The Dailies

Word of the Day

Priggish (adj., prig-GISH)

Smugly superior and moralistic, like who would complain about an injustice and then not pitch in to help the person fixing the mess.

Gif of the Day

TagsZeotropeAnimationAnna TaberkoEverything in its placeFish 'n' flowers

Link of the Day

The history of "Roadrunner"

Roadrunner, roadrunner
Going faster miles an hour
Gonna drive to the Stop 'n' Shop
With the radio on at night
And me in love with modern moonlight

Johnathan Richman's wonderful song came on the radio last night (fittingly), which seemed like a good excuse to post this interesting backstory of the song that's been called the first punk record:

Roadrunner is one of the most magical songs in existence. It is a song about what it means to be young, and behind the wheel of an automobile, with the radio on and the night and the highway stretched out before you. It is a paean to the modern world, to the urban landscape, to the Plymouth Roadrunner car, to roadside restaurants, neon lights, suburbia, the highway, the darkness, pine trees and supermarkets. As Greil Marcus put it in his book Lipstick Traces: "Roadrunner was the most obvious song in the world, and the strangest."

Read the whole thing.

TagsMusicJournalismRoadrunnerJonathan RichmanMoonlight

Happy Friday

Obituaries for teenage girls if they actually died when they say they're dying

A masterclass from McSweeny's:

BRENNER, LIANNA, age 15, lived a healthy life until she made the fatal decision of watching a video of a puppy splashing in a puddle. She clung to religion until the very end, crying out to God via the Youtube comment section, typing “omg omg” in interest of time, but it was too late. She was dying, dying, omg, and then proclaimed dead.