arse poetica

Come, Armageddon, Come

Is Murkan culture is sustainable? It perpetuates the lone (male) hero myth, normalizes adolescent obsessions, and at least representationally subjugates all who do not fit in prior categories. Can it possibly bear out in our collective experience that the only honorable brave intelligent dedicated folks among us are lone white guys? It's so tired. I'm done.

"In a new subplot added by the filmmakers, the mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters. He has one son. Guess who gets all his attention? Guess who saves the day? Go ahead, think about it, I'll wait ... Boys get to save the world, and girls get to stand there and say, I knew you could do it. How did they know he could do it? Maybe because they watched every other movie ever made?"

--Peter Sagal, father of three daughters and host of National Public Radio’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” in a commentary on NPR about the new big-screen adaptation of “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!”

Peter Sagal is my new BFF of all time.

[via Broadsheet]

BFF: Sexism and Hunger

::sigh::

Jim Whitton Of The Hunger Project.

I spoke with Whitton, Regional Director of the Hunger Project, a global initiative that aims to empower those living in abject poverty and starvation to feed themselves, without first world arrogance.

[snip]

While race may seem to play a large part in what parts of the world are hungry and, without help, will stay hungry, Whitton patiently explained to me that no other force was more powerful in keeping people starving than deeply entrenched sexism, particularly in Greater Asia. "There is no social condition more primary to the persistence of chronic hunger than unimaginably severe discrimination against women and girls," says Whitton.

"I'm very glad you're big in Japan."

Well! (Heh.)

The Paglia-Burchill Fax Wars.

Sometimes I'm really glad I read the Times' book blog. That was just the bizarre respite I needed. Now back to work. (Bleah.)

U-S-A! U-S-A!

I mean, W-T-F??

Student Arrested, Tasered at Kerry Event.

Who is he, the Wiz?

Oh, please let it be Fitzmas soon.

Rove's August Surprise.

“Karl Rove is moving on down the road,” President Bush told reporters, amplifying his Texan accent.

Ease on down, ease on down that road...to prison. He'd better be amplifyin' his legal representation.

“I’ll be on the road behind you in a little bit.”

Can't happen fast enough for this grrl.

I Didn't Need Those Johnson & Johnson Products Anyway

Do these idjits not have a public relations department? Really.

Johnson & Johnson sues American Red Cross over use of emblem.

Johnson & Johnson, the health-products giant that uses a red cross as its trademark, sued the American Red Cross on Wednesday, demanding that the charity halt the use of the red cross symbol on products it sells to the public.

Suing the Red Cross. Yes, this should go over well. I'm sure you could go lower, like maybe kicking a grandmother out of her wheelchair and into the gutter while stealing her last $20 and then kicking her dog on your way out, but this is right up there.

And now, the money quote:

"For a multibillion-dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute ... simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene," said Mark Everson, the Red Cross president.

Mmm, yeah.

[Photo credit: Dogbert © Scott Adams.]

5-Second Rules

What seems like a childish game is actually a complicated theory governed by many, many important subrules.

That Dropped Doughnut: How Soon, and How Often, Will It Come Back Up?

The beauty of the five-second rule is that it is utterly pliable and that it is not about food so much as it is about yearning and disgust and gastronomic history and evolutionary wiring and the implicit social contract we make when we break (and drop) bread with other human beings.

Following the rule requires understanding its intricacies. "I would never eat a pickle," says Anaiah Grissom, 9, "not even after one second." She also would not eat a hot dog, a burger or a piece of broccoli, because those get dirty really fast. A Chips Ahoy, according to Anaiah, can last up to 15 seconds, and Pop-Tarts, like, never get dirty.

Indoor floors are better than outdoors, but grass is better than carpet.

The tastier the treat, the longer it can be left on the floor. Cake tastes better than cookies, though, and gets germy before cookies. You can almost never use the five-second rule on cake. Parents will, however, employ it on any foodstuff with a high per-pound price. You pick that up and eat it! You know how much that cost?

If you spend your last dollar on something, the germs will give you a break and leave it alone for an extra 10 seconds, or until you can pick it back up.

Ew. I would NEVER eat anything that fell on a public floor. In my germ-averse life, the 5-second rule is downgraded to three seconds. That extra 2 seconds may as well equal rolling one's food in a vacuum cleaner bag that's just been used to hoover up a barn floor.

To while away the hours at the bus stop, my sister and I used to engage in gross-out fantasies wherein we upped the ante on licking various vile substances off a sidewalk. The points of negotiation centered on duration of tongue-to-substance vs. ingestion of said substance and access to Coke and/or an ambulance. Coke loomed large in these negotiations as it's a well-known fact that Coke will remove all traces of anything on Earth. Ambulances? Eh. 911's a Joke.

[Photo: Meret Oppenheim's Surrealist misstresspiece "Object."]

Ingmar Bergman, Famed Film Director, Dies at 89

Unmatched. His films are legend and, as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I always loved French and Saunders' send up of Bergman.

Ingmar Bergman, Famed Film Director, Dies at 89.

Ingmar Bergman, the “poet with the camera” who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died today on the small island of Faro where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said. Bergman was 89.

Critics called Mr. Bergman one of the directors — the others being Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa — who dominated the world of serious film making in the second half of the 20th century.

Jane Austen, Hack?

Goodness!

The author and the Austen plot that exposed publishers' pride and prejudice.

Her work has endured for two centuries, sold in its millions and inspired countless film and television adaptations. But would Jane Austen be able to find a publisher and an agent today? A cheeky experiment by an Austen enthusiast suggests not.

David Lassman, the director of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath decided to find out what sort of reception the writer might get if she approached publishers and agents in the age of Harry Potter and the airport blockbuster.

After making only minor changes, he sent off opening chapters and plot synopses to 18 of the UK's biggest publishers and agents. He was amazed when they all sent the manuscripts back with polite but firm "no-thank-you's" and almost all failed to spot that he was ripping off one of the world's most famous literary figures.

Mr Lassman said: "I was staggered. Here is one of the greatest writers that has lived, with her oeuvre securely fixed in the English canon and yet only one recipient recognised them as Austen's work."

Let's please chalk this up to too-many-submissions-to-deal-with-properly or underpaid-intern-is-first-line-of-defense or something, because a publishing house that cannot recognize the line, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife," is hurtin'.

[Yes, that is a Jane Austen action figure above.]

I Love It, It’s Perfect, Now It Changes

I learned today that there's a concept called "feature creep" wherein a company "improves" a much-loved product, thus rendering it, well, not as good. Very interesting discussion in the Times today as folks lament the practice and mourn long-gone favorites.

I Love It, It’s Perfect, Now It Changes.

This phenomenon, generated by market forces, media hype and twitchy retailers, creates a cycle in which products are constantly improved even if they don’t need to be.

But the truth is, many consumers bemoan the incessant rush of innovation that pushes manufacturers to tamper with products the consumers feel are already perfect.

Is there a product you loved that you can’t find anymore?

Off the top of my head, yes:

1. Saucony Jazz women's running shoes, circa 1991. Best running shoes I've had.

2. Haagen Dasz carrot cake ice cream. No, really.

3. Trader Joe's lip balm in the red & yellow tube (don't remember the name), which was the PERFECT lip balm, now discontinued.

4. Democracy in America.

[pictured: Saucony Grid Jazz 11, not an improvement over the original, though I'm sure it's a perfectly nice shoe.]