My beef with “TiK ToK” is basically this: it is very very easy to hate, but very very hard to hate productively.

The dispiriting realization that arrived hot on the heels of my initial oh-my-god-I-freaking-HATE-this reaction was: oh wait—I’m MEANT to hate this. “TiK ToK” depends for its success on its capacity to polarize, and to polarize instantaneously: I would pretty much bet money that anybody who derives pleasure from this song is going to derive at least part of that pleasure by imagining somebody like me recoiling from it.

Ergo, if I hate “TiK ToK,” “TiK ToK” wins.

On the other hand, if I DON’T hate “TiK ToK,” “TiK ToK” STILL wins—because, accurately or not, its fans will still imagine me and others like me fleeing the premises with noses upturned whenever it hits the PA system, repairing to our gut-rehabbed condos to salve our fragile sensibilities by dimming the lights and putting cucumber slices over our eyes and listening at moderate volumes to something we impulse-bought at Starbucks: Grizzly Bear, maybe, or Feist. Clearly, ignoring “TiK ToK” is not going to make it go away.

So let’s try to hate this thing right, shall we?

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What the Heck is "Snorkeling" would someone please tell me!

Rep. Eric Massa stepped down from Congress on Friday but that hasn't stopped new information from coming out about his past behavior. In fact, it seems that his resignation came shortly after the House Ethics Committee were notified of Massa's behavior in the Navy. Massa's behavior in the Navy was not unknown to some in Washington.

An article in The Atlantic details some of this behavior but leaves out one critical piece of information: Would someone please explain to me what "snorkeling" is?

Clarke says that Massa's roommate, Tom Maxfield, was also assaulted. "Tom lived on upper bunk," Clarke say. "When you're on ship, you're almost exhausted 24-7. So a lot of times you sleep with your uniform on. Tom and Massa shared a stateroom together. Massa climbed up on the top of his bunk, which is hard to do--you never crawl up on somebody else's bunk. He wakes up to Massa undoing his pants trying to snorkel him."

Now let's be the first to define (invent) some other obscure and inappropriate naval behavior like:

Brass Monkey

Here's the official definition: A holder or storage rack in which cannon balls were stacked on a ship. Supposedly when the "monkey" with its stack of cannon balls became cold, the contraction of iron cannon balls led to the balls falling through or off the "monkey."

And how about a

Coxswain
Again, official definition here: The swain (boy servant) in charge of the small cock or cockboat that was kept aboard for the ship's captain and which was used to row him to and from the ship.

How we lost the Cure For Scurvy

One of the most striking features of the disease is the disproportion between its severity and the simplicity of the cure. Today we know that scurvy is due solely to a deficiency in vitamin C, a compound essential to metabolism that the human body must obtain from food. Scurvy is rapidly and completely cured by restoring vitamin C into the diet.

Except for the nature of vitamin C, eighteenth century physicians knew this too. But in the second half of the nineteenth century, the cure for scurvy was lost. The story of how this happened is a striking demonstration of the problem of induction, and how progress in one field of study can lead to unintended steps backward in another.

An unfortunate series of accidents conspired with advances in technology to discredit the cure for scurvy. What had been a simple dietary deficiency became a subtle and unpredictable disease that could strike without warning. Over the course of fifty years, scurvy would return to torment not just Polar explorers, but thousands of infants born into wealthy European and American homes. And it would only be through blind luck that the actual cause of scurvy would be rediscovered, and vitamin C finally isolated, in 1932.

http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

Hipster Puppies!

Ari stayed up all night drinking beer and playing old 7”s, so he’s gonna have to sit out this month’s critical mass...

Charlie Nothing "Was not born. Did not die. Does not, did not, will not exist."

Charlie Nothing invented the Dingulator.

In the mid-1970s he formed The Superfabulous Dingulators, a band consisting of Charlie Nothing (on dingulator), Patrick Bisconti (also on dingulator), John Kertisz (bamboo flute, because what goes better with a dingulator) and Jesse Ward Jr. (percussion)...

Tuning a dingulator is "variable, organic and evolving." According to Nothing, "the ideal would be to never tune them, to just find where they are going and go with it ...

In 2007 he released a new CD of dingulator songs entitled My Cuntree Tits of Me.

Charlie Nothing quit performing in the 1980s, believing he had evolved past the entertaining-monkey-jumping-up-and-down-on-the-stage stage. Charlie Nothing came back to performing in 2004, realizing he was in fact a monkey jumping up and down.

Ever heard of a Juggalo?

Insane Clown Posse and Psychopathic Records have stated that there is no true definition of a Juggalo. In a press release from Insane Clown Posse, they say "there are no requirements to being a Juggalo. We don't care if you spend a dime on merch, or if you know the words to every song. If this music touches you, and you get some positive experience from it, we would be honored to have you consider yourself a Juggalo.

Common characteristics include drinking the inexpensive soft drink Faygo and wearing face paint.

In a 2005 interview, Joseph Utsler explained, "you could be a Juggalo and not even listen to ICP. A Juggalo is a frame of mind and what not. And I was a Juggalo before we started with ICP. You don't even have to fuckin' necessarily listen to Psychopathic Records to be a Juggalo. Juggalos are Juggalos."

They also have a festival: The Gathering of the Juggalos is an annual event for the Juggalo Family put on by Psychopathic Records first staged in July 2000. Described by Bruce as a "Juggalo Woodstock", the Gathering of the Juggalos spans four days, and includes concerts, wrestling, games, contests, autograph sessions, and seminars with artists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggalo

"It just doesn't matter!": The philosophy of Bill Murray

He’s done everything from dropping Dalai Lama riffs in the middle of Caddyshack to scaling a mountain to seek enlightenment in The Razor’s Edge, while even taking a few years off from acting to study philosophy at the Sorbonne.

It’s no accident, then, that so many of his films—beneath Murray’s veneer of world-weariness and sarcastic asides—recall the same existential questions that have been posed by sages since the dawn of the word “why.” Starting with the Buddhism of Groundhog's Day, here are some of Murray’s deepest thoughts, couched in some of his funniest movies...

Famous bigots get counter-protested!

Fred Phelps Band-of-Bigots from the Westboro Baptist Church (known to show up at soldiers funerals) showed up to protest outside Twitter's San Francisco offices...their hate-promoting signs were answered by multiple counter-signs of randomness, nonsensical yelling, and even a unicorn. A portable stereo blared Lady GaGa, while press and people passing by ignored the WBC signs and took pictures and videos of the more entertaining signs.

...a small crowd gave rise to an elegantly dadaist protest in which accordions, random signs of love and hate, and rick rolls abounded.

http://laughingsquid.com/san-franciscos-answer-to-westboro-baptist-church/

Tributes to David Foster Wallace

If you are not adverse to quietly blubbering while sitting at your computer, Five Dials magazine has published the tributes to David Foster Wallace made by his sister Amy, agent Bonnie Nadell, authors Don DeLillo, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen and others at his memorial service on 23 October, 2008 at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York University.

PDF Format: http://fivedials.com/files/fivedials_no10.pdf

David Byrne on: The Limits of Multiculturalism

A thoughtful and well-written journal post: From vigilante hipsters vs. Williamsburg Hasidim, to smuggled monkeys, Byrne asks: how much do we allow ethnic and religious groups to not blend in and to not become part of the general social fabric, especially in a major metropolis?

...Multiculturalism, I gather, is the idea that we shouldn’t force outside cultures and immigrants to conform to the culture of the dominant ethnic group — we should respect the integrity of their beliefs and customs. More than just allowing halal or kosher butchers to move in, this idea implies that we might start to see things from the other’s point of view — and sometimes accommodate their wishes, even if they don’t conform to those of the majority. This idea has met its match since 9/11 — Europe, previously a bastion of Muslim enclaves and ghettos of various types and ethnicities, has in recent years pushed back against multiculturalism, and a more nuanced idea is taking hold — sometimes. Other times intolerance rears its ugly head.

http://journal.davidbyrne.com/