Saturday, June 22, 2013
Phyllis
Labels:
backstabbber
,
cougar
,
insincere
,
matriarch
,
old money
,
plot
,
rich bitch
,
wealth
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Ultimate Harelip
We are addicted to the macabre. Proportionally, more of us seek films, games, and stories about malady and mortality. Post YouTube footage of a sunrise, and you'll get some views. Post a clip of a rugby player losing a knee, and it'll go viral.
This fascination with the gruesome has long been part of us. Like the inborn forces that compel my cat to revel in a struggling bug, there’s that part in many of us that wants―even needs, if only for a half second through slitted fingers―to see the world's largest testicle zit.
What is wrong with us? Why do we rubberneck after the ice cream man collides with a dump truck? How come Joseph Merrick was the headliner in the 1880s carnival circuit? Was it his singing voice? (Actually, I would’ve paid to see the Elephant Man as an opera lead.) What makes people do online image searches like, "most squashed goop-filled horse eyeball ever"?
Maybe we possess a touch of masochism that finds dark, tickly pleasure in a fleeting dose of unpleasantness, as when an already sore lip compels us to keep biting it. Perhaps it gives morbid comfort to witness a fate worse than our own. Whatever the reason, we just can't look away.
If not the source, media has certainly encouraged and intensified our desire for dark spectacle. We have game shows themed around failing violently, endless news interviews with victims of every sort, videogames that assign victory to the one who perpetuates the most carnage... A parade of misfortune.
First prize to the most grotesque!
: - | >
Labels:
game show
,
gorenography
,
Human Centipede
,
jackass
,
masochism
,
shock value
,
truth or dare
,
voyeurisim
,
Wipeout
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Tater Tots
Labels:
American diet
,
breading
,
cafeteria
,
carbs
,
cholesterol
,
deep fryer
,
fat
,
McDonald's
,
oil
,
potatoes
Saturday, June 1, 2013
The Square Root of Pookey
Math cannot account for everything. Numbers certainly
describe the physical universe in exponential detail, but they
don't directly capture the aesthetic, spiritual essence of things.
So much of our personal experience has been
quantified, though. Food as we calculate calories. Play as we accumulate
points. Community as we collect online "friends." Thinking itself as
we scribble in standardized-test ovals.
The main influence is the pervasive computer
technology that mediates our reality, technology that's numerical by
definition. The more time we spend around machines, the more we act like them.
But enlightenment can't be counted. Solving for x won't
explain the concept of honor. A barcode is incapable of translating the bitter
disdain of a drunken midget at a tall party. We need discourse to unlock
quality, whether the subject is sports, cuisine, relationships,
education, or Pookey, whatever he is.
: - | >
Labels:
counting
,
keeping score
,
limited application
,
math
,
ones and zeros
,
points
,
quantitative
,
quantity
,
standardized tests
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