Cupcakes have been all the confectionary craze for a couple of years now in New York and LA, with Amy Sedaris as the cupcake pied piper. San Diego is now jumping into the batter with its own twist. Square cupcakes ! & Personally, I didn't need a square version to get me on board but if this is what it takes to get a pistachio cupcake with pomegranate frosting, so be it. & I'll worship the square. & Other unique flavors: Lilikoi--vanilla cupcake with lilikoi (passion fruit) buttercream frosting, Peanut Butter and Jelly--peanut butter cake and strawberry frosting, Vanilla Chai--tender Chai cake with vanilla/orange buttercream frosting, and the other siren in the bunch for me, a Lemon White Chocolate--white chocolate cake with a hint of lemon frosting with white chocolate ganache. & These sweets are only $2.75 each. & Grand opening is today!
This interactive feature from The New York Times is so, so fun. & You can look at a sampling of Al Jaffee's back cover fold-in's for Mad Magazine . Jaffee still does the fold-in's for Mad , drawing them by his 87-year-old hand! & I went through the feature twice trying to find the elements of the resulting images in the original drawing. A worthy time suck.
McSweeney's has a mini film school course in three lines. & Citizen Kane , The Godfather , and other greats are hilariously boiled down. & For example:
West Side Story
TONY: Cinema has a long literary tradition. This one's based on Shakespeare.
MARIA: Just like that Amanda Bynes movie!
TONY: (Sigh.) Let's just dance-fight.
Errol Morris seems to be everywhere right now, which is really a good thing. He has a new documentary coming out about Abu Ghraib (the site for his film is really good - but be prepared to look at the unbelievably disturbing photographs again). Can't seem to find an opening date for San Diego... anyone? Tentative opening in San Diego is May 2nd. Morris and Werner Herzog chat it up over at The Believer . I regularly have the dinner party fantasy: what's the most interesting mix of 8 people for dinner? My fantasy guest lists change all the time, but Werner Herzog and Errol Morris together is a bang-up start. Morris has also written two interesting opinion pieces in NYT about using re-enactments in documentaries.
KPBS Senior Editor Alan Ray on the new Scorsese-helmed Rolling Stones documentary Shine a Light : & "All rock and wrinkles." & He doesn't recommend it. &
A lot of you probably know about Flickr, the online photo sharing site, but have you ever browsed the photographs in Flickr's San Diego group ? & There are some great images of our fair city by visitors and local photogs. & Enjoy!
And finally, check out these Garfield comic strips without Garfield... way better. & Thanks for the tip, Edward!
