A Gilded Planet

In second grade, a precocious young girl named Heather constructed a diorama representing the court of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I. Somehow, Heather had interpreted a creative assignment about the ecology of rainforest biomes to be one dealing with the English Renaissance. Her teacher could hardly complain about the resulting project, as it was far more intricate and sophisticated than the projects that the rest of the snot noses had concocted even if it was lacking in the sort of flora and fauna native to places such as the Amazon. Heather received 4s in nearly every category that trimester except “Following Instructions,” in which she received a 2. Later, in middle school, incessant teasing sent Heather to the brink of an eating disorder though she pulled herself back in time for a relatively healthy, happy high school life in which she performed roles both comic, romantic and tragic in Shakespeare plays while secretly falling in love with his sonnets. She had to keep this a secr...

Rather than strain anyone's patience with some high-minded Resolutions of the annual variety, I will engage in New Years Navel Gazing by taking a look back at the most popular posts I produced during this past year. I intended to post something new every day and succeeded just over one third of the time. And popularity is, of course, a very relative term considering that it's rather rather rare for me to get pageviews that number in the triple digits, and as you'll see, those pageviews don't always indicate anyone is actually reading the post that's been accessed. 10. Long Live Johansson Projects Though it barely made the cut, I am proud of this one since my brief little review was cited by its subject . I assume a fair number of its pageviews came through that link, alongside the links provided to more legitimate reviews by SFGate and the Daily Cal. Ah, the democracy of opinions that is the Internet. 9. Happy Birthday, José Martí! This post was just me...

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart Super Sad True Love Story offers a vision of the future that follows present day social, political and economic trends to their sardonically satirical dystopian conclusion. It is a novel that sets a star crossed romance against the backdrop of the decadent west in decline. The author, Gary Shteyngart, imagines his future dystopia literally rather than allegorically. This allows him to create characters that are more real than symbolic. But it also leads to some odd examples of a kind of warped literary prescience. The emergence of an Occupy Wall Street type movement in the imagined future of the novel is probably the most prominent example of this prescience. The book was published over a year before the tents started to go up at Zucotti Park, but the parallels between the rolling campsite protests that occur in the novel due to the U.S.'s continued economic problems bear an eerie resemblence to what transpired in reality not so ...

Snow White and the Huntsman 2012. 127 minutes. USA. Directed by Rupert Sanders. Watchdate: 6/15/2012. Snow White and the Huntsman is a completely forgettable and pointless action adventure-cum-romance, though I did enjoy Charlize Theron's unhinged, over the top performance as well as the super mushroomy forest trip and the seven dwarves (including Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, and Nick Frost). Why again did they deemphasize the dwarves in this version? They are the best part of the story.

Recently, the University of California Office of the President unveiled a new logo for the most prestigious public university system in the world. Since then, the logo has been met with near universal revulsion and outright disgust. It has been widely compared to a flushing toilet, or, more kindly, to one of those annoying loading icons that everyone loves to hate in this age of computers and attention deficits. In response, the fifteen-year-old girls at the UC Office of the President responded using Facebook , the average high schooler's public forum of choice: Here's the thing: It's [the new logo] not replacing anything. There wasn't a logo before, and the UC seal isn't going anywhere. The symbol also isn't new. It's been on websites, brochures, advertising and other places for nearly a year now. Did we consult people and test it? Of course. Does everyone like the new symbol? No. That's very clear. But strong differences of opinion and energetic d...

Republicans in the state legislature of Michigan have come together this week to institute new prohibitions on the freedom of contract in their state. These new state-mandated prohibitions would put certain restrictions on people's right to bargain and sign contracts reflecting the outcomes of such bargaining. Republicans often portray themselves in opposition to big government regulations of the economy. However, when it comes to putting new restrictions on the type of contracts that can be arranged between free and consenting adults, they always seem to forget they are against big government. See also "tort reform." Prominent Example of Big Government Interfering with Freedom of Contract For some reason, many prominent reporters and news commentators have decided to refer to the legislation in Michigan as a "right-to-work" law. I guess newspaper editors decided it would be a good idea to try to confuse their readers as much as possible. Instead of calli...

Europa 1991.  112 minutes. Denmark. Directed by Lars von Trier . Watchdate: 7/16/2012. Wow! I am certain this movie strikes a different chord now that Lars von Trier has publicly expressed sympathy (jokingly?) for der Führer. Until watching this movie, I had never really given any serious thought to Nazi dead-enders conspiring in Germany after the second world war ended. It does make sense that there would have been some kind of violent political insurgency during the Allied occupation of Germany (not Iraq level, but something!). I'll give von Trier credit for provoking me to think about that peculiar historical footnote. And he either deserves great credit or a resounding demerit - I'm not sure which - for pressing me to even have just the barest modicum of sympathy for the purest evil that humanity has witnessed. I have to acknowledge the movie's imagery - bizarre, haunting, elegiac, disturbing and occasionally even goofy - and certainly like very little else I...