The song is Go Home Productions — Don’t Hold Back, Sweet Jane (Chemical Brothers vs. Velvet Underground vs. U2 vs. Sugababes vs. MARRS). It, and a bunch of other mashups are available free and legal at http://www.bootiemashup.com/bestof/.

I choose it because it is free, good, and happened to be the exact length of the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLu4gvxsUWk

anthropophagy: Eating human flesh. Cannibals practice anthropophagy, but so do man-eating lions and mosquitos. Not species specific.

cruciverbalist: Crossword puzzle designer.

HeLa: A human (cancer) cell from an immortal cell line used in scientific research. Named after originator, patient Henrietta Lacks, who died in 1951. Not just human immortality; has the nasty habit of corrupting other cultures in the lab, like a microbial zombie.

Grausamkeitsspäße: “funny cruelties”, German, obviously.

Mary Sue: A character in a written work that serves as a ridiculously obvious proxy for the authors ego, magnifying all of the authors strengths and ignoring any of their flaws.

shibboleth: A motto of manner of speech typical to a certain group of people.

Archigram: Avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s — futurist, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical projects.

paraprosdokian: A figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists.

Raison d’être: A phrase borrowed from French where it means “reason for being”; in English use, it also comes to suggest an intense emotional attraction to a course of action, such as “Not money, but love of sport, is his raison d’être to be an athlete.”

Chindōgu: The Japanese art of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that, on the face of it, seem like an ideal solution to a particular problem. However, chindōgu has a distinctive feature: anyone actually attempting to use one of these inventions would find that it causes so many new problems, or such significant social embarrassment, that effectively it has no utility whatsoever. Thus, chindōgu are sometimes described as “unuseless” – that is, they cannot be regarded as ‘useless’ in an absolute sense, since they do actually solve a problem; however, in practical terms, they cannot positively be called “useful.”

Bildungsroman: A novel of all-around self-development. Used generally, it encompasses a few similar genres: the Entwicklungsroman, a story of general growth rather than self-culture; the Erziehungsroman, which focuses on training and formal education; and the Kunstlerroman, about the development of an artist.

melisma: In song, giving one syllable many notes. “And Iiii-eee-iiii-eee-iiiii will always love you…”

cephalophore: A saint depicted in art carrying his own head.

bromide: A figure of speech referring to a phrase or person who uses such phrases that has been used and repeated so many times as to become either insincere in its meaning, or seem like an attempt at trying to explain the obvious. It can also mean the unnecessary insertion of an (often irrelevant) cliché into a conversation, designed to make the speaker sound more authoritative.

mondegreen: The mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, due to near homophony, in a way that yields a new meaning to the phrase.

Soramimi kashi: Lyrics of a song that sound like the original in one language, but produce a different meaning when interpreted in another language.

The Trachtenberg System: a system of rapid mental calculation, somewhat similar to Vedic mathematics. It was developed by the Ukrainian engineer Jakow Trachtenberg in order to keep his mind occupied while being held in a Nazi concentration camp.

Rumspringa: Amish kids around the age of 16 are sent out into the “modern” world with a crap load of money and given free reign to indulge in everything they were previously forbidden. At the end they can decide to rejoin their sect as adults, or stay out in the rest of the world, although they will be effectively excommunicated. Not all Amish people practice this.

flehmen response: A particular type of curling of the upper lip in ungulates, felids, and many other mammals, which facilitates the transfer of pheromones and other scents into the vomeronasal organ, also called the Jacobson’s Organ.

not to be confused with

Duchenne smile: A laughing smile with teeth showing, mouth open, and crinkling around the eyes. A “real” smile that is difficult to fake, since most people cannot voluntarily contract the outer portion of the orbicularis oculi muscle.

sabrage: A technique for opening a champagne bottle with a saber, used for ceremonial occasions.

clerihew: A whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. Example:

Sir Christopher Wren
Went to dine with some men
He said, “If anyone calls,
Say I’m designing Saint Paul’s.”

Charles Bonnet syndrome: Disease causing otherwise sane people to have strong visual hallucinations, but without the delusions of believing what they are seeing is real. Often goes unreported because the subject is afraid they will be labeled insane.

ostranenie: The artistic technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, in order to enhance perception of the familiar.

ziggurat: A terraced pyramid of successively receding stories or levels.

moribund: Not growing or changing; without force or vitality.

Stendhal syndrome: A psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly ‘beautiful’ or a large amount of art is in a single place.

And I cannot for the life of me keep the following two straight:

détournement: When an artist reuses elements of well-known media to create a new work with a different message, often one opposed to the original.

denouement: A final scene or character that explains mysteries and straightens out misunderstandings between characters and the author and reader.

antagonym: A single word that has meanings that contradict each other. Example: cleave: To adhere tightly vs. To cut apart.

propinquity: One of the main factors leading to interpersonal attraction. It refers to the physical or psychological proximity between people. Two people living on the same floor of a building, for example, have a higher propinquity than those living on different floors. Propinquity can mean physical proximity, a kinship between people, or a similarity in nature between things.

protologism: A newly coined word or phrase defined in the hope that it will become accepted into the language; a recently created term possibly in narrow use.

hagiography: Biography of saints or venerated persons. Or: idealizing or idolizing biography.

Fitts’ law: A model of human movement, predicting the time required to rapidly move from a starting position to a final target area, as a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target. Used in the ergonomics of computer input systems (mice, tablets, gestures, etc.).

oubliette: A form of dungeon which was accessible only from a hatch in a high ceiling.

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon: When a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3q5IDBctkg

I told him what depressed me most were movie trailers for films I might never see, and he laughed, as you might, but let me explain to you the way I tried to explain to him.

Future anniversaries, future children or grandchildren, are all an undeniably more exquisite part of life, milestones no one could bear to miss. But regardless of how beautiful or tender, they still only exist as potentialities, sweet but tenuous daydreams of unrealized possibilities. You don’t see a glimpse of your personal tomorrows beyond dates on a calendar or promises to a friend.

No matter how shallow or contrived next summer’s blockbuster will be, sitting in a theater and watching clips from something that will be experienced by thousands, but not by you, is infinitely more depressing. A movie trailer is a window into a future that is already realized, a film that will be finished and released, barring apocalypse or earth-shattering financial collapse; and even then it will exist and might be witnessed with all of its clichés and stilted dialogue. Here is a concrete snippet of human experience you will never share.

It is made worse for me because trailers generally are released three to six months before the movie. For a man who, with very rare exception, has never planned farther than two Fridays from now, that may as well be centuries away. They remind me that these hours that seem like years waiting in office meetings are the barest flicker within the catalogue of humanity’s history.

It seems that recently there has been more of these previews creeping across more media: teasers for TV shows and video games, sample pages for novels or comics, pre-release “leaked” singles for an album due out in the fall, tech conferences displaying the latest consumable gadget all the cool people will have next spring. More and more windows reveal a future I am less certain that I will be able to open the door onto, to step out into and experience.

I told Pete half-jokingly that when I got old enough I would become a hermit, having slowly and carefully whittled down my consumption of media to only things I already knew existed, showing up late to the cinema to close my eyes against tomorrows while still taking in all of today. Eventually I’d move out into my shack with a bundle of things I’d always meant to get around to, but had set aside because that new thing I’d been looking forward to was out. I would be found mummified and unfashionably dressed, with the forensics team unable to estimate a time of death because of a vast, anachronistic array of miscellanea and pop-culture artifacts; My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse on my lap, It Takes a Nation of Millions by Public Enemy in and old Discman at my side, the DVD menu for The Human Centipede burned into a television screen before me…

Product Name:

Review : Requires you to strain the noodles before adding the flavor paste, “leaving 2–3 tablespoons of water”. The black soy paste is fairly tasty if uninteresting. Black chunks of unidentifiable vegetables in the paste made me immediately think “BP Special Noodle”. Filling though.

Suspicions not alleviated by the fact the box is approximately the same size as a PC game.

A few days later we got a couple of fairly nice looking kits in the mail, although I did think they looked like an elaborate viral marketing campaign or perhaps some new ARG.

The welcome letter was concise and non-threateningly colored. It informed us we had 12 months to send in our spit, which seemed rather patient of them, even considering the huge amounts of money the regular customer gives them.

Autumn and I each got our own kits, and both the boxes and the instructions repeatedly admonished us to register them before even opening the spit tubes. We went through the registration process and skimmed over the epic poem of a legal agreement (favorite part: “Don’t get mad at us if you find out you were adopted, or that you’re the milkman’s son” (paraphrased)).

It was then time to slobber for science. Autumn and I laughed at the hyper-detailed (and multilingual) instructions for drooling into a cylinder*, before we got down to getting gross.

We mailed the kits, waited for processing, and eventually got our results. The data is interesting and useful, but I have to stress that the information is just two steps up from “for entertainment purposes only.” While the science is sound, I-and most other consumers-are not doctors or geneticists, and while having a .7% higher risk for X disease does give you something to look out for, it’s still just risk assessment. They have no idea what other environmental risk factors may be effecting you, nor do they have access to your medical history. Some of the reports about health issues with more potential for mind-numbing terror don’t divulge the information until you agree that, no, a website is not a good replacement for a doctor.

I mocked Autumn for being a big wimpy baby. She responded by hitting me until I cried.

That aside, what information they do give (each rated with a level of confidence) is exciting. A lot of it is just a confirmation of what would be obvious from a photograph, but is extraordinary when deducted from some saliva (eye color, freckles, etc.). Other facts are equally scientifically exciting, if ultimately useless (earwax type, ability to taste that bitter propylthiouracil chemical).

It was nice knowing that I will survive the zombie plague, even if Autumn will quickly succumb (That’s what the norovirus is, right?), and being able to lord over members of your household with a layman’s grasp of eugenics is nice.

Less icky for most and more exciting for amateur genealogists is the relative finder feature. Within a few hours of getting my results, a nice gentleman from County Kildare in Ireland sent me a message. We might just be third/fourth cousins, and share 0.43% and two segments of our DNA, which I assume is a lot for two people who just discovered the other existed. I may have a person to share a pint with if we ever take our trip to Ireland.

Guys have a leg up with this feature, since women don’t get that fantastic Y chromosome to map their paternal line. I have twice as much information telling me I’m a white colonialist. And while the risk level was nil, it was nice confirming that Autumn and I are not in any way related.

If you have a scientific curiosity, and the spare cash, I definitely suggest taking advantage of the next sale, whenever it rolls around. It’s worth it just for the “hey, keep an eye out for colon cancer” risk assessment, and the chance at finding out Warren Buffett is your first cousin is potentially worth millions.

My maternal line public page.

My paternal line public page.

*My arrogance backfired; a couple weeks later I got a sad email telling me:

Our laboratory has received your saliva sample, but unfortunately they were not able to analyze it as there was not enough DNA in the saliva sample. There’s no need to worry; this problem is uncommon but it does happen occasionally. All you need to do is spit again, using a new kit that we are shipping to you at no charge. Please read the sample collection instructions included with the kit carefully to achieve a better sample.

I had to wait another month to get my results.

They’d make some good wallpapers circa 2000.

Product Name:

Review : Great balance of sweet and spicy. It’s a good change of pace to have a cold Ramen (boil noodles, rinse in cold water, drain, add soup paste). Nice portion size.