Questions vs Answers

Questions rule. Answers are for insecure, over-reaching disabled people.

Questions are really the defining parameters and the smell of sex.

Think about it. Is Jesus coming back or isn't he?

Ever notice how most films (especially comedies) start to suck when they have to resolve plot point (give answers).

Every smart artist, musician and poet dies young and leaves questions on the table.

The stuff that captivates us about our lovers are the things we don't understand, the questions.

The world is filed with retards that vehemently know the answer, just watch Fox News or listen to the hypocrisy of liberal democrats.

I really felt shorted by the final episode of the Sopranos when it aired. We all speculated in such grand, concrete terms how it might end, Tony gets wacked, the Soprano sings... and what Chase delivered was Schrödinger's cat.

For eternity Tony and his family hover in the probabilistic space between life and death. As time passes I like the ending more and more. Seeing Tony riddled with bullet holes or testifying to a grand jury would had satisfied and suck.

Trying to answer unanswerable questions is what what most of our lives revolve around. Does he/she really love me? do I have enough money? Is Jesus coming back? is Darwin right or does the Bible have the answer. People who cling to answers too vehemently suck no matter what side their on. With answers thinking stops, with questions it begins.

There is no note.

Hillary's Downfall

In my heart of hearts I felt that these Hitler remixes had played themselves out. Then I push the play button and start reading the subtitles... and laughing my ass off.

U2 and the Aersosmith Formula

My friend Eris laid this bone crushing take on what U2 has become, Aersosmith. Each album has 1 big hit and 8 phoned in songs (4 of which are ballads).

Sense of Smell: Mandles

Mandles: Manly Man Candles come in scents like meat, Chuck Norris sweat, Mickey Mantle, Urinal Deoderizer, charcol, peel out, wet dog, burrito fart, and the A-Team.





See also:
Mancations: Vacations for men.
On Men. A Sherman Foundation Whitepaper
Hobosexual
Mancave

Fact of the day: Satanic Sex

Viagra has a molecular weight of 666.

Mancation

Its like the movie Very Bad Things, without the dead hooker.



Here is the Urban Dictionary definition. Mancation: It's when you plan a vacation with all your bro's and leave the nagging wives, girlfriends, late night bootie calls all back at home and get piss drunk, hook up with some strange, bust ass and hot box the hotel room.

Booty Dance Videos

One of my goals with The Foundation is to identify points on the cultural grid that don't get noticed or talked about. I also pride myself on my ability to tease out tacit meanings and the mechanics of culture.

Booty dance video are a cultural phenomenon that deserves some analysis but I admit that I am at a loss to reframe these in a way that makes them comprehensible.

These videos are created by teenage girls, often shot in their bedrooms wearing little more than shorts and a tshirt. What makes them a difficult subject to address is the fact that they are extremely sexually suggestive and the girls are often young teens. That said, these video number in the thousands.

The stylistic mannerisms of these dance videos is straight up mammalian display behavior, boogie "presenting".

I understand and why some men might find viewing such video enjoyable. I find the age to oversexuallization ratio uncomfortable.

What I don't understand is why young girls make these? There isn't an immediate payoff like you get when you dressed up, are looking hot, and you go out in public.

I would really be interested in seeing someone interview these girls and ask "why???"



Fashion and Display Behavior

What's a Zune?

This is a dope little spot.


Whatsazune from TheShermanFoundation on Vimeo.

Home Video

I'm not really sure how to process this.
Its quite disturbing.

Its all about the nonverbals

One of the many things that obsessively fascinate me are nonverbals.

I was in San Francisco a few years ago and there was a homeless guy with a cup hustling for change. A man walked by and when accosted by the homeless guy did the shrugging to indicate that he did not speak English. The homeless guy shot back indignantly "everybody know cup, cup is universal". It was a great moment.

Learn your nonverbals.

Love in the time of texting

See Also: I give great txt (Courtship Revisited)

Skittles?

Product Placement from Old School


Hooters... Skittles from TheShermanFoundation on Vimeo.

30 second spot: Midas Touch

Science Machine

I am simply blown away. This is amazing.


Science Machine from Chad Pugh on Vimeo.

Big Sherman Foundation Nation shout out to me lout Nixta! Thanks for the parole present.

:)

NikeFootball film by Guy Ritchie

Badass.

And Some Skittles!

I posted a few old tv spots over the weekend. The Classic Chuck Wagon and a old creepy Jolly Green Giant commercial. I love the surrealist component of both, something you don't see so often these days. An exception is the spots for Skittles. (I'm not a sweets or desert kind of guy generally but I have a sick, sick Skittles addiction.)



One reason for my addiction my be the high frequency of product placements in movies. Here's one from Bad Boys, there are several others that I recall that I'm in the process of tracking down.)


And Some Skittles! from TheShermanFoundation on Vimeo.

Sherman Foundation Walking Tours

I believe that I could hold a series of completely improvised, walking tours along Madison Avenue that would be spectacular feats of cultural and intellectual mix-masterism.

It might make for a great program online. Get a couple of pseudo-intellectual windbags from a few different backgrounds and see what each can tease out and tie together along the walk.

My 3 part series a year ago last fall was essentially that. A virtual window walk with cultural commentary.

Life's Sweet Revenge. Decadence, Pop-Decadence and the Candy Macabre.
Lifes' Sweet Revenge. Part 1.
Life's Sweet Revenge. Part 2: Decadence.
Life's Sweet Revenge.
Part 3: Pop Decadence, The Candy Macabre and Bourgeois Estate Sale

I really need to do another series like this. Was out over the weekend and took a few shots.

When I first the handbag below and the collection of charms I couldn't quite make out what it was, it was just looked like a gnarled mess of shiny silver, dangling there like a talisman, like some bit of postmodern voodoo, like a nasty hoo-doo chicken foot.

Looking closer at the assembled carms I'm reminded of the Mexican altars that people build in their homes. Those too are odd assemblages. Religious items and pop culture brikabrak are mixed together. Statures of the Virgin Mary, crucifixions and candles as well as a Coca-Cola bottle, pictures torn from magazines might all appear together. These are built as expressions of ones spirituality that link the physical and the spiritual worlds.

What does it say when your dangling altar includes a silver razor blade and a safety pin? (That I'm a coke-head and a cutter? That the blood of Christ comes forth from my nose and forearm?)



I just like this one because the little girl on the right looks like she's picking her ass. (I have a lot to say about the "street huster" poses that Ralph Lauren employs but I will save that for another time.)



My post The Aesthetic Narrative of Ralph Lauren for Women is a must read.

That beautiful, numbed-out, melancholy malaise

I finally had a chance to watch "Control", Anton Corbijn's film about Ian Curtis and Joy Division. It's filled with rock 'n roll film biography cliches but a beautiful film nonetheless. The b&w style it was shot it is breathtakingly gorgeous.





The official trailer.



The late great Ian Curtis




I've also been listening to Hot Cip, particulary the track "No Fit State". It has a similar bleakness to it.

Sunday School at The Sherman Foundation: Stay Golden Pony Boy

But tell me: how did gold get to be the highest value? Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and gentle in its brilliance; it always gives itself. Only as an image of the highest virtue did gold get to be the highest value. The giver’s glance gleams like gold. A golden brilliance concludes peace between the moon and the sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and gentle in its brilliance: a gift- giving virtue is the highest virtue.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Visualizing Greenhouse Gases