Clarification:

Some time ago I posited a super-power that consisted of being able to cause one's nemesis to have that slightly disassocated feeling one gets after clipping one's fingernails.

To clarify, this nail-vertigo lasts different times in different people. When I was a child, I could feel this pared-down difference for some minutes; this morning, on clipping my nails, it lasted barely five seconds.

The point being that the superpower would only cause its target to feel the sensation as long as they would normally feel it on clipping their own nails.

So, please don't go around this holiday season thinking that the effect from the super-powered would make someone have that "just clipped my nails" feeling all day.

"What are all these?"

Some overdue thoughts on Ben Folds

Okay, so, I have a bit of tolerance for Ben Folds, for three reasons:

1.) "Philosophy"

2.) "Not the Same"

3.) that cover of "Careless Whisper" with Rufus Wainwright

The strength of these tracks ALMOST negates the fact that he is the type of guy that high school marching-band assholes look to as someone with skill, or whatever, and he flaunts his "happy to be a nerd!" thing to point that becomes emetic.

But now I see he's on some show, a reality contest thingy called "Think You Can Sing?" or something like it, and he's a judge, right, alongside the loathesome Nicole "Wright State" Scherzinger from Pussycat Dolls!

This is depressing, because, while Ben isn't my favorite person ever, he surely shouldn't have to do this cheese just to keep his bungalow in Silverlake (probably).

I guess he should shear off some excesses.

Juan Pujol!

Spare a thought for Juan Pujol, a double agent who was both given an Iron Cross by the Nazis and was decorated by the allies (for whom he was really working).

But, really, give him a thumbs up for the wily rapscallion expression he displays here:

Abstract drunkenism

From a review of a book about Frank O'Hara in the New Yorker, July 19, 1993:

One night, when last call was announced at the Cedar, [painter Franz] Kline
ordered sixteen scotch-and-sodas for himself and Elaine DeKooning.

Epic!

Rosemary's babe-eye

Oh, no! Our friend Rosemary has a scratched cornea and has to wear a "Come As You Are" cone!

Sometimes she hates it:

Other times, she can practice acceptance and sit patiently, waiting for the next Sweet Potato Fries dog-treat to slide down the cone to her waiting maw!:

Either way, she shows the kind of pluck heretofore only seen in a certain third-string 10K-lakes- residing QB who came from absolute obscurity to raise life on earth to an entirely new level!

???