CLAP HANDS TWICE. HIT THE TABLE THREE TIMES. CLAP HANDS ONCE. PICK UP CUP AND SET IT DOWN... Vulture presents a comprehensive history (dating back to 1928) of the "Cups (When I'm Gone)" phenomenon.

NO, NO ZAYT NISHT MESHUGGE. LOZ IM GEYYYYYYYYYN! Genetics researchers have confirmed that Mel Brooks was clairvoyant and there really is a Native American tribe which shares a unique genetic mutation with Ashkenazi Jews, suggesting some common ancestry dating back to Columbus' time. [HT, and title suggested by, GoldNI.]

(Unfortunately, it's the same genetic marker which suggests increased risk of hereditary breast or ovarian cancer, the one prompted Angelina Jolie's actions and was the subject of a Supreme Court patent case this term.)

THAT'S FOR TAKING THE KID OFF THE RAFT:  If it's 8/15, it must be Lost Day, and these are some of Sepinwall's favorite scenes.  Linda Holmes once wrote:

I'm always sad, I guess, when people feel jilted by creative works that show age or have flaws. Good things burn through their periods of greatest creativity and go down blind alleys now and then, while less complex things often don't, for the same reason real plants die and plastic ones don't. You know what never lets me down? Judge Judy, because it's a plastic plant. It doesn't change, and it's nobody's baby. It's there to decorate and specifically to require no upkeep and no attention. 

Anything with the slightest breath of life — including Survivor, for crying out loud, anything that has ever had an idea to begin with — is statistically very likely to exhaust its best ideas, and even if it doesn't, those ideas will never be as interesting to you as old ideas as they were as new ideas. Even the second person who walked on the moon is not as famous as the first. Excitement over something genuinely new has a naturally short half-life. 

It's not entirely them, in other words. It's also us.

NO WORD ON WHAT THE BARDEN DJ CLUB THINKS OF THIS IDEA: With the original soundtrack still in the Top 25 nearly a year after release and a sequel in the works to shoot next summer, it's no surprise that Universal wants to cash in on Pitch Perfect with a followup album, and they've now confirmed a holiday album will be out later this year.

STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE:  Smiths/Morrissey Lyrics + Peanuts Comic Strips = This Charming Charlie. (From the same creative impulse that once produced The Dysfunctional Family Circus and Garfield Minus Garfield.)

BORSCHT BELT BELLHOP:  Yes, you should watch this eight-minute 30 for 30 film on Wilt Chamberlain's tenure as a Kutsher's bellhop—as someone who spent his fair share of time there, the Concord and Grossinger's, it hit me in a warm, special place—but, my goodness does it only tell a small, sunny part of the Catskills/basketball story: it was also in the Catskills earlier in the 1950s that college basketball's massive game-fixing and point-shaving scandals were born, as NYC gamblers used these summers to build their relationships with players from across the country. Would you like to learn more?

BISCOTTI FRAPPUCCINO:  Eight unlisted Starbucks beverages you might want to try.