On HU
Featured Archive Post Anja Flower on gender in Ghost in the Shell.
Me on the pernicious drivel of Jim Carrey’s Yes Man.
Me on Fredric Wertham and the Seduction of AbEx.
Matt Brady on Django vs. Lincoln.
Gail Carson Levine (author of Ella Enchanted) on Joan Abelove’s anthropological novel, Go and Come Back.
Robert Stanley Martin on Jim Shooter and Moonshadow.
Owen Alldritt on Lil B as God.
Watching Django on the southside of Chicago
Richard Cook with 8 reasons that the Hobbit sucks.
Me on Dr. Strange and Steve Ditko erasing himself.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Atlantic I talk about mamas in country music.
At Splice, I review the Future Sounds of Buenos Aires, and decide the future is exotica.
At Splice Today, I urge everyone to follow me on Twitter!
Other Links
David Brothers has been writing an interesting series on Django Unchained.
Amanda Marcotte on why rape is not an accident.
Alyssa Rosenberg on Beyonce’s compulsive self-documentation.
Brian Cremins on the queer joys of Black Cat and tiny Spider-man.
This Week’s Reading
I’m rereading Twilight for a piece. And rereading/editing my Wonder Woman book; hopefully I’ll finish up next week and can get it out to readers sometime soon after that.
My reading this week has been primarily via audio. I’m halfway through Watership Down, the first chaptered book I ever read. I’d forgotten how gorgeous the language is and how powerful the story. Amazing stuff.
Otherwise, I’m deep in fiber arts territory. I’ve been looking at various techniques, ideas, talking with other sewists, and reading about color (both within fiber arts and other art fields). Noah will know why.
Watership Down is such a wonderful book. I should read it again…though I’m a little afraid to. It’s an emotional wringer….
I was worried sick several times, so, uh, I made my mom reassure me as to the fate of several rabbits (she’d reread it more recently than me). That helped!
I’ve been reading the same stuff, although I’m about to start Lucy Knisley’s Relish, which I’ve been eagerly awaiting for quite some time.
Movies: I watched Evil Dead 2, which I hadn’t seen in a long time, and my wife and I enjoyed Wanderlust, which was pretty enjoyably amusing, if not a mindblowingly great comedy or anything. I also saw Prometheus, which I rather liked. I had heard that it wasn’t that great, but I found it to be a solid sci-fi movie with lots of cool visuals and some good thrills. Were expectations just too high or something? I’ll have to search out some reviews and see what the big deal was.
TV: I’m enjoying Lena Dunham’s Girls, which saw the second episode of its second season air on HBO last night. The willingness to make its protagonists do some really ugly things yet still remain relatable (you can mostly chalk everything up to the follies of youth) is impressive, and it helps that it’s really funny. Also, did anybody watch the Fringe finale? I stopped watching the show at the beginning of this last season, since I didn’t really care anymore, but I’m curious if I should check out the end just to see how they wrapped it all up.