Paul Feig is walking AV Club through Freaks and Geeks and I especially loved this (part 3, page 2):
AVC: There’s some foreshadowing of the finale when Daniel shows an interest in Harris’ Dungeons & Dragons book. Did you know, at that point, that Daniel was eventually going to fall in with the geeks?
PF: I knew that I wanted to move him; he was always going to be the one who was on the biggest journey of discovery, ’cause in a weird way, that’s kind of who Franco really is. He was always reading different books and stuff—which now, everybody’s seen that he really plays off of wanting to read everything and do everything—and so it just felt natural for him to do it, because it was in his energy. Whenever we’d write, we were always trying to take things that we were noticing the kids were really doing and make it part of their characters. I think the genesis of that was kind of like, “Who’s the biggest nerd in our show, and who’s the coolest guy in our show? Let’s get them to have an understanding.”
I strongly love how James Franco is trying to be everything, and it’s one of the few really honest-seeming endeavors in celebrity culture, and I’m delighted to learn he’s been this way for so long.
n. someone who breaks the rules or otherwise draws the attention of authority figures; someone who intentionally does things to rankle others or raise their eyebrows
This is the closest I have to a “type,” much to my chagrin.
n. a filled-in outline, traditionally black on white; a shadow from which you can accurately discern someone or something’s profile
v. to draw such an outline; to shine a light in order to project such a shadow
interj. an old French swear similar to “My word!”
v. to put back on or adhere again
Probably heard most often in the world of medical news.
v. to punch repeatedly
In Final Fantasy VI, Sabin’s first special attack is called Pummel.
On the Media recently did a story on sound effects (which I recommend):
The most basic part of a Hollywood punch is swinging a piece of wood against a side of beef. That’s how the thudding bass note is generated. Then you add some high frequency stuff, maybe you’re snapping some dry twigs or crumpling up some plastic cups. And then you want to fill out the middle of the sound, a little goopy, like dropping fruit on cement. And by mixing those three components, you can get a really full layered sound.
Old video games are my favorite overall: I like the free-ranging worlds and the lack of emphasis on graphics, because just like a good book, I’d rather use my imagination. The sounds are also part of the charm because they’re simple — the battles are clean and not “goopy.”
Jon Ronson is a sweet-voiced This American Life contributor and author of almost pathologically interesting nonfiction (e.g. The Men Who Stare at Goats), with a name that sounds like a Spoonerism.
His most recent book is The Psychopath Test, which he excerpted in an episode of the same name of This American Life. Ronson is enthralling but the best part of the episode is when the TAL staff members take the test and sweat it when they have any “yes” answers.
Last weekend a friend and I played in a euchre tournament. One of our opponents overheard us talking about how successful people often display distorted thinking about empathy or grandeur, that kind of thing, and I mentioned Ronson’s book and findings.
The opponent turned out to be a psychologist. She told us that no professional would ever diagnose anyone as a psychopath without administering multiple tests, and a “failing grade” on the psychopath test was not necessarily a dealbreaker (maker?).
1.
My dad has a business blog and I proofread his posts, ideally before he posts them but he’s impatient. He emails me a post then we dialogue. Once in June, 2011:
Me: It’s good. I’ve never heard the word scofflaw and am not sure it’s in the parlance, might want to explain it.
Dad: Person that ignores law.
Me: I know now but I had to look it up.
Dad: The paper always has articles about people that acquire enormous amounts of speeding tickets. Parking scofflaws.
2.
Later that same evening, a Seinfeld rerun caught my eye, a season-six episode called The Scofflaw.
3.
October, 2011: During Ken Burns’ new miniseries Prohibition, my dad shared this tidbit:
In 1924, four years after Prohibition was imposed, the Boston Herald offered $200 to the reader who came up with a brand-new word for someone who flagrantly ignored the edict and drank liquor that had been illegally made or illegally sold. Twenty-five thousand responded. Two readers split the prize. Each had come up with the same word — “scofflaw.”
4.
March, 2012:
Me: There’s a new bar in Logan Square called … Scofflaw.
Dad: I was sleeping.
Scofflaw is a gin bar. Gin played a vital role in Prohibition speakeasies and I imagine the name is a tribute to that.
(Lindsey inadvertently reminded me to write this when she reviewed Scofflaw — the bar, not the Seinfeld episode.)
William Hazlitt in “On the Pleasure of Hating” (1823):
We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves, and have neither thoughts nor feelings to impart to them. Give a man a topic in his head, a throb of pleasure in his heart, and he will be glad to share it with the first person he meets.
This is off topic for me, but I can’t stop thinking about all the stupefying, horrible contradictions inherent to the Trayvon Martin shooting.
We live in the wealthiest nation on Earth. We teach fear to our children to the point where they aren’t allowed to look at or talk to strangers under even the most benign circumstances; where we fear adult predators and other dangers so much we don’t want our children to have recess or walk to school or even wait for the bus without their parents. There are helicopter parents who interfere with and baby their children well after they reach the age of majority. They want to stay overnight with their children in their new dorm rooms. They submit job applications on their children’s behalf.
At the same time, we live in a nation with stand-your-ground laws instead of the duty to retreat handed down to us by England. In many states you can legally carry a concealed weapon.
Helicopter parents teach their children to be afraid of both the simplest, most everyday things and the most extremely unlikely possibilities: Be afraid to cross the street; be afraid of getting kidnapped by a stranger. But right now we’re barely allowed to say what the scariest things are without fear of instant partisan blowback. You know what’s really terrifying? Random armed citizens with no formal firearms experience gunning down teenagers. I’m pretty afraid of anyone with a weapon, let alone a concealed weapon, and there is a gulf of difference between calling the police in a situation you find troubling (I’ve done that!) and pursuing the situation as though you’re a cop. Using your gun to kill someone.
Somehow, a society where children are increasingly sheltered and decreasingly socialized is the same society where those children become adults and can legally carry weapons. Where is any responsibility for the deadly weapons sprinkled wantonly among our citizens? The racial implications of the Trayvon Martin shooting are widespread and alarming, but that’s only one way in which this is an absurd nightmare circus.
Gun-ownership proponents argue that they only want to match what the criminals already have, that they want to defend themselves and their homes. Guess what. I would much rather put my hands up and step out of my home and let a criminal take whatever valuable things are here (not much!), or step out of my car and give someone the keys, than escalate the situation by using my own violence. I know that’s not always realistic and I know terrible things happen to people, but I personally do not ever want a gun on my person, in my hand, or near me at all.
n. a bissel of schmutz; a Photoshop tool; a spiritual ceremony; dense smoke
v. to smear
n. ritual suicide, originally practiced by samurai
Japanese writer Yukio Mishima committed seppuku in 1970.
An arcanum from where history and language collide:
The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. […] In 455, they sacked the city of Rome. […] Renaissance and Early Modern writers characterized the Vandals as barbarians, “sacking and looting” Rome. This led to the use of the term “vandalism”, to describe any senseless destruction, particularly the “barbarian” defacing of artworks.
One of the songs I love most is called You Vandal, about a boy robbed of his heart by a faraway ladyfriend. It’s full of excellent body metaphors:
My ribs have parted ways, they said:
“We’re not going to protect this heart you have.”
Speaking of Redwall: Should You Make Your Own Elderflower Cordial?
And speaking of exceptional elders: In Are Innocent Parents Being Prosecuted for Killing Their Babies?, Emily Bazelon highlights 96-year-old pediatric neurosurgeon Norman Guthkelch, who co-coined “shaken-baby syndrome” more than forty years ago. In Dr. Guthkelch’s third act, he works to ensure parents and caretakers are not imprisoned over natural causes of death mistaken for SBS.
From E.B. White on the Free Press:
For a citizen in our free society, it is an enormous privilege and a wonderful protection to have access to hundreds of periodicals, each peddling its own belief. There is safety in numbers: the papers expose each other’s follies and peccadillos, correct each other’s mistakes, and cancel out each other’s biases. The reader is free to range around in the whole editorial bouillabaisse and explore it for the one clam that matters—the truth.
If I write a memoir I will call it The Whole Editorial Bouillabaisse or, if I’m feeling sassy, The One Clam That Matters.
