actors

Wednesday various

Wednesday various

  • I liked Ryan McGee’s review of the new show Take the Money and Run, which he describes as “LARP&Order.” I don’t think I would remotely enjoy the show.
  • The Stanford Prison Experiment 40 years later. [via]
  • The headline reads: North Dakota is not a state and never has been. I’m reminded of TV Nation’s visit to the so-called state. [via]
  • You know, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about schools no longer teaching cursive, but I think I’m pretty much okay with it. [via]
  • And finally, John Hodgman on acting:

    [W]hat I kind of began to understand about acting is that it’s similar to writing. You warm up for a while, you hate it, you don’t know what you’re doing, you feel totally fake and phony, you feel like you’re mechanically imitating what you did before and you’ll never be able to get any inspiration again, and then suddenly this voice starts coming out of you. And whatever it is you’re working on, if you’re writing, you realize there’s a story that you’re trying to tell that you didn’t know that you were trying to tell. And I think acting is the same way. There’s this period where you’re just pretending to be a human, and then, all of a sudden, some kind of human really emerges from you.

Wednesday various

  • Yeah, I think John Scalzi pretty much sums up how I feel about last night’s election results:

    But as I’ve noted before, the GOP may have put a gun to the head of the Democratic majority in the house, but it’s the Democrats who said, “dude, you’re holding it wrong,” jammed the gun into their own temple, and then pulled the trigger. The most accurate word I have for my feelings about the Democrats right now is disgust; disgust that they could get elected on a platform of substantial change, execute on many of the changes they campaigned on, and then allow the GOP and its allies to turn those actions in liabilities — well, again, disgust is not too strong a word.

    Dear Democrats: You managed to lose the House in historic proportions to a party whose strategy was to harness the inchoate anger of old white people so stupid that they don’t sense the inherent contradiction of screaming about a smaller government whilst cashing their federal checks. You are morons. Please find someone who can play this game and put them in charge of your electoral strategy, because what you’re doing now isn’t working. Also, henceforth, every time you whine about Fox News and shadowy financiers of the Tea Party, we get to beat you with a hammer. This is the political landscape now. Deal with it

  • Not to knock a cure for the common cold, or the research that will have gone into it, but it seems to me there are significantly larger health risks that we face than sore throats, runny noses, and sneezes. Is the common cold the holy grail just because of its ubiquity? Is the idea that if we can cure that, we can cure anything?
  • I continue to find the story of Randy Quaid and his wife sad and strangely fascinating.
  • But at least Quaid’s just starring in movies I don’t want to go see. Some people divorced from reality actually got elected last night. It would almost be amusing if Rand Paul didn’t think there were any poor people, if he wasn’t now an elected representative.

    Frankly, it’s like Scalzi also says in that post above:

    And oddly enough, most people aren’t the whole package of white, male, heterosexually-paired and well-off. I’m puzzled that enough of you keep looking out for me, even when I really don’t want or need the help. Really, folks, I and people like me are fine. Take care of yourselves, please.

  • And finally, the Monolith Action Figure. Zero points of articulation! [via]

Wednesday various