How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets
Alabama Is Still Removing Segregationist Language from Their Constitution
The prime minister of Norway drove a cab for a day.
Oh no: Priceless 15th century medieval panels 'hacked out' of church
Here's an update on the Jane Austen/Kelly Clarkson drama, which is not a phrase I ever particularly expected to write.
I haven't had a chance to read this yet, but I'm sure it's fascinating (ha): The New Yorker has a long review of a history of publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
The case against blog tours.
You might want to see these pictures of the Prince of Wales making strawberry tarts.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Morning Coffee (8/12/13)
Happy Monday?
A Guide to YA Novels with LGBTQ Characters
Slate will no longer refer to the DC NFL team by name.
Interesting read: The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In
Calling Out Concussions And NFL Culture, Creators Of ‘League Of Denial’ See A Slow Path Forward
Uh-oh: Welsh in decline
Permission granted to examine 'King Alfred' grave
I didn't even realize Danielle Steel had a blog, but she does and it's awesome.
Aww: Dogs yawn along with their masters
A Guide to YA Novels with LGBTQ Characters
Slate will no longer refer to the DC NFL team by name.
Interesting read: The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In
Calling Out Concussions And NFL Culture, Creators Of ‘League Of Denial’ See A Slow Path Forward
Uh-oh: Welsh in decline
Permission granted to examine 'King Alfred' grave
I didn't even realize Danielle Steel had a blog, but she does and it's awesome.
Aww: Dogs yawn along with their masters
Friday, August 9, 2013
Morning Coffee (8/9/13)
Happy Friday!
I (uncharacteristically enough) posted two things after Morning Coffee yesterday, so if you missed them: here's why I liked Broadchurch and here's a rant about Doctor Who and the "fake geek girls" myth.
Sad news: Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Mertz/Barbara Michaels has died. I love her books.
Okay, back to Friday happy. Ooh, Mira Nair's upcoming Bengali Detective sounds fun.
Clarence House now seems to be Instagramming St. James's Palace, which is just delightfully meta.
Curiosity has been on Mars for a year and played "Happy Birthday" to itself. I can't.
Ooh, pretty university libraries.
An early short story by Stieg Larsson is being published, but they rather buried the lede here: the anthology it's in is called A Darker Shade of Sweden, just in case all the rest of those Swedish crime novels are TOO LIGHT AND HAPPY for you.
The Scholastic Book Club is back!
Monaco's having two royal weddings!
I (uncharacteristically enough) posted two things after Morning Coffee yesterday, so if you missed them: here's why I liked Broadchurch and here's a rant about Doctor Who and the "fake geek girls" myth.
Sad news: Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Mertz/Barbara Michaels has died. I love her books.
Okay, back to Friday happy. Ooh, Mira Nair's upcoming Bengali Detective sounds fun.
Clarence House now seems to be Instagramming St. James's Palace, which is just delightfully meta.
Curiosity has been on Mars for a year and played "Happy Birthday" to itself. I can't.
Ooh, pretty university libraries.
An early short story by Stieg Larsson is being published, but they rather buried the lede here: the anthology it's in is called A Darker Shade of Sweden, just in case all the rest of those Swedish crime novels are TOO LIGHT AND HAPPY for you.
The Scholastic Book Club is back!
Monaco's having two royal weddings!
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Hey, women, stop perpetuating the "fake geek girl" myth!
Today this essay started popping up on my Twitter feed and promptly enraged me and several of my friends, but really, it's just the latest example of a genre that crops up far, far too often. In it, the (female) writer expresses her very serious worry that Stephen Moffat and the BBC have risked the entire Doctor Who franchise by casting an "all wrong" person as the twelfth Doctor - and by "all wrong" she means not that Peter Capaldi* is another white male, but that he's a white male who isn't young and hot enough. She states that the show's popularity is due to the sex appeal of the last three Doctors and that this casting means it will "potentially lose half its audience."
And this way of thinking, this common, common way of thinking about young women and their media consumption, well, it makes me want to throw things. Because it does a terrible disservice to everyone, really, but specifically to those young women and to young girls coming of age in this society that assumes that they can't actually like something because it's good, that they can only be lured in by pretty boys and pandering to their shallow - young women must be shallow, you know - frivolous interests. Did having attractive people on the show help grow Doctor Who's audience? Sure. (You know what else has attractive people? Virtually every show on TV.) Is having a lust object literally the only reason for young women to watch a science fiction show? No! That's ridiculous! Apparently this might be a shocking statement, but I swear, young women will watch shows they like, and they'll like things for any number of different reasons. It's almost like they're people or something.
But no, of course young women couldn't watch a science fiction show because they like science fiction. People like the writer of the above essay (and there are many; this is just the one that pushed me over the edge) are careful to say that they themselves like the show on its own merits, of course, but everyone else, all those FAKE geek girls, they must be the majority and they can't possibly be watching for the "right" reasons, and therefore they must be patronized and pandered to at every opportunity. It's infuriating enough when men say things like this, but seriously, women, stop spreading this nonsense about other women. You're not making yourself look better by claiming you're not one of "them." You're just making things worse for everyone, because by reinforcing the idea that young women have a very narrow range of interests, you're encouraging people to make a narrow range of entertainment options for all of us. And by saying women will only watch a Doctor who's young and hot, you're giving every man - and woman - who's looking for it permission to dismiss the opinions of the women at their gaming stores, at their conventions, in their lives, and to take for granted that the women around them aren't really people with a right to be there, because they're just "fake geek girls."
* I don't want to get too far into the specifics of any actors, as that's not really my point here, but I'll just say that I think Capaldi is very talented (and, you know, attractive, which it IS possible for someone over the age of 41 to be!) and I've quite liked him in other things, and I'm looking forward to seeing him in the role.
And this way of thinking, this common, common way of thinking about young women and their media consumption, well, it makes me want to throw things. Because it does a terrible disservice to everyone, really, but specifically to those young women and to young girls coming of age in this society that assumes that they can't actually like something because it's good, that they can only be lured in by pretty boys and pandering to their shallow - young women must be shallow, you know - frivolous interests. Did having attractive people on the show help grow Doctor Who's audience? Sure. (You know what else has attractive people? Virtually every show on TV.) Is having a lust object literally the only reason for young women to watch a science fiction show? No! That's ridiculous! Apparently this might be a shocking statement, but I swear, young women will watch shows they like, and they'll like things for any number of different reasons. It's almost like they're people or something.
But no, of course young women couldn't watch a science fiction show because they like science fiction. People like the writer of the above essay (and there are many; this is just the one that pushed me over the edge) are careful to say that they themselves like the show on its own merits, of course, but everyone else, all those FAKE geek girls, they must be the majority and they can't possibly be watching for the "right" reasons, and therefore they must be patronized and pandered to at every opportunity. It's infuriating enough when men say things like this, but seriously, women, stop spreading this nonsense about other women. You're not making yourself look better by claiming you're not one of "them." You're just making things worse for everyone, because by reinforcing the idea that young women have a very narrow range of interests, you're encouraging people to make a narrow range of entertainment options for all of us. And by saying women will only watch a Doctor who's young and hot, you're giving every man - and woman - who's looking for it permission to dismiss the opinions of the women at their gaming stores, at their conventions, in their lives, and to take for granted that the women around them aren't really people with a right to be there, because they're just "fake geek girls."
* I don't want to get too far into the specifics of any actors, as that's not really my point here, but I'll just say that I think Capaldi is very talented (and, you know, attractive, which it IS possible for someone over the age of 41 to be!) and I've quite liked him in other things, and I'm looking forward to seeing him in the role.
Hurrah for Broadchurch!
British crime drama Broadchurch premiered on BBC America last night, so I realize that now pretty much everyone is writing posts that say "Yay Broadchurch! It was great!" But I feel compelled to add my voice to the chorus - yay! It was great! While I do like traditional murder-of-the-week crime shows, I am also enjoying this current (mainly European, it seems) trend of slower shows that trace one investigation over the course of a season or more. (I even liked season two of the U.S. version of The Killing. I know, I know.) When done correctly, these slower investigations mean that the detectives we follow from case to case aren't the only real characters. The people in the victim's life, who in most procedurals are brief guest stars, get to be multidimensional characters in their own right - if the show is written correctly, at least, and so far it looks like Broadchurch is. The victim's family, the newsagent, and the local reporters are already interesting, and I look forward to seeing how it develops everyone further.
Broadchurch is set up with some familiar elements - the victim's slightly shady parent, a friend with secrets, small town intrigue - but that's by no means a bad thing. The conventions of the genre exist for a reason, and there's space to do almost anything within that framework. Among the cast, David Tennant's getting most of the attention, of course, but others shine too and the variety of interesting female characters are worth some focus as well: Olivia Colman as an ambitious detective who also happens to be a mother, Jodie Whittaker and Charlotte Beaumont as the victim's mother and sister, Carolyn Pickles as the local newspaper editor with unflinching standards, Vicky McClure as a somewhat mysterious and morally questionable young ambitious reporter. Now that I think about it, in the first episode, at least, more time was given to the women's career ambitions than to the men's, and it will be interesting to see how that progresses.
I'm not going to promise to write about Broadchurch every week, because inevitably something would happen to prevent that, but I'll try to check back in next week, at least, to see if the second episode lived up to the hopes I have after watching the first. If you missed it, it looks like BBC America is rerunning the premiere on Friday at 11pm. And at the moment, you can watch the premiere for free online, though I'm not sure how long that will last.
Broadchurch is set up with some familiar elements - the victim's slightly shady parent, a friend with secrets, small town intrigue - but that's by no means a bad thing. The conventions of the genre exist for a reason, and there's space to do almost anything within that framework. Among the cast, David Tennant's getting most of the attention, of course, but others shine too and the variety of interesting female characters are worth some focus as well: Olivia Colman as an ambitious detective who also happens to be a mother, Jodie Whittaker and Charlotte Beaumont as the victim's mother and sister, Carolyn Pickles as the local newspaper editor with unflinching standards, Vicky McClure as a somewhat mysterious and morally questionable young ambitious reporter. Now that I think about it, in the first episode, at least, more time was given to the women's career ambitions than to the men's, and it will be interesting to see how that progresses.
I'm not going to promise to write about Broadchurch every week, because inevitably something would happen to prevent that, but I'll try to check back in next week, at least, to see if the second episode lived up to the hopes I have after watching the first. If you missed it, it looks like BBC America is rerunning the premiere on Friday at 11pm. And at the moment, you can watch the premiere for free online, though I'm not sure how long that will last.
Morning Coffee (8/8/13)
My friends Heather and Crissy have their Vampire Diaries companion book Love You to Death 4 coming out soon, and look who wrote the foreword!
The awesome Holly Black is touring in September, including some New England dates. Go see her!
Leonardo DiCaprio might play Harald Hardrada, and I appreciate that the first line of this piece is basically "But he's already playing Rasputin!", because that was my exact reaction.
After last night's Broadchurch (more on that later), if you need a phone notification sound of David Tennant yelling "Bloody Twitter!", well, here you go.
Ryan is wise: “Doctor Who” has a new lead, but is in more desperate need of a new showrunner
I had no idea about this history of The Oregon Trail. (The game, not the actual historical thing.)
Interesting read: Who Am I to Judge? Francis Redefines the Papacy
Stephen King's Family Business
The awesome Holly Black is touring in September, including some New England dates. Go see her!
Leonardo DiCaprio might play Harald Hardrada, and I appreciate that the first line of this piece is basically "But he's already playing Rasputin!", because that was my exact reaction.
After last night's Broadchurch (more on that later), if you need a phone notification sound of David Tennant yelling "Bloody Twitter!", well, here you go.
Ryan is wise: “Doctor Who” has a new lead, but is in more desperate need of a new showrunner
I had no idea about this history of The Oregon Trail. (The game, not the actual historical thing.)
Interesting read: Who Am I to Judge? Francis Redefines the Papacy
Stephen King's Family Business
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Morning Coffee (8/7/13)
A horrifying but important read: The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia
Also: Greece is starving.
Okay, on to happier things. Here's a picture of Tom Hiddleston hanging out with Cookie Monster.
There's a new trailer for the movie about Diana, Princess of Wales.
This pasta map is amazing.
Heh: Dolphin Spends Amazing Vacation Swimming With Stockbroker
After the Revolution, a Patriot Edits His Hymnal Accordingly
And last but not least, thousands of people in Dublin broke the world record for longest Riverdance line.
Also: Greece is starving.
Okay, on to happier things. Here's a picture of Tom Hiddleston hanging out with Cookie Monster.
There's a new trailer for the movie about Diana, Princess of Wales.
This pasta map is amazing.
Heh: Dolphin Spends Amazing Vacation Swimming With Stockbroker
After the Revolution, a Patriot Edits His Hymnal Accordingly
And last but not least, thousands of people in Dublin broke the world record for longest Riverdance line.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Morning Coffee (8/6/13)
Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) is buying the Washington Post. Wow.
Mystic Seaport has relaunched the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship!
Peter Capaldi wrote to RadioTimes about Doctor Who when he was 15.
Another day, another children's clothing store telling girls they're bad at math.
Yep, Farmer Boy always makes me hungry.
Ooh, check out the history of paper dolls. I love paper dolls, actually.
Fascinating: A Script for the Queen's Speech, in Case of Nuclear War
Faked Photos of WWI Aerial Combat That Really Had People Fooled
Mystic Seaport has relaunched the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship!
Peter Capaldi wrote to RadioTimes about Doctor Who when he was 15.
Another day, another children's clothing store telling girls they're bad at math.
Yep, Farmer Boy always makes me hungry.
Ooh, check out the history of paper dolls. I love paper dolls, actually.
Fascinating: A Script for the Queen's Speech, in Case of Nuclear War
Faked Photos of WWI Aerial Combat That Really Had People Fooled
Monday, August 5, 2013
Morning Coffee (8/5/13)
Good news that broke while I was away: The Old Reader is sticking around!
Not news, but I was telling a friend about this site for mystery readers this weekend, and it's such a useful resource that I like just putting it out there occasionally: Stop, You're Killing Me!
Your Monday morning probably needs this: Fox Steals Cell Phone, Sends Text in Language of the Foxes
Today in unexpected headlines: Singer Kelly Clarkson prevented from taking Jane Austen's ring from UK
This is an article about an indexing feud. That is all.
10 Highbrow Authors Who Gave Acting a Try
NASA photo, meant to inspire, sparks useless government investigation
Here's George R.R. Martin on the Targaryen Civil War.
Not news, but I was telling a friend about this site for mystery readers this weekend, and it's such a useful resource that I like just putting it out there occasionally: Stop, You're Killing Me!
Your Monday morning probably needs this: Fox Steals Cell Phone, Sends Text in Language of the Foxes
Today in unexpected headlines: Singer Kelly Clarkson prevented from taking Jane Austen's ring from UK
This is an article about an indexing feud. That is all.
10 Highbrow Authors Who Gave Acting a Try
NASA photo, meant to inspire, sparks useless government investigation
Here's George R.R. Martin on the Targaryen Civil War.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Morning Coffee (8/1/13)
August? How is it August? Anyway, I'm going to Vermont tonight and trying to convince myself not to bring my laptop, so probably no post tomorrow. See you Monday!
Harry Potter's birthday was yesterday, and here are some interesting statistics.
Don't Ignore the Trolls. Feed Them Until They Explode.
Oh awesome, they found a missing Stradivarius!
Dear authors: If I want your newsletter, I can click “subscribe” myself.
The Zach drama on Breaking Pointe this season is AMAZING.
Ooh, I knew nothing of this Alexander Hamilton scandal.
When people define fantasy novels they think are good as "not really fantasy," it is crazy-making.
A Cub Reporter On The Summer Hamptons Beat
Harry Potter's birthday was yesterday, and here are some interesting statistics.
Don't Ignore the Trolls. Feed Them Until They Explode.
Oh awesome, they found a missing Stradivarius!
Dear authors: If I want your newsletter, I can click “subscribe” myself.
The Zach drama on Breaking Pointe this season is AMAZING.
Ooh, I knew nothing of this Alexander Hamilton scandal.
When people define fantasy novels they think are good as "not really fantasy," it is crazy-making.
A Cub Reporter On The Summer Hamptons Beat
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