1) According to Newsweek, the movie's producer, James Schamus, told director Ang Lee early on that the film would be marketed directly to one audience. "Yes, of course," said Lee, "the gay audience." No," Schamus replied, "women."

2)
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Teen Be-gone! Are annoying teens hanging outside your place of business, scaring away potential customers? You could try "zit lamps" which use a blue light to bring out blemishes on teens' "spotty skin." Or even better... go for "The Mosquito" -- a device which emits a high-piercing sound that those over 30 can no longer hear, but which wreaks ( Read more... )

"Religious conservatives have a cause this holiday season: the commercialization of Christmas. They're for it."

-- beginning of This Season's War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else, Adam Cohen for the NYT, 2005

"I do have a cause, though. It is... obscenity. I'm for it."

-- beginning of the lead-in to Smut, Tom Lehrer, 1965

the lj intro page is FREAKING ME OUT.

the streets are made of silver, like a rabbit on the run.

did you see the boston globe's puff piece on the wang center? Center of attention on a centerless campus"The campus is so inscrutable. Visitors never quite get it," says Mack Scogin, a former chairman of architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design who designed Wang with his wife and partner Merrill Elam ( Read more... )

attention anna & alice ( Read more... )

so i can't remember if anyone else i know watched over there, but if you didn't, you were missing out -- it was easily the best new show of the year, and one of the best shows on, period, and now it's of course been canceled. anyway, if you watched it, you'll find this article pretty much riveting, and if you didn't, it's pretty fascinating on its ( Read more... )

"Some of Lloyd's best work comes in his dissection of Wicker Park's economy, which depends largely on its hip, young residents either working long hours as bartenders or waitstaff, or long hours in various digital design occupations. This is fascinating, original and deeply humane sociology at its finest; he demonstrates that in the name of freedom ( Read more... )

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has filed an amendment to officially change the name of the budget bill to the "Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act." -- details here

he's always been a good guy, that frank. i'm glad i always voted for him.