A long sentence is worth the read - latimes.com
"Your sentences are so long," said a friend who teaches English at a local college, and I could tell she didn't quite mean it as a compliment. The copy editor who painstakingly went through my most recent book often put yellow dashes on-screen around my multiplying clauses, to ask if I didn't want to break up my sentences or put less material in every one. Both responses couldn't have been kinder or more considered, but what my friend and my colleague may not have sensed was this: I'm using longer and longer sentences as a small protest against — and attempt to rescue any readers I might have from — the bombardment of the moment. When I began writing for a living, my feeling was that my job was to give the reader something vivid, quick and concrete that she couldn't get in any other form; a writer was an information-gathering machine, I thought, and especially as a journalist, my job was to go out into the world and gather details, moments, impressions as visual and immediate as TV.
When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?
This is wrong on so many levels... Pandora was modeled after mainland China; I don't think any New World analogy was intended here. They even wear their hair in a queue! You mention that the protagonist is played by a white actor and many of the Na'vi are played by minorities, but ignore the other Na'vi played by whites, or the other humans who were Hispanic and Indian. You compare it to Dune, yet don't mention that Dune itself is about people with Arab names and vocabulary — and was clearly inspired by T. Furthermore, you decry the idea of an outsider joining to help an oppressed group, but don't notice that this is what always happens in history when one group is technologically more advanced than another. It's especially odd that you go looking for "patterns" in these movies, but don't even mention Joeseph Campbell, who did the same and found these same patterns dating back thousands of years, in virtually all cultures.
Meet 12 "Rejected Princesses" Who Are Too Badass For Disney
At this point, we've seen just about every iteration of Disney princesses recontextualized by creative fans. The well may have run dry, but this exhaustion speaks to how eager a global audience is for animated females who break the traditional Disney mold. In the meantime, one writer has started conjuring some new princesses who break that mold so comprehensively they've become more likely characters for violent indie thrillers than family-oriented studio fare. Which is kind of a shame. Former DreamWorks effects animator and fledgling artist Jason Porath recently created Rejected Princesses, a website that features detailed, often hilarious stories and illustrations about some historical and mythical women who were just too darn interesting to end up with their own big budget four-quadrant vehicles. "Each woman is based off as much visual reference of the actual story as possible," the artist says of the project which formally launched last week. Mariya Art notes:
Tahmima Anam | The Good Muslim
Watch a complete 1990 documentary about cyberpunk, featuring a young William Gibson
They tapped into something fantastic at that time. The effect of recording in Berlin right after the fall of communism and just the genuine cultural experimentation that was exploding in the air everywhere. It was so brief but it really created some amazing things. Yeah, I tend to look at 1991-94 as the last hurrah of rock 'n' roll. This article is nearly old enough to hold a driver's license, but it's a pretty succinct rundown of how the recording industry was running on gas fumes by the mid-'90s.
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IS (Roberto Bolaño's) "2666" A MASTERPIECE?
Reading "2666", "it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish Roberto Bolaño's genius from his excess. Indeed, it starts to seem that Bolaño's genius is his excess", writes Garth Risk Hallberg... Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE In his treatise on drama, "Three Uses of the Knife", David Mamet cribs a distinction from Stanislavsky. The late Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño had a foot in each territory. Bolaño, a poet by vocation, had initially (not to say quixotically) turned to fiction as a money-making proposition, and after the success of "The Savage Detectives", he might have settled into a lucrative middle age repackaging his dissolute youth. In real life, Santa Teresa was Ciudad Juárez, and by 1998, it was home to the largest serial killing in recorded history. This 900-page book unfolds in five novel-length sections, each with its own characters, style and chronology. The prose, too, diverges from Bolaño's earlier work. Which brings us to "The Part About The Crimes."
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2011
Huh. Interesting. I'll be 40 in two months, and I completely adored the book and your analysis of it (which I think is valid, by the way) totally sailed over my head. Now, I'll be honest. My husband and I have no kids. We live in a remix culture. The fact is that we're becoming a cultural ouroboros—feeding on ourselves, remixing and mashing up the remixes until eventually we may not even recognize the original source material anymore. And that, I think, is what I loved so much about the book.
20 Forgotten Victorian Names to Put on Your Baby Name List
While the Victorian era may evoke puffed sleeves and woollen waistcoats, modern parents in search of perfect names are clamoring for the sought-after "it" names from the mid-to-late-1800s. At the time, cross-the-pond trends were common. England was peaceful during Queen Victoria's reign ... a name which spawned an entire era! Meanwhile, America was busy establishing its democracy during a bloody civil war. Americans borrowed elaborate fashions from England as well as now-classic literature by Dickens, Thackeray, and the Brontë sisters. The feminine names of America during this time weren't tough like the times; they were sweet, even frilly. But what Victorian names are still flying under the modern-day radar? More from The Stir: 27 Hot British Baby Boy Names That Americans Haven't Discovered Adelia: Adelia strikes a stylistic balance between newly fashionable names Adele and Adelaide. What are your favorite Victorian names, whether underused, overused, or somewhere in between?
