On HU
This week was devoted to our countdown of the top ten comics of all time according to our poll. We also revealed the list of the top 115 comics from our poll. More information about the poll is at Robert Stanley Martin’s introduction and intro.
Utilitarians Everywhere
I have a piece at the Washington Times about the effect of Borders closing on manga.
At the Chicago Reader I have a piece reviewing Annette Fuentes’ Lockdown High, a book about security measures in schools.
For Splice Today I have an essay about Reinhold Niebuhr.
Also at Splice, a review of Cowboys and Aliens.
And finally at Splice, a discussion of Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse.
Other Links
David Welsh with thoughts on women’s representation at DC and tcj.com.
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Obama and the left.
On your review of Cowboys and Aliens:
Just so you know, the comic isn’t any better for much the same reasons. Ilana bought it as a gift for a friend and I ended up reading it during an insomniac moment at 2AM. The nicest thing I can say about it is that after reading it, I fell asleep quickly and easily.
Huh. I knew only vaguely that it was a comic book. Sort of too bad that it sucks too. At least there’s “Oblivion” though. That’s a great movie, if you haven’t seen it.
Your essay makes sense, but it doesn’t really reflect my own experience in public school. My school didn’t resemble a prison, and the teachers seemed to genuinely like their job. I dunno, maybe it’s because I graduated before Columbine. Maybe more importantly, I attended public school in one of the richest counties in the country.
It’s probably both the money and the time period.
I didn’t have a horrible time in middle school and high school…but still, looking back, if I could have sent me somewhere less prison like, I would have.
Washington Times, Noah, really? Is Fox News next?
(Sorry, I don’t mean to be snarky, but this is really confusing. They’re diametrically opposite from what I thought your political views are.)
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Andrei says:
Washington Times, Noah, really? Is Fox News next?
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Most freelancers can’t afford to be overly picky! (It’s not as if the informative and extremely well-put-together article was pushing the WT’s right-wing politics…)
Excellent piece on “Lockdown High”; following that theme, might I highly recommend Matt Groening’s 1987 “School is Hell,” where Bongo, the “unruly” misfit student, regularly gets tied up by school authorities, and asks, “Why is school like a prison?”
Some cartoonistic moaning and Groening:
http://mharing.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/school-is-hell.jpg
http://www.futurama-area.de/LiH/OComics/10.gif
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pVCiTA86umk/S3SvKBVhi8I/AAAAAAAADco/aw8TWkvYjZM/s400/life-in-hell.jpg
On a lighter vein: http://www.djp3.net/codexperductum/2008/01/23/school_is_hell_9_types_of_college_teachers700pix.jpg
http://signpostings.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/school-is-hell.jpg?w=720&h=784
Hey Andrei. I’ve written for several conservative sites, including Reason and Culture 11. If they’re willing to give a lefty like me a platform, I’m willing to take it (as long as they’re not censoring me, which they don’t seem to be since they let me promote BL manga to their audience.)
Cowboys and Aliens: On the one hand, I’m disappointed that Cowboys and Aliens isn’t a better movie since it’s got Harrison Ford with a legitimate reason to be irritable and Daniel Craig “perform[ing] masculinity like a pro,” as one friend put it. On the other hand, did you know that the creators of the comic paid stores to carry it and even bought copies, artificially inflating the sales figures so it would be made into a movie?
Amy Winehouse: Her “image” was tied to her drug use, and it’s the drugs that kept her on the front page of the tabloids (where she took the spot formerly occupied by Pete Doherty, after the tabs finally caught on that the dude was taking advantage of their need for a redemption narrative by “quitting drugs” each time he released a new album). (Incidentally, after the heat shifted to Amy the two of them became good friends.) (Also incidentally, Pete Doherty is weird because he was cast in a role – “hot mess requiring public shaming until repentance is achieved” – usually filled by female pop stars, not male indie rock dudes.)
But I think that the drugs were in some ways a screen for what was really going on. Amy Winehouse was manic depressive. She was also a really good, idiosyncratic jazz guitar player, according to my friend who follows the ilxor.com I Love Music board. I was surprised when she died, even though, all things considered, her death is not surprising.
(And is certainly not suspicious.) (You can tell because the British police didn’t bother to specify “not suspicious” in their initial report, which they always do if the death is, in fact, suspicious)
Partly I was surprised because Pete Doherty is still alive. But partly it was because, in England, if you are a musician with serious substance abuse problems and you survive into your thirties, you often seem to be home free. There’s a kind of “hump” and then you attain a kind of eccentric elder statesmen status, you buy a house in the country, your privacy is respected (because the tabloid reporters can’t be bothered to leave London), and your indiscretions are tolerated. That’s why the average age of premature death is higher for American musicians than it is for British ones – Americans remain candidates for premature death right up until the moment when they actually die.
So to me it seemed like she was almost there – just a little while more and she’d be home free. And she had SUCH a large personality, it’s weird to think that she could suddenly be gone. Anyway, RIP Amy Winehouse.
I didn’t know you were British. And that’s a lovely tribute to Amy Winehouse. Thank you.
Daniel Craig deserved to be in a better movie. That’s the way it goes though.
You’re welcome! I’m not British, I just followed the British music press for a while because I was a fan of the Libertines. Part of being a Libertines fan was reluctantly discussing current events in the tabloids while being really careful not to link to the articles directly (so they wouldn’t get the pagerank boost). Another part was having to hide the fanfiction and some critical discussion so that it wouldn’t end up quoted in the NME – or the Sun. Speaking of, with all of this News of the World stuff that’s come out, I now wonder whether part of the reason that Mr. Doherty and Ms. Winehouse hardly ever went to jail was that they were such good business for the tabloids. That sounds incredibly cynical, but…
To sum up, although I wasn’t a direct fan of Amy Winehouse’s, I ended up accidentally learning a little bit about her, and I was sad when she died. Also, like all right-thinking people I really love her music. Joss Stone might be less of a genius, but she’s probably also less of a mess, so maybe it’s a fair trade (for her – I think it’s a great loss for us).
Joss Stone seems to be way less of a mess. I don’t think you need to be a mess to be a genius, really. Winehouse could really have been just as great without the addiction. She probably would have been less famous, but being less famous never killed anyone.
I completely agree.