Wildly unsourced but at least one report of a very similar phrase in Slavic folklore - where a cannibalistic witch uses the phrase ‘Foo-foo-foo, I smell a Russian soul’

The Lear connection is similarly intriguing. I for many years assumed Edgar is presented as conflating the stories of Childe Rowland and Jack the Giant Killer. Nope. The phrase appears in the earliest version of Childe Rowland we know - attributed to the Elf King.

As a reminder, 'fee fi fo fum' appears to be at least three thousand years old and the way it is elided (>fee faw fum, >fum fum) suggests it is etymogically connected to feum/hunger.

'His word was still, Fee, foh and fum'. Is there a scholarly analysis of this passage in Lear? I make the case that it has been misunderstood and 'he' refers to the Dark Tower and its occupant, the Elfking, who in a very old telling of Childe Rowland uses the phrase.

“We are the Militax sent from the Lord/The lore from the Lorax you sadly ignored/And kept chopping and chopping those Truffula trees/Now we’ll fill you with holes that will let in the breeze.”

Or is there a Lorax who speaks *against* the trees (“The bacteria can’t yet eat your debris!”)? Or is the Lorax something like an ‘advisor’ whose suggestions, if ignored, might be replaced with a more coercive heavenly task force? The Onceler does not ask this.

Part of being a responsible Thneed CEO is investigating who and what this Lorax guy is. ‘Lorax’ is not a name, he refers to himself as ‘the Lorax who speaks for the trees’. Is there a missing comma there or does this not imply other Loraxes? Is ‘Lorax’ a title meaning ‘attorney’?

Guybrush Threepwood must use the Lock of Hair on the DJ to continue

car blew a Sierpinski gasket

'Ello ello ello? What's this on your car sir? 'Po-lice'? That's not very clever, is it sir? It's not even a word. Impersonating a polite officer is a criminal offence. I'm going to have to ask you to accompany me to the polite station.'

You just manipulate girls to get them to turn into cars so you can escape the city

Gesticulating frantically at invisible app windows as I exit my car. “Set An Alarm,” I shriek, in the direction of the Grab N’ Go. “Take A Photo.” I am not wearing glasses.

I notice Google, not content to be a mere bystander at the death of the mobile web, is now deploying intrusive ‘Stay Logged Out’ pop ups that probably sounded great in some shithead marketing exec’s PowerPoint (“we reverse the default assumption”)

One of the worst performances in the history of #DoctorWho . That’s it. That’s the tweet.

dogs in large cities are essentially settler-colonial

Dream Scenario might be the only 'quirky supernatural phenomenon in modern life' movie I've seen that fully played out the Economic Argument

Took one year to go from Nick Cage randomly appearing in dreams to techbro startups beaming Hype House influencers into your dreams

tech interfaces used to be much more actively customizable. you could just poke in and make everything green, pink, anything. this is much less of a thing today. this probably stems from a kind of allergy to sincerity - someone might see your interface and see how much you cared

Better Call Ghostbusters: A Supernaturalist Reading of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul In Light of That One Episode of Slipping Jimmy That Establishes Demons That Can Possess People Are Canon To The Franchise

Ed Zitron This could be any number of Marvel Comics characters.

I think we really are underselling how cooked Facebook is. This is a 17,000 member group called 'Facebook complaints center' made up of people that post like they recently got a concussion