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The best detail about the Senate parliamentarian is not that he is a mysterious figure with a question mark for a head. Or that his last interview was 22 years ago. Or that Senate Historian Donald Ritchie has only seen him in the cafeteria a couple times in 30 years. Or even that, um, some part of the future of health care has landed in his inbox.

It’s that Donald Frumin, interpreter of procedural arcana, sometimes likes to wears cut-off jeans.

Directed energy missile defense works, for the first time.

Very funny. (Foreordained at this point, but still worth noting!)

There was Gerald (and Sara) Murphy:

Looking comfortably mechanical at the Comte Étienne de Beaumont’s Automotive Ball in 1924.

P.s. How awesome is it that there was such a costume ball?

P.p.s. Looks like Gerald’s costume came complete with a revved up engine under the hood!

All in one story!

It is the tale of a third-grade indiscretion that also happens to also be an economic parable for our time. It involves snacks. In addition to the above snacks, there are appearances by classics — Cheetos, Fritos, Jolly Ranchers — and some peripheral favorites, like Nutter Butters. There is a Chunky. And by the way: remember when Chunky came out and it was billed as this long-anticipated new development, a Great Leap Forward in the chocolate bar like nothing you’ve ever seen? And then it hit the counters and was thicker, yes, but also smaller than other chocolate bars while costing the same? Now that’s marketing. “It’s chunkier!”

A version of this story also appeared on Planet Money/Morning Edition. But then I wrote it down, and now it’s as official as it gets. A humor piece. Usually I spend months reporting stories about weirdos, but now the weirdo is me. And there I am, right across from Biden and Spitzer. Now I just have to get hair plugs, and have paid trysts while wearing only my sock garters!

I am going to guess that there is no file on this usage in Nintendo’s Product Safety Department.

You gotta respect it: dude knows what he wants — and just asks for it: …more

Martian Landscapes! In orbit 187 miles up, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is taking incredible photos of the surface of the red planet:

Here are dozens more equally entrancing images.

Not to mention Leni Riefenstahl. If Berlin has no mountains, why not build one?

Architect Jakob Tigges suggests putting Berlin back on the monumentalist map by erecting a 3,000-foot mountain on the site of the recently decommissioned Tempelhof airport. Summer hiking, winter skiing, Teutonic myth-making — all convenient to the S-Bahn!

A nifty idea that will never happen, and not just because the architect’s own video presentation features him, along with digital images of the Berg plan, set to Looney Tunes cartoon music. But that doesn’t stop this imaginary mountain from tweeting! And the pictures are neat: …more

Riddle me this, art-cognoscenti? Why is Frederic Church not as well known as William Turner? Does the Hudson not inspire as great art as (my alma mater) Heidelberg? Is it just that Church was American?

Twilight in the Wilderness:

Such is the theme of a group show at Royal/T. In Bed Together is what it’s called. I think it’s metaphorical. …more

Is something I’d like to see: …more

So there was a great piece in the LA Times last week about Art Laboe, an 84-year-old veteran radio host in Los Angeles whose long history and oldies show has forged a deep cross-cultural connection with the Latino community.

Laboe may be old news to some, but that’s all the more reason to say hats off to the LA Times for putting a story on him up front. Better late than never. (Even the LA Weekly hasn’t done a cover on Laboe, although Ben Quiñones has mentioned him several times.) Esmeralda Bermudez’s story was well-told and refreshingly written for the stuffy ol’ front page. Human interest can have real heart. …more

Joshuah Bearman has an article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about the burgeoning independent video game developer scene.

Basically, technology and distribution has enabled a do-it-yourself, ‘zine movement in video games. It’s a raucous avant garde, and wants to upset its medium’s establishment while also — dare one say it — making video games that aspire to artistic greatness.

Profiling the scene for the magazine, Josh spent some time at the Game Developer’s Conference, during with the indie designers convened in a corner of the Moscone Center. This was the site of an incredible lecture by an indie gamer named Cactus, which was one of Josh’s favorite scenes — until it got cut at the last minute! Hey, it happens. But thanks to the magic of the internet, such tragedies can now be corrected by allowing resected prose to appear here, on the Rumpus! …more

Because this video mural, installed in an elevator in the new Standard in New York, is mesmerising.

…more

Looks like they don’t have Noël Godin covered. I love a scoop! So I submitted the following: …more

or talk in riddles, or compose weird rhymes about their crimes?

This story, by this great writer, is like a real life Silence of the Lambs!

Find part 1 here.

A while back, as a nice gesture, my pal Sean McDonald gave me George Saunders’ (at the time) new book, The Braindead Megaphone. It was in galley, since Sean edited it. I was excited. Here in my hands, was one of the few perks of being in a publishing-related field — an advance copy book! And free! Plus, I like that George Saunders guy too.

But I had no idea how much more I would like Saunders when I read his non-fiction, nor did I even know that he wrote non-fiction …more

I guess I finally rode McSweeney’s coattails into a graduate English department: McSweeney’s 17 forms a key part of the honors thesis of one Flora Feltham, at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Some time ago, she emailed me the following: …more

Did you know that for 800 million years after the Big Bang there was darkness — until the re-ionization of the gas throughout the universe enabled the first rays of starlight to shine?

It’s true! Until recently, we hadn’t been able to see much from this dark period. And then some gamma rays revealed a giant cosmic explosion from about 630 million years after the Big Bang. This is the most distant and oldest celestial discovery. We never saw it before because the radiation from the event/object took all those billions of years to make it this far. When did that high-energy evidence arrive? Oh, they showed up around last April. Hello!

Travel writing is mostly bad.

It’s partly the fault of the form; contemporary travel magazines are filled with 10 Best New Hotels/Bars/Spas on Yet Another Tony Exclusive Island or How to Eat Fabulously in This Most Glorious Setting You Will Never See.

Sometimes, quality sneaks in. And every so often the glossies still let Paul Theroux into the works so as to keep their bonafides burnished. But even he (I’m going to guess) doesn’t get 15,000 words any more, which is what you really need to tell a story about a really far off place. …more

Just getting around to reading David Rohde’s epic, five-part series on his capture by, and escape from, the Taliban, which — along with the nifty interactive add-on feature — is as gripping as one might expect.

I hate to say it, but what a lucky break — from a writing and reporting perspective. Months face to face with the Taliban yields a much richer picture of such an enemy than could otherwise be gleaned from regular reporting, no matter how dedicated and diligent one might be. Spending time in close quarters yields unique detail, such as the Taliban’s use of Hannah Montana-branded bedding (Rohde’s own blanket was a Barbie comforter), and their predilection for The Beatles. The best part of the piece is sort of an anti-Stockholm syndrome, where Rohde hates his captors, but is forced by monotony to sing for them — Sinatra, Springsteen, and the Fab Four: …more

More than forty years after George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead made critics question the future of a culture that could produce such a thing, that future is here – and it is full of zombies.

There are zombie comics, zombie conventions, Rob Zombie Inc., and a Simpsons episode in which Bart informs Lisa that the zombies prefer to be called “living impaired.” There is even a growing movement of participatory fan-fueled performance-art “zombie walks” — BYOB (Bring Your Own Brains!) — where people don elaborately shredded clothing, powder themselves into a pall with makeup, add lots of blood, and spontaneously shamble together in public places. …more

Your Halloween Cake is ready! …more

And other (the truth about Twitter) elegant (venn diagram of drugs) infographics (a time-line of media scare stories). Because information must be free — and beautiful. …more

Now here’s something you don’t see every day: a thoughtful, historical essay several thousand words long on the Huffington Post. The piece is a concise history of terrorism, or rather, of the modern chapter of terrorism, beginning in the nineteenth century, when political dissidence was first expressed as violence not just against the state but also citizens. The culprits then were anarchists, the pince-nez and mustachioed kind whose bombs really were big round iron balls with fuses, just like in the cartoons. Along the way, the article draws a convincingly qualified parallel between the extremists and reactionaries of yesteryear and today, and between the morale of both stories: blunt repression always makes it worse.

At first I thought: well, if the Huff Po can produce writing like that, maybe this unpaid blogger free-for-all isn’t so bad after all. Then I realized that reason the piece is so good is that the writer, Johann Hari, is a wunderkind political columnist in England. And the fact that he chose (or had no choice other than) to contribute a moderate-length essay to the Huff Po rather than a magazine that can pay him (and where such writing might stand out as something worth reading) only sends me right back to my suspicious concerns about Huff Po. Nevertheless, I guess it’s nice that such thoughtful work can find it’s place alongside Tara Reid’s plastic surgery scars.

Who doesn’t like urban camouflage in all forms? Well, let’s take it up a notch! …more

Readers and listeners agree: the tale of the weightlifting snowman story is tops.

Like the majestic phoenix arising from the ashes, this story was first written for the NY Times magazine (for John Hodgman, back when he edited the now-defunct True Life Tales page), where it was cruelly rejected and then re-born as a segment for This American Life.

Originally thought by me to be just a trifle — a funny little ditty from the front lines of modern life as a long term renter with an eccentric superintendent — this story has grown legs, and has even achieved a certain cult status, inspiring the winning design in last year’s This American Life t-shirt contest.

Along the way, the weightlifting snowman also found it’s way onto a series of Post-it Notes, thanks to Arthur Jones and Starlee Kine, creators of the Post-it Note reading series, a live show wherein stories are read alongside the genius and complimentary illustrations by Arthur. Recently Arthur started compiling the stories from the various readings over the years, and our number came up! Please enjoy.