CATS SMOKING

TURBOT: SHELLFISH, WATERCHESTNUTS, HYACINTH VAPOR

Have a look at some pictures of the relentless string of hypermodernist cuisine from Chicago's Alinea restaurant opening.

Here's the 28-course meal that was served:

1. PB+J grape, peanut, bread
2. SOUR CREAM smoked salmon, sorrel, star anise
3. DUNGENESS CRAB raw parsnip, young coconut, cashews
4. HEART OF PALM in five sections
5. ASPARAGUS caramelized dairy, egg, bonito
6. TURBOT shellfish, waterchestnuts, hyacinth vapor
7. EGGPLANT cobia, crystaline florettes, radish pods
8. FRIED BREAD chocolate, adjukura, oregano
9. FROG LEGS spring lettuces, paprika, morels
10. BEEF flavors of A-1
11. HAZELNUT PUREE capsule of savory granola, curry
12. PROSCIUTTO passionfruit, zuta levana
13. FINGER LIMES olive oil, dissolving eucalyptus
14. MELON gelled rose water, horseradish
15. ENGLISH PEAS frozen lemon, yogurt, shiso
16. FOIE GRAS rhubarb, sweet onion, walnut
17. BURNT ORANGE avocado, picholine olives
18. BROCCOLI STEM grapefruit, wild steelhead roe
19. SNAPPER yuba, heavily toasted sesame, cucumber
20. LAMB NECK sunflower seeds, kola nu, porcinis
21. ARTICHOKE fonds d'artichauts cussy #3970
22. BISON beets, blueberries, smoking cinnamon
23. BACON butterscotch, apple, thyme
24. PINEAPPLE angelica branch, iranian pistachios
25. SASSAFRAS CREAM encapsulated in mandarin ice
26. STRAWBERRIES argan, lemon verbenna
27. LIQUID CHOCOLATE milk, black licorice, banana
28. SPONGE CAKE tonka bean, vanilla fragrance

NEW NEIL HAMBURGER JOKE

Q: Why did Robert Redford stick his cock in a jar of Newman’s Own spaghetti sauce?

A: Because Robert Redford and Paul Newman have been friends for 40 years. He’d never use a competitor’s product.

THOU SHALT HEREFORTH BE KNOWN AS NOODLES JEFFERSON

Sandow Birk, Heart Attack from Leading Causes of Death in America, etching, 2005. More here.

Interview with Maria Schnieder, who you know as The Onion's Herbert Kornfeld and Jean Teasdale.

One of the Jean Teasdale's columns, "With Friends Like These" stood apart from the rest for me, simply because she came the closest to identifying herself as the object of satire. She befriends these pop-culture savvy and sarcastic college students and then she's mortified when she realizes that they are documenting her life in order to make fun of her. Was that a moment of guilt or self-parody?
I came up with these two columns about how Jean meets these really sarcastic college students with a postmodern sensibility, completely mocking Jean behind her back, getting kitschy pleasure out of her columns, and she completely misinterprets that. I guess I wrote it because even though I stick it to Jean a lot, I'm a little bit protective of her. I wanted to make fun of the people who make of fun of Jean. I know that's a bit schizophrenic. Directed toward the type of audience that is attracted to her column, I wanted to point out, "Hey, they're kind of jerks, too."

!!!!!!!

In other news, picnic a success!

YOU'RE NOT REALLY A COAL MINER

Antique Creek Chub fishing lure.

Insults for Will Oldham, from I Love Music.

"More like Bonnie 'Princess' Billie!"
"Look, everyone, the Continental Fop!"
"I liked one of your albums, though, for reals: Ease On Down the Choad."
Pale-Ass Brothers!
There Is No One What Will LISTEN to you!
I See A DORKness.
I see the Darkness and they're miles in front of me in musical ability and songwriting form
"you will miss my cash when I burn copies of your CD instead of buying them!"
Hey Will Oldham, you smell like OLD HAM!
poor mumbling dumdum. you should be eating oatmeal in the woods
sometimes you fuck the mountain, sometimes the mountain fucks you.
Way to sing, no-hair.
Hey, sweet trucker cap, ponch.
you wish you were a cinematographer
Agnes is the Queen of Sorrow because she had to listen to one of your fucking records, huh?
EVERYONE has loved your sister Lisa most of all.
You're not really a coal miner!
Oh, the Joya pressing stop when one of your songs comes on.
Hey Will! The Civil War called. Yeah, they want their visual meme back.

MILTON FRIEDMAN SEZ 'STAY HIGH TIL U DIE LOL'

Mr. Friedman, high as fuck.

Forbes Magazine reports: Milton Friedman leads a list of more than 500 economists from around the U.S. who today will publicly endorse a Harvard University economist's report on the costs of marijuana prohibition and the potential revenue gains from the U.S. government instead legalizing it and taxing its sale. Ending prohibition enforcement would save $7.7 billion in combined state and federal spending, the report says, while taxation would yield up to $6.2 billion a year.

The report, "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition," (available at prohibitioncosts.org) was written by Jeffrey A. Miron, a professor at Harvard , and largely paid for by the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a Washington, D.C., group advocating the review and liberalization of marijuana laws.

"There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana," the economist says, "$7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven't even included the harm to young people. It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes."

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IS A TRAIN

From an interview with Unwound's Justin Trosper regarding what he considered to be the most miserable show in the band's touring history.

The first national tour was in the fall of 91. Maybe the most weirdest show was in Naperville, Ill (next to Aurora, home of Wayne's World). I knew from setting it up that it was potentially dodgy from the slurred rambling phone interactions I had. We met the guy who set up the show (I cant even use the term "promoter" loosely here) at a convenience store parking lot so they could get some beer, then proceeded to the place of the show ("venue"), which was a rambler-style house in a cul-de-sac. So far everything is fine. Then we loaded the equipment into the basement which was a smelly carpeted disgusting punk rock hovel. We began to worry that no one would come after the guy started to call his friends to tell them about the show. He was pretty sure some of them were coming, but if not, it would be cool to just jam out and drink beer. Immediately I began to think of anybody I might know in Chicago that could save us. I asked if I could use the phone and ventured upstairs to a chorus of yapping vicious chihuahuas and his strung out pregnant sister. I couldn't get a hold of anyone. We gathered downstairs on one couch while the guy and a couple of his friends sat on another. He warned us "Oh yeah, probably don't sit there cuz that's where Dougie puked." Then added, "Do you guys want a bong hit?" I couldn't decide if it was scarier to stay in the basement or go back upstairs to use the phone. His band was called Pen and they were set to play first. I don't recall what they sounded like but could confidently guess that it fell under the category of "shit-punk." Although we knew they wouldn't care for us much we also sensed that they would be polite enough to not beat us up afterwards so we played our hearts out. We really won them over after playing Flipper and Black Flag covers. They bought tons of merchandise and we probably made more money there than some of the other shows even though there were only four or five guys in attendance. I finally got a hold of somebody in Chicago so that we could go stay somewhere other than Naperville. I think they were a little lonely, "Are you sure you don't want to stay here? There's plenty of room here in the basement, and I can fix you some SHIT up in the morning!"

SKUNK UNDER MY HOUSE!

Not long after I hopped onto the sidewalk to take my evening stroll tonight, I spied two SKUNKS! engaged in some sort of social face-off between my house and our neighbors'. Immediately, I ran inside to grab my flashlight and the camera, and when I came back outside I witnessed them escape to an opening on the side of the house that led under the floorboards. I then stood guard outside it, flashlight and camera in hand, waiting like a maniac for the SKUNKS! to pop their SKUNK! heads out so I could take a picture. Ten minutes later I found myself face-to-face with the treacherous beast. I managed to snap this photograph before the awful creature leaped up into the air and struck me down, as the other SKUNK emerged from its lair. They worked together for what seemed an eternity, clawing my face to shreds and feasting on my insides.