Here’s the latest story about famous women doing the mom thing, joining the likes of Kate Hudson, Gwenyth Paltrow…the list of female celebrities late gone semi- or totally on mommy-leave goes on, I believe…anybody care to chip in here?
Talkin’ bout my generation. It’s a good thing, I think. For one thing, parenthood is an endless source of comic material. And maybe even other sorts of inspiration as well.
That is, outrageously funny.
She’s right, blogging is ridiculously easy. All you have to do is opine. So why is it that anybody cares what you or any other blogger (make that ‘and every other blogger’) thinks? Because the magic of being in “print” is that, suddenly, you appear authoritative. After all, you’re published, aren’t you??
This is a much-needed takedown, myself non-excepted (as a “new blogger.”) I’m considering asking Matt to turn off my invite when he makes deadline.
It reminds me of a bit from that piece on Conan I linked to:
“There are no gatekeepers to comedy anymore,” says O’Brien, who hasn’t performed stand-up since college and rarely visits comedy clubs (the idea of hosting a stand-up show, he says, makes him want to “put a gun to my ear”). “There used to be a castle with one entry to the moat, and Johnny had the key to the drawbridge. Now they’ve taken down all the walls to the castle and people are milling in and out. These days, there are 40 ‘best new comedians’ coming out next year.”
So who finds a blogger to be worthy? “The majority”?
THE END IS NEAR…
…don’t miss this opportunity for huge savings at the House of Stuff’s “End is Near” sale!
[Thanks to Smokee for the inspiration.]
Hey Brits, if you’re watching this space, let’s hear it! We might start to think you’re dissenting from Technopoly or something!
…but if memory serves, this is not the worst interview I ever gave.
Korrektiv is taking a brief hiatus while the Korrektiv wives recover from (a) childbirth and (b) a broken limb.
Most likely. Given Abu Gharib.
I’ve also heard that Marines have handed out porn to recruit locals against insurgents.
Hugh Hefner rules the world. Or rather, the monster he created–namely, mainstreamed, ubiquitous porn–rules the world.
UPDATE: More photos of Abu Gharib will soon be released.
A trailer for a film entitled The Squid and the Whale (that’s one post referenced) which includes a discussion of the meaning of “philistine” – a twofer!
…Charles Taylor. I should have seen it coming, and probably would have if I’d thought about it. Taylor is perhaps porn’s greatest champion in the press. Of course he’d find somewhere to review Pornified. Sadly, he may be right about the book. Amy Sohn wasn’t too impressed in the NYT either (their link is botched).
First, will somebody please give Jeremy Irons just one more great role before he disappears forever into these sorts of period villians? A modern, sophisticated vampire, perhaps?
Second, rated R for “some” sexual content? Some? It’s Casanova, fer Pete’s sake.
The Webb Kids, circa 2010
Klub Korrektiv welcomes two new members into the fold. Born to Jonathan and Tiffany Webb and washed up on the shore of this strange island world at half past nine o’clock this morning, two new castaways, Thomas Morgan (6 lbs., 6 oz.) and Honor Lidelle (4 lbs., 9 oz.) join big brother Jack (age 2 years, 10 months; yes the Webbs need our prayers — and our donations to the minivan fund).
Tommy and Honor and Jack
Rode home in an old gunny sack
Flung over the shoulder
Of their father the holder
Of four aces and a whip he could crack.
…and feeling about eight years old.
Scientists have finally photographed a live giant squid. This is so cool.
…what’s gonna spark a debate.
This post has attracted a number of comments as to whether the term “philistine” ought to be considered an ethnic slur. I’d love to hear what everybody thinks. I’ll try to keep out of it from here on out – the deadline looms.
Never thought I’d see this blog called “right wing” after Mark’s tirade against Bush’s handling of Katrina…never say never, I suppose.
This article by NYT film critic A.O. Scott is very much worth reading, so if you don’t want to be bothered with registering with nytimes.com (for which I wouldn’t blame you), just enter my ID, kieslowski1010, and dekalog for the password. (It’s not like I paid to register, so what’s the dif, eh? Just don’t tell the NYT’s marketing division.)
Mr. Scott had it right the first time when he said that the “ingenuity” of Just Like Heaven is that it “does not insist on its righteousness,” and this because it doesn’t have to–since its “pro-life” ending is one you’re rooting for because “who could possibly take the side of [‘pro-choice’] medical judgment when love, family, supernatural forces and the very laws of [the cinematic] genre are on the other side?”
In other words, it’s about audience appeal, stupid. As in making money. Which makes it weird that Mr. Scott goes on to wonder whether films like this, or like The Exorcism of Emily Rose, are “[Hollywood] peace offerings in the culture wars” or “canny attempts [on the part of religious filmmakers] to open a new front in the endless battle for the soul of the American public.”
Whatever! Look no further than the fact that the ending is just plain appealing, and what studio head is going to turn that down (particularly since the ending in question, penned by ever-clever scribes Leslie Dixon and Peter Tolan, while most deliberately ingenious in getting us where we want to go–i.e., to “happily ever after”–is only accidentally “pro-life”)? It’s like our old friend Jason Reed once told me: “All Hollywood cares about is making money.”
Well, that’s only half-true, of course. The typical Hollywood exec most certainly has his/her take on religion/politics, according to which he/she may very well influence the projects he/she is helming whenever possible. But if it’s a contest between ideology versus bottom line, it’s no contest at all.
I received an email this morning from “Stop the Pain” with a subject line that offered the following enticement addressed to me personally: “End Pelvic Pain Forever, Jonathan.”
Didn’t C.S. Lewis write something about this?
Christine Hefner assures us that Playboy Enterprises is “platform-agnostic.”
This is supposed to mean something like “pan-sexual”–as in “We’ll publish smut anywhere, anyhow, any which way.” But instead she sounds like she’s not sure whether media technologies exist. Wait, I’m sorry…I mean she sounds like she doesn’t believe the existence of media technologies can be proven or disproven. (I got that definition of agnosticism from watching Donnie Darko–which, BTW, while fascinating to watch, was wearyingly sophomoric, not to mention as incoherent as every other time-travel/alternate-reality “story,” and wantonly so. Reminded me of The X-Files that way.)
SO…never let it be said that the Hefners are philistines. Au contraire. Playboy, as HH strove so mightily to convince us (esp. those of us feeling guilty about looking at girlie mags), is for sophisticates–the intellectual elite. I wouldn’t be surprised if “platform-agnostic” appears in the next edition of the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (right alongside the equally essential definitions of “plastic surgery” and “plate tectonics”).
I happily confess myself as a devotee of The Daily Show. And of Comedy Central generally. And of comedians generally. I even loved The Aristocrats. (Can I get an “AMEN!”…[sound of crickets chirping].)
Then I read this. And this. And I know I love them even more. I think we’d be amazed how many of these funny guys are Catholic. Lapsed, damaged or both, maybe, but Catholic. The rest, of course, are Jews. But then, so are the Catholics. So it all makes sense. To me. (Amen?…[sound of crickets sleeping].)
Ha ha ha.
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