Logopolis

Actress Famous Enough be Parodied on Saturday Night Live, may actually regret it

Tonight on Saturday Night Live, a skit revolve around a bad actress wgi, before she even gets around to reading the part,  lists the things she will and won't do (will do weird stuff, won't do normal stuff) and what she'll reveal on stage (everything); her husband, Jon Hamm, bursts in when she is denied the part and informs the casting director that they have a star they do not recognize -- the womwn who freaked out at her dog dragging its dirty ass across her clean carpet, screaming "TOBY!"

Andy claimed it actualy existed and that the imitation was a good one.  A quick search on "stanley steamer toby" proves him right.

 

So hey, Stanley Steemer freak out lady, the good news is you've been satirized on SNL.

Palin, Gravitas, and the Sad Answer to Karl Rove's Question (Brought to You By Google)

The political blogosphere, if it isn't already, will soon certainly start hashing out exactly what interpersonal Republican dynamics led to Karl Rove telling the UK's Telegraph that quitting governor and reality show host/contestant breeder Sarah Palin* and her career choices might lead the American people to believe she lacks the "gravitas" to be president.

Unfortunately, especially for those of us who are interested in the answer to that question being a resounding "Hell no!", Google's Hot Trends might help us guess the answer:

 

I've been told that earlier it was #1.

By the way, in case anybody else has come here looking for the definition, let me be servicey for you:

• dignity: formality in bearing and appearance; "he behaved with great dignity"
• Gravitas (from Latin) is a quality of substance or depth of personality.
• Seriousness in bearing or manner; dignity; substance, weight
• A sense of physical weight, the illusion of mass, the appearance of maturity or advanced age, and the elusive quality of dignity.

* Failed-Governor Palin was once "She Who Will Not Be Named" on this site. Unfortunately, she's not going away anytime soon. 

 

UPDATE: Someone at Metafilter, where I learned about this, brought up the excellent point: should we make fun of those who don't know the defintion of words but also those who go through the trouble of looking it up.  For that, I say 'touche' and I stand corrected.  It's a crass thing to do, even if many of those people would be the same that would say "dont' come to America if you don't know English."

I just hope that those who have looked up the word because they are being told by Palin-adoring bloggers that they should be outraged take that opportunity to look at the reality show hosting and the Facebook misspellings and think of gravitas like pornography: I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it (and it's something that I want)

links for 2010-10-25

• Why NPR Matters (Long) - James Fallows - National - The Atlantic
  Not really that long --but no matter how you feel about the Juan Williams "controversy", this is the important take away.
  (tags: NPR JamesFallows JuanWilliams TheAtlantic)

links for 2010-10-11

• Replogle Globes - How Old is Your Globe?
  Have you recently found an awesome free-standing globe in the alley and are wondering how old it is? Or perhaps you teach geography to a massively underfunded school district and need to know what should be updated when talking to your students? If so, this chart will help you -- when you find the former place name rather than the new name, this usually* means your globe is at least that old. (* Usually, because Germany and Vietnam break ups and make ups complicate matters.) I'm tempted to try to write a program that asks you questions but am not sure how you'd go about doing that.
  (tags: geography history maps reference useful globe age)