Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan
It’s one of those days when I don’t have the time that I really would like to, so instead of me writing a lot, you get this lovely little song by Jenny O about being busy at this time of year. With multi-tracked vocals, and such a wonderful finger-picking style of playing, it’s like a female, non-depressive Elliott Smith. I believe that should always be considered a win.
“I’m not trying to eat and run, but I can’t stay…”
Think of it this way. These non-fans, the ones who haven’t decided whether they’re going to see your sequel. What if Regular Joe Non-nerd comes up to me and says, “I liked the first Trek movie all right. What’s this new one about?” I DON’T KNOW, REGULAR JOE NON-NERD, BECAUSE J.J. ABRAMS WON’T FUCKING TELL US. This is not something that will tantalize Joe into pre-ordering tickets. He’s just going to wait until someone can tell him what the premise is.
We can’t do that without a name, and here’s the crazy part — the name barely matters! If I could tell Joe “The Enterprise crew fights Gary Mitchell/Harry Mudd/The Mugatu/Whoever” — the actual name barely matters. The names won’t mean anything to regular people anyway. But it’ll still be a hell of a lot more interesting than “The Enterprise crew fights… somebody.”
From here.
I am becoming oddly obsessed with the sense of entitlement and indignation that’s becoming more and more apparent in nerd culture. There is so much to unpick from this above quote, whether it’s the panic at the idea that – by not confirming fan speculation that the bad guy in a movie is someone familiar to the nerd audience – JJ Abrams is somehow preventing them from looking forward to the movie, the notion that not revealing the entire plot of a movie that doesn’t even come out for half a year is somehow selfish, or my favorite, the anger at being removed from the position of information gatekeeper for the non-nerd audience. “Regular Joe Non-Nerd” along is just amazing. Talk about self-otherization.
This is from a piece called “Dear JJ Abrams, Just @#$%ing Tell Us Who Benedict Cumberbatch Is Playing In Star Trek 2 Already,” by the way.
I’ve pitched something to Time about this; it might not be all there yet, but I’m hoping it’s something I can pull together nonetheless.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
A tray of glass eyes are pictured at the medical equipment shop of optician Gerhard Greiner in Munich. Greiner produces individual hand glass-blown human eye prostheses for people who have lost an eye or eyes due to a trauma, illness or accident. Photograph: Michaela Rehle/Reuters
I love that this is immediately both horrific and oddly amusing to look at.
Ignore, for a second, the fact that Bing Crosby’s voice is actually kind of spectacular (It really is, though; I don’t know why its greatness always surprises me, but it does. It’s so individual and musical, in a way that most voices aren’t), and just luxuriate in the arrangement of his version of this song. It’s a thing of beauty, delicately balanced and just a joy to listen to. Other people have done this song (very often, it seems), but none of them sound as good as this version.
This week’s Time piece, about Dungeons & Dragons and why it isn’t a bigger deal in pop culture, is up. While it authentically mirrors my thinking in researching/writing the piece, I’m unsure about the wisdom of the last minute reversal in the piece itself (No spoilers; it’s not that kind of thing, anyway), but I have to admit that even moreso than usual, I’m beholden to those who helped with research for this one. Especially John Rogers, who sent me a couple of emails that just blew my mind early on, in a good way.
As I start thinking about my workload in 2013, I admit that this kind of thing – Stories where I can get more in-depth and have time/space to think about them – is becoming more and more appealing to me. In part, it’s the desire to escape the insane production treadmill that I’ve been on for the last year or so, but it’s also the enjoyment I get from the surprise of discovery available in longer-form writing. Fingers crossed that the thing that I really want to happen job-wise actually falls into place, I guess…
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 12: A man walks through the early morning frost in Regents Park on December 12, 2012 in London, England. Forecasters have warned that the UK could experience the coldest day of the year so far today, with temperatures dropping as low as -14C, bringing widespread ice, harsh frosts and freezing fog. Travel disruption is expected with warnings for heavy snow in some parts of the country. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
You can feel the chill in this pic. I don’t miss the prospect of -14C temperatures, but I do admit that such chills and frosts do seem somewhat festive in the way that Portland weather doesn’t, right now?
Besides the fact that, like all the best Christmas songs, Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” is ridiculously sing-along-able, probably my favorite thing about this song is that fact that it makes little attempt to hide its cynical origins as a seasonal cash-in, opening with the line “Welcome to my Christmas song/I’d like to thank you for the year.” It’s another song that, like yesterday’s “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day,” is trying to sound like Phil Spector’s A Xmas Gift To You” in many ways, too; listen to the compression and the overkill of various instruments.
Of course, because it’s a good Christmas song, there are covers…
Hop on board the turntable.
So, this random discovery today made me happy:
Not only is Wait, What? – the weekly(ish) comics podcast I do with the fantastic Jeff Lester – the first result on the iTunes store if you search for “Wait, What?” (I know, not entirely surprising, but bear with me), but apparently individual episodes of the show entirely dominate the podcast episode results. We are the kings of the podcasting.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
An Indian schoolgirl cycles home from school at Fulbari village, on the outskirts of Siliguri on December 11, 2012. New data showed that while India’s population remains largely rural, its urban population has grown to 377 million, or 31.1 per cent of the 1.21 billion population, from 286 million or 27.8 per cent of the population in 2001. AFP PHOTO/Diptendu DUTTADIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP/Getty Images