Local News: New York's biggest fire since you-know-what

I was at the Flatiron Building Wednesday for the weekly NYRSF meeting, and David pointed out that smoke was still visible from the smoldering remains of the Terminal Market fire in Brooklyn on Tuesday. Rather an eeire sight--billows of grey fog snaking through the buildings of the upper Lower East Side, on a bright sunshiney evening.

Strong suspicion is of fire; the owner of the unused market wanted to demolish it to build condos; although this article from the Boston Globe says that the owner had the permits to demolish the site, I've heard that there were landmark questions that might keep him from doing exactly what he wanted. Or it could have been squatters, or some other accidental blaze.

The main thing, though, is that I'm amazed, given the location of the fire, that neither of NYC's tabloids used the headline "Greenpoint Burnt".

South Park Update

I enjoyed the two-part "Cartoon Wars" a fair amount, though again it wallowed in its pop culture references--could anyone who had not seen Family Guy enjoy it at all? "A Million Little Fibers" was, like most Towlie appearances, lackluster; and I haven't seen the episodes since, yet.

But the main reason I wanted to post was to point out that Lore Sjoberg did the entire "hybrid cars" episode in a three-panel strip more than a year ago. And funnier.

( Cartoon after cut )

John Crowley has an LJ

He's crowleycrow, and he posted a most amusing mistranslation of the first stanza of L'Internationale to it earlier this week.

Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin

Damn these terrible openings,
Openings where they stuff you or starve you --
That raisin tuna in its big dish
With some sort of boil on its fin!

This reminds me of the time that my dear nellorat and I were gifted with a flat tire in midtown Manhattan on a Saturday afternoon. I put the donut on and we drove home to Yonkers--via surface streets. Fortunately, we enjoy each others' company, but two hours of creeping through traffic can weary even the staunchest traveler. As we drove through Washington Heights, nellorat amused herself by mistranslating Spanish store signs; by far the best was "International Llamas, Paid in Sorrow".

The Murther of Gonzago

I don't have much I can add to the leftospheric consensus: Colbert brazened his way through one of the few genuine court jester acts we're likely to see in our lifetimes, and the Washington Press Corps are, unsurprisingly, a bunch of wankers who are deeply, deeply displeased at being called wankers. But my favorite comment on the entire event is one I haven't seen many links to. This is Chris Durang, on the Huffington Post:

It's very witty when you read the text; but actuality as Colbert says these things to the President's face, it's very uncomfortable. Watching it, It's like Hamlet forcing King Claudius to watch the play that accuses him of murder.

Yes. Yes, exactly.