Category: Fascination

Neil Degrasse Tyson, Person

Genuine knowledge gained through hard work and a keen intellect is not a MEME. We all have instant and constant access to the infinite range of human understanding, and it doesn’t mean anything because we wouldn’t even know what to do with it if we found it. But here comes a dude who actually does, and that, it turns out, is the neatest thing of all.

This Gabe Delahaye post at Videogum about the great Neil Degrasse Tyson, and about how Neil Degrasse Tyson isn’t just a great astrophysicist and a prominent museum director and a popular Internet guy but how he is also just a guy who knows lots of things, is really terrific.

(The post is vaguely tied to the news that Neil Degrasse Tyson will host Seth MacFarlane’s “Cosmos” reboot, which was first mentioned in 2011 and which was re-confirmed this week. If you were curious.)

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How David Lynch Came To Appear On “Louie”

If there are two things that this blog likes — and there are more than two things, many more, because we’re all human and we all have a diverse array of likes and dislikes, but for the sake of this post we’re going to focus on two things in particular — this blog likes Louis C.K. and this blog likes David Lynch. (I mean, obviously. Lots and lots of people like Louis C.K. and David Lynch. This blog also likes ice cream, because this blog makes the DARING LIFE CHOICES.)

Dave Itzkoff just published an interview with Louis C.K., pegged to the debut of his HBO special “Oh My God” (airing Saturday, April 13th, at 10 p.m.). It’s a really good interview and you should read it, but there is one segment in particular that caught my eye: Continue reading →

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Tag

One year early on when Mike Konesky was “It,” he got confirmation, after midnight, that people were home at the house where two other players lived. He pulled up to their place at around 2 a.m., sneaked into the garage and groped around in the dark for the house door. “It was open,” he says. “I’m like, ‘Oh, man, I could get arrested.’ “

— This Wall Street Journal story about 10 guys who have spent more than two decades playing an epic game of tag is simply the best.

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Bill Murray profiled

“Some people photo-bomb pictures. Bill Murray photo-bombs life.”

GQ has posted a new profile of Bill Murray, and I think it’s safe to say that you don’t even need to read to the end of this sentence because click the link already. Murray remains an international treasure, and though it’s somewhat rare for him to sit down for a lengthy profile, it is always worth it.

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The Rebranding of Shopping

With everything on sale this holiday season from luxury cars to rock climbing gear, it’s hard to resist getting a little something for Number One – and there are signs a growing share of consumers won’t.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a big part of holiday shopping will be “self-gifting,” otherwise known as buying something for yourself, otherwise known as shopping. (Related and wonderful.)

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Why would toasted marshmallow taste like fish?

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

New York Times dining critic Pete Wells visits Guy’s American Kitchen & Existential Dread Factory in Times Square, the new restaurant from Food Network hobgoblin Guy Fieri. Greatness ensues (not in the form of the food or anything, but in terms of a wonderfully savage, inquisitive review).

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The British Are Coming

A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe. The analysis of the histories of the almost 200 countries in the world found only 22 which have never experienced an invasion by the British.

I love everything about this. How in the world have the Brits found the time to invade SO MANY countries? The best part: The end of the story is a list of countries the British haven’t invaded yet, which means we should expect them to head to Chad and Belarus any day now.

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Work Habits

“Gay Talese would pin pages of his writing to a wall and examine them from the other side of the room with binoculars.”

Rod McLaren rounded up the work habits and/or quirks of a variety of writers. Some of them seem perfectly normal. Some of them seem bizarre, but maybe that’s just because I don’t own a shed.

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Wonderful Coffee Could Be Coming To Your City

This is terrific news for fans of delicious, wonderful coffee: Blue Bottle Coffee, the Bay Area-centered purveyor of amazingness, just pulled in $20 million and could expand to other cities soon.

Now, as the Wired story points out, Blue Bottle isn’t really Coffee Snob Coffee (nor is it really some kind of little-known hole-in-the-wall or something like that; I mean, it has a location in Rockefeller Center). But if there is a chance it will open up anywhere near me, that is a wonderful thing. (For me. You might not care as much. Or maybe you already live near a Blue Bottle and you’re wondering why it’s such a big deal. Or maybe you don’t drink coffee. Really, whatever makes you happy.)

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