Fenster writes:
Thanks to Paleo for a reminder of how great porches are, and what a difference from the back patio with grill.
How would you watch a parade without a porch?
That’s my ex-front porch in Hopewell, New Jersey, a bucolic and porch-rich town near Princeton. Fourth of July.
Here is a short porch tour of Hopewell.
Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:
Has anyone ever seen this movie? I haven’t . . .
“Special police will enforce this order.”
Sir Barken Hyena writes:
Well, maybe it’s over, we’ll see, but the Honey Badger has taken a whipping the last few weeks. After a January of unwonted price stability, we hit heavy weather with a “new bug” in Bitcoin. Transaction malleability it was called, and it was not a bug and not new. But it did cause some very real problems, and now in the aftermath (knock on wood) we can see that some people who were going to be very rich, aren’t. And there is a new (fat) face in the Bitcoin rogue’s gallery, Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles.
Would you buy a used bitcoin from this man?
But also some good guys showed up.
And the media once again demonstrated an almost inspiringly complete ignorance of everything to do with this new marvel. I could forgive that six months ago, but now it shows all the signs of being both willful and malicious.
But, Honey Badger don’t give a shit! Honey Badger just does what it wants.
Sir Barken has been making the rounds of the net’s comment pages, fighting the good fight against the truly incredible amount of pure crapola that is spoken about this subject. Here’s a small sample of some of the floaters the Media left for us:
Oh you get the idea, why flog a dead parrot? Obviously the widespread predictions of Bitcoin’s demise are now known to have been wrong. But a note of downright hostility is now being struck. I’ve seen this in person many times, as the guy who’s always yipping and yapping about Bitcoin you got to expect it. But until now the attitude in the media has been more bemused dismissal. Which tells me the story of Bitcoin has moved to a new stage. How does that go?
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:
This minxy little Russian has been working since around 2012, and she’s posed in hundreds of photo sets and performed in nearly as many hardcore films. She seems to go by a few different names: Ebbi, Abby, Katherine, Kathy, Snejanna. The internet claims her real name is Anjelica, so I’m going with that.
She’s got a lovely, leggy frame as well as a killer come-hither stare, and she seems to genuinely enjoy posing. I like that a commenter at Met-Art says she looks like “the girl next door if you happen to live next door to a family of gods and goddesses.” If you seek out her hardcore work you’ll see that she’s also a pretty enthusiastic performer. I think it’s great that such a skinny, fresh-looking thing is capable of being so darn naughty.
These low-res photos look they come from Femjoy, 18OnlyGirls, WowGirls, Met-Art, and Nubile Films. I’m sure you can find better quality and more quantity by visiting those sites.
Content below the drop is NSFW. Happy Friday.
Paleo Retiree writes:
Kicking around the town of Carpinteria, CA for a few days recently left me marveling at an architectural wonder too often taken for granted: the American porch. Carpinteria (or, as everyone calls it, “Carp”) is an idyllic American small town, largely unspoiled, with a petite but genuine (and walkable/bikable) downtown, its own beach, amazing weather, and a fantastic location — an hour and a half up the coast from L.A. and 20 minutes down the coast from Santa Barbara. It’s both pokey and glorious: an ideal old-fashioned California beach town. Shhh — don’t let our secret out! I wouldn’t mind moving to Carp myself, and I’d definitely hate to see it become over-discovered.
A lot of the older houses in Carp feature porches. And what a lot these porches contribute to the beguiling impact of the town. Since we here at UR are about nothing if not appreciating the wonders of vernacular, informal, commercial and classical architecture and urbanism — or, in a more general way, about noticing and appreciating the wonders of what we already have but too often take for granted — I’m going to treat myself to some riffing on the virtues of old-fashioned American porches.
Blowhard, Esq. writes:
Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in Howard Hawks’s HIS GIRL FRIDAY
Click on the image to enlarge.
Blowhard, Esq. writes:
As I implied earlier, this past weekend I was at the Pantages Theatre to see the touring company production of Book of Mormon. As wonderful and hilarious as the show was, it was almost upstaged by the venue itself, an Art Deco marvel designed by Scottish architect B. Marcus Priteca. Here are some shots I took before, during, and after the show.
Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:
“All Is Lost” is like “The Old Man and the Sea” without the fish. Robert Redford, who in the credits is referred to as “Our Man,” floats around in a damaged boat looking grave and portentous as one damn hardship after another descends from the heavens. Is the movie a comedy of cosmic misfortune or are we supposed to root for this guy? Investing in existential flimflammery, writer-director J.C. Chandor refuses to give the character purpose or clearly defined goals. Odysseus at least yearned for home; Our Man’s too angsty to admit even to that. Though Redford’s struggles seem intended to pit human will against the inscrutability of the universe, his own inscrutability invalidates the equation. Watching him is like watching a hamster spin endlessly on a wheel: you feel bad for the little guy, but then again he’s just a fucking hamster.
A director like Robert Bresson might have succeeded in drawing something out of this material, might have milked transcendence from the details of raw process. What milk there is in “All Is Lost” Chandor merely churns into Oscar butter. The director’s feel for cramped spaces and flinty tonalities isn’t enough to compensate for his failure (or is it unwillingness?) to connect the individual plot points in a way that would give them urgency and meaning. Redford’s climbing the mast to plug in some unexplained doohicky, his flopping beneath the waves to attend to some other doohicky, his futzing with a fritzy radio — all of it lacks the cause-and-effect context needed to generate identification and suspense. This may explain the IMDb reports of audiences laughing at Redford’s predicament: absent suspense, this kind of thing easily slips into comedy. Eventually, Redford’s whipping at the hands of chance seems as ludicrous as the spectacle of Laurel and Hardy repeatedly failing to push a piano up a long flight of stairs. What can you do but laugh?
Though he’s never been the warmest of actors, it’s surprising just how hermetic Redford is here. He looks like human driftwood and he acts like it too, his eyes reflecting near-deadness even as he gives what is, by old man standards, a very physical performance. I fear his resignation, and Chandor’s validation of it, speaks to some larger contemporary malaise, one not transformed by the movie’s final image, in which Michelangelo’s hand of God is appropriated for a banal, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style toss-up between surrender and salvation.
Related
Eddie Pensier writes:
A French Martini (vodka, Chambord, and pineapple juice) and a Hemingway (rum, grapefruit juice, and lime) at Miller’s Bar, Wabash Street, Chicago
Glynn Marshes writes:
I find this heartening. In an op-ed on France for the LA Times, Pascal Bruckner cites fear as one of the most significant factor’s in that country’s unsettling decline.
For the French have become afraid of everything: the world, poverty, globalization, Islam, capitalism, global warming, natural catastrophes — and even, to borrow an American phrase, fear itself.
Not just France, but here in America, too, we’re being told constantly that we’re under threat from these horrible (and always abstract) monsters.
It’s enervating. It’s physically and emotionally and spiritually depleting. Especially when you’re left with few or no options to take personal action of some kind . . .
No wonder the people who can are emigrating from France, and ones who can’t are turning to to psychotropic drugs/tranquilizers.
It would be a very good thing if our so-called “elites” took notice of this. Although I suppose even if they did, they wouldn’t change their ways. Fear-mongering is such an easy short-cut to power . . .
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 