- PETA really doesn’t know how to pick its battles, does it?
- The feminist movie of 2011? Would you believe Thor?
- Klingon language helps man deal with dyslexia [via]
- Kevin Clash has been listening to Adele recently. Uh oh. Is Elmo going to get all maudlin now?
- And finally, literary devices. I think we could all use the Great Golden Hammer of Hyperbole from time to time.
feminism
Monday various
- I pretty much agree with everything Zack Handlen says about the latest episode of Torchwood. It wasn’t a bad episode, but it didn’t fill me with much confidence about the seven still to come.
- I have no idea if this Doctor Who Tube Map is even remotely accurate — wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff and all that — but it’s wonderfully detailed. [via]
- In praise of Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series [via]
- Billionaire sheikh carves his name in desert so big it can be seen from space. (Or “SPACE,” if you prefer The Sun‘s spelling.) The rich really are different, aren’t they? Kind of…what’s the word? Assholes. [via]
- And finally, Dave Shumka of the very funny Stop Podcasting Yourself asks:
Do you ever suddenly remember you briefly had a blog 4 years ago that combined LOLCats and the Brat Pack, and it was called LOLBrats, and it sustained itself for 3 pictures?
No, but I do remember my own Lolchak the Night Stalker blog. Every now and then, I actually think about starting it up again.
Wednesday various
- A couple of weeks ago, they unveiled the new costume for NBC’s upcoming Wonder Woman series. The internet responded with the appropriate amount of disgust and horror. “I feel like my eyes are not only bleeding,” I myself wrote, “they’ve been top-coated with a carcinogenic plastic laminate.”
Well, not to worry: NBC and producer David E. Kelley have heard our complaints and all is better now. Her boots are now red instead of blue.
- Making Light lays out a recent timeline of Dorchester Publishing, explaining why it’s probably a good idea for writers and readers alike to stay very, very far away from them.
- Military ranks of the British Invasion. [via]
- “Though the efficacy of standardized testing has been hotly debated for decades, one thing has become crystal clear: It’s big business.” [via]
- And finally, Ryan McGee on the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump:
All of this proceeded banally for the first half of the show, until Sorrentino [the Situation] got up and did something that, had it been done by an Andy Kaufman, Norm MacDonald, or Zach Galifianakis, might have been called performance art. What he did was manage to stretch seven minutes of stage time into what felt like 36 hours of aural waterboarding. Trump, who was already a nearly invisible presence up until that point in the overall proceedings, receded even further as each ensuing comic opened up both barrels on The Situation, sensing blood in the water. Sorrentino’s performance will probably get the roast more publicity than anything else, but that’s part of the problem: The show clearly booked him so he’d bomb, not because he would do a good job.
And maybe that’s fine with you, if you enjoy train wrecks that involve baby seals and orphans inside said flaming train.
Thursday various
- There’s water on the moon. What are we waiting for? [via]
- I have to admit, when people talk about Doctor Who continuity, I just laugh and laugh and laugh. Case in point, the tempest in a teapot over how many regenerations the Doctor gets. Russell T. Davies, who recently changed it to 507, says:
There’s a fascinating academic study to be made out of how some facts stick and some don’t—how Jon Pertwee’s Doctor could say he was thousands of years old, and no-one listens to that, and yet someone once says he’s only got thirteen lives, and it becomes lore. It’s really interesting, I think. That’s why I’m quite serious that that 507 thing won’t stick, because the 13 is too deeply ingrained in the public consciousness. But how? How did that get there? It’s fascinating, it’s really weird. Anyway, that’ll be my book in my retirement!
Frankly, I sort of feel about it the same way I do when I read arguments like this, that Stephen Moffat’s characters are all Mary Sues. That’s an interesting and amusing idea, but it sort of ignores the fact that he — and in the case of the 507, Davies — is creating the show. It’s not fan fiction, it’s canon.
And it was a canon that was ridiculously, horribly, gloriously, convoluted when they were both just fanboys watching it from behind the couch.
- Kate Beaton on Dracula:
Here we have Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a book written to tell ladies that if you’re not a submissive waif, society goes to hell and ungodly monsters are going to turn you into child killing horrors and someone is going to drive a bowie knife through your heart/cut off your head/etc. As you deserve! Thanks Bram! I wrote it down so as to remember it.
There’s a little more going on it the book, but yeah, she’s not wrong.
- Money Talks Louder Than Ever in Midterms. Looking at how campaign finance works now, thanks to decisions like Citizens United. It isn’t exactly pretty. [via]
- And finally, Terry Gilliam’s next movie? No, not that Don Quixote adaptation he refuses to let go of? A filmette for NASCAR.
With this and the recent Arcade Fire concert webcast — as well the opera he’s reportedly going to stage — Gilliam does seem to be picking some very weird, much smaller projects. Maybe he’s just trying to keep busy until some new kind of funding comes along?
Wednesday various
- The A to Z of the Shortest Book Titles [via]
- Internet-to-PeopleWhoAreNotIdiots Dictionary [via]
- Eight False Things The Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day [via]
- Hot on the trail of the news that Christopher Columbus was maybe one of the worst people who ever lived, comes news of a planned 300-style Columbus movie. Yay?
- And finally, Overthinking It’s Guide to Strong Female Characters [via]
