Squash

We may snicker when a teen in Hot Topic goth gear waxes philosophic on the beauty of decay, but reader, that teen is on to something.

In popular depictions, the crackle of autumn leaves and the twilight passage of migrating birds hog the cozy glow of October. But it's the slowing pulse of nature getting comfortable in her sleep that moves the pens of poets. Clouds nudge closer for warmth and the scurrying feet of insects send Morse code to the soil: Good night and thank you for everything you've done. Now rest.

Shh.

Lean in close to carnival mouth of the jack-o'-lantern. His turnip breath exhales a whisper: None of us were meant to last.

halloween pumpkins 2014 from Thomas Vespermann on Vimeo.

If you'd like to see another slightly creepy time lapse video from Thomas Vespermann, check out "Vintage Flower Dolls."

September Heaved a Sigh

The following sentence is the abstract from an article on MSN.com:

"Wildlife numbers have plunged by more than half in just 40 years as Earth's human population has nearly doubled, a survey revealed Tuesday."

Are you able to read that sentence and not feel the bottom drop out of your stomach? If so, we envy you.

This is the part where we would link to the MSN piece, but in digging around, we found the survey was done by the London Zoo, so here's the BBC piece on the findings, if for no other reason than the BBC is ostensibly closer to the source.

Is there hope? There is no hope. There is hope. Is there hope? Mm. We've already pulled all the petals off the daisy. Time to pick another one.

Let's take a breath and recalibrate our brains with a bold idea from evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, who recently told Smithsonian Magazine that "people haven’t been thinking big enough -- even conservationists."

What then, does Mr. Wilson propose? Half of the world should be returned to wildlife. Oh you sweet, 85-year-old dreamer of golden dreams. If only, Mr. Wilson. It's a wonderful thought.

Read the interview here.

Now, here's your reward:

photo © Brian W. Schaller / License: CC BY-NA-SA 3.0

This frog lives in the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. She gives zero fucks about your social media presence.

A Unified Joke Theory?

The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny by Peter McGraw and Joel Warner attempts to do what many others have before: dissect jokes and thus explain how humor works. The main theory, provided by McGraw, who is the director of the Humor Research Lab at the University of Colorado, is called the benign-violation theory.

Jokes, once dissected, stop being funny. So without having read the book, it's impossible for us to weigh in with an opinion. Instead, we read Joel Epstein ruminations on the idea in his article for Commentary magazine, "Notes On What's So Damn Funny."

Epstein includes many jokes in his piece, so at the very least, you'll get some laughs. But seriously, read his article. And if you like it, try McGraw and Warner's book.

Thanks, you've been great! G'night!



[Thanks once more to Arts & Letters Daily]

The media watch-dog group One Million Moms, a subset of the fundamentalist Christian organization the American Family Association, has come out swinging against a new live-action show on Adult Swim called Black Jesus.

Aaron McGruder, the creator of the lauded comic strip The Boondocks, is behind Black Jesus, which seems to follow in the same deeply satirical vein as McGruder's comic, which was later turned into a critically acclaimed cartoon on Adult Swim.

Watch the lengthy trailer and form your own thoughtful opinion or whip up some righteous anger:


We were unaware of Black Jesus until One Million Moms got mad enough to make the news outlets pay attention. (It's an historically slow time of year in the news cycle, never mind that we seem to be on the brink of admitting that we're in the midst of global war, or, if you like, World War III.)

As is so often the case, those upset by a piece of art have shouted, and in doing so, prompted many more to take a look than otherwise would have.

Six

Tuesday Jan 21, 2014 was The Typing Monkey's sixth anniversary ... or birthday? What do you call the day that marks another year of blogging into the wind? Right. "Pointless." Very good.

[At this point in the conversation, our intern Kim was asked to clock out for the day. "Clock out? I don't even get paid," he said. Kim. Kim, c'mon. -- ed.]

To celebrate, we punish you with links culled from Arts & Letters Daily, our ongoing source of quality journalism, editorials and critical thinking that helps us remember there's more to this technology than bewbs and horror movie trailers.

"We need to talk about TED" by Benjamin Bratton
... in which a man gives a TED talk that points out everything wrong with TED talks. It's like he's saying what we're thinking.

"No, Jane Austen Was Not a Game Theorist" by William Deresiewicz 

... a call to resist and reject the post-Freakonomics/Gladwell trend in literary and art criticism to assert that modern, often trendy, scientific theories and ideas are the real themes and subtexts of many great works of art, history be damned.

"The Paratext's the Thing" by Thomas Doherty

"The irritating distractions have morphed into the main attractions."

Perhaps the thematic thread that connects these editorials is just in our imagination. But  we think they're complementary.

Apple Is the New Pumpkin

Hard cider is everywhere and with it, apple-flavored malt beverages that are to cider what Pat Boone was to Little Richard.

Yet Shock Top beer, a craft-y arm of the Anheuser-Busch behemoth, did something that no other cider pretender has done. At least not that we've encountered.

Their Honeycrisp Apple Wheat brew combines a Belgian-style wheat beer with cider-ish flavor. A daring drinker could probably get the same effect, and maybe better results, by pouring specific amounts of a favorite wheat beer and a tasty hard cider into a mug without letting anyone else dictate the taste.

But Shock Top's effort does the work for you and the result is refreshing and not nearly as sweet as we anticipated. The wheat beer isn't as prominent, it's more like a cracker with a big slice of Granny Smith apple on it. And in a pleasant divergence from the typical big-brewery attack, the fruit isn't sticky with sugar.

It's worth a try for something different. The light, almost sour taste -- for the apple element is much closer to Granny Smiths than Honeycrisp -- made for a good contrast to the heavy, dark beers that stock shelves during the winter.

And ignore that ridiculous label too.

Cider When Cider Wasn't Cool

According to various tastemakers, hard cider is the cool drink right now. Which means it's not at all the cool drink right now. We say, drink what you like and stop thinking about what it says about you.

Unless you're drinking turpentine, in which case, please, seek help.

We are enthusiastic fans of hard apple cider, especially those craftier brews that skip the sticky sweetness of some of the big-batch manufacturers. But let's not get weird about it. The following video has put Wilkins Farmhouse Cider on our radar. Let's all take a field trip to Somerset.


Thirsty Work - Memories of a Somerset Cider Farm from Thom Huxtable on Vimeo.

We're in love, f'reals.

Send Me a Postcard

The unofficial end to summer approaches, a time reserved for listening to Nat King Cole on AM radio, eating fruit you picked right off that tree in the alley near the end of the block, and wondering how quickly your tan will fade.

Here's a music video that constructs a fantasy "wish you were here" greeting from a vacation to a magazine advertisement in the mid 1970s. Good job, Royksopp.

Readin' Dirty

The Typing Monkey tries to keep this blog as PG-13/SFW as possible. So understand that several of the links in this post contain pictures that might get you in trouble at work, or force you to have an uncomfortable conversation with a loved one. If your wife asks what you're doing, though, you can tell her in all honesty that you're reading The Paris Review.

***

All media are used as pornography delivery devices. And because that’s usually one of the first uses for a new medium, the history of pornographic books is the history of the book itself.

Writer Avi Steinberg looked into the library/porn connection for The Paris Review back in 2012. Thanks to J. Kingston Pierce’s blog Killer Covers of the Week, we discovered Steinberg’s essay, "Checking Out" and it’s a positively fun and enlightening read.

Steinberg, who worked as a librarian in a prison, declares midway through that "according to the pile of books I’d stacked onto my library desk, our story is nothing but the evolutionary history of the Porno sapiens."

And to that end, Steinberg arrives at a perfectly logical connection. Books can satisfy our prurient needs. Therefore, those who curate the books must have arcane knowledge of the erotic and esoteric, which lets us off at the final stop on this ride, the archetype of the “sexy librarian.”

For many, the very phrase conjures a sort of post-WWII pinup idea: A prim woman, with glasses and hair coiled into a bun. But once those glasses come off, and the hair is loosed, she’s a trick-underwear-sporting tigress in sensible heels, a variation on the Madonna/whore fantasy that’s come in and out of fashion over the decades.

As poet and librarian Stephanie Brown put it in her article “Sex in the Stacks” – “In the world of librarian porn, a sex maniac lives behind the lorgnette [and] those orthopedic shoes.”

Read her take on the books, and the idea, on The Best American Poetry blog. And notice there that she too, includes the cover of Les Tucker’s Nympho Librarian, a paperback that has also provided the two images we used for this post, primarily because it’s so funny and so neatly sums up the ideas discussed.

Books are sexy. Anybody who says otherwise probably hates reading. Stop associating with those people as your schedule allows, and go read something.

Oh Honey, We're Ridiculous

As the solstice approaches and each day we eagerly rise and pad down to the TMI corporate p-patch to see if the artichoke is still alive, we try to encourage all Typing Monkey staffers to take a moment and let the amazing wonder of the natural world grab hold.

That's not difficult, since most of them are drunk and/or high most of the time, but if that makes them more suggestible to the precise beauty of those pale-green spiders that climb nimbly over the stones in the fake river-bed, so be it.

After all, it doesn't matter that you've risen later than intended and are watching fast-talking dames on Turner Classic Movies via the break room television while you eat leftovers for breakfast. What matters is that you saw a hummingbird pause by the window and be-damned if the emerald beauty didn't seem like he stopped to look back at you.

With all that in mind, take a look at this list from Wikipedia of the crop plants that bees pollinate. (Bats get a few nods too in the non-bee items.)

Bees of the honey, bumble, solitary, and stingless variety all come into play, and if we could, we'd high-five them or send them a thank-you note because we eat most of the items on that list.

Oh, and the word for what those bees are doing? Entomophily.

[Image courtesy of PD Photo]

Solid Advice

We can't stop watching the Fake Adam West videos.



There are just four videos, but it looks like FAW is just getting started. Per Bleeding Cool, where we found this, he had only 38 followers on Twitter when they posted on Jun 2. We're guessing he's got a lot more by now.

Came the Dawn

January 1 is an arbitrary marker. If you're using it to signal a planned change in your life, a point at which to start or stop something, The Typing Monkey hopes you succeed.

Please turn your attention now to this video of Iron Maiden (Paul Di'Anno era) performing "Running Free" on the BBC program, Top of the Pops. Please note that they are playing live, a rarity on a show, where most musicians pantomimed to their studio-recorded hit.


[courtesy of dopewackshit -- yes, really]

Have a good year.

Sexy Astronomers of History [No. 4]

Collect 'em all!

Carl Edward Sagan
(Nov 9, 1934 – Dec 20, 1996)
Birthplace:  (Brookly, NY, United States)
Culture-shaping contribution:  Made astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology appealing to the masses via his unequalled educational television series Cosmos, based on his book of the same name. Is also responsible for the Baloney Detection Kit, an invaluable guide to testing arguments.
Fun fact:  Wrote an essay on the benefits of smoking cannabis for a 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered. Sagan, using the pseudonym "Mr. X", claimed his use of the drug had not only enhanced sensual and intellectual experiences but had also inspired some of his works. Mr. X's true identity was revealed shortly after Sagan's death.

Incidental Poetry: Wikipedia Edition

Typing Monkey publisher S.L. Kreighton blustered out of his office to alert us to the following: Look up the word "chthonic" on Wikipedia and you'll come across this wonderful sentence at the end of the opening paragrah.

"It evokes at once abundance and the grave."

Whoever wrote that, thank you. It's possible the best thing we've ever read on Wikipedia, no matter what it's about. We read it over and over and in our head, it's always in the voice of Sir David Attenborough.

If it isn't grabbing you in the same way it did for us, please know that Kreighton showed us this passage while he finished a sleeve of Oreos.

Many Kinds of Close Encounters, Apparently

The sordid tale of former U.S. Senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards' affair with a videographer named Rielle Hunter has provided miles of column inches for newspapers, magazines, tabloids and Websites since the story broke.

Old and often repeated, the story of infidelity and apparent cracks in the moral character of a public official (gasp, faint, etc.) is far less interesting than a detail of the scandal brought to light via the court testimony.

That detail being that Rielle Hunter, the videographer with whom Edwards fathered a child out of wedlock, wanted to claim she had been abducted by aliens. This was part of an effort to deny that Hunter and Edwards had been romantically involved.

The Typing Monkey wants to make it clear to any politicians, celebrities, spin doctors, historical revisionists and public relations flacks that we think this is a marvelous idea.

Have a starlet who needs to lay low in rehab for a few weeks? Tell us she is taking time off to document sightings of the chupacabra.

Grassy knoll and second shooter theories are no more provable or easy to deny than, say, a coven of Satanists eager to assassinate the first Catholic president. See? You really can't handle the truth. [You're mixing up your Oliver Stone films. -- ed.]

We'd like to posit that William H. Seward got such a deal on Alaska when he purchased it from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million because Russia agreed to evacuate all of the Yetis residing there, hoping to bring them all back to Siberia so they could create an army of abominable snowmen. The U.S. got a gold rush untroubled by Yetis, Russia gained an army of cryptids.

The Loch Ness Monster attacked and sank Nazi U-Boats during the war? Why not?

Take any historical controversy or even minor event and make it more exciting by adding paranormal explanations and interference. Our tabloid political climate could use some actual tabloid fodder instead of this banal baby-mama drama.

Many believe the famous Patterson-Gimlin footage, taken in 1967, is definitive proof of the existence of Sasquatch. What they fail to realize is that Bigfoot is, in fact, a courier on his way to pick up The Pentagon Papers from then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

You Made It

Congratulations. If you're reading this, you're alive and it's 2012 -- not too shabby. The Typing Monkey hopes that you reached the finish of 2011 with all the usual amenities of life intact and have few, if any, regrets.

Some believe this is the start of our final year of existence. Whether an ancient culture has correctly predicted our demise or not, this all ends for each of us in our own way eventually.

The road ends, the bridge is out up ahead, there's an exit ramp with your name on it. But the ride there is full of sights, scenery and roadside attractions that can make the getting there fun.

Look! Here's Suzi Quatro singing "48 Crash." Righteous!



[courtesy of Shadowcat05]