Six GIFs that show why Beverly Sutphin is my role model (and should be yours, too)

"You know how I hate the brown word."

In these troubling and uncertain times, it is more important than ever to have role models, people whom we can admire and whose behavior we can try to emulate. Towards that end, I have selected as my personal pop culture mentor Mrs. Beverly Sutphin, the homicidal hausfrau portrayed so memorably by Kathleen Turner in John Waters' 1994 dark comedy Serial Mom. This is a woman with numerous positive qualities and useful skills, both domestic and interpersonal, and I think she sets a fine example for the rest of us to follow. But rather than just tell you why I think Beverly Sutphin is so great, I thought I'd actually show you a few examples of the lady herself in action. Please do read on and discover why this fictional character is, in modern Internet parlance, my spirit animal.

1. She has a colorful, diverse vocabulary.

 

2. She isn't intimidated by celebrities.




3. She's not afraid to express herself.

 


4. Her dental hygiene? Above reproach.

 

5. She respects tradition.

 

6. She knows the value of a friendly wave.

The most incredible optical illusion of all time

An incredible optical illusion. Just keep staring at the black dot and amazing things will happen, I swear!

Stare at it. Stare at the little black dot in the center of the picture. That's right. Don't look at anything else. Just keep staring at the little black dot. Whatever happens. Whatever the cost. Babies will be born. Old people will die. Empires will rise and fall. But you won't even notice any of that shit, because you've got a job to do, and that job is staring at the little black dot.

Don't look at the faces of your family. They'll only distract you with their so-called "love." Don't look at the depressing headlines about genocide and famine and man's inhumanity to man. Those'll only get in your way. And for god's sake, don't look inward at your own miserable dung heap of a soul. This is no time for introspection. No, this is a time to stare at a little black dot between two flowery-looking rainbow things on the goddamned Internet. This is an amazing optical illusion, maybe the most amazing one ever, and you are this close to ruining it with your petty personal bullshit. Do something right for a change. Stare at the little black dot. Stare some more. Stare harder. Harder! Stare until you become the little black dot.

There. That's it. Good job. You're doing great. Keep it up.

Keep staring.

Keep staring.

Keep....

THERE!

Did you see it? Did you witness the miracle? Did you, a grown-ass adult human being with a functioning brain, manage to successfully follow the one simple instruction you were given? If so, congratulations. By this time, the optical illusion has revealed itself to you, and you are still reeling from its effects. Wasn't that incredible? Wasn't that the most amazing sensory experience you've ever had in your life? I'm sure you'll agree that it was worth the time and effort to stare at the little black dot. Better than any orgasm, and with no messy cleanup afterward. Better than any drug, and it's all totally legal. Can't nobody narc on this stash... 'cause this stash is in your mind! You may never stare into the face of God, but now you've come as close to that as any human ever could. From this moment on, your life has meaning.

Some of you, having gotten the illusion to work properly, will be tempted to do it again. And again. And again and again and again. I must warn against this. This optical illusion is so powerful, so awesome, so paradigm-shifting that it's best just to do it once and walk away. So go. Live your life. Talk a walk. Get some fresh air. Try to forget what you've seen here. Otherwise, you'll likely spend the rest of your life chasing a single, five-second-long high. Your brain, already weak and feeble, will completely liquefy. We're talking Tapioca City. You'll end up on the streets or worse. I have a cousin who did the little black dot thing twice. Just twice. Now, he's living in a group home and making brooms for 17 cents an hour. I visit him every other weekend.

On the other hand, if you didn't get the optical illusion to work, then I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Either you have the mental acuity of a doorknob, or God just plain hates you. It's probably a combination of both. So that's what you get out of this experience: the knowledge that God hates your guts. Right now, Jesus, Moses, Allah, Buddha, Mohammed, and Tom Cruise are probably taking turns saying rude things about you. I guess you'll just have to live with that knowledge.

Aren't optical illusions the best? I mean, just the best?

Here, this ought to creep you out nicely

In Soviet Russia, The Great Gatsby reads you in high school! 

Not sure exactly why I did this. Just felt it needed to be done, I guess.

I'm concerned that you haven't been having enough nightmares lately, so here's this thing.

He's saying, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!"

"Let me say this about that..."

I'm kind of obsessed with wax museums, and I especially love bad wax figures. In my travels, I happened to come across this nice little roundup of 31 of them on Buzzfeed. I was especially taken with the hideous paraffin effigy of Richard Milhous Nixon which closes the article. Tricky Dick kind of looked like a ventriloquist dummy, so I decided to animate the image and make this little mini art piece out of it. I hope you don't enjoy it.

Pulsating Olympia (2013)

Pulsating Olympia (2013)

An odd and hopefully mesmeric bit of visual art inspired by Manet's controversial masterpiece.

Homer

This is the earliest episode of The Simpsons.

Let me explain this one a little bit.

Apparently, an Icelandic magazine ran a comic in 1949 with a character who looked incredibly like Homer Simpson.

Here's the Buzzfeed article which alerted me to the existence of this comic.

What I have done is take the panels from this particular comic and turn them into an animated GIF, thus creating the oldest animated Simpsons episode in existence. I want you to imagine that the show was originally just about Homer and his misadventures in wood chopping.