I feel like The Next Three Days would be a much more interesting movie if a) Elizabeth Banks’ character was guilty of the murder for which she’d been incarcerated or b) she was breaking Russell Crowe’s innocent character out of jail:

This just feels like a variation on a damsel in distress story, otherwise. And not a very interesting one at that, particularly since Crowe’s character doesn’t appear to feel a lot of concern or doubt about his wife’s innocence.

Add this electro-metal cover of “Eleanor Rigby” to the list:

I am always super-curious about the perspectives on the universe that lead someone to think, for example, “Hey, this song might sound a lot better with a howled chorus, and a context that makes the ‘wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door’ line sound a hell of a lot scarier.” It’s all of a piece with the fact that every artifact of culture has so many possible interpretations. Getting to the question of whether something is good or bad is personally useful, for sure. But it’s equally interesting to figure out how things can be effectively reinterpreted, remixed, and even heard differently on the first go-round. What I hear, and what I see is radically personally, and I find that both kind of isolating and extremely intriguing.

I may read romance novels and I’m not ashamed of it, but I’m also not particularly sympathetic to Jodi Picoult’s complaint that the New York Times in its book reviews “loves its literary darlings, who tend to be dudes w/MFAs … In summation: NYT sexist, unfair, loves Gary Shteyngart, hates chick lit, ignores romance.” 


I think there’s a narrow line to walk here. Obviously, domestic spheres are as important as the public sphere, and matters of the heart affect many of us as deeply and as frequently as matters of public policy. But I do think there is a difference in literary merit between a novel that, say, provides a reader with an avatar of themselves, be that avatar a chubby actuary or a plain, shy girl, or a misunderstood computer nerd, or whatever, and thus makes them feel less alone, and a novel that asks the reader to consider larger societal questions, and to attempt to understand the world around him or her. I understand the desire to escape into the former kind of fiction and regularly do it myself, but I also understand that the latter kind of fiction is more rigorous, and that it requires me to do more work not simply because it uses big words. I also think that all sorts of novels can fall into both categories. White dudes from Brooklyn can create Mary Sues, and genre fiction nerds can force us to reconsider the world we live in.


Is it possible that white dudes from Brooklyn, or whatever other enclave, may have more financial resources and societal encouragement to write big, outward-looking books? Sure. But prove it. And it’s much more important who gets the opportunity to write what, than what the times says about it in the end.

I speculated about whether Cody Rhodes will be the next pro wrestling fan to cross over to mainstream acting. And given his performance on Warehouse 13 last night, I think that is a definite possibility.