I just learned that a lot of vintage perfumes and fragrances were intentionally created to blend well with the ever-present smell of cigarettes, and in specific a lot of iconic ones that are super musky and floral and civet-heavy were intended to compliment the smell of fur coats or even "refresh" that new fur coat smell, which is one of the reasons (besides just shifting preferences and trends) that a lot of them smell really, really bad to modern noses.
I bet there's some stunning genius diva out there right now who meticulously coordinates her Victoria's Secret body mists with her vape flavors.
Astronauts are so funny man. Here's just a couple of things I've found hilarious from this past week of space stuff:
It's probably already been spread around here enough already, but in case anyone's missed it; 7 hours after launch, commander Reid Wiseman, dealing with tech issues, uttered the generational quote "I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working."
After fixing the issues that were afflicting the onboard toilet, mission specialist Christina Koch (who has quickly become my favourite of the four) laughingly said “I’m the space plumber, I’m proud to call myself the space plumber.”
On Easter Sunday, the Artemis II crew hosted a makeshift egg hunt, by hiding packets of dehydrated scrambled eggs around their Orion capsule.
The way the crew always makes sure to make it very clear they're in space when doing interviews. From stuff like Wiseman just hanging out floating sideways on screen or Koch letting her hair loose so it can freely span out flowing around her.
While in transit, the crew decided to record a parody of those bad 80s sitcom intros where everyone turns and smiles at the camera.
When the crew reached the furthest point from Earth in the mission, they jokingly clambored over each other in an effort to get to the far side of the capsule, so that they could individually claim to be the furthest person from earth.
At the same time, on the ISS which was at the time on the other side of earth, the 7 astronauts onboard had a light-hearted race to the far side of the station, making jokes about being the furthest humans from Artemis.
On the way back to earth, NASA actually managed to establish an audio call between the crews of the ISS and Artemis II (where they shared the above info), and Koch called one member of the ISS crew, Jessica Meir, her "astro-sister" as the two of them previously spacewalker together in 2019. Meir then responded I'm so happy that we are back in space together, even if we are a few miles apart" (a few here being 230,000).
While Jeremy Hansen was doing an interview, Wiseman and Koch were just in the background swatting the mission mascot (a little moon plush toy named Rise) back and forth between each other.
This probably wasn't the creator's intent, but this so reminds me of how some people react to folks who are trying to make progress on addressing environmental issues (or honestly any societal issue).
"Don't you feel foolish trying to make progress when the goal you're working toward is so far away??"
It's not a perfect metaphor--we are not nearly as insurmountably far away from accomplishing environmental goals as the knight in this comic, and every step we take along the way makes the situation significantly better.
The only way to get from where you are to where you want to be is to start walking. Every step is progress.
If you were suddenly teleported into the world of the last video you game you played as a random background character, and had to survive for the next 24 hours before being teleported back out, how well do you think you'd do?
Here’s the other thing about the shadow and bone trilogy. How does a country remain one country for hundreds of years if there’s a deadly evil darkness cloud cutting it in half. Also why do they not go around it?
I can accept the existence of blind pterodactyl things and guys who can cut other guys in half with their minds but I draw the line at wildly unrealistic trade routes.
And another thing why don’t they have infrastructure for this? No bounties on the monsters that kill people? No lit roads? Fire seems to cut through the darkness somewhat. They have magic. They have guns. You’d think that a society like this would be on an extermination campaign against the blind pterodactyl things. Maybe build a tunnel, I dunno.
I don’t question the existence of the black smudge on the map obviously a wizard did that I question why they aren’t raging a genocide against these monster things that keep killing people and if they’re really that impossible to deal with why is this still one country after hundreds of years
OK FUN FACT i also thought this picture was hilarious when i encountered it a few months ago, so i was curious how it ended up on wikipedia
it turns out the uploader is in fact the woman in the photo (she's uploaded a few other pictures of herself to other articles) and she ran an extremely web 1.0 site on the topic of bondage
this was apparently a long-standing fantasy of hers and she did an entire video plus accompanying photoshoot about it, which was run in a bondage magazine in the 90s and did in fact take place on an abandoned train track. they committed to the bit hard enough that there's even a shot of the sinister villain looming over her with a big document labeled DEED and a pen
the best part is that according to this page, there were two "villains" involved (the woman's two partners, apparently), and the other one was dressed as a gorilla. sadly there are no images of the gorilla kidnapper because that sounds like. even funnier.
anyway i thought this whole thing was kinda cute, lol
I think the purest form of love is just wanting someone to notice life with you. "taste this. look at that. hear this song." again and again. until you can't imagine noticing life without them.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster, on account that a bunch of monsters can turn you into a monster by biting you. Vampires, werewolves, zombies. those are the big ones, there are others
anyway we recommend that you just immediately kill anyone who looks even a little bit suspicious in order to minimize the risk that this happens to you
Okay, American immigrant to the UK here to explain all the mistakes from Paul Hollywood happening here: there is one fundamentally American ingredient required to make a s'more correctly but which is basically not available anywhere at all in the UK, and that is graham crackers. A plain digestive biscuit close-ish, but still a very different beast.
From Wikipedia: A graham cracker is a sweet flavored cracker made with graham flour.
The next ingredient (which is also extremely traditionally American but slightly more variable) is typically Hershey's chocolate, but you could probably swap this out in the UK with any plain chocolate bar.
Last ingredient is big marshmallows, the kind you do the chubby bunny challenge with, like the size of your thumb and twice as thick.
A proper s'more, the most traditional possible variety, involves to graham cracker squares, two slab segments of Hershey's chocolate, and one to two marshmallows depending on your preference for filling and gooeyness. You put a slab of chocolate on one of the graham cracker squares. Your marshmallows should be toasted, usually over a campfire but if you're doing them at home over a gas stove burner is fine, but the fire part is critical. You can toast them to whatever degree you like, some people like them nice and golden brown but still kind of firm in the middle, me personally? I want that bitch to CATCH ON FIRE, I want it gooey and sticky as hell in the middle, crispy and burnt on the outside. Slap that motherfucker on your graham cracker and chocolate square, top with the other one so your marshmallow and chocolate are sandwiched together by graham cracker on the outside. You do this with your freshly toasted marshmallow because ideally it will be hot enough to start to melt the chocolate so it sticks to the marshmallow and the graham cracker and, combined with the gooey marshmallow, it keeps the whole thing together, and for that reason some people will let them sit for a hot second to let the melting process happen (especially if like me you have chocolate on BOTH graham cracker squares, not just one, because you're a sugar fiend), but if you are a young child you do not have that degree of patience and you eat that shit immediately, unmelted chocolate and all. Consume your summer camp delight like a tiny club sandwich, get gooey sticky marshmallow and chocolate all over your hands, and enjoy.
Important note: this is a kids treat. It is a traditional summer camping trip dessert. It should be something any ten year old with adult supervision and access to the ingredients can make (and make a mess of). They're called s'mores because kids always "want s'more". If you are using a blowtorch, chocolate biscuits, and merengue, you are so far beyond the bounds of s'more-hood that you have thoroughly lost the plot. If you offered Paul Hollywood's concoction to an American child and called it a s'more, they'd tell you flat out that not only is it not a s'more, it looks dumb and you didn't do it right because it's not gooey.
the point is the mess. the point is getting to make a food, at age seven, whose two basic food groups are 'sugar' and 'fire'. the other point is that this food item is so crumbly, chaotic, sticky, on fire, and prone to being dropped (outside, in the dark, while you are surrounded by other children who are also sticky and on fire) that your supervisors cannot accurately monitor how many smores you personally have consumed. the point is also that you may get away with a smore that is five blocks of chocolate and two marshmallows if you move fast and let nothing stop you.
if you haven't accidentally yet unrepentantly eaten a chunk of twigs or dirt or a bug that got enmeshed in the creative process around smore number 3st, you are too old to have any legitimate input into what makes a smore.
There's 2 other points that I think are important.
The first is that you don't pull the marshmallow off the roasting stick and somehow put it on the chocolate. Your staging area will look something like this, with the graham crackers and chocolate already set out (though not usually on the fire like this, for us it was always someone's lap or a picnic table or something)
And when your marshmallow has reached appropriate roasting perfection, you use the graham crackers to slide it off the stick.
and ideally, as a CHILD you are using a literal stick. Like you walked around and spent time looking for The Perfect Stick off the ground while the adults set up the fire. It has to be thin enough the marshmallow will fit, sturdy enough that it won't bow, long enough that you won't burn yourself roasting your marshmallow. And preferably doesn't have a lot of bark that's sloughing off, OR so much bar sloughing off you can peel it all back and get to the clean stick under it. If you're smart, you might stick the tip into the fire first to "wash" it/burn off anything that was still lingering, but. well, most kids don't.
When you bite in, the marshmallow and chocolate SHOULD ooze out all over you. If you don't kinda look like this eating it, you've probably done it wrong:
I’m not sure if there’s anything available online, but putting Jimmy Carr out there as a potentially interesting analysis. My recollection from seeing him some 15 years ago was of it mostly being a string of one liners, not linked, which got a lot of laughs in the moment, but didn’t make for a good show overall. There was one point where he was literally reading jokes off a clipboard. I remember it as one of the worst comedy shows I’ve been to!
Hehe, well! Let's have a look at a Jimmy Carr routine.
Caveat: I'm here to analyse craft, so positive/negative comments shouldn't be taken as endorsement/condemnation of specific acts.
I'm going to look at the first three minutes of Jimmy Carr's 2024 show Natural Born Killer on Netflix. Let's look at a transcript. Paragraph break every time there's an audience response (laughter OR cheer OR vocal response):
People say - you will have heard this - people say, “You can’t joke about anything these days.” Watch me now.
We’re gonna kick off our evening with some short, edgy jokes, get the measure of each other, see if we’re gonna be friends.
Eyes down, everyone. Let’s fucking do this.
I bought my girlfriend a bath bomb. I say that - toaster.
She was shocked.
When my girlfriend found out I’d been drunk driving, she hit the roof.
[physical performance]
I was in Hong Kong. Their Chinatown is fucking massive.
I’ve got a half brother. Sorry. Transgender.
It’s a cliché I suppose, but I used to tell jokes at school to stop kids from bullying me. They used to shout mean things like, “Get out of our playground, you paedophile!”
I’ve got feelings.
My art teacher at school was a paedophile. So it really was back to the drawing board.
I write a lot of my jokes on my iPhone, but the autocorrect is always fucking up the lunchline.
Sure.
Everyone in here’s got a mobile phone, right?
And they’re incredible. They’ve done so much for us. But it has come at a price. They’ve robbed us of out ability to concentrate, those mobile phones, yeah? A good example. Last week, I had to do a simple piece of mental arithmetic, ‘course, I couldn’t do it in my head, needed the app on the phone. Before I’d even opened the calculator app, I checked my email, updated my Instagram, and hit a cyclist.
Are you aware of the mobile phone secretly listening to your conversation?
It’s creepy, right? You’ll be chatting to a friend about the good old days, and then for the next two weeks, you’re bombarded with adverts for anal beads and butt plugs?
My girlfriend likes to be tied up, but it turns out, really scared of railway tracks.
You might be expecting a brutal takedown of this material from me, yes? But actually, I'm only here to analyse the craft. And Jimmy Carr ... is very good at the actual craft of standup comedy.
If you hate his comedy, consider this an explanation of why he's nonetheless ludicrously famous and popular.
Let's take a look.
People say - you will have heard this - people say, “You can’t joke about anything these days.” Watch me now.
An extremely efficient opening to the show. One of Jimmy Carr's main promises as a comedian is the erotics of breaking taboos.
And hey, a lot of people like taboo-breaking comedy. How many Tumblr posts have you reblogged today that make light of serious subjects? It's a human pleasure, and Jimmy Carr is offering precisely that kind of comedy.
The laugh comes from anticipation. People are excited for dark jokes, and Carr promises to deliver. The laugh's bigger because of his facial expression - he smiles mischiveously, his eyes are wide with wonder.
There's science here. When we smile, we actually feel happier! When we see someone else smile, we feel a fraction of that same happiness. Carr's smile makes the audience happy.
We’re gonna kick off our evening with some short, edgy jokes, get the measure of each other, see if we’re gonna be friends.
And this is the second half of the promise. YES, there will be offensive jokes - but that's because we're bonding. We're becoming friends. This line gets a big cheer.
"We're gonna kick off our evening" is quite a formal introduction. Carr is quite an unusual presence on stage. Unlike many dark comedians, there's a stiffness to his body language.
He's made this work for him by embracing it. He wears a suit, and he talks like a host or presenter. This gives the show a sense of structure and classiness.
Eyes down, everyone. Let’s fucking do this.
Another cheer. Carr starts the show by encouraging cheers before getting to the jokes.
Comedy shows go better if the audience feels comfortable laughing out loud. A quiet audience can be encouraged to laugh louder by being encouraged to make OTHER loud noises too. This is why comedians sometimes as audiences to cheer, or to practice whooping and applauding.
"Eyes down" is what a teacher would say in an exam. Another example of formal language, but it's also doing something else.
Exams are an ordeal. You're in your seat for a fixed amount of time, focusing intently.
Carr is a one-liner comedian, and it's hard to focus on a full hour of one-liners. "Eyes down" subtly indicates to the audience that, yes, in a way, we have to emotionally prepare ourselves for a show that won't be the easiest to enjoy!
I bought my girlfriend a bath bomb. I say that - toaster.
A lot of Carr's jokes work like this. On the surface, a misogynistic joke about violence and suicide - but really, it's just a play on words. Carr has a reputation for offensive comedy, but a surprising number of gags only seem offensive because of their context.
Imagine, for instance, a tumblr post that read:
"i'm depressed, so i bought myself a bath bomb. (toaster)"
It's the same joke, and it's still incredibly dark, but the misogynistic context is gone. You might tag it with "cw suicide" when you reblog, but tumblr would enjoy this joke, no?
A lot of the craft in Carr's work is in his physicality and timing. He slows down to deliver the words "bath bomb". When he says the word "toaster", he holds out his hands to indicate the size of a toaster. These tricks help the audience absorb the information more quickly.
Slowing down for "bath bomb" is similar to writing text in bold. It draws attention, so we know it's important. Miming holding a toaster is a tiny visual clue that helps us imagine a toaster sooner, so the joke lands harder.
As the audience laugh, Carr's eyes dart around, as though to check if he got away with the offensive joke. This makes him more likable - like a naughty child who's played a prank, rather than a grown man who's made a joke about encouraging his girlfriend to take her own life.
She was shocked.
Delivered with absolute silliness. Comedians call this kind of joke a "topper" - a short extra punchline on top of the previous joke. It's efficient, because it doesn't need additional exposition.
And it's just a pun! This is the kind of punchline we see in children's comics. But attached to the earlier joke, it has the affectation of a dark, edgy joke.
When my girlfriend found out I’d been drunk driving, she hit the roof.
A subtle half-laugh on the word "roof" encourages the audience to notice that this is the punchline. Laughter is contagious, so comedians will sometimes allow themselves to laugh on stage to increase the response to a joke.
[physical performance]
As with most of his jokes, Carr keeps performing physically during the laughter. He does a little shudder. Similar to darting his eyes around, this is a physical acknowledgement that he's just said something horrible, which helps the audience enjoy the joke.
It's a charming enough performance to get a second, smaller laugh.
I was in Hong Kong. Their Chinatown is fucking massive.
Now listen. I actually really like this joke.
Carr emphasises the word massive, and holds out his hands to reinforce the size. As before, this helps the audience absorb the punchline more quickly.
I’ve got a half brother. Sorry. Transgender.
Playing on the phrase "half brother", which normally means step-sibling, taking advantage of his audience's understanding of transgender identities, which is vague and incomplete.
To many - especially older audiences, and more conservative audiences - binary trans identities and non-binary or genderqueer/genderfluid identities are all considered the same confusing mass of somethings. It's strange and alien and a bit worrying, so it's reassuring when a comedian makes a dismissive joke about them.
"Don't worry," this joke says, "It's FINE you don't really understand your trans relative - it's just a bunch of confusing nonsense, isn't it?"
The joke gets a HUGE cheer and round of applause. I think it's a fair criticism that a joke getting that kind of reaction isn't helpful to the trans community. That's a bigoted cheer, and a responsible comedian would consider cutting the joke from the show.
As an aside, it's not a strong line - as with the toaster joke, you could use a slightly different punchline and tell this joke to a child. "I have a half-brother- he's really short!" But Carr has made this a trans joke, making the silly wordplay seem edgy and controversial.
It’s a cliché I suppose, but I used to tell jokes at school to stop kids from bullying me. They used to shout mean things like, “Get out of our playground, you paedophile!”
This joke is longer than the others so far, and that's on purpose. Comedy is funnier when we mix up different types of joke. Too many short jokes in a row is hard to absorb. So here's a longer one, to give the audience the chance to relax their minds.
The joke itself is known as a "pull-back-and-reveal". As in cinema, we're given a scene, but then we pull back to find out new information, changing the context of the joke.
Jimmy Carr told jokes to children. We assume he was a child himself at the time - but no! He was an adult! It was inappropriate for him to be there!
This is a very common type of joke in standup, especially among one-liner comics, and very new comedians. "The other day, I was listening to music on my headphones while masturbating. And then I got off the bus." New information changing the context.
I’ve got feelings.
Another topper! This is a new type of punchline. Most of Carr's jokes are wordplay, but this one's absurd. The joke is that he was hurt by the cruel children calling him a paedophile. It's a bizarre idea, so it gets a laugh.
On a meta level, it's funny for Carr to say he was hurt by being called a paedophile, when his own jokes are often cruel in exactly the same way.
My art teacher at school was a paedophile. So it really was back to the drawing board.
Here, the physical performance is essential for the joke to work.
The implication is that children would keep their backs against the drawing board to deny their art teacher access to their behinds. Carr mimes standing with his back to a wall, and widens his eyes as though frightened. When the laughter comes, he turns down the corners of his mouth and darts his eyes around to emphasise the performance of fear.
I write a lot of my jokes on my iPhone, but the autocorrect is always fucking up the lunchline.
Another joke that could be in a children's joke book, but with a swear word so it still feels adult.
Carr performs a little tutting motion to sell the punchline.
Sure.
I have to praise Carr here. He's an extremely experienced live performer. The lunchline joke gets a longer laugh than he expected, and he allows himself to look surprised, then grins, then says "sure", and this gets a second laugh.
He's reminding us that this is a live experience, and that if the audience reacts unexpectedly, his performance will change accordingly.
This is one of the most powerful tools in a live comedian's arsenal. Why bother seeing live comedy when we have access to so much entertainment on our phones? Well, because we get the thrill of seeing the interaction between the performer and the environment. Not just crowd work, but seeing choices made in the moment in response to stimuli.
This is why we like streamers, isn't it? The authentic reaction of someone live in the moment.
Everyone in here’s got a mobile phone, right?
Another bid for audience volume - of course they have a mobile phone, but Carr encourages everyone to cheer to confirm this.
And they’re incredible. They’ve done so much for us. But it has come at a price. They’ve robbed us of out ability to concentrate, those mobile phones, yeah? A good example. Last week, I had to do a simple piece of mental arithmetic, ‘course, I couldn’t do it in my head, needed the app on the phone. Before I’d even opened the calculator app, I checked my email, updated my Instagram, and hit a cyclist.
Longest joke so far! Another opportunity for minds to relax, so the audience isn't overwhelmed by one-liners.
This is another pull-back-and-reveal. We didn't realise Carr was DRIVING when using his phone!
This is also another famous comedy technique - the "rule of three". List three things, and the third thing will be a change of paradigm. Different from the first two things, and therefore funny.
"Three things I learned at school - always do your homework, never annoy the headteacher, and SOMETHING ABSURD THAT YOU WOULDN'T EXPECT ME TO LEARN AT SCHOOL lol"
Carr checked his email, updated Instagram, so we think he'll have done a third thing on his phone. But no! He hit a cyclist! That is so different from the first two!
Are you aware of the mobile phone secretly listening to your conversation?
Another cheer, another chance to encourage more volume from the audience. But there's another effect here. Not everyone DOES know about phones secretly listening to you. But when most of the audience cheers, the rest of the audience accepts that this must be true.
It's also a chance for people to absorb the premise. It's easy to make quick jokes about phone apps (becaue people use them every day) or schoolteachers (because everyone's had extensive experience of schoolteachers), but most people don't think about spyware every day. So encourage the audience to cheer, to get used to the idea that this is the subject of the next joke.
It’s creepy, right? You’ll be chatting to a friend about the good old days, and then for the next two weeks, you’re bombarded with adverts for anal beads and butt plugs?
Carr delivers this joke unlike his previous jokes - sounding like a question at the end. His mime conveys "what's THAT all about?", a physical performance we haven't yet seen. The novelty keeps the audience engaged.
The joke itself is another pull-back-and-reveal - when Carr mentioned the good old days he experienced with his friend, we didn't imagine for a second that he meant anal sex toys.
My girlfriend likes to be tied up, but it turns out, really scared of railway tracks.
Another pull-back-and-reveal, because we thought he meant BDSM etc etc.
Also a visual joke. Standup benefits from strong visuals, since otherwise all the audience sees is a performer on stage the whole time. We can SEE the railway tracks, and a woman tied to it. Maybe we imagine Carr with a long moustache, looking like a classic villain.
It’s interesting to reflect on why this style of show didn’t work for me: part of it might well have been that this particular style of darker humour just doesn’t work for me personally. But it is good to reflect on the craft behind it!
