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The Dirtiness of The Boston Globe’s Crossword

Matt has been looking for a crossword puzzle and thinks he might have found a winner after stumbling upon Leonard Gravis' latest in the Globe. This is chicanery and tomfoolery of the highest order and I, for one, salute you, Mr. Gravis.

And so it was with great joy today that I stumbled across the work of Leonard Gravis in the Boston Globe. It only took one clue for Mr. Gravis to reel me in. “The ___ mightier than the sword.”
Think about that one for a moment and then consider that this clue fell on space number 69 across.
Yes, the answer to 69 across in today’s Boston Globe is “Penis.”


Pet Sounds A Capella

This may be old news, but it's new to me: someone has posted all of the songs from Pet Sounds with the instrumental tracks removed, leaving the only Beach Boys' vocals. It's pretty damn amazing.

Check this out:



(via nosflow)

Everything Don Draper Said Season 1

Following up on Everything Tracy Jordan Said Seasons 1, 2, and 3, I figured I'd celebrate one of my other favorite shows by giving you Everything Don Draper Said Season 1 (Season 2 coming next week).

It'sDon Draper over 10K words of Dreamy Don's dialogue, and unfortunately there's a more conversational lines than with Tracy Jordan. I was thinking about going through this and bolding the lines worth reading, but that turns this into more of a subjective exercise than I'm interested in. I hope you'll call out your favorites in the comments, though, if you ever get to the end. I suggest you bookmark and come back, or print out and read on the commute. True Mad Men fans have just lost a morning of work. Enjoy!

Episode 1
"Yeah, hey, do you have a light? Old Gold man, huh?"
"Can I ask you a question? Why do you smoke Old Gold?"
"No, we're actually just having a conversation, is that OK? Yeah. Do this again. Old Fashioned, please."
"So you obviously need to relax after working here all night?"
"But what is it? I mean, low tar? Those new filters? Why don't… why Old Gold?"
"So you're used to them, is that it?"
"I could never get you to try another brand, say, my Luckies."
"Alright, well, let's just say, tomorrow, a tobacco weevil comes and eats, every last Old Gold on the planet."
"It's a tragedy, would you just stop smoking."
"I love smoking, that's very good."
"Yeah, I heard about that."
"Yes they do."
"Am I interrupting anything?"
"How's it going?"
"Can I run a few ideas past you?"
"I'm having a situation with my cigarette account."
"Trade commission is cracking down on all of our health cares."
"Well, that's just it. The whole safer cigarette thing is over. No more doctors. No more testimonials. No more cough free, soothes your T zone, low tar, low nicotine, filter tip, nothing. All I have is a crush proof box and 4 out of 5 dead people smoked your brand."
"I don't want to go to school tomorrow."
"Midge, I'm serious. I have nothing. I am over and they're finally going to know it. Next time you see me they'll be a bunch of young executives picking meat off my ribs."
"What's your secret?"
"We should get married."
"I'm serious, you have your own business, you don't mind when I come over."
"What size Cadillac do you take?"
"Sterling's having the tobacco people in in 9 hours and I have nothing."
"You know there's this kid who comes by my office everyday, looks where he's going to put his plants."
"It's been on my mind."
"You worried?"
"So, you, uh, came here cause you wanted to watch me get dressed?"
"In body, give me about a half hour for the rest of it."
"Not on my watch."
"We've got an Italian, Salvatore, my art director."
"Sorry. Most of the Jewish guys work for the Jewish firms."
"That's very good."
"You want me to run down to the deli, grab somebody?"
"Summer's coming."
"If I know these guys, you're better off with a little sex appeal. Can you give me a woman in a bathing suit, put her next to your guy?"
"Give you a chance to get a real model."
"Ah, I'm not really big on those things."
"So. That's it, huh? Relax?"
"Send her in."
"I'm doing my own research."
"The medical thing is dead, we understand that."
"So basically, if you love danger, you'll love smoking."
"Freud, you say, what agency is he with?"
"Let me tell you something, Ms. Guttman."
"Dr. Guttman. Psychology might be great at cocktail parties, but it so happens people were buying cigarettes before Freud was born. The issue isn't why should people smoke, it's why should people smoke Lucky Strike. Suggesting that our customers have a… what did you call it, a death wish? I just don't see that on a billboard."
"Just give me the damn report."
"Oh, I'm sure I will. You're the one who found all of our medical testimonials in the first place."
"Has anyone else seen this?"
"Good. I don't want to hear about it anymore. I'm sorry, I just find your whole approach perverse."
"Sal, I'll take that drink now."
"He doesn't know I'm sleeping in here, does he?"
"Who are you?"
"Would you , uh, you go out there and entertain him?"
"I see your point."
"Send him in."
"You are tough to take first thing in the morning, Pete."
"Uh, she's the new girl."
"That'll be all."
"Oh, and sorry about Mr. Campbell here, he left his manners back at the fraternity house."
"The future Mrs. Pete Campbell is a very lucky woman, when is the wedding again?"
"He sure did."
"How old are you, Pete?"
"I bet the whole world looks like one great big brassier snap just waiting to be snapped, huh?"
"Campbell, we're both men here, so I'm going to be direct."
"Advertising is a very small world and when you do something like malign the reputation of a girl in the steno pool on her first day, you make it even smaller. Keep it up, and even if you do get my job, you'll never run this place. You'll die in that corner office, a mid-level executive with a little bit of hair who women go home with out of pity. Want to know why? Cause no one will like you."
"Well, at least the building. Pleasure to meet you."
"Oh, uh, I'm sorry. I was expecting."
"And you are?"
"Of course, David, one of the rising stars at Sterling Cooper."
"Very subtle, isn't that your shirt?"
"Then, a 10% off coupon in select ladies magazines will increase your first time customers. Once we get them into the store, the rest is kind of up to you."
"Ms. Mencken, coupons work. I think your father would agree with this strategy."
"What kind of people do you want?"
"We obviously have very different ideas."
"Ms, you are way out of line."
"Talk out what, the silly idea that people are going to come to some store they've never been to because it's more expensive?"
"Mencken's is not Channel."
"This is ridiculous, I'm not going to let a woman talk to me like this, this meeting is over. Good luck, Ms. Mencken."
"Well, Roger's not going to be happy, so I guess that's good for you."
"Look, I'm sorry I was so hard on you before, it's just this damn tobacco thing."
"Let's take it a little slower, I don't want to wake up pregnant."
"Well, uh, I have been thinking quite a bit about this. And, uh. I mean you know I'm a Lucky Strike man from way back, so.."
"Gentleman, before you leave, can I just say something?"
"The Federal Trade Commission and Readers' Digest have done you a favor. They've let you know that any ad that brings up the concept of cigarettes and health together, well, it's just gonna make people think of cancer."
"But what Lee Jr said is right. If you can't make those health claims, neither can your competitors."
"Not exactly, this is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal. We have 6 identical companies making 6 identical products. We can say anything we want. How do you make your cigarettes?"
"There you go. There you go."
"No, everybody else's tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strike's is toasted."
"Advertising is based on 1 thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? It's the smell of a new car, it's freedom from fear. It's a billboard, on the side of the road, that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK. You are OK."
"For the record, I pulled it out of thin air, so thank you up there."
"I don't know, uh, bunting and babies, that's hard work. I'd make a hash of it."
"Could you be a little more specific, honey?"
"Thank you, boys, I appreciate it."
"I love to come through."
"Haven't you had enough of my magic for one day?"
"You're a whore."
"Peggy, would you get us a little more ice?"
"Just a minute. Fellas, I think this party is gonna have to move elsewhere."
"I don't know."
"Maybe next time."
"If Greta's research was any good, I would have used it."
"I'm saying, I had a report just like that, and it's not like there's some magic machine that makes identical copies of things."
"Have a great night, Pete, congratulations."
"Fear stimulates my imagination."
"First of all, Peggy, I'm your boss, not your boyfriend. Second of all, you ever let Pete Campbell go through my trash again and you won't be able to find a job selling sandwiches in Penn Station."
"Of course not. Go home, put your curlers in, we'll get a fresh start tomorrow. Oh, and Peggy, I need you to place a call."
"That is quite a drink."
"I shouldn't have lost my temper and I certainly shouldn't have treated you like anything less than a client."
"So you understand?"
"Well, I'm not really as bad as all that. I was under a lot of pressure. Another account. It doesn't really matter."
"So, without making things worse, can I ask you a personal question?"
"Why aren't you married?"
"Well, it's just that you're a beautiful, educated woman, don't you think that getting married and having a family would make you happier than all the headaches that go along with fighting people like me?"
"So that's it, you won't get married because you find business to be a thrill."
"She won't get married because she's never been in love. I think I wrote that and used it to sell nylons."
"Oh you mean love, you mean big lightning bolt through the heart where you can't eat and you can't work and you just run of and get married and make babies. The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons."
"Pretty sure about it. You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts, but I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow because there isn't one."
"Excuse me?"
"Don."
"I don't know if that's true. You want another drink?"
"So I guess we'll be seeing each other again."
"I'd like that."
"I didn't want to bother you."
"I'm not."
"I'll be right back, don't move."
Read the rest of this entry »

Thousands of Words Saying Things

I'm not sure how I missed these illustrations of The Wire from E. Blake Hicks , but they're great.

1110501245947058

Via Karmie

ProJo Snark?

Ouch.

[Alex] Gonzalez was re-introducing himself to some of his old teammates, and some of his new ones, when he arrived at the Ballpark at Arlington on Saturday.

"It's good to be back on the best team in the world," he said of the second-place Red Sox.


(Although, I've said it before and I'll say it again, that kind of reality check only ever appears in a newspaper's sports section, not on the front page. Weird.)

Interview With Shark Expert Greg Skomal

This interview from The Phoenix is full of nuggets like this one about sharks' eyes:

A marine educator in Hawaii e-mailed me this question about shark eyes. What she says is that no one seems to know what color eyes the great white has. She's wondering if anyone's figured that out.
If you ask Quint from Jaws, he calls 'em [doing an impression of the Robert Shaw character's grizzled voice] "doll's eyes — lookin' at you with those doll's eyes." You gotta love that soliloquy. And he calls them doll's eyes because they look lifeless. And they look lifeless because there's no twinkle in them, and there's no coloration in them. You're basically looking through the [great white] shark's pupil into the darkness of the back of its eye.


‘Obama Bring Back Arrested Development’

Or as A Whole Lotta Nothing put it, Finally, something we can agree on.

3812645821_25c9a21ec6

Via graysky.

Everything Tracy Jordan Said Season 2

Last week was Season 1 and a couple months ago was Season 3. And now, I give you, Everything Tracy Jordan Said in season 2 of 30 Rock.

These are submitted without context, which some people seem to like and others, not so much. There's a big internet out there, though, so if you don't like it, I'm sure there's something else for you.

Episode 1
-Yo, Ken, I'm'a use this whole the kitchen area as my bathroom, spread the word.
Wearwolf Bar Mitzvah
-She froze my credit cards, Liz Lemon, and she got custody of Griz. Can I keep my cockatiel in your office?

-Pop. What? I'm not apologizing, 'cuz for once in my life I haven't done anything wrong. How many years have you known me, Liz Lemon?

-So you know I like to minister to transvestite prostitutes.

-So Labor Day weekend I see this young she-dude at the dumpster by the 40/40. I pull over and I say you don't have to live your life like this. You can be a freaky-deaky and do data entry. What about court reporting? Believe in yourself.

-So as I reach in the trash and pull this dude out, a paparazzo jumps out and takes a picture of me.

-Whose gonna do my banking? Whose gonna write my blogs? Whose gonna do the cooking on Taco Wednesdays?

-So he's like my office wife?

-Kenneth Parcell, would you take this ring…and sell it in the Jewish part of midtown and use the money to get us a Nintendo Wii?

-I couldn't sleep at all last night. Angie kept my Sharper Image white noise aroma therapy machine. She knows I can't sleep without the sound of ocean and the smell of bacon.

-I'm not doing any of that.

-Great compromise, office wife.

-Liz Lemon, I need you to go my and pretend you're doing a survey for the Radford Group and then ask my wife if she's sleeping with DL Hugley.

-JS!

-What's up? Liz Lemon, me and this dude used to do stand up together. Remember the night we had the threeway with Elaine Boosler, haha?

-Oh yeah, you know what? I think that was a mirror.

-JS, this is my Kenneth.

-Mad at you, Ken, I seen the way you was looking at Seinfeld. You used to look at me like that. What, am I not a big enough star for you anymore?

-Oh no! Did a Korean person die?

-Don't do it, Liz Lemon. I know what me and Kenneth have looks perfect on the outside, but it's work, damn it. It's work.

Episode 2
-Yo, Ken. Angie and Griz is coming by to drop some of my stuff off.

-Yeah, but I want her to know that I'm having a good time on my own, so you should go get us some party hats. The pointy kind.

-No, cuz things have been said that cannot be taken back. She called my vanity license plate inscrutable! ICU81MI. Hilarious! Angie is in the past like Dracula and broadcast television.

-What, who?! That guy Mike that redid our driveway?... Nah, whatever. She should find someone new. Doesn't bother me!

-Oh.. Check this out. My key to the city of Gary, Indiana. Mm. Look at this, my gold record from that novelty party song. 'Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, spooky scary. Boys becoming men, men becoming wolves.'

-Yeah, I miss you, Griz.

-Hey, Ken!

-I only got 11-12 hour sleep last night. I got something on my mind grapes I need to talk to you about.

-I saw you hitting on Angie the other day. Seeing you with her. It opened my eyes.

-Yeah. All those years fooling around wasn't fair to her. So you gotta make it fair! I want you to go to my house and make love to my wife, Ken.

-My home address is in the GPS under 'Da Crib 'cuz we live on Dacrib Avenue. Now you go to Angie…And you make sure you pleasure her.

-What have I done? Kenneth should be back by now. What's going on over at my house? Ugh. No. No. Eww. I gotta stop this.

-I'm gonna kill you, Kenneth the page.

-It was a gesture, Angie. I'm saying I'm sorry.

-But, baby.

-What do you want? I'm willing to try anything.

-Alright. If that's what it takes. If that's what it takes.
Read the rest of this entry »

Mad Men Season 3 Preview Roundup

Mad Men Season 3 starts on Sunday and I am...excited. Here's a round up of some of what's been said about the show in the last couple weeks.

-Like cocktails? Here's a Mad Men Cocktail Guide.

-Lots here from Vanity Fair, including a word on their obsession with set design:
A scene-setting anecdote everyone in the Mad Men orbit tells is how Weiner came onto the set one day and focused on some pieces of fruit he said were too large and shiny and perfectly formed; produce in the early 60s—period produce—wasn’t pumped up. Get smaller, dumpier fruit, he ordered. (Depending on who was telling me the story, from cast members to network executives, the offending produce morphed from apples to oranges to bananas, but Amy Wells, the set decorator, said definitively: it was apples.)


-HuffPo's take.

-The New Yorker on advertising Mad Men:
The theme of season three is change. “We wanted our key art to be more high-concept,” Schupack explained, unveiling the new poster, which hits this week: Draper is sitting in his office, looking nonchalant, as water rises up to his knees.


mad-men-season3-hed

-From Esquire, Christina Hendricks and some other female players.

-Story about the real life person Don Draper is based on.
In the 1960s, Draper Daniels was something of a legendary character in American advertising. As the creative head of Leo Burnett in Chicago in the 1950s, he had fathered the Marlboro Man campaign, among others, and become known as one of the top idea men in the business. He was also a bit of a maverick.


-Playboy is getting Madmenized for the next couple weeks.

-Interview and podcast with Jon Hamm.

-Talking with the Mad Men costume designer:
Bryant mixes original creations with vintage pieces for the principal cast's wardrobe, which is designed from scratch, starting with sketches. Her use of kaleidoscope colors, sparkling jewelry, brilliant prints and florals can be deliciously distracting.


-New York Magazine got into the act with a profile of Christina Hendricks
Which is kind of the point of Mad Men. Bad is sexy. And then just very, very bad. The show lures you in with a glittering surface, but just below is a hothouse of homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and a more general and crushing sense of isolation.

and Pete Campbell whom everyone hates except Matt Weiner apparently:
“I went to an all-boys school, and Pete’s like the kids I went to school with. He could have been Holden Caulfield’s roommate, who borrowed his coat and didn’t bring it back.”

and a handy Guide to the First Two Seasons.

-Finally here's the Wall St Journal on the story, which seems to be getting a lot of play this year, of the writing staff that is mostly female:
The story centers on Don Draper and his shadowy past, but a key part of the series, the writers say, is its complicated female characters. “It’s less skewed than it appears,” says consulting producer Maria Jacquemetton.


Origin of the Phrase Thousand Yard Stare

Is actually a painting named Two-Thousand-Yard Stare by Tom Lea. Lea had been known for his jingoistic propaganda art until spending time on the island of Peleliu during the battle of 1944.

2000yard

Via Boing Boing

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