VOL 4, NO 14
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The divine (situational) comedy. / I love sitcoms. True story. I like the format, the simple sets, the patter of the dialogue and that the episodes are more or less contained. I find them comforting. Most sitcoms are bad, a few are good and occasionally we get a great one. (The last “good” sitcom was That ‘90s Show. The last great one was The Good Place.) If we’re ranking the all-timers, my personal top spots go to M\A*S*H* and Cheers, which is not a wildly controversial take.
George Wendt died. Norm was the heart of Cheers — a nice guy who didn’t really want his buddies knowing he was a nice guy (and also a raging alcoholic whose friends did nothing to help him as his health, career and marriage all fell apart). And as sitcom bits go, Norm walking into the bar is probably the greatest ever.
Loretta Swit died. Margaret Houlihan was a total pro and possibly the only character on M\A*S*H* who grew and evolved naturally over the course of the show (don’t give me your Klinger shit, it’s not the same). She started as one of the show’s villains and earned the best kiss on television with her goodbye.
Legends.
Also: Sorry for the lack of updates as we peter out of spring. I’ve been playing an unholy amount of Minecraft and am now behind on pretty much everything.
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Confusions. / 👨💻 How the internet left 4chan behind. / CBC has a new podcast from Cory Doctorow: Who broke the internet? / url.town, (another) directory of (real) websites. / 📖 Close reading is for everyone. / They say that when god closes a Pocket she opens a Readeck. / The am dash. ❝A typographic intervention and a philosophical middle finger.❞ / 🎥 Once lost and now found: The Day the Clown Cried. / 📀 The history of album art. ❝The individual discs were bound together in packages resembling photo albums, partly to protect the delicate shellac that the records were made of, partly to increase their sales. They resembled photo albums, so Columbia called them ‘record albums.’❞ / Man interviews mom about her 8-tracks. / Steve Albini’s closet. / Rick Derringer died. / "[Psycho Killer](https://www.youtube.com/watch)" finally got a music video. / 🪑 The chairs of Doctor Who. / 🗄️ Department store catalogues. / ✌️
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New Television Antenna / Norman Rockwell / 1949