January 2010
49 posts
I know you might be burned out on the whole Conan/work hard image thing (I haven’t been on Tumblr in the past couple of days! I’m behind on any recent dramz!) but Tumblrer lineara left me a really thoughtful comment on the phenomenon:
I’m with you on celebrity-worship; I’ve never even watched an episode on Conan (or Leno for that matter.) But here’s the thing: I...
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Anonymous asked: Are you Catholic?
re: cliches
agrammar:
My guess is that people have responded to his message not just because of general good will for the guy, but because he found himself in a situation that invites a great deal of cynicism, and yet addressed his viewers and said something positive and hopeful that made a lot of them feel better. (And got misty and choked-up while saying it.) If he’d said the same thing three months ago,...
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katiecoyle:
nerdshares:
katiecoyle:
Aw, come on. Conan telling his audience to be kind and Conan’s audience thinking that it’s sound advice is probably the most innocuous thing ever to happen in the world. I see your point, and you know I love you, but can’t we all just have a kumbaya moment here?
I think it’s a nice (sadly not always true) message and I think he was sincere in his...
katiecoyle:
Aw, come on. Conan telling his audience to be kind and Conan’s audience thinking that it’s sound advice is probably the most innocuous thing ever to happen in the world. I see your point, and you know I love you, but can’t we all just have a kumbaya moment here?
I think it’s a nice (sadly not always true) message and I think he was sincere in his address. I have no problem...
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Michael K of Dlisted is the only person who should... →
No one else has a better sense of the absurdity of privileging and mythologizing a celebrity’s inner life than MK. He’s also perfected the voice for it: iconoclastic but self-consciously critical, too (“I’m ashamed to admit that the first time The Situation brought his situation out, I had a minor situation in my down low situation”).
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Liz Colville as Liz Gilbert. →
Oh, problem solved. I created a Twitter list...
consisting solely of John Mayer, with an appropriate description. Glad that’s been taken care of.
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Twitter lists are terrible. I need more than 140...
Yes, this is about John Mayer.
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jakec asked: Why do you blog?
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NYRblog: Garry Wills on how Obama's hopes did him... →
Wills’ take isn’t exactly revolutionary (Obama conceded too much for the empty cause of bipartisanship!), and while I mostly agree, what kind of criticism would he have faced if he had been the strident “decider” Wills (and, really, all of us) wanted him to be? Wouldn’t it have steeled the conservatives against him in even greater numbers, with even greater antipathy?...
I Don’t Care If You’re Offended →
robot-heart-politics:
thecurvature:
What I care about is harm. What I ultimately said in this other argument was:
The problem with sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist, etc., remarks and “jokes” is not that they’re offensive, but that by relying for their meaning on harmful cultural narratives about privileged and marginalized groups they reinforce those narratives, and...
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“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to...”
– Pat Robertson
(BRB, sewing the children of evangelicals together in an attempt to make conjoined twins. You’re right. It’s exactly like Nazi Germany!)
(via morninggloria)
More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history. Even the Huguenots?!
(via thefeeling)
Wait a minute....
thefeeling-deactivated20101220- asked: You don't have to answer this publicly, if you don't want to, but what brought you around to writing for The Awl? I'm not asking to be a dick, since I loved what you wrote about JS and I like so much of what The Awl does anyway, but it seems like a departure from your previous stance on the site?
todeuso asked: New work Mac tower has also had some PC-like problems. Have to keep old G5 running b/c Snow Leopard doesn't have printer driver support. WTHeck, Apple.
Haiti Action Item →
Do we do “follow Friday” recommendations? abbyjean is one of my favorites.
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So. →
My brand new iMac at work DIED a couple of days ago and now I’m in that hellish place where I am saving things to multiple places and backing things up and am now starting a tedious process of transferring mail client contacts between platforms and OH MY GOD, CLICK THAT AND TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.
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Dave's answer to my question. →
I asked Dave about his work at a homeless shelter; his response was very touching.
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Pat Robertson is literally* Barney Stinson?
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.” True story.
Never let your complete lack of knowledge get in the way of your awesome mythmaking.
*I know.
Haiti.
rabsteen:
langer:
It’s just a part of the emotional baggage of being a Sept. 11 survivor that I freak out a little bit every time some major disaster occurs involving some incomprehensibly frivolous loss of life: I freaked out a little bit during the Bali bombings, and again during the Spanish subway attack, and again during Katrina, and again during the tsunami, and again now.
And it’s not...
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“I think being shy basically means being self-absorbed to the point that it makes...”
– David Foster Wallace (via giannadevoto) (via bugseatbooks) (via libraryland)
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Nancy Franklin is Probably Excluded from Chicken... →
Hey, my article on Jersey Shore just went live on The Awl (while I was commuting!).
(Also, disclaimer: I don’t hate WASPs. I am very happily attached to one of them!)
skybarn2 asked: Do you want to start a Cormac McCarthy is overrated club?
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Is it weird that I'm really excited about LOST
even though I know that, approx 30 seconds after it’s over and I’m out of my ZOMGLOSTSOAWESOME phase, I’m going to be bitching about how stupid and retcon-y it is?
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Subverting my subversion of TumblrAsk
Generic1 posed anonymously to ask me every hilarious, ridiculous question you could imagine but I can’t respond to him without posting (that e-mail addy didn’t work, generic!)
So:
1) I don’t know, Nerdshares, I’m so confused. I think my husband may be cheating on me. What do I do?
I can’t give you any illegal suggestions but I will say this: Car. Prized...
Anonymous asked: Have you tried bacon chocolate? It's delish!
I have a wealth of hilarious anonymous questions...
Anonymous poster, I’m trying to subvert the ask thing, and I can’t respond to all of your (actually, not bad) questions without publishing them to my blog, but if you e-mail me, I promise I will answer them.
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Gawker on "Ninth Circle of Hell: Rebloggers" →
I’ve always heard that Richard Lawson was a talented writer but, wow, writing an article about Julia Allison that’s really about Richard Blakeley? Clever!
P.S. Did you know that, on the webs, people say really mean things about actors and actresses? Will Gawker create a new beat dedicated solely to blogs that are highly and hashly critical of public figures? Or just the ones that...
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Between the rise of ask-me-me-me-memes and bra...
(c.f.)
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dlbrows-deactivated20120207 asked: Because tumblr wants you to never leave this world. Honestly, it's going to be harder and harder to keep it as a blog people outside of tumblr will read. Too many inside jokes....
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"It's hard to imagine reading that many books, let...
- Jacket Copy’s Carolyn Kellogg, on Joyce Carol Oates’ 100+ books.
I know this post probably required a quick turnaround but, come on, Carolyn, you read for a living! It’s very easy to imagine reading 100+ books in a lifetime.
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Seth Grahame-Smith, this has to stop. →
bookshares:
I know zombies and vampires are kind of hot right now, and we all need to pay bills, but please, please, for my health and well-being if not your own, can you reconsider the path you’re choosing?
(link via bmckinney)
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Infinite Regress →
Nothing hits the point of “bloggers who blog about other people’s lives have no lives of their own” quite like spending your time creating a blog dedicated to reblogging the blog of bloggers who blog about other people’s lives. Lead by example, sages.
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"Parker Lewis Can't Lose" > "Lost"
(via inothernews)
But sadly, “LOST” > “Parker Lewis Can’t Win”
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The NYT tried to analyze it, too, I guess. →
rosasparks:
bubba thinks it’s stoopid that every show with major drama always uses the Last Supper as a promotional image. Oh well, I like it. Nah.
I still love LOST. They had me wondering and stressed out and pissed for awhile, but it’s the last season and by golly, the last half of last season was awesome. I hope they finish it well.
They better not pull the ‘it’s a dream’ or a Twin Peaks...
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I'm really relieved that I do not have to review...
I read about 30 pages and could hear James Wood’s voice screaming in my head about telling v. showing. It is, at least in its early chapters, a tell-y novel. Make me feel what the character feels; I don’t want to take your word for it. DNW.
Shitty Titty Self-Pity Committee
(via faithandbegorrah)
The only important question is: how many members of the committee have published?
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Pretty sure someone sent a submission in on...
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BMichael on "Synecdoche, New York"
[…]
I watched it a few times. I have a handle on the plot. I know about the time stuff. The fire stuff. The extras. This is the sort of film David Foster Wallace would have made fun of for being super ‘Hey look at my technical virtuosity’ without backing it up. This is the sort of film that makes me want to watch a high school production of Waiting For Godot because at least the dialogue...
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“And this is why I suppose I care. Despite all his literary physiognomy, Wallace...”
– Seth Colter Walls: An Incredibly Un-Fun Misreading of David Foster Wallace that Katie Roiphe Should Never Do Again
I’m of the opinion that Roiphe didn’t think she could talk about “young male novelists” without mentioning DFW (because: you can’t) so she massaged and...
Tolstoy writes like a woman, sometimes.
faithandbegorrah:
(via bmichael)
But he chapter breaks just like a little girl.
I would like to un-anonymously say that this was fantastic.
Man, Gawker totally beat me to the punch on the...
neurotical:
nerdshares:
Except Foster Kamer, as you probably expect, characterizes Formspring as “awesomely evil.” Make no mistake, it is evil. But honestly, what responses are people hoping for? We have FB, Twitter, Tumblr — how many platforms do people need to masturbate? If someone wants to ask you a question and you are accessible via any or all of those media — and if you have a...
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Man, Gawker totally beat me to the punch on the...
Except Foster Kamer, as you probably expect, characterizes Formspring as “awesomely evil.” Make no mistake, it is evil. But honestly, what responses are people hoping for? We have FB, Twitter, Tumblr — how many platforms do people need to masturbate? If someone wants to ask you a question and you are accessible via any or all of those media — and if you have a formspring,...