papal selfie

(via kazaria dot com)

"...Eicke had taken command of Dachau and composed a set of regulations that later became the model for all camps. ...Even irony was costly. Eight days' solitary and 'twenty-five strokes' were meted out to 'anyone making depreciatory or ironical remarks to a member of the SS'..." --Eric Larson, In the Garden of Beasts

"On the twentieth anniversary of the assassination, for instance, a local provocateur named Joe Christ drove a convertible through Dealey Plaza with Jackie and Jack mannequins in the backseat. At a designated moment, the presidential dummy’s head popped off, and fake blood spurted into the air."

(via lighthouse visits dot com)

Abramson on Knott.

The day they levitated the Pentagon.

nabrok

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters.

<- (via)

The Straight Dope.

"The GIFs and images used in the two reviews are, like the vast majority of visual elements cropping up in reviews and other critical discussions online, reaction GIFs: looped clips taken from commercially produced film and television, often featuring popular actors such as Emma Stone or Jennifer Lawrence rolling their eyes, gaping in astonishment, jumping with glee, shrugging their shoulders." --Laura Miller on Salon (via)

Nivola. " The most famous passage of the novel occurs towards the end when the principal character decides to confront the real author, Miguel de Unamuno, to ask for advice about his destiny. The encounter degenerates into a confrontation in which the author decides to kill his character..."

Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer.

Breaking News: Life Found on Titan.

<- (via CNN)

"Fan fiction is the first native literary form of the network."

"Read an Afro-Celtic post-Roman icepunk Regency fantasy adventure with airships, Phoenician spies, the intelligent descendents of troodons, and a dash of steampunk..." caught my eye.

Bardo Pond does "Maggot Brain"--right?

Der morgige Tag ist mein.

Seapunk, icepunk, slimepunk. (The latter already has representation on Etsy, while the former has even attracted the attention of the New York Times...)

in the 99th year of the age of light

(via)

Eve of Destruction.

"I love the Mojave and there are emptier and more desolate places in Providence, Rhode Island." --Dave Hickey

"I can haz desolation!"

"Horror lurked beneath horror, and I could only tolerate an afternoon if I took a triple amount of the stated dose of valium prescribed by my GP (who would soon take his own life)." --Morrissey.

"A colleague’s combover is a living crop circle whose origin might just reveal the hand of god."

(via Centauri Dreams)

"Charles Cayley proposed to her [Christina Rossetti]. But alas, this abstract and erudite man who shuffled about the world in a state of absent-minded dishabille, and translated the gospel into Iroquois, and asked smart ladies at a party 'whether they were interested in the Gulf Stream,' and for a present gave Christina a sea mouse preserved in spirits..." --Virginia Woolf

The Nine-Tenths.

"If I were a gay man, people would be inclined to believe me when I told them so."

95 phthisis

"Nothing was the right voice for Godzilla."

(via nuits sacrees dot fr via corey powell on twitter)

Chaldaean Oracles.

NSA haiku.

"The Franco-Italian text is thought to be closest to the original, and it’s noticeably badly written."

RETEP verse.

     "Sink Song

Scouring out the porridge pot
Round and round and round!

Out with all the scraith and scoopery,
Life the eely ooly droopery,
Chase the glubbery slubbery gloopery
Round and round and round!

Out with all the doleful dithery,
Ladle out the slimy slithery,
Hunt and catch the hithery thithery,
Round and round and round!

Out with all the obbly gubbly,
On the stove it burns so bubbly,
Use the spoon and use it doubly,
Round and round and round."

     J.A. Lindon

Parody in Shostakovitch.

Hymn to the Moon.

(also by JAL, via futility_closet on twitter)

"I find that a peculiar thing, something that I've always thought of in my head, there are people looking back to create new music. To me, that's not what it's here for, electronic music is not here to look backwards. It was invented to look forward."

Where were you.

(thanx Jayson!)

The myth of the War of the Worlds.

"Had Gardner been around at the time, he might have spared Dante Gabriel Rossetti the pain of mistaking the Snark for a veiled attack on himself."