six degrees of peter feld

caro:

The 50 Best Protest Signs Of 2009 - My favorite!

Let’s see how long this stays up. I found this guy a few months ago in my junk drawer of unapproved friend requests and decided to confirm for kicks.

GPOYW, look out for cheetahs edition. (This is last year, btw.)

miltnr:

Carney and Feld channeling Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra (or at least, Joe Piscopo as Frank Sinatra) at Caroline Waxler’s birthday party.

More Degenerate 1960s Christmas Special Album Covers can be found here.

Why does a decade need a name?

What was the last decade that had one? What do we call the ’90s or ’80s - what’s that one, agreed-on word that comes to mind? The Rave Years? The Spandex Decade? I come up with nothing.

The last decade with a name that stuck was the ’70s, the “Me Decade,” so named because after the idealism of the late ’60s was crushed by Nixon and corporate America, we all turned inward and focused on getting rich and “personal improvement” and were on our way to becoming the yuppies of today.

But even the ’60s don’t have a single name. The Swinging ’60s? Yes, if you’re talking about London and Twiggy. The Radical ’60s? Often that’s used. Before that, we had the “Roaring ’20s” and the “Gay ’90s” (not that kind of gay). The chances that the ’00s are going to get a lasting descriptive name like that is approximately 00. “The Retard Years,” maybe, after the president who used the decade to ruin our future.

The problem is, the ’00s need a literal name. Unlike every decade since the ’20s, there is no agreed-upon way to pronounce the ’00s. (The ’10s will have a similar problem, though we’ll end up calling them the “‘teens.” ) Some have urged we call it “The Aughts,” which was used the last time around. But “aught” (for zero) is a word that doesn’t occur in nature, outside certain parts of Canada.

I’ve advocated writing it as-is, the ’00s, and pronouncing it “the o’s,” because it is easy to say and it does evoke the nothingness, the zero-gain, the backwards progress of the era. Someone on the Brian Lehrer show suggested the “uh-ohs” — I think that’s the funniest. But bad news for everyone working on this problem: unless you’re Tom Wolfe, there’s not much chance you’ll be able to write a column and propose a name that sticks.

Let’s just get with the program, everyone.

soupsoup:

(via spareunderthemat)

(Click through for song.)