June 2011
28 posts
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Three advantages to working as an artist in a...
Inexpensive, plentiful real estate opportunities will teach you how to use and manage space. The city you live in is full of abandoned factories and warehouses and old, crumbling robber baron mansions that have been divided up into small units. And it’s not just a few city blocks, but entire districts. Miles and miles. In the urban core, on the fringes of the urban core out by the interstate...
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Nate: So that was over at the [Redacted] Dive.
Andy: That's the name of the place?
Nate: That's the name of the place.
Andy: Ugh. Didn't Congress pass a law recently saying that bars were no longer permitted to refer to themselves as "dives"?
Nate: No, you're remembering it wrong. Congress passed a law saying that everyone is supposed to forget what the word "dive" means, and that it be used interchangeably with the word "bar."
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Questions about camping.
What sorts of accommodations are allowed on a “campsite”?
Can you sleep on a pile of blankets on the ground?
How do people (i.e., “camp masters”) know you’re a camper and not just a regular person sleeping on a pile of blankets on the ground?
Would you be bitten by mosquitoes?
Can you wrap yourself in a mosquito net? Would that protect you?
Would the other...
Addendum: Excerpts from interviews with actors...
Nick Denton, et al. (2021) // “I think that was a really exciting era, when chellovekcs were just figuring out what the Internet was, and, like, they sort of changed everything — they were sort of like a pirate ship. I think brattys my age look back at the Google WorldMind and viddy those vecks as kind of these cranky old bratchnys, but there was the kind of exciting energy...
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Addendum: Cultural figures of the last ten years,...
Nick Denton, et al. (2021)
Kanye West (2025)
Ira Glass (2032)
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. (2040)
Julian Assange (2041)
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Cultural figures of the last ten years, and the...
Kanye West (2013)
The Mountain Goats (2017)
Cory Arcangel (2017)
Miranda July (2018)
Masta Ace (2018)
Jason Kottke (2018)
Dave Chapelle (2019)
Joanna Newsom (2019)
Nina Paley (2020)
Julian Assange (2021)
Rockstar Games (2022)
Maira Kalman (2022)
Arthur magazine (2022)
Jezebel (2022)
Kanye West (again — 2022)
Chuck Klosterman (2023)
Tom Scharpling (2024)
George Saunders...
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The ballad of Skippy Tolbin.
Well, “Skippy” Nishioka grounds out, but sends in Cuddyer. That’s 3-2. Then Rene “Skippy” Tosoni, inexplicably pinch-hitting for catcher Rene “Skippy” Rivera, cracks a double to right field. Up to the plate steps Matt “Skippy” Tolbert, with his shitty sub-.200 batting average. Just like all the other names in that paragraph.
From Peter...
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vickyj asked: Your user picture avatar thing! You look so...wistful? What are you looking at over there?
usefulnoise asked: I would definitely buy your book! Since that's not (yet) possible, though, are there any existing histories of postwar Mpls/St.Paul that you'd recommend?
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Slaughter on Wikipedia Avenue: A Multilingual...
Just for fun, read the Wikipedia articles written in other languages for the city you live in sometime. See how the information aligns with your own experiences living in the city, and how it aligns with your own perceptions of how your city might be perceived by native speakers of those languages.
For example, in the entry for Minneapolis, note that the Germans lightly scold us for our...
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More hip injuries.
Threw back out helping Jean Seberg move.
Damaged vocal cords yelling “Blow, man, blow!” at Newport Jazz Festival.
Punched in face by Sun Ra.
Run over by Karmann Ghia.
Or dune buggy, on Fire Island.
Burned lip lighting “tea stick.”
Hyperventilation from hiding inside bass violin case.
Paper cut from copy of Huysman’s A Rebours.
Samba elbow.
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Inherent absurdist and/or humorous possibilities...
L O W
Twitter // Twitter is so absurd and audacious a concept to begin with that it’s nearly impervious to any type of irony. References to Twitter are rarely, if ever, funny. Jokes about why people would care about what other people had for lunch — as well as that joke’s sinister corollary, which is jokes about people joking about why people would care about what other people...
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Christina Billotte Week, Part 2.
OK, I’m sorry, but I have to interrupt this hiatus yet again for a very important update for Christina Billotte Week. Christina Billotte Week, originally occurring in 2010, was one of the most beloved events in the annals of S. 12th history. Perhaps even the most successful, in we measure “success” in terms of “resembling a zine from the 1990s” (still my basic...
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