“If you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain
If you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape
I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape”
– Rupert Holmes, ”Escape” (1979)
I’ve been watching a lot of The Office (U.S.) lately. The heavy heat and caustic politics of the summer demanded a light touch and comedic reprieve. For me, the driving conflict of The Office was always the quiet struggle of the Dunder Mifflin employees to remain human in an inhuman environment. Their work world is formed by a toxic and invisible atmosphere designed to suffocate any and all aspirations to dignity, compassion, and individuality. The main creator of this world is the show’s protagonist and foil–Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell. Carell’s character aptly displays how a human (dis)educated by media, ensconced by privilege, and emboldened by corporate talismans can produce something less than human: a clown. In 2005, this was all hilarious because Carell’s character operated in a dimension trapped behind a screen and stuck to telling the same whopper week after week–Q: What is illogical, incompetent, ignorant, intolerant, and inescapable? A: Your boss! All bosses! Your life under capitalism! But watching now in 2016, it seems Michael Scott is no longer delivering punchlines from a joke book but rather reporting like a war correspondent from a garish reality coming closer and closer and closer and closer…
[ via Buzzfeed ]
Locals try to escape the summer heat by converting a rented industrial dumpster into a block party (and internet) sensation. The City of Philadelphia, however, says no dumpster pools. But what is Philadelphia in the summer if not an obscene trash container packed with illegally siphoned hydrant water and half naked bodies?
[ via Billy Penn ]
Clever man? Clever turtle? Either way, their dreams of escape have been put on hold.
[ via Death and Taxes ]
Rihanna apparently has a habit of taking her wine to go. So in case you had somehow forgotten where to look for leadership in life, love, or escaping the club, there is only one true star in the sky you need to follow:
[ via New York Magazine ]
