In that case, perhaps Gladwell’s intellectual compromises are neither commercial nor unintentional but rather a necessary outgrowth of his higher calling: to explore the secret workings of the world and impart the resulting data to its self-appointed stewards, the titans of industry. This conclusion, if true, may resolve many of the most puzzling incongruities riddling Gladwell’s articles: his continued defense of the pharmaceutical industry even as he advocates for single-payer healthcare; his refusal to indict the financial sector’s rigged “star system” as the engine of corruption that it is; the meticulous bleaching of his own prose so that he’s whitewashed out any real context, any framework in which wars and economic collapses can actually be understood as wars and economic collapses rather than simulations or malfunctions; his near total avoidance of academic thought that does not base its findings on things observed in labs (with the exception of Carl Jung, whose legacy he reduces to the popularization of personality tests); his coyness about politics; and most memorably, his irritating, unrelenting readability.
It’s a long and thorough piece that is certainly worth reading if you’ve ever given 15-minutes of your lifetime drunkenly debating the merits of Gladwell just before closing time at a seedy bar.
By James Furbush | November 6th, 2009 | 12:33 pm PST
Normally, a premise as hackneyed as this one — two brothers go off to war and when one is suspected of being dead his widow falls for the living brother — has about as much chance of being a decent flick as it does a Lifetime Original.
But the talent behind this picture is too huge to ignore. Director Jim Sheridan is back to challenging, emotionally human interest drama (we’ll forgive him his paycheck cashing 50 Cent gangster flick) with the talents of Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobie Maguire in front on the camera.
The six-year project was unveiled on a drizzy day yesterday with the 11-foot bronze statue as a center piece to a children’s tribute area. Still. Did NO ONE look at the statue?!? It is as frightening as the actual Fred Rogers was comforting and inviting. It looks like the mythical Jewish rock Golem.
By James Furbush | November 6th, 2009 | 10:18 am PST
An awesome replica of the Fight Club soap featured in the Fight Club movie poster is now on sale at Etsy for just $8 and yes you really can use it as soap — though there is no indication it is made from the human lard of fat ladies. If that particular link sells out, check the Dirty Ass Soaps shop for possible duplicates. [via]
By James Furbush | November 6th, 2009 | 10:13 am PST
This sucks: “In 2005, newlyweds Julie and Mike Boyde of Ambridge, Pennsylvania spent their wedding night at a bed and breakfast, where, for the first time since becoming a couple, they had intercourse without a condom. Immediately afterward, Julie was in excruciating pain. Doctors would eventually diagnose her with a rare and incurable disorder known as seminal plasma hypersensitivity, meaning Julie is allergic to her husband’s sperm.”
She goes on to say on a scale of 1 to 10, the pain is about an eight or nine for a full 24-hours after intercourse. I don’t know if she’s using my pain scale (10 being decapitation, one being napping in a field of daisies), but this allergy sounds pretty awful to have.
I don’t have anything insightful to say about the tragedy at Fort Hood yesterday except that the media’s handling of the event (blaming PTSD when he’d never been to combat, forcing events to fit into their narrative, the thinly veiled notion that he’s actually a terrorist or that jihadists have infiltrated the military) has been specious at best and at worst yet another reason to never watch network news.
Still, when the early news broke yesterday, a conspiracy theorists co-worker of mine made the off-hand quip, “watch him turn out to be Muslim, possibly a sleeper terrorist that the right wing will use to their advantage.” Odd, very odd. Not that I believe that line of thinking. It’s just a tragedy all-around.
Nidal Malik Hasan’s religion says nothing more about Islam extremism than Timothy McVeigh’s and the Unabomber’s actions say about white men.
Largehearted Boy has a roundup of lists of best music of the 2000s. I don’t think I can write about all these lists as they come out and to be sure just about every publication will have one, irregardless if the decade actually ends in 2010 and began in 2001.
I might be alone in saying this, but Eric Johnson and the rest of The Fruit Bats have crafted one of the best albums of 2009. They also performed the song for Craig Ferguson (quickly becoming the best late night host) last Friday and somehow I missed it.
Also: West Coast Tour in January! Dates here: www.fruitbatsmusic.com . Presale here: https://tix.concertmaps.com The band expects Seattle and Portland to be sellouts, so if you live there, ahem, it’s best to get tickets sooner rather than later.
I’m sure there’s a Christian Bale joke here somewhere, but honestly the premise here is so simple: a man dresses like a bat and then scares the beejesus out of people. Sometimes it’s the bizarre-o little things in life. [via]
November 9th will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The short (six-songs) U2 concert that took place at the Brandenburg Gate yesterday ran into some trouble after — no lie — a huge wall was constructed to keep non-ticket holders from watching the free concert.
Controversy aside, Jay-Z does little but his presence adds a certain amount of swagger to this already swaggering song. It’s easy to hate on U2 — the conventional argument is that the band hasn’t done anything worthwhile in nearly 1.5 decades. But that’s bound to happen to any band that’s been together and still playing after 30 years. It’s impossible, I say, to watch the above clip and not get goose-pimples, to not marvel at just how huge U2 and Jay-Z are as cultural ambassadors.
Danny Boyle will follow last year’s Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire with a movie about Aron Ralston, the mountain climber who amputated his own arm with a dull knife in 2003 after it became pinned under a boulder for five days.
The film will reunite Boyle with Slumdog’s creative team (Simon Beaufoy is in talks to write the script, Christian Colson will produce) and may star Ryan Gosling, though nothing’s been made official.
I hope this project happens, not only because Ralston’s story deserves the big screen treatment, but also because Boyle’s at the top of his game and I’m sure has something interesting to offer this story of survival and determination. [via]
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