In 1981, The Cannonball Run (45 today) hijacked the 20th Century Fox logo, turning it into a tiny car chase capped by Burt Reynolds’ legendary laugh. This gag is missing from many home releases/TV airings. I've also tacked on the intro… for THAT 1979 Lamborghini Countach.
This is the single greatest paragraph in American literature.
It comes at the close of chapter 93 of Moby-Dick. Young Pip, a Black cabin-boy, beloved by the crew of the Pequod, is inadvertently stranded alone on the open sea. The experience of being lost for hours in the middle of those “heartless immensities” drives the boy to insanity. But in that madness, Melville argues here, is a kind of wisdom. Pip had a vision of the inner workings of all things, and it drove him mad.
On the first day of my final year in college, my literature professor, Dr. Gaines, asked each of us to name a favorite work of art: song, book, film, it didn’t matter. When my turn came round, I opened a copy of Moby-Dick that I happened to have brought with me and read this passage aloud. By the time I had finished reading, Dr. Gaines was in tears. He said, “Class dismissed.” In all the years I knew him, he could never get through this paragraph. It haunted him. It haunts me.
The KKK is alive and well in Tennessee. The Sargeant of Arms blocks Representative Justin Pearson from entering a committee meeting about redrawing the map specifically for the district he represents.
FUCKING SHAMEFUL!
At what point do we stop pretending our newspapers are ‘news’ and start calling them what they are…
Promotional pamphlets for the billionaires who own them and the agendas they’re selling.