Peanut Cheese
A CHUNKY HISTORY OF PEANUT BUTTER
Posted by Jon Michaud
Shipped off to boarding school in England during the Great Depression, the twelve-year-old William F. Buckley, Jr., was sustained by regular care packages from his father. The biweekly deliveries contained a case of grapefruit and a large jar of peanut butter. In a 1981 essay titled “In the Thrall of an Addiction,” Buckley recalled that his British schoolmates “grabbed instinctively for the grapefruit—but one after another actually spit out the peanut butter.” No wonder, he sneered, “they needed help to win the war.”
Half a century later, when I left Washington, D.C., for school in Northern Ireland, I packed my bags with jars of Skippy. Not much had changed. “Mashed peanuts on bread?” my friends in Belfast asked, incredulously—as if peanuts were synonymous with maggots. The American love of peanut butter is as mystifying to many Britons as the British love of Marmite (yeast extract on toast?) is to me, but, as Jon Krampner writes in “Creamy & Crunchy,” his enjoyable and informative new history of peanut butter, there are plenty of other countries that adore the crushed goober pea. Canadians eat it for breakfast; Haitians call it mamba and buy it, freshly pulverized, from street vendors; it is popular in the Netherlands, where it is known as pindakaas, or peanut cheese. Peanut butter is also increasingly found in the Saudi Arabian diet, thanks, in part, to expatriate oil workers. Nevertheless, it remains, in Krampner’s phrase, an “all-American food.”
The Greatest Hip-Hop Album Ever
The Making of The Chronic
By Ben Westhoff
Dr. Dre’s seminal 1992 album, The Chronic, turns 20 next month. Though a sensation upon its release, the raw-but-melodic work’s legend has only grown in the ensuing decades, and today seemingly every MC-producer duo fancies itself the next Dre and Snoop Dogg. It has become the most influential rap work ever made, and perhaps even the greatest, as Jeff Weiss argues.
See also: *Top 20 Greatest L.A. Rap Albums
*The Chronic: The Greatest Album In Rap History
But it almost never happened. Despite the success Dre had experienced with N.W.A, he was entangled in contractual problems with his former crewmate Eazy-E’s label. For that reason, as well as Death Row’s dodgy reputation, The Chronic had a hard time finding release. It took the shepherding of renegade upstart Interscope Records, the financing of convicted drug kingpin Michael Harris and the steady hand of Suge Knight, an intimidating former defensive end, to give it life.
Xenon Pictures,Welcome to Death Row: The Rise and Fall of Death Row Records, tells the story of Knight’s infamous imprint, as well as the rise of Snoop and Tupac Shakur. Its producers — Jeff Scheftel, Leigh Savidge and Steve Housden — gained unprecedented access to Harris while he was behind bars. They also spoke with some 100 other figures associated with the label, from publicists and drug dealers to Chronic performers.
Rikki Tikki Dante
Fearless dog saves woman from deadly cottonmouth snake – and almost dies
MICHAEL WALSH
Man’s best friend doubles as a doggone good bodyguard.
Gudrun Mastriano of Kissimmee, Fla., was walking her daughter’s black lab Dante home when a venomous cottonmouth snake, mere inches away, attacked her. The protective canine lunged in front of Mastriano, captured the serpent in his mouth and dragged it away. But during the fight, the snake’s fangs sunk into Dante’s snout and legs. “It could have been me,” said Mastriano. “I would have died.” Dante’s snout swelled up to about 17 inches as the deadly venom settled in his body, according to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “I thought he looked like a little baby hippopotamus,” said Mastriano.
Drive-in Sex Box
Zurich to open drive-in sex boxes
The Swiss city of Zurich is to open drive-in sex boxes in an attempt to rid the town of street prostitution.
By Matthew Day
Zurich council has approved a plan to build the boxes, which will, it hopes, provide a discreet location for prostitutes and their clients to conduct business when they open in August next year.
Located in an industrial area of the city, the row of garage-like boxes will have roofs and walls for privacy, and easy access for cars. The council estimates that around 30 prostitutes will meet clients at the site of the boxes, and use the drive-in slots on a first-come-first-served basis.
The prostitutes who use the sex boxes will also have to take out medical insurance and buy a £26 licence in order to ply their trade. On top of that they will also have to feed five Swiss francs, about £3.30, into a roadside ticket machine each night when they clock on.
Mr Herzig said the attractions of the sex boxes for prostitutes will outweigh their rather dour industrial location, which lies just a stone’s throw from a major rail depot.
But one problem standing in the way of the sex boxes is telling the prostitutes about them and their advantages. Many of the women working the streets of Zurich are foreigners who speak only a little German, and may be unaware of the approaching changes to their working lives.
Prince Richardson Fizz
Terry Richardson Photographs Richard Prince With His AriZona Lemon Fizz Collaboration
BY CEDAR PASORI
In light of his recently announced collaboration with AriZona on a “Lemon Fizz” drink, artist Richard Prince had an impromptu photo shoot with Terry Richardson, where he’s pictured with a case of the product. The Pop Art-inspired 23-oz. can has representations of Prince’s Nurse and Jokes paintings alongside larger black and white shots of him.
According to Jackie Harrigan, Global Communications Director at AriZona, “It was important for AriZona to create a beverage that embodied the mystery and intensity of Richard’s art, and Lemon Fizz acts as the perfect beverage to symbolize those feelings.”
Marvin Miller Gone
MLB union legend Marvin Miller dies at 95
Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY Sports
3:39PM EST November 27. 2012 – Marvin Miller, 95, who formed the Major League Baseball Players Association in 1966 and helped transform sports economics, died Tuesday morning, the union announced.
Miller, who turned the union into one of the most powerful in the country, negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement in sports history in 1968. Six years later, he successfully challenged the “reserve clause” when Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally played out the option years of their contract. Players were granted free agency after six years of major league service, which was formalized in the next collective bargaining agreement.
The minimum salary was $6,000 when Miller formed the union, and today, the minimum salary is worth $480,000. Miller also bargained for salary arbitration, which has been responsible for salaries to soar for players before entering free agency. The average salary was $3.4 million in 2012. He also helped players negotiate the right to arbitration to resolve grievances.
Twist’d Punk’d
(A truly uncoolly fooly…)
Vagina, Eugenics, Hippocampus, Bastardization
Neuroscience: Under Attack
By ALISSA QUART
THIS fall, science writers have made sport of yet another instance of bad neuroscience. The culprit this time is Naomi Wolf; her new book, “Vagina,” has been roundly drubbed for misrepresenting the brain and neurochemicals like dopamine and oxytocin
Earlier in the year, Chris Mooney raised similar ire with the book “The Republican Brain,” which claims that Republicans are genetically different from — and, many readers deduced, lesser to — Democrats. “If Mooney’s argument sounds familiar to you, it should,” scoffed two science writers. “It’s called ‘eugenics,’ and it was based on the belief that some humans are genetically inferior.”
Sharp words from disapproving science writers are but the tip of the hippocampus: today’s pop neuroscience, coarsened for mass audiences, is under a much larger attack.
Meet the “neuro doubters.” The neuro doubter may like neuroscience but does not like what he or she considers its bastardization by glib, sometimes ill-informed, popularizers.
Capt. Tony Nelson Gone
Dallas Star Larry Hagman Dies in Texas
(LOS ANGELES) — Larry Hagman, whose predatory oil baron J.R. Ewing on television’s long-running nighttime soap opera “Dallas” became a symbol for 1980s greed and coaxed forth a Texas-sized gusher of TV ratings, has died. He was 81.
Hagman, who returned as J.R. in a new edition of “Dallas” this year, passed away Friday afternoon due to complications from his battle with cancer, according to a statement from the family provided to The Associated Press by Warner Bros., producer of “Dallas.”
Hagman was diagnosed in 1992 with cirrhosis of the liver and acknowledged that he had drank heavily for years. In 1995, a malignant tumor was discovered on his liver and he underwent a transplant.
Years before “Dallas,” Hagman had gained TV fame as a nice guy with the fluffy 1965-70 NBC comedy “I Dream of Jeannie,” in which he played Capt. Tony Nelson, an astronaut whose life is disrupted when he finds a comely genie, portrayed by Barbara Eden, and takes her home to live with him.
Macho Camacho Gone (Shot in the face – what a waste\:–(
Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho brain dead
Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Famed Puerto Rican boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho is clinically brain dead, doctors said Thursday, but family members disagreed on whether to take him off life support and two of the fighter’s aunts said later that relatives had agreed to wait two more days.
Dr. Ernesto Torres said doctors had no more medical tests to perform on Camacho, who was shot in the face Tuesday night.
“We have done everything we could,” said Torres, director of the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan. “We have to tell the people of Puerto Rico and the entire world that Macho Camacho has died, he is brain dead.”
One of the fighter’s aunts, Aida Camacho, said Thursday evening that two of Camacho’s sisters had asked to have two more days to spend with him, and other family members had agreed, even though they felt it was time to give in.
“I’m a person of a lot of faith, and I believe in miracles, but science has spoken,” she said.
Macho Camacho Gone (Shot in the face – what a waste\:–(
Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho brain dead
Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Famed Puerto Rican boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho is clinically brain dead, doctors said Thursday, but family members disagreed on whether to take him off life support and two of the fighter’s aunts said later that relatives had agreed to wait two more days.
Dr. Ernesto Torres said doctors had no more medical tests to perform on Camacho, who was shot in the face Tuesday night.
“We have done everything we could,” said Torres, director of the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan. “We have to tell the people of Puerto Rico and the entire world that Macho Camacho has died, he is brain dead.”
One of the fighter’s aunts, Aida Camacho, said Thursday evening that two of Camacho’s sisters had asked to have two more days to spend with him, and other family members had agreed, even though they felt it was time to give in.
“I’m a person of a lot of faith, and I believe in miracles, but science has spoken,” she said.
Happy Thanksgiving
Cocksucker Dues
from The Observer’s GalleristNY
Everybody Must Get Stoned: The Rolling Stones’ ‘Cocksucker Blues’ Comes to MoMA
The staid walls of a major metropolitan museum are hardly the proper setting for the destruction of property, chronic use of a class A controlled substance, or semi-consensual sex aboard a mid-sized private jet (at least if the board of trustees has its say), but in recent years that’s the main environment in which Robert Frank’s cinema vérité documentary about the Rolling Stones’ 1972 tour of America, Cocksucker Blues, has been available to the public. When Mick Jagger had a look at what Mr. Frank had pieced together from all the access the band had given him, the film was almost completely suppressed. A 1977 court ruling favored Mr. Frank slightly; the film could be screened no more than four times a year, only in the presence of the director or an associate in an “archival setting,” hence the museums.
Last week, the Museum of Modern Art screened the film on the opening night of their “Rolling Stones: 50 Years on Film” retrospective.
“On behalf of MoMA Film,” said Joshua Siegel, a curator in the museum’s film department who organized the exhibition, “welcome to, uh, Cocksucker Blues. A sentence I never thought I’d utter.”
Discrete Dog Sex
Finally, a Place in Brazil Where Dogs Can Go for Discreet Sex
Lalo de Almeida for The New York Times
By SIMON ROMERO
BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil — Heart-shaped ceiling mirror: check. Curtains drawn against the bright day: check. Red mattress: check.
The establishment that opened here this year has features that demanding clients naturally expect from a love motel. Brazil, after all, is a world leader in these short-stay pleasure palaces, which beckon couples for trysts away from prying eyes with names like Swing, Absinthe and Alibi, and design motifs like medieval castles or of the But Belo Horizonte’s newest love motel stands apart from the crowd in one crucial aspect. It is for dogs.
Animalle Mundo Pet, an eight-story enterprise in an upscale district in this city of 2.4 million people, introduced its dog motel alongside aisles featuring items like beef-flavored Dog Beer (nonalcoholic), a dog spa with a Japanese ofuro soaking tub, and canine apparel emblazoned with the symbols of the local soccer clubs Atlético Mineiro and Cruzeiro.
“I adore the romantic feel of this place,” said Andreia Kfoury, 43, a manager at a technology company who peeked inside the Motel Pet one recent morning while she and her husband were on a clothes-buying spree for their Yorkshire terrier, Harley. The couple, who are motorcycle enthusiasts, bought about $500 worth of imported Harley-Davidson brand items for their dog.
“I’m definitely bringing Harley back here when it’s time for him to breed,” a smiling Ms. Kfoury said. “He is very macho, and would be a hit in this place.”
KRENT ABLE Mischief
KRENT ABLE’S NEW BOOK IS DELIRIOUSLY FUN
Krent Able’s Big Book Of Mischief is a devilish mix of rock ‘n’ roll satire conjured up in wonderfully wicked graphics and text. Able’s visuals remind me of S. Clay Wilson, a darkly hilarious blend of diabolical images combined with the kind of precise, scalpel-like dissection of pop culture banalities we expect from R. Crumb.
From Lou Reed and Iggy to Nick Cave and Justin Timberlake, no one is spared Able’s poison pen. It’s a lovely bunch of nastiness and you can buy it here
Kraftwerk 2k12 Düsseldorf
Ding-Dongs, Donettes, Suzy-Q, Sno-Balls!! All dead. Dead and forever gone. O the horror. The horror.
from the The News Tribune (Tacoma)
Ding Dong, the Twinkie’s gone? Hostess moves to liquidate
IRVING, Texas — Hostess Brands Inc. says it’s going out of business after striking workers across the country crippled its ability to make its Twinkies, Ding Dongs and other snacks.
The company had warned employees that it would file a motion with U.S. Bankruptcy Court Friday seeking permission to shutter its operations and sell its brands if plants hadn’t resumed normal operations by a Thursday evening deadline. The deadline passed without a deal.
The closing would mean the loss of about 18,500 jobs.
“I don’t know if they thought that was a bluff,” CEO Gregory Rayburn said on CNBC Friday. He said the financial impact of the strike makes it “too late” to save the company even if workers have a change of heart. That’s because the clients such as retailers decide to stop carrying products when supplies aren’t adequate.
Rayburn said he’s hopeful that the company will find buyers for its roster of about 30 brands, which include Ho Hos, Dolly Madison, Drake’s and Nature’s Pride snacks. The company books about $2.5 billion in sales a year.
[ click to read the whole sordid story at The News Tribune ]
Full Fathom Miller Secret ‘Saga’
‘Secret Circle’ EP Developing Mystery Thriller ‘Saga’ at ABC
by Lesley Goldberg
Andrew Miller will write and executive produce the drama about the disappearance of a best-selling fantasy writer.
The Secret Circle‘s Andrew Miller has sold his third project this development season.
Miller will write and executive produce the project, which tells the story of an author of a best-selling book series (think Twilight) who goes missing before she can complete the final installment in her epic fantasy saga. After a family of fans discovers that she’s been kidnapped into the very real world of her books, they do their part and attempt to rescue her.
Amblin Television’s Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank are on board to executive produce the ABC Studios entry alongside Full Fathom Five’s James Frey and Todd Cohen.
Ars Gratia Auto-fill
We’ve just launched an Italian-language version of our blog: Google poetica! Google poetica is curated by Valerio Ceccolini. Welcome to the team, Valerio!
http://italiano.googlepoetics.com
http://twitter.com/Googlepoetica
http://www.facebook.com/Googlepoetica
All Up In My Snatch
No, ABC Denver, Paula Broadwell’s Book Is Not Titled ‘All Up in My Snatch’
By Jessica Roy
(Screencap: YouTube, via America Blog)
With a 24/7 news cycle, it’s downright impossible for reporters to avoid making mistakes. But–especially when lifting something from the internet–sometimes a little fact checking goes a long way.
America Blog reports that during a segment about former CIA director David Petraeus’ mistress Paula Broadwell, ABC Denver accidentally reported the title of the biography she penned about her lover as All Up In My Snatch. An accompanying video shows a snapshot of the Photoshopped book, undoubtedly lifted from the internet, being flashed on the screen following a clip of Ms. Broadwell speaking about Mr. Petraeus. The actual title of the book is All In.
And We Thought Bush Derangement Syndrome Was Bad
Gilbert police: Woman drove over husband because he didn’t vote
A Mesa man is in critical condition after his wife ran over him with her Jeep because she was upset he didn’t vote in the presidential election and feared her family would suffer with President Obama’s re-election, Gilbert police said Monday.
Holly Solomon, 28, was arrested about 10 a.m. Saturday after she chased her husband Daniel Solomon, 36, in a parking lot on Gilbert Road near Vaughn Avenue, police said.
The victim tried hiding behind a light pole, Sanger said, while his wife “drove around the pole numerous times while continuing to yell at him.”
The victim eventually started running toward the road but was struck by the Jeep and pinned beneath the vehicle and the curb, Sanger said.
Sanger said there was no indication that Holly Solomon [ who also is pregnant BJI Ed. ] was impaired by drugs or alcohol and said her husband is in critical condition at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical center.
‘I’m not in pain’
Vegetative patient Scott Routley says ‘I’m not in pain’
By Fergus Walsh
A Canadian man who was believed to have been in a vegetative state for more than a decade, has been able to tell scientists that he is not in any pain.
It’s the first time an uncommunicative, severely brain-injured patient has been able to give answers clinically relevant to their care.
Scott Routley, 39, was asked questions while having his brain activity scanned in an fMRI machine.
His doctor says the discovery means medical textbooks will need rewriting.
“Scott has been able to show he has a conscious, thinking mind. We have scanned him several times and his pattern of brain activity shows he is clearly choosing to answer our questions. We believe he knows who and where he is.”
Prof Owen said it was a groundbreaking moment.
Elvis ’72 MSG
Elvis Presley earned raves for 1972 Madison Square Garden shows
Two of The King’s four MSG shows, along with a bootleg video shot by a fan, are available in new DVD set, ‘Prince From Another Planet’
Elvis Presley was all shook up — and not in a chart-topping kind of way.
When the King of Rock and Roll arrived for four sold-out Madison Square Garden shows in 1972, he was no longer the cocky, pompadoured platinum-selling teen idol of the ‘50s.
Presley, according to a close pal, was instead nervous and unsure about his New York return after a 15-year hiatus that followed his appearance with Ed Sullivan.
“I remember a conversation with Tom Jones where Elvis says, ‘Tom, I don’t know if people are going to like me in New York,’” recalled Jerry Shilling, a charter member of Presley’s Memphis Mafia.
Turns out they did, thank you — thank you very much. By the time Elvis left the building on June 11, he charmed and thrilled a then-record 80,000 fans.
The 37-year-old Presley was tanned, fit and pumped for the spotlight. He prowled the stage in a form-fitting jumpsuit and glittering gold cape, backed by the killer TCB Band (with guitar god James Burton) as he sang in a voice both full and clear.
Two of the four MSG shows, along with a bootleg video shot by a fan with a hand-held camera, are packaged in a new set titled “Prince From Another Planet” – available for the first time this Tuesday.
Derrick May – Genius
Ramen On Top
Some Facts about Ramen Noodles
Ya’ll, I don’t care how bad Ramen is for me, it is damn good. And so filling also. You can really get your bang for your buck with all that salty water and noodles floating around in your tummy. I haven’t had Ramen in years, but when I see or it smell, I’m like a drug addict who needs another fix. It’s really a win- win situation when it comes to Ramen; its a filling meal for less than a dollar! The perfect college student’s snack! However, I’m sure all that Ramen cant be good for you.
O Come The Robot Orgasm
Regular Orgasms Are for Mortals; All the Cool Kids Are Having ‘Longevity Orgasms’
Soon our significant others will cheat on us with robots.
By Jessica Roy
If you’re already following the advice of your longevity coach and working to live as long as humanly possible (until the Singularity comes and your being is finally merged with that of a robot), then you’re probably ready to take your training to the next level. Self-quantifying via sleep tracking apps and the Nike Fuel Band will only get you so far, and unless you’re Peter Thiel, hyperbaric chambers are rather expensive. Luckily, the next step towards total transhumanism is much more pleasurable: buying a sex robot and having longevity orgasms.
Only those with an average lifespan would settle for normal orgasms. Instead, sexual satisfaction produced by a robot sex doll is quickly becoming the fantasy of many transhumanists:
Sexbots are coming, and we will cum with them. Three times a week or whatever our physician / longevity coach recommends. Because orgasms — especially the hormone-exploding O’s we’ll eventually enjoy with carnal cyborgs — are excellent for mental and physical health.
Remember the most convulsive, brain-ripping climax you ever had? The one that left you with “I could die happy now” satiety? Sexbots will electrocute our flesh with climaxes thrice as gigantic because they’ll be more desirable, patient, eager, and altruistic than their meat-bag competition, plus they’ll be uploaded with supreme sex-skills from millennia of erotic manuals, archives and academic experiments, and their anatomy will feature sexplosive devices. Sexbots will heighten our ecstasy until we have shrieking, frothy, bug-eyed, amnesia-inducing orgasms. They’ll offer us quadruple-tongued cunnilingus, open-throat silky fellatio, deliriously gentle kissing, transcendent nipple tweaking, g-spot massage & prostate milking dexterity, plus 2,000 varieties of coital rhythm with scented lubes — this will all be ours when the Sexbots arrive.
Music History in GIFs
1997. Radiohead releases OK Computer, and it goes on to become one of the most critically acclaimed records of all time. They released a couple of great videos, and a guy plays ping pong with an angel. Also a guy cuts his own limbs off for some reason.
Also, this album has one of the sweetest riffs ever written.
Mythology of The High Five
The history and mystery of the high five
A timeless gesture, but someone went up top first. That’s where it gets complicated.
By Jon Mooallem
PART TWO: THE HIGH FIVE OF LIFE
IF THIS PRANK HAS A VICTIM, it’s Glenn Burke, a young outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the late 1970s whose astonishing physique and 17-inch biceps earned him the nickname King Kong.
For at least a generation before the Sleets story surfaced, the conventional wisdom had been that Burke invented the high five on Oct. 2, 1977, in front of 46,000 screaming fans at Dodger Stadium.
It was the last day of the regular season, and Dodgers leftfielder Dusty Baker had just gone deep off the Astros’ J.R. Richard. It was Baker’s 30th home run, making the Dodgers the first team in history to have four sluggers — Baker, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith — with at least 30 homers each. It was a wild, triumphant moment and a good omen as the Dodgers headed to the playoffs. Burke, waiting on deck, thrust his hand enthusiastically over his head to greet his friend at the plate. Baker, not knowing what to do, smacked it. “His hand was up in the air, and he was arching way back,” says Baker, now 62 and managing the Reds. “So I reached up and hit his hand. It seemed like the thing to do.”
Burke then stepped up and launched his first major league home run. And as he returned to the dugout, Baker high-fived him. From there, the story goes, the high five went ricocheting around the world. (According to Dodgers team historian Mark Langill, the game was not televised, and no footage survives.)
Anastasio’s Eastwood
Winer
“If I Hit You, You’d Feel It”: Leslie Winer, Trip Hop’s Forgotten Pioneer
by Wyndham Wallace
Some say that Leslie Winer aka © invented trip hop in 1990 with her album, Witch. Now she’s back with a retrospective compilation and Wyndham Wallace meets the reclusive former supermodel.
It is, as we’ll no doubt be frequently reminded by its forthcoming deluxe reissue, 21 years since Massive Attack released Blue Lines, giving birth – history insists – to the genre now known as trip hop. Its slackened beats, stoned delivery and dependence upon dub, hip hop, soul and electronic music, were – to most people – revelatory, while its “shift toward a more interior, meditational sound”, as Simon Reynolds described it, helped establish one of the defining musical styles of the first half of the 1990s.
“Really, there was absolutely no coverage around the original release of Witch,” she says. “It went almost completely unnoticed. Just a few people listened to it, as far as I know. My name wasn’t even on the original release” – it was simply credited to © – “and even on the first official release it was one name amongst a long list of people who contributed. It’s only the Virgin France release that put that horrendous Halloween-y cover on it and my name. Praise for my music has always been totally fucking slim to totally fucking… nothing. Nobody is interested.”