April 2012
44 posts
“
“It’s refreshing to hear the voice of the transgressor so clearly, but even more pleasing than this is the use of language in the song, seen in the use of the repeated phrase ‘some other girl’. After 17 weeks Kate surely knows the girlfriend’s name, but she’s deliberately not saying it - depersonalising the other, disassociating in order to commit crimes, to incite infidelity.
And you don’t have to have been trapped in a love triangle to identify with this linguistic tic - this is what people do with any love rival. We use language and tone of voice to invoke dismissal, disdain, and for self-protection. Try saying the name of someone you suspect your partner fancies. It’s hard to keep your voice neutral. There’s bound to be an inflection. Our voices carve quotation marks around the names of our rivals, as though we can’t quite bear to actually allow those names a space in our minds.
Jane, you say. Claire. Abigail. Steve. Or you replace the name altogether, as seen here. You may well know that the girl before you, the one who left fingerprints all over his heart, the one who’s fucking up your life even though she doesn’t know you exist, is called ‘Jane’, but ‘stupid Armenian ex-girlfriend’ just seems to trip off the tongue so much more comfortably.”
” —Re-reading the always amazing Miss Amp’s piece on Kate Jackson’s “character” in Long Blondes songs. Join me.
“Women are expected to be nice and sweet, to make other people feel comfortable. A woman who says ‘hey, I think there’s a problem here’ is being ‘negative.’ A woman who doesn’t smile while she’s being harassed is ‘humourless.’ A woman who prefers to stay focused on tasks is a ‘cold bitch.’ Significant gendering is involved here; women have an obligation to look and act a certain way and when they don’t, they need to be hassled until they do.”
—
Please - tell me how humorless & negative I am, so I can add you the list of people I wish to punch in the face.
Unknown (via grrl-meat)
i want to print this out and give this to my mother.
(via theoceanandthesky)
I want to show this to everyone who has ever said any of those things to me.
(via themindislimitless)
“
Disliking hip-hop doesn’t make you a racist any more than liking hip-hop makes you not a racist, and I’m sure there are plenty of Stormfront enthusiasts with Rick Ross in their iTunes. If you don’t like Jay-Z because you just don’t like the way he sounds, or you’re sick of his cloying ubiquity, or you wish he’d talk about something other than where he’s from for five seconds—hey, I’m not mad, I don’t like Bruce Springsteen for the same reasons. But if you don’t like rap music—a genre that contains multitudes—because of a self-satisfied moralism, or because you’re scared of it, or because you wish those people would stop talking about their problems and get out of your television and radio and kids’ bedrooms: well.
And I’m not just talking about the American right, I’m talking about all the well-meaning white folks who’ve told me how they want to like Lil Wayne but lo, the misogyny, the violence, the drugs. But, but, I’ll say: Bob Dylan aced misogyny; the Rolling Stones sang about violence; the Velvet Underground knew their way around some drugs. Yeeeah, but it’s different, they’ll say, elongating that “yeah” with conspiratorial inflection: you know what I mean. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
Rap music doesn’t get unarmed kids shot to death, “it’s different” does. “It’s different” infuses “these assholes always get away” and gives solace to people who hear that sound bite and nod their empty heads in agreement. “It’s different” is the same logic that suggests a teenager’s skin color combined with the music he listened to means he had it coming, and it’s the same logic that lets a bunch of people feign outrage over a teenager’s use of the n-word to describe himself when they’re really just outraged that he beat them to the punch.
“It’s different” makes me shake with anger because it turns music into a dog-whistle to justify the murder of a kid who doesn’t seem all that “different” from me was when I was his age, not that different at all. I liked Skittles and hoodies and weed, too. And yeah, I’m white and never worried about getting shot for any of it, which is only the most loathsome excuse for not identifying with someone that I can possibly think of.
” —Jack Hamilton, “America Is Dying Slowly: Talking About Hip-Hop After Trayvon Martin” (Good)
but for real: read this.
(via champagnecandy)Billy Pilgrim
So, we have a dog. We’ve decided to call it Billy Pilgrim (so clearly Billy when it’s good, and Pilgrim when it’s bad). Why? As Delightful Wife put it over on twitter…
As he’s been through so much but remains so sweet and placid, we’ve decided the dog’s name is Billy Pilgrim.
And who can resist a Vonnegut nod? Not me.
He’s a Lurcher. We think it’s a Greyhound/Saluki and about a year old, though because he’s a rescue dog, that’s tricky to ascertain completely. He was found stray in Ireland, and brought over her to be home. The best guess they have is that he was wanted for hunting, and is frankly far too soft to do that. He just doesn’t go for anything, which is really unusual for a Lurcher, who tend to accelerate towards anything small and mouth-sized.
So, bad for a hunting dog, but hopefully good for us. Still - I can’t help but try and think about what actually happened to him before he was with foster folk. He’s a little thin, and has a little mange, but is still very affectionate towards humans and shows no sign of real anxiety. He’s impressively house-trained (he returns well enough we felt comfortable letting him off the lead on the first walk, and even on the two and a half-hour car drive, didn’t dump inside the hire-vehicle - but did the second we got him in the garden) but doesn’t respond to anything like (say) sitting or similar. I suspect he’s never seen in a city. He’s mildly apprehensive about traffic, but the only thing he seems actively scared of are paving stones with bumps on. And who can blame him?
Delightful Wife had dogs when still at home. I’ve never had a dog.
This will be interesting.
“[O]ne of its first written appearances came in 1883, in the American magazine, which referred to “the social ‘dude’ who affects English dress and the English drawl”. The teenage American republic was already a growing power, with the economy booming and the conquest of the West well under way. But Americans in cities often aped the dress and ways of Europe, especially Britain. Hence dude as a dismissive term: a dandy, someone so insecure in his Americanness that he felt the need to act British.”
—
The etymology of “dude,” a fine addition to the origins of other famous modern words. (via explore-blog)
I just remember the thing that went around the playground when I was a kid that a “dude” was a camel’s penis.
Is that just in Stafford?
Phonetic Accents (And Why I Don't Write 'em)
Usually.
Two reasons:
Firstly, I’m terrible at them.
Secondly, takes more explanation.
I was reminded of this by Marie Nixon (ex-Marie Du Santiago of Kenickie) about the coded-language in the first reviews of her current band, the Cornshed Sisters. Specifically, with its link to the piece by Emma Jackson (Ex-Emmy-Kate Montrose of Kenickie) “Classy: Kenickie, Northerness and Femininity”.
(Scroll towards the end of the pdf for Jackson’s piece.)
There’s lots to read in there, but this section reminded me where my particular aversion to Phonetic accents originated from:
“Our northerness was also accentuated in the way our speech was transcribed in newspaper articles. There is a tendency in the music press sometimes to write the speech of people from ‘Oop North’ phonetically - I have never heard anyone say ‘oop’.”
In other words, anyone from the South is written in perfect English and anyone from the North is written as written as an exotic, Neanderthal other. As if someone from London doesn’t have an accent, while someone from Manchester does. And there’s a mass of assumptions in there, none of them pretty.
And that’s why I don’t do it, in a nutshell.
Unless you’re going to write everyone with a splash of phonetics, you’re implying that a number of your characters are so separate from the language everyone else is speaking that you have to bastardise the words to show it.
The exceptions are telling. When I’m working on a pre-existing character who’s always been written with semi-phonetic flourishes, I follow suit. Normally in a relatively minimal fashion, but enough to recognise that I’m playing in the tradition. The second is when I’m explicitly trying to turn someone into the Other, which is really about critiquing that (She in Phonogram 2.2 speaks in a complete mass of gibberish. But she’s just a voice in Marc’s head, and the story is about the way he viewed her, etc.) And thirdly… oh, there’s ways when someone really is completely and utterly unintelligible. I don’t think I’ve written one, but Arseface in Preacher would be a good example of that particular type.
But being a guy with his face shot off is a completely different thing than someone being Glaswegian.
(In passing, Ennis a good example - probably the best in comics - of a writer who pulls off phonetics, because he does it so widely and because he does it so well.)
I play with syntax, slang, structure, whatever - but I consider the words themselves sanctified. It’s the basic level of dignity the characters deserve. And frankly, because it isn’t my strongest card, I sidestep the possibility of just doing a really shit and offensive accent. To me, the rewards are small to negligible and the risk is enormous.
In short: if you’re not really 100% sure you’re hot shit, I’d advise writers to think carefully before going there.
March 2012
38 posts
Sad But True: We Can't Prove When Super Mario Bros. Came Out →
gamasutra.com
If this is the state of video game preservation in 2012, 50 years after Spacewar!, we’re in trouble.
Play
Ask the Duck →
hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com
I consulted some friends on a research issue last night and ended up answering the question for myself by the time the time I finished posing it. It’s remarkable how often it works that way for me.
Dan Curtis Johnson sent me the attached link, proving once again, I am not Nature’s Most Unique Snowflake. Go figure.
The Rock Paper Shotcast
I really have no idea how many people who follow me know me from my previous life as a game critic, so me getting together with my comrades in arms from my old site and doing a podcast on games may surprise some of you. Or maybe it doesn’t.
Either way, it’s here, if you want to hear us all yabber about stuff and things regarding games. Inevitably, involves me talking about Deus Ex and making questionable gags.
Shut Up & Sit Down: Season 2, Episode 2: The 2-Player Special →
shutupshow.com
My favourite show about board games. Admittedly the only show about boardgames I watch, but that’s neither here nor there. It reduced me to tears of laugter three times and also made me want to spend serious money on games about canada at war. No, really.
Oh my GOODNESS! The latest episode of internet sensation Shut Up & Sit Down is all about 2 player games, and it’s definitely not for kids. Watch as Team SU&SD smoke, spit, sneeze and sass their way towards discovering their favourite “dueling” game. Whoah! Did you say there’s five reviews…
“The problem isn’t just that we have to get folks to buy [Captain Marvel]; it’s that we have to get retailers to order it. The failing of our distribution model is that our customer isn’t really the reader, our customer is whoever places the Diamond order at any store. So if there’s a perception that the book won’t sell, it gets under-ordered and it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here’s a thing that happens to every creator on Twitter on one Wednesday or another: an incredibly sweet reader who really wants to support you, writes to tell you that they tried to buy your book at their [local comic shop] and it was already sold out! It’s only noon, they say! The shop only opened at 10! Your book must’ve flown off the shelves!
And then the creator, not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, says, “Wow! Thanks for your support — better pre-order the next one!” and then they cry into their coffee. Because, friends, selling out by noon on a Wednesday is not good news. Heck, selling out by Thursday is not good news. That means your book was under-ordered — if it was ordered at all. If the consumer wants the product and we can’t get them the product, our system is broken.
I hate the pre-order thing. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Ten years ago, I was complaining about it on the [Warren Ellis forum] — I’m a shopper. I looooove to shop. I will spend money. But I am not going to buy a pair of shoes that I’m expected to order three months in advance and am not able to try on! And that’s what we’re asking of our readers. It’s the dumbest system. No wonder we have problems! Is there another industry that works like this?
And yet, here I am begging you: if you want to read this comic, please, please oh please, oh please: pre-order it. If you want to see more female-led titles from the mainstream publishers, pre-order this book. If you’re not familiar with how to pre-order, or you’re not sure why it’s so important, check in with me on Twitter @kellysue or on my blog at http://www.kellysue.com — some time in the next couple weeks I’m going to do a step-by-step blog post. Maybe I’ll even do one of those Warren Ellis-style pre-order coupons.” —Kelly Sue DeConnick on the dichotomous folly/urgency of pre-ordering comics, and her new “Captain Marvel” series, in an interview by Albert Ching at Newsarama.com. (via bowtiemoustache)
Here’s a thing that happens to every creator on Twitter on one Wednesday or another: an incredibly sweet reader who really wants to support you, writes to tell you that they tried to buy your book at their [local comic shop] and it was already sold out! It’s only noon, they say! The shop only opened at 10! Your book must’ve flown off the shelves!
And then the creator, not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, says, “Wow! Thanks for your support — better pre-order the next one!” and then they cry into their coffee. Because, friends, selling out by noon on a Wednesday is not good news. Heck, selling out by Thursday is not good news. That means your book was under-ordered — if it was ordered at all. If the consumer wants the product and we can’t get them the product, our system is broken.
I hate the pre-order thing. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Ten years ago, I was complaining about it on the [Warren Ellis forum] — I’m a shopper. I looooove to shop. I will spend money. But I am not going to buy a pair of shoes that I’m expected to order three months in advance and am not able to try on! And that’s what we’re asking of our readers. It’s the dumbest system. No wonder we have problems! Is there another industry that works like this?
And yet, here I am begging you: if you want to read this comic, please, please oh please, oh please: pre-order it. If you want to see more female-led titles from the mainstream publishers, pre-order this book. If you’re not familiar with how to pre-order, or you’re not sure why it’s so important, check in with me on Twitter @kellysue or on my blog at http://www.kellysue.com — some time in the next couple weeks I’m going to do a step-by-step blog post. Maybe I’ll even do one of those Warren Ellis-style pre-order coupons.” —Kelly Sue DeConnick on the dichotomous folly/urgency of pre-ordering comics, and her new “Captain Marvel” series, in an interview by Albert Ching at Newsarama.com. (via bowtiemoustache)
“Rumble, young musicians, rumble. Open your ears, open your hearts. Don’t take yourselves too seriously and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don’t worry. Worry your ass off. Have iron clad confidence. But doubt! It keeps you awake and alert. Believe you are the baddest ass in town and you suck. It keeps you honest. Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideas alive and well in your heart and head at all times. If it does not drive you crazy it will make you strong. Stay hard, stay hungry and stay alive.”
—Springsteen at SXSW in his keynote. Not bad advice for any creative, I’d argue.
Buy WOLVES digitally! →
graphicly.com
Happy Ides of March everyone! Instead of stabbing an emperor, why not buy Wolves online at Graphicly for $.99? :D
“The best revenge is not to become like the one who wronged you.”
—Marcus Aurelius (via theremina)
Sir, You Are Being Hunted
“Hunted is set in a recognisably British landscape. Its inhabitants are a mockery of the aristocratic country gent and his ecosystem. Robots that ape tea-drinking, poachers that lurk in reed-beds, and red-eyed hounds that patrol the moor: these are the things you will be dealing with as you fight for survival. The game gathers up elements of my favourite things: exploration, AI interaction, survival, robots, hot drinks, and blends them into a rich pixelly pulp. (A “British indie S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” might have been something we said in the design meetings…)”
My good friend Jim Rossignol’s company BIG ROBOT has announced Sir, You Are Being Hunted. Even without the connection, I’d be looking forward to this anyway. It’s exactly the sort of thing I wish came from the Indie scene more. With the connection, it seems that Jim’s making public his half of the conversation which I exposed in my reimagining of Mister Sinister and the forthcoming Manchester Gods in JIM. More like this.
“
Indie is four people getting together wanting to create something sublime and immortal having had their lives swallowed by pop and needing to do the same, surveying the infinite possibilities and deciding three guitars some drums and some good songs will just about do. Indie is the scornful look from people your brain could eclipse and burn a million times over. Indie is every single transcendent spirit of humanity withered and died to the desire to succeed.
Indie is musical bigotry, political apathy, casual racism. Indie is a popularity contest that hates shallowness. Indie is revenge. Indie is the class weirdo with their own thrown in the sixth form centre. Indie is the dual luxury of the glamour of alienation coupled with party invitations. Indie is sauce over sex, ignorance over intuition, Gene over Gravediggaz, Powder over Pram and if you think that’s petty you weren’t here tonight, this was petty-lite. Indie is utterly wonderful.
” —I’m resisting just posting all of Neil Kulkarni’s 1996-vintage Sleeper review, because there’s too many good one-liners in there. The whole thing’s here, beneath the similarly witheringly wonderful Kula Shaker review.Art Brut comic
Here’s the story I did for the Art Brut Brilliant! Tragic! comic anthology featuring stories by Bryan O’Malley, Hope Larson, Marc Ellerby and more.
(If it’s too small on your dashboard go to original post to read.)
“I thought I’d been doing pretty well at engaging with her outré material, but when I mused that I probably wasn’t the ideal audience for songs like “212” and “L8r,” Banks observed tartly that half of her fans were, like, middle-age white guys. I suppose I could’ve bridled at this stereotyping: in common with most middle-age white guys, I have delusions of being sui generis — but she speedily set me straight, pointing out that for a long time her songs existed only in the iTunes libraries of record company execs, and that, as I was no doubt aware, most of them are indeed middle-age white guys.”
—Will Self vs Azealia Banks. Marvellous.
“In Italy, there is a tradition called “sciopero bianco” - the white strike. Here, it is known as work-to-rule. Workers who are not permitted to strike fight their bosses by doing only what is required of them - to the letter. Nurses refuse to answer phones that ring at 17:01. Transport workers make safety checks so rigid that trains run hours behind schedule. Eating disorders, particularly anorexia, are to riots in the streets what a white strike is to a factory occupation: women, precarious workers, young people and others for whom the lassitudes of modern life routinely produce acute distress and for whom the stakes of social non-conformity are high, lash out by doing only what is required of them, to the point of extremity. Work hard; eat less; consume frantically; be thin and perfect and good; conform and comply; push yourself to the point of collapse. It is no accident that eating disorders are often associated with obsessive overwork and perfectionism at school, in the workplace or in the home. We followed all the rules, sufferers seem to be saying - now look what you made us do.”
—Laurie on Eating Disorder Awareness Week is on form here.
“It’s the biggest statement of intent so far, really – me saying yes, in this comic I am Russ Meyer. That’s when you laughed, Bruce! That scary laugh of yours! “Sure, we’re Russ Meyer!” you screamed, like a deranged monkey, “We’ve always been Russ Meyer! We have to be Russ Meyer!” Except Russ Meyer would have had a bit more sex in it by page eleven, so I was obviously holding back. Never mind, violence is the new sex anyway.”
I’m highly enjoying Al Ewing’s gonzoid writers commentary for his JENNIFER BLOOD spin-off, the Ninjettes.
