Can I tell you how happy I am Alan Jacobs’ Text Patterns is back? When he retired it a ways back, I paid tribute. Happily, he couldn’t hold back his bloggery any longer. Anyway, he’s in a similar position to me when it comes to a certain aspect of upper-middle-brow culture: He’s not seen any of Breaking Bad. Now, I have seen a couple of episodes, and I liked it just fine, but never stuck. I’ll get to why in... Read more
As I’ve noted several times before, one of my favorite promotions of Shakespeare, and indeed of all rich and substantive art, comes from the panhandling man interviewed in Al Pacino’s documentary Looking for Richard, who says: Intelligence is hooked with language. And when we speak with no feeling we get nothing out of our society. We should speak like Shakespeare. We should introduce Shakespeare into the academics. Know why? Because then the kids would have feelings. We have no feelings.... Read more
I love stuff like this, when a stuffy-seeming artistic institution embraces a piece of pop culture with genuine enthusiasm. However, I feel like I do have to note that there is something a tad menacing about a wall of Russian law enforcement officers boasting how they will be up all night in order to “get lucky.” Yes, boys, I’m sure you will be. See also: Superheroes staying up all night to get Loki. Hat tip to Cherry Teresa. Read more
As a nerd, it really does seem that I ought to be into comic books, but it just never happened. As a pre-teen, eventually I became devoted to The Transformers comics, but that had more to do with my love of the bots than any inclination toward comic books. I also dabbled around that age with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (pre-Archie) and Usagi Yojimbo, because they seemed safe, graspable, and I think also not overtly hyper-masculine. I briefly had a subscription to Web of Spider-Man, but... Read more
Spotted on Indeed.com, a “job listing” from a Texas mother looking for someone to help her transport her teenage daughters to school and activities, emphasis mine: I am a mother who is 38 years old, I am a teacher in Tomball ISD, my husband is American and I am Mexican. I need to find a woman or girl that is nice, kind, and has good manners because you would be a role model for my daughters too. Christian or Catholic... Read more
Is it time to pull the plug on Web publishing pioneer Salon.com? (Link) It seems to me that the problem with the idea of Salon becoming a kind of news nonprofit is not only that it doesn’t have any particular locality’s focus, but that it doesn’t fill any particular need. There is no shortage of outlets for political and cultural news and opinion, and Salon has never carved out a niche that is so particular to it that its absence... Read more
Daycare teacher 1, a few weeks ago: “Toby’s being very aggressive with the other kids. He’s doing a lot of pushing, and he’s shouting at the teachers. He’s screaming ‘No!’ at everything, and refusing to do anything we ask him, shouting “I cannot!” It’s been extremely difficult, and we’re trying to work out a system to help him to change his behavior.” Daycare teacher 2, a couple of days ago: “Toby had a great day today! He played really hard... Read more
I do no research. Given that I’ve just written a book that revolves around two London Met police detectives, this might seem a little foolhardy. I have no real idea what detectives do with their days. So I made some guesses. I suppose that they must investigate things. I tried to imagine what that might be like. I’ve seen the same films and TV shows that you have. I’ve read the same sorts of cheap thrillers. And I know that... Read more
I’ve been kind of rolling my eyes at the series by Paul Miller at The Verge on his year away from the Internet, which I’ve prejudicially thought of as a bit contrived and a little too cute by half. (I even get the unsubstantiated impression that his colleagues are just bemusedly humoring him.) But in recent weeks he’s obviously been hitting upon some genuinely interesting insights. In the latest dispatch, Miller uses My Dinner with André and Walden to illustrate... Read more
Right off the bat, Romney hits us with some unscripted juice. “My, oh my, you guys are great to be out here with this rain,” he says. He has declined the use of an umbrella and is getting rained on with the rest of us. He grins, jaw like a crescent moon. “This guy here with the orange shirt—boy, that thing is turning a diff…a deeper color of orange here this morning.” The man’s shirt is turning a deeper color... Read more
iMortal
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In