I attended this movie with him. He convinced me that we were going to see an early work print of the new Tron film. We weren’t.
Sex and the City 2: the worst thing ever to crawl out of the collapsed anus that is Hollywood.
Old lovers go the way of old photographs, bleaching out gradually as in a slow bath of acid: first the moles and pimples, then the shadings. Then the faces themselves, until nothing remains but the general outlines.
“
| — | Margaret Atwood (via edjk) |
In last week’s “Don’t buy it: Pokémon 2000 aims to inspire another spending spree,” the film reviewer Mark Slutsky makes some rather ridiculous remarks about Pokémon. Being a rare adult Pokémon fan, I was rather insulted by his asinine comments about the film being “consumer oriented.” I found that Mr. Slutsky did not watch the movie while paying more than a rudimentary amount of attention to the plot. To properly criticize a movie based on a TV show, you have to watch the show for a few episodes, starting from the beginning. While it is true that most Pokémon can only say their names, there are exceptions to the “speaking rule.” For example, see Team Rocket’s Meowth in every episode after the first; Ghastly in the episode entitled “The Ghost of Maiden’s Peak;” and Slowking in P2K. Also, the movie should be reviewed as a movie, not just a kids’ movie. Many of the plots in Pokémon are too complex for children to understand (e.g. “Pikachu’s Goodbye,” Pokémon: The Movie) Pokémon is about friendship, not selling video games, toys and other merchandise. If adults would give the show a chance with an open mind, they would probably understand this.
—Anonymous
—Anonymous
deep cut
n. an emotion you haven’t felt in years that you might have forgotten about completely if your emotional playlist hadn’t been left on shuffle—a feeling whose opening riff tugs on all your other neurons like a dog on a leash waiting for you to open the door.
Never has the role of gate-keeper, of taste-maker, been more important than it is now. Print’s cost and limited carrying capacity forces curators to become editors; ruthless decisions actually get made.
What we thought we were paying for in newspapers was all the news that was in them. In fact, the main role of the newspaper was to decide what to leave out.
We need more of this today, not less. Print provides the impetus for this discipline.
[via Ross Floate]
NEW LIFE
On Sunday evening, I deleted Twitter and Tumblr off my phone, and besides for a five minute relapse this afternoon, they have stayed deleted. It was all just starting to feel too much like an eating disorder or like academic mania — being preoccupied with thoughts you don’t care about, compulsively seeking information that is at once overwhelming and boring, soliciting the approval of people you don’t know, relying on your own anxiety for stimulation.
I did it for the sake of my own brain and for the sake of the people I pit against the internet every single time I check my phone while in their company. Nothing new here. But it also feels surprisingly good to witness the evolution of thoughts and feelings for the first time in what seems like forever; I had forgotten that thoughts and feelings actually grow more complex if you just stop documenting their earliest iterations. Strangers on the street are the most concrete example. They can be funny from a block away, pitiable from half-a-block away, tragic up-close, and then lovable once they’re behind you. If you use a smart phone like I do, you never see the pitiable stranger, the tragic stranger, or the lovable stranger. You take a picture of the funny stranger and caption it with something clever and mean. “Dopamine squirts,” be damned; there are ethical dimensions to disconnecting.
Have just done the same, although removed Twitter and Facebook. My social media cycles were becoming far too compressed for my own comfort; noticed myself yesterday reaching for my phone four times in as many minutes while on a tram. Early days, but already enjoying the feel of my thoughts occasionally unspooling of their own accord.
