Watched the Holidays classic "Holiday Inn" last night - a version that has the deeply unfortunate blackface scene in.
I didn't realize Irving Berlin totally coasted on his musical intution for melodies, and wrote a lot in F-sharp major (or G-flat minor) since that leans on just the black keys (in fact he had custom piano that could transpose)
Ahahahaha I had to check, but yes, Trump is trying to lock in his tacky Mar-A-Lago aesthetic with his Oval Office renovations by declaring parts of the White House a National Monument.
This is so rich from a guy who smashed down a whole wing to build himself a ballroom.
Mal Duffin's Retro Filters can put your webcam or other video into "what it'd look like on specific old computers"
I just read the print version of "Operation Ajax", about the CIA's 50s overthrow of a democratic Iranian government to reinstall the Shah, using the red scare as a front to restore American and British oil interests. The machinations are stunning. We really were the biggest assholes imaginable. (The book explores how part of the problem was an overfunded CIA stuffed to the rafters with Ivy League recruits with too little to do - a hammer desperately looking for a nail it could call communist.) There's a direct line from that to the 70s Iranian revolution, and it probably would not have been a Theocracy without our interference. A strong Iranian democracy would have given us a very different world now.
Turns out you can freely read the comic online, with music and animations - operationajax.com (I just looked at the beginning but it seems like the same content as the print version)
It's an event worth knowing about, and a pretty good read besides.
I sort of hate how my sense of "what's actually funny" is so out of wack during dreams, and a bit that absolutely kills as I'm sleeping completely burns away in morning light.
Case in point: Someone in my dream had a father who had the name "illiterate dad". And my joke was "heh, I guess you shouldn't try to summon him by spelling out his name!" (I think like, yelling "D, A, D!")
Like, that's barely even a joke, but my sleep self was so eager to share it with the world.
If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.
Took long enough.
That was the president of the United States on the day before the midterms. Choosing to make a speech at Reflecting Pool. To talk about the Reflecting Pool. No symbolism. No metaphors. Just straight up pool maintenance. That was Donald Trump's "I Had It Cleaned" speech, if you will.
