- Boy, when Mark Twain called you an idiot, he didn’t fool around. “…scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link” indeed!
- New York woman falls, rips Picasso painting. Well that’s embarrassing! Gawker [via] has more.
- The Chinese have re-named a mountain “Avatar Hallelujah Mountain,” after the James Cameron movie. Because of course they have.
- S.C. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Helping Poor to Feeding Stray Animals. They sure do know how to pick ’em in South Carolina, don’t they? [[via]
- And finally, a lovely quote from China Miéville:
The truth is different. Chrononauts litter no less than any other tourists. The past is a dump, each epoch a tip of its futures’ rubbish. There are no police: only overworked binwomen and binmen endlessly shovelling junk into timefills. They slog uninterrupted: the detritus is all over the place, and unnoticed by us natives. We stub our toes every day on things discarded from times to come.
writing
Thursday various
- A whites-only basketball league? That’s actually sort of laughably repugnant, to the point where you just assume it has to be a hoax. “We don’t hate black people. We just wish there wasn’t so many of ’em, and they weren’t such gosh darn awful people.” [via]
- Bloomsbury seems to have a problem with black people, too, at least on their book covers. You’d think they’d have learned, after all the controversy over Justine Larbalestier’s YA novel Liar last year, but apparently not.
As Small Beer Press suggests, “Your task this week: buy a book with a person of color on the cover.”
- Meanwhile, Anderson Cooper Rescues Injured Boy from Haiti Earthquake Riot.
- Push is being made into a TV series? Actually, you know, I think this could maybe actually work. As I noted back when I first saw it, Push had an intriguing world that it didn’t do a whole lot with. (Besides filming it in scenic Hong Kong and giving Dakota Fanning an opportunity to film the least convincing drunk scene ever.) There’s room to do something more interesting here. [via]
- And finally, if you’re not reading Letters of Note, you’re missing out on great finds like this.
Wednesday various
- I wish my company had letterhead this cool. [via]
- An in-depth interview with Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos about their recent deal with Warner Bros. I think this goes a long way to explaining the deal and why it’s ultimately a boon to Netflix subscribers. (As such, the interview is maybe only of interest to subscribers.) There’s been a lot of anger over the planned 28-day window between when DVDs go on sale and when they’ll be available for rent at Netflix. But I really don’t have a problem with it — not if it means more, and better streaming content and a greater likelihood that when a new release is available, there will actually be enough stock for me to get a copy.
- An interest Catch-22 of science fiction translations revealed:
Because it takes so long for English-language science fiction to get translated, people in non-English speaking countries are often reading books that are several years behind the current fashion in English speaking countries. They then write books in response to what they have read, but when those books are offered for translation into English the big publishers reject them as “old fashionedâ€. [via]
- For most authors, breaking 1,000 words wouldn’t seem like much. For Bruce Holland Rogers (who contributed to Kaleidotrope #3, by the way), it’s practically a novel!
- And finally, some truly beautiful papercraft [via]
Tuesday various
- These landscapes made with small materials — steel-wool tornado, paprika Mars, etc. — are really impressive. But, as with earlier tilt-shift photographs, I am left in the very weird position of thinking, if these were real, I think they would be less impressive. It’s the work that goes into these, into tricking the eye, that I find much more intriguing than the shots themselves. [via]
- Lost characters explain how to make a sandwich. Funny and only somewhat spoilerish. [via]
- Some people might say a monkey could do this job. I don’t need scientists proving them right. [via]
- Christa Faust on how crime fiction treats women:
Female characters in classic noir fiction tend to fall into one of three categories: the murderous femme fatale; the long-suffering wife who keeps asking the hero, “Why can’t you just let this case go?â€; and, of course, the beautiful victim. [via]
- And finally, now I kind of wish I’d been watching Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show. Frankly, I believe him about the hair.
Monday various
- Ursula K. Le Guin On Rules of Writing, or, Riffing on Rechy:
As for “Write what you know,” I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them. I got my knowledge of them, as I got whatever knowledge I have of the hearts and minds of human beings, through imagination working on observation. Like any other novelist. All this rule needs is a good definition of “know.” [via]
- At this rate, NBC’s Day One is going to end up as nothing but a blipvert.
- 42 Essential 3rd Act Twists [via]
- I really like this vintage ad search engine. [via]
- And finally, Batgirl Is Now Prince. Also: Marvel Comics as Simpsons characters [via]