Less Than Zero
I’ve got nothing today. I was trying to get something written about Wonder Woman but it’s not ready yet, and may not be good (or tactful) enough to publish anyway. Meanwhile, a podcast I’m editing is presenting big audio-quality problems. So, yeah, coupled with other stuff going on IRL… I ran out of time. Sorry everybody.
So instead, here is a little round-up of stuff I’ve been reading lately.
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Here’s Andrew Hickey saying important stuff about Autism and Empathy.
Josh was kind enough to send me this interesting article in the New Yorker about ‘the occult roots of modernism’. Essential for modernism geeks.
Cameron L. Fantastic wrote a review of Zero Books’ much-anticipated Kill All Normies by Angela Nagle… and it’s not pretty. I have to say, my hopes weren’t high because I think Nagle is overrated. Her Jacobin articles have been okay(ish) but shot through with frankly bizarre problems. I can’t say Mr Fantastic (?) is right about Nagle’s new book, because I haven’t read it, but if half of what he says about it is true then it’s a major disappointment (though not, as I say, to me).
This demolition of Bill O’Reilly’s rubbish history books was fun, from Harpers’ Magazine. Fish in a barrel, but hey… a very unpleasant fish that richly deserves to be shot (metaphorically).
Here’s Richard Seymour being very astute (I think) on the prospects for Corbyn and Corbynism, and what needs to happen.
Relatedly, here’s James Butler on similar issues.
Here’s Jonathan Cook giving an account of Seymour Hersh’s investigation of claims that Assad ordered a sarin gas attack in April (the basis of Trump’s much-lauded bombings), and of how Hersh’s investigation has been ignored by the media.
Here’s Ali Abuminah putting the kerfuffle at Chicago Dyke Pride into context.
And finally, the first example of genuine, solid-gold comedy genius I’ve seen for a long time. Kaleb Horton at MTV (whose podcast with our very own James Murphy, The Last Exit Show, has just returned from hiatus, and deserves to be heard) presenting selected highlights of the script of Sully. Trust me.
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Needless to say, my liking for all these things doesn’t imply that any of them necessarily have any kinship with each other, or with anyone else. Nor does my linking to these articles mean that I myself necessarily agree with everything in them.
Laters.
John G. Wood
July 2, 2017 @ 4:34 pm
Jack, I’m hauling you up before Trading Standards, because that failed to be less than nothing since it did, in fact, provide me with a Sunday morning’s entertainment.
Huh. Whatever happened to truth in advertising?
BeatnikLady
July 3, 2017 @ 7:52 pm
‘It is time to win.’ I couldn’t have said it better, Mr Butler. I have a sense that the Tories now have the whiff of failure hanging around them and that will bring them down sooner or later (better sooner, of course.) What is really needed though, is that Corbyn wins over a broad enough swathe of the population – not just the young – and finds a way to convert his campaigning style into a progressive way of doing government. I know that 1945 is an old example to give, but it is suitable in that the NHS and the welfare state followed fairly quickly – and they became part of the fabric of our existence. We need a 21st century version of this.
Prandeamus
July 6, 2017 @ 6:34 pm
Thanks for the link to Andrew Hickey’s autism article. I definitely recommend that.