putting the j in jjosh

Wes Anderson receives a special award for animation and accepts it in the medium for which he is honored.

Nice.

KFan's post on knowing random songs makes me remember…

Lisa and Lars had their wedding out in the middle of rural Maryland, near where Lars's parents had a summer house. It was the middle of nowhere, in a forest by a river. Everyone who attended camped out, the ceremony was held in the forest, and afterwords the reception was held in a clearing in the forest around a giant bonfire. Drinking and much hilarity ensued. I remember at one point we were trying to roast marshmallows but the fire was so huge and fierce that we had to get branches that were like 15 feet long to put the marshmallows on. Otherwise it would scorch your face off.

I was talking for a while to Damien G, who I didn't really know that well. We were well on the way to being drunk, and somehow got to talking about how awesome Danny Kaye is (I would love to read a transcript as to how we got to that point!)…this led to me bringing up the best DK film, The Court Jester. When my family lived in the UK and had just gotten our first VCR, one of the first things we taped was a Channel 4 airing of The Court Jester, and my sister and I would watch that thing over and over. We got to the point where we could do most of the dialogue, and pretty much all of the songs. When we came back to the US, my dad got a special VCR and TV so we could still watch PAL VHS tapes, and KT and I would have a viewing every now and then.

When I brought it up to Damien he exclaimed how much HE loved the film too. And then we were off, singing the songs and stumbling around. It was amazing, our knowledge was so solid, we were rocking the songs so hard. Everyone else was looking at us like, what the hell? It was like a moment out of a musical brought to life. You know? Like those moments where everything was moving like normal life and then suddenly 2 characters burst into song and somehow they know all the words. It was amazing.

(the last time I saw The Court Jester was fantastic, Maxine put together a whole surprise birthday for me at a Diner and everyone at the party watched it while we ate onion rings and drank milkshakes…)

Even now I sometimes find myself singing the main Jester song to myself. I mean, check the rhyme scheme, it's so sweet…say it out loud, feel how well constructed it is:

when I was a lad, I was gloomy and sad as I was from the day I was born

when other babes gurgled and giggled and wiggled, I loudly was proudly forlorn

this slice of nostalgia and niceness and decency and good old-fashioned humor should make up for the creepiness of the previous post, right?

Here's a film called "Forest" by Alison Schulnik that's a music video for a Grizzly bear track…it's chilling, surreal…I'm not sure what's going on there, but it doesn't feel like anything good…you can handle it though, right? It's Friday!

It reminds me of that time when I stayed up real late on a Sunday night to watch 120 minutes, and right around 2am when the night starts to get weird, they showed that Tool video and it got under my skin so bad…even watching it now I can feel how creepy it was…(ignore the lame begining bit with the band superimposed on everything, it goes away pretty soon)…

Matt M mentioned Mighty Boosh last night and it got me surfing youtube…

sometimes they are amazingly funny:

the editing in that clip, especially in the beginning is really good…it really accents the comic timing…and the way it effortlessly moves through 3 sections (set up, song, existential end) is so smooth…I need to watch more of these guys…

Last week I stumbled upon this list of the 50 best wikipedia articles. I looked it over and thought "whatever, I'm sure they're not that amazing." And then I clicked on a random link to prove it to myself. And found myself at the page for As Slow As Possible, a piece written by John Cage for organ that is designed to be played "as slow as possible". So some church organ in Germany (pictured above) has been wired up to play it for 639 YEARS! It started in 2001. Apparently it's like a really big deal whenever a new note comes in…

Reminds me of 24 hour Psycho, the Douglas Gordan installation where he slows down Psycho so that it takes a full 24 hours to run. You watch it inching by and get seduced by its rhythms, the barely changing frame, the small movements. When there's a cut, it's a big deal. I remember watching it for a long time, then going away, leaving the museum, going to get a drink, coming back, looking at other artworks, and then coming back to it only to find that it was still in the same scene. Kind of amazing.

Anyway, check out this list of the 50 most most interesting wikipedia articles…like the page says, this will fill you full of interesting cocktail party conversation, which is a good thing…

the page is here

click over there, start reading and kiss your Thursday good-bye…

spent last Saturday out and about drinking and staying up late (seeing Zack G)…

spent Sunday recovering, waiting for the football game and reading Forming by Jesse Moynihan, another brilliant psychedelic-style web comic…I mean really, read this thing it's amazing…here's a link to the start of it…

and here's an example strip so you can see how cool it is…

I haven't really heard about this animated show Clone High, but any show that includes an animated Marilyn Manson singing the praises of the food pyramid ahs its heart in the right place.

@ sweetwater in wburg, just sat down at the bar next to Zack galafanakis…seemed cool, headphones on, drinking wine, scribbling writing on envelopes…cool…

same artist, diff block

reminds me of government stats…

from the excellent xkcd

All you really need is this caption: World's Tallest Man meets World's Smallest Man.

[via the fantastic Miss Fidget, her blog is a hoot!]