December 30, 2014
Partisans
The Partisan Review, a critical magazine founded by William Phillips and Philip Rahv (and Kenneth Fearing) and originally created as an arm of the American Communist Party was 'more a literary event than a literary magazine,' that lost its purpose after perestroika: The Death of a Literary Magazine. But even in death, the archives are not 'down the memory hole', but rather digitized and available online. [more inside]
46 Times Vox Fucked Up a Story
Deadspin takes on Vox's inaccuracy problem It appears that pace of the Internet, hubris, or the specific kind of "new journalism" (or "data journalism") - in some combination has created a monster of inaccuracy over at Vox.com (SLTDeadspin)
If the Auto Has No Tune, Does It Make a Sound?
Good videos of live performances of weird musics.
URSSS May I recommend:
IOIOI,
Rashad Becker,
Cut Hands,
But there is much to explore and discover. [more inside]
The Mountain Dulcimer
From the mountains of Western Maryland and West Virginia comes a series of short films about Appalachian traditions in our changing world. This one is about the Appalachian dulcimer.
Gone Girl, gun violence, and the media's focus on the media
The New Yorker's "Most-Read" Blog Posts of 2014. The New Yorker's most-read blog posts and magazine stories of 2013. And for the one most-important article in each issue of the magazine (according to one San Franciscan), there's The New Yorkerest. [more inside]
I need to know my place
Just because there’s been more successful white rappers, you cannot disregard where this culture came from and our place in it as white people.In the wake of Azealia Banks' controversial interview on Hot 97, in which she called out Iggy Azalea and the "smudging out of black music," Macklemore appeared on the same show, Ebro in the Morning on Monday and spoke thoughtfully and at length about white privilege and cultural appropriation in hip hop. [more inside]
Looking ahead to 2015 in civil liberties
"some of these prognostications may seem a wee bit hyperbolic, a bit paranoid, maybe even a little nutty" What will American civil liberties look like in 2015? If things take a turn for the worse, they might look a little familiar.
Slate also explored this terrain today, but not at such length. [more inside]
"why should black and African writers listen to Ben Okri?"
Point: The black and African writer is expected to write about certain things, and if they don’t they are seen as irrelevant. This gives their literature weight, but dooms it with monotony. Who wants to constantly read a literature of suffering, of heaviness? Those living through it certainly don’t; the success of much lighter fare among the reading public in Africa proves this point. Maybe it is those in the west, whose lives are untouched by such suffering, who find occasional spice and flirtation with such a literature. But this tyranny of subject may well lead to distortion and limitation.Ben Okri and Sofia Samatar argue about the role of the African writer in The Grauniad. [more inside]
Counterpoint: Black and African writing does need freedom. It needs freedom from the repetition of tired complaints and the issuing of dusty and ineffective prescriptions. After all, as Okri begins his essay, “Living as we do in troubling times, we look to writers to reflect the temper of the age” – and that is precisely what black and African writers are doing. Our literature doesn’t need better writers; it needs better readers.
Are you a cognitive miser?
A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? Many people give the first response that comes to mind—10 cents. But if they thought a little harder, they would realize that this cannot be right.
Keith E. Stanovich writes in Scientific American about “dysrationalia” and how having a high IQ doesn't guarantee that your brain won't take shortcuts when it can.
Luise Rainer dies at 104
Luise Rainer dies at 104. Luise Rainer left Nazi Germany and appeared in many notable films, including The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth. Here are 20 things you didn't know about the legendary actress.
Dave Barry's 2014 Year In Review
There's Just No Explaining 2014. "There was even some good news in 2014, mostly in the form of things that did not happen. A number of GM cars — the final total could be as high as four — were not recalled. There were several whole days during which no statements had to be issued by the U.S. Department of Explaining What the Vice President Meant to Say. And for the fifth consecutive year, the Yankees failed to even play in the World Series." [more inside]
The Game Within the Sugar Game
"Indescribably Alarming"
The Back to the Future trilogy predicts the John F. Kennedy assassination and the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. The messages are hidden in plain sight. [some graphic imagery of JFK | absurd-conspiracy-filter]
RIP Christine Cavanaugh
Deceased is Christine Cavanaugh at age 52. She was an accomplished voice performer, familiar for roles such as Marty (full episode ~22m) from The Critic, Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory, and Babe the pig.
Nyeah nargh eeah fwa fwa 2: Corncob Boogaloo
2014 Games Writing
This Year in Videogame Blogging: 2014. Critical Distance provides a roundup of some of the best articles about games this year. [more inside]
"I wanted to leave a monument to the Roman plebe."
Giuseppe Gioachino Belli was a 19th Century poet who lived in Rome and wrote sonnets in the Romanesco dialect spoken by the poor of his native city. An accountant by trade, he wrote from the perspective of working class Romans living in the theocratic Papal States, and has been referred to as the voice of Rome. Translating his work has caused translators some difficulty, with many opting for equivalent dialects, such as Peter Dale who used working class speech of his native Melbourne as a model. Anthony Burgess made his Belli Mancunian, while Mike Stocks rendered Belli into something closer to standard English. Collections of translated sonnets by Belli can be read on Andrea Pollett's Virtual Roma website and on Maurizio Mosetti's site about Belli.
My death needs to mean something.
17 year old Leelah Alcorn died last weekend when she was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer on I-71; her suicide note (tw: suicide, transphobia) has been shared tens of thousands of times in the wake of her death, as part of her wish that her be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. "I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please." [more inside]
Looking for someone to hold onto, as we walk into the unknown future
Alya and Gael of Cirque Du Soleil demonstrate why trust is worth it. (SLYT)
The Benefits of Being Cold
The notion that thermal environments influence human metabolism dates back to studies conducted in the late 18th century by the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, but only in the past century has it really become relevant to daily life. Cronise believes that our thinking about the modern plagues of obesity and metabolic disease (like diabetes) has not addressed the fact that most people are rarely cold today. Many of us live almost constantly, year-round, in 70-something-degree environments. And when we are caught somewhere colder than that, most of us quickly put on a sweater or turn up the thermostat.
Who Speaks for the Subaltern?
When Subalternist theorists put up this gigantic wall separating East from West, and when they insist that Western agents are not driven by the same kinds of concerns as Eastern agents, what they’re doing is endorsing the kind of essentialism that colonial authorities used to justify their depredations in the nineteenth century. It’s the same kind of essentialism that American military apologists used when they were bombing Vietnam or when they were going into the Middle East. Nobody on the Left can be at ease with these sorts of arguments.Vivek Chibber (Professor of Sociology, New York University) discusses the pitfalls of postcolonialism in the wake of his controversial book Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. [more inside]
Why 2015 Won't Suck
Matter's list of 39 bit-sized items of texts and graphics why 2015 won't suck includes such gems as an comic "On Optimisim" and other reasons "why 2015 will be less terrible than 2014, which was garbage."
Master of Men In Suits
Finding freedom in a harsh wilderness
The Underground Railroad was the route that allowed Southern slaves to escape North, but some slaves found freedom by hiding closer to home, in the vast wilderness area of North Carolina and Virginia known as the Great Dismal Swamp. Research suggests that thousands of maroons, as the escaped or freed slaves were called, lived there between 1700 and the 1860s. [more inside]
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it's all right
Whether you're welcoming a new day or a new year, you might enjoy some music to welcome the sun. For your enjoyment, 80 minutes of upbeat dance music set to abstract visuals in a live sunrise set from DSK CHK, a slightly more downbeat live mix from Mija & Skrillex at Bonaroo, and bliss out as the sun rises with Tycho at Burning Man, one of a handful of sets available to stream and download from this summer's burn. [more inside]
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