Steal Hearts, Steel Bonds/ This is Pittsburgh

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Sun, 19 May 2013 21:06:47 -0400

No— You see— the ability to see that there’s...

Tue, 14 May 2013 02:20:00 -0400

No—

You see—

the ability to see that there’s a privilege below high-speed internet at home, and by that I mean internet access anywhere, is a privilege in and of itself. and you don’t seem to posses it.

lacking Gawker-level exposure is not lacking a voice. It’s lack of volume.

I’m much happier to say the things I believe and have nobody hear them than say the popular thing and have everyone grumble in weak assertion.

This sequence was almost too perfect for words. Bitch better...

Tue, 07 May 2013 23:38:56 -0400

This sequence was almost too perfect for words. Bitch better gets itself an Emmy nom, if not for animated series than for music and lyrics. Or is that a real song? I can’t be sure. It sure fucking felt like a real song.

Anyway, it makes me a little sad that American Dad can be so good when it wants to be, but Family Guy is so bad, even when it tries, despite it being the cornerstone of FOX’s Animation Domination block. But fuck, aren’t the outliers almost always more interesting? Bob’s Burgers has proven this fact over and over (Topsy!) in the course of its relatively brief run of three seasons. As The Simpsons were sliding inevitably downhill during their middle-ages, King of the Hill and Futurama were the reason I watched FOX on Sunday nights, even if those lesser-respected shows were perennially preempted by sporting events.
 A quark that the best episodes of AD and FG share is that those episodes are, in and of themselves, outliers in terms of the guidelines laid out by the series bibles. In the case of FG, these are, predominantly, the Stewie/Brian Road episodes, which took Simpsons-style musical numbers and created MGM spectaculars around them, and the Star Wars reimaginings. But lately, these rare gems fail to shine in their stew of workmanlike pile of turds.

For AD, in earlier seasons this meant parodies of the National Treasure film series, at least in titling and structure, but wholly original in plot, creating 21 minute epics that were worthy of genre cred in their own right, forgetting their parodic origins.

In just this season, it’s meant two remarkably original episodes—the first, a three-act melodrama animated as an actual stage play in a proscenium, presented by renowned Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart, and now: a complete, petite space opera, almost devoid of the series’s core characters, and offering a veritable smorgasbord of alien delights, not to mention the comic Sinbad. Really, I can’t fault them for the several Star Wars references, even if I personally found them lacking in necessity.

But Christ, I can only hope I’ll have dreams of that tattooed blob of an Elton John who lilted the Majestic’s serenade.

Impossible Princess (2009, Kevin Killian) Have I written before...

Tue, 07 May 2013 06:00:35 -0400

Impossible Princess

(2009, Kevin Killian)

Have I written before about the danger of short story collections? One shitty grape spoiling the bunch and all that. It’s hard to apply that here—several of the stories actively defy being taken series—they’re little more than thought experiments or porn scenarios.

Is a funny story about rape really funny? What if the rapist is a lonely popstar, and his victim a narcissistic closet case attending a swimming-pool sales convention in England? What if Kylie Minogue has a walk-on roll in the star, eating pizza late into the night?

I did love the Flannery O’Conner pastiche—He would have been a good man if there’d been someone to fuck him in the ass with a gun and shoot every day of his life.” That’s how you write a story about motherfucking AIDS.

And the bit about Hank Williams (if a little out of place), The bit after Marguerite Duras. I haven’t read anything better about 9/11, the way America is always making and selling heroes.

Albeit a book I very much enjoyed, why end on such a fucking downer? I guess I just don’t understand the mechanics of a healthy master/slave relationship.

My Brother And His Brother (1993, Hakan Linquist) I went into...

Mon, 06 May 2013 18:00:34 -0400

My Brother And His Brother

(1993, Hakan Linquist)

I went into this expecting a taught little piece of eros but was pleasantly surprised, if a little annoyed, to find a tender romance wrapped up in a detective story. (I could not, for some reason, stop thinking that if this were an American movie, Jennifer Aniston might play the part of the mother.) The only thing that’s holding it back from being a runaway bestseller in America is its homosexual trappings and, I suppose, the thought crime of incest. I’m sure this would do well with a Kindle release.

That said, the coverboy is, as far as I can tell, a really poor simulacra of the characters—be it the wandering, wondering boy detective or the imago of his long-lost brother. They all come off as a lot more like the little boys from Du er ikke alene (though slightly less obnoxious) than those marble statuary with come-fuck-me eyes from BelAmi.

Roseanne, s05e03: The Dark Ages

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:31:41 -0400

Roseanne, s05e03: The Dark Ages

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Fri, 03 May 2013 23:09:47 -0400

Dear Australians, Is it so much to ask that one of you upload new episodes of Arthur, considering...

Fri, 03 May 2013 00:19:50 -0400

Dear Australians,

Is it so much to ask that one of you upload new episodes of Arthur, considering you get them, for some unexplainable reason, sixth months before the rest of the world?

That said, thanks to the British, who provided them a week before the American premiere, and with subtitles!

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Thu, 02 May 2013 01:04:06 -0400

It’s easy to think that all bareback models “are full of AIDS...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:00:32 -0400

It’s easy to think that all bareback models “are full of AIDS and crap like that,” says Brandon Beal, but your concerns are unwarranted because all the girls he sleeps with “are either virgins or don’t sleep around a lot.” It’s good to know these boys are taking the necessary precautions to stay safe even when they’re not on set—Johnny Forza says he favors the “pulling out” method, and everyone seems to agree.

—via Fleshbot

This is the most depressing thing I’ve seen in a very long time.

From the self-proclaimed “Biggest” porn studio in the world, purveyors of such gimmicks as guys getting slapped on the ass with real dead fish and ass fucking in a swimming pool, aka chlorine enemas.

After recently making the switch to bareback sex, complete with internal cum shots, the site will soon be entering into production of a mainstream, Big Brother-style reality-competition series in partnership with Out TV Canada. The grand prize? 25,000 dollars.

Given that’s all they can rustle up as the prize for a fucking reality show, I don’t imagine they pay their models very well, either, which becomes an especially evident idea when you consider that their regular performers are, after all, Broke.

taymurmaider: I could really go for a bottle of wine, a pack of cigarettes, and some slow sex right...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:00:20 -0400

taymurmaider:

I could really go for a bottle of wine, a pack of cigarettes, and some slow sex right now.

Slow is the operative word.

So stop sending me flowers and do something about it.

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:00:31 -0400

So stop sending me flowers and do something about it.

poopylosers: MY TOP 60 ANIMATED MILFs 48. Charlotte Pickles...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:00:34 -0400

poopylosers:

MY TOP 60 ANIMATED MILFs

48. Charlotte Pickles (Rugrats)

PREVIOUS MILF NEXT MILF

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Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:00:33 -0400

Jackie, these are my closest friends. Whatever you tell me in...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:00:34 -0400

Jackie, these are my closest friends. Whatever you tell me in confidence I’ll eventually tell them anyway.

I live by this mantra.

pghpostcards: Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA “Point State...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 06:00:22 -0400

pghpostcards:

Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA

“Point State Park and many of the principal buildings in downtown, Pittsburgh. Dwarfed in the shadows of the trees, on the right, is the historically famous Block House; all that remains of the original Fort Pitt.”

wtf

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:35:27 -0400

wtf

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Sat, 27 Apr 2013 01:34:00 -0400

MISLED, YOUTH

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:30:32 -0400

MISLED, YOUTH

E. L. Konigsburg may be the only author whose entire oeuvre is...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:30:00 -0400

E. L. Konigsburg may be the only author whose entire oeuvre is known to me. That’s evidence enough for why I’ve been sad today, but I have a particular fondness for this book, which is strange and wonderful and near-universal in its appeal, if you can get paste the shitty illustrations.

Sure, From The Mixed-Up Files may be the more popular choice, having won the Newberry Jennifer was nominated for, for having been filmed twice, the hipster-cred generated by its indirect reference in The Royal Tennenbaums (and again, thematically, in Moonrise Kingdom), but whereas Files gathers dramatic tension through an increasingly complex mystery with a painfully slow reveal, the conflict in Jennifer is one based on the limits of friendship in the face of slippery ethics—

When is it worth it to lose your only friend?

Actually, I wouldn’t mind if Wes Anderson made this into a movie.