REMEMBERED DUE TO PREVIOUS POST: For the Yale sophomore (?) who loves Anne Sexton–pretty sure this song is a tribute to her. Read more

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS: A slightly edited email from a friend, who has traveled extensively in the Middle East and has studied the region (and who noted that these are “random disorganized thoughts,” but I thought they were worth posting): Random thoughts on the ongoing political-economic revolution in Egypt, some my own and others from Egyptian friends – of course things are happening very fast so all this could change: 1. If you have not been watching al-Jazeera English, you ought... Read more

COLD FEVER: I would just like to warn you that Saturday Night Fever is one of the most depressing movies I’ve seen in a while. No, really: At first you think you’re just watching the story of a working-class shlub who has a bickering family and doesn’t treat his girl very well. Kitchen-sink, sure, but not kitchen-Titanic. What’s interesting is that things start to barrel downhill right after Tony Manero’s brother quits the priesthood. The family is devastated; everyone around... Read more

I WANT ASSAULT RIFLES AS LONG AS THEY’RE FREE; I WANT YOUR LOVE: It’s been many years since I’ve run a contest on this blog. But in honor of what’s happening right now in Tunisia, in Egypt, and in every country where people watch those scenes and dream of freedom–especially those countries where the American mainstream media response is, “But we liked your dictators!”–I will print any awesome rewritings of “Bad Romance” in which the two parties are the US... Read more

For my twelfth birthday my Aunt Harry gave me a one-thousand-dollar bill, a ten-foot-long boa constrictor named Calvin, and a five-year diary.–Joyce Cool, The Kidnapping of Courtney Van Allen and What’s-Her-Name Read more

USE EACH MAN AFTER HIS DESERT, AND WHO SHALL ‘SCAPE BEING ROLLED IN A SPIKE-LINED BARREL? Read more

KALEIDOSCOPE OF COCKTAILS: A chilled Martini is truly a work of art. But the chemist/photographers behind the company BevShots have taken that idea to the microscopic level. Research scientist Michael Davis, of Florida State University, crystallizes cocktails on a lab slide, then photographs them using a camera attached to a light microscope. According to Davis, the light is polarized, resulting in these wild images of, say, a Tequila Sunrise or a Margarita. Oh, and you can buy the photos to... Read more

TWO MORE posts from me at Cato Unbound’s traditionalism symposium: “Who Put the Tradition in ‘Traditional Marriage’?” and “Tradition’s Comedies of Error.” The whole discussion is available here. Read more

THE SILHOUETTES OF CANA. A lovely picture; and the point Sullivan is making in this post, while I disagree with it, proves once again that he is basically an aesthetic thinker rather than a rationalist. Good for him! Read more

…AND NEW THINGS TO HIDE: My review of “Hide/Seek,” the *~*controversial*~* gay-themed exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, is up at the Commonweal website. I’ll post some notes which didn’t make it into the final draft in a bit. The exhibit runs through February 13 so you really, really should go if you’re interested in the subject matter and you’re in the area. Read more