TRAGEDY

April 5, 2012

You know when you think you have an awesome idea and then it turns out someone else has already done it?  (Everyone will know my Love Boat example.)  Well, for years now, I’ve wanted to write an updated version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, BUT it seems that bridge has been crossed.  Here are the not-so-chronological and yet still somewhat amusing lyrics by New York Times op-ed columnist Roger Cohen:

 

Bill Clinton, Tina Fey, capitalist China, O.J.,

Asia rising, Facebook, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

 

Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ugg boots, Seinfeld

West Bank, Gaza City, Tupac Amaru Shakur

 

Mohamed Atta, W.M.D., Harry Potter, Reality TV

Tom Cruise, American Beauty, MP3, Oprah Winfrey

 

Schwarzenegger, YouTube, America’s got organic food

Armstrong, blogosphere, Monica Lewinsky

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

Vlad Putin, Medvedev, Assad, Posh-and-Becks

The West Wing, Y2K, massacre in Falluja

 

Britney Spears, Spike Lee, Kurt Cobain, Sarkozy

Mia Hamm, Heath Ledger, Viagra, Napster

 

Lindsay Lohan, skinny jeans, Boston’s got a winning team

Lehman Brothers, A.I.G., subprime, Ponzi scheme

 

Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, and a billion poor,

Tehran, Hezbollah, trouble with the jihadis

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

New Orleans, Bolaño, Sarah Palin no-go

TiVo, Hu Jintao, and the vegan-eco crowd

 

Tony Blair, Paris Hilton, Princess Di, Bin Laden

Pyongyang, the renditions gang, Roger Clemens in a cloud

 

ACT UP, Infinite Jest, O.J. Part Two, Johnny Depp

iPhones, Federer, Who Let the Dogs Out?

 

Halle Berry, cloned Dolly, and another Kennedy

Jon Stewart, American Psycho, tsunami, Danger Mouse

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

Sedaris, Unabomber, Girls Gone Wild, Nasrallah

Jay-Z, Shanghai, shock and awe in Baghdad

 

Amy Winehouse, Imus, gases of the greenhouse

Kelly Ripa, Maureen Dowd, Ted Williams gone mad

 

Outsourcing, Mumbai, so many didn’t have to die

David Blaine, human rights, and Napoleon Dynamite

 

Mandela, Madonna’s ex, abstinence, safe sex

Rabin blown away, what else do I have to say?

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

BlackBerry, global mall, Hillary Clinton standing tall

Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, MySpace, The Corrections

 

Rushdie, Starbucks, Channel Tunnel, Spurlock

American Idol, Black Hawk Down, Miracle on the Hudson

 

Sopranos, Cougars, Da Vinci Code, life on Mars

Saddam hung, Mugabe, traumatic stress, mission creep

 

Social networks, match.com, iChat, Amazon,

Terror cells, endless war, I can’t take it anymore

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

Hawaii, Kenya, Kansas and Jakarta

Harvard, finding God, social work, Axelrod

 

Red state, blue state, unity can no longer wait,

A time to reap, a time to sow, we will close Guantánamo

 

Iowa, Yes We Can, McCain was just an also-ran

I Have a Dream, Bush out, a black man in the White House

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire …

 

—

 

This is actually really poorly written.  Do yourself a favor and listen to the lyrics of the kid who posted his version on YouTube –– but feel free to ignore his voice.  Eesh.

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, I Hate Writing, Lists | Leave a Comment »

Text Art For All

April 4, 2012

I continue to be obsessed with words as art.  This is a piece entitled “Bliss,” made from letters cut from the Koran.  (Here comes the fatwa.)

By Meg Hitchcock, h/t This is Colossal.

Posted in I Hate Writing, Image Craving | Leave a Comment »

Psychology Studies

April 4, 2012

9 Recent Studies in Psychology That Rendered Horribly Obviously Results (And Two That Are Somewhat Surprising):

“Exercise Makes Us Happy” (Penn State)

“Children Who Get More Exercise Do Better in School” (Vrije Universiteit Free University Medical Center, Amsterdam)

“Online Dating Services Don’t  Work Any Better Than Meeting Someone in a Bar” (Northwestern)

“People Eat Less When They Munch on Snack in Pre-Packaged Segments or Portions” (UPenn and Cornell –– They needed TWO TOP SCHOOLS for this?!)

“People Who Work Too Much Are Twice as Likely to Become Depressed” (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health)

“Men Are at Higher Risk for Memory Loss Than Women” (Mayo Clinic –– #womenarebetterthanmenineveryway)

“Good Friends Can Reduce the Effects of Stress” (Concordia University, Montreal –– operative word being “good”)

“Having an Easy-to-Say Name May Help You Get Promoted” (a team of American and Australian researchers)

“Teens Have Fewer Behavioral Problems When Parents Enforce Rules at Home” (University of Oregon)

The two shockers are:

“Topping off breakfast with a piece of chocolate cake may help dieters lose more weight” (Tel Aviv University): though I think the sentiment, which is “add a little bit of yummy fat to your Weight Watchers’ plan,” is pretty well established

and

“Narcissism may put men’s health at risk” (University of Michigan) –– which basically has become my new go-to comeback

 

(Thanks to Monitor on Psychology magazine for letting me lampoon it, and my former roommate for not forwarding her subscription to her new house.)

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Lists | Leave a Comment »

Is This Funny?

April 3, 2012

LB: I saw a parade of mitzvah tanks today going down broadway

literally 40 cars

ID:  i know i keep hearing about it!

LB:  and by cars i mean RVs w little hasid kids sticking their heads out

one asked if i was jewish, and i said “no, noone’s perfect”

and he said “i am, i’m perfect”

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Shivers

April 3, 2012

This poem in The New Yorker made me think of dark, delicious things:

Rituals

Washing your hands, trying the lock,

burning a hundred head of cattle

not to eat, washing your hands

again, trying the lock again,

talking forever to yourself,

saying the sorts of things the god

least can understand, who finally

figures this must be for me.

— Jeff Dolven

On a related note, there are 4 ads in this week’s TNY for fancy psych hospitals.  Glad to see they’re keeping the percentage up.

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Not a Poet | Leave a Comment »

Reblogged Without Commentary

April 2, 2012

This goes against everything I believe in BUT:

Luke Perry. At DragonCon. With a guy in a Labyrinth t-shirt.

 

Posted in Fashion Blogging for Toddlers, Image Craving, It Could Be Worse... | Leave a Comment »

If I Had Twitter

April 2, 2012

Lena Dunham ‏ (@lenadunham) said: I’m getting pret-ty worried about how we’re gonna organize the gmails of great thinkers & publish volumes of correspondence. Who’s on this?

Itinerant Daughter says: I am.  Don’t you worry one bit.

—

If perhaps you get this, though, I’m sorry to say I can’t watch your new show, as I am incapable of watching anything other than re-runs of Intervention and Law and Order SVU that I’ve already seen eighteen times.  My psyche is on a permanent Aristotelian carthasis-by-tragedy loop.

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, I Hate Writing, Jesting, Infinitely, Not a Poet | Leave a Comment »

Sunday Evening Blues

April 2, 2012

... perhaps would be alleviated if I were sleeping here.

Posted in Image Craving, The sun has gone to bed. | Leave a Comment »

Hm (Thoughtful Upward Glance, Furrowed Brow)

April 1, 2012

While editing Shmuley Boteach’s book, I came across this:

“An idea which might also have such unintended potential was proposed by Nobel laureate Francis Crick, who suggested that it may be necessary to redefine the concepts of ‘birth’ and ‘death.’ He suggested that the time of birth of an infant be redefined as two days after parturition so that there would be time to examine it. Crick has also proposed redefining death as occurring when a pre-determined age were achieved. At that time the person’s property would pass on to his heirs.”

This is… interesting.  I will research further and get back to y’all.

Posted in Conspiracy Theories | Leave a Comment »

This Makes Me Sad

March 30, 2012

These tights are adorable:

I always feel like a twat when trying to pronounce "ombre" though.

But one, it’s springtime, and so no new tights necessary for a good few months now, and two, they’re FORTY-FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS!  (It actually says “fucking” on the Etsy shop entry.)  Seriously, for $45, I could feed myself for a week, and buy a cheap pair of tights at H&M and dip them in crushed berries myself.

Luckily, when I win the $600 gajillion megamillions powerball whatever tonight, I’ll be able to buy myself the woman who owns this Etsy shop and set her up in my laundry room, where she will dye tights in the morning, make funky candles in the afternoon, and sleep at night.  Hey, I’m not a slavedriver.

Posted in Buy Me This!, Conspiracy Theories, Fashion Blogging for Toddlers, Image Craving | Leave a Comment »

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