- You know, I’m all for preventing the spread of AIDS and everything, but I’d pay good money to keep a lot of these people off Twitter.
- The New York Times‘ 100 Notable Books of 2010 looks like an interesting list. I’ve read — count ’em — one of the books on the list.
- I may have discovered a reason to use Facebook as something other than a Scrabble-delivery system: supposedly there’s a Monty Python game coming soon.
- Swede broadcasts music from his stomach. Apparently he was disappointed by the sound quality, however. [via]
- And finally, Scott McCloud on comics [via]:
various
Thanksgiving leftovers
Bits and pieces that have been hanging around in my news reader for ages, thrown together in a shambling mess of a blog post:
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1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.
I was reminded of that as I read this essay in the New York Times about “the Joy of (Outdated) Facts” — and not just because the essay name-checks Adams (and his amusing idea of recreating the human race through The Guinness Book). I think it’s important to remember that the certainties of an age can very quickly turn quaint and misguided when viewed through the eyes of the ages that follow it. As Nicholson writes:
With hindsight, we can always see through the dubious “authority†of such historical sources. Few things look as unstable as the rock-solid certainties of previous ages. Since encyclopedias are supposed to be balanced and disinterested, the bias often seems even more naked. Sometimes I wonder if the editors of my 1952 Encyclopaedia Britannica ever regretted their assessment of William Faulkner: “It is naturalism run to seed, for it means nothing. . . . In the hands of Faulkner brute fact leads to little but folly and despair.†Certainly the current editors of the Britannica reckoned some serious updating was required. In the online edition, we now read, “Some critics . . . have found his work extravagantly Ârhetorical and unduly violent, and there have been strong objections, especially late in the 20th century, to the perceived insensitivity of his portrayals of women and black Americans.†Note, however, that instead of a lofty judgment, we’re now given the opinion of these shadowy “some critics.â€
The SEC said the 47-year-old Draper resident represented to investors that their money would be used for loans secured by commercial real estate.
Instead, it said he used funds for such things as a loan for Candwich Corp to develop a canned sandwich to be sold in vending machines, an investment in a company he owned with his brother to distribute a film about the Pinewood Derby, investments in companies that sell watches online and rose petals that carry printed sentiments, loans to friends, and an investment in a UBS AG brokerage account.
But for me, as a viewer, the question isn’t whether a filmmaker uses the same basic ideas as one film or borrows other ideas from another film and outright steals them from a third. The question for me is what the filmmakers do once they start putting those ideas together as a film. Do it poorly as a filmmaker, and you’ll be told you’ve created a cheap knockoff. Do it well, and you’ll be told you’ve breathtakingly reinvented the concept.
It’s funny. As much as I enjoyed Inception (and I did), I can’t think of another film that so cried out for reinterpretation, that almost immediately left me wondering, “Okay, that’s Nolan’s Inception. I wonder what so-and-so’s Inception would look like.” I no longer remember, though I think it was Todd VanDerWerff who said he’d have loved to see Christopher Nolan direct Shutter Island and Martin Scorcese direct Inception. Having seen and enjoyed both movies, I think I can see how that would work.
I don’t always agree with her, but always find what she has to say interesting and insightful. And she was recently named the new Senior Reviews Editor for Strange Horizons
I vaguely remember reading a story once about a creature who was forced to sleep after a lifetime of wakefulness. It’s played for laughs here, but it would be a terrifying experience, wouldn’t it? “Okay, for eight hours, you’ll pretend to be dead, and you might hallucinate.”
Wednesday various
- I like Todd VanDerWerff ‘s write-up of Dancing With the Stars a lot more than I think I would ever like the show itself.
- Popular Mechanics looks at shipping scientifically: “One disheartening result was that our package received more abuse when marked ‘Fragile’ or ‘This Side Up.'” [via]
- The Harry Potter series from Hermione’s point of view [via]
- John Scalzi’s accurate but misleading descriptions of famous science fiction films. Mild spoiler warnings all around.
- And finally, John Cleese on the creative process [via]:
Tuesday various
- Behind the Scenes of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Exactly what it says on the tin.
- Earth from Above: a collection of aerial photography. There are some stunning shots here. [via]
- Jeff VanderMeer on best-of-year lists:
…when I see a book title or author I don’t recognize on a year’s best list, my immediate reaction isn’t usually “WTFâ€, but instead, “Excellent! A chance to find some new, shiny thing that I might love.â€
- Hate captchas? Maybe simple logic questions are the better solution. [via]
- And finally, a history of Soft Skull Press. It’s nice to know something good has come out of a Kinko’s. Maybe that’s why the people behind the counter have almost never been of any help to me: they’re too busy building their independent press empires. [via]
Monday various
- Who among us hasn’t wondered what hospitals do with circumcised foreskins? Perfectly SFW, by the way, though it does acknowledge the existence of both penises and circumcision. [via]
- The Simpsons will never ever go off the air, will it?
- Speaking of which: Doctor Who characters drawn in Simpsons style.
- Speaking of re-imagined characters: Star Wars characters as typography
- And finally, the Fantasy Novelist’s Exam. [via]