Writer, ex- columnist for @StarTribune because hey, the ash-heap waits for all, mid-century pop-culture enthusiast, hater of "quirky" last lines in online bios
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Joined January 2007
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There is one middling old Universal Mummy movie and four duds. Can’t be killed! For God’s sake, he’s wrapped in 4000 year-old sheets. You ought to be able to defeat him with a splash of gas and a Zippo
I re-watched “Alien” for about the 37th time, and was struck by how little you actually see the alien. In a way, the real monster of the movie is the ship itself. I saw it when it opened, and it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. (1/x)
It was one of those movies that gives you sick dread from the very first seconds – the score was perfect, chilling and spare, and it seemed to be studying you like you were stuck on a pin
I’m watching an old movie that gave no clue it was 3-D until a guy walks up and starts spinning a yo-yo straight at the camera. It’s so obvious. They had to have a yo-yo moment in every 3-D film.(1/2)
The local crummy dispirited Aldi’s had a very nice endcap of charcuterie items, and I felt like a portal had been opened in an American Aldi’s to let us glimpse a British Aldi’s
I am pleased to report that the background music in the Heathrow airport bathroom is Elgar, and it’s the Enigma Variations. The other famous piece would have occasioned a juvenile jape
My hotel doesn’t just look as if it’s from the first “Backrooms” video, it actually IS in the first “Backrooms” video
Sitting on a broken wall in a ruined church, looking at a map made by George Orwell describing the path of the ghost he saw on this site in 1931.
An old woman totters up - the village is full of tourists today for an arts festival - and I (1/x)
The day after Labor Day used to feel as if some grand important endeavor, with familiar rules and tools, should be starting up . This fades with age. There comes a year when you don’t even notice the school buses.
Watching Silo S3 out of grim duty. Everybody is sweaty and dirty and miserable and there are dark plots. It feels like I have to endure 8 hours until we get to a startling revelation that will be partially explained in 2028
jameslileks.substack.com retweeted
Whoa- this is the most fantastic pedagogical tool I’ve encountered in as long as I can remember (which is a helluva high bar, considering who I live with).
I’m so excited to have my 6yo play with it! And you all should too.
anyhumanever.com/
That’s it!
@Lileks Claude Opus suggests the mystery typeface is from the Pen Print family. skylinetype.com/product/pen-…
The not-very-important but long-standing mystery of the Dayton’s advertising type face solved, perhaps
lileks.com/bleats/archive/26…
One of the reasons I distrust AI results: I caught it passing off a speculation as a possible fact, and when I checked the source, it was my website
That said, tonight I’ve used AI – Gemini and Grok – to settle - I THINK- a mystery about the typeface used in Dayton‘s department store advertisements from the 30s to 1954. It’s something I’ve wondered about for 30 years.