self absorption and hipster doofus irony
Carson Kressley gets to the bare facts - Los Angeles Times: "It helps that 'Queer Eye' was Kressley's own personal makeover show. 'It was cheaper than therapy,' he said. 'I was not comfortable with myself for a long time -- and now I try to gay it forward.'"
A Death in the Family: Politics and Power: vanityfair.com
And there was Mark's widow, an agonizingly beautiful girl named Snejana ("Janet") Hristova, the daughter of political refugees from Bulgaria. Her first name can mean "snowflake," and this was his name for her in the letters of fierce tenderness that he sent her from Iraq. These, with your permission, I will not share, except this:
One thing I have learned about myself since I've been out here is that everything I professed to you about what I want for the world and what I am willing to do to achieve it was true. …
My desire to "save the world" is really just an extension of trying to make a world fit for you.
If that is all she has left, I hope you will agree that it isn't nothing.
Monkeys behaving badly - Telegraph: "When a scientific colony of macaques was established on Cayo Santiago, an island off Puerto Rico, the idea was that the 500 monkeys, from seven Indian provinces, would sort themselves out. 'Unfortunately, the monkeys had other plans, and these plans involved killing each other.'
Rhesus macaques, in short, are sods."
globeandmail.com: Pamuk: prophet or poseur?: "Young women from this social class dye their hair purple and weep a lot. The older women complain of migraines. The young men are sent by their parents to psychiatrists who trained in the United States; they wear black trench coats, rarely shave and tell everyone who will listen that no one in Turkey understands them.
'Time passes,' Pamuk scribbles in his notebook. 'There's nothing. It's already nighttime. Doom and defeat. ... I am hopelessly miserable. ... I could find nothing in these books that remotely resembled my mounting misery.' I suppose sentiments like these are not uniquely Turkish; teenagers around the world fill their diaries with this kind of drivel. But usually they read those diaries when they grow up, cringe, then throw them out along with their old Morrissey albums."
DOYLE BRUNSON (above, left) is a poker legend. Twice winner of the game's most prestigious annual tournament, the World Series of Poker (WSOP), held in Las Vegas, the cowboy-hat-clad southerner affectionately known as Texas Dolly also wrote what many consider to be the bible of poker theory, “Super System: A Course in Power Poker”. His reputation among card-shufflers borders on the superhuman. Indeed, after fighting off supposedly terminal cancer in the 1960s, he celebrated his return to the cardrooms with 53 straight wins. Adding to the mystique, both of his World Series titles were won with exactly the same cards: a full house of tens over twos.
Now in his mid-70s, Mr Brunson is still going strong. But not strong enough for Annette Obrestad (above, right), who beat the old master and 361 other entrants in September to win the first ever WSOP event held outside America. Miss Obrestad's victory, which netted her £1m ($2m), shows how much poker has changed since the days when Texas Dolly, Amarillo Slim Preston and Jack “Treetops” Straus held sway. She is only 19 (making her the youngest ever winner of a World Series bracelet) and she is, of course, a woman. She hails from Norway, not Nevada. And though she had previously won over $800,000 in internet tournaments, the event at London's Empire Casino was the first time she had encountered serious opposition in the flesh.
England Made Them: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com: "I am thinking of the Earl of Mar, who was found dead underneath his London balcony one morning in 1975. It didn’t seem likely that he had been pushed or probable that he had jumped. Investigators were at a loss. And then an enterprising reporter looked up the entry for the noble lord (Scotland’s senior earl) in Who’s Who. It disclosed a life of blameless nothingness and obscurity. Yet, under the entry for “hobbies,” there was a telling detail. In the space for favored occupations, the departed duke had inscribed the words “Kicking Pigeons.” Could this be the clue?"
England Made Them: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com: "“I must ask anyone entering the house never to contradict me or differ from me in any way, as it interferes with the functioning of the gastric juices and prevents my sleeping at night.”"
The Golden Suicides: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.comFranz Kafka: "When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours?"
Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton � Blog Archive � Quote Of The Day: "“While the music industry is doing everything they possibly can to go out of business, can we all make sure to rid ourselves of the Grammys, too? Out of touch old men jacking each other off. ENOUGH!” - Trent Reznor, on the Nine Inch Nails official blog"
