Posts tagged “culture”
Michelle Obama makes Beyoncé look like an amateur. (The New York Times eventually caught on, naturally.)
Florida wants to fine people for hanging fake bull testicles from their trucks. I'm not sure what's more depressing: that this is popular, that someone was offended, or that lawmakers think banning offensive things is acceptable governance.
Taste in art isn't about refinement or pretension. It's evolutionary signaling: we're attracted to skill and novelty because talented people make good mates. So stop being proud or embarrassed about your cultural preferences. You're just a monkey reading other monkeys' signals.
Big fan of this xkcd.
Seeing Orion over Valencia Street got me thinking about how San Francisco's geography shapes its culture. A dense, isolated city on the edge of a vast ocean and empty continent fills you with an urge to connect and build. Maybe that's why the internet happened here.
My friends Alex and Sup got married in Oxford's Pembroke College chapel in a beautiful Hindu-Christian ceremony. First wedding where I genuinely enjoyed myself throughout. Dinner in a 17th-century hall, dancing on ancient flagstones, bhangra mixed with pop, and even dance-offs. Congrats to the happy couple!
Heard my first Christmas carol on August 10th. I am appalled. With Halloween no longer serving as a barrier, there's nothing stopping Christmas from creeping all the way back to Easter.
A study finds that friendliness, honesty, and niceness are now considered cool. So there. (Though I'll admit this doesn't actually prove any of my earlier points.)
Too hip for my own good.
"Valentine's Season" is apparently a thing now. Bad enough that corporations turned an obscure saint's day into a commercial juggernaut, but now they're expanding it into a whole season? We need to stop this before it spreads further.
The Republican party is run by jocks. Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Hastert -- all serious athletes. This isn't coincidence; it's culture. Jocks get their way by force, distrust intelligence and analysis, and bully those who disagree. Sound familiar? Geeks of the world, unite. We need to take our country back.
My brothers and I surprised our dad at his 60th birthday party by performing an extempo calypso covering his life, carrying on a family tradition he started. Here are the lyrics, in case you asked for them. You'll need to be Trinidadian to get most of the jokes.
The English countryside gets far too much credit. It's just an endless patchwork of farmed fields and boggy moors, thoroughly spoiled long ago. People lamenting new housing developments should remember someone already cleared the forests. It's hardly unspoilt wilderness.
I saw Closer and found it predictable and emotionally inert, despite great acting from Natalie Portman. It got me wondering: am I a film philistine who misses subtext the way others miss meaning in music? And worse, am I doing the same thing in real life?
Chavs have hijacked Burberry, and it's killing the brand: UK sales are down 40%. Nike and Gucci survived similar associations, but their products have genuine appeal beyond the label. Burberry's camel check pattern was always sustained purely by brand association. Strip that away and you're left with something genuinely hideous.
Visually stunning but hard to take seriously. Everyone's so full of honour they just kind of... stand there and die. Also, no purple scene, which feels like a missed opportunity.
Growing up in Trinidad, I never realized how special its diversity was. Two major races, dozens of religions, yet remarkable harmony. That upbringing made racial and religious equality feel self-evident, not politically correct. I was lucky, even if our tolerance hasn't yet extended to sexuality.
USA Today has tips for Americans abroad to avoid anti-American sentiment. Shocking revelation: don't be loud, flag-wearing, fast-food-eating tourists. Was this not obvious? This advice applies to everyone, always. Also, 54% of Americans still think the world likes them. It doesn't. Even Canadians are winning now.
The Masai gave New York nine cows after 9/11 -- a genuinely touching gesture. And if you want to return the favor, apparently you can send a sheep online with your credit card. Seriously.
TV has replaced real human interaction as our emotional role model, training us to respond to situations the way American scriptwriters think we should. The result is hollow "sitcom moments" where we suppress natural reactions. Christmas used to be a gloriously hypocritical mess. Now everyone just tries to be nice and hates it.
I'm furious at people who completely miss the point of art. Fifteen people on VH1 thought Alanis was being a slut in "Thank U" -- it's obviously about honesty and vulnerability. If meaning lives in the observer rather than the artist, what's even the point of creating anything?
Shout-outs to cut-and-paste graffiti artists and Nobby the Northern Dinosaur's 50 things wrong with the modern world. Martian FM is worth a visit too.
