Category: Lebowski

When They’ve Raised Hell, You’ll Know It.

“So, to quote J. K. Simmons in his magisterially wicked coda to Burn After Reading, ‘What did we learn, Palmer?’ Well, for my part, I learned a few things…More significantly, I learned — or rather re-learned — that the Coens have made an awful lot of really good movies. Out of all 16 features, I enjoyed re-watching all but two: The Ladykillers, which I have always considered their worst effort by orders of magnitude; and, somewhat to my surprise, The Hudsucker Proxy, which I’d always placed in their bottom tier, but which I had looked forward to giving another try.”

On the thirtieth anniversary of Blood Simple — and as we all await Hail Caesar! — The Atlantic‘s Chris Orr has revisited and ranked all sixteen Coen films in sixteen days. I’d quibble with some of the rankings of course — Lebowski and A Serious Man are top-shelf, imo, and Intolerable Cruelty is oft-overlooked — but anybody who has Miller’s Crossing atop their list is my kinda people. Character. Ethics.

Obviously, You’re Not a Golfer.

“The rug is a moveable barrier which move backwards to reveal more of the rug as the shot is repeatedly hit. Unrolling the rug really pulls the room together and starts one of the modes featured below.”

Speaking of the brothers, it might be a really good time to kidnap yourself, dude: The Dutch Pinball team just made us all privy to the new sh*t at a launch party for their all-new, fully licensed, and very spiffy Big Lebowski pinball machine — available 2Q, 2015 for the ransom of 8500 simoleons (tho’ for your information, the Supreme Court has roundly rejected multi-ball.)

Here’s the official site. If I had ridiculous money/room to burn and were the sort to treat objects like women, man, I’d buy one in a heartbeat.

Obviously She’s Not a Golfer.


“Lipinski glided around the rink in a white v-neck and bathrobe, all while holding a White Russian. Yes, there is a beverage there, man. I like pretty much all things Lebowski-related, so I support this, but feel compelled to call bullshit on that not being a real White Russian. Unless they just used really heavy cream in it, which would be very Dudelian.”

Can’t say I’m a big watcher of the Olympics — I don’t think I saw a single second of the London games in 2012, but I was in dissertation mode then — and particularly the Winter Olympics. But you know what would get me to partake? More Lebowski-themed numbers. Tara Lipinski channels the Dude for Jimmy Fallon’s last week at 12:30 (who, Roots be damned, bid his farewell with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.)

Take Oasis, Karl Hungus Bathing.


“‘In the movie, they play it like it’s a drama,’ said Forkan…’There’s no mugging for the camera. Everything has this level of seriousness. In the “Oath of the Horatii” they’re talking about the future of Rome. In the film they’re talking about a rug that got peed on, but they’re as serious about that as the characters in the painting were. I liked that level of drama in these images that were also loaded with humor.’“

Hey, I know that guy – he’s a nihilist. From the Twitter archives, artist Joe Forkan discusses his Lebowski cycle with the LA Times. (A gallery is available here.)

Abide thee, Knave.

“I speak of information borne anew!
I blither of the new stuff come to light!
Know ye she kidnapped herself? ‘Tis true!
A lady happy fair, spurn’d, thou knowest,
In the parlance of our time, ne’er borrower
Nor lender be, to known nymphs and satyrs;
Yet I am well, I am well. She must feed
A wilderness of monkeys; occurr’st that?”

Forsooth, ’tis an admirable piece of work. By way of Return of the Reluctant, sojourn for awhile with Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, by one Adam Bertocci. Naught is bespoiled here, Knave.

Back on the Grid.

So, after a deep-end immersion into the Capitol Hill throng (as you might expect, it’s been busy ’round these parts, particularly by grad student standards) and a slow but steady establishing of a new home base here in the Beltway (I’ve secured a dog-friendly 1BR apartment in downtown Dupont, done 99.44% of the unpacking, acclimated the sheltie, and made the requisite investment in Swedish modular infrastructure — hat-tip, IKEA), I think I’m about at the point where I can officially log back on the grid.

All of which is to say, tho’ I’m jumping the gun by a day here — the Comcast guys come tomorrow to wire the new pad, which should greatly facilitate posting — I expect normal updates at GitM should now resume. Hey y’all, good to be back.

Also, speaking of “the grid,” — and since I’m playing catch-up below with the big stories that have occurred over the past twenty days — I’d be remiss if I didn’t include — the Lebowskitron. So now you’re, uh, privy to the new s**t. (And I should get back to the remarks for the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers…)Update: Actually, it was all lies. Not back on the grid yet — hopefully next weekend. Comcast — a company which [a] all DC residents are basically captive to in terms of cable and [b] has notoriously terrible customer service — couldn’t set up my Internet over the weekend because my TV hasn’t arrived yet. (Nor, obviously, could they set up the cable box so that I could just plug-and-play when said TV arrives. That would be way too convenient.)

So, since the Comcast powers-that-be have posited the existence of a deep and unbreakable connection between having a screen to show a TV signal and the Internets, another week of relative quiet, I suspect. But back soon.

The Transformation is Complete.


Not to be the skeleton at the feast during this cheery festival of bipartisanship, but I seriously doubt I was the only person out there who saw EX(!)-veep Cheney wheeled out this morning and thought of this. Sorry, Dick: Bedford Falls needed a change, and it’s George Bailey’s time now.

Update: “The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? The bums will always lose!” TNR’s Jonathan Chait finds another apt analogy in Jeffrey “Big” Lebowski.

It’s a league game, Smokey.

“I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan. And if we don’t resolve it, we’ll resolve it at the convention — that’s what credentials committees are for.” As the press fully and finally catches up with the fact that it’s over — it only took a month, but, hey, math is hard! — Sen. Clinton digs in for the long haul (and liberally plays the gender card anew), announcing she’s staying in until a convention floor fight in August…which, by the way, she’ll assuredly lose.

Their hand thus forced, more supers emerge for Sen. Obama, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and, sometime soon, seven House members from North Carolina. And, with the Gallup tracking poll disparity as big as it’s ever been (thanks in part to Snipergate, one presumes), I’m guessing Sen. Clinton’s fundraising also might be taking a hit. As such, I’m still of the opinion that this will all end May 6 or soon thereafter. Or, at least, that’s my hope. This is not ‘Nam, Sen. Clinton, this is politics. There are rules.

By the way, if anyone is under the impression that I’m so in the bag for Sen. Obama that no discouraging word about him shall ever be posted here at GitM, I’ll say this: This man should never bowl in public ever again. 37? That’s really sad. (And how did Bob Casey become a Senator from Pennsylvania bowling only a 71? I’m no Walter Sobchak, but I can’t remember bowling under an 80 since the age of ten.) Please, Senator, at least until the election, stick with making baskets.

Update: The Obama campaign pushes back on the WSJ’s NC supers story. So apparently the joint endorsement of those seven Reps is not as imminent as reported.

He’s a good man, and thorough.

If adventure has a name this morning, it must be the teaser for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Cate Blanchett’s channeling of Maude Lebowski is going to take some getting used to, but otherwise this looks better — and more iconic — than I envisioned. Update: But, please, don’t point any guns at him.