The Beloit Mindset List, 2011 edition
“ The 2011 edition of the Beloit Mindset List is out, and it manages to outdo the 2010 list in faulty perspective and tackiness.”
Kurt Andersen on American politics
Autoimmune disorders and the paranoid style in American politics.
William Deresiewicz on heroes
“Perhaps no word in public life of late has been more thoroughly debased by overuse.”
The Grapes of Wrath, 2011
BBC economics editor Paul Mason rented a car and retraced the Joad family’s journey.
“GEEK WANTED IMMEDIATELY”
Three geek-related ads, from the carnival pages of Billboard magazine.
Man in inflatable chair
A shot from Lovers and Other Strangers.
Six stars
New York becomes the sixth state to grant equal marriage-rights to same-sex partners.
There’s something about Rupert
“He reminds me of someone. Who could it be?”
Betty Ford (1918–2011)
From the New York Times obituary.
New York and equal marriage
The Flag of Equal Marriage needs updating.
No Sleep
What’s wrong with Go the F**k to Sleep?
The Electric Soup Kitchen
From 1940: a gimmick to sell soup in soda fountains, luncheonettes, and tea rooms.
“Housewife Headache”
1968 Anacin ad characterizes housework as “a mild form of torture.”
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Werner Herzog’s journey into the Chauvet cave
Storybook Gardens
In the Wisconsin Dells, Storybook Gardens is no more.
Unabomber auction
Did you know that Theodore Kaczynski owned a copy of The Elements of Style?
“Justice has been done”
President Obama on television
The lunatic fringe again
“Lunatic fringe” first referred to hair.
Lunatic fringe
That hair.
Taco Bell lawsuit
It turns out that Taco Bell’s “seasoned beef” is eighty-eight percent beef.
Most frequently challenged books
“The logic of book-banners would seem to dictate that the Penguin House itself be closed to children, no?”
Virgil out of context
Caroline Alexander on New York’s 9/11 memorial: “Anyone troubling to take even a cursory glance at the quotation’s context will find the choice offers neither instruction nor solace.”
Roger Ebert on Donald Trump
“What kind of sick mind conceives of a television show built on suspense about which ‘contestant’ he will ‘fire’ next?
Van Dyke Parks, “the epic opportunity”
“I have lived through McCarthyism, through riots with race at the core. I have seen dark times, but nothing to match the complacency, materialism, triviality, and Stone Age beliefs that dominate our current state of affairs. So I turn to the epic opportunity — the song form. Songs interest me that much.”
Snooki at Rutgers
Rutgers University has paid $32,000 for Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi to speak on campus.
“Fanciful ideas rampant”
In 1911, the Coca-Cola Company tested the effects of caffeine.
“Taste worth dying for!”
The Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona, seems like an outtake from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
The decline of the omnivore
Growing up to be an omnivore.
HOUSE TO NPR: DROP DEAD
“My NPR stations, WILL-AM and -FM, are local treasures. If they were to disappear, I’d have little reason to own a radio. I am sorry but not surprised to see that Congressman Tim Johnson (R, Illinois-15) voted to end federal funding of NPR.”
JapanNYC
“If you think of every place where there’s wars going on, where there are terrible times, where people are suffering, they always look to music and culture. These are the things they look to for solace.”