Thanksgiving cornucopia

  • We live in a country where pizza is a vegetable. I’m just saying. [via]
  • Harry Potter director developing all-new Doctor Who movie. Not at all a sure thing, but still, when do we stop remaking things? Maybe when the last remake is still on-going?
  • Genevieve Valentine on Immortals, which she describes as “a batch of snickerdoodles with thumbtacks inside.”

    The labyrinth and Minotaur are well turned out, and their showdown takes place in a temple mausoleum, where an archway of stairs frames a goddess’s head that’s inset with candles to make it glow from within. It’s the sort of thing where you think, “Man, that’s good looking! I wish this stupid scene would stop so we could just look at it.”

  • I really don’t know what to think about actress suing IMDB for revealing her age. They both seem to have a perfectly valid point.
  • Massive plagiarism might help your book sales [via]
  • Billy Crystal will be hosting the Oscars this year, giving me another reason not to watch. Which is not a dig at Crystal, necessarily, who I generally like…you know, back when he made movies people watched. But it’s such a safe, boring choice. The Academy really missed a golden opportunity to let the Muppets host the Oscars
  • Tilt-shift Van Gogh
  • Polite Dissent on Forgotten Drugs of the Silver-Age:

    The more I think about it, for all intents and purposes, Jor-El was a mad scientist. He espoused scientific theories well outside the accepted norm and performed numerous unauthorized scientific experiments of questionable ethics.

  • Mysterious D.C. rampage leaves smashed cars in its wake. Seriously, it looks like the Hulk went through there. [via]
  • And finally, the Center for Fiction interviews Margaret Atwood:

    I think it’s a human need to name – to tell this from that. On the most basic level, we need to distinguish – as crows do – the dangerous creature from the harmless one, and – as all animals do – the delicious and healthful food object from the rotting, poisonous one. In literary criticism it’s very helpful to know that the Harlequin Romance you sneak into when you think no one is looking is not the same, and is not intended to be the same, as Moby Dick. But stories and fictions have always interbred and hybridized and sent tendrils out into strange spaces.

Wednesday various

Tuesday various

  • Silicon Valley billionaire reveals plan to launch floating ‘start up country’ off San Francisco. Yeah, that’s gonna end well. [via]

    When I first saw that, I asked, “Are there any words scarier than ‘inspired by Atlas Shrugged‘?” To which DoctorHu rightly responded, “Are there any funnier or more appropriate than ‘We want looser building codes in our floating city?'”

  • But what do they care? Apparently, the very rich have less empathy. [via]
  • Speaking of the divide between rich and poor, if you’re like me and were wondering how Blackberry’s became the organizing tool of rioters and looters recently in England, here’s an interesting article on their shift from executives to the urban poor. [via]
  • Marvel Bribes Retailers to Destroy DC Comics.
  • And finally, Bert and Ernie are not gay. So sayeth Sesame Workshop, and you know, I’m with Mark Evanier on this. It was just ridiculous from the get-go:

    One could also argue, as I would if I could stand to devote five more minutes to this whole ridiculous matter, that there’s a nice lesson in Bert and Ernie not being retrofitted as gay lovers. It is possible for two men or two women to be close friends and live together and sleep in adjoining beds without their sexuality being an issue or someone saying, “They must be gay!” I don’t think same-sex wedlock threatens so-called “traditional” marriages in any way. I don’t think the idea that two males might just be really close friends (and nothing more) threatens gay marriages.

Monday various

Tuesday various