- A couple of weeks ago, they unveiled the new costume for NBC’s upcoming Wonder Woman series. The internet responded with the appropriate amount of disgust and horror. “I feel like my eyes are not only bleeding,” I myself wrote, “they’ve been top-coated with a carcinogenic plastic laminate.”
Well, not to worry: NBC and producer David E. Kelley have heard our complaints and all is better now. Her boots are now red instead of blue.
- Making Light lays out a recent timeline of Dorchester Publishing, explaining why it’s probably a good idea for writers and readers alike to stay very, very far away from them.
- Military ranks of the British Invasion. [via]
- “Though the efficacy of standardized testing has been hotly debated for decades, one thing has become crystal clear: It’s big business.” [via]
- And finally, Ryan McGee on the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump:
All of this proceeded banally for the first half of the show, until Sorrentino [the Situation] got up and did something that, had it been done by an Andy Kaufman, Norm MacDonald, or Zach Galifianakis, might have been called performance art. What he did was manage to stretch seven minutes of stage time into what felt like 36 hours of aural waterboarding. Trump, who was already a nearly invisible presence up until that point in the overall proceedings, receded even further as each ensuing comic opened up both barrels on The Situation, sensing blood in the water. Sorrentino’s performance will probably get the roast more publicity than anything else, but that’s part of the problem: The show clearly booked him so he’d bomb, not because he would do a good job.
And maybe that’s fine with you, if you enjoy train wrecks that involve baby seals and orphans inside said flaming train.
Month: March 2011
Just your average Tuesday.
Not much to say about today. During the day, at the office, I keep thinking things like, “This is the last time I’ll have lunch on a Tuesday here,” as if that was some kind of milestone or moment worth marking in stone. It’s true — our last day in the current office is this Friday — but it’s tough to get misty-eyed or excited over these made-up last-whatever-evers. It’s not like today’s lunch, or today at all really, was anything special.
Just your average Tuesday.
Song of the day
“Elephant Gun” by Beirut
Tuesday various
- Peter Jackson adding more female roles to The Hobbit? On the one hand, I’m all for this. More strong female characters all around, yes, thank you. On the other hand, there’s a part of me that wants to shout, “But it’s not in the book!” On the other other hand, I find myself surprisingly unenthusiastic about the whole thing. Maybe I’ve just had my fill of Peter Jackson Tolkein movies.
- Speaking of Tolkein, though, apparently the Eye of Sauron is at the center of spiral galaxy NGC 4151. Who knew? [via]
- How I Passed My U.S. Citizenship Test By Keeping the Right Answers to Myself. [via]
- In this post, Mark Evanier relayed something that several people had told him via e-mail — namely that “Map-makers sometimes include phony names and places on maps in order to identify when someone plagiarizes their work.” I’d never heard of this practice, but apparently it’s quite common.
- And finally, people will tell you — professional writers and editors will tell you — don’t respond to negative reviews. It’s a losing game, even if you think you’re right. Even if you are right. But one thing’s for certain: you should never, ever, ever respond to a negative review like this. [via]
Mondaytopia
Yesterday, I heard that author Margaret Atwood might be speaking locally, at Adelphi University, and, after I’d confirmed it at their website this morning, I decided to attend. It was an interesting free lecture, held this evening on campus, about utopias and dystopias — or, more properly, Atwood’s own coined term ustopias, the intersection where the two collide and combine, where the dark underbelly of our imagined utopias are exposed and where the hope of a better future lurks in our worst imagined fears. She discussed both The Handmaid’s Tale and her two more recent novels, Oryx and Crake and After the Flood; and even though I’ve only read the first of those three books — she touched briefly on The Blind Assassin, which I’ve also read — overall it was an interesting and entertaining evening.
The rest of the day was pretty much just your regular Monday.