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Vonnegut At The Twain House

In These Times | Strange Weather Lately
Transcript of a speech from Kurt Vonnegut at the Mark Twain house; excellent stuff as always.

What are the conservatives doing with all the money and power that used to belong to all of us? They are telling us to be absolutely terrified, and to run around in circles like chickens with their heads cut off. But they will save us. They are making us take off our shoes at airports. Can anybody here think of a more hilarious practical joke than that one?
Smile, America. You’re on Candid Camera.
And they have turned loose a myriad of our high-tech weapons, each one costing more than a hundred high schools, on a Third World country, in order to shock and awe human beings like us, like Adam and Eve, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
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I Am Oblivious To Rands

Rands in Repose
I can’t believe I’ve been reading Jerkcity for so long and never noticed Rands had a blog.
I love the idea of the HOLY SHIT list and I will attempt to write one of my own in the near future.

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Subliminal Messages Are So 5 Minutes Ago

“Good teenagers, take off your clothes.” in Aladdin.
The penis on the cover of Little Mermaid.
Dust spelling S-E-X in The Lion King.
Yes, everyone at one point or another has heard of those magical “subliminal messages” in Disney films.
But as I’ve been watching TV lately, I’ve noticed a slight shift in Disney’s master plan of trying to invoke sex on the world.
Take, for instance, one of the current Disneyworld commercials (suspiciously missing from their website). A kid talks about all the fun stuff he did with his parents while on his magical Walt Disney World vacation, and then slips in this anvil:
“This is my baby brother. Mom says he’s her little souvenir from Disney World!”
Kid, oblivious. Mom, laughs. Audience, jaws on the floor.
If that wasn’t wacky enough, there’s the new Visa Check Card “win a private party for you, 7 of your guests, AND ALL THE OTHER WINNERS” commercial. Starts out with the standard “Couple looks like they’re going to get it on” pose, husband says “Shall I put on some music to get us in the mood?”, wife nods, and he puts on Bippityboppityboo and they start playing with the kids celebrating having won said vacation thing. It’s cute, we’ve seen this misdirection in tons of ads before.
But then the punchline of the ad? One of the kids is on a carousel with what appears to be his grandparents, and again, damnable Bippityboppityboo starts playing. The kid says to the old folks:
“This song gets Mommy and Daddy IN THE MOOD!”
And the grandparents just casually quirk their eyebrows, as if to say, “Doesn’t it get everyone in the mood?”
So much for being subliminal.