Salvation Army thrift store receives an unlikely donation

ArtDaily.org reports that a Salvation Army outlet in Houston, Texas, has received an unlikely donation:  six works of art by the surrealist, Salvador Dali.

The Salvation Army is so very, very traditional. Salvador Dali … isn’t.

Here’s a detail from one of the donated works:

The donor stipulated that the proceeds of the sale must be used in a program which rehabilitates adults with addictions.

ABC has video online. I got a chuckle out of the shopper saying, “I don’t know what is the meaning for this.”

Scene-stealing squirrel

This squirrel, photographed in Banff (Canada), is the latest internet phenomenon:

The photo is from the Globe and Mail. Jackson and Melissa Brandts were taking a photo of themselves in a scenic location, when the squirrel developed an unwonted interest in their camera. The Brandts were able to take a series of photos of the interloping squirrel because the camera is equipped with a remote-controlled shutter.

Melissa submitted the photo to a National Geographic competition. From there, the photo was picked up by BuzzFeed, which started a photoshop contest for its readers.

Here are three of my favourite entries from BuzzFeed:

(click to enlarge — or proceed to BuzzFeed and scroll through dozens of entries)

Little eyes in the sky

What kids say:

Hey, mommy! The trees look like broccoli!

— when our plane has just taken off.

Now we’re back on earth!

— when our plane has just landed.

And of course, she had to share the extraordinary view with her pal.

William Shatner performs the poetry that is Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin outdid herself in the incoherence of her farewell speech. But it gets even better when William Shatner turns the speech into a beatnik poetry reading.

Here’s the relevant paragraph of the speech, as transcribed by Huffington Post:

And getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America soaring through nature’s finest show. Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it’s the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs? And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now, with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins. It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future. …

Classic! If they should happen to pull the video from youtube — in the USA, you can view Shatner’s rendering on TPMtv.

Wrestling with pigs

Ross Douthat reviews a book:

Helprin variously describes his foes as “wacked-out muppets,” “crapulous professors,” “regular users of hallucinogenic drugs,” “a My Little Pony version of the Khmer Rouge,” “a million geeks in airless basements,” “mouth-breathing morons in backwards baseball caps and pants that fall down” and so forth. The overall effect is like listening to an erudite gentleman employing $20 words while he screams at a bunch of punk kids to get off his front lawn.

I wear lipstick / You’re a dipstick

This is simply hilarious:  “Don’t Speak For Me, Sarah Palin” sung to the tune of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.” A masterpiece of the genre — whatever precisely the genre is.
 

I keep thinking we’re done with Sarah Palin, here at [A]mazed and [Be]mused. But when you’re a blogger, Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving.