This is perhaps a bit “high brow” for this site, but I thought it was funny all the same.
“Jean-Paul Sartre, 911 Operator,” from McSweeney’s.
Fun in Gitmo
So, what do the “illegal combatants” (being illegally held, IMO) in Guantanamo Bay do for fun? Well, according to this article Scotsman.com News article:
The Harry Potter stories are the most popular books in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre’s library, the Pentagon has revealed.
JK Rowling’s tales of the young wizard were the most requested by terror suspects held at the high-security camp from among 3,500 titles available.
The Defence Department also said detainees enjoyed watching World Cup football games and playing table tennis.
Wow, sounds like paradise, huh?
What do hoboes and John “I’m a PC” Hodgeman have in common?
I wasn’t aware of this:
John Hodgeman, of The Daily Show and those Mac vs. PC commercials fame, wrote a book called The Areas of My Expertise, in which, among many other things, he discusses hoboes. This hoboe discussion lead to this web site about hoboes and hoboe issues.
Who says that the Internet is a waste of time?
Someone had a bad road-trip…
See this article, “The United States of Paranoia.” It’s always interesting to read foreign interpretations of your own country, especially when they’re funny.
I’m sure these sites aren’t legal…
… and probably won’t be around for that long. But in the meantime, two things I came across this morning:
A directory of each and every Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.
All about South Park, which includes (I think) every episode of the show.
The second one is particularly interesting to me. Given that high speed internet access is coming online fast and given all the other ways that there are television shows online for free or for a small fee, these two different boxes, the TV and the computer, are indeed merging into one. Heck, the stereo is already stuck inside this particular box….
What is important in America (as told by the narrative of magazines at a Wal-Mart)
I found myself in Wal-Mart this afternoon for reasons I won’t even begin to explain. I’m hopeful that no one saw me get out of my car that has bumper-sticker on it which says “Wal-Mart: Source for all of your cheap plastic crap.” Anyway, when Will and I got up to the counter, I looked over the magazine rack and I was struck enough by this to take a picture with my phone:
Maybe I’m just a little punchy or something, but there’s something rather striking, funny, and disturbing to me that the “news” stand at America’s leading retailer tells this story, as far as I can tell:
- Angelina’s all-important baby is apparently a boy.
- Right after she gives birth, I’ll bet she gets right on the tummy flattening routine.
- Jennifer, despite her forlorn look, is coping, undoubtably because her tell-all book will be on sale soon.
- Brad, though absent, is apparently a given.
- Besides A & J and a flat stomach, even more sex tips and a nice garden/patio set-up are worthy desires.
This one goes out for the literary geeks…
I teach on Thursday nights, and I always end up watching late night TV after class because I can never get to sleep early. Tonight (really, last night now) I ended up channel-surfing between a couple of different things, including Charlie Rose, and the guest for the second half of his show was Harold Bloom. “Who is Harold Bloom,” you ask? Clearly, you are not an English geek. In the nutshell, Bloom is a big name (one of the biggest names in the U.S. right now) literary critic. He was on Charlie Rose talking about a wide range of issues, mostly having to do with a new book he has coming out.
In many ways, Bloom represents the kind of literary critic that irritates me to no end– on paper. But I have to say that on the Rose show, Bloom was a charming (albeit scruffy) commentator. It helped that he spoke frequently of the evil that was George W. Bush (and it was pretty amusing to watch Charlie Rose trying to skate around that one), but I just liked what Bloom had to say on a wide range of literary figures.
Who is the most important writer in American letters, according to Bloom? Whitman. I kinda-sorta agree with that one, actually.
Getting at the anti-Harry Potter crowd
This one really goes out for my wife:
91 Ways to Agitate Someone Who Doesn’t Like Harry Potter from a site called MuggleNet. Some of my favorites include:
- Give them Harry Potter merchandise for their birthday and Christmas and demand that they keep it and treasure it forever.
- Make them play Quidditch with you.
- Use the titles You-Know-Who and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to refer to random people.
- If anyone tells you you’ll go to hell for reading Harry Potter, either: a) Jump and down and tell them that you can’t wait. b) Tell them you’ll meet them there. c) Sing “Weasley Is Our King” over and over again. Or d) Ask them to back up this claim with evidence, and laugh at them when they can’t.
Harry Potter in puppets (sorta)
From Annette the Harry Potter fan/scholar comes this, “Potter Puppet Pals,” an odd little sketch about bothering Snape.
Did you hear? Some sorta Harry Potter or other book is coming out….
I feel pretty confident in saying that my wife won’t be reading this blog for a while because she’ll be spending her time reading the new Harry Potter book instead. Anyway, Maud Newton has a collection of nice and fun links about the latest book here.
Two other quick thoughts:
- Personally, I kind of like the Harry Potter books. I read the first three– I liked the first one the best– and I’ll probably read the fourth one before the movie in November.
- I guess you could argue that the Juggernaut that is J.K. Rowling, Inc. is so gigantic that it just rolls over other book in the store, children’s and otherwise. I think that’s part of what Newton is getting at. I dunno; I think that anything that gets kids to read is probably a good thing.
Update:
One of my official blogging colleagues has a pretty funny “summary” of the new book…