Song of the week - Lazy Eye by the Silversun Pickups.
Infectious lo-fi Americana. Kind of like Smashing Pumpkins, only good.
“ Her lips are devil red and her skin’s the color mocha.
— From La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin. I might try and write a song like this. His shirt was generic sea blue / And his t-shirt the colour ecru?
The Tao of Beige
1. If you are hanging around in a public area, minding your own business, and a stranger approaches you and asks, brusquely, if you speak English, you must reply, in your best Received Pronunciation, “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t,” and WALK AWAY IMMEDIATELY.
2. If you are in the middle of a conversation you don’t like, check your watch (or the arm where your watch would be), exclaim brightly, “Ooh, I’m sorry, it’s time for me to pray!” and WALK AWAY IMMEDIATELY.
3. If you meet someone you know to be racist, make sure and greet them by shaking their left hand with yours. Then come over all embarrassed and apologise profusely for using your “bottom-wiping hand”. Perhaps run away quite quickly.
4. When filling out ethnicity questionnaires, make sure to tick the ‘other’ box. In the ‘please tell us more’ box, write “it’s complicated”.
5. Make up a country. For example, Turkminkystan. Then drop it into conversation – “As you know, the recent troubles in Turkminkystan mean that the government has imposed severe import restrictions”. Watch people nod wisely.
6. When people ask you what you are doing for Christmas, say “I’m going home to Sweden to see my family. My cousin Lars must be so big now!” This works particularly well if you are a very deep beige.
7. Or smile enigmatically and say, “We don’t celebrate Christmas in the palace.”
8. Where possible, preface all of your opinions with “As a black man….” Bonus points if you are neither black, nor a man.
9. Leave your hair dark, but bleach your roots and eyebrows.
10. Never EVER commit the sin of asking another Beige about their ethnicity BEFORE you know their full name and at least TWO OTHER THINGS about them.
Flight of the Conchords - Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros
I do this *all the time*.
Video showing MotionPortrait’s new photo-to-animated CG program. Basically it takes a 2D headshot and turns it into a blinking, smiling, talking 3D animation.
High uncanny valley* probability. Brr.
*The name captures the idea that a robot which is “almost human” will seem overly “strange” to a human being and thus will fail to evoke the empathetic response required for productive human-robot interaction.
