You should probably have that looked at
How did I miss this? Apologies if everyone knew but me. Apparently, when the 30-foot-tall commemorative statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled in Pretoria in January, nobody noticed the tiny bronze rabbit in his ear.
The two Afrikaner sculptors had wanted to sign the work on his pantleg, but were told not to. So, covert bunny. It’s an Afrikaans pun. “Haas” means rabbit, but it also means haste, and they were in an almighty rush to finish the thing by the deadline.
When it was discovered, there was kerfuffle. Also brouhaha. Some thought Mandela was a jolly man and would have wanted it to stay. Others thought not.
My favorite quote is from Mogomotsi Mogodiri, spokesman for the Department of Arts and Culture, “We don’t think it’s appropriate because Nelson Mandela never had a rabbit on his ear.” If that isn’t hilariously literal enough, he went on to say, “We’d want people to see that statue as a symbol of hope, not about something like a rabbit.”
Well. You needed a pair of binoculars to spot it, but still it had to go. So it went.
Always hungry for attention on the cheap, PETA tried to “adopt” it, but nobody seems to know where it went. So PETA went away and murdered puppies and kittens until they felt better.
Right! New Dead Pool. Here. Tomorrow. 6 WBT! Be here. Or don’t. I’m not your mother.
June 19, 2014 — 10:35 pm
Comments: 16
Bookmark this
This is a fun ongoing series from the BBC: Victorian Strangeness. The author combs Victorian newspapers for nuggets of weird.
My favorite is the story of the two skeletons found walled up in the attic of a theater, mummified as they died — in the act of murdering each other. There was no clue to the mystery, except that the theater’s carpenter had gone missing fifteen years earlier.
For an even more fun dip, though, try doing a Google Images search of “Illustrated Police News” — the Daily Mail of its day (except the Daily Mail was the Daily Mail of its day. The Mail was aimed at the newly literate lower orders, where the News was all about the pitchers).
I don’t know about you, but I’m rooting for Bloomers Lady and her bicycle.
June 18, 2014 — 11:20 pm
Comments: 7
That is so effing French
There is a pedestrian bridge in Paris over the Seine near the Louvre called the Pont des Arts. Here, lovers come to write their names on padlocks, clamp them to the bridge railings and fling the key into the river, an expression of undying lurv.
The railings are collapsing. Duh.
This is not an ancient tradition, it is a recent thing, a creation of social media. It’s spread from Paris to Moscow and New York and elsewhither. Different cities are dealing with it in different ways, mostly involving cutting them off.
I just love the idea of Parisian infrastructure collapsing under the weight of empty romantic gestures.
I’ve come to dislike the French since I moved here. It’s not exposure to the English what’s done it, it’s exposure to the French.
June 17, 2014 — 9:15 pm
Comments: 24
Huh. I wonder what killed him.
Mr (1932-2014) and Mrs Casey Kasem. She was his second wife, but no last-minute gold-digger — they were married for 34 years. His first marriage — the one that produced the three angry children — lasted only seven. Just saying.
Looks like ol’ Casey was way, way to the left of good sense — he actively supported McGovern, followed by Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich.
On the other hand — Shaggy Rogers! He also voiced Robin from the Batman/Superman Hour and Alexander on Josie and the Pussycats. And those were just his repeating gigs.
Rest in peace — all is forgiven.
So ScotttheBadger takes the dick! Standby for Dead Pool Round 64. Friday, 6WBT.
Be here or be bicurious!
June 16, 2014 — 9:38 pm
Comments: 20
Wouldja lookit the time!
Well, would you look at that! It’s Friday the 13th, it’s a full moon and the whole world is burning (those excitable brown people in the East, anyway). Eh, in the immortal words of Scarlet O’Hara, “fuck that, it’s Friday!”
Here, I think you should follow this guy on Twitter: Greenwich Mean Time. Twice a day, randomly, it tells you the time. And is mean to you.
It’s 8.37pm. You didn’t get that job because you smell like shit and also because you’re fucking stupid…It’s 8.15pm. It’s not just in your head, your tone of voice IS awful…It’s 10.50am. You could be outside but instead, you’re stuck in an office because you made all the wrong life decisions…It’s 2.41pm. All your school friends were paid actors from a local children’s television workshop. It nearly bankrupted your parents…It’s 11.19pm. I hope you shit yourself in your sleep…It’s 10.29pm. You’re a twatparrot…It’s 12.15am. Even those fake followers you bought have muted you.
What? No, I don’t use Twitter much these days, either. But I’d rather have an anonymous internutter pretending to be a clock insult me twice a day than follow current events at the moment. Or, you know, sharp stick in the eye is good.
Good weekend, all!
June 13, 2014 — 10:15 pm
Comments: 28
Guyz! Guyz!
You’ll never guess! I got a job!
It’s kind of a lousy job — a few hours a week of light office work, basically — but it’s at a way cool place and will very likely turn into something better if I stick with it and, you know, strategically murder my cow-orkers over time. So forgive me if I’m distracted for a bit until I get the hang of my new routine.
Oh, and hey — Iraq is turning to shit.
June 12, 2014 — 10:29 pm
Comments: 32
Hillary feels ya
Dear posterity: current events reference here (warning: Slate link).
June 11, 2014 — 10:08 pm
Comments: 17
We sell kitteh by the kilo here, son
Spotted today in a farm shop several villages over. The man gently lifted the cat off the scale to weigh our pork chops. Made him nervous when Uncle B took out the cellphone; he probably thought we were narks.
June 10, 2014 — 10:54 pm
Comments: 20
It does what now?
Late Saturday night, I’m sitting up in bed reading and Uncle B decides he has a hankering for toast. As you do. Five minutes later — BANG! — the whole house goes dark.
Fortunately for me, I was reading my Android, so I crept downstairs by its friendly glow (take that, stupid old paper books that are not actually on fire). While he fiddled with the fuse box, I shone a flashlight down into the toaster and…
slugs. Two slugs. Our emeffing toaster was full of emeffing slugs. Shorted the emeffer out with their emeffing wet bodies.
After struggling with ourselves all weekend, we’ve come to the conclusion the toaster has to go. No matter what we do to to it, we will never pop a couple slices of cheaploaf in there without thinking slugs. Toasty slugs. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Oh, dear god, it’s so disgusting.
So, toaster shopping. Meet the Tefal Tt552842 Toast N Bean. While it toasts your toasteses, it heats beans in that little cup on the side there.
Beans, like those runny orange Heinz baked beans you remember from church picnics. Brits think that shit is breakfast food. On toast. There’s also a knob around back that lets you listen to cricket and a linguistic setting that forces you to say “petrol” and “toMAHto.”
We aren’t getting this one.
June 9, 2014 — 8:50 pm
Comments: 41
Ann B. Davis: a tribute
As you’ve probably heard, actress Ann B. Davis fell and conked her head last Sunday and died. She was 88. Nobody had her in this Dead Pool, but I would like to give her a sweasel.com shout-out anyway.
Davis had a rare screen gift: a cheerful sexlessness. And, indeed, most of the obits note that the actress was never romantically linked with anyone in her whole life.
She had a twin. Nobody revealed whether the twin got any.
Davis found religion in 1976, joining an evangelical Anglican church that she stuck with to the end. Evangelican Anglicans sounds a little contradictory to me, but I’m used to the Anglish Anglicans, who are pretty anglicable.
Davis never entirely retired from acting. Also, in 1994, she put her name to Alice’s Brady Bunch Cookbook which includes recipes for “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia Muffins” and “Groovy Old-Fashioned Pancakes.”
Kirkus reviews sniffs, “Cookies made with instant oatmeal and Snickers bars are way too sweet, and St. Paddy’s Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread has the texture of sawdust and a dog-biscuit taste only Tiger could love. A final chapter gives recipes from the cast members themselves, including Eve Plumb’s lamely joking instructions for making boiled water out of ice. Even intense nostalgia cannot justify this book.”
Incidentally, the publisher of that inestimable volume also offer Mary Ann’s Gilligan’s Island Cookbook, but Granny’s Beverly Hillbillies Cookbook and Aunt Bee’s Mayberry Cookbook are totally by somebody else. Don’t even get me started on the I Love Lucy Cookbook!
Good weekend, all!
June 6, 2014 — 10:22 pm
Comments: 20