News
We’re going to take a week off to recharge here at HU. So we’ll be back around the 17th or thereabouts with new content. I may highlight featured archives posts throughout the week depending on how peppy I’m feeling.
On HU,
Featured Archive Post: Derik Badman on comics and poetry.
I argue that The Spy Who Came In From the Cole is not very good.
Walidah Imarisha with an excerpt from a short story that is going to be included in the sci-fi and social justice anthology Octavia’s Brood.
Chris Gavaler on Wolverine and superheroes never growing old.
Alex Buchet with the first part of a series on the prehistory of the superhero — in this one discussing Enlightenment notions of individuality.
I talk about Dan Clowes, the Death Ray, and superhero parodies.
Isaac Butler on “The Last of Us”, the Watchmen of video games.
Patrick Carland provides an introduction to Russian animation.
Utilitarians Everywhere
Kind of a crazy week for the freelancing.
I was interviewed on Weekend Edition about Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire.
At Slate XX I wrote about how it’s in my interest as a guy to be a feminist.
One of my drawings was annexed by a hedge fund manager.
At the Atlantic I wrote about:
—how my son is unaccountably a thespian.
—why, unlike Hillary Chute, I don’t necessarily want comics to be poetry.
At Splice Today I wrote about:
—Why Walter Becker’s 1st solo album was better than Steely Dan compatriot Donald Fagen’s overrated Nightfly.
—Feminists, transwomen, and gendered discrimination against men.
I wrote a piece on social media rules for teachers at the Loyola Center for Digital Ethics.
At the Goodman Project I wrote about Trayvon Martin and misandry.
Other Links
Selena Kitt on wanting to be a slut.
Mary Beth Williams on why men shouldn’t be scared of feminists.
Alyssa Rosenberg with a great reported piece on sexism in comics (HT: Isaac Butler)
Zack Beauchamp on scientism and ethics.
Why a black girl should be Wonder Woman.
Katie Ryder on white music fans being afraid of difference.
I wasn’t privy to your twitter scuffle, Noah, but I read “I.G.Y.” as being from the perspective of a young man growing up in the post-WWII period (lines like “I hear you’re wild about Brubeck” place him as an aspiring 60s intellectual) who has swallowed its promise of a better future. The speaker does not intend his statements ironically; but by ’82, lines like “Well by ’76 we’ll be A-OK” are ironic in retrospect. However I have no counterargument to your position that it is awful either way. I find it catchy nonetheless, not as good as old Steely Dan (72-80) but on par with new Steely Dan. The obvious comparison to _11 Tracks of Whack_ is not _The Nightfly_ though, but rather Fagen’s 2nd solo album _Kamakiriad_. You’d have had an easier time: it’s even worse than Nightfly. I’m the type of fan, though, that has affection for all Steely Dan-related material, even though much of it is quite clearly terrible. You can criticize pretty much anything outside those first 7 albums, before the 20-year break, and I won’t argue with you…but I may go home and put them on the stereo when I’m done listening to you tell me how bad they are. Anyway, you’re pretty much right-on about _11 Tracks_. “Book of Liars” is a terrific tune, which to my delight made it onto Steely Dan’s _Alive in America_ album a year later.
That’s pretty cool about your Weekend Edition segment. Even for an upper-middle-class white liberal, I spend a lot of goddamn time listening to NPR.