Super Punch is my new favorite blog.

John Powers is a sculptor who also writes “Star Wars Fan Non-Fiction” — blogging an ongoing critique about Modernism and Star Wars:

The destruction of the Deathstar was a denunciation of the American Cold War tactics used in the struggle against domestic dissent.

To be clear: this conclusion is my own. I’ve have never heard Lucas or anyone else say this in anything I have read about Star Wars, but Lucas does say the Imperials are Nixonian gangsters.

Star Wars and the Modernism of 2001

NeoCons are Sith Lackeys

If you (for some reason) own shares of Blockbuster stock, now would be the time to sell.*

Agent 723, Miss V and I were poking around the far corners of our new Queens neighborhood and found a grim little strip mall within walking distance (hey, it’s Queens.) About two weeks ago the anchor store, a Blockbuster, pulled up stakes overnight and flew the coop.

Taped to the window was this document (click the thumb for an enlarged view.)

Note the overdue back rent. Nice!

(* If you could sell, that is. BBI stock was delisted from the NYSE days after this store was vacated.)

Short film by early 80s comic-book/sci-fi nerds: Hulk meets Thing.

Some aimless wandering brought me to this transcription of newspaper articles from issues of the long-defunct Brooklyn Daily Standard Union. They all date from the summer of 1887 and are part of a larger transcription project; which I have yet to explore because I’ve been engrossed in reading samples like this:

Sixteen year old Maggie GORMAN has been missing from her grandparents’ house in Clay street, since Monday of last week. Her grandfather believes she has been abducted by a certain woman of bad repute.

I’m fascinated by the 123-year-old dramas summed up so pithily by this paper. Robbery, abandonment, mysterious disappearances, insanity, calamitous fires, women of ill repute, drunken brawling… all manner of human misbehavior and misery…

I saw these guys last Saturday night in Baltimore. The best metal show I’ve been to, at a small club venue.

I can’t decide if this is the smartest or dumbest dick joke ever.