Get Cynical

The making of special of the famous HBO opening sequence which I posted earlier.

I’d buy a subscription!

Picture this: Anna Wintour has resigned. The sheer effort of keeping an immaculate bob and an unfeasibly large pair of sunglasses in place 24 hours a day has finally taken its toll. In a move that has shocked the fashion industry, American Vogue has appointed as her successor graphic-designer-turned-artist Scott King. For his first issue in charge, King decides that Vogue should have an anti-war theme. Oh, and it should also be free…

How I’d Sink American Vogue is a project that King first developed for a show at New York gallery, PS1, last year. A less likely substitute for La Wintour it is hard to imagine, but with a background at i-D and Sleazenation, King knows a bit about the workings of the style press.

(via Kottke)

Part 2 is here.

(via Classic Television Showbiz )

I loved this Intro. Even if the music always cued my mother to come in from another room to make sure I was watching something appropriate for a nine year old. Damn you partial nudity warning!!

And once again we have discrimination in the name of superstition.

Harvard University has moved to make Muslim women more comfortable in the gym by instituting women-only access times six hours a week to accommodate religious customs that make it difficult for some students to work out in the presence of men.

Men have not been allowed to enter the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center during certain times since Jan. 28, after members of the Harvard Islamic Society and the Harvard Women’s Center petitioned the university for a more comfortable environment for women.

Harvard Islamic Society’s Islamic Knowledge Committee officer Ola Aljawhary, a junior, said the women-only hours are being tested on a trial basis. The special gym hours will be analyzed over Spring Break to determine if they will continue, she said.

Aljawhary said that she does not believe that the women-only gym hours discriminate against men.

“These hours are necessary because there is a segment of the Harvard female population that is not found in gyms not because they don’t want to work out, but because for them working out in a co-ed gym is uncomfortable, awkward or problematic in some way,” she said.

Though the policy was in part initiated by the school’s Islamic group, Aljawhary said women-only hours are not a case of “minority rights trumping majority preference” and said women of different faiths have showed interest in the hours.

Having Japanese ESL students filling in dialog for a comic strip.

The Japanese school system is a funny thing; exams happen three weeks before the term ends, meaning three weeks of students rather unwilling to learn anything new. That being so, I decided to corrupt my high schoolers in the most amusing, English-oriented manner possible. I made a short class on American comics with artwork and examples of popular comic books and comic strips. Then came the exciting part: making your own American-style comic!

I chose to work with Penny Arcade for three main reasons. First, Gabe’s detailed facial expressions made the setting and emotions clear even without text. Second, the simple lines of Gabe’s style made it ideal for xeroxing onto the necessary low-grade paper; less visual information got lost than with a more detailed style. Third, I like Penny Arcade a lot and thought it would be really funny.

Students got into groups of four, then chose three strips to complete from a group of six provided. I did this class two years in a row and am only now getting around to scanning it in, so some strips are more heavily represented than others.

(via Reddit)

From AlterNet:

I learned about SugarDaddy.com when an acquaintance I’ll call “Kim” recommended it to my friend, who’s had trouble finding a job despite (or because of) earning her master’s in media arts several months ago. Kim collected $900 every time she went on a date with one of her sugar daddies; another gave her $3,500 in less than a week before announcing that he had to quit her because his wife had found out. Kim’s best friend “Jill” had two sugar daddies giving her a combined $8,000 a month until one got jealous of the other. Jill has blond hair, amazing lips, and is 19.

All I had to do to gain access to the “meeting grounds of the rich and the beautiful” was enter a user name (“Nextdoor_Nicole”); some vitals like age (I lied and said 23, afraid 27 is overripe), marital status (“Do You Care?” is kind of an exciting choice), and body type (slim); and “Expectation: Select Financial Assistance You Desire,” which ranges up to “more than $10,000 per month.” I chose “negotiable,” so as not to seem like a gold digger, I guess, and slapped up a picture my mom took of me last Christmas.

The church insists that we must be “born again,” and that all
who are not the subjects of this second birth are heirs of
everlasting fire. Would it not have been much better to have made
another Adam and Eve? Would it not have been better to change Noah
and his people, so that after that a second birth would not have
been necessary? Why not purify the fountain of all human life? Why
allow the earth to he peopled with depraved and monstrous beings,
each one of whom must be re-made, re-formed, and born again?

And yet, even reformation is not enough. If the man who steals
becomes perfectly honest, that is not enough; if the man who hates
his fellow-man, changes and loves his fellow-man, that is not
enough; he must go through that mysterious thing called the second
birth; he must be born again. He must have faith; he must believe
something that he does not understand, and experience what they
call “conversion.” According to the church, nothing so excites the
wrath of God — nothing so corrugates the brows of Jehovah with
hatred — as a man relying on his own good works. He must admit
that he ought to be damned, and that of the two he prefers it,
before God will consent to save him.

Robert Green Ingersoll – “Orthodoxy”(1884)