Link Banana

Yoni Brenner offers a playful imagining of a meeting at which Stonehenge, now thought to have been a memorial to the dead, was discussed.

Now, me well aware of controversy surrounding new Og Memorial Complex, also known as Massive-Rocks-Arranged-in-Mysterious-Circle. Some say it eyesore. Some say it waste of massive rocks. Some like concept of mysterious circle but find execution pedestrian. On behalf of Memorial Committee for Remembering of Og, me want to take opportunity to address concerns directly, and unpack some of artistic decisions involved in approving project like Massive-Rocks-Arranged-in-Mysterious-Circle.

Andy Borowitz has some (morbid) fun with the soon-to-launch “Ask a Jihadist” column authored by Al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Dear Ayman al-Zawahiri:
I am a journalist for the U.S. publication Tiger Beat. When I heard you would be taking Web questions, I was like OMG, I totes have to write to him!!! Here are three questions we’re asking celebrities this month:
1. If you could be any character on “Gossip Girl,” who would you be?
2. Who would be a better friend, Lauren on “The Hills” or Ashley Tisdale in “High School Musical”?
3. Who is hotter, Zac Efron or Joe Jonas? (LOL)
—Stacy in Manhattan

Ayman al-Zawahiri writes:
May you and everyone at your magazine burn in Hell.

So says “Wolcott”:

“One hundred years from now, dessert items are made by flash-freezing beads of cream with liquid nitrogen, then storing them in subzero conditions. People enjoy these treats with great regularity, and often remark upon how delicious they taste.”

Also of note: a dispatch from the robot dominated future. (via BB)

A few weeks ago, This American Life (the radio version) played an excellent story (TAL episode/original) that Malcolm Gladwell performed at The Moth. At the end, Ira Glass says that The Moth is a place where “people come to tell both true stories and occasional tall tales.” If you’re like me, after hearing it you desperately wanted to know how much truth was in Gladwell’s story.

Jack Shafer decided to find out, and make himself into something of a grinch along the way:

A storyteller can’t have it both ways, instructing listeners to “look it up” while stretching the yarn beyond the breaking point or claiming that smuggling the “baffling” phrase into Post copy became “literally” an “obsession.” Gladwell’s method, and his decision to let This American Life air his tale, raises … well, new and troubling questions about his attitude toward his audience.

Speaking of war… Just to haunt your dreams, The Economist paints a vivid picture of quickly and easy the Hamas-Israel conflict could start a war to engulf the Middle East. Here’s hoping they’re wrong about this.

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, finds he can no longer resist pressure to end the rocket fire, a job that military men say can be achieved, if at all, only by a ground invasion. But ground warfare against Hamas’s guerrilla fighters in the teeming confines of Gaza will certainly kill many Palestinian civilians. That will tempt Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah in Lebanon, to help his fellow Islamists by opening a second front from Lebanon.

Of course, to weaken Hizbullah, Israel sees a need to attack Syria as well. Remember that, for now at least, this is all fiction. It’s best for all of us if it stays that way.

As you may know, Esquire has created something of a sensation by fictionalizing the last days of Heath Ledger’s life. I haven’t read it, and don’t intend to. But I liked what Vulture did with it:

Professor Betts: Now we have a short story by Ms. Taddeo, called “The Last Days of Heath Ledger.” It’s a fictionalized account of the death of a famous movie star.

Ginger: I didn’t get it?

Professor Betts: What do you mean?

Ginger: Like, the whole thing? He dies, but he keeps talking? Can you do that? Also, I think in a lot of places she was telling, not showing.

Alex: Well, I thought the entire story was a work of genius. All she had to go on was her imagination and an afternoon spent sitting in the Miro Cafe, and she gave us a brilliant look inside the mind of a guy who can pick up any girl he wants but still resents his fans!