“In Chu’s view, nerd-dom has a toxic, intolerant fringe, one that has gone unchecked in large part because nerds are awful at policing their own subculture, especially online. In an era when the nerds are increasingly ascendant, Chu wants to make nerd culture better — and to stop more of his fellow nerds from getting drawn into the worst of it.”
Tag: 05.04.15
Inside Amy Schumer’s Parody Of ‘Twelve Angry Men’
Schumar: “I was at a party and these guys were talking about Michelle Williams, and they were like, ‘Yeah I don’t think she is hot actually.’ … These guys would be so lucky to even get to have a conversation with her but they were like really deliberating over whether or not they would fuck her. And I was like, ‘You know what, that scenario is never going to present itself, you guys.’ But that word ‘deliberation’ is what made me think, What is the ultimate deliberation? An actual jury deliberating. And I love the movie 12 Angry Men.” (includes video)
Cache Of Mark Twain Newspaper Stories From San Francisco Uncovered
“His topics range from San Francisco police – who at one point attempted, unsuccessfully, to sue Twain for comparing their chief to a dog chasing its tail to impress its mistress – to mining accidents.”
Read Some Of Mark Twain’s Rediscovered San Francisco Columns
To an editor about a previous story: “Please publish it again, and put it in the parentheses where I have marked them, so that people who read with wretched carelessness may know to a dead moral certainty when I am referring to Chief Burke, and also know to an equally dead moral certainty when I am referring to the dog.”
Pension Costs Have Norway’s National Opera And Ballet Company Reeling
“Having to pay pensions for so many years after such low retirement ages” – 41 for ballet dancers, 52 for opera soloists and 56 for chorus members – “at relatively high rates, has already rendered the Norwegian Opera and Ballet technically bankrupt. Pension costs have risen 50 percent just since 2013.”
A Golden Age For Tap
“The dance historian Constance Valis Hill claims that tap dance is the most cutting-edge dance form currently to be seen in the United States. What makes tap stand out for Hill is the intense innovation going on in the form, coupled with an attention to emotional and political content.”
Why The Closing Of The Tiny Museum Of Biblical Art Matters
“The absence of religious context for religious art in American museums was not, as one might assume, a product of the culture wars or a precocious expression of the new atheism. It was actually the result of several hundred years of aesthetic politics.”
YouTube’s Copyright Problems Point To Bigger Issues For Artists
“Here’s the thing: under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), YouTube is not legally obligated to have a mechanism for policing its content for infringement at all. The site is charged with taking content down when it receives notices to do so, but that’s the extent of it. Nevertheless, YouTube takes an overly active role in policing for copyright infringement, and the technology it employs to do so is flawed – which can end up hurting artists and other content creators who employ copyrighted works legally.”
Rem Koolhaas: Why Do We Destroy Buildings We Could Still Use?
“It would be madness for an entire period of architectural history — that had a major influence on cities around the world — to disappear simply because we suddenly find the style ugly. This brings up a fundamental question: Are we preserving architecture or history?”
How A Game-Show Champion Became The Embattled Conscience Of American Male Geekdom
Jeopardy! champion Arthur Chu “leveraged his 15 minutes of game-show fame into, of all things, a national platform for his opinions about nerds: What America gets wrong about nerds; what nerds – especially male nerds – get wrong about themselves; and why it matters. … Chu wants to make nerd culture better – and to stop more of his fellow nerds from getting drawn into the worst of it.”