That Deadline article was SO BAD but the many tweets it inspired were SO GOOD.
SO BAD:
(You really don’t need to read this; you already know what this article is about)
SO GOOD:
When Tom Hanks spent 3 hours talking to a white volleyball on a desert island, did we ask why the ball wasn’t brown??? NO WE DID NOT. lolol
— Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) March 25, 2015
@JenKirkman @Deadline THE PENDULUM IS BROKEN, OH NO, IT WAS GRANDFATHER’S
— Louis Virtel (@louisvirtel) March 25, 2015
COMME DES FACKONS. Cry me a river full of assorted white tears and kayak through it. pic.twitter.com/2ryM6BPQkY
— Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) March 25, 2015
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My mom keeps asking me if I’ve opened the link she sent me to Monica Lewinsky’s TED Talk.
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This is a link to a Slate article linking to a single-subject Tumblr, which is one hell of an orouboros, but Kindle Book Cover Disasters (how had I never heard of this?) is worth it.
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“As we scrolled through the images, a couple caught our eye. An image of Mount Rushmore, or Six Grandfathers, as we Sioux call it, before the faces of the four “Founding Fathers” were carved into it.”
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Okay the first half of this is just kind of WHATEVER background dressing, the second half is where it gets GOOD:
These personal details, presumably invented by the book’s author, are what make these letters so peculiar. And it gets stranger as the templates dive into the fraught world of:
The very first example — “From a Gentleman to a Young Lady Friend of His about a Misunderstanding” — is followed by three possible answers: one “Kindly”, one “Conciliatory”, and one “Chilly”: “I think that my manner toward my friends and acquaintances usually represents me correctly. Truth to one’s self will not always allow absolute uniformity in one’s outward action. I think a further exchange of explanations will not be profitable.”
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I feel like every year or two something like this pops up, that’s like, “Did you know Pretty Woman originally ended in a violent mall shooting?” but it’s still pretty good, if you like hearing about what famous movies were going to be about before they became famous movies, which I do, so I liked it.
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Why I Live in an All-Women Boardinghouse in New York City
I’M CLICKING AS FAST AS I CAN
Tags: link roundup, the internet
I cannot stop reading this:
“Television has been successful with shows that had both all-white (Friends, Seinfeld) and all-black (The Cosby Show) casts on the strength of their premise, execution and talent performances and chemistry. It is for the same reason that Scandal, HTGAWM and Empire have done so well with Kerry Washington, Davis and Taraji P. Henson as the respective leads.”
WHAT.
Is she actually trying to say that all-white casts and all-black casts naturally have better chemistry together? Or that it was a great idea for Friends and Seinfeld to portray visions of New York City that contain no people of color whatsoever except the occasional cab driver? PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT OFFENSIVE RACIST THING ARE YOU IMPLYING.
I have been enjoying the reactions so, so much. Mo Ryan brought out the big guns: https://twitter.com/moryan/status/580576728109752…
That is just, simply, perfect.
I think she’s complaining about these “ethnics” coming here, stealing jobs from hard-working white people, who don’t even bother to learn the customs or traditions of waiting 5 years for 2 non-speaking roles because you fit their description/skin color
But trying sooooo hard to sound like that’s not what she’s saying. “It’s just too much of a good thing! I am all for these ethnics getting shows on TV as long as they stick to their all-black shows and don’t mess up my Friends with diversity!”
Oh my god, what about the time that Ross/Joey shared a BLACK girlfriend. What, are we going to make ALL the guest-star girlfriends “ethnic” now??? WHERE DOES IT END??????
That actually happened 2x! Gabrielle Union and Aisha Tyler EACH had a turn being fought over by Ross and Joey. Having just watched all of friends, I think I can confidently state that the two black women who got even minor characters were forced to share a plot.
Jesus. Her writing is so bad, and yet her racism is so clear. SO MANY ETHNICS ON MY TV HAS THE PENDULUM HAS SWUNG TOO FAR???
Also
“Television has been successful with shows that had both all-white (Friends, Seinfeld) and all-black (The Cosby Show) casts on the strength of their premise, execution and talent performances and chemistry. ”
She doesn’t need an editor, she needs a stuck-down backspace key.
She doesn’t need an editor, she needs a stuck-down backspace key.
Stealing this burn.
“I’m fine with them so long as they don’t try to move to my channel”?
“ABC and 20th TV cast Patten, who is black, knowing already that the male lead had been conceived as Hispanic.” Jesus, they already knew they were going to have one ethnic and they cast her anyway?! What is this world coming to?
What I got from this article:
-Do casting agents really call all non-white actors “ethnics”, because that is terrible.
-The 2015 pilot season sounds pretty promising.
Ugh, the worst part of being a white dude is how all other white dudes are hysterical babies.
did you really just “not all (white) men” us, dude
Ugh, fair point, sorry.
The problem with being a white dude is that we, as a category, are a bunch of hysterical babies.
hahah, dang it, I knew there was something stupid about how I wrote that. Knucklehead. Uggggghhhh.
not completely related, but:
I shared yesterday’s Buffy post on facebook and a friend commented that Buffy fans never leave him alone about not liking the show (him: the only argument I ever have is – stop talking about Buffy. This is the 500th time I have asked you to stop talking about Buffy!)
And I began a response, and the words that drifted from my ever nimble typing fingers were “Not all Buffy fans”
And then I stopped.
And looked.
And let go of any idea of defense in my reply.
So that was a little weird.
There’s definitely a kind of relief in the realization that you can just accept that you did the wrong thing and apologize for it. It’s hard and you’ve got to kind of turn into it in a way that feels wrong and embarrassing and humiliating, but if you push through, I think it’s actually a lot easier.
For me, anyway, life is a rich tapestry, everyone’s mileage is going to be a little different.
What I wish I could take back is the fact that I wrote “ugh” for like, three comments in a row. CURSE THIS DAY AND THE MINOR INCONVENIENCES THAT BESET ME.
If I take nothing else from my time on the Toast, Mallory Ortberg introducing me to the phrase “life is a rich tapestry” and all that it connects to and entails will have been worth it alone. 😀
And yeah, I think you are spot on there. we build up a whole host of defense mechanisms over time to keep away the icky, and it’s good to be aware of those so that we control them and not the other way around.
You know what’s funny? For me I started to learn it when I was a regular commenter on the Gawker websites (back during the heydey of Gawker and Jezebel, which I guess was like, 2007?), I realized that the same thing that let’s a person be a huge dick on the internet for no reason — the fact that you don’t have to look a person in the face or ever be held personally accountable for what you say or do — also serves as a really good protection for when you’re ready to just start apologizing. It takes away a lot of the stress that triggers those defense mechanisms, I found.
I use that phrase a lot at work these days.
for bonus points, his comment had also referenced the sea lioning comic as a way of illustrating his problem with fans who won’t respect his dislike/lack of interest in conversion conversations. http://wondermark.com/1k62/
so, there was that too.
I think I love you, though. (After first noticing your evangelical mission of truth for Jupiter Ascending, and everything you’ve said since.)
Well this is appropriate, as I am great in basically all conceivable respects (less one, obviously, but I can’t really help being a dude).
In this case it was actually a white lady. Which doesn’t make me super happy, as a white lady myself, but I guess there’s a reason our reputation isn’t exactly stellar.
I feel like sometimes that’s even worse, because now all the white dudes are going to be, “Look, see! Oppression doesn’t exist a WOMAN LOOK!”
I read some dumb thing on tumblr the other day by this knucklehead saying that there was no systemic sexualization of women in comics because a woman used to draw a really cheesecakey Power Girl, I am just in a super shitty mood about it.
(Unrelated: what the hell IS that? Where I read something on tumblr or facebook that’s blatant horseshit and it throws off my equilibrium for like a week? SMDH)
Maybe you are a hysterical baby…?
(I too get extremely upset by what is really very stupid things and really shouldn’t be allowed to use internet)
maybe but mostly all it does is make me sulk so I think I am a hysterical teenager?
The 2008 election cycle was when I stopped letting myself get internet angry. Sincerely angry, typing angry things at people on a listserv who were WRONG!!! A few years later I thought “if all this site does is make me want to write a complaint comment, I should stop visiting this site, it isn’t fun anymore.” Plus there’s just a divide between myself and the Fug Girls over shoes that will never be breached–I had to walk away and go to Tom and Lorenzo.
I’m guessing you really like nude pumps?
I’m indifferent there, they just really like toes and I really don’t.
It must be very trying for you.
Yes, I have a very hard time even imagining the possibility that anything anyone experiences could ever be as difficult as what I am experiencing right now.
I gave up tumblr for Lent, and nothing has tempted me more into breaking this than learning about Kindle Book Cover Disasters.
Bookmark it, then you can binge on Easter like it’s freakin chocolate!
That’s the plan!
David Malki! is a delight and those letter templates are AMAZING.
One of the most delightful books I own is a collection of letters sent to The Jewish Daily Forward in the late 1800s and early 1900s for their advice column. It’s absolutely FASCINATING. There are letters from women worried that their husbands are too short, that they are no longer as religious as they were, a husband who married a Catholic girl who rediscovered here religion, so many women whose husbands went to America before them and started new families. And the advice is usually old-fashioned and often snarky and the whole thing is a wonderful read.
In middle school I accidentally forgot to return it to our synagogue library, but since I was the only one who ever checked it out, I don’t feel too terrible about it.
book’s name please!!!!
what is this book called? because it sounds fantastic.
per Googling, is it A Bintel Brief? http://www.amazon.com/Bintel-Brief-Letters-Jewish…
Yup, I think that’s it! I don’t have my copy near me right now, but I’m 90% sure that’s the one
A Bintel Brief! It’s the BEST! Liana Finck wrote an awesome graphic novel illustrating some of the letters: http://www.lianafinck.com/bintel-brief/
very very cool, thanks!
This is fantastic and I’m ordering both that book and the Liana Finck version from my library RIGHT NOW.
Omg yes, I am HERE FOR women-only NYC boardinghouses.
Also here for disastrous Kindle covers, ahahahaha. BUT…YOU’RE A HORSE. Wait a minute — whose hand is that on her back??
Having just finished watching Agent Carter I now have romantic notions of living in an adorable women’s boardinghouse. My freshman year of college I lived in the all girl’s dorm. It was amazing and wonderful and ridiculous.
Yeah, it’s a really fun experience with the right group, or the right roommates. Not to say it’s 100% better than having an apartment entirely to yourself, but I wouldn’t mind trying a boardinghouse for a while — especially in NYC.
Same here. I can’t believe there are people trashing that girl’s article about the women’s boardinghouse in NYC. I wouldn’t mind living in a place like that. Especially if they made me food.
I lived in a women’s dorm all four years (mostly because that was all my school offered) and it was both great and not great, almost totally depending on the roommates. But the idea of having a room of my own in a women’s boarding house sounds pretty great!
Agreed. I lived in a women’s only dorm for part of junior year and it was lovely, though having bridal showers in the common room was a biiiiiiiiit strange. But it was pretty and you knew if you heard raised voices and one of them was male that there was going to be some good drama and you should open your transom window and enjoy rather than just thinking, “Oh, great, the rugby team is drunk again.”
Transom windows! How I love old dorms. Nothing like a concrete floor and 14 foot ceilings to let you know what everyone is up to at the other end of the hall.
It’s all fun and games until your secret Black Widow agent neighbor tries to assassinate you.
Me toooooooo!
Those are the horse’s hands! I believe he’s also wearing jeans. That raises even more questions than him being a normal horse would.
My grandmother lived in a women’s boardinghouse when she first moved to NYC. She loved it, but they had social events in the downstairs areas which this writer doesn’t mention so that probably helped.
My grandmother lived in the Barbizon Hotel for Ladies in NYC from 1938-1940 while she taught ballroom dancing. (Her other option was finishing school, ugh.) She told us all kinds of fascinating stories about social events, boyfriends, and “hiding behind doors at parties for smooches.” I really wish she had written it all down before she died.
My favorite counterpart to that single-serving Tumblr is http://wtfbadromancecovers.tumblr.com because half the fun is seeing which of my mother’s friends end up on it.
Pounded By The Gay Color Changing Dress
Oh internet I love you.
Shout out to Dr. Chuck Tingle
Thankyou so much for that, I found Kindle Cover Disasters a few days ago and it’s not very old so its archives are thin and I have been desperately wanting another trainwreck book cover feed to weep-shake laugh at on my sofa/in the breakroom.
“I think that my manner toward my friends and acquaintances usually represents me correctly. Truth to one’s self will not always allow absolute uniformity in one’s outward action. I think a further exchange of explanations will not be profitable.”
I’m using this for my OKC correspondence from now on.
“I cannot allow her happiness to be trifled with; therefore hope that you will see the propriety of at once putting an end to a position embarrassing to her as it is painful to me.”
OMG. Can I be a Father writing to a Gentleman who has paid Marked Attentions to His Daughter Requesting to Know His Intentions PLEASE
THE X-FILES IS OFFICIALLY COMING BACK SOMEONE PLEASE TALK ABOUT IT WITH ME I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT WITH EVVVVERYONE
Phew, sorry about that. Anyway. X-Files.
yes yes yes yes yes
I was practically backflipping around the office
AAAAH. AAAAAAAAAAH.
(it’s going to be terrible isn’t it 🙁 )
I am trying so hard to get excited but I am so dubious about the quality and generally annoyed at REMAKE ALL THE THINGS! pop culture. I gotta get to the place where I have zero expectations about this besides “Scully will kick ass.”
While I’d usually be right there with you on being annoyed w/ all the remakes, I’m feeling optimistic about this reboot for a few reasons: Mulder and Scully are back, Chris Carter is overseeing the whole thing, and it’s a limited run. Fingers crossed!
Yup, these are all the reasons I have hope for this.
I guess what I’m saying is….I WANT TO BELIEVE
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH you have won the internet today.
I have faith it will be good! I heard a rumour that they are location scouting in Vancouver as we speak!
Vancouver! Man, them shooting in Vancouver would/will make me so happy. It’s just not true X-Files when it’s filmed in LA.
Well played.
I hate to be a buzzkill but I have to point out that historically heavy involvement from Chris Carter has not always been a good thing. It can be really good, or really bad. He did direct and co-write the second movie, and we all remember how that went. But then he also wrote some of my favorite episodes (not to mention creating the whole damn thing), so who knows. I only hope he’s realized that pretentious monologues have gone out of style as a narrative device since the 90s.
Yes! The stream of “getting the band back together for one last tour” that’s been going on lately is irritating. Things have ends! There is no need to resurrect everything under the sun and drag it around a bit!
That said, I will totally watch this, even though I expect it to be less than stellar.
Eh, I mean, idk about you but I like to pretend seasons 8&9 don’t actually exist, and the ‘end’ was the somewhat rushed end to S7 where it ALL CAME BACK FULL CIRCLE kind of and before Agent Terminator arrived and everything was weird and a little bit boring and generally unmemorable.*
So if we’re going to talk about ending things graciously, X-Files horrendously jumped that shark long ago.
Bring it on, I say.
*Other things I have never consumed again after finishing a series: The Matrix Revolutions, The Last Battle. I’m a bury-my-head-in-the-sand kinda gal, is what I’m saying.
I have faith. I’m hoping they learned from their mistakes in the second movie and that being back on TV will feel more comfortable and help them get back into the groove. And I’m realllly hoping that Vince Gilligan will be able to come back to contribute to the writing since he’s just gotten even better since he started on the X-Files so long ago. I’d also really love a Darin Morgan episode, but that seems unlikely with only six episodes to work with and is probably hoping for a bit too much.
What I really just want is Mulder and Scully and Skinner and for the Lone Gunmen to be retconned back to life and for Cigarette-Smoking Man to show up, but in some new crazy conspiracy that has nothing to do with black oil or any of the plot twists that were played into the ground during the first nine seasons.
I might have some high hopes.
this sounds absolutely ideal, let it be back in Season 2 or 3 times again and don’t make me recall any plot points.
See, I’d even be okay without the CSM if it were Krycek and Marita Covarrubias as the newer, younger faces of the conspiracy (I mean, let’s face it, if those dudes didn’t get some new blood in to kick things up a notch the conspiracy was just going to die of old age). Personally speaking, I think Nic Lea and Laurie Holden had super great chemistry.
Def. agreed that Chris Carter didn’t really write any of my favorite eps (also Frank Spotnitz and I can’t really believe that I still remember individual writer names after all this time). Carter was pretty great at big picture things and insisting that everything look very cinematic at a time when that wasn’t really how TV looked or behaved. If they could get Vince Gilligan to do the character stuff and Glen Morgan and James Wong to do the plot stuff I would be the happiest XPhile on the planet apart from Kumail Nanjiani who will always be the happiest.
Also, literally, my second thought about XF coming back was “Oh man, Kumail Nanjiani is going to be SO JAZZED.”
Yes, this makes me so happy! It is like the answer to my prayers.
“Just like old times, eh Scully? By the way, let me introduce my nephew, ‘Sly’ Mulder, who just graduated from the Academy. I’m told he looks a lot like me, only smoother and 20-something, with a poignantly haunted yet still youthfully wry and snarky attitude. And this must be your niece Kathryn Scully, whom I’ve heard has inherited your acute skepticism and take-no-prisoners attitude. Maybe it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation. Anyway, my nephew just told me about a strange warning given to him by a mysterious ‘Vaping Man…’ “
Great. Now I’m going to have this exact nightmare until it airs. THANKS.
VAPING MAN (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
What *I* learned from the “Kindle Covers Disasters” post — there is a Cat Writers’ Association. http://catwriters.com/wp_meow/
I am not surprised.
YES THANK YOU! I was like “how is nobody else clearly seeing the most important part of this?!?!”
We truly do live in the best of all possible worlds.
HERE FOR HOW TO DEAL WITH HIPPO ENCOUNTER
I love that it’s written by “Danial”, like maybe he forgot how to spell his own name.
I feel like I just read that boardinghouse piece on an Awl network site… but I am somehow unable to find it. In the version that I read, she had a boyfriend that she was considering moving in with. Ring any bells for anyone?
I felt the same! Pretty sure it was the Billfold?
FOUND IT: http://thebillfold.com/2015/01/the-cost-of-living…
and her tangentially related follow up: http://thebillfold.com/2015/03/the-cost-of-a-long…
Different names, though…
The Russian werewolf does look like a tender lover. Who doesn’t want a man who brings you flowers that he’s just peed all over?
So the real question with those book covers is clearly Hide and Seek: whodunit? My money’s on the woman, even though the cat is clearly happy to just watch the world burn.
OMG Dragan Vujic!!! I have no idea who he is, except he apparently writes manly Russian/Canadian (??) novels about werewolves, and also nonfiction books about bow hunting. The “Kindle Cover Disasters” one is not even the worst, check out Crimson Tears of a Werewolf. Then IMMEDIATELY Look Inside and read the preview text, it is glorious.
http://www.amazon.com/Crimson-Tears-Werewolf-Adve…
“Darkness resentfully witnessed light usurping an incrementally larger portion of the twenty-four hour cycle.”
KABOOM KABOOM CRACK KABOOM KABOOM BANG BANG KABOOM
what even is language
He has actual crimson tears! Amazing!
My first thought was that Dragan Vujic is Vladimir Putin’s pen name when he writes fanfiction about himself.
Well, his author bio is not doing much to dispel that notion: “Dragan Vujic resides in the southern Ontario. He possesses a passion for the outdoors. When he is not writing, Dragan enjoys horseback riding, hunting, fishing, swimming, playing baseball and martial arts. Prior to becoming a writer, Dragan Vujic practiced law for eight years and was subsequently involved in international commercial ventures.”
“Prior to becoming a writer, Dragan Vujic practiced law for eight years and was subsequently involved in international commercial ventures.”
Dear Dragan,
How about this for a story: a lawyer by day, a werewolf by night stumbles across some shady international commercial venture involving art forgeries and a beautiful gallery owner who is allergic to dog fur.
Now THAT I’d read!
The situation presented an unusual predicament. The present scenario constituted a novel contingency that the termination team had not thought of and had not planned for.
Where do you stop with this one? Where do you start?
“It’s not about boys,” she said. “This is about women. You come in, we make sure that everybody gets fed well, and then you go off, you do your job, and you do what your life dream is. And it’s like your little family.”
YES. This is the response I want to give whenever someone asks why I went to a women’s college. “How did you meet boys?” IT’S NOT ABOUT BOYS.
But there’s definitely still a culture that exists now, in the 21st century, where women are brought up to think that the point of college is to meet a Good Man you can marry on graduation. It’s hopefully a smaller culture now, but I remember in junior high hearing my piano teacher tell me a story about someone who only went to college for her MRS degree, and she had to explain what that was.
“Ring by Spring” was definitely a thing at my college. It was weird…
Ewwwwwww.
I had a revelation reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver last year — I am so damn glad I live in a time where it’s more feasible than ever to support myself without marrying. I don’t have that pressure. Because that whole husband + childbearing role really doesn’t suit me.
gross gross gross
Once in a while, I’ll get this feeling that I “missed out” on dating during university, or noticing a lot of people met in university. But honestly, for myself, I wouldn’t have been great to date in university. Way more fun to date now, and hopefully just more fun as the years go on.
I thought the whole point of dating in college anyway was having fun. We had an unspoken culture of thinking you’ll never end up forever with the people you’re dating in college because nobody gets married until 30 at the absolute earliest. This may be regional, though.
This is amazingly foreign to me – I can’t imagine even having decided whether I ever wanted to be married at age 22. I just think of all those questions of finances, kids vs. no kids, where to live, etc etc that you’re supposed to ask before committing to a marriage and noooo I had no answer to any of them during college. It must be such a leap of faith, and I am a person of indecision and overthinking.
The best story I’ve heard along those lines was about a nearby college where freshman women would reserve the college chapel for a year after their expected graduation. Like, on the assumption that would be their wedding date with the man they met at school.
Unless for some reason everyone graduated on different days I can see this being problematic logistically.
ha! well, like, WITHIN that year, obviously not EXACTLY a year. Still, I’d hate to be the person in charge of taking reservations.
My college chapel was/is THE place to get married for alums. There is 1 day per year that you can call and make reservations for the entire next year. If you want to get married in the chapel you had to get an entourage (of ladies, let’s be honest) to start calling the chapel nonstop until someone gets through at which time they’ll probably tell you your prefered date and time are full but you can get married at 8 am on a Friday in November or something. You for sure don’t want to be the person in charge of those reservations!
I went to school with someone who talked about getting her MRS degree with a friend and me, and the friend nodded knowingly and then after the girl walked away he was like ‘What the hell is a murse degree?’
She did, in fact, get engaged before the end of senior year, so degree achieved.
I’m Mormon and went to college in Utah, and Mormons on average marry younger than the rest of the population (I think at the time it was 21 for Mormon women, 23 for Mormon men; national average was 23 for women, 27 for men). And in one of my houses, there was a 21 year old who was in a constant state of depression that she wasn’t married yet. Not only that, but she would get upset at anyone, male or female, who talked about women having careers or not wanting kids. Seeing as she was the youngest person in our house of 10 women, none of us had much sympathy for her. And as I’m an aromantic asexual (although I didn’t identify as such at the time) who has known from the time I was 5 that I absolutely did not want to get married and no way in hell did I want children; she and I really did not get along.
“How did you meet boys?”
“I didn’t. That’s the point.”
I can only imagine the arsenal of replies to this question women’s college attendees must build up.
“Boys? What are boys? [feign total ignorance]”
“I always pictured myself married to the sea, so it was never an issue.”
“Boys? We didn’t have to worry about them. The snipers in the turrets usually took care of them before they could get past the second gate.”
“bohhh-eeees? What is that, like some kind of a fish?”
The bookstore at my alma mater sold t-shirts that said, “It’s not a girls’ school without men; it’s a women’s college without boys.” Still sells, I hope.
Hi, we went to the same school.
“How did you meet boys?”
“Only on purpose. It was marvelous.”
Now that I’ve read the phrase “Cheesy puff came to life and pimped my gay ass,” I kiiiiinda think I’m done for the day. I should just go home, get in bed, and try not to have any other thoughts.
ETA: I was scrolling through and….you guys… I THINK I BANGED THE KILTED DUDE ON THE COVER OF “SON OF THE WIND: THE RIVER RAGES” IN COLLEGE!!!!
i have questions about the man-bodied, child-faced person on that cover. whut?
Seriously. Why does he have a man-face and man-abs????
Whoa, that photo at the Mt. Rushmore link of the Nepalese porters carrying a car across a river? Mannnn I want to know more about this and why it was happening. (well, google magic did find the photographer & source, at least)
Here is the best misandrist comic I have read all morning.
That comic was excellent!
Fitzcarraldo meets Wacky Races, presumably
“Basically 50% of the roles in a pilot have to be ethnic, and the mandate goes all the way down to guest parts,” one talent representative said.
Um, good? Like, maybe’s time that TV look at least as diverse as, I don’t know, a city street? Maybe we should open up the doors to fresh talent? (What even is that whole “But they’re inexperienced!” crap? Yeah, maybe they are, because people were casting white actors in roles that could have gone to people of any ethnicity! OF COURSE THEY ARE INEXPERIENCED.
I just want to say that in some places — like my hometown of Philadelphia — a show that was only 50% white would actually STILL not be as diverse as a city street.
The headline on that anti-diversity Deadline article is “About Time Or Too Much Of Good Thing?” OHHHHH I KNOW WHICH OF THOSE TWO IT IS PICK ME PICK ME
It’s hot nonsense to say that a studio mandate for more diverse casting is restrictive, and even if it were restrictive, does Nellie Andreeva think the mostly-white casting habit was LESS restrictive?
Look, I’m a white person who lives in a state that’s ~96 percent white, and I find it a relief to see more non-white faces on TV. I can’t even imagine the feeling for someone who sees their own ethnicity, their own skin color, a family that looks a little more like their own family, on the screen.
Representation matters, in big ways and small, and if a studio mandate for diversity is what it takes, then I’m for it, because without that, there’s a tacit mandate for TV to show mostly white faces.
If only Jo March had lived in an all-women’s boarding house, she never would have had to meet Professor Bhaer…
And then she can turn Plumfield into her own women’s boarding house and we would never have had to read Little Men.
Oh, ugh, Little Men
Ladies, I would like to share this article: http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/is-medic…
Mostly this bit: “But when stress was added as a symptom, an enormous gender gap suddenly appeared. Only 15 percent of the doctors diagnosed heart disease in the woman, compared to 56 percent for the man, and only 30 percent referred the woman to a cardiologist, compared to 62 percent for the man. Finally, only 13 percent suggested cardiac medication for the woman, compared to 47 percent for the man.”
Now I’m angry and sad.
“One cardiologist put it more bluntly: “In training, we were taught to be on the lookout for hysterical females who come to the emergency room.”
What? D:
It’s especially awful because it’s *common knowledge* that women often don’t present with the same symptoms as men, even when they’re in really bad shape and possibly about to have a heart attack (e.g., they may not have chest pain, radiating left arm pain, etc.)
I mean, even many laypeople know this, so actual cardiologists should certainly know this…
It probably doesn’t help that Cardiologists are overwhelmingly older men. (cf: http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articl… )
Incidentally, cardiology is one of the more lucrative fields of medicine. Coincidence? I think not.
There’s a billboard near me featuring a Rosie the Riveter-esque woman and something like, “Women can do everything men can do.”
In smaller font, it says, “Like die of heart disease.”
It seemed a bit melodramatic to me at the time, but now it seems perfectly necessary 🙁
“I suddenly said, ‘Well, maybe I need to do something more serious and dramatic,’ and I had written a script called Red Sneakers which was about a one-legged lesbian standup comic who was an alcoholic, and all of a sudden, I got a lot of attention. People were really interested! People were talking to me.”
WHERE CAN I WATCH THIS
Well, did you open the link? Are we expected to know the answer to that question?
University dorms aren’t the same thing as boarding houses, but I lived in a women’s residence in first year and it was GLORIOUS. They closed the residence a year or two ago and converted the building into office space, and it was kind of heartbreaking — women’s sections in other buildings are a poor substitute for having a standalone building that is unequivocally women’s space.
That James Duncan sounds like he is pouring some good old Edwardian man-tears, in vain.
Also, surprised not to have seen
this article on his Cumberbutchness mentioned yet.
Sorry, text link fail. Haven’t had my coffee yet.
Please just cut and paste at your leisure:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/25/be…
Doesn’t he mean “RICHARD LLL”?
Someone on Toast Twitter posted (or RT’d a post of) a screenshot of CNN doing that but as I’m at work, I can’t find it, but it was glorious.
DAMMIT, there’s still no standalone clip of “Bad Actors, Bad Decisions: The Miss Saigon Syndrome”
Let me, Crow T. Robot, pull back the curtain to reveal the lie on which your life is based. https://youtu.be/zavop_wpgjY?t=21m1s
That Kindle Tumblr is magic. With gravy.
I lived right across from the best drama all year, too – you’d better believe I had that window open basically 24/7 at the height of it.
I pretend I host a show starring my neighbors. “It’s time once again for GET THE FUCK OUT!”
If you don’t click into the bad book covers link, at least do yourself the justice of checking out Pounded in the Butt by my Own Butt. The cover and description alone are award-winning.
I have so many questions about that. Like, the amazon description says blowjobs and he gets pounded in the butt….yet the cover shows a butt with wings on the other side. So uh, no penis? And the sentient butt has no mouth for blowjobs right? I saw it yesterday and I’ve spent way too much time pondering this issue since.
I eagerly await the follow up piece to that Deadspin article, “Have they considered just painting a white person brown though?”
Yes, but have you watched Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk? I have been dying to talk about it with someone.
Also, Amanda Knox. Today’s her fourth (fourth!) trial for the same crime on the same evidence. Is anyone else kind of boggling at how little serious attention the case is getting?
I think it got so much coverage the first few times around, the media have moved on. I can’t begin to imagine how much worse our justice system would be if it we didn’t have double jeopardy.
It drives me nuts, though, because this is her last appeal. If she loses it she’ll be facing the possibility of extradition. And all the serious news media are treating this like a minor tabloid scandal rather than the massive human rights issue it is. Knox often gets accused of getting sympathy only because she’s a pretty white girl, but I think that’s actually worked against her just as much as it’s worked for her. There’s a general perception, I think, that even if Knox is a victim of injustice it’s not socially significant injustice.But the reality is that while this case may not be about anti-Semitism, or racism, or politics, or any of the issues we’re used to seeing in wrongful conviction cases, it is very much about the position of women in today’s society. Knox has been targeted by the police and reviled online for, essentially, being a perfectly ordinary college girl. When a twenty-year-old girl who spends the night smoking pot and watching Amelie with her boyfriend gets painted as a drug-addled nymphomaniac killer as a result, you realize how strong the backlash really is.
Yeah, I mean I think it’s a super fucked up situation, but I do think that it’s an individual case. When we’re talking about racism or other issues that we see in wrongful conviction cases, we’re talking about specific examples of an entire system of oppression. It doesn’t mean that what’s happened to Knox isn’t awful or an injustice, I just don’t see it in the same way as I see those cases.
(off-topic except that it’s links and women) I just saw this http://earwolf.com/episode/advice/ , and had a moment, and then wondered how people feel about Michelle Meyrink around here.
Jordan from Real Genius was my biggest teen movie star crush of all time. OF ALL TIME.
“I think that my manner toward my friends and acquaintances usually represents me correctly. Truth to one’s self will not always allow absolute uniformity in one’s outward action. I think a further exchange of explanations will not be profitable.”
This is AMAZING. I want to have someone to snub just so I can use that. Failing that, I’ll go on Reddit’s r/relationships, I know it will be useful to some people there.