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  12/11/13

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  westcoastavengers:

  Silver Surfer / Thing by Jack Kirby

  KIRBY CRACKLE!

  Not saying this is necessarily art either. I hate that fans of pop culture even try to justify it as such. Let history decide.

  If you really love stuff, particularly geek stuff, do me and especially yourself a favor and stop insisting it’s something it’s not or might not be. You don’t give the forms you’re defending (comics, video games, etc.) any further validity; you just look like an asshole. Allow contemporary art to remain in its bubble where it belongs (and that’s not a bad thing - in fact it’s necessary for context and form) and stop trying to shove square pegs into round holes for the sake of providing an intellectual justification for consumption that isn’t even necessary.

  Just accept that not everything you like has to be approved by everyone.

  Okay now I’m going to bed.

  
  

  12/10/13

• the hunger games aren’t amazingly unique or flawless or anything but I think katniss as a character is very important and i think the media misunderstands

  we aren’t in it for the cute boys. we’re in it for katniss. thousands of young girls were introduced to an introverted, angry girl born into poverty and watched her become the savior of the world and the media doesn’t seem to understand that she, as a character, is important to girls. not who she dates, but her

  I think that portrayal is equal parts because of cultural misogyny/sexism inherent in mainstream media, and also because it’s classified as YA.

  The former is maddening because, you know, even reading it cold as a spoiled, privileged, straight white male, not once did I get the impression that any of this was a love story or about “which boy do I choose?” I think it was a fantastic device, and the story told plays out wonderfully, but it does not define Katniss or, more importantly, the overarching threads and themes of the novels

  As for the YA thing, that’s understandable because admittedly, it is. But that’s not a bad thing. If Catcher in the Rye came out today, it’d be on the same shelf as all of John Green’s shit. I’m not saying that the Hunger Games trilogy is high lit or anything, just an observation. And Hell, maybe it will if we’re given a few decades to put these books in their proper context. 
  

  On that note, I am feeling very sick and going to bed at 8pm. Goodnight.

  12/10/13

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  oldshowbiz:

  It Does Not Get Better Than This Image

  Goddamn right, Lee Marvin.

  
  

  12/10/13

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  ‘Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle’ by Nirvana
  "I miss the comfort in being sad"

  
  

  12/10/13

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  The Brothers Johnson are gonna hit you with their ray guns.

  
  

  12/09/13

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  baseballcardvandals:

  i guess we’ll never be royals, this kind of luxe just ain’t for us.

  
  

  12/09/13

• Gingrich pushes back against Mandela critics

  Washington (CNN) — Newt Gingrich is fighting back against conservative critics who attacked the former Speaker of the House and co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire” for his praise of Nelson Mandela.

  An unfortunate side-effect of echo-chamber liberalism is that it jumps on any and all criticism of the right and gives all those critics equal weight. But before we get to the idea that this this is representative of a shift - an example of cuddly old guard Republicans bristling at the new wave of Tea-Partying Republican Rock Stars and their lack of tact, gaul, and common sense - let’s admit that there’s a bit strawman politicking going on here. I’m not convinced that you can ascribe the anti-Mandela sentiment to a group. The problem with the Internet Age is that cranks used to write letters and get one published in the paper. Now they post a blog entry online, get comments and Retweets from a thousand other cranks, and suddenly the thought is given more weight than it deserves.

  Now that that’s out of the way - this isn’t actually a shift.  Reagan and many, many others were criminal in how passive and apologetic they were towards South Africa’s brutally oppressive practices. They did not view Mandela in the same light as many others did (yes, including Gingrich) and, ultimately, history would. In fact, Gingrich openly called out Reagan on vetoing sanctions and other actions against apartheid-era SA.

  BUT - we need to be careful not to paint this as some sort of strange corner of enlightenment bursting forth from the mind of Newt Gingrich, because it totally isn’t. 

  At first glance it’s easy to assume the opposite. After all, here’s a guy with a PhD! And he’s railing against all these Internet-happy pundits criticizing Mandela before his body’s even cooled! 

  But the fact is that this is actually more of a holdover of Gingrich’s strange, complicated, highly contentious, and outright contrarian relationship with Reagan than it is a brave statement in defense of one of the greatest men of the twentieth century.

  Those “right on” moments in Gingrich’s crusade against Reagan, including his anti-apartheid stance and his scathing indictment of Reaganomics, are far outnumbered by instances where he thought the US under Reagan was too soft on the Soviet Union (seriously) and another where he compared Reagan’s summit with Gorbachev with Churchill’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler (SERIOUSLY). 

  Gingrich isn’t a great mind standing up for the old guard, he’s a broken clock that was right twice.

  Trust me, I wish I could give Gingrich more credit on this, but I just can’t other than to simply say that outside the context of who said it, he’s right. But more to the point, critics of Mandela are, by and large, narrow-minded cowards. 

  But when it comes to Mandela, many of the things that these cranks and cowards are railing against they’re actually right about. They don’t like him because he actually WASN’T the man the mainstream media portrays him to be. They have a legitimate point there.

  But that’s where they stop being correct.

  The problem with the coverage of Mandela’s death is that it hasn’t been fair at all to his legacy. Over the last several decades, mainstream outlets have portrayed him as a figure akin to Gandhi, a man who thought good thoughts and intentions were enough and would win the day. In fact, the way recent news reports covering his death were written and delivered, you’d think his greatest act and accomplishment was being black and forgiving white people.

  But Mandela’s greatest gift, and in fact his contribution, was that he WAS a fighter. He said no, fuck this, and struck back against an impossibly evil socio-political machine. He was more of a revolutionary than anyone wants to give him credit for, and that says more about the weakness of contemporary American intellectualism than it does about him.

  But that’s a whole other rant.

  LONG STORY SHORT: Gingrich is right, but not “right on!”. And Mandela was fucking great, but not because he “forgave” white South Africans for their bullshit. 

  12/08/13

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  ‘Coming Into Los Angeles’ by Arlo Guthrie
  Walking in the hall with his things and all, / smiling, said he was the Lone Ranger

  
  

  12/07/13

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  newyorker:

  Journalist Pippa Green recounts her experience reporting on Nelson Mandela’s attack by a swarm of bees, and how the South African President “elevated the status of journalists more than any other politician has done, before or since”: http://nyr.kr/1gdqkk5

  
  

  12/07/13