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Katha Pollitt: “Why does it seem like a reasonable policy suggestion to tell Jessica she needs a husband, and pie in the sky to say she needs a union? Or a national day care system like the one in France, where teachers are well-paid, with benefits?”
Massive overgeneralizations, pro writer edition: “encouragement, professional or otherwise, is never enough. Students are glad to hear you think they can write, but they need, as I did, the confirmation of a publishing contract, which involves money.” My law review contracts evidently missed a clause. In fairness to that objection (though it doesn’t really help the overall dismissal of nonpaid writers), the author does point out that the money is basically symbolic most of the time: a symbol of being deemed worthy in a hierarchy of value.
I'm joining the EFF in asking Congress to defend bloggers against bogus lawsuits designed to silence them.
The Black Widow imagined on pulp covers.
Ernest Cline, Ready Player One: In a future world of unemployment and limited energy, everyone spends their time online in OASIS; the vast wealth of its founder is up for grabs for anyone who solves the founder’s dying puzzle, which depends on intimate knowledge of 1980s US geek gamer culture, because the founder was such a huge fan of sf/fantasy/pop culture. So OASIS Easter egg hunters (“gunters”) spend their days absorbing that particular slice of the past. Our narrator, a penniless high school student who’s immersed himself in 1980s videogames, manages to find the first Key.
This list, every member of which appears on my shelves too, will tell you something about what you’re getting in the way of cultural references: “I’d worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny.” Listen, I’m happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but somewhere Octavia Butler is unsurprised. List of other media follows, e.g., “[the founder] didn’t seem to have had very discerning taste. He listened to everything. So I did too. Pop, rock, new wave, punk, heavy metal. From the Police to Journey to R.E.M. to the Clash. I tackled it all.” Yes, he certainly tackled it all. I can’t think of anything left out, can you? Oh, wait! “I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing ’80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn’t part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.” Sigh. Never mind.
Our hero even renames a Firefly-class ship he captures in OASIS Vonnegut from Kaylee, which is a bit on the nose. I really did not want him to get the girl, but as white-dudely gamer power fantasies go (think Doctorow’s Little Brother), the story did finish engagingly, with a complicated scheme and last-minute setbacks and a big (unnecessary, lampshaded) boss fight at the end.
Massive overgeneralizations, pro writer edition: “encouragement, professional or otherwise, is never enough. Students are glad to hear you think they can write, but they need, as I did, the confirmation of a publishing contract, which involves money.” My law review contracts evidently missed a clause. In fairness to that objection (though it doesn’t really help the overall dismissal of nonpaid writers), the author does point out that the money is basically symbolic most of the time: a symbol of being deemed worthy in a hierarchy of value.
I'm joining the EFF in asking Congress to defend bloggers against bogus lawsuits designed to silence them.
The Black Widow imagined on pulp covers.
Ernest Cline, Ready Player One: In a future world of unemployment and limited energy, everyone spends their time online in OASIS; the vast wealth of its founder is up for grabs for anyone who solves the founder’s dying puzzle, which depends on intimate knowledge of 1980s US geek gamer culture, because the founder was such a huge fan of sf/fantasy/pop culture. So OASIS Easter egg hunters (“gunters”) spend their days absorbing that particular slice of the past. Our narrator, a penniless high school student who’s immersed himself in 1980s videogames, manages to find the first Key.
This list, every member of which appears on my shelves too, will tell you something about what you’re getting in the way of cultural references: “I’d worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny.” Listen, I’m happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but somewhere Octavia Butler is unsurprised. List of other media follows, e.g., “[the founder] didn’t seem to have had very discerning taste. He listened to everything. So I did too. Pop, rock, new wave, punk, heavy metal. From the Police to Journey to R.E.M. to the Clash. I tackled it all.” Yes, he certainly tackled it all. I can’t think of anything left out, can you? Oh, wait! “I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing ’80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn’t part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.” Sigh. Never mind.
Our hero even renames a Firefly-class ship he captures in OASIS Vonnegut from Kaylee, which is a bit on the nose. I really did not want him to get the girl, but as white-dudely gamer power fantasies go (think Doctorow’s Little Brother), the story did finish engagingly, with a complicated scheme and last-minute setbacks and a big (unnecessary, lampshaded) boss fight at the end.
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