An unruly mob of Ukrainian protesters took matters into their own hands today when marching outside of parliament. Instead of holding signs and telling the man how they felt in a polite discussion, they took Vitaly Zhuravsky and tossed him into a dumpster, adding on old tires and spraying water for good measure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJR1wz7muFI
via Gawker
In 2012, according to Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald , an Adelaide man was kept on hold with the airline Qantas for 15 hours. As a recorded message affirmed, over and over, that a customer service agent would be with him “soon,” he simply stayed on—working, reading, waiting. As he told the newspaper, “I wanted to find out what exactly they meant when they said they would be with me as soon as possible.”
Many of us are no doubt plunged into our own philosophical inquiries into the nature of time as we wait—albeit not to such lengths—on hold. (I have found Wittgenstein’s query, “Can time go on apart from events?” to be a useful starting point). Hold is the true purgatory of modern existence, a place of temporary damnation, filled not with cleansing fire but a gentle wash of music, punctuated by occasional glimpses (“your call is important to us”) of the promised land.
About that music: While recently put on hold—after first enduring the “confession” ritual of pressing telephone buttons to indicate why I was calling—the sounds of the overture to Handel’s Water Music came through the earpiece of my iPhone. I would not say it came “pouring” through so much as “dribbling”; monaural, faded by distance, troubled by hiccupy signal dropouts.
There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the just-revealed Apple Watch. Who wants to use a touchscreen that tiny? Why would I want to send my heartbeat to my friends (a real feature of the watch emphasized in the product’s unveiling)? Why should people who aren’t titans of finance spend $349 on a watch?
But the best reason for skepticism is that it’s, at root, a watch, with the primary purpose of telling time. And time is an illusion.*
It was the salad baby-booming post-WWII days of this great country, when men were men and women were wives. Obedient wives. Obedient wives with sparkling dishware, spotless clothing that smelt of the ocean, perfectly organized spice racks, and tightly sealed leftovers. Obedient wives who put on their shiniest pair of fuck-me pumps and orgasmed whenever a new appliance arrived (but not in bed, unless it was a new bed with Tide®-fresh sheets).
The Advertising Creative Revolution of the 1960s swept aside this obscene objectophilia. But it created another one, for men, involving cars (future post). There’s always another one. Today it’s gadgets, right moronic Apple fanboys?
This weeping animation of John Boehner made me laugh at first, but the longer I watch this the more hypnotized I became. Stare into the void of his soul, and maybe you’ll find your own bliss in the process.
International gift of music, Jack Parow is one of the gems of South Africa. He’s back with his new video “Ode To You’. And be sure to check out his latest release Nag Van Die Lang Pette on iTunes. Happy Labor Day, folks!