February 22, 2010
- Global Pop -
Just a little aside today. I don’t really like talking about the day job on here, but I got an email from one of my colleges in China. I’d asked about his trip back home during last week’s Chinese New Year holiday, and he mentioned that the trains were absolutely packed. Imagine 1.3 billion people all taking the train back to their hometown (some of them taking 36 hours to get home). LA road rage ain’t got nothing on that. Here’s a business tip for you MBA types out there: intra-China air flights for cheap. Find a way to make it happen and you’ve got money in the bank…
Anyway, this colleague of mine used the phrase “Oh my Lady Gaga!” as a stand-in for “Oh my God”. Certainly worth a laugh and a bit strange as well. I then found out from another co-worker that this came from a Chinese pop-starlet using the phrase on television. I googled it out of curiosity and found out that it actually came from an episode of Ugly Betty.
This was the first I’d heard of it, but seriously, to have this small bit of American pop-culture reference coming to me via China, well, it sent me for a loop. So I thought I’d post a little run-down of the story, along with an image of a globe with a face on it exploding. Something to imply both the global aspect and the head-exploding aspect. Something kind of like this:
mixed with this:
Not the most original idea, I know, but that’s why this category’s called “ramblings“. Anyway, the funny thing was, I couldn’t find any image like that. Plenty of each option, but nothing with them combined. However, a few pages deep into google image search for explode head globe, I can across this image:
And I decided I had best stop there. More evidence of that endlessly echoing rabbit hole that is the internet…
Always good to start the day with a bowl of High Weirdness :)
*
I have to say there’s always been a weird vibe about both Ugly Betty and Lady Gaga, and the Mulder in me wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find them both involved in some advanced global mind-control ‘conspiracy’.
Comment by speedbird — February 23, 2010 @ 4:03 am
… Man, how I miss fighting the dreariness of Communism.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dreary
Comment by speedbird — February 23, 2010 @ 6:06 pm
Zen, literature, and sparkling boobs. This is why one can’t miss a daily dose of reclusland.
Comment by Jaimin — February 24, 2010 @ 12:33 am
>> This is why one can’t miss a daily dose of reclusland.
Well said!
>> … start the day …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Raiders
Comment by speedbird — February 24, 2010 @ 3:41 am
I believe these are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation that’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder and don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
- Paul Simon, c. 1986.
Comment by speedbird — February 25, 2010 @ 5:25 pm
Thanks for the enthusiasm guys, makes me smile!
You know, I remember a while back someone on twitter said that Lady Gaga seemed to be the new MahaShakti, which I suppose means the embodiment of the goddess energy, or a least a larger symbol relative to other embodiments. But yeah, there’s something strange about how many people seem to hate her and love her at the same time. People are weird though. Wouldn’t put it past being one of those things-beneath-the-surface-that-you-can’t-look-directly-at-if-you-want-to-see-it kind of thing. She is interesting, I’ll give her that…
Ugly Betty I don’t know too much about, but that’s a sort of girl power show I think? Lots of women in power (in the fashion industry?) with men running around (some/most of the gay?) doing their bidding in fear? More goddess rising energy there too. No surprise they reference one another I suppose.
As for dreariness, this is probably one of my most favorite out-of-context sentences ever:
The word has lost its original sense of “dripping blood.”
Nice call, I’d say the dripping of forgotten blood sums up the Cold War pretty well…
If that’s what I’m known for, I’ll die a happy man. But to fair, the name of the image file was “lady_gaga_exploding_boobs.jpg” when I found it. Don’t know if I like exploding or sparkling better. I’ll have to sit and think about it for a while… :)
Speedbird, you’re on a roll here. I am fairly certain I’ve had those space raider things before, we visited the UK quite a bit when I was a kid. And that’s probably one of my favorite Paul Simon songs of all time. Staccato signals of constant information indeed, indeed, indeed…
As I’ve learned this week, it is highly important to leave the lasers and stick with the jungle for a few days.
Comment by Ian — February 27, 2010 @ 9:20 am