Here is an anatomy of a clapback. It’s very amusing. I am frustrated, though, by the tone of some of the criticism being lodged against Kylie Jenner. It sounds like slut shaming. Tyga is the one we should be criticizing. Also, Kylie Jenner is Hollywood 17 which is Iowa 33. I kid, mostly.
Laura van den Berg’s Find Me is out this week and here is a great interview with the writer in Salon.
Here is a secret to longevity–raw eggs and no husband.
The very talented Jessica Williams, who is only 25, took to Twitter to discuss speculation that she might take over The Daily Show desk. She said, among other things, that she is under qualified. A writer wrote a strange response basically suggesting that Williams lean in a bit further and abandon impostor syndrome. “All she needs is a pep talk.” Really? For one, Williams is a grown woman. And it’s not impostor syndrome to assess your skillset and know what you are and are not ready for. All too often, marginalized people who achieve success, are then expected to be everything to everyone. They are expected to be able to do everything all at once. Jessica Williams, who can and has certainly spoken for herself on this matter, doesn’t have to take a job just because the public wants her to. And if she were to take the job (assuming she would even want the job), she would be set up for failure, for any number of reasons including that women and people of color are simply not supported in late night television the way white men are. Williams is one of the few interesting non-white men’s names we can offer up as potential heirs to Jon Stewart’s throne. Other names that have been repeated with frequency are Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. All three women are awesome and talented but it’s a damn shame that we only have a handful of potential candidates who readily come to mind. It’s a shame that such an unreasonable burden is placed on their shoulders. I cannot wait to see what Williams does in the next few years and if she so chooses, I cannot wait for her to run her own show. In the meantime, I hope we can look at strengthening the pipeline of women and people of color in comedy so we don’t come to expect so much from so few.
The secret of joy can be found in Minneapolis.
If the American dream has not quite shattered as the Millennial generation has come of age, it has certainly scattered. Living affordably and trying to climb higher than your parents did were once considered complementary ambitions. Today, young Americans increasingly have to choose one or the other—they can either settle in affordable but stagnant metros or live in economically vibrant cities whose housing prices eat much of their paychecks unless they hit it big.
Can veganism save the world? Can we live without cheese?
Can a vegan diet save the world? According to a new report from the UN, the answer is “yes.”The Guardian writes that “a global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty, and the worst impacts of climate change.” The report notes that the Western preference for meat- and dairy-heavy diets is “unsustainable,” especially as the population is expected to grow to 9.1 billion by 2050.
Here is an interview with poet Danez Smith who is extraordinarily talented.
The Rumpus: How conscious of politics, even when not overtly political, are you in your poetry?
Danez Smith: Poetry has its place in revolution and protest. But I don’t know if I’m actively searching for that. It’s kind of the only way I know how to create work. A lot of my foundation in the arts—even in high school stuff—was always social justice based. But what that taught me wasn’t necessarily that every poem needs to be a protest song or that every poem has to be political, but that the personal is political. I create art for necessary reasons. It’s not a frivolous act to me or for the people that taught me about art-making. It’s not something that we should take lightly. Everything we write is an opportunity to speak something true or construct or deconstruct something for either the self or for people or community or another person that we love, hate, whatever. I don’t think politics necessarily come into play when I’m writing or when I’m editing, but it’s more just how I know how to be. To have a certain amount of agency, when I’m approaching the work, and I can’t be devoid of feeling. Poetry is kind of moving away from that apolitical, anti-emotional, anti-sense-making thing that popped up in the ’90s. Academia took a grip hold on poetry, and I’m very much anti that. I want to push away from poetry devoid of the “I” or feeling or a politicalness or a meaning.
Emily Nussbaum on Joan Rivers.
Six months before Joan Rivers died, last year, she went on the “Howard Stern Show”: two old friends, serial offenders, knocking down targets. They talked about Mayor Bill de Blasio. (“Rich against the poor!” she sneered.) Stern asked her opinion of Woody Allen, with whom Rivers had come up in the club scene, in the early sixties. “I think he’s brilliant. What Woody does in his private life is his private life. You want to be a pedophile, be a pedophile. I like . . . what’s her name? Ping-Pong. The wife. She wears yellow too much. Too matchy-matchy.”
Online harassment is really terrorism, this article suggests.
How did you wake up? Like this.
The one and only Zadie Smith profiles Key and Peele.
The wigs on “Key and Peele” are the hardest-working hairpieces in show business. Individually made, using pots of hair clearly labelled—“Short Black/Brown, Human,” “Long Black, Human”—they are destined for the heads of a dazzling array of characters: old white sportscasters and young Arab gym posers; rival Albanian/Macedonian restaurateurs; a couple of trash-talking, churchgoing, African-American ladies; and the President of the United States, to name a few. Between them, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele play all of these people, and more, on their hit Comedy Central sketch show, now in its fourth season. (They are also the show’s main writers and executive producers.) They eschew the haphazard whatever’s-in-the-costume-box approach—enshrined by Monty Python and still operating on “Saturday Night Live”—in favor of a sleek, cinematic style. There are no fudged lines, crimes against drag, wobbling sets, or corpsing. False mustaches do not hang limply: a strain of yak hair lends them body and shape. Editing is a three-month process, if not longer. Subjects are satirized by way of precise imitation—you laugh harder because it looks like the real thing. On one occasion, a black actress, a guest star on the show, followed Key into his trailer, convinced that his wig was his actual hair. (Key—to steal a phrase from Nabokov—is “ideally bald.”) “And she wouldn’t leave until she saw me take my hair off, because she thought that I and all the other guest stars were fucking with her,” he recalled. “She’s, like, ‘Man, that is your hair. That’s your hair. You got it done in the back like your mama would do.’ I said, ‘I promise you this is glued to my head.’ And she was squealing with delight. She was going, ‘Oh! This is crazy! This is crazy!’ She just couldn’t believe it.” Call it method comedy.
How silence works… (SHHHHHH)
I am not sure why I keep being interested in Mars but it’s happening.
Winter is pretty terrible everywhere but in Antarctica it’s extra extra, read all about it.
The final flight out of the South Pole was Friday, February 13—the last chance to leave until mid-November. Those 40 or so people staying the winter will have no way out of Antarctica for around nine months. They won’t even be able to venture more than a mile or two off the base, because all the facilities are in a condensed area, and there’s no point in sightseeing during the four months of darkness and two more of twilight.
Troy Wiggins writes about being black in South Korea.
This doesn’t seem… right.
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There’s going to be a MOOMIN BALLET. Why am I here and not in Helsinki 🙁
*incoherent screaming*
one of the very best things about living in Finland for 2 years for me & my family, really has to be the discovery of Moomins. This looks amazing and hilarious though. I don’t know how those costumes are going to work.
WHAAAA oh man! Where is commenter Toft? Toft? I have a feeling this news will be appreciated.
This news is extremely appreciated.
I wonder if the Finnish National Ballet chose Comet in Moominland because it’s the book with the most traditional plot and the easiest to make into a kid-friendly ballet, or because it’s the first book and THEY PLAN TO DO THEM ALL??
I am hoping against all hope for eight Moomin ballets. One is not enough. At least let them do Moominland Midwinter.
I would like to see Moominvalley in November. Or Moominpappa at Sea. For the seahorses!
And the hattifatteners!
My vote’s on Tales from Momminvalley. A chorus of Hattifatteners!
I really really really hope they are either touring and come to the UK, or that this happens when I can get to Finland! I’ve seen the stage show of Moominland Midwinter and that was just lovely.
!!!! 😀
I am so excited and so sad all at the same time. I am not close to that at all, but maybe there will be a broadcast??
Roxanne, your entire stunning paragraph on Jessica Williams and the burdens placed on the few marginalized people who prominently succeed makes me want to stand up and clap. THANK YOU.
Yeah, I agree. It sucks because I get what Ester was trying to do, but she missed the mark. I think the patronizing and insulting tone comes from all the passive language she uses– referring to Williams a “victim,” saying what she “needs,” etc.
All that said, impostor syndrome is real and it’s a problem. Had she just said what she’d said in her mea culpa, which is that she’s been reading a lot about impostor syndrome and that Williams’ invoking of “I’m not qualified” got her thinking, it would’ve been fine. It’s one thing to comment generally about a social phenomenon, and another to weigh in directly on someone’s life decisions as though you know them.
Jessica’s response to the Billfold piece is pretty amazing as well: http://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8057391/daily-show-j…
…feeling a sense of trepidation as I ask this, but what’s a clapback, & how is tweeting back #DontPanic the winning stroke in the argument? #confused (but enjoying all of the obvious furor with great delight.)
Yes! I didn’t get why #DontPanic was considered the ultimate burn?
my guess is it has something to do with the fact that she was turning it around & using on her?
I’m going to blame my general Twitter-etiquette ignorance for it, though.
My opinion is that Khloe started to blab a bit because she was panicking and then Amber burned her?
Yeah, after reading that article, I think I understand how my dad feels when I try to explain Facebook or something.
I think it’s basically the same thing as saying, “You mad?” Sigh, these days, I have to reference knowyourmeme and urban dictionary. #feelingold
I did not understand that either until I looked at the timestamps and realized Amber actually tweeted it to Khloe first. Still not quite sure why it’s so devastating but at least it makes more sense than her just repeating the same thing Khloe already said.
Also I don’t care about any of these people and have no idea why I took the time to piece that together.
I believe the #DontPanic is a reference to French Montana’s single of the same name … which has additional context, because FM is an ex of Khloe’s who is dating/has been recently dating Amber Rose.
Additional detail: http://thegrio.com/2015/02/17/amber-rose-khloe-ka…
Toasties, the gender terrorism article was written by sometime-Toast contributor Anne Theriault, and she is receiving an UNBELIEVABLE amount of backlash, including some pretty awful threats toward herself and her family. She is OK and taking care of herself, but send good thoughts her way.
Oh, mother of God. Thanks for letting us know, houblonchouffe.
She said they’ve received violent threats against their child in particular, it is fucking awful.
Yeah, there were people tweeting incredibly graphic and violent threats against my kid. I don’t even know how to talk about it except to casually say “yeah someone threatened my kid” because how do you even address that? It’s too huge and scary to properly think about.
#ironyisdead
(Christ, how awful. Sending fervent good thoughts for safety and peace her way.)
That is horrible, and also proving her point. It’s like these men are all “yep, we’re engaging in gender terrorism, totally agreed, so STFU or we’ll rape and kill you.”
Even more insane are the guys who are are all, “gender terrorism is a complete myth, STFU or we’ll rape and kill you.”
I don’t know if they know full well what they’re doing and are trying to keep it from being exposed, or if they just have no sense of irony.
And a slight derail, but this is why men who despise that kind of behavior need to speak up about it. Misogynists who engage in gender terrorism will, by definition, not listen to women. They will listen to men. And honestly, while I dislike the whole “white knight” thing, this is a problem that MEN have created. It’s on MEN to stop doing it, and to help create an environment where that shit will not be tolerated. It’s a feminist issue, but it’s not a feminist problem, in that it’s something we can solve. We can’t solve it, because we’re not the ones engaging in it, or witnessing it and then standing aside and saying “well that sucks, but it’s a female problem, not my problem.”
A particular peeve of mine is the people (referenced in the article) who *still* talk about this kind of thing in terms of women not being willing to engage in ‘robust debate’. That phrase has been reduced to utter meaninglessness by the the idiotic, minimizing intentions of those who typically use it, and needs to be retired immediately.
‘Robust debate’ assumes that there are two or more participants in a discussion. It’s not a debate when one side is making points and the other side is responding with threats of violence.
And I wonder how many of these guys somberly posted “je suis charlie” in the wake of the Paris attacks.
I wish just stating simple truths, like she did, didn’t need to be an act of bravery. Unfortunately, nowadays, it really does.
The boy has actually asked me not to write about certain topics, because he doesn’t want me to become a target. That’s what silencing looks like. I am grateful to all the women who do dare, and I wish there was more I could do to support them besides sending good thoughts.
Germaine Greer’s adage ‘Women have very little idea how much men hate them’ is just as true now as when she wrote the Female Eunuch.
It’s exhausting to be a woman. Our very existence as autonomous thinking, feeling human beings seems to serve as a personal affront to so many. The sheer outrage we incur at every turn from housewives-being-parasites to feminazis-taking-men’s-jeeerbs – we simply can’t win. It’s enough to make one want to secede from the species.
They literally used to burn us to death. I just…yeah. They hate us.
Thanks for the love, homies <3
It’s been a rough few days, mostly spent trying to clean up after all the sad dudes peeing their pants with rage/sadness over my article
(also now I’m getting a billion tweets going DON’T BLAME GAMERGATE, WE’VE NEVER DONE ANYTHING BAD lol ok friends)
Baratunde Thurston.
Just throwing that out there.
Leslie Jones, IMO. She should at LEAST be a correspondent, she always kills it when she gets a Weekend Update segment.
Or, honestly, Larry Wilmore, since what I’ve seen of his panel show is really not working well…
Oh, I really like Larry Wilmore’s new show! I think the panel part is more interesting than just watching yet another movie/rock/sports star get interviewed. I also love Keeping it 100, and how he subjects himself to it, too. I think the whole show has a lot of charm so far.
I highly recommend the book “Big Dead Place” for anyone who can’t get enough about the inner workings of living in Antarctica. A lot of it delves into the office politics that come with working for a defense contractor, but it’s a fascinating read.
My new fantasy Daily Show replacement is a tag team duo of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. I just want them to host everything. Every awards show, every talk show, every fake news report.
You want to be a pedophile, be a pedophile.
Oh, fuck you, Joan Rivers.
Yeah, that’s why I really don’t get people acting like her “trailblazing” career cancels out everything she’s said.
Yes. I recognize that she worked very hard to get where she did in a male-dominated industry, and paved the way for a lot of other ladies, and that the horrible things she said were, to some extent, a product of her experiences. But I still just really disliked her on a personal level.
I’ve read a few accounts of people who knew her, where they say she was really warm in person. I’m not that familiar with her work, but I couldn’t stomach her body snark on celebrities.
She was good in Spaceballs, though.
Sometimes I feel like the only person on the planet who thought she was just plain mean and not funny.
No, me too! I watched the season of Celebrity: Apprentice that she was on (I’m sorry; I realize this is indefensible in retrospect) and she was viciously awful to Annie Duke.
On further consideration, I would like to retract the quotes around “trailblazing” (I know, ironic to use them again, but the intent is quite different), because they were an asshole thing to do. It was trailblazing, even though I don’t like a lot of her style.
Also can we talk about the fact that Playmobil made a figurine of Martin Luther and it is flying off the shelves in Germany?
The Bavarian city of Nuremberg has already started its preparations to mark 500 years since the Reformation in 2017 and the Martin Luther doll is being sold as part of the celebrations.
I hope they come out with a full playset of the Diet of Worms, and a little Playmobil Pope to excommunicate him.
Bonus: if you take off his hat, you’ve got a Hermione Granger figurine!
Dude looks way too happy. Martin Luther was a miserable old sod.
Yeah, I was thinking that myself. He started the reformation in part because he couldn’t get past his own self-loathing.
Does it come with a barrel full of nuns?
I would buy a full Playmobil Pope set, containing all the popes from Peter to Francis. Including with various popemobiles.
I can think of at least two people who I would send a Playmobil Pope set to, so I am 100% on board with this idea.
Popemobil!
Playmobil Pope: Rigid and inflexible for theological accuracy! (Also bends at groin, for full historical accuracy.)
I definitely thought it was a Hermione Granger figurine and had to look at the label to see it was Luther.
I want a Defenestration(s) of Prague playset.
YESSSSSSSSSSSS.
Minneapolis is great, and I love living here, but it’s not without its issues. Here’s one study on the racial/financial gap. And the CityPages (which is honestly usually terrible) actually had a good rebuttal.
Aw, dammit, I knew it was too good to be entirely true. Spouse and I live Up North and periodically fantasize about moving to the Cities in the hope of finding a greater variety of Foods From Faraway Places. Oh, and real jobs.
I mean, there are lots of food options here. I could eat spring rolls every day from different SE Asian restaurants for at least 2 weeks and be happy.
This piece also gets at the issues with Minneapolis. Frustrating that cities that do well for the poor tend to be more homogeneous and as Minneapolis has gotten more diverse, they’ve done worse.
Just last night NPR was talking to some people in the twin cities about how they *couldn’t* find affordable housing! I always end up clicking on all those pieces about “the future of cities” or whatever, and they always leave me scratching my head.
YOU CAN PRY MY MEAT AND MY CHEESE OUT OF MY COLD DEAD HALF-ITALIAN HALF-FRENCH CANADIAN HANDS
What an amazing link roundup! Still working my way through articles, but– that Zadie Smith Key & Peele piece is everything. What a huge article! Also, had no idea Peele and Chelsea Peretti were together, which is amazing because they are probably the two funniest people on TV right now.
It was an amazing article.
On the topic of being black in Korea, one of my favourite blogs to read is Ask a Korean! And he has written about the way Koreans view black people a number of times. His posts are always intelligent and well thought out. I don’t always agree with everything he writes, but they are always thoughtful and interesting.
that’s a great blog, thanks for linking!
24 hours into Old Loves. Please send help.
I would, but I am on page 68 and there is no hope for me.
I…am a lot, lot further than that. It just doesn’t seem to end.
It goes on and on and on…
Like Alain Delon’s relationships, apparently. I’m learning SO MUCH.
i’ve reached the pages where the photos have no captions and I can’t tell who half the people are so I stopped. Over 200 pages fyi.
I looked at all of it and now I feel like a champ!
O’ Connell, WHY??
Alec Baldwin & Janine Turner, 1983
Turner, an actress most famous for the television show Northern Exposure and playing JD McCoy’s mom on Friday Night Lights, now devotes much of her time to politics. She was a frequent campaigner for Sarah Palin, hosts her own conservative talk radio show, and is a contributor to Fox News and The Daily Caller.
that is SO SAD
Far be it for me to argue with the UN (except I’m going to) but veganism and the like has it’s downfalls. I guess I’m jaded because I’ve engaged in too many conversations where any issues/concerns with vegetarianism is immediately negated with “it’s not as bad as the meat and dairy industry”. Water usage, transportation costs, effect of mono cropping on bees and local wildlife, fertilization, water eutrophication — not as bad as meat and dairy, thus not deserving of conversation. The truth is — large scale ANYTHING can and do cause serious consequences, all which need to be examined.
Reducing consumption of animal products and increased use of sustainable ag techniques. The way things are grown can’t be left out of the conversation, you are right! But it would still be good if people in the west ate less meat. Even the way Americans consume meat, red meat especially, compared to Europeans, like guys we can chill a little.
(I am an American and non-meat eater but cheese enthusiast.)
Totally agree. I realize now that my comment came across as though I think meat and dairy are perfect, and they aren’t. The antibiotic usage alone is darn near catastrophic. But I dont think meat or dairy are intrinsically evil, but our expectations are too high, and we need to cut back on intake.
Although oddly enough I’ve been reading — by pure coincidence — a whole bunch of articles from a variety of sources on proper animal grazing techniques, so if we could even institute some of those, things would be better.
Anyways, long story short, I’ve gotten into too many arguments about almond milk and it has made me slightly bitter.
Yeah! One of my coworkers was telling me about a book – I forget the title, but basically, meat can save the world! Which is an overstatement, but the idea was all about sustainable animal grazing and how a lot of people in the world make a living or subsistence farm with livestock. So that is important too. I also like the idea of eating cover crops that require less water and less inputs than our usual grains. They can restore the soil making it easier in the future to grow wheat, etc, without inputs, and yaaay positive feedback loops!
Keep in mind that the Guardian article is a little different than the actual UNEP report. The actual report acknowledges that animal-based resources have a larger carbon footprint than plant based ones (which we’ve known for years), but also says this (referring to plant crops): “It is also noteworthy that agricultural materials contribute significantly to global warming, despite their CO2 capture during growth. This is due to the intensive nature of European agriculture.”
And then in the actual conclusion section, the only thing about changing people’s diets is this : “A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products”
So no, the UN is not just telling everyone they need to become vegan to stop climate change
A newspaper article over-dramatizes an official report/findings? Heavens to Murgatroyd, I’ve never heard of that happening! 😉
Good to know, thanks!
Plus farm workers’ rights don’t go away with vegetables instead of cattle
Also wouldn’t our energy problems be saved with using just a tiny fraction of land for solar panels and don’t we have enough food in the world to feed everyone but not in the right place and doesn’t racism and colonialism have a lot to do with whose land is getting f’ed up … I feel like we have existing solutions we’re just not allowed to use.
And not all land is suited to growing vegetables or legumes. Animals — ruminants especially, cattle and sheep and goats — can convert resources that humans can’t eat into food that humans can eat. Rangeland, scrub, unirrigated pasture, high-altitude areas, etc. Feeding ruminants grain negates this, of course.
Poultry and pigs more or less require external non-grass feed — that is, grains — they are not designed to digest grass as efficiently as ruminants. Chicken should be more expensive than beef by a long shot! It grosses me out that it’s become the ubiquitous cheap food.
I love my pigs but they are not really sustainable until I can figure out how to grow grain myself.
I’m tentatively excited about “grown-in-a-lab” meat. If we can convert plants into meat without the overhead of, you know, organs and stuff, that just seems like the best solution.
i am 100% on board with lab meat. i simply can not and will not live without consuming animal products, including actual meat. i have no qualms about it being grown in a lab.
Yes! I find all-or-nothing plans like veganism a little much. Great if you want to do it and it makes you feel good, more power to you, but no reason to pretend it is the best/only way to go, instead of one way among others that are eco-friendly. Using meat as an occasional seasoning instead of a main dish, and cheese as a treat, works just as well and is a lot less Puritanical. It’s also better for most people’s bodies/health. Moderation!
Also: Produce is/can be expensive, especially if it’s brought in from a long distance. Not to mention the existence of food deserts, and the fact there are people out there who need to eat meat, and that people can be (and are) allergic to various fruits and veg. There’s also the whole labour thing. Why not look at the class issues (which are often connected with racial issues) surrounding food access/insecurity first?
Meanwhile, the most ideal/ethical thing to do, if you can’t grow your own garden or raise your own future meat, IMO, would be to buy as much local food as you can.
The best part about The Anatomy of a Clapback was that the lone example of a celebrity commenting on the affair was Jackée Harry and her response included a photo of her eating a giant sandwich. If nothing else, this has all reaffirmed my love of Jackée.
I’m a bit claustraphobic and my research wouldn’t be even a little bit improved by it, but I still have a weird yearning to go and live in Antarctica for a season. It makes zero sense and yet the desire lives on…
I recently watched the Werner Herzog documentary about the people who live in Antarctica (it’s on Netflix, don’t remember the title right now). It seems like it would be kind of awesome until you got sick of listening to all your companions’ stories about how doing shrooms changed their lives.
I desperately want to do that, and I’d totally apply if I could. Unfortunately, I’m not from one of the nations that has a base there and I’m the wrong kind of scientist to go there for research. I’ll just have to dream the dream.
One of my friends spent a year in Antarctica as a 911 (or whatever their equivalent is) dispatcher! He loved it.
It’s a close cousin to the desire to take to the sea.
That flawless in the airport video is so fun! It just reminds me of a lot of silly HS cheer moments. The world needs more fun happy girls w their friends.
Here for the Key and Peele profile! My love for them is solid like a truck.
MEEGAN!! IT’S YOUR JACKET THOUGH!
Also if I were the Billfold’s parent right now, I’d be sending them a curt email telling them I was very, very disappointed in their behavior and we’d be talking about this at Easter.
For your overwintering, Antarctic graphic novel needs + murder and sleuthing, I can highly recommend Whiteout and Whiteout: Melt. Carrie Stetko is a badass.
Under no circumstances should you watch the movie, however. It’s not so much bad as aggressively boring.
The thing is, NO ONE can replace Jon Stewart. I feel sorry for whoever it is who succeeds him, even my top favorites, simply because they will not literally be Jon Stewart, and so much of his audience (myself included) only want to see him do The Daily Show. And for a while, all everyone (including those who write prominently) is going to be talking about is how much he/she is not Jon Stewart, even if it’s accompanied by compliments and scolding about how we should all just move on already (but of course we can’t and won’t).
Even if his successor wants to preserve as much of Jon Stewart’s TDS as possible, it’s going to be something different under someone else’s helm, and that’s a truth we’ll have to come to terms with, or else stop watching. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (or your favorite) have the brilliance and experience that might help soften the pain of Not Jon Stewart, but it still won’t be quite enough, because I don’t know if even they have the same amount of heart he has for the great injustices and tragedies of our society. That’s what I think is irreplaceable, with his departure.
It’s going to be a fucking brutal job that I really don’t wish on anyone. Especially not on Jessica Williams, who deserves way better as she’s still at the START of her career (less than five years under national scrutiny). I’m just going to hold out hope that, maybe in ten years or so, it’ll come back to her. Never thought I’d say this, but let Hot Tub Machine 2 be prophetic.
This is all very true, and–do you all remember when Jon Stewart took over TDS from Craig Kilborn, and everyone thought it would flop within six months because Kilborn was taking Five Questions with him? Whoever takes over TDS will, as you say, mold it into his or her own, and in two years we might never think about Jon Stewart again.
Oh yes, I saw an interview Jon did where when he arrived, he almost left straightaway because all the staff was so aggressive to him, telling him flat-out he couldn’t change things from how Craig used to do them. So I expect, from all I’ve heard about Jon from the staff and people who know them firsthand, before he leaves he will implore them not to do the same to his successor — to let the successor shape his/her own show.
“in two years we might never think about Jon Stewart again.”
AHAHAHAHA, I find that unlikely — for the primary reason, I dearly hope, that he’s doing other things elsewhere. But I find it more reasonable to hope that in a few years, we’ll no longer strictly associate TDS with Jon. There may be two versions of TDS we refer to — Jon Stewart’s, and his successor’s.
Honestly I think that’s very unlikely. In the post 9/11 Bush era Stewart’s response to the political climate really crystallized a whole new identity for the show, and now it’s their brand. It’s hard to even remember the Kilborn days when it was just like an extension of Weekend Update, silly fake news and whatnot. Maybe it’ll morph into something completely different again sometime in the future but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
But I see your point. I can remember how weird it was when he first took over because he didn’t have the smarmy fake newscaster thing that Kilborn did. It took some getting used to.
Yes, this, 100%. Political satire, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report really left their mark on the first part of the 21st century, and I think that history will remember that.
I must admit that I’m actually quite looking forward to seeing what the show turns into under someone else. Last Week Tonight and The Nightly Show are different shows from Colbert Report and TDS. I think a lot of my excitement for a Jessica Williams-style choice (or Tig Notaro, or Retta, or…) is how far and how fast they could take the TDS brand somewhere new.
I don’t want to see a woman and/or POC reading Jon’s queue cards; I want to see the twists “Totally Biased” or “30 Rock” put on current events.
I’m sad that John Oliver left to go do his own thing (though, good for him!) because I thought he did a really good job as the substitute host and there were days when I liked him better than Jon Stewart.
Somewhere out there, whether we’ve heard of them or not, there is someone who could make that desk their own, keeping what we love about Stewart’s version and bringing something of themselves to the show as well. Hopefully the folks at Comedy Central find that person
Yes, I’ve thought of whether John Oliver would come back and whether that would be a good thing. But he’s already created something so unique and invaluable with Last Week Tonight — I would hate to lose that show. Plus he did The Daily Show grind for seven years, and had a stint hosting the show — he knows what it’s like. So unless he really feels, like, called by God to save America by returning to TDS, I don’t think he will, nor should he.
My pet theory is that Stewart saw what Oliver was doing and realized that he was now obsolete.
Seriously, Stewart was a great cultural critic, but Oliver often uses his show as a platform for activism and culture jamming.
Certainly possible. I just wish that Last Week Tonight wasn’t on premium cable.
I’m… I’m okay in a world without cheese. I might be the only person here who actively dislikes cheese. Please don’t kick me out!
I’m lactose-intolerant and while mozzarella has its place, for the most part cheese is just a strange curdled and occasionally-fungus-y grotesquerie.
More cheese for meeeee! Send your portions my way.
Thank you. I am dairyless because it makes me ill to eat it and I sometimes am baffled by the vehemence of cheese people. Only bacon people are more intense and pretty much only cheese and bacon people think it’s like, somehow insulting not to like those things as opposed to just being like “cool, not everyone has to like the same stuff” like normal rational adults. Chill out cheeseheads!
Yeah, I agree, it doesn’t cancel out the terrible things she said. I think Nussbaum does a good job of making sense of the revolutionary and problematic aspects of Rivers’s work. This line I think is especially insightful: “If Rivers’s act wasn’t explicitly feminist, it was radical in its own way: she was like a person trapped in a prison, shouting escape routes from her cell.”
The reference to her freaking out about Lena Dunham not being ashamed of her body was interesting. I reckon it’s the same impulse that caused her to attack Elizabeth Taylor. Rivers’ self-image (publicly, anyway) was completely wrapped up in the idea that you can control how you will be received/treated as a woman in the world if you obey certain strict ‘rules’ in relation to your appearance, and those ‘rules’ by necessity revolve around what men are expected to find attractive. Seeing successful women ignore those ‘rules’ and remain untouched by self-loathing must’ve confused the hell out of her, and like a lot of people her confusion quickly turned to defensive anger. Women who didn’t base their daily decisions around whether straight men find them attractive? JOAN RIVERS MIND EXPLOSION. I feel some sympathy for the shit she must have gone through to lead her to think that way in the first place, but it doesn’t excuse the obnoxiousness of her body-snarking.
I hope this is a good spot to post this Nature article on how biological sex is really, really, complicated: http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943
Halfway through her fifth decade and pregnant with her third child, the woman learned for the first time that a large part of her body was chromosomally male.
Even people who are down with fluid gender identities tend to believe in a simplistic understanding of biological sex & sexual development. Evolution is a fickle, haphazard process, and so much of our effort to categorize its results has been misguided.
I used to not know anything about the Kardashians except that one of them had a sex tape and was married to Kanye West. Now I know that the youngest one is dating a grown man. I wish I could go back to being ignorant. 🙁
It really upsets me that I have some number of brain cells whose entire job now is remembering things that I have learned (and not even ON PURPOSE) about the Kardashians.
Tournament of Books Bracket!
http://www.themorningnews.org/post/presenting-the…
Hardest matchup so far is Station Eleven (read and flipped my lid for) vs Untamed Sate (still unread)
Also a little sad that The Book Of Strange New Things didn’t make it in this year. Just realized that
Anybody else seen the trailer for Unfriended?
I’m not generally a horror movie fan, personally, but normally I just go “no, thanks” at the trailers. This one really offended me – the premise is that a girl kills herself after footage of her in an embarrassing situation is posted online (from the clips it looked like said footage might be of a rape), and then a year later some anonymous person starts to terrorize the people who probably posted it. Normally I wouldn’t care, but since girls actually HAVE killed themselves as a result of online bullying and the posting of compromising pictures/videos, it seemed pretty insensitive to turn that into the plot of a horror movie.
Boyfriend and I went out last night and the trailer played before our movie (Kingsman) and when it was done, he said “that looks terrible” loudly enough that other people could hear him, and there was a pretty round agreement from the other folks in the audience (side note -surprisingly large crowd at the movies at 8:00 PM on a Tuesday, but I think the snow day here might have had something to do with that).
I have, and I honestly don’t understand your position on it? I mean, horror is always supposed to deal with real fears, no matter how heightened or twisted. It seems very likely to me that the one doing the terrorizing a year later is the dead girl’s ghost, first of all, which would make it a revenge fantasy anyway; and even if it isn’t, I much prefer the premise where rape is understood to be tragic and traumatic and people who trivialized the victim’s feelings get their comeuppance to the one where women keep getting killed in creative ways for having sex. The existence of the latter trope in horror if anything makes the premise of Unfriended potentially very progressive in the sense that it comments on the wider genre. (I don’t know that this is the case, of course, not having seen the movie in full, but I wouldn’t be surprised.) I mean…horror as a genre is and always has been extremely #problematic, so if anything I find the idea of a horror movie actually engaging with rape as a thing (as opposed to engaging IN rape, narratively) refreshing and promising.
Mars, did you say?
100 have been chosen
to go to Mars and die
to have their bodies frozen
and in the red soil lie
but they won’t be forgotten
for when the tourists come
they will not be rotten
Mars has no bacterium
“And asked where Palestinian civilians could go to flee the attacks, she said: “I don’t care. They started it.”
Eff Joan Rivers.
– shrieks for Danez Smith –
I saw some of his videos a while back, by chance, and have become a HUGE fan. Book is great, and for real check out some of the spoken-word performances.
that is SO SAD
ZOOMBINIS!!!!
Ahem. That is all. I knew I was talking to someone here.
ZOOMBINIS!!!!
Ahem. That is all. I knew I was talking to someone here.
Yes! I've been doing a meat free day per week for years – I figure it's something that's easy to do and if everyone reduced their intake by 14% then we'd be in a much better place.