Vizsla Flashback - The types of cool

Joseph Gordon Levitt - is there anything he Can't do?

The Types of Cool
first published 4-26-13

So yesterday afternoon I was thinking about Joseph Gordon-Levitt.


(You have no idea how tempted I am to just leave this blog post at that one sentence...)

For those who don't immediately recognize the name - He first rose to fame as the kid on Third Rock From the Sun, where he made the notable achievement of holding his own with John Lithgow, which is honestly no small feat.

This is him today (well, not TODAY literally, but 'these days')

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, being unexpectedly awesome

Stumbled across this the other day, and I suddenly realized.

Joe G-L is Stealth Cool.

He never really fell off the radar, but without us really noticing he went from being 'That Kid Who was Funnier than French Stewart' (I'm sorry, he was) to being unbelievably cool guy in the above video that you did not bother to click on the link for just casually throwing out a cover of Lithium like that's what we all do in our spare time.  His is an extreme form of what I call 'Neil Patrick Harris syndrome'.  

Which is when it occurred to me how many different manifestations of cool there are.

Neil Patrick Harris Cool

Now, it's no secret that Neil Patrick Harris was, somewhere about 5 years ago, declared Coolest guy on the Planet.  The guy makes magic cool.  The man more or less single-handedly brought back the word 'awesome'.  

He once accepted an award for his role in Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog with the words "I would say that Nathan Fillion is like the most genuine nicest guy to work with, but that would be a lie. Uh, he's a dick. And he pads his junk. Thanks so much!"

This was Doogie Howser

And so he is the living symbol of this type of cool - The 'I was really NOT cool, then you lost track of me and I cam back THE COOLEST EVER'

You know, like how we all wanted our 10 year high school reunions to go down.

Betty White Cool

Betty White has always been pretty cool.  Everybody knows that.  What is less frequently observed is that she is clearly the beneficiary of what I can only describe as an 'Awsomeness-Tontine' (you'll have to google it) with the rest of the cast of the Golden Girls, taking their cool into her own possession as each of them passed.

Well played, Betty.

Perception Filter Cool

I'm talking about the Tom Petty school of cool here.  There has never been a moment when Tom wasn't cool in the last several decades.  But, much like the Silence, when you look away from him it is somehow instantly wiped from your mind until the next time you hear the opening riff to American Girl and think, 'Oh yeah-  He's really awesome'

I come from a long line of cool

Joss Whedon's father wrote for the aforementioned 'Golden Girls'  

His Grandfather wrote for 'Your Show of Shows'

If awesome was money from bootleg whiskey, Joss would be a member of the Kennedy family.

Casual Cool

This is the Felicia Day philosophy.  By apparently putting absolutely no effort into seeming cool-  and indeed by appearing to put effort into NOT looking cool, witness The Guild, she somehow makes everything she does look like the coolest thing ever.

Who else has both sung on stage with Jonathan Coulton AND crocheted a freakin mouse with Colin Ferguson.  And yet she's all like 'No big, whatevs' and somehow she makes the term 'Whatevs' cool despite the fact that it clearly isn't.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to disappear for a few hours and suddenly reappear ten times cooler.

Vizsla out

Quickly! To the MammalJet!

If you're like me, and I know I am, then you'll have had your attention focused today on an announcement out of Washington D.C. 

The zoological world is abuzz today (More than usual!*) over the discovery of a hitherto unknown mammal.

World, meet the Olinguito!**

*See what I did there?  Because of bees... and you know... other buzzing animals... oh never mind.  Honestly people, I give and I give..

** No relation to Lena Olin.  Or Ken, as far as I know, although to be honest I haven't really done the research on that one.

A smallish raccoon sized mammal that lives in the Andes mountains in Ecuador, it has previously been mistaken for it's cousin, the slightly larger Olingo.  I know - we're all mortified at having made such an obvious blunder.  I know I personally pride myself on my finely honed Olingo-Identifying skills.

Apparently, it was discovered thusly - Kristofer Helgen, the Smithsonian's curator of mammals, was looking through some drawers of dead mammals that he had laying around, when he realized that one of them wasn't an Olingo, but was in fact an entirely new and distinct species.  So he popped down to Ecuador to do a little research, found some, and determined that - yup - they were just different enough to count as a new species.  BINGO - New Mammal.  (Must remember to patent Bingo variant called 'Olingo' where you can play O's on either side...)

Let's take just a moment to note the ways in which Kris' job is more awesome than yours:

1:  He spends his days poking through draws of preserved animal carcasses just for funsies.  (a little creepy, I admit.  But I'd take this over finance reports any day)

2:  It's within his remit to pop off to Ecuador just to check out a hunch.  ECUADOR.  There are days when I can't justify the three minutes it would take to go to the bathroom.  Kris goes to South America.  Your argument is invalid.

3:  His title is CURATOR OF F*CKING MAMMALS.  I apologize for the salty language there, but I felt like the emphasis was necessary.  This is his business card-

Unless you are the Cophrages Commissioner or the King of the Reptile People, Kristopher owns you.  Just accept it.

As a side note - normally I would have included a picture of the l'il critter (who is, I might add, cute as a button) but it's been brought to my attention that you're actually only supposed to use images that are either out of copyright or that you've paid for and so I'm already in the process of overhauling a LOT of earlier posts and don't need to add to the problem, thank you very much.

The Case for Granting Henry Rollins Timelord technology

There are many legitimate examples in the world of people who would benefit from having 5 different versions of themselves plucked from their relative timestreams and placed together for the purposes of a nostalgic misadventure.  Bowie of course is usually the first name thrown out.  Althouth quite frankly, at least three of the 5 Bowies would probably be too coked out of their mind to really be able to settle down and fight Cybermen.

People usually then go to Madonna as the fallback position; mostly because she exists as a sort of Bowie-Lite when it comes to self re-identification through outfits.  I think really people just want to see chunky jewelery Madonna and Cone Tits Madonna slapping the crap out of each other.

<Take a moment to savor that mental image...>

But I'm here to tell you that both of those are false leads.

When it comes down to frivolous adaptation of time technology as applied to pop cultural figures (Am I the only one that suddenly really wants to write a thesis with that title?) There is but one clear answer.

Henry Freakin' Rollins

Beware... his gaze renders lesser men sterile.

Imagine, if you will, a timescoop swooping out of nowhere, relentlessly gathering-  

Black Flag Henry Rollins

Focal point of anger and rage that is actually capable of articulating exactly why it's angry.

 Which is less common than you would think

 

Rollins band Henry Rollins

Whereas Black Flag Henry Rollins was a focal point of rage in a larger collective,

Rollins Band Henry Rollins WAS rage as embodied by Henry Rollins.

Which is an important distinction

And this is as good a time as any to link to the video for Liar, because it's one of the best things ever

Writer/Journalist and owner of 2.13.61 publishing Rollins

2/13/61 is his birthday (that's 13/2/61 if you are Europe) Hence the name

A more reflective Rollins, sending his well articulated thoughts out to a larger community than might be reached by the DC hard core punk scene.

Spoken Word Artist Rollins

If you've never heard any of Henry Rollins spoken word pieces, you should stop reading this immediately and go buy them on CD.  I defy anyone to listen to them and - even if you disagree with him - make a legitimate claim that he hasn't made a reasoned, articulate, and compelling case for whatever he's talking about at the time.

Post performance activist and spokesman Rollins

One thing that is easy to overlook in the first few Rollins' - He's very funny.

And never moreso than these days as he speaks out for a few issues that he feels strongly about.

Do yourself a favor and enter his name in a youtube search and just spend a pleasant afternoon listening to him

Seriously, Time Lords.  Get on this.  And don't use that 'Oh we're all dead' thing as an excuse.

P.S. - I didn't even mention actor Henry Rollins.  Is it too late to start petitioning for him to be the 12th Doctor?

When you think about it, there just aren't a lot of really cool Joans

It goes without saying (except that I'm going to go ahead and say it.  Which, really, everybody does immediately after saying 'it goes without saying', which makes you wonder why we bother with the phrase in the first place.  But I digress...)

It goes without saying that Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' greatest hits album is just about the best guilty pleasure record out there.  In point of fact, I really tried to use The Blackhearts in The great Vizsla Theoretical backup band knife fight discussion of last month.  Except that I couldn't think of anybody who stood a chance against them.  Not even the Robert Palmer girls, and they're cannibal robots.*

*Which may mean that they eat other robots... 

Allow me to take this opportunity to refer you to just one of the many reasons this album kicks ass - 

Joan Jett, being awesome

So clearly, Joan Jett is supercool.  But when you think about it, 'Joan' isn't a name that particularly lends itself to 'cool'

My name is Joan, and I'm cool anyway.

(Although I may have had a little work done...)

 The only other notable Joan's that I'd even consider in the catagory-

Cusack

Clearly the coolest Joan of all time

It's not her fault that her brother is apparently kind of a jerk in real life.

 Osborne

I know, I know.  I didn't used to think so either.

But I saw her make a really gracious acceptance speech once that made me think, '

Hey Joan Osborne.  You're pretty cool.

 Of Arc

Come on.

She was pretty awesome.

I'm glad that we've settled this issue.

It's all cool. Take Two

So yesterday afternoon I was thinking about Joseph Gordon-Levitt.


(You have no idea how tempted I am to just leave this blog post at that one sentence...)

For those who don't immediately recognize the name - He first rose to fame as the kid on Third Rock From the Sun, where he made the notable achievement of holding his own with John Lithgow, which is honestly no small feat.

This is him today (well, not TODAY literally, but 'these days')

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, being unexpectedly awesome

Stumbled across this the other day, and I suddenly realized.

Joe G-L is Stealth Cool.

He never really fell off the radar, but without us really noticing he went from being 'That Kid Who was Funnier than French Stewart' (I'm sorry, he was) to being unbelievably cool guy in the above video that you did not bother to click on the link for just casually throwing out a cover of Lithium like that's what we all do in our spare time.  His is an extreme form of what I call 'Neil Patrick Harris syndrome'.  

Which is when it occurred to me how many different manifestations of cool there are.

Neil Patrick Harris Cool

Now, it's no secret that Neil Patrick Harris was, somewhere about 5 years ago, declared Coolest guy on the Planet.  The guy makes magic cool.  The man more or less single-handedly brought back the word 'awesome'.  

He once accepted an award for his role in Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog with the words "I would say that Nathan Fillion is like the most genuine nicest guy to work with, but that would be a lie. Uh, he's a dick. And he pads his junk. Thanks so much!"

This was Doogie Howser

And so he is the living symbol of this type of cool - The 'I was really NOT cool, then you lost track of me and I cam back THE COOLEST EVER'

You know, like how we all wanted our 10 year high school reunions to go down.

Betty White Cool

Betty White has always been pretty cool.  Everybody knows that.  What is less frequently observed is that she is clearly the beneficiary of what I can only describe as an 'Awsomeness-Tontine' (you'll have to google it) with the rest of the cast of the Golden Girls, taking their cool into her own possession as each of them passed.

Well played, Betty.

Perception Filter Cool

I'm talking about the Tom Petty school of cool here.  There has never been a moment when Tom wasn't cool in the last several decades.  But, much like the Silence, when you look away from him it is somehow instantly wiped from your mind until the next time you hear the opening riff to American Girl and think, 'Oh yeah-  He's really awesome'

I come from a long line of cool

Joss Whedon's father wrote for the aforementioned 'Golden Girls'  

His Grandfather wrote for 'Your Show of Shows'

If awesome was money from bootleg whiskey, Joss would be a member of the Kennedy family.

Casual Cool

This is the Felicia Day philosophy.  By apparently putting absolutely no effort into seeming cool-  and indeed by appearing to put effort into NOT looking cool, witness The Guild, she somehow makes everything she does look like the coolest thing ever.

Who else has both sung on stage with Jonathan Coulton AND crocheted a freakin mouse with Colin Ferguson.  And yet she's all like 'No big, whatevs' and somehow she makes the term 'Whatevs' cool despite the fact that it clearly isn't.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to disappear for a few hours and suddenly reappear ten times cooler.

Vizsla out