It was six hours before opening night. Sarah Holdren, director of a Yale University student production, had just entered the theater for a routine pre-performance errand when the man who runs the hall gave her an update: In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, a Yale administrator decided that she didn’t want any weapons used or portrayed during theatrical productions.

Holdren was perplexed. Her show, Red Noses, is set in the Middle Ages and includes metal swords and daggers. But they are stage props. And there were no guns.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: Stage Fright

So here's to hoping the Coens' return to the dark comedy will mark not only a return to the style of work we first learned to love, but the return of my obnoxious, unwarranted elitism. If I can't get it here, I'll have to start listening to NPR.

lol...

I Watch Stuff! - Coen Brothers Get Serious

As you may have noticed, I have been feeling incredibly cranky lately. Part of it has to do with the apartment situation, but another part of it has to do with the fact that the Virginia Tech tragedy has produced some of the most insulting and embarrassing news “analysis” I have ever seen in my entire goddamn life. Witness this piece in the Sunday Times, for instance. Here’s the subhead:

When Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, the horrific slaughter revealed not only the poisons lurking in popular culture but the crisis of young males in a feminised society, says Sarah Baxter

...

Holy crap!

Holy crap indeed. I'm pretty bad at getting dates, I guess that's THEIR fault and I should start killing everyone. For fucks sake what an asinine opinion. Feminized society. Fucking fuck.

Sadly, No! » Still MORE people who should not be paidto express their opinions

Bush has enmeshed the United States in a civil conflict that will take years, probably decades, to resolve. The building of walls mocks the administration's happy-talk rhetoric about how much political progress the Iraqis are making. If the Iraqi government really were the exercise in inclusive democracy that Bush claims, walls would be coming down. Putting up walls only makes sense if the White House foresees a substantial U.S. military presence in Iraq for many years to come.

[hear hear. -k]

Eugene Robinson - Walled City - washingtonpost.com

From: Lady Boudicca, Elder, Church of Dynion Mwyn, Inc.

The Bush Administration Agrees To Approve Wiccan Pentacle For Veteran Memorials ... Monday, April 23, 2007
...

[ Good to hear... Wicca is as valid as any other religion, really. -k]

Bush Administration Settles VA Pentacle Lawsuit - Pentacle ALLOWED

In New York and other northeastern urban centers, including Washington and Boston, gray matter is the new black of the hip social scene. Thousands of young singles and couples are eschewing the perfunctory dinner and a movie for a growing circuit of late-night museum prowls, Oxford-style debates with pre-feud cocktail parties and book readings with cash bars and after-hour bands. In New York, even spelling bee nights have popped up as a romantic twist for the chic, unmarried and grammatically gifted.

Sounds great... I knew i was right in considering Scrabble a good date activity ;)

In the New Dating Scene, the Attraction Is a Beautiful Mind

For all those overly-frisky pups, Hotdoll is a leg and furniture stand in relieving owners of annoyance and dogs of their urges. A much more humane treatment than medications or castration, as French designer Clement Eloy points out, the toy also saves guests from embarrassment but still is funny to watch.

I just really don't know what to say. Gosh.

Cool Hunting: Hotdoll

This page is intended to collect images created by Todd Goldman (of the David & Goliath clothing line) that some people regard as being plagiarized from other sources. Whether or not they are actually plagiarized is up to you.

Well, the evidence isn't really good for him, I'd say.

I mean, re-use of pop culture, especially stuff that's become extremely commonplace, is a well known and in my mind, fairly respectable practice in art... i like mashups, for example.

What bugs me is that this Goldman character appears to be a) profiting a *lot* from his appropriation and b) not actually admitting to doing what I described in the previous paragraph.

While I readily admit that in a world as big and as connected as ours, people are going to come up with the same idea on occasion, it strains credulity to believe that this particular professional artist just happens to come up with the same idea as so many others, so frequently.

Some examples don't mean much to me -- e.g. the gnomes. I mean, that's what "gnomes" equate to for most people, so of course it's quite similar -- but others -- Dave Kelley's piece and that final tshirt example in the Lenore section in particular -- are pretty tough to explain away legitimately.

If true, it's about as not cool as it gets.

Todd Goldman: Art Thief?

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you a new low in journalism...

Quoted below is the unedited above-the-jump text from a FoxNews story about the VT Tech shootings entitled: "Did the Devil Make Him Do it?"

When unexplained violence takes center stage, we tend to turn to modern psychology to explain it.

But there is an alternative explanation, one that has been played out in film, stage and writings since the beginning of history.

Was Cho Seung-Hui schizophrenic … psychotic … manic-depressive? Or were the shooting deaths of 32 people, including Cho himself, at Virginia Tech University part of the ongoing struggle between God and Satan … good against evil … lightness and darkness?

Could Cho have been possessed by the Devil? Could that explain the massacre at Virginia Tech?

Dr. Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, shouts an unequivocal “Yes!”

“Based on what I’ve seen in the news," Roberts said in an interview, "there’s no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin."

*sigh*

Just when you thought the posturing about Cho couldn't get any more stupid..

There is widespread agreement that "WKRP in Cincinnati" was one of the greatest television sitcoms ever produced. The original episodes are rightly considered to be a national treasure and cultural landmark.

Copyright law madness has destroyed it forever - plain and simple.

Ridiculous. Bad laws and bad contracts. Ugh.

WKRP In Cincinnati – Requiem For A Masterpiece