“
We expect literary revolutions to come from above, from the literary end of the spectrum — the difficult, the avant-garde, the high-end, the densely written. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on. Instead we’re getting a revolution from below, coming up from the supermarket aisles. Genre fiction is the technology that will disrupt the literary novel as we know it.
I’m not saying that — if such a thing should happen — it would make the literary novel worthless. God no. One of the great things about the literary world is that it’s an expanding pie; it’s not either/or, it’s both/and. Literature is not bunk — as Raymond Chandler put it —and genre fiction is not a vice — as Edmund Wilson had it. They’re all just books, and good books are treasures beyond price.
” — Lev Grossman, Literary Revolution in the Supermarket Aisle: Genre Fiction Is Disruptive Technology
What, in your view, have been the great superhero movies?
…I think “Batman Begins” is certainly my favorite Batman movie I’ve seen.
Huh, not “The Dark Knight”? Most people would say “The Dark Knight.”
“The Dark Knight,” for me, has the same problem that every other “Batman” movie has. It’s not about Batman. I think Heath Ledger is just phenomenal and the character of the Joker is beautifully written. He has a particular philosophy that he carries throughout the movie. He has one of the best bad guy schemes. Bad guy schemes are actually very hard to come up with. I love his movie, but I always feel like Batman gets short shrift. In “Batman Begins,” the pathological, unbalanced, needy, scary person in the movie is Batman. That’s what every “Batman” movie should be.
You pitched a Batman movie at one point. Was that your vision for it?
It was different, but similar in that it had to do with the fact that he’s not okay. He’s not a guy who knows how to live like a person. That’s one of the great things about Batman. Everyone knows don’t invite Batman to Thanksgiving. That guy, he’s gonna be dark and weird. And that’s a great character.
Joss Whedon, interviewed for Forbes
And on top of all that, he was always the voice of the group in their countless efforts to address social injustice. He showed me that you can internalize the problems of the world, work to fix them with whatever means you have able, and still love everything you love so deeply that you can barely contain yourself. That you’ll dress up in lederhosen and rush the VMA stage, that you’ll love your city enough to rap about it, love the Knicks enough to get put in NBA Jam, love movies enough to make them, love the world enough to stand up for it.
That you’ll jump up and down every single time the opportunity presents itself.
Thanks, MCA. Rest in peace.
You have to look to Jews like Bina Gelbfish, Landsman thinks, to explain the wide range and persistence of the race. Jews who carry their homes in an old cowhide bag, on the back of a camel, in the bubble of air at the center of their brains. Jews who land on their feet, hit the ground running, ride out the vicissitudes, and make the best of what falls to hand, from Egypt to Babylon, from Minsky Gubernya to the District of Sitka. Methodical, organized, persistent, resourceful, prepared. Berko is right: Bina would flourish in any precinct house in the world. A mere redrawing of borders, a change in governments, those things can never faze a Jewess with a good supply of hand wipes in her bag.
I misremembered this quote, possibly because I don’t usually carry hand wipes.
slightly improved analysis here (and points for trying, seriously) but ultimately this still avoids speaking plainly in a pretty dangerous way. in many ways the original piece calling out “girls around me” actually did a better job of conveying the fear women had about this app.
but in case you’re still confused, let me break it down for you:
stalking nearby women = threat of violence
women having to deal with the potential threat of violence from creepers, street harassers, drunk assholes in bars, entitled boyfriends = sexist world in which we live
“girls around me” app = tool with potential to make women the object/target of stalking/potential violence
criticism of “girls around me” app revolving around privacy instead of pointing out that there was a presumed audience of men who thought it was funny / arousing / acceptable / likely to get them laid if they used an app like this = sexism
ongoing silence about the fact that NO APP is responsible for MEN STALKING / ASSAULTING / RAPING WOMEN because it is in fact men’s responsibility to NOT DO THOSE THINGS = sexism
actual world in which we live = full of sexism that women already have to navigate every day, so at the very least, do what you can not to make it any worse.
any questions?
(Source: mattgalligan)
“Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” — Herbert Simon (via jeanphony)
The Joker says…
Career advice to heed.
Matt Langer: Stop Calling it Curation -
Now the “hat-tip” has long been a simple courtesy, not some kind of moral commandment; its omission from any citation is in no way the sort of punishable offense that failing to attribute any borrowed content would be. That’s because usually the greatest sin of omitting a “via” is denying someone else the moment of flattery that comes with the recognition that some other follows whatever it is they has to share, whereas omitting a link to original content is, you know, stealing.
But as far as value-adds go the “via” generally offers little more than a cookie crumb trail of others who have also read the material in question—the digital equivalent of finding the previous borrower’s name scribbled on the card in the back of a library book. Which is neat, I guess? But come on now, none of us here is Averroes rediscovering Aristotle or Poggio Bracciolini serendipitously plucking Lucretius off a dusty shelf—this is people posting pictures of yawning kittens on Tumblr blogs we’re talking about here.
And yet we see this sort of thing happen all the time on the internet, all these great hand-wringing debates over “proper” attribution (“proper” usually meaning “sending traffic my way as a reward for finding something first”).
And it all stinks to high heaven of self-importance.
(via Stellar)
On this day in 1989: Robert Mapplethorpe died, at the age of 42, of complications from AIDS.
Today’s photo: “Self-Portrait, 1988”
Today’s quote: “Beauty and the devil are the same thing.”