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gayfranzkafka · 1 year

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The Atlantic fucking published what is essentially a pro-conversion-therapy argument in their "Up For Debate" column today. I just wrote a letter to the editor, but if anyone wants to join me in that, that would be great. I'm copy + pasting the full text of the article below the cut because it's behind a paywall/that way we don't give it more views. I'd read it for yourself before writing in--the context is that this guy choses one topic a week & then publishes a variety of reader responses without commentary. But I think it's a) reprehensible to choose the "transgender issue" as a topic of debate and b) to include the "question" from James that is essentially a pro-conversion-therapy argument. Obviously CW for transphobia below. You can write a letter either by emailing [email protected] or by going to this page & selecting "Letter to the Editor" from the dropdown menu at the bottom of the page.

"What Readers Really Think About Gender"

Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies.

I recently asked readers for their thoughts and questions on transgender issues. What follows is a first batch of responses; more are to come.

Kate favors trans rights but has two concerns:

Any American should agree with your quotation “Trans people have rights to liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and equality under the law, same as anyone else, and ought to be treated with respect and dignity.” And despite social-media storms, most of them do.

I do.

My only problems with the current push, if you will, are twofold. First, as an older woman who has lived both sides of before and after Title IX, to have biological men competing in women’s sports is the very definition of unfair. Second, I am concerned that a female child who is a “tomboy” is perhaps being told by activists (in schools or online) that she is probably a boy. I am concerned that a boy who enjoys ballet might be told, in the same way, that he is probably a girl. Will we lose the Mikhail Baryshnikovs of the world? Will we lose the Billie Jean Kings of the world? The list of such people could go on and on. It’s okay to be a boyish kind of girl or a girlish kind of boy. But with the very loud voices that the activists of today’s world have, my biggest concern is that we are not letting men and women, boys and girls, just BE, just be who they are. It’s all okay. It’s okay to just be who you are; you probably are not born the wrong gender.

That is very rare.

Sally describes her experiences in early-childhood education:

I work with young children at a preschool that works very hard at being inclusive of all genders. I’m a nascent senior. I’m often known to use the term guys in mixed-gender settings, and I think that guys (in the plural sense only) is morphing into something useful and inclusive. I’m working on switching to using folks as a sign of solidarity, though.

Sometimes our gender-sensitivity training does make me want to roll my eyes. Explaining to a toddler working at toileting that some boys have vaginas and some girls have penises is not something they are focused on––learning how to manage one’s own plumbing to avoid making a mess is challenging enough. The struggles of a transgender boy to access the appropriate bathroom don’t yet resonate for those who are still sitting side by side in an all-gender bathroom. That said, the parents who are using they/them pronouns for their young child might be giving them a respite from conforming to gender rules. And having kind and attentive teachers who aren’t cis gives them additional positive role models to look up to. All toddlers I’ve been privileged to teach have loved sequins, sparkles, tutus, and firefighter hats, and all those young humans ought to be able to explore every aspect of themselves without judgment.

. . .Can humans learn to value the diversity that is probably our greatest strength as a social species before we create our own demise? I hope so!

Lois is confused:

If gender is only true if it is self-defined, and societal norms are constraining, why should anyone aspire to transition from one undefinable and nonexistent gender category to a different one? How do they know the identity they are wanting to take on is real? Doesn’t transitioning simply affirm the male-female binary from the other direction?

Dave asks that you believe his account of his child:

I figured it was just a matter of time before this topic came up, so I have kept my trans dad hat ready. I am the father of a 10-year-old transgender son. He has identified as a boy since he was 4 or 5. In many ways, he’s the prototypical example of a gender-incongruent kid. To quote from some in the medical community, he has been “persistent, insistent, and consistent” in this identification. Before he even knew what the word transgender was, he would describe himself in one way or another as having “a boy brain and girl body.” In no time in the past five to six years has this wavered in even the slightest.

I think there is a feeling in some circles that parents of trans kids see their biologically female child play with a truck three times and rush to change pronouns, throw away dresses, and cover all pink paint with blue. For us, this was not even remotely the case. As our son’s identity began to express itself, we were confused, uncertain, and, to be perfectly honest, a little frightened. Our son began refusing anything remotely “girly” about the time he was 4-and-a-half. He began demanding short haircuts, boyish clothes, and mostly boyish toys.

Of course, my wife and I rushed to change his name and pronouns, began wearing we’re proud of our trans boy! T-shirts, secured spots for him on Pride parade floats, and booked his medical-intervention appointments––at least that’s what many people in America seem to think, as if we’re all quick to fast-track our gender-curious kids to trans identities. How do people who believe such things operate in the world being so divorced from reality? We had no idea what to do. Somewhat guiltily, I will admit that we didn’t fully accept (or maybe want to accept) the reality of our son. We weren’t cruel or entirely unsupportive. But we clung to the idea that it was merely a phase. That he was just playing with roles.

In pre-K, he was starting to ask for male pronouns. We nodded and brushed it off. In parent-teacher conferences during the autumn of kindergarten, his teachers again told us this, as well as about him asking to use the boys’ restroom. We replied that we were fine with that in school if that’s what he preferred but we still used she/her at home and planned to continue doing so. “We just want to see where it goes,” we said.

At the request for short haircuts, we avoided “boy” cuts, trying first a bob, and then a shorter bob. Our son would come home from those appointments sullen and sometimes angry, because he had been pretty clear on his desire (a short, boy-style cut) and we had opted for a short, girl-style cut. We were hoping it might be enough, and frankly hoping he would get over it and everything would go back to “normal.” We did roughly the same thing with clothes. He’d want to shop in the boys’ section at Target; we would keep trying to steer him to the girls’. Books too; we were always sneaking in empowered-girl books, thinking maybe he just had developed some weird, bad impressions of women and girls. He would dutifully put them on his shelf and never take them out.

We persisted in using female pronouns at home and referring to him as our daughter and our other son’s sister … even when he was referring to himself as a brother. In short, we did loads of non-gender-affirming things. If you would have asked us then if we thought it was a phase and that he’d “change back,” we would have dutifully done what liberals in a progressive city do: assured you that wasn’t true and that we loved and supported our child. And we would have been lying; while we of course loved and supported our child, we hoped this whole “I’m a boy in a girl’s body” thing would fade away.

We feared telling our families and potentially facing their rejection and judgment, their possible assumptions that our time in “liberal Madison” had something to do with our child being transgender. We feared we would cause harm by labeling our child too soon. We let our fears hinder us from being the parents our child needed. We were wrong.

I share this to underscore how complex this process is. Because there does seem to be the idea that parents of trans kids aren’t making an effort to “make” their kid conform their gender to their biological sex, that we are just rushing headlong into embracing our child’s trans identity. That there aren’t transgender kids, just over-indulgent progressive parents using their child as a political totem. Or, from the other political extreme, that if we have any doubts or fears or missteps, that we are anti-trans bigots pushing our children toward certain suicide. None of those ideas are true. That this is a deeply difficult thing to process doesn’t seem to occur to some people.

My wife and I finally came to terms with our son's gender identity three years ago when he was seven-and-a-half. Our son was getting increasingly sullen, angry, and defiant. He was unhappy in general, but also angry with us. Even through that winter, we still danced around his gender identity as the cause, as we didn’t want to accept that it was true. We still wanted to believe we had a daughter, not another son. To let go of that idea felt like the equivalent of losing a child. But by that spring it was simply impossible to ignore. We had a conversation and made an appointment with his pediatrician, telling her all we had seen and heard. She confirmed what we had tried to avoid accepting: Our son exhibited all the signs of being transgender.

That was the day we changed our perspective. We went home and told him we were going to start using his preferred pronouns. We compromised on a nickname. He had been named after my wife’s grandmother, and we explained that it was important to carry that on in some capacity, and he accepted a shortened, gender-neutral (and pretty coolly unique) name to go by that used his birth name as a jumping off point. His brother struggled a little with the change, but quickly adapted. And what happened? The sullenness, defiance, and anger disappeared. Our beautiful, buoyant, zany child sprang back out, bigger and better than ever. He switched from Girl to Boy Scouts and thrived.

In the three years since, he has given us not even a tiny glimpse of any of this not being utterly and totally true. He has thrived at his public school—kids are incredibly accepting of things when allowed to be—and at home. His extended family has embraced his identity (some more easily than others). He is as great a kid as anyone could ask for.

I know that there will be people who, were they to read this, would say or think Yeah, sure … he’s only that way because you indulged it and his teachers and school indoctrinated him. To which I’d reply, it could possibly look that way from the outside, if all the evidence you have is one dad’s personal account. But what the people who say those sorts of things don’t see is the daily, lived experience of my kid. A lived experience that reaffirms constantly the truth of who he is. My son is a boy with a girl’s body. I don't understand how that happened, I don’t know how that works, but I know it’s true.

This acceptance doesn’t make the coming years any easier or less terrifying. We can see puberty on the horizon, getting closer every day. We know the huge, terrifying decisions that are coming. We are terrified of making the wrong decision, of doing something that might irreversibly alter or hurt our child. We know that the science, while not as in doubt as opponents want people to believe, has areas of uncertainty. But we need the ability to make the best choices for our kid based on the best medical understanding that exists. And to have the ability to do that suddenly cast into doubt, alongside the possibility of being accused of abuse on top of things, is terrifying and infuriating.

The idea of medical intervention is frightening. But it’s not simply thrown around, at least not in our case. We’ve already had a preliminary meeting with a pediatrician specializing in gender care. Did we leave with a bag of puberty blockers and testosterone vials? Of course not. There is a process we will have to go through to get our insurance company to even cover puberty blockers. As for hormones, that can’t happen until he’s at least 15. And it’s important to remember something else: None of these interventions are required. Many trans kids and adults opt for a range of options, from no medical interventions at all to a full package of interventions. Some start, then stop. It’s all a choice, one parents and kids and doctors need to have the freedom to make.

You may have noticed that earlier I referred to my son as gender incongruent rather than gender dysphoric. That’s not just me being cute with language. I didn’t refer to him as dysphoric, because he isn’t. He’s a super-happy, well-adjusted kid. Why? Because of the support he receives from his family, his friends, and others in his life. There is no dissonance for him because he’s allowed to be who he is. But dysphoria is always lurking out there, whether in the creeping specter of puberty or just the often-unaccepting outside world, and with it the potential for crippling anxiety, depression, and even suicide.

Are there risks to medical interventions? Of course. But the health risks of dysphoria are real too. Given that, it’s still in our best interests as parents to trust the opinions of major medical organizations like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the various doctors and therapists our child has seen. We don’t have the luxury of latching on to individual critical voices. The stakes for us are just too high. That doesn’t mean research shouldn’t continue and that critical voices shouldn’t provide a dose of healthy skepticism; that is a critical part of the scientific process. But until it becomes clear that the consensus on gender-affirming care has changed, we will trust the current consensus.

A lot of people struggle with accepting that being transgender is real. It’s counterintuitive. I really do get that. As I said, I don’t understand why my son is who he is. But it’s true. Be skeptical and ask questions. But also know that this is not a fantasy. It is not something made up. Not a phase. It’s real, and the kids and adults experiencing it are real too. They are not making it up. They are not deluded. They are not freaks.

They are human beings. And so are their families.

James has a question:

If there is a recognized incongruity between what a trans person’s brain feels and what sex their body is, there would seem to be at least two logical responses: Either modify the person’s brain to accept the body that they have or modify the body to conform to what the person’s brain thinks they are. Why, then, is there opposition to any suggestion that you can treat the brain to “correct” gender dysphoria?

A reader with the initials P.S. worries that educators will become gender enforcers, and wishes that schools would focus on collective rather than individual identity:

Creating new gender categories, with divergent lists of characteristics and atomized response requirements, is onerous. I don’t think schools should be enforcing strict gender stereotypes or that they should be guiding kids to identify with new categories, and certainly not secretly or against the desires of the parents. Especially at the lower grades, kids need to be learning about what makes us a collective and the rules that make us a cohesive and functioning society. Focusing on gender conformity/expression elevates and centralizes it—it reinforces “me” over “us,” prioritizes adopting an identity group over belonging to a society, and suggests forcing society to conform to individual preferences over conforming one’s behavior to societal mores.

#also i don't have many followers so if anyone wants to reblog #i'm soooo fucking tired of this shit and maybe i shouldn't be surprised with what the nytimes has been doing #but like i want to at least TRY to make a point to someone somewhere to stop publishing this shit!#so just putting this here if anyone wants to join me in that

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crowdvscritic · 1 year

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round up // NOVEMBER 22 + DECEMBER 22 + JANUARY 23

Ah, the holidays…the season of almost indiscriminate consumption of holiday treats! In my quest to complete as much 2022 viewing as possible for my St. Louis Film Critics Association ballot, I had to put many other items on my to-do list on pause. (More on that ballot coming in a future post.) I watched 7 of my top 10 of the year in these three months, plus another 7 of my honorable mentions, which means I could’ve just made this entire post a rehash of my Best of 2022.

You will find my Best of 2022 in this Round Up, but you’ll also find a few movies that just missed the cut. You’ll also find a classic sitcom, sketch comedy, a buzzy docuseries, staged musicals, the start of my 2023 viewing, and more. Like I said, it’s the season for almost indiscriminate consumption, and that includes pop culture. These are my faves from this season in roughly in the order I experienced them…

Holiday Crowd-Pleasers

1. Cheers (1982-93)

Add this to my list of uninteresting opinions: Cheers = not overrated! After years of viewing on-and-off a lá Sam and Diane (thank you, ever-changing streaming service libraries!), I finished all 11 seasons. And after laughing through almost 300 episodes with Cliff, NORM!, Carla, Rebecca, Woody, Coach, Frasier, and Lilith, I’m almost certain they know my name, too.

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2. SNL Round Up

You’d think the SNL gang would know my name name by now, too. These are the sketches that made me laugh most in these three months.

“Soup” (4805 with Amy Schumer) - I have been Amy Schumer in this scenario too many times

"Jurors” (4805) - “That is not a song from Midnights!”

“Big Dumb Hat” (4805) - I have been cured of keeping these hats in my consideration set

“Monologue” (4808 with Steve Martin and Martin Short)

“A Christmas Carol” (4808)

“Father of the Bride” (4808)

“Blue Christmas” (4809 with Austin Butler)

“NFL on Fox Cold Open” (4810 with Aubrey Plaza)

“Weekend Update: Colin Jost Interviews Rep. George Santos” (4810) - I’ve yet to tire of jokes at the expense of Santos

“Weekend Update: April Ludgate and Leslie Knope on Working for the Government” (4810) - My heart!

3. Enola Holmes 2 (2022)

On my long list for the Best of 2022. This murder mystery sequel is just as charming as the original, and this one helped me realize Daniel Pemberton is one of my favorite modern composers. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

4. Double Feature - Unconventional Holiday Treats: The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special + Violent Night (2022)

If you like your holidays with a dash of quirky humor and and a dose of Kevin Bacon, the Guardians of the Galaxy have made the holiday special you’ve been waiting for. And if you like ‘em doused in blood, well, Violent Night is here to drench it on ya. Read my full review for ZekeFilm to see how it compares to its inspirations, Die Hard and Home Alone. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 5.5/10

5. Harry & Meghan (2022)

Not the ninth Harry Potter movie. After gobbling up this six episode Netflix series, I watched with rapt attention a second time because my family wanted to check it out over the holidays. Whatever your feelings on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (my hope is always #TeamFamilyReconciliation), you can’t argue with their ability to tell a story or that the British media makes for a cinematic villain. These articles from The Atlantic and The New York Times helped me process the series, too:

“What Harry & Meghan Still Doesn’t Say About Race,” NYTimes.com (2022)

“Harry, Meghan, and the Men Who Hate Them,” TheAtlantic.com (2022)

“Why Has America Fallen So Hard for Harry and Meghan?” NYTimes.com (2023)

6. Double Feature - 1997 Volcano Action Flicks: Volcano + Dante’s Peak

Calling this a double feature is debatable since, um, they’re just the same movie. The hero (Tommy Lee Jones or Pierce Brosnan) is supposed to be on vacation but gets roped into managing a volcanic disaster—don’t you hate it when that happens? Jones teams up with scientist Anne Heche and rushes to save his daughter Gaby Hoffman, and Brosnan teams up with small town mayor Linda Hamilton and rushes to save her kids. Both are fun disaster spectacles, and since, um, they’re just the same movie, they’re getting the same scores. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10

7. Six National Tour

While I do wonder about the longevity of lyrics like, “You said that I tricked ya 'cause I didn't look like my profile picture,” I can’t get the pop perfection that is the Six soundtrack out of my head. The Broadway sensation about the six wives of King Henry VIII has more songs than story, but their clever lyrics, diva solos, and accompanying over-the-top costumes are some of the most fun I’ve had at the theater in months.

8. Triple Feature - Heist Action feat. Corrupt Cops: Ronin (1998) + Out of Time (2003) + Man on a Ledge (2012)

Pick your setting: Europe, Florida, or Manhattan. Pick your cast: Robert De Niro and Jean Reno; Denzel Washington and Sanaa Lathan; or Sam Worthington and Elizabeth Banks. Pick your vibe: globetrotting conspiracy, Double Indemnity, or edge-of-your-ledge-seat thriller. Whether you choose Ronin (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8/10), Out of Time (9/10 // 7/10), or Man on a Ledge (9/10 // 7/10), you’re in for an exciting ride.

9. Shotgun Wedding (2023)

If Jennifer Lopez just made wedding rom-coms the rest of her career, I wouldn’t be mad about it. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6/10

10. Double Feature - Late ‘80s Comedies: Twins (1988) +The ‘Burbs (1989)

In roles they were born to play, Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger are Twins (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10) who reunite as adults to search for their parents. In The ‘Burbs (8.5/10 // 6.5/10), Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Bruce Dern, and Corey Feldman suspect their new cul-de-sac residents of murder and they search for evidence in creative ways. With those high concepts, both exceed their low bars of success with jokes and silly set pieces galore.

Holiday Critic Picks

1. The Best of 2022

Recurring themes and plots of the movies of 2022: class warfare, murder mysteries, musical biopics, taking down predators, and meta commentaries on entertainers’ careers. Read my fully redesigned year in review at ZekeFilm as well as my review of my top film of the year.

2. Hadestown National Tour

Inspired by the Greek myths about Eurydice, Hades, Orpheus, and Persephone, this relatively new Broadway show’s outside-of-time setting evokes A Streetcar Named Desire in its set and costumes. The songs feature some of the beautiful voices and melodies I’ve ever heard and some of most inventive stage lighting I’ve ever seen.

3. Network (1976)

In ep. 131 of SO IT’S A SHOW?, Rory is taking her fashion inspiration from the classic Network. What is its legacy, and what do these inspirations mean for a journalism panel Rory is participating in? Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch, and William Holden make a stellar ensemble for a satirical script prescient of the media-driven world we live in. Pair with A Face in the Crowd for a thrilling, thought-provoking evening. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 10/10

4. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

An explosive film noir! (And this year's putting up the tree movie?) After P.I. Ralph Meeker picks up a desperate hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman), his career and his life tailspin into a series of murders and a hunt for a mysterious package. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

5. MOSS by Maya Hawke (2022)

The best kind of intimate, vulnerable, and sweet indie pop, especially for the clever lyrics on “Backup Plan” and “Sweet Tooth.”

6. Rocky II - IV (1979-85)

Rocky II (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10) is the plot inverse of Rocky but just as thoughtful. Rocky III and Rocky IV (both 9/10 // 7/10) are exciting adventures with larger-than-life villains in Mr. T, Hulk Hogan, and Dolph Lundgren. Cue ‘em up to pump up for Creed III in March!

7. Hustle (2022)

Speaking of Rocky, this Philadelphia-set dramedy imagines Mickey at the center. Adam Sandler’s latest made my long list for the Best of 2022, and yes, it was partly because of those Rocky-style montages. Basketball isn’t my sport, but when I watch a good movie about it like this one, I always think for about 5 minutes I should really get into the NBA. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

8. What Price Hollywood? (1932)

If Hustle is a spiritual sequel to Rocky, What Price Hollywood? is the spiritual prequel to A Star Is Born. This romance features a wide-eyed Hollywood hopeful and an alcoholic movie veteran, though the plot details are rearranged from the standard plot structure in the 1937, 1954, 1976, and 2018 versions. Constance Bennett's wardrobe is *chef's kiss*, and this melodrama would pair well with either of Damien Chazelle’s La La Land or Babylon. (Keep reading for more on Babylon.) Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

9. The Last of Sheila (1973)

After so many comparisons to Glass Onion, I had to check it out—and it totally rules! James Coburn, James Mason, Ian McShane, Raquel Welch, and more assemble a year after a mutual friend’s death, and what begins as a pleasure cruise tuns into a crime scene. I have a deeper appreciation now of Glass Onion as both a riff and a twist on this film (though it still works as a standalone movie that just happens to have a Stephen Sondheim cameo), but I would’ve loved this morally gray whodunnit even without the introduction from Benoit Blanc. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10

10. The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

And now I’ve finished Wes Anderson’s feature directing oeuvre. (Bring on Asteroid City and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar!) Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson are at their funniest and at their most self-absorbed as they process their father’s unexpected passing on a train ride across India. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

Also this Holiday Season…

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has all the ingredients for a successful sequel—it just gets the measurements wrong. Read my full review for ZekeFilm. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8/10

I didn’t care for Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, but I’ll never forget it. Read my full review of the uncouth, unending, uneven, unforgettable epic for ZekeFilm. Crowd: 5/10 // Critic: 8/10

Plane is enjoyable, but it’s one of Gerard Butler’s more forgettable action vehicles. Read my review of yet another movie where an everyman Butler saves the day for ZekeFilm.

On SO IT’S A SHOW?, Kyla and I investigated Danny Bonaduce’s transition from Partridge Family star to wrestling star, the real Paul Anka, and the forgotten ‘70s sitcom Chico and the Man.

Photo credits: Six, Hadestown, Maya Hawke. All others IMDb.com.

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articlesminer · 2 years

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Photos: Tracking Cougars to Figure Out Where to Build a Bridge

Highways that cut through wild areas present a daunting barrier for local wildlife. In Washington State, the Olympic Cougar Project—a partnership between a coalition of Native American tribes and the Washington State Department of Transportation—is studying the movements of cougars as they wander through parts of the Olympic Peninsula. Information gathered by the group could lead to the placement…

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#analysis #Atlantic #Breaking news #Business #commentary #culture #international #national and life #News #Opinion #politics #Science #Technology #The Atlantic #The Atlantic Magazine #TheAtlantic.com

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soitsashowpodcast · 1 year

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ep. 134: She insisted on wearing my Chico and the Man T-shirt.

Before Elsa Klensch was Rory’s fashion icon, she looked to...1970s sitcoms? In this ep, Taylor and the Woman (Kyla) take on hard-to-find Chico and the Man. How has the show aged? What is its legacy—if it has one? And what does this reference tell us about Rory and Lane in kindergarten? TBH, some answers are a little fuzzy, but at least we know Charo is going to show up and shout, “Coochie Coochie!”

Other pop culture we ref: Murder, She Wrote; Fame; Laverne & Shirley; Touched by an Angel; The George Lopez Show; The Tonight Show; Cesar Romero; Lin-Manuel Miranda; Prince Harry; Friends

We Wholeheartedly Recommend: Band on the Run by Paul McCartney & Wings (1973), Ringo Starr’s Twitter, The Last of Us (2023- )

LISTEN TO THE EP

Apple Podcasts

Google Podcasts

iHeartRadio

Spotify

Stitcher

EPISODES WE WATCHED OF CHICO AND THE MAN

101, “Pilot”

207, “Ms. Liz”

313, “A Minority of One”

MORE ON CHICO AND THE MAN

Charo on Chico and the Man

“Chico and the Man,” NostalgiaCentral.com

“Remembering the Classic TV Series All in the Family and the Day That Edith Bunker Died,” CloserWeekly.com (2020)

“10 Oldest Emmy Nominees for Best Comedy Actor,” GoldDerby.com (2022)

MORE ABOUT FREDDIE PRINZE

“Freddie Prinze's Incredible Debut on National Television,” Johnny Carson on YouTube (1973)

“Freddie Prinze: Too Much, Too Soon,” TIME.com (1977)

“Is This the Quiet Revolution of Latino Representation?” TheAtlantic.com (2022)

“5 Black Latina Comedians Using Dark Humor to Process Generational Trauma,” Refinery29.com (2022)

“A New Docuseries Examines Why So Many Comedians’ Lives End in Tragedy,” TheDailyBeast.com (2022)

#Chico and the Man #Freddie Prinze #Lorelai Gilmore #Rory Gilmore #Lane Kim #Amy Sherman-Palladino #Lauren Graham #Alexis Bledel #Keiko Agena #Stars Hollow #Gilmore Girls #Charo

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eduardomarin90 · 7 days

Video

vimeo

The Atlantic • The Silver Lining from Quinn Qian on Vimeo.

Design + Animation for collage style explainer about remote work. Full video here—theatlantic.com/sponsored/aws-2020/the-future-of-how-we-work-is-here/3586/

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asphaltapostle · 4 months

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still working on my post about Facebook. it's over 7500 words now... sorry.

so far, I've used the word "Facebook" 135 times.

I'm pretty sure I'll have it up before the end of the week. and then I will never have to write about Facebook again...

10,000 words now... I think I need to take a break. definitely should be able to wrap up, polish, and publish tomorrow.

I COMPLETELY missed the Twitter hack... guess this means I'm already doing much better about not getting distracted.

well... I forgot to discuss VK, so it might actually be tomorrow before I get it up... I know hundreds of thousands of you were counting on this essay... I know you've spent three whole days now just refreshing my blog... I'm so sorry.

update: so I was just about ready to conclude what I had to say about VK when it occurred to me that I should try searching for the original Russian expression of the word (ВКонта́кте,) which revealed a whole new story...

turns out, the only conversation about VK in American media, at least, is as a haven for Nazis who've been banned from Facebook. apparently their pilgrimage began around 2016. theatlantic.com/technology/arc…

this investigation by bellingcat (which is absolutely CHOCK FULL of Nazi imagery - please take care) examines a whole host of neo-Nazis who maintain profiles on both sites, and are just way more explicit about their ideology on VK. bellingcat.com/news/2020/02/1…

imo, the fact that NONE OF THIS was visible in search results for "VK" and "VKontakte" indicates that search engines are still kindof dumb.

to be honest, I have no idea what to do now. literally all of the Facebook alternatives I've argued for have an association with terrible people for one reason or another.

in some cases, it's the fault of the services, I agree. VK should definitely not be allowing some of those fucking images.

in Mastodon's, though, articles like this really let it down. Gab stole the PLATFORM - the SOFTWARE, not the network. the vast majority of instance admins came together within hours of the announcement to make sure their servers didn't federate with Gab. vice.com/en_us/article/…

and yet the headline still uses the term "home." something like this would've been way less misleading: "The Biggest Far-Right Social Network Moves to Nazi-Free Twitter Alternative's Platform."

very discouraged. as of this moment, retirement looks great.

here's a draft if you'd like to read it early for whatever reason. documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?ur…

and here are my notes so far. cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/10…

what is the best answer, going forward, to combat the tendency for alt-right, neo-Nazi, and other hateful groups to seek refuge on "alternative social media?"

well, I took a break from writing about Facebook... to write about why I'm taking a break from writing about Facebook. extratone.vivaldi.net/covering-faceb…

WELL. I do love the burn in this comment: "Complaining about how it operates is a little like going to someone’s house party because all the cool people were there and then complaining that the bathroom isn’t ergonomic or you wish their pool was deeper and had a diving board."

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mitchipedia · 11 days

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Crying Myself to Sleep on the Icon of the Seas [theatlantic.com]

Curmudgeonly travel writer Gary Shteyngart takes a luxury cruise on the world’s largest cruise ship, the “Icon of the Seas:”

The Maiden Voyage of the Titanic (the Icon of the Seas is five times as large as that doomed vessel) at least offered its passengers an exciting ending to their cruise….

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readingsrantsrambles · 1 year

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'I Am Easy to Find' Album Review: Sad Love

The National Further Complicates Its Sadness

by Spencer Kornhaber

6–8 minutes

theatlantic.com

There oughta be a word for whatever emotion that The National has homed in on over eight excellent albums of gravel-voiced poetry and delicate-ferocious rock. Consulting Mental Floss’s 2016 guide “How to Tell Whether You’ve Got Angst, Ennui, or Weltschmerz,” one might hear all three highbrow, non-anglophone feelings on the band’s latest release, I Am Easy to Find:

Angst, that sourceless dread? “We have friends in good houses, we have kids in the trees / Now I have nothing but sleepless nights, about everything,” goes “So Far So Fast.” As if to illustrate the toss and turn, an arpeggiator duels with twitchy drums for three nearly wordless minutes at the end.

Ennui, that freighted listlessness? On “Quiet Light,” the band’s frontman, Matt Berninger, shrugs, “I’m not afraid of being alone / I just don’t know what to do with my time.” Violins peal like seagulls and guitars tremble like brambles in the wind as Berninger describes “learning to lie here in the quiet light / While I watch the sky go from black to gray.”

Weltschmerz, that pain at the state of the world? The album’s gentlest melody, surfacing and disappearing throughout “Not in Kansas,” reassures that “if … the failures of man make you sigh,” then “you can look to the time soon arriving” when humans go extinct. Among those prophecies, Berninger laments that “alt-right opium went viral” in his homeland of the Midwest and frets that he might not have the courage to punch a Nazi.

But those strains of bummed-ness comprise only part of The National’s vibe. The Cincinnati-Brooklyn quintet, arguably the band of this millennium to most consistently balance gut impact and brainy appeal, usually garnish their wallowing with a dignified strut. Previous albums had knotty and glowering arrangements stiffening into great crescendos that hinted at transcendence. For I Am Easy to Find, something else happens. New voices and unexpected directions beckon as ways out of darkness. A softer approach somehow renders the contours of Berninger’s crises more concrete.

The album arrives less than two years after 2017’s fidgety, political Sleep Well Beast and germinates from an unusual process. Around the time of Beast’s release, the filmmaker Mike Mills (Thumbsucker, Beginners, 20th Century Women) reached out to collaborate. Some songs once intended for that earlier album were rerouted to a new project, one that Mills contributed songwriting and arranging to. He also shot a short film with snippets of the resulting music. Starring Alicia Vikander, it compresses a woman’s journey from birth to death, Up-like.

The movie’s concept speaks to The National’s particular attention to the feminine on this album. In a rare move, the singular-sounding Berninger duets with other singers, all women—Gail Ann Dorsey, Mina Tindle, Lisa Hannigan, Sharon Van Etten, Kate Stables, Eve Owen—plus the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Often, just when the listener expects a standard-issue rock climax, the female singers enter a song and guide it to a hymnlike denouement. Or they sing with Berninger, his low growl acting as the sturdy wire in a drape of fine gauze. Or the women lead the song from the start, rendering Berninger’s lyrical ideas as something other than those of a classic sad boy.

The way Berninger’s esoteric phrases repeat across kaleidoscopic tones recalls the modern classical composers that The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner hang out with. The effect is thoroughly beautiful, even if it frequently comes at the cost of The National’s anthemic qualities. The rangy, polyphonic approach fits with the album’s deeper shift, too. Ever self-interrogating, Berninger may lately be wondering whether scraping his own skull eventually yields diminishing returns. Even to a helpless fan of his like me, there’s something parodic and off-putting when, on “Not in Kansas,” his anxiety takes the form of listing artists he’s been digging lately (R.E.M., Hanne Darboven, Roberta Flack). The song’s saved by Dorsey, Hannigan, and Stables intruding to tenderly promise the apocalypse. The story, it’s clear, is bigger than Berninger.

Indeed, the story is often about wondering at someone else’s story: a lover’s, a child’s, a stranger’s. In Mills’s film, Vikander goes through rites of life—school, marriage, illness—as onscreen text notes milestones both tidy (“Learning to read, learning to write”) and abstract (“Aware that her body is separate”). Maybe there’s something softly condescending about this male filmmaker and this male band imagining and marveling at a female experience. But their greater interest is in the genderless arc of life, the epiphanies that everyone shares, and the inevitability of ups and downs.

“Hey Rosey, I think I know just what the feeling is,” goes one of the more hopeful-sounding choruses. It’s one of a few times that Berninger mentions some unnameable thing he aches to have in common with someone else. He gestures to and describes that thing, but never defines it. Over the fluttery kraut-rock of “Oblivions,” there’s this heart-stabbing verse:

It’s the way you say yes when I ask you to marry me You don’t know what you are doing Do you think you can carry me over this threshold Over and over again into oblivion? It’s the way that you’re gonna stop needing to tell me You want me as much as I want you to tell me I’m over the threshold Everything is gonna be totally okay into oblivion

Oblivion is another word for loss, which beckons constantly in these songs. But the outlook is the same as on Sleep Well Beast, an album putatively about divorce that was co-written (as was I Am Easy To Find) by Carin Besser, the woman Berninger’s happily married to. Fearing endings but also making peace with them, building relationships with the assurance of their deterioration—those are the paradoxes this band constantly turns over. “There’s a million little battles that I’m never gonna win anyway,” Berninger sings on the title track. “I’m still waiting for you every night with ticker tape.” What to call such wearied determination? Wabi-sabi? Sehnsucht? Maybe you don’t need a word, just a sound, and to that end The National has expanded the language.

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