Lisanti Quarterly

My new favorite website, for at least the next two hours.

David Blaine: The Seventh (And Final) Day

Sad news, David Blaine fans. While the dardevil breath-holder easily shattered the record he so recently established on Oprah by surviving in my custom-made tank for an astonishing seven days, his challenge has ended in unspeakable tragedy. Just moments ago, I stumbled upon this soul-chilling scene. Although I realize that the Great White was merely following an instinctual imperative to devour any warm-blooded creature unlucky enough to cross its path, I still felt it necessary to put down the killer. Blaine deserved better than to be shredded like a clump of soggy, street-magician chum, especially after somehow keeping the predator at bay for several days.

Good night, my sweet, sleepy-eyed, lung-tormenting prince. You will not be forgotten.

At Least I Didn't Pitch "Demographically Coveted iTubers"

spiegelman:

listen close and you can hear my soul dying

I just wrote, in a powerpoint presentation, that a certain website has “an audience of web-savvy tastemakers.” Crying.

I suggested the equally terrible “cultural early adopters,” whatever the fuck that means. It just sounded like something one might include in the PowerPoint presentation that kills off that final, stubborn soul-bit that always gets stuck behind the pineal gland.

“ You can only piss in my eye sockets so many times before I stop coming back for more.

— Island Zero on how the Peter Berg Factor is killing his enthusiasm for Hancock.

The Grove II: Glendale’s Revenge has two fountains with Dancing Water™ technology. And FIFTEEN Cheesecake Factories. Never before has the upscale suburban mall shopping experience been so daringly replicated in a faux-urban setting.

We now pause for a very important Public Service Announcement for the residents of Beverly Hills.

[via spiegelman]

David Blaine: Day Three!

As we approach the 72-hour mark with no signs of Blaine tiring (incredibly, I haven’t seen a single air-bubble escape his lips…his lung capacity is even more unbelievable than I’d thought), I’ve decided to introduce an element of danger by adding a photo of a great white shark to the tank. We’ll all have to wait and see if staring into the gaping maw of the world’s most feared, bloodthirsty predator finally convinces the fearless sidewalk prestidigitator to end this latest stunt.

Game over.

jessicacoen:

This is why the internet exists. This is why we do it.

Special-Needs Monkey Celebrates

They made special cards, queued to wish him Happy Birthday, and one youngster brought a banana tied with a bow to help Ricky, the special-needs monkey, celebrate his 15th - and possibly last - birthday at Natureland.

Special Needs Monkey would be an amazing band name.

David Blaine Stunt Update!

An absolutely astounding eighteen-plus hours later, David Blaine’s daredevil photo has yet to clamor for the surface of his watery prison, gasping for life-sustaining air. In fact, the only visible sign of fatigue is a slight curling of the right edge of the printout.

Though his bravery is impressive, I fear irreversible brain damage if he doesn’t end this ordeal before sundown.

Celebrity Daredevil David Blaine Doing It Again!

Unimpressed by frequently soggy illusionist/supermodel despoiler David Blaine’s shattering of the world underwater breath-holding record on today’s Oprah, I’ve decided to put the lung-punishing masochist to the ultimate test. At 5:05 pm PST, I submerged this black-and-white printout of a screengrab of the final seconds of his televised triumph into a custom-built mini-tank (OK, an unused glass vase—why must you always fuck up my moment like that, know-it-all parenthetical commentary!), an attempt to determine how long Blaine’s image could survive before coming up for air. Stay tuned for thrilling updates about the progress of this latest, death-defying feat of endurance!

UPDATE, 7:16 pm: Even an amazing two hours and eleven minutes later, the image of Blaine shows absolutely no signs of fatigue. I may have seriously underestimated his incredible powers.

“

I don’t want that to happen. I put 40 years of hard work into writing books and articles. I don’t think it’s fair that I be branded part of a “dying medium” when a lot of the writing I see online is just random name-calling and thoughtless invective. Does it make me a relic to fight for what I believe in? Perhaps. But I say, to hell with it. Maybe I’m a relic, but I have principles, dammit. And I’ll fight for relics like myself to the very end.

Still, my actions at last night’s roundtable were out of line. I stooped to the lowest common denominator to defend my craft, which I should not have done. I couldn’t help it. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was trying to make a point.

But, more critically, I hadn’t fucked a horse in over a week.

— Kissing Suzy Kolber tries to make sense of Buzz Bissinger’s on-air wilding of Will Leitch on yesterday’s CoSTasnOW.

The Obligatory GTA IV Post

Easily the most offensive gameplay feature in Grand Theft Auto IV is the one where the player can anally rape Santa Claus with Rudolph’s freshly sawed-off antlers, run him over with his own sleigh, then steal the presents the unlucky St. Nick was trying to deliver to all the good hookers and ex-cons in Liberty City.

That part’s really not going to go over well with that Jack Thompson guy.

$4? Whatever. We’re going all the way to 10 bucks a gallon! Bring it on, motherfuckers. I’ll just have that new place in Beverly Hills convert my car to run on the tears of orphans, which are expected to stay around $100 per barrel for at least the next three years.

A Note On Late Night Tumblspotting

One of the things I like to do when I suddenly realize I’m still awake at 1:30 in the morning (besides flipping over to E! to make sure I’m not missing a new installment of Kim Kardashian’s chesty misadventures in semifame—will that krazy sister of hers ever learn that running a boutique that sells super-cute klothes takes hard work? [audible sigh]) is write a pointless tumblspot recognizing that I’m up late for no good reason half-watching terrible television shows. This usually makes me sad enough to fall asleep and have fun dreams like the one I had last night, where I was pitching a sitcom idea to NBC’s Ben Silverman, whose face was covered in a swarm of distracting gnats. (He didn’t buy it, but agreed that we should “keep talking.”)

Holy shit, the Carson Daly show just came on! There’s no way I can go to bed until I see what CNBC personality Dylan Ratigan needs to tell the nation’s insomniacs. What can I say? That opening cartoon credit sequence where a a bag of golf clubs rides shotgun in Daly’s convertible gets me every damn time.

The nice ladies who bought up all the dresses from the Olsen’s Mercantile sale rack make an excellent point: One person’s batshit-loony polygamist compound is another’s perfectly nonthreatening, quaint ranch home.

(With only 36,000 views, there’s probably a good 60 percent chance you’ve seen this only four or five times already.)