Argobot

I'm almost afraid to re-read it, because most likely my take away will be completely different now than it was ten years ago, and then I'd have to admit to myself that not only am I aging but also that I was not nearly as smart as I thought I was a teenager. Growing up kind of blows.

And with this image, any interest I might have had in actually watching the VGAs has died.

Chris playing music while Sean told his story about how a child's innocence restored his faith in video games gave that part of the episode a very 'This American Life' feel. It also really made me want to find an eight year old to play a video game with.

Years later and I still remember being really thrown off by that scene for just this reason.

http://www.theawl.co...r-hobbit-movies If you have kids and/or once enjoyed the indoor sport of Dungeons & Dragons, then you will probably go seeThe Hobbit next weekend. But what if Magneto and that guy from The Office weren't in the movie, then what? Other people would be in the movie. Other people have been in such hobbit movies. People like Andrew Breitbart's father-in-law.

I ran into this link on twitter early today and figured some people might be interested in it: The 25 Pieces that Should be Required Reading for Women. Granted, it has a terrible title, but there are some really good articles from the past year on a wide range of gender issues, so it's worth checking out.

That would an interesting discussion point: does The Great Gatsby deserve it's position as a 'timeless' classic? Some of the themes dealt with in the book (greed, man being his worst enemy, trying to escape from your own history), are certainly timeless and will always remain relevant as long as there is a human society, but other aspects of the novel are so deeply entrenched in the Roaring 20's culture that they feel wildly out of place for the modern reader. I think Gatsby gets thrown in there as an unquestioned classic because there isn't a lot of subtly with how the book is written, which makes it one of the easier 'classics' for people to read (and explains why it's so often assigned as required reading for teenagers). I'm not trying to disparage Fitzgerald's writing ability in any way, he clearly was very talented, but he is one of the more straightforward writers that I've ever read. Again, that's not necessarily a bad thing; not everyone can (or should) write like a Meville or a Dostoevsky, and bury their themes behind obscure symbolism and heavy exposition. I just can't help but think that based on how basic the narrative of Gatsby is, and the fact that many authors since Fitzgerald have tackled similar issues with a more nuanced approach, that The Great Gatsby will slowly fade away as a 'classic' over the next few generations as other books take it's place. To be fair, I haven't read this book since high school. Maybe as an adult I'll have a better appreciation for it and its place in American literature.

Speaking of comics that are funny/depressing, here's a site (http://thehawkeyeinitiative.tumblr.com/) where artists can reimagine ridiculous female character designs from comic books, by drawing Hawkeye in the same pose. This one was by far my favorite: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mef5inbiiW1rmx3kqo1_1280.jpg

The Cortana stuff brings up a really interesting dilemma that I think a lot of consumers of video games have to face. If a game overall is "fun" or "entertaining," and, like in the case of Halo 4, only contains small elements that are frustrating but easily skipable, should you still play it?

Does anyone know what caused the hashtag to get started? The Kotaku article makes it sound like the whole thing was unprompted.

For those of you who care about such things, the hardcover edition of Cloud Atlas is now available in the US for the first (?) time.

Nick Breckon will be there to help(?)

It's funny that I was just railing against the gendered marketing that books often receive with the overemphasis on female readership, because I definitely cried for the entirety of the last 50 pages of this book. Usually I get mad when an author is obviously trying to manipulate you emotionally, but I think all the "oh my god" moments at the end of the book are really earned. Opal and Fos may not have the most realistic relationship in the world, but I still enjoyed following their story.

I thought a lot of Franzen's unease had to do with how the show was planning on "framing" his novel, most significantly that they wanted to put a larger emphasis on the recent death of Franzen's father than what Franzen was actually comfortable with. I suppose that is in line with the concern over which audience the book was trying to be marketed towards (they assumed that women are more interested in stories that deal with family relationships and emotions). I remember there being a big media storm when Franzen eventually did end up on Oprah's show to promote his book Freedom, but I don't recall how exactly the book was being marketed to Oprah's audience, or if it suffered the same fate The Corrections almost did. I do remember when Anna Karenina was selected for the Oprah book club, because the reframing of the novel as some kind of tragic but enviable romance story was rage inducing.

Capitalism winning out over moral/ethical concerns? I don't believe it.

The way books are marketed is completely fascinating in how ludicrous it is. Any book with even the tiniest hints of a "feminine" plot is immediately rebranded as the hot, new romance story of the year. I had a hard time convincing my BF to read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet, because the back cover's focus on the "love triangle" plot initially turned him off it. Which admittedly, was kind of closed-minded of him, but it's still annoying that books are marketed in this way. As a woman, I'm almost vaguely insulted at the idea that publishers think I'll only read a book if it has a love story in it. I imagine it's the way that men must feel when video games/movies are marketed by how many guns or explosions there are in them. Sexism sucks for everyone.

Don't be! I'm not a huge fan of lyrical realism or whatever the literary name for this style of writing is, but this book was a real joy to read. I am real sucker for anything set in the Appalachian region and Wiggins does not skimp on the descriptions of the Tennessee/North Carolina terrain. It's a quick read, but it's all completely worth it. Plus you can get it for less than $5 from Powell's.

Oh man, the "What baby?" line gets me every time.

Kind of? It's part of his series of novels that are written by his "alter-ego" Nathan Zuckerman. And I guess that the next two books (I Married a Communist and the Human Stain) deal with the same issues, namely that post-war America kind of blows. I like American Pastoral well enough and intellectually I can appreciate Roth's importance in American literature, but honestly, I have a hard time caring about his retirement. I just get the impression that he's been writing that same book for the past 30 years, about an America that doesn't really exist anymore. With his retirement, maybe we can finally stop pretending that the great male authors of the 1950s are still relevant. (I do think it's kind of hilarious that his retirement announcement came right on the heels of a presidential election that has everyone making dire pronouncements about the changing American demographics. Seems fitting.)

Literally the only thing I'm concerned about from this whole brouhaha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OTO_NsYkqOo I think we're going to be alright.

Well that obliterated any chance of me taking this book seriously ever again.

I thought we were in trouble there when Chabon started to say "I wanted to make black people visible," but thank goodness he added the qualifier "to myself."

The "how did he dare to write black characters" line strikes me as a little overwrought, but I'll listen to this until Sandy knocks out my power again.

I guess I'm just letting my guilt get the better of me, happens all the time. Looking forward to next month's book though.