In the wake of the recent prank call to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the ensuing drama, we realized that prank calls are not just for 12-year-old boys and Bart Simpson worshipers (wait, are those the same thing?). They can have real — or just amusing — bearing on our culture, and they just might be worth examining as a reflection of our cultural proclivities. (Because what are Charlie Sheen’s unending outbursts if not one continuous prank call on American society?) If you’ve ever asked someone if their refrigerator was running, click through to see our list of five culturally relevant prank calls, and let us know which of your favorites we’ve missed!
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1. George W. Bush’s political memoir Decision Points sold 220,000 copies in its first day. Just for comparison’s sake, Bill Clinton’s My Life sold 400,000. It can’t be because Dubya’s not doing enough promotional interviews… [via Vulture]
2. Do you think that Lady Gaga, Jonathan Franzen, or Mark Zuckerberg have any shot of winning Time’s Person of the Year award when they’re going up against The Unemployed American and The Chilean Miners?
3. “We thought we’d do a lot of things that we’d never done: a full tour of Canada, a documentary, coffee-table book, live album, a boxed set. It was one long project that took almost three years. Now that we’ve gotten a lot of that out of our system, Meg and I can get back in the studio and start fresh.” – Jack White on a White Stripes reunion
4. Read a brief history of Soft Skull — “the quintessential New York City indie press” — as it closes its NYC office and moves to Berkeley. [via Bookslut]
5. Judd Apatow defends his record on female characters and talks about his new female-centric pilot for HBO about a group of women in New York in their mid-twenties. [via Jezebel]
Bonus link: The 18 Best Concept Albums of the 21st Century (So Far)
Today at Flavorpill, we downloaded “Lemon’s Theme,” a track off of The Soundtrack to 30 Rock, which is due out November 16th. Our stomachs turned at the idea of CHOW’s Thanksgiving Turkey Cake — which features layers of ground turkey, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce coated with more mashed potatoes, a layer of sweet potatoes, and a cup-and-a-half of mini-marshmallows. We realized that The Awl is right: Courtney Love is the Dorian Gray of the American celebrity-industrial complex. We wondered if an 18-year-old with the mind and body of a toddler could really hold the keys to immortality. We wanted to check out this documentary about adult fans of LEGO. We learned some important things about Conan O’Brien’s new set. We watched Yves Rossy perform aerial loops with custom jet wings — kind of like a jacked up version of The Rocketeer. We found it interesting that 2 pm is the time of day when most people cal 311 to report graffiti. We got a good chuckle over the idea of Quidditch as an NCAA sport. And finally, just in time for George W. Bush’s interview with NBC News tonight, we printed out the rules for the Bush interview drinking game. Fair warning: Tomorrow morning might be ugly!
Today at Flavorpill, we got a glimpse of what 10,000 yoga mats will look like in Central Park at our massive Yoga at the Great Lawn event. It takes place June 22, and registration ends the 15th. Have you signed up yet? We admired the gorgeous poster for Sofia Coppola’s new movie Somewhere but were less enthusiastic about George W. Bush’s first Facebook video. Something about hearing the words “I may be done with politics, but I’m not done with policy” come out of W’s mouth just worries us. We couldn’t decide whether a line of Sanrio-designed Doc Martens were garish or totally kawaii. As true children of the ’90s, we learned all we needed to know about the oil spill from an episode of Saved by the Bell. We couldn’t help clicking on a list of the 12 most watchable foreign films, despite our fundamental disagreement with the implication that most foreign films aren’t watchable. We wanted to go back in time and be BFF with this 12-year-old girl rapper. We soothed our ongoing Arrested Development withdrawal with a new viral ad from Will Arnett and Jason Bateman. Our inner video-game nerd and our inner music snob couldn’t agree on whether to be excited about Rock Band 3, which will feature keyboards. We wondered whether HBO’s “female orgasm comedy” would be the new Sex and the City — except, you know, watchable. Last but not least, we absolutely fell in love with Robyn’s new album, Body Talk Pt. 1. Stream it in full here.
Reading Rainbow, the book-centric PBS children’s series, has reached the end of its 26-year run, NPR reports. We remember it best as the show various babysitters parked us in front of during our formative years, but we do love to read, so maybe its message sank in. We weep for host LeVar Burton and his legion of fans, even though we have to admit that we didn’t know the show was still on the air. Blame it on the recession…oh yeah, and George W. Bush’s education policy. Because the show stresses why kids should love reading rather than how to read, it’s not in line with the Bush administration’s focus on phonics and spelling. So basically, George W. Bush killed Reading Rainbow. After the jump, a guided tour through some timeless Reading Rainbow clips. Read More »
