Always already.
Beloit College has posted its “Mindset List” for the Class of 2013: the things that for them have always already happened. It starts with “Martha Graham, Pan American Airways, Michael Landon, Dr. Seuss, Miles Davis, The Dallas Times Herald, Gene Roddenberry, and Freddie Mercury have always been dead,” and ends with “There has always been blue Jell-O,” with 73 steps in between. —For me, the worst was at the top: “If the entering college class of 2013 had been more alert back in 1991 when most of them were born…” Christ. I was already about to drop out of college in 1991. [via]
Still doesn't pass the Bechdel Test,
and I never even liked GI Joe as a kid, but damned if this doesn’t somehow make me all warm and fuzzy nonetheless:
Sing into my mouth.
Yeah, I know. But I can’t stop listening to it.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Irrespective of how much I might or might not be looking forward to a Tim Minear take on Alien Nation, there’s something terribly wrong with this sentence:
Syfy [sic] Creative Director of Original Programming Mark Stern sat with us and talked about the new reboot we’re all eagerly awaiting—
But the night was dark! And stormy!
Somewhere in San Jose a server’s straining mightily to serve up the 2009 winner of the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. As you might remember, we at the pier are not so fond of the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest, which has (we feel) substantially lost its way; we are pleased to note that the Lyttle Lytton awards are still running strong, and recommend the 2009 finalists to your attention as a welcome tonic. —Finally: an unlooked-for but as-welcome defense of the Great Man himself, from Jess Nevins, a champion of the welcome unlooked-for.
μῶμος.
At the age of 15, Humperson ran away from home to become a lighthouse keeper on the rugged, storm-lashed Atlantic coast. During this time he worked on a new signaling system intended to warn sailors of the various complex dangers—extending far beyond mere storms and rocks—presented by the sea. Unfortunately, because of widespread unfamiliarity with the system amongst sailors, wrecks were caused and a great many lives lost. Humperson fled to Jerusalem, where he studied anthropology and sociology in Hebrew under Martin Buber.
It was here—swatting flies in the fierce Palestine sun—that he began to develop the ideas for which he’s best remembered. Later, as a tenured professor at the University of San Marino, Humperson developed these preliminary insights into the five Laws of Meta as we know them today—
Momus extols an uncelebrated thinker.
The Bay 38.
While as with all right-thinking people I celebrate Charlie Jane Anders’ review of Revenge of the Fallen as some sort of critical apogee or at least the most fun I’ve had reading a movie review this summer so far—
And around hour six of ROTF, something curious happens: the two components—male enhancement and pure id—start to clash, badly. Usually, in a summer movie, the two aspects go together like tits and ass: Jason Statham plays someone who faces the same insecurities as regular dudes, but he overcomes them, and in the process he blows up everything in the world. But creating that kind of fusion requires enslaving the id to the male enhancement, and that in turn means only going way over the top instead of crazy, stratospheric over the top. Michael Bay is not willing to settle for going way over the top, like other directors.
So you have a movie that tries to reassure men that they can actually be masters of their reality—but then turns around and says that actually, reality is not real. There’s no such thing as the “real world,” and the only thing that’s left for men to dominate is a nebulous domain of blurred shapes, which occasionally blurt nonsensical swear-words and slang from ethnic groups that have never existed. If you’re drowning in an Olympic swimming pool full of hot chewing gum fondue, do you still care if Megan Fox likes you?
—Robert Humanick’s more pedestrian review from the House Next Door nonetheless proposes what I think will become the crucial metric for gaining some perspective on the era of the entertainment-industrial complex:
I mourn the volume of human life being wasted on this thing. If the film makes $100 million this weekend and tickets cost $10 a pop, that’s ten million viewers and a total of twenty-five million hours, not including previews, travel and the time spent earning the wasted money. If the average person lives to be 75, that’s 38 lives.
Remember the Bay 38, people. Never forget.
Half-learning all the moves.
Seriously, io9, how the hell do you write even a puff-piece on The Last Airbender movie without even a gesture toward its calamitous casting calls? I mean, over a third of my traffic these days is from people googling up this article right here…
A question for the ages is answered.
They say everything is on the internet somewhere, so here you go: the reason why Yellow is orange.
If you ever wondered what it is I sound like,
I read “Bottom Feeding,” by Tim Pratt, for Podcastle.
All is forgiven.
Oh, Pine State Biscuits. Your hype is not your fault, but is still ridiculous; your lines are too long, your biscuits are a tad bit too salty, and you use those orange individually wrapped slices of cheese, which is taking authenticity a number of steps too far. But by God you carry Cheerwine! So there’s that.
Cross-pollination.
I wanted to take a moment, just a moment, to share with you a couple of morsels from 
teaotter’s distillation of ithurtsmybrain’s list of Pairings that Ate Fandom:
From her “I’ll be in my bunk” list:
84. Nikola Tesla (The Prestige) / Sarah Connor (Terminator/SCC)
And you know? That works very, very well. It’s an intriguingly doomed disaster of a relationship in waiting, it is. But this next one, this:
From her “That would be (deliciously) wrong” list:
98. James Bond (James Bond films) / Bella Swan (Twilight)
I just. I mean. Words fail, you know? I mean.
A riddle:
So why is it I’m thrilled to hear that Edgar Wright is filming in and around the actual dank pit that Bryan Lee O’Malley picked out for Scott and Wallace’s apartment, but the slavish care and monomaniacal attention to detail that Zach Snyder and co. slathered all over Watchmen left me cold?
The power of love.
“As someone who has closely observed politicians for many years, what I see is the rare integrity of a politician who couldn’t rationalize his way to swearing to uphold the laws of his state and nation while breaking them.” —Rick Casey, “Mayor quits job for gay illegal immigrant he loves” [via]
Twisitor? Really?
A great idea, but, um, the name—?
Added to the read-me pile.
As soon as I get a copy, anyway. —Made me think of this (though Mother Jones needs to work on their link-rot; what he was pointing to moved here).
