This interview originally appeared on Ebaum’s World, where I’m now writing!
Remember 2020, when everybody was trying out new hobbies for the first time just to find something to occupy the endless hours stuck at home? Some people just played video games, others picked up potentially lucrative side hustles, and others, like Aleia Murawski and Sam Copeland, created one of the most unique and cinematic TikTok accounts on the entire platform.
The creators of Cheers - by Ben Blacker
2024-12-02
What an absolute joy and thrill today to talk with the creators of Cheers: Glen Charles, Les Charles, and James Burrows. They discuss the TV comedy landscape in 1982 and now, who at NBC didn't get the show, Taxi, Phyllis, discovering the cast's special talents, the pressure following Shelley Long's departure, and lots more.
Before that interview, though, an excerpt from Ted Danson and His Friends From Work, a live streaming special that I produced with my wife and our friend Marc Evan Jackson in 2020.
The Cult of Done - by Jason Fladlien
2024-12-02
Bre Pettis and Kio Stark co-wrote the Cult of Done Manifesto in 2009 and licensed it under creative commons to share with the world. For my money, it’s still some of the best advice for productivity.
Below is their 13 points with my comments.
There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
First principle thinking - by simplifying things down to their essential elements, it’s easier to handle and therefore easier to get things done.
The Cult of the Individual
2024-12-02
When Mario Savio introduced the Free Speech Movement to the world with his famous speech on UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza in 1964, he started off with a few unexceptional remarks before getting to the famous part about putting “your bodies upon the gears” of the American corporate machine. Here’s part of what he said:
I'd like to say — like to say one other thing about a union problem. Upstairs you may have noticed they're ready on the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall, Locals 40 and 127 of the Painters Union are painting the inside of the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall.
Introducing the Culture Study Podcast
Friends! I am so thrilled to introduce THE CULTURE STUDY PODCAST. It’s like the Culture Study newsletter….but more esoteric, more casual, and (most of the time) a lot more funny. The format is pretty simple. We’re going to take the Culture Study ethos of…
Listen now7 months ago · 58 likes · 29 comments · Anne Helen Petersen
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The Curious Case of Chuck Palahniuk
2024-12-02
Chuck Palahniuk recently appeared on Soft White Underbelly. I subscribe to that channel, and YouTube promptly served me the interview. I hadn’t checked out anything of Chuck’s in a few years, so I tuned in to see what he had to say. Soft White Underbelly is a fascinating talk show for the low-bottom crowd, an equal and opposite platform from the standard broadcast talk show—to really explain this channel requires an entire post.
Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has launched a new photo-sharing app called Shine, designed to facilitate easy creation and sharing of photo albums for trips or hangouts. However, the app's user interface has been widely criticized as outdated and unappealing, resembling something from the early 2010s.
In spite of its promising features like AI-powered photo selection and original resolution uploads, the app's visual presentation has received negative feedback (to say the least!
The Curious Case of Psycho II
2024-12-02
At the end of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho, we get a chilling final glimpse of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, except it’s not really Norman at all. Whatever made him Norman, the gentle, lonely motel proprietor who consoled the wayward Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in her moment of need, has fallen away for good, leaving only the murderous imprinted personality of Norman’s mother. It’s a perfect ending and the last we need to see of Norman.
The curious case of the octopus whistle
2024-12-02
Tonight as we welcome in Shabbat, and the Hamas Caucus plead for a ceasefire (sorry, never gonna happen until every single member of Hamas is dead), I really just wanted to come back to the most amazing – and I mean truly amazing – thing I have seen in two weeks, and that is Greta Thunberg’s antisemitic dog whistle. Sorry, octopus whistle…
This morning, Greta, the world’s angriest child-adult, posted this on her Instagram: