Quote
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
John Lennon
Joke
I told my girlfriend she drew her eyebrows too high.
She seemed surprised.
Fun Fact
The Earth's ozone layer will make a full recovery in 50 years.
Because of pollution, the Earth's ozone layer has suffered a lot. That's bad news for everyone, since the fragile gas layer protects our planet and shields us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. Fortunately, climate change experts believe that the ozone layer will fully heal within 50 years, according to a 2018 report from the United Nations.
The recovery is thanks in large part to the Montreal Protocol of 1987, which put a global ban on the use of one of the main culprits for the damage: chlorofluorocarbons (CFOs). Previously, CFOs had been common in refrigerators, aerosol cans, and dry-cleaning chemicals.
Reading Fact
Veronica Roth wrote her debut novel, Divergent, while on winter break from her studies at Northwestern. She sold the book before graduation, and film rights sold before the book’s release.
History Fact
Marie Antoinette Never Said, "Let Them Eat Cake"
A version of this quote originally came from the autobiography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, where it was mentioned a princess said this phrase. It would later be attributed to Antoinette. Though it's highly unlikely she actually said it.
Movie/TV Trivia
Before Stanley Kubrick came on-board for A Clockwork Orange writer Anthony Burgess considered selling the movie rights to Mick Jagger with the intention of Jagger playing Alex and the rest of the Stones playing the other Droogs. Keef with eyeliner? Don’t be silly.
Movie/TV Quote
"I drink your milkshake."
There Will Be Blood (2007)
The fervor around "I drink your milkshake" was immediate following the release of Paul Thomas Anderson's oil man epic There Will Be Blood. It was almost instantly canonized, though it's not the actual kicker of the film: That would be Daniel Plainview's plaintive "I'm finished." But the milkshake line comes during the furious climax, featuring an unhinged, bellowing Daniel Day-Lewis spewing mind-blowing anger while facing off against Paul Dano's sniffling preacher Eli Sunday. Daniel, raging, lays waste to Eli, first verbally, then beats him to death with a bowling pin. It's early capitalism gone awry, cutthroat instincts turned deadly. After he says he'll drink Eli's milkshake, Daniel slurps viciously, a disgusting period on a memorable threat. Anderson admitted that he cribbed the "milkshake" line from congressional hearings on the Teapot Dome Scandal involving Edward Doheny, an oil tycoon who served as inspiration for Plainview and the Upton Sinclair novel on which Anderson was riffing. The story goes that New Mexico Senator Albert Fall, accused and ultimately convicted of taking bribes, said during the 1924 hearings, "Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I'll end up drinking your milkshake." Anderson told USA Today at the time: "I just took this insane concept and used it."
Despite the line's current status, it wasn't a given that audiences would be on board for the analogy. The film's editor Dylan Tichenor recently told Vanity Fair: "The milkshake line -- I think everyone cocked their head and laughed when they read it, like, 'What?'" But it's the "what?" of it that makes it outstanding, combined with the specific historical weirdness. Anderson's writing has always been rooted in comedy even when the larger narrative is geared toward high tragedy. And, of course, it would be absolutely nothing without the full muscle of Day-Lewis skills behind it. Before There Will Be Blood, milkshakes were happily nostalgic treats. After, they were forever emblems of a man who has lost his mind.
Conversation Starter
Do you prefer fiction or nonfiction books?
Writing Prompt