light spin

 Jarmusch's Mystery Train brought to life in one picture: Japanese tourists in Bethlehem.

 The Onion: U.S. Children Getting Majority Of Antibiotics From McDonald's Meat. I wonder what nutritional components will be in the new Vanilla Coke.

 Speaking of fast food, according to the L.A. Weekly the hottest new memoir is from a Kentucky fast food janitor. 11 Years, 9 Months, and 5 Days: Burger Store Episodes and Frustrations is basically a poorly written diary from a disgruntled fast food employee. The vanity press that published it has a sample chapter. For more fast food escapades, see Letters To Wendy (a collection of peculiar Wendy's customer comment cards) or the Fast Food Simulator (the day in the life of a fast food employee).

 As many of you know, Google Answers debuted this week. The idea is that you post questions and pay people to find the answers. Or, conversely, you become a Google Researcher who gets paid to answer questions. An example question (with answer) that might be an indication of where this all will go: How do I know if my penis is big?

 The Sightseer's Guide To Engineering is a database of supposedly great engineering accomplishments. Here's the entry for the Mall of America.

 Natalie Portman: college scribe. And here's the letter.

 Are men afraid of successful women? In her much-commented-upon April 10 column, Maureen Dowd thinks so. Bruce Epstein at the Observer retorts.

 MetaMap. Nice design and a good resource for surveillance and privacy.

 I've been telling Chuck, who is going to become a senior writer at Spin next month, that the magazine has really fallen apart in the last couple years. (He disagrees.) There are numerous reasons why this might have happened, but an interesting take is to blame the culture itself. Alan Light, who just left Spin to start a new magazine, does that in this interview:

I think that Spin historically covered mainstream artists -- it's just a different mainstream. [...] I'm not going to apologize for doing a Limp Bizkit cover that sold really well when Rolling Stone hasn't done a Limp Bizkit cover. I think it was done in the spirit of feeling our way through, because it's hard. Spin's not a big magazine company; we don't have a lot of research, marketing or weapons to go to. All we could do is try to gauge what it was that people wanted the magazine to be and do the best version of the magazine.