Good lord, what has even been happening in the last month or so?
I got an acupuncturist, who I will definitely write more about, because I'm obsessed with her.
I applied to grad school (whaaaaaaaa? yeah that happened).
I started dating someone? What? Yes. That happened.
I journal'd for a new project my friend Sonia's putting together called Catcalled (that link goes to the preview tumblr, and the real site launches in October).
I started? or continued? training to be an NSO (non-skating official) for Gotham Girls Roller Derby, which I hope means I'll learn the rules well enough to actually play when I get good enough (though I've already got my derby name).
I worked on this convention I'm planning for my frorority I pledged in college (okay, co-educational literary society, pfffff trifles).
I visited San Francisco and found out why hashtags are so awesome at live events, and, you know, saw my best friend in the universe and met her new dog and had an all-around amazing time.
Oh, and I started watching about fifty thousand shows. Be ready for that.
PS, The Vampire Diaries comes back in SEVENTEEN DAYS. And Castle is back TODAY. THANK. GOD.
Dear anybody who's thinking about buying a Chromebook or has been waiting for me to comment (again) on my lovely little piece of machinery,
Tonight was the first major upgrade that my little book has gotten. And, holy crap. It's awesome. I actually gasped out loud when it restarted because it's so stupid pretty.
I know, I know. I'm obsessed with inanimate objects, and that's weird, and whatever. SCREW YOU GUYS, IT'S AMAZING.
It's really gorgeous, but still simple, and even more intuitive (HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE) and still starts up with its joyful, youthful Chromebook kick (seriously, this thing starts up in like six seconds).
They really weren't kidding about updating this thing all the time. This is the most visible one that's happened so far, but there have been a lot of little tweaks even in the few months I've owned it where I've sat back and sort of thought, "Huh! Isn't that convenient!"
So, Google, if you're reading this, I love you, so deeply, so truly. Plus I'm writing this Blogger post on a Chromebook while texting my special lady friend, in the words of one Keith Mars, on my Android phone. That is how much I love you.
I used to fangirl it up for Apple, but you know what the best part of changing my allegiances has been? Did I mention how much my Chromebook cost? Oh, just like THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS. I can't even get an iPad for $300. I think. I don't know.
And you're just the sexiest little netbook, aren't you!
Sorry for the wonkiness of the pic here, I don't know what I did, but it was apparently somewhat wrong.
My good friend Sarah is one of the people behind Occupy the Empty Space, which is somehow both theater and political action movement, all at once!
The idea for the festival came from the housing crisis, wherein there is empty living space available but it remains unaffordable to people who need it.
Sarah says: "Space is so valuable these days, and
yet it is often abandoned or wasted. In NYC there is a 'lack of space,' or so it seems--but really, there is
plenty of it. Apartments, parking lots, all sorts of shelter and open areas--but they've been purchased by large corporations who aren't doing anything with their real estate except separating valuable resources from those who need it."
The event will feature FIFTEEN BRAND-SPANKING NEW ten-minute plays and a bunch of teach-ins, which I understand are like a class, but for free, and in public, and for everybody. Or something.
Anyway, it sounds really cool, I think Sarah has a play in it, and it's FREE. The plays could be awesome or they could be terrible, but it's definitely something different and interesting to do with your weekend, AND you even get to feel like you're doing something good by being there. Hot damn, NYCers. That's so many good things!
I'll be there, probably wearing this shirt, so please stop by and let me know if you're a reader! I'd love to meet you and give you the highest of fives for supporting my awesome friend and her awesome co-conspirators and the mammoth juggernaut of a festival that has been eating all of her time and keeping her too busy to hang out with me lately. Also, I'm totally gonna keep score on how many people I manage to get to go to there, and claim that I won (pretty much regardless of how many people I recruit).
Also, sorry for the huge delay in posting! I realized I needed a break from the internet when I made some joke about being a cross between HelloGiggles and The Bloggess, mixed with Dinosaur Comics. I needed some real-life-time. And now you can get that too! With me! And then we can be like, pfft, this isn't just a BLOG, on the INTERNET, it's a community! And we can hug, and talk about the internet.
[h/t originalbun] Amber Tamblyn convinces Tyrese that she's Amber Rose; Tyrese doesn't like it. Make sure to listen to the demos, as they are a delight.
My favorite historical feud is now, and generally has been, the feud between Tesla and Edison. I think it all began for me with Coffee and Cigarettes, where Jack White explains a Tesla coil. Why? Because he can.
If you've been feeling down because Rush Limbaugh is a jerk, or because your state is trying to pass a transvaginal ultrasound law, go to Men Who Trust Women and maybe feel like the entire world isn't trying to destroy vaginas.
Lastly, because this is crazy long and how did I get so far behind on these links, is this open letter to Hollywood, saying, basically, "It's not piracy's fault the film industry is dying; it's because you won't make good movies." (/slow clap.)
My office's newsletter included this gem: a list of the 25 most commonly used passwords. None of mine are in there, but they're not the ones I expected.
The 25 common passwords to avoid:
password
123456
12345678
qwerty
abc123
monkey (????)
1234567
letmein
trustno1 (hahaha, IRONY)
dragon (?????)
baseball
111111
iloveyou
master (those two appearing near each other is probably a coincidence)
sunshine
ashley
bailey
passw0rd
shadow
123123
654321
superman (!)
qazwsx
michael
football
I guess most people with passwords are named Ashley Michael Bailey, and love sunshine, monkeys, dragons, and football. And Superman.
The common idea with passwords is to do some crazy combination of letters, numbers and symbols, alternating lowercase and uppercase, which is hard for humans to crack, but super easy for computers to crack.
Actually, I kind of think literally everyone is sick right now. That's what happens when there's warm weather in New York in the winter - the subway turns into a huge incubator, and it's disgusting. Seriously, you get on and you're immediately hit with humidity, that is a mix of not having the air conditioning turned on and everyone wearing their winter clothes. New York, I love you, but you're bringing me down.
Mental Floss also live-tweeted the Superbowl, but in the awesome way that you would've hoped they would.
OK Go's new music video is also an ad for a car, but it follows in their trend of intense awesome. In fact, I'm not going to link you to it: I AM PUTTING IT HERE SO YOU MUST WATCH IT.
Did you watch it? I'm not going to give you anything else to look at until you watch it.
I got a Pinterest account and have subsequently completely lost it. I love pinning things. (As a reminder, you can find all the places where I link to random crap on the internet on an insanely regular basis on my about me page.)
My good friend Caitlyn and I went to see Corolianus last night at the Lincoln Center Film Society Theater Thing That Is Very Hard to Find and Has a Very Expensive Concessions Stand But Friendly Workers Who Compliment You and Make You Glad That You Went to the Movies.
Corolianus is a lesser-known Shakespeare play, which some random woman exiting theater called "the most difficult play in [Shakespeare's] canon," and I respect her authority as someone who knew how to get to the Lincoln Center Film Society Theater Thing etc. The sort of dumb teenager sitting the row behind us likened it to "Romeo plus Juliet, haha," but he also said to his date, immediately as the end credits began to roll, "So, have you ever seen Maid in Manhattan?" So, I do not respect his authority.
Though, I can vaguely see where he was coming from, in that it is a modern staging of Shakespeare using the original language. Here's the thing, though, random mildly-douchey kid - Baz Luhrmann was hardly the only person to do that in the last twenty years. Sigh. CHILDREN, AM I RIGHT?
Ralph Fiennes both directed and acted the lead, and I know he's a respected actor and everything, but I really couldn't stop thinking "Oh my god, why is Voldemort in fatigues? Why is Voldemort kissing a human? Why is Voldemort hanging out with Gerard Butler?" It was a serious, serious problem, you guys.
I mean, sure, in this movie, he has a nose. TRIFLES, I SAY.
Anyway. Back to the actual movie.
So, without giving too much away, Corolianus is the story of a general who is incredibly proud, loses his home, and swears revenge. It felt very urgent - the scenes of war had an unmistakable feel of Iraq footage, something that I don't think anyone from my generation and above could possibly miss. There was even a bit that played out like an Al Qaeda video.
The basis of the greater conflict is a famine that has hit Rome, and the movements of the people screamed of Arab Spring and the riots in London. Seriously, all of this just hit so close to home, felt so true and some of the footage I would've sworn was taken from actual rioting that's taken place recently. It's a very dark and violent film, guys.
The one sort of violence reprieve is the intensely homoerotic relationship between Corolianus (Fiennes) and Aufidius (Butler). They're sworn enemies, with the sort of burning, passionate hatred that you just sort of assume could just as easily turn into a knife fight or some really scary sex. There were a lot of moments - long, tense minutes - where it was difficult to tell which direction it was going to go. To me, their relationship was the most believable one in the entire film. Corolianus' interactions with his mother, wife, child, friends - all pale in comparison to his smoldering eye-sex with Aufidius.
There was a whole lot of homoeroticism, actually, which Caitlyn said really improved the movie for her. "I was worried that all the violence was going to stress me out even more than I have been lately," she said, while smoking a post-film cigarette while we walked to a bar on 51st and 8th, "but then, imagining the relationship between Voldemort and Gerard Butler really, uh, relaxed me."
I may be paraphrasing slightly.
Something else I really appreciated about this film was the breadth of accents. It always bothers me when a movie takes place anywhere in Europe (or Asia, or Africa, for that matter) and the accents are all British. It really, really gets under my skin. So when you have the war tribunal, and you have men speaking with Italian accents, and British accents, and German accents, and then you think about it and you're like, what's up, EU! Then Butler has a sort of brogue that he seemed to slip in and out of a bit, but that was also very interesting and helped with the idea that he and Voldemort (I'm sorry, I'll stop) were mortal enemies.
Let's see, what else do I have to say... I would definitely recommend going to see it, but I'd also advise only going if you're going to want to have a serious conversation about war and the state of the world right now.
Finally, one of the previews was for Pina, which is a totally crazy-looking dance piece that I really want to see, but didn't think I would take Caitlyn to, and then while we're in the theater and the preview comes on, she says:
"Oh! Is this the other thing we were thinking about seeing? Oh. Oh. I don't know. I think I might like it? But it's also making me really uncomfortable? And I think I might hate it?"
And I said, "That is exactly what I thought you would think. I am a movie psychic."
If you want scientific excuses for why it's totally fine for you to shout obscenities when you stub your toe, LOOK NO FURTHER! I have just the article for you, just there.
I don't remember if I put this in the SOTU stuff (and am too lazy to check, and also this is awesome and let's just all look at it again regardless, forever): Chad Ochocinco live-tweeted (twat?) the State of the Union. Adorably. Except for the part where that seems like it is probably the government-knowledge level shared by most citizens, generally. But the part with Boehner just makes me want to giggle.
First off - dear Russian readers, I have enabled transliteration to Russian on my blog. I'm not sure if it's going to work or not? But there seem to be a lot of you, so let me know what's what.
Obama gave his State of the Union address last night! I have so many links for you guys. So many.
First off, I got a tumblr recently and intended to live-blog it, but then my phone died. All the same, you can see so many interesting things that I did. (HA NOT REALLY. But follow me on tumblr if that's your jam. And you mainly enjoy reading reblogs of NPR.)
Also, I wish I had gotten this out beforehand, but clearly I was ILL-PREPARED.
And the New York Times has a full transcript that you can make scroll with the video that includes fact-checking: AWESOME.
So I guess you can do the drinking game after all?
ANYWAY.
So, there's obviously some things in there that I was not that into (hydrofracking: I'm not a fan) but there were other things that I was really into (public disclosure of hydrofracking chemicals! YAY) and I ultimately learned that I'm the biggest nerd!
But really what I wanted to talk about today was the execution of this speech. Guys, this was some serious, serious politicking. It was masterful. I spent twenty minutes ranting at my roommate about the wordplay. Think what you will about his views, that speech was energizing.
There was also an artful use of distancing language in the beginning, when he talked about Detroit, saying that jobs had been lost, rather than using the more active language found in the rest of the speech (i.e., "We're building x! I've created x!" etc.).
This is something that I think we've stopped expecting from our politicians, and that's TERRIBLE. We're so used to politics being a mud-slinging fest in the last dozen or so years that we've forgotten what made the really great politicians great. It wasn't their ability to make other people look bad, or even themselves look good. When we think about Lincoln or Kennedy or Roosevelt, we think of how they made the American people band together, how they made people believe in themselves. Well, with Roosevelt, we also think about how he was the biggest BAMF of all time and space, and how he (purportedly) snuck out of the White House and taught a woman how to skin a bear.
The point is, a good politician can get himself elected. A great politician will make you want to run for office.
Anyway dudebros, you should read it. The man took what I and many other progressives viewed as a really necessary and incredibly strong stand.
The always-delightful Left-Handed Cartoons (written by right-handed people) knows the truth about you.
Mental Floss, you bitches are clever. Also from MF is this PARADIGM-SHIFTING PIECE about where hiccups come from. Air bubbles on the diaphragm my ass. MY MOTHER LIED TO ME! First Santa and the tooth fairy, now this? WHERE DOES IT END, MOM? WHERE DOES IT END???
This is a really cool project that a New York group is doing, wherein teenagers make sex ed PSAs. Sure, the sound is mixed weirdly so that the music blares a bit, but it's pretty cool that they're doing it, and the PSAs are actually pretty good.
Let's all take a moment to remember that sometimes, Obama does the sort of thing he promised to do. Let's also take a minute to remember that there's a good reason why we have three branches of government, and that presidents are not the be-all-end-all of lawmaking. Guys. High school government classes. Are there not enough of these? Are people sleeping through them?
MF also did this awesomely quotable list of 119 facts for National Trivia Day. One of my (many) favorites from the list: "2. On Good Friday in 1930, the BBC reported, “There is no news.” Instead, they played piano music."
Are you reading YoIsThisRacist? You should be. It's hilarious.
After watching the first episode, I'm very excited for House of Lies, though I'm not sure how I'll be watching it, since I don't have cable. ANYWAY there was this piece on Racialicious about it, it was pretty good.
EDIT: My god, Mental Floss. My god. Have you all added the MF RSS feed to your readers? Do it now.
For some stupid reason (PROBABLY POLITICS AMIRITE) they aren't on Spotify, but Macedo is a band headed by twins Michelle and Melissa. Their voices are amazing, and bonus! They're really nice as humans.
...and they're pretty. /blush. I totally had a crush on Michelle for a while after she visited her sister in NYC.
But now they both live in LA. PFFT. LA. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT.
Anyway, listen to them. If you like sort of jazzy-ish, sort of Regina-Spektor-ish vocals. Or really great lyrics.
POINT BEING THEY'RE GREAT. Please ignore me while I go hide somewhere for a few days.
In other news, I want to go to BlogHer in 2012 (it's in NYC, so my only expenses will be the convention registration fee) - if you want to help me go, click on an ad or buy something from my Amazon Associates store (which is full of useful and necessary things! Like ramen and seasons of Daria) before the end of February, and/or link your friends to my blog. In return for your assistance in this matter, I will ... do something. I don't know. Suggest something.
I started an Amazon Associates store which I'm telling you about mainly so you can go and appreciate how great my taste is. For instance: DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN BUY A WHOLE PALLET OF NONG SHIM SPICY RAMEN FOR LIKE $20 ON AMAZON. DID YOU KNOW THAT.
I'm just saying, if I had an extra $120 I would totally get this for you because I'm a good friend.
Also I'm currently obsessed with The Bloggess. Truly incredible stuff, you guys.
Also also I'm working on a series of posts in which I tell you whether or not every single TV series I've ever seen is worth watching. It's going to be similar to an encyclopedia, but more useful because you'll know what you need to put on your Hulu+ or Netflix queue. Because while most opinions are debatable, mine are certified facts. Expect the first installment before the end of the year/world.
First, in totally depressing things that are depressing, there's this article that makes it super obvious why more survivors of rape and sexual assault don't come forward. I strongly urge you to read it and pass it around, especially because of the part where juries in sexual assault cases are generally not open to persons who have been personally affected by sexual assault (which I assume includes close friends or family members of survivors). People need to talk about this! People need to stop victim-blaming! Juries need to convict actual sex offenders instead of putting fifteen-year-olds who had emotionally-but-not-legally-consensual-sex (in many states in the US, the legal age of consent is 16) on registered sex offender lists for life. In that vein, there's also this amazing article from Salon about how the well-meaning advice on how to avoid getting raped is, well, completely stupid and useless. During the entire course of my abusive relationship, I had zero alcohol (I didn't even try sips of my parents' wine at dinner until I was in college), I wore lots of layers in a weird proto-hipster style, I had a curfew, and none of that stopped my abuser from being an abuser. I had nothing to do with what he did.
I don't know if you read the "If I Were a Poor Black Kid" article - I got about halfway through before I quit reading in disgust - but even if you didn't, the responses outlined in this article are an interesting and worthwhile read.
Ryan North jumps on the holiday bandwagon, albeit in a very cynical (and enjoyable) way.
I can't remember if I've linked to ManBoobz before, but it's great for when you need a little ragercise in your day. This old Maxim article, in particular, was a great workout for my anger-glutes.
One of my good friends linked me to The Bloggess, who is hilarious and awesome and whose other blogs I haven't gotten to yet because there is already a lot to read just on this one - anyway, if this story of taxidermy doesn't make you want to read the whole thing, I don't understand you.
Businessweek's awesome correlation =/= causation graphs will hopefully make you laugh, if you are a nerd like me, or if you just appreciate how ridiculous things are sometimes.
I always love MentalFloss, and this Real or Onion? quiz was crazy difficult, and sort of hilarious.
Whitewashing! Yayyyy (and by "yayyyy" I mean "uuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh") !!!
Finally, the best gift for any holiday, that just keeps on giving.
(But actually, if you're looking for a holiday gift for someone who really doesn't need anything, maybe consider sponsoring something in their name for someone who does need something?)
I am in a mild fugue state at the moment, as my best friend just informed me that she is moving across the country a full month before she said she was, but I wanted to say thanks to people who are reading this, from all over the world, apparently (Google Analytics says I'm big in Russia) and also remind everyone to click on an ad today, on some fledgling blogger's blog (mine works as much as anyone's! :D).
Also, just a side note - I just started watching Lie to Me and am in LOVE. If you like Castle or Psych or Bones or anything else that I would call an irreverent crime procedural, you will probably like Lie to Me. Also, if you like weird sciences and always want to jump into a career of something because of watching a TV show about it (i.e., forensics because of Bones, fake psychicing because of Psych, crime writing and/or ass-kickery because of Castle), you will probably enjoy its look into the science of lies. I especially like when they use pictures of famous lies or famous examples of emotion to show you, yup, this really is a universal facial reaction, and if you are like me, you will catch yourself doing microexpressions of various things and probably look like a lunatic as you laugh at yourself for tinily shrugging or biting your lip unconsciously.
Of course, it does fall into certain crime procedural tropes, including one that irritates me to no end - the all-Muslims-aren't-suicide-bombers!-but-one-in-this-episode-is-let's-find-out-who-oh-wait-everyone's-just-racist thing, which... like, no, the vast majority of Muslims are not extremists, but why do all crime procedurals feel the need to do at least one episode in which they point it out, and all of them feel very much like the people writing the episode were like, "oh my gosh, this is going to be so OUT THERE and AVANT-GARDE and make people UNCOMFORTABLE," and it's like, really? Showing Muslims as normal humans is avant-garde?
/SIIIIIIIIIGH. That got very tangent-y very quickly. I just watched the one with the seeming-suicide-bombers plot last night, which is probably why I'm stuck on it. Also I think I recently watched an episode of something else with that same plot. It's just that you don't see a lot of Muslim characters on shows for anything except the episodes about/seemingly about religious extremism, which is just stupid.
Oh, well, there was that character arc on Bones with Arastoo Vaziri, (spoiler warning on the season from 2009, highlight for text) where he fakes an accent so that the team won't be jerks about his prayer schedule, which was very surprising to me, when it came out that he was faking it.
And of course, there's Abed on Community, who is one of my single-most favorite characters of all time, of any medium.
Annnnnnyway. I was hoping to find an article on Racialicious or something about the whole Muslims on TV issue, but "All-American Muslim" is skewing my search results. An article from last year on KoldCast names 14 American films (and TV) from 1980 on that have nuanced portrayals of Muslims - but that also includes Antonio Banderas playing an Arab Muslim, and several movies and shows that, to be perfectly honest, I had never heard of before. But, seriously, if you take pretty much any group that is a minority in the US and try to think of 14 positive or nuanced depictions of them in pop culture in the last 30 years, you're going to have to include some little-known documentaries and low-budget movies too. Sometimes I just want to slap Hollywood across the face and say, "Seriously, Hollywood. I'm really not afraid of seeing people of color (or queer spectrum, for that matter) on my TV or movie screen."
I usually avoid writing/talking/commenting about this kind of thing, because I don't want to say the wrong thing and sound like a gross racist, but making members of minority groups hold the obligation for bringing up that group's issues is massively unfair and ridiculous.
So there you go, Hollywood. I consume pop culture like it's my job. I'm white and middle-class. And I want diversity in my TV and movies. SURPRISE!
So, that girl I just told you about, whose blog I said you should read? She has this amazing post on The F Bomb (from like, a billion years ago, /shame) that you should also read.
If I have to explain to you what is so great about this, I just... I can't. I can't explain. It is inherently great.
Woah! Dudes! Did you know! The singer behind Supermodel, the song in the opening sequence of Clueless, penned a much better "I Kissed a Girl" FIFTEEN YEARS AGO? Why was I not a teenager in the early 90s? I would've been so about the whole riotgrrl thing.
I normally don't particularly like Katherine Heigl, but this informative video about neutering your pets makes me like her a bit. Kind of how I liked her back when she was on Grey's before they killed that hot guy she was in love with for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Stupid Grey's.
I want need to see this documentary. There are some really interesting points in the comments section about the ableist nature of the Jezebel article, as well as commentary on why is it that all things about sex work seem to be men-buy-women-sell when women (gasp!) also enjoy sex and may not, for whatever reason, have a partner when they are in the mood? Anyway, food for thought there.
This is one of my favorite things on GFY, and I will always read through these. I feel like I've seen Ringer. I have never watched it. BOOM. SUCCESS. I will be so sad if they stop doing them.
Today's link mashup has been brought to you, clearly, largely by Jezebel. Some days I love Jez, some days I hate it, but I read it either way.
London was a fun time, and there is really only one thing that I learned that I feel I absolutely must let you know about, dear readers:
Brits, even drunk Brits asking strangers about what the hell the point is of Angry Birds anyways, and why don't we all talk more and Londoners are too successful and that's why they have no sense of community, still sound more refined than Americans, even sober ones who are being very polite.
In other news, a friend of mine from high school who I haven't seen or talked to in far too long has a pretty interesting blog where she writes about her life in the same amazing voice she employed in our lit mag exercises. (Just a heads up to my more atheistic readers: she does talk a little bit about her religion on occasion. I know, you are shocked, I associate with religious people! Here is the big reveal: they are pretty much exactly like irreligious people! Oh my goodness! Fetch me my smelling salts, I think I have the vapors! [ie, keep your judgment hats away from your open minds, o would-be haters.])
That parenthetical aside reminds me! I had a long discussion with my father over dinner last night that launched from the Occupy movement (the movement he claims is doing nothing, yet has started at least a dozen conversations in my immediate family alone). As these conversations will do, it went from privileged youth to the threat of communism in the 50s to what evil means.
I expounded on this point, about evil, about villainizing your opponents, about propaganda, and at some point, I started to say - "you have to - " and then I stopped, sighed, laughed at myself, and said, "you have to make the political personal," and then shook my head and rued the existence of buzzwords.
Despite what my best friend thinks, about me being far too nice and liking people I damn well shouldn't because who likes that guy anyway and I give people way too much credit, I've been trying recently to think more. I was trying to think of an elegant way to phrase this, but there's not one. I realized that I was making a lot of weird judgments on people based on things I was assuming, and I don't think I'm the only person who has ever done this, or that I am particularly worse than anybody about it, but I have been (and maybe still am) worse than a lot of people at not letting things slide, about being superior, about correcting people over any tiny point that I think (whether correctly or not) is wrong.
So I've been making an effort to consider things from as many sides as I can. It's tiring and a lot of times I catch myself thinking "but this is just RIDICULOUS" when I try to think about things from some of the viewpoints that are, uh, further from my natural one. I feel like it's a good thing to do, though, and has certainly put my ego in check a little bit.
Almost as much as an 8-year old Finn yelling, "SPEAK ENGLISH!" and his classmates bursting out laughing when I was struggling through an explanation of archery safety tips. That was definitely in my top three most embarrassing/humbling moments.
Point: I think everybody should take a week where they pause and try, really try, to consider things from other viewpoints. Not just the ones that are completely opposite to their own, but also the ones that are own-adjacent, as in, for instance, what the other people in your subway car are thinking about. I guess that is what is meant when people say things about living an "examined life."
Oh, and a tip from my therapist: if you are in a situation where you are embarrassed or ashamed or something, it's a really good idea to step back for a second and think about where that embarrassment or shame is coming from. Is it from your rational, current-age brain, or is it your emotionally crippled seventh grade self who is screaming, "NOBODY WILL EVER LIKE YOU AGAIN BECAUSE THOSE PANTS ARE STUPID! THEY ARE STUPID AND EVERYONE HATES YOU!" Seventh grade selves tend to be kind of insane and very judgy little jerks. Don't listen to them.
Racialicious is a great blog that posts essays from all over the interwebs (they get a lot of guest posts/cross posts/etc.) about all things related to race. They tend to be thought-provoking. My favorites are the posts about pop culture and race, because, let's face it, my pop culture nerdom is probably the biggest segment of my brain.
Fig. 1. Brain structure of redbeanbun. Section defined in pink: pop culture knowledge. Section in green: ability to walk/talk/eat/wham/bam/thank you, ma'am. Section in yellow: anger ball. Section in blue: rational thought. Section in gray: remembering offsides rules for various sports (e.g., American football, soccer football, hockey, lacrosse, tennis). Small white bean section: all other functions.
Kate Beaton is finally, FINALLY posting again!!! And Goreys! Goreys are so great. They're one of my favorite things that she does. I just bought two of her books because there was a deal on Topatoco that was two-for-one books, or maybe it was buy two books, get a free T-shirt. I don't know. The point is I now own two very delightful Kate Beaton books, and a new Dinosaur Comics shirt in anticipation of FFTTTMIIWADCSD!
A family in Hawai'i who appear to grow all their own food have undertaken the greatest project of all time. That's right, people. Directions on how to make the Everdeen family dinner on the day of the reaping. GET ON IT.
And finally, because I can't resist the allure of Ryan North, a recent Dinosaur Comic that investigates the tricky question of non-gendered English pronouns and comes up with an excellent solution.
That's all for now! As a friend once said of me, "She knows everything that happens on the internet." I'm on vacation next week, but I'm trying to keep my updates more consistent, and I'll try to post another "READ THIS, DAMN YOU" digest sometime next week.
Dear other Hunger Games fans,
I'm sorry - it seems we didn't read the same book. The one that I read had a pretty diverse cast that is, if anything, a teeeeeensy bit whitewashed in the movie casting (for instance, I didn't picture Katniss as being out-and-out caucasian, I thought she was mixed race).
I do not agree with your sentiments of "OMG WTF BLACK PEOPLE WHY ISN'T CINNA A TWINK LOL LOL I HATE EVERYONE." Your critical reading skills leave something to be desired. Or, perhaps, just your ability to read.
I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, - redbeanbun
(Spoiler warning: some of the screenshot'd comments give things away, but they warn about that in the text of the article as well.)
