Some links. When I was listing my favorite underrated/underseen horror movies I didn’t think to name Deadgirl. It’s a tough, sad, grimy and rancid indie horror which is (to be somewhat reductive) about misogyny but not itself misogynistic. Not entirely sure I can revisit it sober, but it’s really stuck with me; and my anecdata agree w/the Deadly Doll that women horror fans tend to like (if that’s the word) the movie more than men do. Which is especially fascinating... Read more
what’s the Drug War? Radley Balko has a must-read roundup of the knee-jerk and the damage done: …To the extent that conservatives still defend the drug war (and there are fewer and fewer willing to do so), this is usually the way they go about it. Their argument is that drug use enslaves drug users with addiction, and that were drugs to be made legal, we’d all be robbed of the benefits of living in a populace of responsible citizens.... Read more
Asceticism is not self-enslavement but the way to freedom. Man is a tangled mesh of self-contradictions; only through asceticism can he gain spontaneity. Read more
with a list. I’m actually posting this mainly for the commenters who added Alien and Rosemary’s Baby as sf/horror cousins of the ’70s conspiracy genre (and I admit that I was surprised to read that Rosemary is actually from the late ’60s–doesn’t it feel ’70s to you?). Read more
ok yes, there’s some really great stuff here–I thought it would be glurgy or hipster but it is really neither of those things: The more I looked, the more I found. And I discovered that, secretly, the YouTube comment box had become the strangest and most wonderful place on the internet. A place that was fascinating, endlessly moving, and heartbreakingly human. “The hustle was sexy and graceful,” and other moments of joy, penitence, grief, war, love, and growing up. Read more
in case you missed this as it spread around facebook: Ripping up the playground rulebook is having incredible effects on children at an Auckland school. Chaos may reign at Swanson Primary School with children climbing trees, riding skateboards and playing bullrush during playtime, but surprisingly the students don’t cause bedlam, the principal says. The school is actually seeing a drop in bullying, serious injuries and vandalism, while concentration levels in class are increasing. Principal Bruce McLachlan rid the school of... Read more
My piece for AmCon on gay Christians coming out is online! Coming out of the closet is the simplest tool of the gay movement, yet it’s proven to be the most powerful and even the most spiritually profound. On the political side, Pew Research data this year found that knowing someone who is gay was the most common reason people switched to supporting gay marriage, and the percentage of people who know someone openly gay has risen over 25 points... Read more
Of old thou hast created me from nothing, And honored me with thy divine image; But when I disobeyed thy commandment, Thou hast returned me to the earth whence I was taken. Lead me back again to thy likeness, Refashioning my ancient beauty. Read more
Relevant to ye olde Catholicke wrytour conversation, as well as interesting in itself: As films get cheaper to make, and as the theatrical audience continues to shrink, independent film looks more and more like independent music. That has implications for distribution strategies. more Read more
Food historian Ivan Day has discovered what is believed to be the first recipe for ice cream, written in a manuscript by Lady Anne Fanshawe of England. Dating to c. 1665, she flavors her ice cream with mace, orangeflower water, or ambergris. Ambergris is an “intestinal slurry,” believed to be a ball of muscus-covered, indigestible squid beaks. This mass is ejected into the oceans by sperm whales, much like a cat disgorging a hairball. A ball of ambergris floats in the sea until it washes... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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