Frederick Woodruff

Scaring me! This is uncannily (fucking) bizarre! When...

Fri, 25 May 2012 21:16:48 -0700

Scaring me! This is uncannily (fucking) bizarre! When Celebrities Become Mutant Ogres

TGIF.

Fri, 25 May 2012 20:30:18 -0700

TGIF.

"No one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding hands with the person they..."

Fri, 25 May 2012 20:28:41 -0700

“No one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding hands with the person they love.”

- — Barack Obama

How One Mother's Story Helped Change Obama's Gay Marriage Stance

Fri, 25 May 2012 18:27:19 -0700

How One Mother's Story Helped Change Obama's Gay Marriage Stance:

After her son Matthew was brutally murdered, Judy Shepard’s relentless campaigning on behalf of tolerance led to a major shift in American law.

Sebastain: Suddenly This Summer

Fri, 25 May 2012 18:25:00 -0700

Sebastain: Suddenly This Summer:

The poet Sebastian Venerable returns to us in this photo-montage tribute to Tennessee Williams “Suddenly Last Summer.” One quibble, though, and it’s a lethal one. The shirtless teenage boys are here replaced by spindly and toothless grown men. Um, no. No, no, no. Trade and sex tourism have not changed in the new century. Have stayed true to what they have always been since the Grand Tours of the 17th Century. The trade is always south of 25, and the tourist north of 40.

(via John Calendo)

Dog Days!

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:44:23 -0700

Dog Days!

Just try and tell me that your cat doesn’t need her own...

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:56:08 -0700

Just try and tell me that your cat doesn’t need her own teepee. (I know mine does).

My favorite pet shop Loyal Luxe is having a summer sale, use the promo code: JUNE at checkout and save 20%!

Azealia Banks (ft. Lazy Jay) | 212

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:42:42 -0700

Azealia Banks (ft. Lazy Jay) | 212

The Sorry Six-Day History of Facebook

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:34:00 -0700

The nut of this Atlantic story is here, bringing a tear to Oliver Stone’s eye as he chastises himself: “This could have been the real sequel to Wall Street.”

I can’t imagine any of the big players will lose sleep over this. As kewl tech biz wunder kidz (raised under their parents’ “greed is good” bromide) the legal fallout from their plunder will be massive — as their attorneys’ phones beep beep. But just put the fees on their bill — tiny charges compared to the fortunes they ripped from the market.

“It begins with the secondary market, where big investors gobbled up bits of Facebook for cheap and watched their shares bloom before the company went public. Since Friday, the stock has traded sideways, and then down.

The big idea here is that companies are staying private longer, which allows them to soak up up millions and for the market value to top out, leaving little on the table for average investors. So-called “D-rounds” of late-stage stock offerings are now common for tech companies who’d like the benefits of wide-scale funding without the drawbacks of public disclosure rules. “More to the point,” Cassidy says, “they allow hot companies to bid up the price of their stocks well before the investing public gets a sniff.” By the time the public gets a sniff, the smart money has already cashed out.”

It’s origami Friday. Today’s theme: Rhinoceroses....

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:10:00 -0700

It’s origami Friday. Today’s theme: Rhinoceroses. (Click the paperclip below to view).

Todd Webb’s Café Select, Champs-Élysées, 1949 Gelatin...

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:07:49 -0700

Todd Webb’s Café Select, Champs-Élysées, 1949 Gelatin silver print (Smithsonian)

Zuck 'n Fuck

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:26:47 -0700

Mark Zuckerberg and leading Facebook investors cashed out millions of shares before the price dropped off a cliff, according to company filings.

Thank God it’s Friday Jason Statham!(via Outrate)

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:13:00 -0700

Thank God it’s ~~Friday~~ Jason Statham!
(via Outrate)

Run, Don't Walk...

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:53:10 -0700

I’m working on an article that will give step-by-step tips on how to ease out of Facebook and claim your own piece of real estate online. You’ll also learn how to maintain your link with your closest followers and friends.

SPOILER: The list concludes with you nuking your FB account and reclaiming huge hunks of your life you didn’t even know you were missing.

In the interim, Tara just shared this New Yorker article with me, the best I’ve read yet on what kind of crazy bubbling will begin fizzing between Zuckerberg’s ears this year, post his company’s IPO.

“Facebook’s huge valuation now puts pressure on the company’s strategists to increase its revenue-per-user. That means more ads, more data mining, and more creative thinking about new ways to commercialize the personal, cultural, political, and even revolutionary activity of users.”

I’ve never once seen Nicole Kidman dressed in anything but...

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:24:29 -0700

I’ve never once seen Nicole Kidman dressed in anything but a stunner. She may only be a competent actress (and unwitting Botox spokeswoman) but she sure can pick the threads. Sublime.

Gillian Welch | I Had a Real Good Mother and Father

Thu, 24 May 2012 15:33:00 -0700

Gillian Welch | I Had a Real Good Mother and Father

The Conservative Fantasy History of Civil Rights

Thu, 24 May 2012 14:41:00 -0700

The Conservative Fantasy History of Civil Rights:

“It has thus become necessary for conservatives to craft an alternative story, one that absolves their own ideology of any guilt. The right has dutifully set itself to its task, circulating its convoluted version of history, honing it to the point where it can be repeated by any defensive College Republican in his dorm room.”

(via John Calendo)

The Joy of Dawn Powell's Diaries

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:55:00 -0700

Currently I’m reading American author Dawn Powell’s diaries.

Powell was a contemporary of Dorthy Parker and that famous ‘circle’, though much more focused on her craft and hard working (though an equal in the hard drinking department).

Her diaries move me because they aren’t embellished; meaning she was writing straight from the gut, not thinking about impressing future generations of readers. So the events she catalogs transmit a truth and ‘there-ness’ that you don’t encounter everyday, especially nowadays where style and gimmick combined with a bald eye on ‘fame’ predominate literary efforts. I don’t even bother to read contemporary writers, as I find their output to be borderline obnoxious.

My favorite parts of Powell are when she begins to write about other authors. Here she reveals Henry James’ and Charles Dickens’ secrets to giving life to a character’s trajectory, so deftly you just know she possessed a similar genius (and her fiction proves my point).

In Henry James Reverberator, a key quality of his is at its best — the ability to maintain his own author’s mystification and curiosity about a character unwrapping a little more each time. Not in the standard novelist’s way (with him knowing the whole secret but letting the reader in on it just a little at a time, then teasingly hiding the end again). No, the game is all fair and square — you learn as he does. You are not “out there” and the author on stage but you are part author — watching people together with shared curiosity and surprise, instead of being treated like a child who must have his goodies rationed. In Dickens, particularly in David Copperfield, you are growing up with the hero, a fusion of author and hero which still allows the reader to share the unfolding with the author — a preferred position which flatters the reader’s intelligence more than the Teacher=Preacher-Boss approach.

More on Dawn Powell here, the Gore Vidal essay which started a revival of interest in her books and plays and, yes, diaries.

And some samples of Dawn’s diaries here, too.

More trusting cats from Silent Musings.

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:19:59 -0700

More trusting cats from Silent Musings.

It’s A Family Affair.In keeping with today’s theme....

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:03:57 -0700

It’s A Family Affair.

In keeping with today’s theme. The animal instinct is fearless. Here baby cat cavalierly sticks her head into Leo’s toothy maw. What’s not to love about this level of trust. It’s my goal this afternoon.