funny

When a website defies both logic and easy description (e.g., Scanwiches), you know you're in for a treat, and so it is with the "I Can Read Movies" Series by Mitch "Spacesick" Ansara. The growing collection of film-based book covers designed with a Saul Bass/Alvin Lustig flair imagines "novelizations of major pictures" such as Ernest Goes to Camp, Space Jam, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory—in Japanese (English subtitle: "Mr. Wonka! Just Punisher of Coddled Children"). Click on each cover for a bonus comment/film quote. In the case of Wonka, it's "You're going to love this...just love it," which should be said with a maniacal Gene Wilder gleam in one's eye.

So goes the math at one Gaza Strip zoo. In a story ready made for ReadyMade, officials at the Marah Land Zoo decided to outsmart the animal import restrictions that had left their establishment woefully lacking in zebras by stocking up on white donkeys and black paint (OK, technically black hair dye). According to an Agence France Presse report, the donkey-to-zebra makeover is a two-day process done by a professional painter "and entails the use of sticky tape and French-made hair coloring" (although we have a feeling that the zoo director told the reporter from Der Spiegel that it was German-made). The zoo's DIY zebras are a hit with patrons, who can also visit an aging camel, two ostriches, and a selection of birds.

After our report yesterday about the Georgia O'Keeffe-mania sweeping the nation, we got word that Joan Allen, who plays O'Keeffe in the upcoming Lifetime biopic, would be the lead guest on Tuesday's episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. We made sure to tune in and after a round of John Madden Karaoke and a dynamite segment that interpreted the facial expressions of President Obama (turns out the chief executive thinks often about novelty juice drinks, notably Hi-C Ectocooler), Fallon welcomed Allen. When talk to turned to O'Keeffe, he admitted to not knowing much about her, including how she acted or spoke. "I never actually got footage to hear how she talked, except as an older woman," said Allen. That gave Fallon an idea. "It kind of gives you creative license. You can make her sound like whatever you want," he said. "And then everyone would be doing impressions of your impression." Fallon decided to demonstrate with a couple of O'Keeffe impressions that were enough to make us choke on our Hi-C Ectocooler. We've posted video of the full episode below. Fallon channels O'Keeffe at 24:41. Then keep watching for the tale of Allen's memorable encounter with a trio of donkeys when filming the movie in New Mexico.

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To end this writer's day on a fun and funny note, we turn to a weird batch of strange found by way of Transracial. It's the blog Damien Hirst: You Got to Love Art! which is run by someone named Damien Hirst from the central European country of Slovenia. On the blog, it highlights new work by the artist with names like "The Tunnel of Love Imagined by a Stunning Supermodel Just Before She Leaped From Her Swank Downtown Apartment to Her Death in an Apparent Suicide," which is an empty black film canister, and "A Not Too Absurdly Impossible Possibility of Imagining Life as the Absence of Life" which consists of three pieces of doll clothing. What's most surprising is that each piece listed on the site is available for just £1. There's also Nothingthing.com, wherein Damien Hirst explains his work:

I am Damien Hirst. I am an unknown artist from Slovenia. I am doing art by doing art. My art glorifies the futileness of being an artist. It's a parody of the belief in nothing. My purpose is to demystify everything that was mystified in the name of art. Art is a religion and I am an atheist. My goal is the appropriation of art as an intellectual interpretation to reverse the process of applying artistic value to objects and concepts. I am not just doing art. I am doing art by doing art. Which means that I am basically undoing art. I am Damien Hirst and I am artistic.

If art can be a urinal, a dead animal cut in half or even human shit then everything opposite to that has to be art as well.

We're not sure who is behind all of this (maybe these guys?), but it's a really funny, impressive batch of work. So much so that even Hirst himself, assuming it isn't really him to begin with, might enjoy and appreciate it.

While it's difficult to find a photo of the late Robert Rasuchenberg without a puckish grin, Jasper Johns tends to confront cameras with an expression of steely bemusement that stops just short of a glower. We like to think of it as encaustic personified. But don't mistake Johns's intensity for humorlessness, notes James Rosenquist in his memoir, Painting Below Zero, due out in October from Knopf. The New York Post's Page Six yesterday offered this excerpt from the book in which Rosenquist recounts a delightful Johnsian joke.

While [Johns] was working on a project with Edward Albee, he told me this joke using his high ecclesiastical voice. [He goes]: 'This turtle was walking along and it was robbed by two snails. The turtle called the police, and when they asked him [what happened], the turtle said, 'Well I don't know, everything happened too fast.' He's an eccentric.

Lucida Sky with Diamonds. Bauhaus (in the Middle of Our Street). Rock the Caslon. I Wanna Bold Your Sans. Nope, this isn't the set list from designer/rock star Chip Kidd's latest Artbreak gig, they're fontsongs, a Twitter thread (#fontsongs) that challenges pun-loving design types to insert typeface names into popular song titles. Call it Textual Healing. The typographical phenomenon is going strong with recent gems such as Goudy My Dreams, Get into my Car and Garamond (My Wayward Son), but don't delay in tweeting a fontsong of your own today, before the trend changes cultural course. One Twitter user is advocating a switch to fontfilms. First on the list? Back to the Futura.

We understand that you're saving the latest issue of The New Yorker (and the promise of a swell fact piece by Patricia Marx about the wacky world of high-end timepieces as she reports from Baselworld) for your imminent Memorial Day weekend plane/train/car/van/burro ride to Bilbao/Sag Harbor/Hoboken/Niagara Falls/The Grand Canyon, but we simply couldn't resist sharing this excellent piece—a bite-sized Shouts & Murmurs that sneaks in among this week's Talk of the Town casuals—by George Meyer about the wondrous absurdities of frequent flyer program branding. And so we present "The Privileged Few." Return your seat to its upright position, stow your tray table, and take a read:

Good afternoon. This is your pre-boarding announcement for Flight 505 to Milwaukee. All first-class and business-class passengers, passengers needing special assistance, and families travelling with small children may now board the aircraft.

We also invite any Platinum Club, ProTravel Select, Apogee Plus, and Sigma Alliance cardholders to board at this time.

Thank you for waiting. We now welcome members of Skyline Advantage, Priority Partners, Front Row Preferred, Exclusa, Summit V.I.P., Head of the Line, A-List Connections, Imperial Privilege, InCrOwD, Icarus Prime Choice, Top Rank Silk, and Top Rank Crystal Reserve. You may now board the aircraft.

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Our interest in Our Nation's Capital usually involves whatever's cooking at the Corcoran, the National Building Museum, or the Hirshhorn, but then we saw this photo taken by Kyle Samperton at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. The Saturday night gathering of a whopping 2,500 journalists, politicians, diplomats, celebrities, and a smattering of fashion designers (including Donatella Versace, Narciso Rodriguez, and Jason Wu) brought out rocker—and Obama fan—Jon Bon Jovi, who had the good sense to stand proximal to what we recognized as an Andy Warhol-style pop art graphic of Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council. To recap, that's Bon Jovi, Warhol, and Summers. As George Constanza would say, "Worlds are colliding!" Our brother blog, Fishbowl DC, has more images of the "politi-pop" artwork, which adorned the walls at the Atlantic/NJ reception, here.

Back in September of last year, things seemed to finally be going well for the World Trade Center rebuilding and memorial constructing. Then, of course, the real scope of the financial fall started to loom over everyone's heads and anything anywhere that was being built started to slow way, way down. This effect finally crept into the WTC location, as The Port Authority of New Work and New Jersey has come out to say that while One World Trade Center and the memorial/museum were still on track (what that means, we're not sure, since it hasn't been on track since day one), they were expecting that it might take some three decades before all the surrounding buildings might get constructed, given how there's not much money out there right now to start funding big projects like this. Fortunately, we can all laugh about this, as The Onion put together a rare architecture-themed American Voices pieces, asking their usual batch of regular people what they think of this announced delay. Only three to read, but each very funny.

Because it's die-cut, foil-stamped, embossed, and expensive ("about four dollars a card"). Because it took 25 years to design. Because it doesn't fit in a Rolodex. Because it doesn't belong in a Rolodex. Because it's on card stock so thick and creamy that it can slice cheese. Because there's a surprise inside. Because it demonstrates "incredible marketing capability." Because it's the pride and maniacal joy of this results-oriented entrepreneur, the Patrick Bateman of event planning. Thanks to Design Observer for sending us his way.