Contrasoma

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• Commented on List of books read by backpackers
  I'll cop to carting around the Borges and "A Rebours" from the above list, but "Black Spring" by Henry Miller remains my perennial travel book....
• Commented on Baby chicks ground up alive: animal rights video goes viral
  #11: What's your alternate solution? Don't eat eggs. a vast array of manufactured goods (essentially any carb that's not a potatoe, really) has eggs in in, typically as mass-produced as possible. I have no idea what you're basing this on....
• Commented on Death Metal Cockatoo (Video)
  I'll admit it, the metalhead in me was itchin' to post a snarky "actually, that's not death metal" comment if the music turned out to be Slayer or Emperor, but with Cannibal Corpse, there's no correction required. Carry on....
• Commented on Polka Grammy axed
  #7: Well played....
• Favorited Snarky Amazon reviews for Denon's dumb-ass $500 Ethernet cable on Boing Boing
• Commented on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: adding much-needed zombies to the Austen classic
  #21: I see your "The Canterbury Tales And Zombies" and raise you "The Decameron And Zombies". After fleeing from zombie-plagued Florence, ten people hole up in a countryside farmhouse, set up fortifications and wait for the horror to pass. To...
• Commented on British local governments deploy anti-teenager pink lights designed to make kids ashamed of their appearance
  Up next: funhouse mirrors on the walls of convenience stores to make teens feel fat....
• Commented on "We can send a dude to the moon"; Honda films on Mobility in 2088
  "The cola wars are over. The winner? Eastern Airlines Cola."...
• Commented on Every Swear Word on Every Episode of the Sopranos, Ever, in Chronological Order. (video)
  #20: I've made it 15 minutes in and haven't heard it, but yes, that would've been a great interjection. I'm just impressed by the fact that "Pine Barrens" seems to occupy just about a full minute of the whole reel....
• Commented on XKCD explains the baseball metaphor for sex
  I have GOT to start working on my right field sac flies....
• Commented on What's going on in Bush's mind here?
  #40: You might be on to something there. Bush being controlled by a Machiavellian neocon loafer would go a long way to explain the last eight years....
• Commented on A case of excessive and highly structured daydreaming
  #1 & #17: I see your Walter Mitty and raise you HP Lovecraft: "Polaris" (1918) and "Celephaïs" (1920)....
• Commented on New Rochelle school board mutilates books to protect children
  Did anyone else find "the liberty of bowdlerizing" to be a particularly hilarious turn of phrase?...
• Commented on Digital embryos
  "Diaspora", here we come!...
• Commented on Mark Dery on the copyfight
  I don't think that what Dery is saying is disputing the fact that the sampling Markfrei cites has been going on for centuries, if not forever. Recent technology's just made the conditions for cultural production more apparent. The spectre of...
• Commented on How to get into a club by pretending you're a DJ
  All of the sneaking in was about par for the course at most clubs I've played at (this isn't a complaint, just an observation), but just because the door staff doesn't know who's playing on a given night doesn't mean...
• Commented on Farting preacher back on YouTube
  I went looking for this a while back to no avail. There were many pretenders to the throne, but it's great to see the original again....
• Commented on Kafka's porn stash goes public
  Anthony: I'd actually have to toss a coin as to who I like more between Koons and Bacon. Anyway, your point about opting out of society is the flip side of the inspirational coin I mentioned earlier. On one hand,...
• Commented on Kafka's porn stash goes public
  Anthony: It's because I'm the anti-social, work long hours alone in my studio, anguished artist type! Also, I know plenty of tortured geniuses, so I know it's not a complete 'myth'. Hey, I've got no problem with anyone's work habits...
• Commented on Kafka's porn stash goes public
  Anthony: Why does the deconstruction of the romantic cult of the lone, tortured genius bother you? Beyond the interests of factual accuracy (Kafka was actually quite social and happy, Hemingway greatly exaggerated his war record), reconsiderations of authors lead to...
• Commented on Charles Burns' Permagel available from U.S. distributor
  This casual comics fan can't recommend Burns' book "Black Hole" highly enough. (For all you hipsters, "Black Hole" was the primary influence for the unnerving "Silent Shout" video by The Knife)...
• Commented on NYT on trolls
  #77 Noen: Good call on the Lacan/Zizek. You might be interested in Jodi Dean, a political theorist who analyzes conspiracy theory discourse using Lacan and Zizek: http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2007/02/trent.html#more...
• Commented on NYT on trolls
  I have to admit that Weev's characterization of Zeno, Socrates and the like as trolls blew my mind. Not that I'd put Weev in that category, but situating trolling within the broader history of critical inquiry almost renders noble Fortuny's...
• Commented on Jack Womack's underappreciated masterpiece, "Random Acts of Senseless Violence"
  Any advice on whether one should read the Ambient series in order of publication, or in order of the narrative? I read and loved "Elvissey" and managed to pick up the other five over time, but haven't started in on...
• Commented on 2nd Century AD bust looks like Elvis
  Wise men say only fools rush to blame the Great Fire on the Christian minority....
• Commented on Syd Mead with Joel Johnson, part 3: BLADE RUNNER.
  Wow. That point about the TV channels is crazy - will have to check if any of those uniform light changes actually made it into the movie....
• Commented on Iain Banks interviewed by the Internet
  Wait a second: why is Ian Banks offering commentary on Ian M. Banks' Culture novels?...
• Commented on Problematic logo design from Adidas and Au
  #20: Beat me to it! I walked past that shop every day on the way to work for years. #28: There's an alternate Kiss logo which is used in Germany to avoid legal issues. Compare this with this....
• Commented on Progressive geek looking for 3,000 people to help him win Kansas election against dinosauric anti-science/pro-surveillance dude
  Only 106 short now, although imagine with all of the doubling up and the like he's been well over the twenty-six grand mark for a while....
• Commented on Spammers discuss breaking Craigslist verification system
  The thread gets pretty meta once random people start hawking their "low-cost solutions" to this issue and posting dodgy links (I know there's a colloquialism for this practice but it eludes me at the moment). In all seriousness, as a...