Will Shetterly's Blog, page 162
January 12, 2013
Django Unchained: 3/4s of a great movie
I love the best spaghetti westerns. The tragedy of Django Unchained is that it could've been the greatest ever, but it fails in the third act.
Before getting into why, a few words about the obvious: if taboo words or violent images upset you, don't see this movie.
But "nigger" and explosions of blood are not what's wrong with Django Unchained.
Nor is the history, because anyone who confuses this movie with a historical knows little about westerns or history. It's set in the spaghetti west, as sh...
Why Smart People Are Stupid : The New Yorker
From Why Smart People Are Stupid : The New Yorker:
intelligence seems to make things worse. The scientists gave the students four measures of “cognitive sophistication.” As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, “indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots.” This trend held for many of the specific biases, indicating that smarter people (at least as measured by S.A.T. scores) and those more likely to...
January 11, 2013
January 4, 2013
Old white guy can't dance (yet) #3
I think this video would've helped me if I'd known about it when I started. Or it might've made me feel totally incompetent.
So if you're tempted to try something like Zumba or Flashmob and this intimidates you, don't worry about it. All you really have to do to learn something is want to learn it enough to be willing to do it badly until you figure it out.
Guide to basic Zumba® Fitness steps - YouTube:
So if you're tempted to try something like Zumba or Flashmob and this intimidates you, don't worry about it. All you really have to do to learn something is want to learn it enough to be willing to do it badly until you figure it out.
Guide to basic Zumba® Fitness steps - YouTube:
January 3, 2013
chain mail bikinis: context matters
Ask me if the chain mail bikini is stupid, and I'll agree with you.
But so are any number of pulp conventions. Shooting from the hip or fanning a six-shooter for example.
The Lone Ranger never took off his mask, which had to get mighty uncomfortable.
Why Batman isn't constantly getting tangled in his cape when he fights, I dunno.
But in stories that are not supposed to be realistic, what looks coolest always wins.
Ask me if the chain mail bikini is sexist, and I'll ask at least two questions.
The f...
But so are any number of pulp conventions. Shooting from the hip or fanning a six-shooter for example.
The Lone Ranger never took off his mask, which had to get mighty uncomfortable.
Why Batman isn't constantly getting tangled in his cape when he fights, I dunno.
But in stories that are not supposed to be realistic, what looks coolest always wins.
Ask me if the chain mail bikini is sexist, and I'll ask at least two questions.
The f...
January 2, 2013
On sex scenes
I just left this comment at Book Dirt: Quotable: Bad Sex Writing, Bad Coffee Table Books, and a Really Bad Amis Bio:
There's a simple reason why most fictional treatments of sex seem wrong in some way: situations rarely change for characters during sex scenes, so most sex scenes exist purely to fill pages in a story. Which means the reader is no longer thinking about what the sex means to the characters and is instead thinking about how it meets the reader's expectations, experiences, or...
There's a simple reason why most fictional treatments of sex seem wrong in some way: situations rarely change for characters during sex scenes, so most sex scenes exist purely to fill pages in a story. Which means the reader is no longer thinking about what the sex means to the characters and is instead thinking about how it meets the reader's expectations, experiences, or...
December 29, 2012
Old white guy can't dance (yet) - Part 2
Advice for folks thinking about an exercise dance class:
1. Focus on the music, not the moves. They'll come.
2. To learn the moves, find a place where you can see the teacher. I recommend being toward the back of the room at a slight diagonal to the teacher. If you're near the front, get close to the center or you'll be completely lost whenever you turn.
3. If you can't see the teacher, pick a couple of students in the front rows who're good. Don't watch one student the whole time because you'll...
1. Focus on the music, not the moves. They'll come.
2. To learn the moves, find a place where you can see the teacher. I recommend being toward the back of the room at a slight diagonal to the teacher. If you're near the front, get close to the center or you'll be completely lost whenever you turn.
3. If you can't see the teacher, pick a couple of students in the front rows who're good. Don't watch one student the whole time because you'll...
December 28, 2012
Old white guy can't dance (yet) - Part 1
I've been taking zumba and flashmob classes at the YWCA for a little over a month now. I'm awful, but I love it. Maybe I love it because I've embraced my awfulness. I dance being aware that if I'm the worst dancer in the room, I'm making everyone else look better, so my awfulness is a mitzvah, a small kindness for all the other dancers that costs me nothing 'cause I have fun.
It's taken a long time—57 years—for me to be comfortable with being awful in public. If I could tell my younger self an...
It's taken a long time—57 years—for me to be comfortable with being awful in public. If I could tell my younger self an...
December 27, 2012
why do most women support feminism's goals and reject the name?
I found Poll: Women's Movement Worthwhile via
Like this:
Like this:
In CBS’s nationwide random sample of 1,150 U.S. adults, 65% of women and 58% of men identified as feminist when an equal-rights definition was provided, but only 24% of women and 14% of men co...
