow the story but I don't mind. If you were a child in the 80s and remember playing with these toys this comic will work for you on that level. If you appreciate some of the most beautiful drawings currently being published in a comic book then this can work for you on that level too.

You can get Transformers Vs. GI Joe here.

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#9

The Borgias
Alejandro Jodorowsky and Milo Manara
Dark Horse

I thought Dark Horse had completed its Manara Library series of hardcover fancy books so this book is a nice surprise. This book collects the four-volume Borgias series that were written by fillmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and drawn by the very sexy Milo Manara.

It tells the supposedly true story of Italy's first crime family, the titular Borgias, in the 15th century, and centers around Rodrigo Borgia bribing and cheating his way into being the pope. The book explodes with sex and violence and every sort of perversion. There's incest and an old pope drinking the blood of boys to stay alive and poisoning. It's like Game of Thrones except it's based on real events and it's not boring. (I think Game of Thrones is really boring.)

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Manara is known for painting sexy women, but really he makes the whole universe sexy and people just look at his work with tunnel vision. Jodorowsky is a genius and he deserves your money more than you do and you deserve this book if you like beautifully rendered violence and intrigue.

Buy The Borgias here.

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#8

Frankenstein
Dick Briefer
Roy Thomas

Dick Briefer is one of very few notable auteurs of the golden age of comics. Frankenstein was a comic he wrote and drew in the 40s that was based on the Boris Karloff movie and is probably largely responsible for people calling the monster "Frankenstein" instead of "Frankenstein's Creature" or something like that.

Briefer drew Frankenstein as this lovable local oddball and for some reason as a stylistic choice he has placed Frankenstein's nose above his eyeline in his forehead. The comic started as a humor comic but eventually turned into a horror comic. Or maybe it started as a horror comic and then turned funny and went back to scary. It's heavily influenced by Charles Addams's New Yorker cartoons and preceded a lot of the funny monster genre stuff like Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

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Briefer's brushlines are loose and full of energy and vitality, sort of like Jack Cole's. A lot of the jokes are still pretty funny 70 years later. This is the first time anyone has attempted to reprint all of the original Frankenstein comics in their entirety and this book is perfect except for two things. The first is that it's published in England and each book is $75. The second is that this book has 18 pages of advertisements for other books from the publisher, which is unbelievably tacky to put into a slipcased hardcover book like this. I guess you can't win 'em all, but this book is still entirely worth owning.

Buy Frankenstein Vol. 4 here.

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#7

Lose #6
Michael DeForge
Koyama Press

Michael DeForge put out a prestigious hardcover graphic novel called Ant Colony this year, and while Ant Colony is very good I think that his comic book series Lose is his best work. Right now he is the closest to approaching what Dan Clowes was achieving with Eightball in terms of making a perfectly crafted and designed comic book. Each issue is meticulous. Nothing seems like an accident. Pick up any issue of Lose and you will have a perfect and memorable comics experience.

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The story of Lose #6 is about an angry woman who is taking her niece to her clarinet recital. The niece's clarinet is stolen by a member of the Mafia (in this comic the Mafia all wear black shrouds) and in order to get it back she smokes something given to her by an entity that lives in a brick wall and infiltrates the Mafia. No critical description of the story can prepare you for what actually reading it is like. You just have to do it.

Get Lose #6 from Koyama.

Michael DeForge's Favorite Comic of 2014:

"The miscellaneous output of Noel Freibert is my favorite of the year!"

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#6

Forming I and II
Jesse Moynihan
Nobrow Press

These books are a big crazy Jodorowsky-style reinterpretation of Bible tales and mythology mixed in with lots of funny swearing and pretty colors. Jesse Moynihan is well known for making the more cerebral and weird Adventure Time stories. If you saw that and thought "I need more" then here is that "more" you wanted.

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Get Forming I and II here.

Jesse Moyninan's Favorite Comic of 2014:

"Maybe The Wrenchies."

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#5

Bumperhead
Gilbert Hernandez
Drawn & Quarterly

Gilbert Hernandez has been making consistently important work for 35 years so why would his new book be any different? Like almost everything he's done before, Bumperhead is great. It contains several familiar tropes of Beto storytelling but it doesn't detract from the experience.

The book tells the story of Bobby, the titular Bumperhead. The book begins with Bobby as the young son of a non–English speaking father and a mother who just doesn't speak. We see him go from boyhood to a sensitive teenager to a punk-obsessed person in his early 20s. He has good relationships and bad, gets fat and thin, and very quickly he gets old. Along the way he seems to never really make solid connections with the people around him.

There are odd and inexplicable meta elements too. Despite much of the story being set in the 70s and 80s Bobby's best friend has an iPad which he casually uses to find information from the future. The presence of aliens is also mentioned occasionally. Sometimes Bobby looks up into the sky and sees a bleak and dark face in the clouds.

I find it very difficult to really state anything definite about Gilbert's work. I just know that it is always entertaining and leaves me full of thoughts and feelings that I can explore for weeks.

You can get this book from Drawn & Quarterly.

Gilbert's Favorite Comic of 2014:

"My fave book of comics this year so far (I haven't seen the Al Feldstein teen comics collection or the two- and three-pager Steve Ditko collection yet) is Dick Tracy 1956-1957 collection. The S. Clay Wilson collection, Wonder Wart-Hog collection, and the Eerie pubs reprints come close though."

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#4

The Wrenchies
Farel Dalrymple
First Second

Farel Dalrymple's confusing sci-fi/fantasy graphic novel is a lot of fun to read and look at. A bunch of kids traverse a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland where the adults are dead, and the characters viewed from different levels of reality. This chunky graphic novel delivers a lot of story to think about and each page is full of warmth and beauty.

Get The Wrenchies here.

Farel Dalrymple's Favorite Comic of 2014:

"Megahex and This One Summer were both great. The new Lose was pretty inspiring as well."

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#3

Hip Hop Family Tree #2
Ed Piskor
Fantagraphics

Hip Hop Family Tree Volume 2 is the second in a series of oversized trade paperbacks that tell the story of the birth of hip-hop culture, focusing mainly on rap music. The first book had some great moments in it and this one does too. Picking up in 1981 this book weaves in all the different stuff that was going on at the time. There's the beginnings of Def Jam, the Beastie Boys change from punks to rappers, the filming and response to Wild Style, "Planet Rock," "The Message"... and all of this is woven into an overarching saga that flows seamlessly and never feels like a collection of random anecdotes.

There have been a lot of comics that try to reference different music scenes and subcultures and they have all been terrible. If you told me that someone was making a comic about the history of rap I would just assume it would have to suck. This book is great though.

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I interviewed the maker of this book, Ed Piskor, and here's that:

VICE: How long do you see HHFT continuing for? Will it ever catch up to present day?
Ed Piskor:I'm signed up for six books right now. I'm just going to let things breathe and the narrative will grow at its own pace. I hope to get to around 1987 with book six but that might not happen. There's a lot of ground to cover. I will die of old age before I could take the comic to present day.

Do you see a natural end to this series? Is the story over when hip-hop becomes completely mainstream?
At the end of book six I'd be happy if I get to DJ Scott La Rock's death. I think that's a profound moment where things in hip-hop took a dramatic turn. Even so, I'm sure I'm going to end that book with a "to be continued" type caption like the two existing volumes. The story never ends.

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You portray Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons as being pretty clownish and manipulative. What's your take on those guys? Have they seen this?
We know Rubin and Simmons as these meditative, zen, vegan guys today but they were a couple of knucklehead kids. As the story grows they will both mature over time too. They've both seen the comic and dig it. Rick had a rep from Def Jam get in touch with me about some future work, and Russell is down too.

So Russell doesn't mind that he's constantly cross-eyed and lisping?
Nope.

What sort of responses have you received from people who appear in the comics?
Unanimous praise. Now guys will get in touch to make sure that I have access to them for when their contribution to hip-hop takes place. They want their part done "right."

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Who's been the most psyched on their appearance? Who's gotten in touch with you so far?
I'm not gonna name drop dudes, but probably more than two dozen guys have gotten in touch so far. I don't know who was most stoked but I can say I was pretty stoked when someone sent me a pic of Bambaataa holding his copy of book two.

How much planning goes into how you organize the flow of the stories and events in the book? You've been foreshadowing the coming of Run DMC for awhile.
I just work in two-page installments. I literally don't know what I do the following week. The history is already in stone, so I just have to curate things, basically. I'm like an archeologist.

Saying that the history is set in stone makes it sound like there's an objective truth. It seems like there would be disagreement about some events from of the participants of the story. That never happens?
No drama for yo' momma that I can speak of yet. It will happen at some point, I'm sure. Of course the history is not "in stone" in a dogmatic way. I sort of meant that as the existing records are in stone as existing at an exact time, which provides the spine for my narrative. These records came out in a very specific time frame so the historical moments I talk about happen in between the records.

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The book ends with Run DMC having come into their own but not yet becoming the first major rap act and Dr. Dre having the impetus to form NWA. Wil we see the formation of NWA in the pages of HHFT 3?
Nah. No NWA in Vol 3, but book three will have the Fat Boys, Whodini, LL Cool J, and KRS finally becomes KRS, though he's not a signed recorded rapper yet.

I just looked at the sides of volumes one and two and realized that they each cover two-year periods. Is the plan to continue this or are things going to be slowing down?
Things are going to slow down in a big way probably. Like I said, I'm just going to let the narrative take whatever shape it's going to take. Book three will be 1983-1984. Book four may just complete 1984, because so much happens that year. Maybe we'll get to see a little piece of '85 in book four. Who knows?

One neat thing you do with this comic is that all the art appears to be on old newsprint so it looks more like an artifact from the era that the events in the comic actually took place. At what step in conceiving of HHFT did you decide to do that?
I always knew it was going to have to have this kind of production when it was time for it to be a book. The great thing about every comics publisher wanting it was that I could absolutely make sure the book turned out to be what I envisioned it. For instance, Dark Horse sent me a hardcover Space Family Robinson book to show me how they'd print the thing. The paper stock was great but they didn't want the yellowed look to the paper though. So I just ripped a page out of that book and sent it to Fantagraphics. "Can we print on this paper?" Fanta said "yeah" and I signed the contract. I'm not looking to compromise at all if I can help it.

What's the process for doing that?
It's all photoshop trickery. My version of "sampling." I basically just scan in color from old-ass comics and that is my palette, complete with the grit and grime that's accumulated over the books I scan from 40 years ago.

There are scenes in volume two where people from the modern day are describing the events of the early 80s and their colors are so different
Yeah, those panels are designed to take you completely out of the big narrative to provide a small aside, then you launch right back in. It's successful to most [people], but some readers are dummies and they think they got a faulty book or something.

Another thing that sets your book apart is the oversized dimensions. Tell me about that.
Growing up, most of my friends' parents had Superman vs. Muhammad Ali on their shelves. That was the only comic in the house. And it was beat to shit. I wanted my book to have the same dimensions and scale. I fantasize that my book will sit right next to their copies of Superman vs. Muhammad Ali. I'm a romantic like that.

Who are you like right now in rap music? Who are you liking right now in comics?
I'm an unapologetic Jay-Z and Kanye West fan these days. I've really just discovered them for myself. In comics anything by Ben Marra, Farel's new book The Wrenchies, Jim Rugg's work. Tom Scioli's Transformers vs GI Joe. Tom Neely and Keenan Keller's The Humans. Jason Karns's Fukitor. Michel Fiffe's Copra.

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When does volume three come out?
Book three will be out around August next year. It will be annual from now on. I have 20 more pages to draw and then I'll spend three months or so in the design/editing part of the process.

Get Hip Hop Family Tree Volume 2 here.

Ed Piskor's Favorite Comic of 2014:

"I think Farel's Wrenchies comic was my favorite but I've been anticipating it for a million years."

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#2

Megahex
Simon Hanselmann
Fantagraphics

The appearance of our own Simon Hanselmann's Megahex should probably elicit a "no shit" response from most of our casually swearing readership. Simon has been toiling away in some Australian ghetto for what must have been eons honing his funny bone to a fine point. He's finally unleashed his full comics potency with this great collection of his online comics and it's melted everyone's faces off with how good it is.

Megahex collects Simon's comics about a bunch of terrible roommates. There's Megg (a witch), Mogg (a cat) , Owl (a giant owl), and Werewolf Jones. They all abuse each other and get high and deal with their depressions. Every page is a laugh and a half and pretty to look at.

Simon does comics for us every Monday. This book is like those comics but on paper. You should already have bought this. I commanded it.

Buy it here.

Simons's Favorite Comic Of 2014:

"Megahex or Arsen Schrauwen. i actually didn't get to read enough stuff this year. i bought everything, i just didn't ever have any time to read anything."

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#1

Epoxy #5
John Pham

Epoxy #5 excites me about the possibilities of comics and storytelling, art, paper, and printing in the way that few things do now that I'm 31 and I've seen it all.

This risograph-printed comic is a magazine-sized 18-page comic told from a first-person perspective about a ship that has crashed on a frozen planet. It is beautiful and lonely.

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Stapled into the spine of the book is a smaller 44-page comic called Jay and Kay. It is also by John Pham but it is drawn in an entirely different, more cartoony and tells the story of two girls who seem to live in a shopping mall and their interactions with the other mall crawlers. The mall goths are called Glumpires and the kids listen to a cassette tape of music by a Morrissey parody named Pompa-dour. At one point the girls find a cache of issues of Cool magazine in a bookstore.

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Stapled inside the small comic that's inside the large comic is an even smaller 16-page issue of Cool magazine. It even has a minuature subscription card and posters and things stapled into it. Cool Magazine has an interview with Pompa-dour's old band, Les Enfants. There's also Magic Juan's Animal Shelter Report, Count Dragula's Activity Corner, and more. It'll remind some of you of Hotdog magazine except if the theme was about being sad.

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It's hard to explain with words how great this object is. This is something you could never download or replicate digitally. Every drawing is beautiful, every color is beautiful. The paper feels beautiful. The experience of discovering the little mini comic and even smaller mini-magazine elicit feelings that I thought had snapped off long ago.

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If you would like to buy Epoxy #5 email John Pham at john@substitutelife.com and look at more of his work here.

John Pham's Favorite Comic of 2014:

"Earthling by Aisha Franz"

Quinta remesa de repaso al año a través de un centenar de canciones. En la selección no entraron singles, EPs ni versiones y los temas aparecen en el orden cronológico en el que fueron sonando en el programa. 

Playlist; Ty Segall (The Singer), Astray y los Impasibles (Bomba bombón), The Roaring 420’s (Another chance to blow), Jysus (Pictures of the century), Luke Winslow-King (Everlasting arms), Roy and Yvonne (Moving on), Arizona Baby (My love), The Limboos (Big chef), The Youth (Bubblegum), Le Grand Miércoles (Cowboy fantasma), The Bite (TV personality), Brian Setzer (Let’s shake), Charlie Hightone and the Rock-Its (Heart no bail), Trash-Tornados (Voodoo girl), Dropkick (Breakdown) y The Norvins (Turn off the light). 

Cerramos con un recuerdo para uno de los más grandes nombres del soul británico, fallecido hoy; Joe Cocker (With a little help from my friends).

 

 

Sexto y último capítulo dedicado a rescatar 100 canciones favoritas de 100 álbumes editados este año. Playlist; Los Vigilantes (Al fin), Plástico (Tira la piedra a la luna), The Rubinoos (Run mascara run), The Ships (Want), The Felines (Pity for your eyes), Dani Nel.lo and Barcelona Big Blues Band (Sax attack), Els A-Phonics (El torcal), The Dead Brothers (Black moose), C.W. Stoneking (We gon’ boogaloo), Los Enemigos (Cementerio de elefantes), Ming City Rockers (I wanna get out of here but I can’t take you anywhere), Los Tupper (Susie in the nighttime), The Maharajas (Family provider), Bo-Dogs (Why don’t you explain), Dead Heads (Baby blues) y St Paul and the Broken Bones (I’m torn up). (23/12/14)

 

 

Pese a que la OMS defiende la lactancia, su práctica en público aún genera polémica. Por eso la mayoría de las mujeres continúa ejerciéndola en la intimidad.

Según un reciente estudio en la revista Psychological Science, llevado a cabo por investigadores de la Universidad Carnegie Mellon en Pittsburgh, Pensilvania, recibir un buen abrazo de alguien no solo mejora nuestro estado de ánimo, sino que nos fortalece para protegernos de los virus, por ejemplo el del resfriado común.

Para realizar el estudio, 404 adultos rellenaron un cuestionario diseñado para determinar el apoyo social que percibían. Además, durante las 14 noches siguientes, mantuvieron entrevistas telefónicas para hablar sobre sus conflictos con los demás y los abrazos que habían recibido. Tras todo ello, los adultos fueron expuestos a un virus del resfriado común y puestos en cuarentena.

Según Sheldon Cohen, líder del estudio, los participantes que afirmaron tener un mayor apoyo social en sus conflictos eran menos propensos a ser infectados por el virus de la gripe; y los abrazos fueron responsables, además, de alrededor de un tercio de este efecto protector contra la infección. Gracias al contacto físico, sentimos a nivel psicológico una gran sensación de intimidad y apoyo por parte de la otra persona, lo que afectaría de forma positiva sobre nuestro organismo:

Hemos probado que la percepción del apoyo social es igualmente eficaz para la protección de las infecciones debido a que nos protege de la susceptibilidad a la infección inducida por el estrés. De la misma forma, recibir abrazos podría en parte explicar esos sentimientos de apoyo y proteger a una persona contra la infección.

Vía | ABC
Imagen | Tania_Cataldo

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La noticia Abrazos para protegerte de los virus fue publicada originalmente en Xataka Ciencia por Sergio Parra .

En los textos del extinto periódico policiaco Alarma! que la mexicana Susana Vargas ha seleccionado para su nuevo libro, a las mujeres de las que se habla se las califica de «pervertidas, degeneradas, depravadas y asquerosas». Lo que se ve en las fotos que ilustran la mayoría de esos mismos sucesos, son unas damas «sensuales, hermosas, femeninas»… aporta la firmante.

«Son mujercitos. Así se apelaba denigratoriamente en México a estos hombres que se vestían de mujer. Los de esta recopilación lo hacían entre los 60 y los 80, y eran clase obrera, travestidos y para sobrevivir se dedicaban al negocio del sexo. Yo puse Mujercitos (editorial RM) como título al libro porque a mi me parece que es algo más que un apelativo ofensivo, pienso que es un símbolo de rebeldía, de resistencia».

Todo empezó con una tesis. La de Vargas se llamaba Alarma! Mujercitos performando el género en un sistema so-cultural pigmentocrático. El germen de aquello fueron los ejemplares de ese periódico de nota roja que la autora había localizado en el mercadillo defeño de la Lagunilla, una publicación mítica de actualidad rabiosa sobre los crímenes atroces de la urbe.

«Las revistas eran de entre los años 1963 y 1986. Me llamó mucho la atención que en esa época, en una sociedad homofóbica, transfóbica y machista, existieran este tipo de publicaciones. Aparecen sujetos transgrediendo el género. De algún modo, aunque fuera para hablar de sus detenciones, o de sus asesinatos en algunos pocos casos, eran una minoría perseguida que se estaba haciendo notoria gracias a esas noticias muchas veces», explica. «Eran su publicidad. Las fotos de esas detenidas son las de mujeres dignas, bellas. Eso era una manera de revolucionarse, de demostrar su identidad. No me hubiera esperado un acto así en un país como México».

Vargas ha investigado que lejos de tratarse de un fenómeno moderno, los grupúsculos de individuos con «sexualidades no normativas» son un hecho de siempre. Como ejemplo arcaico pone el caso de «el baile de los 41», un suceso que ocurrió en 1901. «En México ‘41’ significa ser gay», explica, «fue por una redada de una fiesta de 42 hombres, en una casa del centro de la ciudad. Eran todos homosexuales y algunos estaban vestidos de mujer. Lo que ocurrió es que se escapó uno, Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, yerno de Porfirio Díaz, que obviamente no fue enjuiciado por eso. A los 41 se les acusó de faltas a la moral y a las buenas costumbres [fueron enviados a realizar trabajos forzados en Oaxaca]. Pero todo el mundo sabía que pasaban estas cosas. La razón por la que les pillaron es porque los vecinos se quejaron del ruido».

Para su tesis y su encuadernación, con diseño de Olivier Andreotti inspirado en las páginas de Alarma! y prólogo del crítico Cuauhtémoc Medina, la autora quiso centrarse en dos décadas en las que «los ambientes en los que se movían los mujercitos eran distintos que aquellos de principios de siglo».

«En esta época los hombres vestidos de mujer son sin duda los peor parados de todos las identidades sexogenéricas, y no vienen de una clase alta, sino de los sectores más humildes, algo que sorprende porque creemos que la clase baja es la más violenta y la más cerrada a admitir a estos individuos, y sin embargo es el la que más se permite esta transgresión del sexo». «Y son precisamente estos individuos, los mujercitos, los que más han defendido los derechos colectivos de todos los demás tipos de minorías».

Vargas opina que actualmente existe una heteronormatividad y una homonormatividad. «La de la heterosexualidad es histórica, pero por ejemplo ahora, también muchos homosexuales se han subido al carro del neoliberalismo, y piensan desde un foco individual. Las circunstancias les benefician: imagina una familia con el sueldo de dos hombres, y sin hijos… la sociedad tiene en cuenta su poder adquisitivo y se hacen planes enfocados a ellos. Lo mismo le ha pasado a movimientos como el feminismo. Antes era más radical y más colectivo, ahora muchas veces se asocia con la idea de mujer con individualidad financiera. Pero eso no deja de ser otra idea procedente del neoliberalismo, no es el feminismo de la equidad. Incluso la comunidad transexual y transgénero ha conseguido algo. Suelen ser personas con una mayor movilidad económica, que a menudo tienen dinero para acceder a cosas como operaciones de cambio de sexo».

La autora sostiene que los mujercitos, «a los que podríamos considerar travestis» pero prefiere abstenerse porque «cada uno tiene una consideración individual», «nunca pudieron subir el ese escalón socioeconómico». «Ellas son las que salían en estas noticias de nota roja, de crímenes; nunca llegaron a tener una capacidad económica solvente; algunas morían asesinadas y muchas no sobrevivieron al VIH de los 80. Si tenían una redada, se las culpaba a ellas de haber engañado al cliente con el que se estaban prostituyendo en vez de al cliente; y todo eso, además de por su aspecto, era debido a pertenecer a la clase baja. En México no se puede hablar de género sin hablar de clase y tonalidad e la piel. Y la tonalidad de la piel además se hace, uno es más o menos blanco depende del restaurante donde coma».

Miradas voraces de hombres-mujeres que acababan de ser detenidos. Afrenta directa al objetivo de un fotoperiodista que cubre un suceso donde ellas son el cuerpo del delito, literalmente hablando. Lo que quiere resaltar el libro según Vargas es como aquella época de duro régimen político, «precisamente por existir una persecución, hizo que se reivindicaran cambios». «Estas imágenes de una revista con una tirada de medio millón de ejemplares, donde una vez al mes salía una noticia de un mujercitos, durante 20 años, incidieron extensamente en un imaginario nacional de sexualidades no normativas».

«Quieren decir aquí estoy, y miro a la cámara seductora aunque el texto que acompañe mi imagen sea para insultarme, y me reivindico. Yo, que pertenezco al sector más perseguido y defenestrado de todos. Y también reivindico por los derechos de los demás porque vengo de lo más bajo», pone como conclusión al fenómeno la mexicana.

«Ahora estamos viviendo un régimen similar en México, de opresión. Creo que lo que hacían estas detenidas posando para la cámara se puede comparar con lo que está pasando ahora cuando vemos a gente escribiendo 43 por todas partes. Un agotamiento y una resistencia. La represión política implica que tenemos más conciencia. La gente se está movilizando en todas partes. Este libro es un homenaje y una esperanza. Siempre existe un espacio para ejercer subversión y resistencia a pesar del momento de violencia máxima».

The post La rebelión de los mujercitos appeared first on Yorokobu.

Las causas son diversas, pero es posible que las fiestas de hoy te toquen un poco los platillos chinos. Esto es algo que lleva pasando toda la vida, tampoco te sientas un raro. Como tú, hay miles. Algunos de ellos son incluso directores de cine. Si eres el que esta noche piensa pasar de cenas, luces y demás parafernalia fosforescente; el que se va a quedar tirado en un sillón porque tiene, porque quiere o porque puede, existen unos cuantos creadores de filmes que podrían acompañarte en esta tu noche de conjura cinéfila contra el maldito gordo de rojo.

Es solo una opción, y habrá quién ni loco se pierda la de esta noche, pero ¿por qué no, en vez de delante de un árbol lleno de bolas que no te gustan, regalos que no quieres y borrachos de tu misma sangre gritándote al oído, uno no puede vivir la Nochebuena bajo manta viendo Plácido (España, 1961)? Esta obra maestra de Luis García Berlanga lograría engordar las razones por las que nació ese lado tuyo tan grinch. Falso espíritu navideño, altruismo piadoso impostado y folclore para este personaje de otra España, en otra crisis, que busca una solución a sus miserias entre una clase que solo ha de quererle entre ellos una noche al año. Una velada de pura vanidad altruista.

Lo que te pone es maldecir las Navidades afrancesadamente. Entonces, apunta: Un cuento de Navidad (Francia, 2009), de Arnaud Desplechin. 24 de diciembre, o lo que es lo mismo en este largometraje, comprar cosas que no quieres comprar; llevar regalos que no quieres regalar; ver a una madre a la que no soportas; a unos hermanos que no te importan; a unos sobrinos que no quieres ver y encima tragarte un edulcoramiento religioso en el que no crees. Para mejorar las cosas, mamá tiene cáncer y se enteran ahora. Humor negro en la cena de Nochebuena de la alta burguesía gabacha.

También puedes vivir las Navidades como se vivirían en guerra, que nada tiene que ver con lo que ves en los centros comerciales de tu barrio. Primera escena de la película: unos niños palestinos corren por el monte cargados de piedras persiguiendo a un occidental Papá Noel que ha llegado a su tierra con un saco de juguetes. Se llama Divine Intervention (Palestina, 2002). El director, Elia Suleiman, comienza en el contexto de unas navidades conceptuales una comedia negra surrealista sobre el conflicto de Oriente próximo. ¿Existen historias de amor vividas en checkpoints impuestos?

El día de la bestia de Álex de la Iglesia (España,1995) -si es que hay algún mortal que no la haya visto-, trata de un sacerdote convencido de la llegada del anticristo un 25 de diciembre a Madrid. Navidades satánicas y humor sangriento con Santiago Segura a cargo de que los cascabeles suenen a heavy metal.

La opción canadiense y gore para una antinochebuena se llama Hobo with a shotgun (Canadá, 2011). Un falso tráiler que participó en el concurso convocado por Quentin Tarantino y Robert Rodríguez para Grindhouse acabó transformándose en película de la mano de Jason Eisener. Un asesino macabro y brutal se aficiona a acabar con Santa Claus pedófilos. Y los mata bien muertos. Si Tarantino tiene algo que ver en esto…

«¿Será el 24 de diciembre una buena fecha para engancharse al cine rumano?», te habrás preguntado siempre. 4 Meses, 3 semanas, 2 días (Rumanía, 2007) puede ser la respuesta a tu duda. Crónica de las festividades más crudas. Cristian Mungiu narra la historia de una adolescente llamada Gabita cuya Navidad de ese año pasa por tener que abortar lejos de su familia en una Rumania nevada y gobernada por Ceaucescu, el dictador rumano que murió 1989, causalmente, un 25 de diciembre.

Si tu sentido antinavideño se siente ochentero, hay opciones. Gremlins de Joe Dante, (Estados Unidos, 1984), además de unos míticos monstruitos, es una crítica taquillera a la feroz sociedad consumista norteamericana. La jungla de cristal (1988) no tiene nada que envidiar al concepto de cine para pasar el rato. En esta Die Hard, John McTiernan se imaginaó una noche de paz enmarcada en un edificio secuestrado por terroristas y defendido por hombres que parecen inmortales. Y si se trata de malos clásicos navideños siempre queda la película de Charles E. Sellier Jr de título Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), en la que Santa es una asesino en serie que se mete en las casas a saciar sus vicios. Suficientemente grinch como para haber sido prohibida tras su estreno. Perfecta referencia para convertirse en un clásico del terror pop.

Las de siempre no fallan. ¿Hace cuánto viste por última ve La vida de Brian (1979)? Pocos como los Monty Python le pusieron tantas guindas al pavo para contar una historia que se desata el mismo día del nacimiento de Jesucristo. Si eres más de suspense, te queda recuperar tu VHS de El resplandor (1980), ya sabes que Stanley Kubrick a la claqueta y Stephen King a la pluma siempre supieron cómo amargarle las fiestas a una familia común que busca unas vacaciones de Navidad relajadas.

Ya para los muy enfadados con el término Navidades existe una última bala en la recámara. Bad Santa (2003), de Terry Zwigoff, la historia de un miserable Papá Noel que trabaja atendiendo al público en una tienda. Algunos críticos la definieron como «tal vez, la película más ofensiva sobre la Navidad jamás hecha».

Dale al play, y que pase feliz noche cualquiera.

The post Como celebrar solo y en tu sofá tu rencor a las navidades appeared first on Yorokobu.

El arco argumental de la trayectoria de Joe Cocker, fallecido ayer víctima de un cáncer de pulmón a los setenta años de edad, es similar al de una Tina Turner que cumplió hace apenas un mes setenta y cinco: los primeros actos de sus carreras estuvieron abonados al exceso y a la más agotadora entrega en el escenario, para luego resurgir en los ochenta como una versión descafeinada y, sin embargo, mucho más exitosa de sí mismos.

En el meridiano de la década de 1970, Cocker adeudaba 800.000 dólares a su discográfica y trastabillaba por tarimas de todo el mundo regado de alcohol; en 1982, en cambio, recogía un Oscar y un Grammy por su dúo con Jennifer Warnes, Up Where We Belong, para instalarse luego en una medianía crónica desde la que publicaría discos en rápida sucesión hasta 2012.

La suya puede explicarse como una historia de excesos para revestir de épica al personaje que imploró al plenario de Woodstock con una voz sobrenatural que le prestara sus orejas para cantarles que “tiraría adelante con un poco de ayuda de sus amigos”, o bien como un relato de domesticación y asimilación por el establishment de un artista cuya mayor popularidad coincidió con sus trabajos con peor saldo creativo.

Del skiffle a Woodstock

Joe Cocker nació en Crookes, un suburbio al oeste de la ciudad británica de Sheffield, el 20 de mayor de 1944. Con sólo 12 años, se subió por primera vez a un escenario de la mano de su hermano Victor, que lideraba una banda del circuito local de skiffle, género menor originario de Estados Unidos que en la década de 1950 popularizaría en Reino Unido uno de los ídolos de juventud de Cocker: Lonnie Donegan. A los 15 abandonaría la escuela para simultanear su trabajo como instalador de gas y las labores de vocalista de las sucesivas formaciones de su hermano: The Cavaliers y The Avengers.

Al frente de esta última, y parapetado tras el seudónimo de Vance Arnold, empezó su éxito todavía en el circuito local, teloneando a su paso por Sheffield a bandas de la talla de The Rolling Stones o The Hollies y grabando una primera versión de The Beatles en 1964 –el I’ll cry instead de A Hard Day’s Night– con un exiguo rédito comercial: apenas 10 chelines (unos 40 céntimos) en royalties.

En los cuatro años siguientes Cocker rebautizaría en dos ocasiones a su formación y rotaría a sus integrantes a la búsqueda de un je ne sais quoi que cristalizaría por fin en el sencillo Marjorine, un éxito menor a lado y lado del Atlántico que sin embargo alentaría la continuidad de su colaboración con el músico de sesión y compositor Chris Stainton en una nueva versión de The Beatles: With a Little Help from My Friends, quizás la única interpretación de su primera etapa tan conocida como sus éxitos de los ochenta –por bien que cobraría su talla mítica precisamente como sintonía de la serie de 1988 Aquellos maravillosos años–.

Una leyenda apócrifa dice que Cocker decidió cambiar la cadencia del original de Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band por la de un vals en una visita de desahogo al excusado de la casa de sus padres, pero, con independencia de su origen, su éxito mereció hasta la reverencia Lennon, McCartney, Harrison y Starr, quienes, en una maniobra frecuente de la época, llegaron a insertar publicidad en la prensa musical felicitando a Cocker por la apropiación de su éxito.

La canción se auparía al número uno de las listas británicas, en las que permanecería durante trece semanas. En Estados Unidos no superó el número 68 del Billboard, pero allanó el terreno para la participación de Cocker en el Festival de Woodstock, celebrado en Bethel, Nueva York, en agosto de 1969.

El espasmódico baile de Cocker, sumado a su imponente anatomía, su melena rizada y sus larguísimas patillas sumió en un trance místico al aprobativo público hippie, pero, en cambio, a su paso por el show de Ed Sullivan, el popular presentador pidió que apareciera en segundo término detrás del cuerpo de baile del programa.

La década de 1970: un long weekend paseando a un perro loco

Al éxito de With a Little Help from My Friends le sucedió el del álbum homónimo de 1969, que permitió a Cocker grabar su continuación en Estados Unidos e incorporar dos nuevas apropiaciones del cancionero de The Beatles aprobadas por Paul McCartney y George Harrison: She Came in Through the Bathroom Window y Something, ambas extraídas de Abbey Road (1969).

Sin repetir las cotas de popularidad de su predecesor, Joe Cocker! (1969) consolidó la trayectoria del intérprete y le permitió un desahogo que alentaría el mayor traspié de su carrera, paradójicamente coincidente con su música más visceral e inclasificable.

El tour Mad Dog and Englishmen, bautizado en honor a una canción de Noël Coward, pretendía reunir en el escenario a más de 30 músicos. De él emanaría un disco en directo, un fascinante documental y el primer sencillo de Cocker en auparse al Top Ten estadounidense (The Letter), pero también una caótica sucesión de contratiempos y excesos, con insurrecciones de músicos y promotores de por medio y un Cocker cada vez más errático, flotando en una nube de alcohol y cannabis.

Otra anécdota poco documentada dice de hecho que a los aficionados ubicados en las primeras cinco filas de cada recinto se les aconsejaba equiparse de un paraguas para evitar la recurrente lluvia de vómito de un desnortado y corpulento Cocker.

El desfase de la gira de Mad Dog and Englishmen acabaría de descarrilar en su tramo australiano en 1972. Cocker y varios miembros de su banda fueron detenidos en Adelaida por posesión de marihuana y al día siguiente la policía tuvo que intervenir en una pelea a hostia limpia en el Commodore Chateau Hotel de Melbourne. Se instó al intérprete y a sus compinches a abandonar el país en 48 horas, en el colofón de un año horriblis en que Cocker todavía tuvo tiempo para un breve y documentado trance como heroinómano.

El tramo restante de la década de 1970 fue un absoluto descontrol. Cocker entregó un álbum al año casi religiosamente, pero protagonizó episodios dignos de la versión más atropellada de la rock and roll way of life. Ofició un showcase para su discográfica en 1974 tendido en el suelo en posición fetal, y en 1978 dos trabajadores sociales le confundieron con un mendigo mientras merodeaba por los alrededores de la oficina de su abogado. Pese a su intensa labor de estudio facturando unos trabajos cada vez más irregulares, logró endeudarse en una cifra de seis dígitos con su discográfica.

La década de 1980: la fórmula del éxito

El rápido deterioro del crédito obtenido en Woodstock y de la propia salud de un Cocker sumido en una profunda dipsomanía apuntaban a un final trágico, pero en 1982 se produjo un punto de inflexión inesperado. Ante la insistencia del productor Stewart Levine, Cocker interpretó Up where we belong, un dúo con Jennifer Warnes –adlátere recurrente de Leonard Cohen– para la banda sonora de la película Oficial y Caballero.

El tema le valió a la dupla Cocker-Warnes un Oscar y un Grammy compartido con una terna insólita de compositores: la cantante de folk Buffy Sainte-Marie, el arreglista y productor de culto Jack Nitzsche y Will Jennings, que tres lustros más tarde escribiría la letra de la también oscarizada My Heart Will Go On de Celine Dion.

El Cocker de Up where we belong se convirtió en el patrón con el que el de Sheffield cortó el resto de su carrera. El intérprete se convirtió en un señor bonachón enfundado en un traje de Armani que, salvo algún que otro tic nervioso en el escenario, redujo su repertorio a ejercer sin sobresaltos ni destellos de genio de barítono de voz quebrada.

Esa sería la modalidad en que abordaría también el You can leave your hat on –con el que Kim Basinger se cameló a Mickey Rourke despelotándose detrás de una persiana veneciana en Nueve Semanas y Media–, y después en Unchain my heart, en When the Night Comes”y en otra recua de hits y álbumes anodinos e intercambiables.

El englishman que casi se deja el hígado en la tarima en la década de 1970, borracho y flanqueado por dos docenas de músicos, se transmutó en el tipo de voz profunda que amenizó el tramo más plomizo de las sesiones de DJs de bodas y bautizos, y en las dos décadas y media siguientes nadie le procuró la reinvención que sí rescató las trayectorias en piloto automático de Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Neil Diamond o Tom Jones.

Sólo el cáncer de pulmón le apartó de los escenarios, en un momento de ocaso que no avivó demasiadas especulaciones. Pero el pasado mes de septiembre Billy Joe dio una primera voz de alarma al solicitar el ingreso de Cocker en el Rock and Roll Hall of Fame durante un recital en el Madison Square Garden, alegando que la estrella “no se encontraba muy bien”.

Cabe suponer que el deterioro desde entonces fue exponencial hasta su fallecimiento ayer en su rancho en Colorado, en Estados Unidos, su país de adopción desde 1978. Del Reino Unido llegaría a decir que la vida en él se resumía “en el break de las 3 del mediodía”, ese “espacio interminable entre la hora de comer y la apertura de los pubs a las seis”.

Paradójicamente, la etapa más exitosa en ventas de su trayectoria sumió en una espera igual de desesperante a quienes esperábamos que algún día volviera a sacar a pasear al perro loco.

- Mi madre, 37 años, alterada, con un pie escayolado.

- Mi tía, 32 años, le ha dado por cogerla con mi hermano.

- Mi hermano, 17 años, llegando a los 18 enojado con mi madre y con mi tía.

- Yo, que estoy hasta las peras, con 11 años hacia los 12 y más cerca de la regla.

- Mi primo, 9 años, no sabe hacer nada.

Americans love the idea of chestnuts around the holidays. They love singing about them in “The Christmas Song,” but aside from the old-timey nostalgia of the snack, chestnuts are expensive ($6.99 a pound at Fresh Direct but as high as $10.99 a pound, organic and elsewhere). Why? The handful you’re buying at the store is most likely imported.

Though the U.S. imports 40 million dollars of chestnuts annually, according to the Northern Nut Growers Association, less than one percent of the world’s chestnuts are grown in America. And the reason we’re not growing an American chestnut crop begins with Brooklyn.

The American Chestnut Almost Wiped Out

Before the turn of the 20th century, the American Chestnut tree was a major source of food for wildlife from Georgia to Maine. For Appalachian farmers, the nut was an accessible source of low-fat protein which many fed to their livestock and families. The trees, which blanketed forests in the eastern region, were valued for their rot-resistant lumber and tannin. But by the time “The Christmas Song” was written in 1944, the American Chestnut was practically erased from the western diet. The culprit was a deadly fungus called Cryphonectria parasitica.

“Before the American Chestnut was wiped out, everybody ate chestnuts,” Thomas Saielli, southern regional science coordinator for the American Chestnut Foundation says, “They would go out into the forest during harvest season—it was an event.”

But in 1904, an Asian chestnut tree carrying the fungus was planted in the Bronx Zoo, and while the Asian variety was resistant to the blight, the fungus—which travels in spores by the wind—eventually infected the entire American Chestnut population along the eastern region.

This 1909 report on the blight from the Pennsylvania Department of Forestry describes the largest contamination in Prospect Park in Brooklyn:

“In the winter of 1908 over eleven hundred chestnut trees were felled in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, many of them were dead and the others so infected that removal was the best course to pursue…greater havoc from blight or insect pest on forest trees has probably never been excelled in deadly malignity…it is proposed to cut every chestnut tree in the park.”

For nearly three decades, the American Chestnut Foundation has been working to revive the American Chestnut Tree in the U.S. by creating blight-resistant, regionally adapted trees via cross pollination. It also provides funding for small and new chestnut farms in the U.S.—a necessary aid as it takes roughly 13 years to generate a profitable yield. “The blight is always gonna be there—the better solution is to make the trees resistant to the fungus,” Saielli says. “That’s what we’re doing with our breeding program—we’re trying to create an American Chestnut tree that has the genes to form resistance for the blight.”

Photo: BobMacInnes/Flickr

Though the American Chestnut tree technically still grows in the U.S., it’s highly endangered because of the blight fungus which remains rampant along the eastern region of the United States. Once planted, the tree is guaranteed to die from the fungus. The chestnuts grown in America today are primarily from Washington, Oregon, Michigan, Ohio, and Delaware. They are likely Japanese-European hybrids, a low-growing bush-like tree that is resistant to the blight. Saielli says it will be a few more decades before we see the American Chestnut’s return in forests en mass, but as far as commercial chestnut production goes, prices will stay steep until there is more of a demand on the market. It’s not the blight of the American Chestnut that’s limiting their use in the American culinary world, he says. People just aren’t interested in eating them much.

“Reintroducing the American Chestnut into the forest would have the important environmental impact of restoring a foundation species,” he says, “but it might also incentivize people to appreciate chestnuts in cooking.”

European chestnut trees also suffer from blight, but the food crop is still booming. Producers have just found a way to slow down the fungus by infecting it with a virus—a tactic known as hypovirulence. By infecting the fungus, the virus prevents the tree from dying. In America, the fungus has a greater variation among its strains versus the few strains in Europe, which makes hypovirulence less effective in the states. Experts have used hypovirulence to narrow down blight-resistant variations in America, though they have yet to develop a seed that is 100 percent resistant. Until then, your holiday chestnuts will likely remain expensive.

Chestnuts Across the World

According to this 2012 chart from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, most chestnuts come from these top five world producers : China, mainland (1,650,000 metric tons), South Korea (70,000), Turkey (59,789), Bolivia (57,000), and in fifth place, Italy (52,000). North Korea, which comes in tenth place, has seen a steady increase in chestnut production since 2000.

Overseas the market offers everything from chestnut-flavored ice cream in Japan to fancy French spreads. Italy is the top European chestnut producer, but the nuts can be found anywhere from Spain and France to Switzerland and Greece. Chestnuts appear often in sweets like the Japanese Crunky chestnut chocolate crispy bar and the classic French chestnut cream cake, mont blanc. In Korea, these soft, no-bake chestnut cookies called yul-lan are traditionally served with tea. Head west to Turkey, the world’s third-largest producer of chestnuts and one of the oldest, and you’ll find the nut is a popular street food—best served coal-roasted by the bag—but they also appear in savory dishes like rice pilaf and lamb stew.

But if you’re up for spending the dough this holiday season, we’ve at least got some nutty recipes for you to whip up for your guests. You might even try roasting them over an open fire:

Dan Roman’s Buttery Roasted Chestnuts in Foil
Boudin Blanc–Stuffed Turkey Breasts with Chestnuts

The post Why Chestnuts Are So Darn Expensive appeared first on Bon Appétit.

“Gremlins,” the classic fright comedy about morphing little menace-monsters wreaking merry mayhem all over small town America during the holidays, actually opened in theaters on June 8, 1984. The movie became an immediate summer blockbuster, but given its very specific yuletide setting—e.g., Gizmo himself, the original gremlin, enters the film as a Christmas gift—“Gremlins” has endured as a beloved December viewing tradition on par with “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “A Christmas Story,” “Christmas Vacation” and “Elf.”

Of course, no other annual holiday movie classics feature a harried mom explosively executing a vicious foot-high dragon-gnome in a microwave, but that’s why we love “Gremlins” so much and why we now celebrate the nasty, gnarly, mean-spirited joy it delivers upon every repeated viewing.

It’s been a lot of fun for thirty holiday seasons in a row now, both as a movie and a pop culture phenomenon, as evidenced by both a recent dunderheaded political outburst and the current online popularity of a “Gremlins” Christmas sweater.

Here are 30 facts about “Gremlins” in honor of the movie’s thirtieth anniversary.

1. A gremlin is a fantastical, pint-sized troublemaking creature that specializes in destructive mechanical mischief. Aviators and airplane workers popularized the concept during World War II. Just as technical problems might be blamed on a “ghost in the machine,” breakdowns and other complications specific to aircraft were attributed to “gremlins.”

2. “Gremlins” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” necessitated the creation of the PG-13 rating. Parents understandably flipped throughout summer 1984 as they brought young kids to both Steven Spielberg-produced hits expecting standard PG-level thrills and naughtiness, only to be bombarded with “Gremlins” saber-toothed sick humor and “Temple of Dooms” living heart removal. Before Labor Day, the MPAA created the PG-13 and, shortly thereafter, the first film to hit theaters with the new rating was “Red Dawn.”

3. Originally set to be Warner Bros.’ big Christmas 1984 release, “Gremlins” was rushed into theaters for summer when the studio realized it needed a big gun to compete against Columbia’s “Ghostbusters” and Paramount’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” All three blockbusters combine scares and laughs more successfully than perhaps any other films ever made.

4. Howie Mandel provides the voice of Gizmo. The funnyman does not, however, sing Gizmo’s charming little song. That honor went to a choir member from composer Jerry Goldsmith’s church. For foreign versions of “Gremlins,” Mandel phonetically recorded Gizmo’s handful of spoken words in native tongues of numerous movie markets.

5. Stripe’s vituperative vocals come from voice over star Frank Welker. Best known for playing Fred on “Scooby-Doo” and Santa’s Little Helper on “The Simpsons,” Welker’s career spans 45 years and also includes “Alladin,” “The Real Ghostbusters,” “South Park,” and “Futurama.”

6. The voices of multiple marauding gremlins are the work of mighty-mouthed comedian Michael Winslow, who properly bills himself as “The Man of 10,000 Sound Effects.” Winslow is best known for playing Larvell Jones in the “Police Academy” movies, the first installment of which also turned thirty this year.

7. Mogwai, the proper name for the movie’s gremlins, is Cantonese for devil, demon, or, in fact, gremlin. What a perfect linguistic match-up.

8. Kingston Falls, the small mid-America town in “Gremlins,” also stars as Lone Pine/Twin Pines in “Back to the Future.” Both films were shot on the same sets.

9. Zach Galligan officially beat out Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez for the lead role of Billy. It’s a good bet that C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, and the remainder of the cast of “The Outsiders” were also in the running, along with Andrew McCarthy, Eric Stoltz, and Anthony Michael Hall. Those guys were in everything back then.

10. At first, Warner Bros. waffled over casting Phoebe Cates as female lead Kate Beringer. At issue was her world-changing bikini-top-popping scene “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982), which she followed up by starring in the ultra-raunchy 1983 teen sex comedy, “Private School.” Spielberg and Dante stuck by Phoebe and it’s utterly impossible to imagine any other actress delivering her notorious “Santa stuck in the chimney” soliloquy.

11. Corey Feldman, who plays Billy’s pal Pete, later co-starred in the Steven Spielberg-produced “The Goonies.” When police are dismissing claims made by Chunk in “The Goonies,” an officer on the phone admonishes, “Just like that last prank—about all those little creatures that multiply when you throw water on them.”

12. Screenwriter Chris Columbus initially conceived “Gremlins” while living in a shabby New York loft that was overridden with rodents. “At night,” he recalls, “what sounded like a platoon of mice would come out and to hear them skittering around in the blackness was really creepy.”

13. The original “Gremlins” script might have required a rating somewhere well beyond PG-13. In it, the gremlins eat Billy’s dog and roll his mother’s decapitated head down the steps of the family home. In addition, Mr. Hanson, the monsters’ first victim, was to die by having dozens of hypodermic needles graphically stabbed into his face.

14. In that first draft of the screenplay, Gizmo the furry, lovable Mogwai also actually transformed into Stripe, the scaly, homicidal gremlin. Producer Steven Spielberg reasoned that Gizmo was too cute to turn evil, so the change was made to have the nasty Stripe pop out of him instead.

15. Chris Columbus later went on to direct the first two “Home Alone” movies. Like “Gremlins,” they are both set during Christmas, and all three films contain a clip from “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

16. Steven Spielberg strongly considered hiring Tim Burton to direct “Gremlins” based on Burton’s short films “Frankenweenie” and “Vincent.” He finally decided that the project was too big to turn over to any director making his first feature. Burton would have to wait another year to debut, masterfully, with “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”

17. Joe Dante graduated from editing trailers for B-movie kingpin Roger Corman to making the madcap drive-in hits turned cult sensations “Piranha” (1978) and “The Howling” (1981). Spielberg’s admiration of the latter convinced him to turn the director’s reigns on “Gremlins” over to Dante.

18. The hardware department scene of Stripe lunging at Billy with a chainsaw was concocted during filming by horror film devotee Joe Dante. It’s a tribute to his friend Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Two years earlier, Hooper enjoyed similar success making a terrifying audiences for Steven Spielberg via “Poltergeist.”

19. So much of the magic of “Gremlins” comes from the rampant little monsters themselves. Each gremlin on screen is an animatronic puppet that cost between $50,000 and $65,000 apiece. Today, the effects would be created by CGI and every re-viewing of “Gremlins” just proves that those funny-scary robotic demon dolls were actually priceless.

20. Kingston Falls disc jockey Rockin’ Ricky Rialto is portrayed vocally and in a photograph by L.A. rock radio legend The Real Don Steele. He also appears as Screamin’ Steve Stevens in the Ramones cult classic “Rock-n-Roll High School,” which was co-written and partially directed by Joe Dante.

21. Character actor Dick Miller memorably appears as cranky Murray Futterman. Miller worked frequently with B-film mega-producer Roger Corman, and is a particular favorite of Joe Dante. Murray Futterman comes back in the sequel “Gremlins 2: The New Batch.” Throughout 2014, the documentary “That Guy Dick Miller,” about the amazing career of this familiar faced charmer, has earned raves at film festivals.

22. An AMC Gremlin, one of the most mocked and lamented automotive misfires of the 1970s, makes a cameo during the movie’s opening scene. Hoyt Axton, as Billy’s inventor dad Rand Peltzer, walks past it on the way to a Chinatown curio shop.

23. The scene of Rand Peltzer at an inventor’s convention teems with cameos. Steven Spielberg scurries past in a wheeled contraption, composer Jerry Goldsmith walks by, and Robby the Robot, from the 1956 sci-fi classic “Forbidden Planet,” waits in line to make a phone call.

24. For several theatrical re-releases of “Star Wars,” George Lucas arranged to have the 1953 Daffy Duck cartoon “Duck Dodgers in the 24½ Century” play before the movie. Spielberg and Dante similarly worked to have “Gremlins” preceded by the 1943 Bugs Bunny short, in which our hero rabbit is plagued by a gremlin on board a World War II plane. Warner Bros. balked, but a clip of the cartoon appears in the movie.

25. Pop culture’s other most famous gremlin appears in the 1963 “Twilight Zone” episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” William Shatner stars as a twitchy airline passenger who’s driven psychotic by repeatedly seeing a fat, wooly, mushy-faced monster tearing up the plane’s wing. The episode has been repeatedly referenced and parodied, most memorably in “The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror IV.” It was also remade by “Mad Max” and “Babe” creator George Miller for 1983’s “Twilight Zone: The Movie”—a film which contains “It’s a Good Life,” a non-gremlin segment directed by Joe Dante.

26. Many scripts were considered for a “Gremlins” sequel. One frontrunner, penned by Monty Python member Terry Jones, depicted Gizmo and Stripe growing to behemoth sizes and knocking over skyscrapers in Manhattan.

27. Joe Dante only agreed to helm “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” if he were given absolute creative control—and he got it. The movie blends the original “Gremlins” with Dante’s love of Looney Tunes, Roger Corman exploitation flicks, classic horror, and kitchen-sink counterculture comedy. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig interrupt the action; master British fright thespian Christopher Lee plays mad scientist Dr. Catheter; gremlins in the projection booth destroy the movie as it’s running only to get thwarted by Hulk Hogan; critic Leonard Maltin gets eaten alive for panning the first film; and the final scene unmistakably implicates hot-and-heavy human-gremlin lovemaking. All this initially overwhelmed audiences and “Gremlins 2” bombed on first impact, but it has since garnered a devoted following. How many times have you seen it?

28. A “Gremlins 2” segment featuring an irate mother pulling her daughter from a screening and chewing out a theater manager (played by cult actor director Paul Bartel) is a recreation of an actual incident. While Joe Dante was in the lobby of a theater showing “Gremlins,” he says a furious parent really did storm out and give him the business over the movie’s violence. Her young daughter, meanwhile, escaped back into the auditorium and hid from her mom to catch the end of the movie.

29. Scotland’s post-rock noise-makers Mogwai took their name from “Gremlins.” The group’s music does, on occasion, sound something like the racket it’s easy to imagine going on inside Stripe’s pointy-eared, Mohwawk-coifed head.

30. While “Gremlins” packed multiplexes nationwide throughout summer 1984, Zach Galligan also starred in a avant-garde cinema that played only a handful of midnight shows at a New York City art theater. “Nothing Lasts Forever” is a black-and-white musical that co-stars Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, and has since become a cherished cult favorite. It features Galligan as troubled pianist who discovers that human existence is controlled by homeless masterminds who live underneath Grand Central Station. He later hops a bus to the moon and enjoys a lunar hula girl revue before agreeing to work for world peace. “Nothing Lasts Forever” truly must be seen to be believed (although not ever, necessarily, understood).

Last year at this time Christmas warriors were getting themselves all riled up about Florida’s Capitol building approving installations for the Flying Spaghetti Monster and a Festivus pole made out of PBR cans among the nativity scenes displayed in the lobby.

This year the Satanic Temple—the same group that sent social conservatives into a panic with plans for a Satanic statue outside the Oklahoma Capitol next to the Ten Commandments—raised the bar on religious tolerance and free speech with their own version of a nativity scene on the lawn of the Michigan Capitol building. Dubbed a “Snaketivity Scene,” the monument features a snake wrapped around a cross, offing a present and a message reading, “The Greatest Gift is Knowledge.”

The Satanic Temple isn’t vocal about its religious tenets—it’s pretty clear the whole organization is a giant troll established to underscore the importance of separating church and state and to highlight instances when Christianity is sanctioned at the state level while other religions are silenced.

But that won’t stop Michigan residents from taking the “Snaketivity Scene” seriously.

“It’s just sad,” said Randy Andrews of Lansing, stopping by to check out the “Snaketivity Scene” on his way to play drums for the local church. “People underestimate the power of Satan. “There’s unseen forces of evil that can start destroying foundation of things that hold up our government.”

One man who apparently does not underestimate the power of Satan is Senator Rick Jones (R), who got a permit for his own traditional nativity scene and set it up across from the “Snaketivity Scene” within an hour of the Satanic monument going up.

“I’m not afraid of the snake people. I’m sure that Jesus Christ is not afraid,” Jones said. He found it annoying that the Satanists had to put their “Snaketivity Scene” up at Christmas, when Christians should apparently be able to take over state buildings. “They could have put theirs up in July or April or sometime. They didn’t need to put it up in the Christmas season,” Jones said. Of course, that would be missing the entire point of protesting state-sanctioned religions.

“That’s OK. We’re going to ignore them,” Jones said. And that’s his right. Though the “Snaketivity Scene” is making national headlines, while no one cares about his own traditional nativity scene. Ignoring it doesn’t seem to be working out so well.

“I think that this holiday season is a time of year that is celebrated in many different ways. Having our government endorse one singular viewpoint or method of celebrating the season is problematic when we have a diverse community of people in Michigan,” said Jex Blackmore of the local chapter of the Satanic Temple.

[Source: USA Today]

While BBC’s Quentin Sommerville was reporting on a drug bust and its resulting burning pile of 8.5 tons of heroin, opium, and hashish, he stood a little too close, and accidentally got high as shit. He couldn’t even keep it together enough to finish his report.

The footage was originally posted by Sommerville himself, when he tweeted a link to it, adding, “Dear tweeps, it’s been a year of bullets & bloodshed. You’ve earned a xmas laugh, at my expense.” Sommerville—who has reported from some of the most violent parts of the world—later deleted the video, apparently due to copyright claims.

The BBC explained to The Telegraph, “The video of Quentin corpsing, which has now been deleted, was posted in the spirit of a blooper. It was filmed four years ago – it hasn’t been seen before and was never broadcast.”

The video has since popped up elsewhere.

Always be careful where you stand during an afghan drugs bust @sheeraf

— Quentin Sommerville (@sommervillebbc) December 23, 2014

Good advice.

[h/t Uproxx]

A circus in Italy is in hot water after tricking a bunch of idiot kids by painting two chow chow dogs to look like pandas, and charging fees to see them. They didn’t try very hard, as you can tell by this photo of the two dog-pandas.

Cani truccati da panda: blitz della Forestale al circo Orfei http://t.co/BXYTkAS8k0 pic.twitter.com/VaFUaQPewB

— Corriere della Sera (@Corriereit) December 22, 2014

Police noticed the difference immediately, and the animals were seized on animal cruelty grounds, and the circus owner is now facing charges. Fortunately the dogs were okay—though their eyes were watery after being aggravated by the many camera flashes, according to a statement released by the environmental police.

[h/t The Local]

On Tuesday, Redditor Duxa posted this video with the title “I finally have proof of how much of an asshole my cat is.”

Finally? Duxa, have you ever met a cat before? Cats are assholes every minute of every day. It took you this long to collect “evidence?” As if you probably don’t have plenty of “evidence” in the form of cat barf in your shoes, on your freshly laundered duvet or in your laundry bag?

“Sometimes, for no reason, cats are just assholes.” Duxa wrote on the YouTube page.

When it comes to cats, video evidence is the best kind. Here we see the little tuxedo cat in question refusing to let the Maine Coone enjoy its nap in the sun. Instead, the little guy thought he should startle his fluffy friend into a sneezing fit.

The soundtrack is pretty inspired, we have to admit. Way to add that gravitas.

The verdict is in:

[h/t Happyplace]

Serial, the most popular podcast in America, got around 1.5 million listeners per episode. This is very impressive, for a podcast. But that leaves millions of adult Americans who haven't yet experienced it.

Let's say you're one of them. Happily, you have a holiday drive or flight coming up. What better time to get up to speed? Here's how far episodes of Serial will take you — and a cheater's guide to getting the gist of the podcast without listening to every episode.

If you have kids in the car, you should know Serial has what movie reviewers describe as "mature themes" (love, death, drug use, murder, teenagers, occasional references to sex, and boring detours into the science of cell phone towers) but not a lot of explicit language. Teens might like it; younger kids might be lulled to sleep by host Sarah Koenig's NPR cadence.

The full Serial: 8.5 hours, 500 miles of driving

(Anand Katakam/Vox)

Serial's 12 episodes range from 27 to 55 minutes in length. If you want to listen to the whole season, you've got 8 hours, 33 minutes and 33 seconds of podcasts ahead of you. You could start listening to Serial when you start driving from DC to New York, and the series will cover the entire round trip. Same with Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

One-way, assuming decently favorable traffic, Serial will take you almost from DC to Boston, or DC to Atlanta, or Chicago to Kansas City.

If you're traveling by plane instead of car, 8.5 hours will be more than enough to cover most of your journey, even if there's a layover involved.

The cheater's Serial: 6 hours or one cross-country flight

But let's say your siblings or in-laws are Serial fans and you want to be caught up on the show before you get to your destination. Or you just aren't sure you're committed enough to a full 8.5 hours of listening.

Serial is best if you take the whole journey with reporter Sarah Koenig. But you could listen to episodes 1 through 8 ("The Alibi" through "The Deal with Jay") and then skip to episode 12 ("What We Know") without doing too much damage. You'll miss some things, including a legal question at the heart of Adnan Syed's upcoming appeal. But you'll get the full Serial flavor, skip some filler, and still be able to discuss the case fluently. You'll even get the "shrimp sale at the Crab Crib" jokes.

Those nine episodes will take you 6 hours and 10 minutes, long enough to drive from DC to Cleveland if traffic is good, or to fly from New York to Los Angeles.

The cheater's Cliff Notes guide to Serial: 3 hours

Want the full Serial experience in just over 3 hours — short enough for a single direct flight? This is not actually possible, though you can come close by listening to the podcasts at double speed. But without fast talking, it is possible to fake your way to Serial literacy. Listen to the first episode ("The Alibi," 53 minutes), the fourth ("Inconsistencies," 33 minutes), the sixth ("The Case Against Adnan Syed," 43 minutes), and the twelfth ("What We Know," 55 minutes).

If you can finish the first episode and resist the temptation to go straight to the second, which is one of the best of the season, that will last just over 3 hours — a flight from DC to Dallas or Denver, or most of the way from Chicago to San Francisco, or from New York to Minneapolis (if you start listening after you board but before takeoff).

You will miss some things. But with that and our Serial character guide, you'll probably be able to talk about the podcast well enough for cocktail party chatter.

How to listen

If you have an iPhone, there's a Podcasts app somewhere on it. Search for Serial, then download each individual episode. (Here are more detailed instructions.)

Stitcher, a free app for both iOS and Android, allows you to create a playlist of podcasts — an easy way to set it all up before you hit the road or take to the air. There's an offline mode for in-air listening, so make sure it's enabled and the episodes are stored on your phone before you go.

Ninety percent of Americans frequently use electronic devices right before bed. And though it's a fun way to wind down, a new experiment shows that the bright screens are shining sleep problems directly into their eyes.

In the study, participants spent two weeks sleeping in a private hospital room and reading for four hours before bed with either a paper book or an iPad. Those using the iPad reported feeling less sleepy at night and took about 10 minutes longer to fall asleep. They also felt less alert in the morning. And although they didn't sleep less, they spent less sleep in the REM stage, which may have accounted for the morning grogginess (and presumably fewer dreams).

Those using AN iPad took about 10 minutes longer to fall asleep

At night, the iPad users also experienced a 50 percent drop in melatonin — the hormone that makes people feel sleepy. Even more disturbing, their melatonin cycle shifted forward by an hour and a half, essentially creating self-imposed jet lag.

Anne-Marie Chang, a neuroscientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, is the lead author on the paper, which was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I talked to Chang about the experiment's results and what lessons we can draw from it to sleep better:

Susannah Locke: What did you show about tablets and sleep that’s never been shown before?

Anne-Marie Chang: Other studies had showed that light in the evening affects the way you sleep. What we showed was [what happens] when individuals use a light-emitting device in the hours before bedtime. It takes them longer to fall asleep. They feel more sleepy the following morning. They have less REM sleep. The light suppresses their melatonin, which is the sleep-promoting hormone, by more than 50 percent. And their melatonin rhythm was more than an hour and a half delayed. So that amount is pretty large.

SL: Were you surprised by any of the ill effects you found?

AC: We had an idea of the effects of light in the evening. [But] we were surprised in the results we saw in sleepiness and alertness the following morning. The [participants] didn't have any difference in total sleep duration that would account for that.

SL: If people were getting the same amount of sleep, then what was causing more grogginess in the morning?

AC: It could have something to do with the shortened duration of REM sleep, which occurs [more] in the later part of the night, closer to the morning. Also, the delay that we see in melatonin may be contributing to the effect that we see in the morning. There’s a significant difference in how sleepy they feel until midday.

"we were surprised in the sleepiness the following morning"

SL: Do you know if the problem is the tablet’s brightness or the bluish tint of its light?

AC: We don't know if it was the brightness or the blue light from the devices. It could be the combination contributing to what we saw. We know that bright light will induce some of the same responses that we saw, and bright light will [make] you feel more awake and more alert. If the light is not as bright, but is short-wavelength enriched [more blue], you can see these effects.

SL: Your study may have underestimated these devices’ effects because participants’ bedtimes were strictly enforced. No one was allowed to get sucked into an iPad rabbit hole until 3 am.

AC: In our study, we had a very stable schedule. The study participants read from 6 pm to 10 pm, and they had to stop, and they went to sleep. And they were in the dark sleeping between 10 pm and 6 am each night.

You may see even more profound differences in a real-world setting, where people are then sleeping for less because they’re staying up due to the light from these devices. When you're using a device which makes you feel more alert, chances are you won't be going to bed just because it’s bedtime. [The light masks] the sleepiness that your body may be feeling, but you don't discern that as being sleepy.

SL: Why did you compare the iPad to a paper book rather than to a non-light-emitting device like the original Kindle?

AC: That’s a great question. We wanted to compare the devices with what typically people had been doing, and still a lot of people prefer to read books. Because at the time [2010 and 2011], they were pretty new and not so many people were using these devices. We wanted to just compare what is the typical condition — which I don’t know if that’s changed since then, but at the time was reading printed books.

Presumably reading on a non-light-emitting device would be the same as reading on a book, but we didn’t specifically test that in the study.

SL: What are some other differences between the experiment and the real world?

AC: One caveat is that the e-readers in our study were set to the very brightest level, and a reader at home may dim the light. In this case, reducing the brightness may reduce the magnitude of the response that we found.

"IF YOU HAVE TO USE DEVICES, TURN DOWN THE BRIGHTNESS"

Another limitation is that the hours of reading before bedtime that we used in the study is relatively long. Most people don't read for four hours. But if you total up the number of hours spent on [any] screen before bedtime [in the real world], it will be very comparable to four hours. And it may be a lot more.

SL: What do you think of software like F.lux that makes screens less blue at night?

AC: Technology is moving so quickly, and science really can’t keep pace with the pace of technology and the pace of commerce. So I think it’s great when you have individuals and companies coming up with technologies to modify and improve the devices that we have, based on evidence.

SL: What do you personally do about screen time before bed, both for yourself and for your kids?

AC: Let me start with what I tell my kids. This is the technology that’s popular with kids. More and more children and adolescents are sleeping with them, using them all the time. I think it’s best to avoid any screen time an hour or two before bedtime. Devices get charged outside of the bedroom so that they’re not anywhere inside or near the bedroom.

I tell my friends — I tell myself — if you have to use devices, be on the computer, or check your phone, to turn down the brightness. And I think installing some of these programs that compensate for the color can be helpful.

SL: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

AC: For the vast majority of people, we don't have so much control or wiggle room in the morning as far as when we wake up. But we have presumably a lot more voluntary control over when we go to bed. So if we can deal with issues of light-emitting devices and when we use them — or how can we improve what we have — I think those would be really great goals.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

The kitsch object encourages you to think, 'Look at me feeling this—how nice I am and how lovable.'

[body_image width='838' height='638' path='images/content-images/2014/12/22/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/12/22/' filename='gay-supergroup-slink-wishes-you-a-very-smelly-holidays-678-body-image-1419258820.jpg' id='13426']

Photo courtesy of Slink. All other photos by the author

Christmastime gets a bum reputation for its religious agenda and conservative traditions, so people easily forget Christmas is a campy holiday about tacky decorations, Mariah Carey, and mass consumerism. But this year, gay supergroup Slink has taken holiday cheer to the next level with their debut track "Pink Christmas," an addictive pop banger that's the first Christmas song that won't drive you insane from playing it on repeat.

Comprised of Seth Bogart of Hunx and His Punx, SSION frontman Cody Critcheloe, and Samantha Urbani of Friends, Slink celebrates a holiday message about freeing the world from the separation of "red and white" and unleashing a new, pink Christmas reality. In the video for the song, the group parties at "Club XXX-Mas" with the likes of Peaches, DJ Santa, and LA legend Angelyne. Give the single one listen and you'll be lisping the words for the rest of the season: "I keep dreamin' of a pink Christmas / Santa, let your love snow down on me!"

Given Critcheloe and Bogart's penchant for sick band merchandise and low-brow high fashion (see Bogart's collaboration with Saint Laurent ), Slink has obviously become more than a band—it's also a brand. To accompany their video, the group has released a hot new scent that's also named "Pink Christmas," a Britney Spears Fantasy-esque blend of aromas that perfectly captures the spirit of being flaming and festive.

In celebration of the fragrance release and the overall gayness of Christmas, the group hosted a product launch at the downtown buzz boutique VFiles, where their scent was for sale along with a line of signature Slink holiday beanies and T-shirts. Inspired by Slink's passion for Christmastime's camp and commercialism, I stopped by the shop to ask Critcheloe and Bogart some hard-hitting holiday questions.

VICE: Is Christmas music your true calling?
Cody Critcheloe: Seth and I have just been talking about making a Christmas song for a couple years, but never had the time, so we recorded "Pink Christmas" over the summer in LA.

[body_image width='1600' height='1060' path='images/content-images/2014/12/22/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/12/22/' filename='gay-supergroup-slink-wishes-you-a-very-smelly-holidays-678-body-image-1419258864.jpg' id='13427']

A pink Christmas? For Me? Thanks, Santa.

What pushed you two to collaborate together and create a gay supergroup?
Seth Bogart: It's crazy because I've known Cody since, like, when we were penpals, because we both did gay punk zines, and that's how we knew each other. But this is the first time we've ever worked together, and it's been great.

Cody: And Seth and I loved hanging out with Samantha, so we asked her to sing on the track. After recording [the song], it became really obvious that she was our missing Slink link, so she became a permanent member.

[youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/zjMdiYHJOec' width='640' height='360']

Tell me more about Angelyne, who introduces you in the video as her favorite band.
Cody: She's like this legendary LA cult figure—she drives a pink corvette, and she's famous for putting billboards of herself all around town.

Seth: She's amazing. She had us take her to McDonalds to sign her contract, and she made us eat strawberries and A1 sauce and also Big Mac buns dipped in ketchup.

Do you consider "Pink Christmas" part of the promotion for the perfume or the beginning of a new album?
Cody: "Pink Christmas" is its own project. We have a music video directed by Jennifer Stradtford, and then I also made a commercial for the fragrance in collaboration with Black Frame. But working as a group has been so much fun, we've been inspired to record an EP together.

[body_image width='1600' height='1060' path='images/content-images/2014/12/21/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/12/21/' filename='gay-supergroup-slink-wishes-you-a-very-smelly-holidays-678-body-image-1419198377.jpg' id='13188']

The Pink Christmas merch on display à la Nicki Minaj Pink Friday for Kmart

I love the perfume. What does a pink Christmas smell like?
Seth: It's a scent that's perfect for both grandmas and bisexuals.

Cody: Basically, we had two scents that we really liked: One is White Moss, which is available at Whole Foods, and the other one was Frederick Malle's Outrageous. The result is really intense, a little bit sweet. When you first spray it out of the bottle, it smells like glue, but once it settles, it's like heaven.

Yeah, it smells musky but also herbal—kind of like a drunk Christmas tree. So boys, will Santa be good to you this year: Have you been naughty or nice?
Seth: Too nice, it's boring.

by Elise Czajkowski

2014 was a banner year for comedy of all stripes, including an incredible collection of standup specials and albums. While the year may have had fewer boldly unique specials than 2013, it compensated with an overwhelming number of solidly funny, well-produced hours from comics of all levels, with a particularly strong crop of debut albums – for each special on this list, there are three other great hours worth checking out. Nonetheless, here are our best albums and specials of the year (in no particular order):

Chelsea Peretti – One of the Greats

It’s obvious that Chelsea Peretti is one of the most exciting comedic talents around. Even with a long opening scene and format-bending twists (such as fake cutaways to the audience), Peretti’s special is engaging mostly because of her likeable stage presence and her flawless hour of standup.

Nick Vatterott – For Amusement Only
Nick Vatterott’s debut album serves as a bold introduction. It’s creative and weird, experimental and loud, aggressive but friendly, and all the way through, incredibly sharp and funny. While he loves to play with the form – finally introducing himself on track 14, and elsewhere playing with the space-time continuum – the alt quirkiness works because he’s a fearless performer with exceptionally good material.

Karen Kilgariff – Live at the Bootleg
Karen Kilgariff is one-of-a-kind in the world of musical comedy. Described by her record label as an “acoustic troubadour”, her songs are funny while also poignant and insightful, and her stories are funny while also friendly and self-effacing. This endlessly re-listenable album is one not to miss. 

Myq Kaplan – Small, Dork, and Handsome
Fans of Myq Kaplan’s intricately woven jokes and lightening-fast mind will find plenty to love in this dizzyingly brilliant special. Kaplan’s material requires his audience’s full attention at all times, as he spins between punny one-liners, commentary on comedy, and time travel.

Hari Kondabolu – Waiting for 2042

Hari Kondabolu is one of the strongest political voices in comedy today, and his debut album is a perfect demonstration of why he’s such an exciting young standup. Definitively proving that political correctness can be funny, his material takes on racism and sexism head-on and finds a joke at every step of the way.

Christian Finnegan – The Fun Part
Christian Finnegan is the type of comic that comedy nerds take for granted – smart but not pretentious, crowd-pleasing without pandering, and always consistently funny. His latest special is a brilliant example of his immense talent.

Mark Normand – Still Got It
It can be difficult for live standup to translate in an audio-only format, but Mark Normand’s precisely written jokes are perfect for the medium. This debut album demonstrates precisely why he’s such a unique voice in New York standup and why all comedy fans should be paying attention to him.

Andy Sandford – Me the Whole Time
Andy Sandford’s debutis a great example of all that a first album can be, with solid material that builds over the course of the hour to several memorably hilarious stories. It’s an unassailable hour of comedy that clearly marks him for great things in the future. 

Jim Gaffigan – Obsessed

It’s hard to go wrong with a Jim Gaffigan special, and his latest hour is as solidly funny as ever. For those who think of Gaffigan as primarily a clean comic and family man, this special is slightly racier and more substantial than they may expect, delivered in his distinct and always engaging way.

Elise Czajkowski is a comedy journalist in New York City. 

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