Affluenza: April 30

These bird trays are so freaking beautiful and mysterious. They're possibly my favorite thing to be featured here in weeks:

http://www.eggmercantile.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=21&products_id=613&osCsid=f7ab7dbf2ed9f1cddd58e5d809e06a04

It's weird that they make a reference to the 80s CBS drama Beauty & The Beast. How random is that?

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Welcome, new readers. This is a feature I run every Wednesday that I call Affluenza. What is it?

Affluenza is a $4500 bean bag chair made of steel:

http://www.mobcollection.com/index.asp?navid=39&layid=58&csid1=6282

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I guess this pepper grinder is okay and all, but what makes it a puzzle?

http://nickpapageorgia.blogspot.com/2008/04/wooden-puzzle-pepper-mill.html

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

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It's A Log You Idiots, part of a continuing series:

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=860022

I'm genuinely shocked that this is the very first time Anthropologie has appeared in IALYI. You'd think they'd own this series so bad I'd have to just put them in a Hall Of Fame and disqualify future entries.

These Holey Stumps don't *quite* fit here--they'd have to be unpainted to meet the requirements--but they're so fucking stupid and ugly that I have to point them out anyway:

http://www.designpublic.com/shop/thout/10728?a_aid=9ac4448f&a_bid=

It's more or less a log you idiots!

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Now HERE'S a Toaster Concept for you...it has an entire microwave oven hanging off the side:

http://us.lge.com/products/model/detail/home%20appliances_cooking_countertop%20microwaves_LTM9000.jhtml

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The Pets Observation Porthole:

http://www.hammacher.com/publish/75098.asp?promo=QSearch&ls=EG#

Affluenza is everything Hammacher Schlemmer has ever sold.

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Even though I'm a huge board game snob who could rattle off at least five obscure mystery games better than Clue--Mystery Of The Abbey, for starters--I couldn't end Affluenza without featuring this deluxe edition of the game:

http://www.restorationhardware.com/rh/catalog/product/product.jsp?productId=prod1392487

Beautiful. Now do Traders of Genoa.

Honor Among Thieves

In the Free Association post below, I talk about how Are We Done Yet? is, as the AV Club put it, "a remake and a sequel, but not a remake of a sequel."

After giving it a bit of thought, I remembered that one of the big reasons Ocean's Twelve was an incoherent mess is that it "was based on a spec script by George Nolfi called Honor Among Thieves that was originally intended to be directed by John Woo." That is, it wasn't written as an Ocean's sequel, and was significantly rewritten to include the previous characters.

This isn't exactly the same as Are We Done Yet?, which was the remake of a completed film and not just a script, but it made me curious about other sequels that began life as other works. So I asked Metafilter:

http://ask.metafilter.com/90221/Sequels-That-Didnt-Start-Out-As-Sequels

Book Club: Shakespeare

Beginning tomorrow, May 1, I'll begin reading all of Shakespeare's plays. The idea is to not do them straight through, as I did the Austen, but to read three at a time, then an unrelated book or two, then another three. All together, it might take me a year, maybe two.

Tomorrow I start Othello, the play that takes a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master. (Expect to see that joke come up A LOT.)

Let me know if you want to read along...I could wait a few days before getting started.

Alas, a salsa!

Geek Out New York has a fascinating history of the pink Duracell bunny. That's not a typo.

http://geekoutnewyork.com/2008/04/bunnies.php

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"Falindromes are fake palindromes. Although they cannot be read the same forwards and backwards (like their sister palindromes), their peculiar structure make them appear as if they can."

http://falindrome.com/

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I don't know who is ghost-writing Brian Williams' blog, but judging from this critique of the Sunday Times, she wears cat's eye glasses, has an action figure of Velma on her desk, and thinks she underemployed and overeducated (despite the fact that she's not qualified to do anything, and isn't actually very smart):

http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/28/953442.aspx

Also, she *loves* Television Without Pity.

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Richard Hell--yes, THAT Richard Hell--writes an appreciation of early Aram Saroyan minimalism for the New York Times Book Review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/books/review/Hell-t.html

I liked this blurb from Vito Acconci:

"In the late 60s, when I called myself a poet, Aram was the poet I envied. Because you couldn't be sure if he was fooling or if he had really gotten to all there is to get. Because while the rest of us tried to be verbs, like everybody told us to do, he had the nerve to stop at nouns. Because he took a deep breath and willed himself into the self-confidence of naming. Because it wasn't 'nouns,' it was 'noun,' only one noun, because he boiled it all down to one. Because then he let himself go, he let himself stutter, he let the one go and let the one double and go out of focus: while the rest of us ran for our lives all over the place and over the page, his noun shimmered and breathed and trembled and moved—shh! softly, softly—from within."

http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/page-Complete.html

And Aram is the son of William Saroyan, who was Armenian-American, just like Eric Bogosian, who...no! Stop me!

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List of fictional books in the works of Susanna Clarke:

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

Free Association

-The Money Pit, the 80s comedy starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long--together at last!--was a remake of the Cary Grant film Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.

-Mr. Blandings was remade again last year as the Ice Cube vehicle Are We Done Yet?, the sequel to Are We There Yet? I know that the phrase "thinking outside of the box" is a hoary cliche, but the idea of remaking a film as the sequel to an original story at the very least displays an intriguingly sideways thought process.

-(Sort of like using the sequel to a stoner-beloved movie as a chance to make a slyly subversive indictment of the current political situation. But more on that tomorrow.)

-Are We Done Yet? was surprisingly okay for what it was trying to be, pleasedontaskwhyIsawit, and John C. McGinley actually gave a really winning comedic performance. He plays the small-town jack-of-all-trades archetype that's at least as old as Andy Taylor on The Danny Kaye Show, but he infuses the role with a real charm.

-Most people know McGinley as Dr. Perry Cox on Scrubs, whose role as a hyper-articulate authority figure who delivers perfectly composed belittling rants is totally different from Dr. Kelso, a hyper-articulate authority figure who delivers perfectly composed belittling rants, not to mention Jordan and The Janitor and Laverne and about 3/4s of the damn cast.

-Before that, he was probably best known for his first film role, as Sgt O'Neil in Platoon, or as the Michael-Bolton-loving efficiency expert in Office Space. Or possibly as a member of John Cusack's posse.

-However, I knew him initially as Eric Bogosian's producer in the film version of Bogosian's excellent Talk Radio. (Which I just realized was directed by Oliver Stone, as was Platoon. Ah.)

http://www.capitalsyn.com/images/talkradio/05.jpg

http://www.capitalsyn.com/images/talkradio/06.jpg

Uh, that was 1988...does he look creepily identical in those shots? I've always assumed he's had a shitload of work done, but maybe McKinley's just one of those guys whose face has just always looked like a facelift? See also: Michael York.

-Talk Radio was recently revived on Broadway, an event that I somehow heard nothing about. "Talk Radio made its Broadway premiere in 2007, in a production starring Liev Schreiber, and featuring Law & Order: SVU stars Stephanie March and Peter Hermann."

-Wait, what? Who? March was apparently on the show five years ago, and Hermann is Mariska Hargitay's husband. No, I didn't know either of those facts forty-five seconds ago.

-But wait...Eric Bogosian is now a full-time cast member of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. So, uh, was he cast because of his SVU peeps? Or were they cast in his Broadway production because of his L&O connection?

-Or, more likely, Law & Order is such a behemoth that any actor even vaguely working in the industry can be traced back to the series. Forget Kevin Bacon; every living member of SAG must be connected to Dick Wolf by two degrees AT MOST.

-Also, Eric Bogosian is a Law & Order cast-member!? What's next, Laurie Anderson on NCIS? John Zorn on Samantha Who? Ann Magnuson on Anything But Love?

-Actually, Bogosian has a pretty hilariously ghetto filmography--Under Siege 2, Blade: Trinity, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle--but his appearances have always given off the air of being a subversive cameo rather than a way to pay the rent. I'm not dragging him down: that's an awesome trick.

-And, here he is on Scrubs, playing John C. McGinley's therapist and prompting this blog post. It's sorta weirdly endearing to think of these two having met on the set of Talk Radio and being friends for the next twenty years.

-But I have to wonder: who wins the
call waiting face-off when John Cusack calls???

-Finally, to bring this post full-circle, you know who else is on Law & Order? That's right, rapper-turned-actor Ice T, the star of the family comedy Are We Done Yet?

-Oh, wait.

Jack And Charmian

Three different biographers of Jack London discuss his second wife, Charmian:

Joseph Noel, 1940: "A young woman named Charmian Kittredge began running out to Piedmont with foils, still masks, padded breast plates, and short tailored skirts that fitted tightly over as nice a pair of hips as one might find anywhere."

Clarice Stasz, 1988: "Finding that the prim and genteel lady was lustful and sexually vigorous in private was like discovering a secret treasure;"

Alex Kershaw, 1999: "At last, here was a woman who adored fornication, expected Jack to make her climax, and to do so frequently, and who didn't burst into tears when the sadist in him punched her in the mouth."

Affluenza: April 23

Another week, another amazing Phillip Lim link:

http://www.lagarconne.com/store/item.htm?itemid=2021&sid=7&pid=

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There are three things notable about sculptor Robert The:

1. His clever book-based assemblies:

http://www.artistaday.com/?p=1400

2. His name, which I really hope isn't fake. Robert The!

3. His innate ability to say stuff like this: "Obsession with the semiotic erosion of meaning and reality led me to create objects that evangelize their own relevance by a direct fusion of word and form."

Wow, I am truly in awe. I thought I was being clever with that 'transcending the dominant paradigm' schtick, but Robert The must be wearing a mortarboard 'cuz he just took me TO SCHOOL.

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And here you thought those "teddy bears with light bulb heads" from last week were bad:

http://blog.2modern.com/2008/04/design-from-arg.html

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Being "the most beautiful folding bike ever" isn't exactly a difficult achievement, but this thing is freaking gorgeous:

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/the-one-finally-a-goodlooking-folding-cycle

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The design blogs have been pretty enthusiastic about this, but I must be an artless clod or something because all I see are a bunch of chairs and a couple of planks:

http://www.dezeen.com/2008/04/19/bench2-by-jo-nagasaka-schemata-architecture-office/

I'm used to being unimpressed by design bloggers, but mystified is a new sensation.

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I like Blik and the other wall art designers, but aren't all their prices a little suspicious? I mean, fiddy bucks for a vinyl sticker? (Even those super-corny Target rip-offs were expensive.)

Ikea is all "fuck that" and lays some hurting on the price-fixing vinyl sticker conglomerates:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70132337

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Watercolor, ink and graphite works on paper from Bill Frederick:

http://www.roadsidescholar.com/2008/04/21/bill-frederick-watercolor-and-graphite-art/

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It's Ten Logs You Idiots, part of a continuing series:

http://www.vivre.com/control/product/~category_id=357/~product_id=40787

A steal at $1750! Seriously, though, if any of you are thinking about getting these, drop me a line...I can get you *twenty* tables for the same price.

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Remember that beautiful Audi Auto Union Scale Replica Pedal Car I posted last August?

http://nexus404.com/Blog/2007/08/10/strictly-limited-audi-auto-union-scale-replica-pedal-car/

Well, here's the noveau riche version:

http://www.flylyf.com/ferrari-go-cart/

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"The iPod case is made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. It's made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it."

http://item.rakuten.co.jp/sastore/krb-3n-r/

http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html

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As a dude, I guess I probably shouldn't be writing about fashion, because I always get duped by the models. A few times a week I see clothes that I think I should totally feature here, only to look closer and realize the clothes are hideous and I'm just really attracted to the model. Here are this week's examples:

http://www.meganpark.co.uk/collection.php?dir=aw07/wwear&pic=5

http://www.freepeople.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/products.detail/productID/e069d758-7538-41c8-8043-1acb4615fa3f/categoryID/eb344a5e-2eb4-44f2-9bd1-39502a8fe6d1

That first one is particularly bad...it looks like something a Greek-American grandmother would wear on a day cruise.

I'm too lazy to look this up, but I don't think this is the first time a Free People model has been featured here. Bravo, you guys really know how to sell women's clothes to straight guys! Now don't get skeevy like American Apparel and there will always be a place on Affluenza for your ugly clothes.

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"Glenn Gould performed for 21 years seated in a folding card chair modified by his father to be height adjustable. That chair accompanied him around the world in support of each of his recordings and performances, and now resides on a pedestal at the National Library of Canada. Exact replicas of the skeletal, cushion-less chair are available for €990":

http://www.glenngould-chair.com/inglese/chair.htm

http://www.metafilter.com/70900/Glenn-Goulds-chair

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The newest entry in the Affluenza Shopping Directory:

http://www.viceland.com/int/dd.php?id=1336

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Penguin UK is reissuing hardcover editions of the terrible James Bond novels to tie in with the terribly-named sequel to the terrible reboot of the terrible movie series.

Hey, the covers are neat, though:

http://thepublics.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/girls-girls-girls/

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Anna Sui's spring '08 collection:

http://mafrangine.blogspot.com/2008/04/wearable-punk.html

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Famous sufferers of affluenza include George Clooney:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/14/080414fa_fact_parker

"Clooney was sitting on a long pale sofa, alongside Sarah Larson, his girlfriend. Bowls of chopped salad were on the coffee table in front of them: when Clooney's electronic pepper grinder was activated, it sent a beam of light shining down onto the lettuce, like a police helicopter."

Catching Up

Because of my Jane Austen endeavor, I fell way behind on my New Yorker and New York Times consumption. The last couple of weeks I've been catching up on what I missed, and here is the best of my backlog.

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I'm not sure if ten-page long profiles of George Clooney belong in The New Yorker, but Ian Parker's article is good, even fascinating:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/14/080414fa_fact_parker

"Your job is to find the best way for those people to hold on to their dignity," he explained to me. "For a second, they have thrown it out. They got what they came for"—the autograph, the handshake—"but then they're standing there feeling, God, that horrible taste in their mouth: 'What now, how do I walk away?' " As Clooney described it, they have to be shown a path back to their normal selves.

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Malcolm Gladwell on Rick Warren, who wrote The Purpose-Driven Life:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/09/12/050912fa_fact_gladwell

I'm guessing that a glowing Gladwell profile of a megachurch pastor doesn't sound like the greatest read, but I found Warren to be an interesting subject.

"The New Testament's most left-liberal text, the Lord's Prayer, begins with a call for utopian social restructuring ("Thy will be done, On earth as it is in Heaven"), then welfare relief ("Give us this day our daily bread"), and then income redistribution ("Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors")."

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Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris' article about Abu Ghraib was all over the place a month or so ago, so I guess if you've either already read it or never will. But let me belatedly add to the chorus of voices praising their work.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/24/080324fa_fact_gourevitch?currentPage=all

"When the photographs were made public, the blame focussed overwhelmingly on the Military Police officers who were assigned to guard duty. The low-ranking reservist soldiers who took and appeared in the infamous images were singled out for opprobrium and punishment; they were represented, in government reports, in the press, and before courts-martial, as rogues who acted out of depravity. Yet the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy. The authorization of torture and the decriminalization of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of captives in wartime have been among the defining legacies of the current Administration; and the rules of interrogation that produced the abuses documented in the fall of 2003 were the direct expression of the hostility toward international law and military doctrine that was found in the White House, the Vice-President's office, and at the highest levels of the Justice and Defense Departments."

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John Lanchester, author of The Debt To Pleasure, reviews a perfume guidebook:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/03/10/080310crbo_books_lanchester

The actual quotes from the guidebook are so awesome.

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Elizabeth Kolbert on irrational decisions:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/02/25/080225crbo_books_kolbert

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Susan Orlean writes about her neighbor, who has allegedly invented a better umbrella:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/11/080211fa_fact_orlean

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Most of you have already seen this, since I frantically emailed it to everyone I know last week, but this New York Times Sunday Magazine profile of Chris Matthews is the most breathtakingly negative profile I've ever seen, and the lulz come early and just don't let up. A masterpiece of a smear, the article paints Matthews as a hateful blowhard before revealing him as needy and pitiful:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13matthews-t.html

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Finally:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34949

And Per Se And

If you have a friend or relative who sends you nothing but email forwards, this service will send them an anonymous "knock it off" email that, unlike similar services, isn't passive-aggressive:

http://www.stopforwarding.us/

Note: Stop Forwarding Us is ineffective on senders of weekly home decor link dumps.

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The history of the ampersand:

http://www.adobe.com/type/topics/theampersand.html

I had known that the word meant "and, per se, and"--though I never quite totally understood that and, frankly, still don't--but the history of the form was a total revelation: of course it's a stylized "et"! How could I not have figured that out already!?

Lean Sideways On The Wind, by Mervyn Peake

Lean sideways on the wind, and if bears your weight you are a daughter of the dawn.
If not, pick up your carcass, dry your eyes, brush down your dress, for that sweet elfin horn,
You thought you heard was from no fairy land. Rather, it flooded through the cellar floor,
From where your Uncle Eustace and his band of flautists turn my cellar, more and more,
Into a place of hollow and decay.
That is my theory, darling, anyway.