Good Reads

[Laurel]

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4015/4486712387_b399e22c45.jpg
image courtesy LEOL30 (Flickr)

The period was always the humblest of punctuation marks. Recently, however, it’s started getting angry. I’ve noticed it in my text messages and online chats, where people use the period not simply to conclude a sentence, but to announce “I am not happy about the sentence I just concluded.”

Say you find yourself limping to the finish of a wearing workday. You text your girlfriend: “I know we made a reservation for your bday tonight but wouldn’t it be more romantic if we ate in instead?” If she replies,

we could do that​

Then you can ring up Papa John’s and order something special. But if she replies,

we could do that.​

Then you should probably drink a cup of coffee: You’re either going out or you’re eating Papa John’s alone.

This is an unlikely heel turn in linguistics. In most written language, the period is a neutral way to mark a pause or complete a thought; but digital communications are turning it into something more aggressive. “Not long ago, my 17-year-old son noted that many of my texts to him seemed excessively assertive or even harsh, because I routinely used a period at the end,” Mark Liberman, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, told me by email. How and why did the period get so pissed off?​

- read the full article The Period Is Pissed: When did our plainest punctuation mark become so aggressive? (from New Republic)​

 

[Laurel]

If artists make more than three times the percentage from concerts as they do from recordings, does it matter if people are stealing their recordings? Or, is that just a label problem?

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/shiftingsources2.jpg

The breakdown comes from the Consumer Federation of America, which just released an exhaustive report that deeply questions the entire premise behind anti-piracy campaigns, legislation, and litigation (more on that ahead). And part of that doubt is whether any of this anti-piracy stuff is actually about artist welfare.

“If the demand for, say, live performances is enhanced by the ‘popularity’ of the artists generated from the number of distributed recordings (legal and illegal copies combined), then we obtain the conditions under which publishers of recorded media may lose for piracy, whereas artists may gain from piracy.”​

- read the full article Shifting Sources of Artist Income: 1999-2012… (from Digital Music News)​

 

[SkAoUt]

Holy crap, this needs to be read by everyone. Linking via evesdreaming: http://jezebel.com/one-womans-dangerous-war-against-the-most-hated-man-on-1469240835

Yeah, what a shitbag. Too bad the chick that stabbed him in the shoulder with a pen didn't tag him in a more vulnerable spot.

- read the full article The Period Is Pissed: When did our plainest punctuation mark become so aggressive? (from New Republic)​

Bluntforcemama was onto this years ago <--- no agitated period there I'll have you note.

 

[eyer]

Narratively: Human stories, boldly told.


http://narrative.ly/archive/

 

[Laurel]

Sociologist Michael Kimmel explores the history of the aggrieved American male, but fails to capture what drives our age's most prominent discontents: the men's rights movement.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OgfunqX6L._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Men’s rights activists have latched onto this rhetoric of male victimhood, but unlike Farrell, they have designated feminists as the enemy. The causes they take up—from false rape accusations to male abuse victims—often seem like little more than excuses to bash women in general, but especially feminists. Men’s rights activists don’t organize marches; they don’t build shelters or raise funds for abused men; they don’t organize prostate cancer-awareness events or campaign against prison rape. What they actually do, when they’re not simply carping in comments online, is target and harass women—from feminist writers and professors to activists—in an attempt to silence them. Paul Elam, the founder of the website A Voice for Men and probably the most influential men’s rights activist out there, once wrote to a critic: “Your only real hope is to keep your mouth shut ... We are coming for you, and we are coming for all the liars out there that have been ruining people’s lives with impunity.”​

- read the full article White Hot Rage (from The American Prospect)​

 

[Laurel]

Narratively: Human stories, boldly told.


http://narrative.ly/archive/

very cool!

 

[Saint Peter]

Hey Noob!

Fix the linkie.

Sociologist Michael Kimmel explores the history of the aggrieved American male, but fails to capture what drives our age's most prominent discontents: the men's rights movement.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OgfunqX6L._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Men’s rights activists have latched onto this rhetoric of male victimhood, but unlike Farrell, they have designated feminists as the enemy. The causes they take up—from false rape accusations to male abuse victims—often seem like little more than excuses to bash women in general, but especially feminists. Men’s rights activists don’t organize marches; they don’t build shelters or raise funds for abused men; they don’t organize prostate cancer-awareness events or campaign against prison rape. What they actually do, when they’re not simply carping in comments online, is target and harass women—from feminist writers and professors to activists—in an attempt to silence them. Paul Elam, the founder of the website A Voice for Men and probably the most influential men’s rights activist out there, once wrote to a critic: “Your only real hope is to keep your mouth shut ... We are coming for you, and we are coming for all the liars out there that have been ruining people’s lives with impunity.”​

- read the full article White Hot Rage (from The American Prospect)​

 

[Saint Peter]

I need to study up on being an Angry White Man.

 

[Laurel]

Hey Noob!

Fix the linkie.

ack! thanks! grr

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sociologist Michael Kimmel explores the history of the aggrieved American male, but fails to capture what drives our age's most prominent discontents: the men's rights movement.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OgfunqX6L._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Men’s rights activists have latched onto this rhetoric of male victimhood, but unlike Farrell, they have designated feminists as the enemy. The causes they take up—from false rape accusations to male abuse victims—often seem like little more than excuses to bash women in general, but especially feminists. Men’s rights activists don’t organize marches; they don’t build shelters or raise funds for abused men; they don’t organize prostate cancer-awareness events or campaign against prison rape. What they actually do, when they’re not simply carping in comments online, is target and harass women—from feminist writers and professors to activists—in an attempt to silence them. Paul Elam, the founder of the website A Voice for Men and probably the most influential men’s rights activist out there, once wrote to a critic: “Your only real hope is to keep your mouth shut ... We are coming for you, and we are coming for all the liars out there that have been ruining people’s lives with impunity.”​

- read the full article White Hot Rage (from The American Prospect)​

Sissies and momma's boyz write such crap. The real white man does it his way, and fuck what Burger King thinks about it.

 

[Laurel]

Sissies and momma's boyz write such crap. The real white man does it his way, and fuck what Burger King thinks about it.

Burger King has opinions on these things?

 

[Laurel]

http://laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/images/greatsmog.jpg

The victim of the first big mistake I ever made was a gentleman to whom I had never been properly introduced (and whose name I still do not know) but who was possessed of three singular qualities: he was alone in a room with me, he was without his trousers, and he was very, very dead.

Some context might be useful. It was the winter of 1962. I was eighteen years old and had taken a year off before going up to Oxford University. I also had a girlfriend far away in Montreal, and in the superheated enthusiasm of my puppy love, I had promised to visit her. The fact that I then lived in London and she three thousand miles away meant that fare money had to be amassed: I had to get a job, and one that paid well enough to allow me to get away to Canada as quickly as possible.
[...]
In the interests of full disclosure I should add that I was also persuaded to commit a series of small crimes during my sojourn at the hospital, and which I hope I can safely confess at this remove of half a century. I stole pituitary glands. About a hundred of them over the months. A research hospital had need of them—pituitaries produce a multitude of hormones, including the one that makes us grow, and I proved myself quite adept at finding them: a quick probe inside the base of the brain with my fingers, and the pea-sized gland would pop out of its cavity like a snail out of its shell. Each time I collected a jar full, a furtive man in a white coat would come around to collect them, handing over a five-pound note in exchange. If ever I felt squeamish, the man reassured me that those to whom the glands belonged would be unlikely to feel the loss, nor to complain.​

- read the full article My First Mistake (from Lapham's Quarterly)​

 

[Laurel]

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/assets/3639203/about-boomfs.jpg

Instagram took over the world by recreating the slow, analog process of instant photography in convenient, retro-filtered digital form. But a cottage industry of startups that turn Instagram photos physical has since sprung up — there have been mini photobooks, canvas prints, and even Polaroid-branded cameras — and the idea has perhaps reached its logical conclusion with the launch of a new service that lets you print your pictures on to marshmallows.

Boomf, a UK-based company, charges £12 (about $19) for a box of nine marshmallows, each emblazoned with an image that you select from your own Instagram library using a simple web app. The company warns that the resolution "isn't Retina display" and that dark photos might not turn out too well, but the results look pretty good, and The Next Web confirms that the marshmallows do taste "exactly like marshmallows."​

- read the full article Boomf makes your Instagram photos edible (from The Verge)​

 

[lovetoread]

I just watched something that has scarred me for life. I clicked on one of these links and read the story, then there was a link to see the removal of a blackhead this chick had for 25 years.

So of course I had to see it.

Now I'm traumatized and people, it takes a lot to gross me out.

How do you just let a blackhead grow for 25 years?

 

[Laurel]

I don't understand it either. Of course, I don't understand people who leave the house with whiteheads. Talking to a guy the other day, but don't remember a thing he said 'cause all I could think about was reaching over and popping that sucker.

In case you weren't completely grossed out.

 

[cjh]

I just watched something that has scarred me for life. I clicked on one of these links and read the story, then there was a link to see the removal of a blackhead this chick had for 25 years.

So of course I had to see it.

Now I'm traumatized and people, it takes a lot to gross me out.

How do you just let a blackhead grow for 25 years?

This one? http://www.youtube.com/embed/7H30PCR0hs0?autoplay=1

The used the wrong equipment. They needed a garden trowel.

 

[lovetoread]

That's the one.

See, I like popping whiteheads. It was something my elder sisters made me do and I got really good at it.

But that blackhead thing was gross.

 

[SkAoUt]

I don't understand it either. Of course, I don't understand people who leave the house with whiteheads. Talking to a guy the other day, but don't remember a thing he said 'cause all I could think about was reaching over and popping that sucker.

In case you weren't completely grossed out.

From my experience women gain a certain primate like grooming satisfaction from occasionally (or more if you let them) going over their mate.

Being a young chap working in dusty hot environs I had a gf that loved to sit with me every once and a while and go over me inch by inch. Another gf later used to get as much satisfaction as the first.

I can say with 100% certainty that I'll never go looking for stuff on my gf to coax out of their flesh. I'll do it if asked but I'm not as seeking the experience out.

 

[dolf]

I just watched something that has scarred me for life. I clicked on one of these links and read the story, then there was a link to see the removal of a blackhead this chick had for 25 years.

So of course I had to see it.

Now I'm traumatized and people, it takes a lot to gross me out.

How do you just let a blackhead grow for 25 years?

I have zit/cyst expelling youtube binges.
I have no idea why.

From my experience women gain a certain primate like grooming satisfaction from occasionally (or more if you let them) going over their mate.

that's love!

 

[Fata Morgana]

From my experience women gain a certain primate like grooming satisfaction from occasionally (or more if you let them) going over their mate.

Being a young chap working in dusty hot environs I had a gf that loved to sit with me every once and a while and go over me inch by inch. Another gf later used to get as much satisfaction as the first.

I can say with 100% certainty that I'll never go looking for stuff on my gf to coax out of their flesh. I'll do it if asked but I'm not as seeking the experience out.

Not this woman. That's bloody gross!

 

[Laurel]

ME TOO! As a kid my aunt and I would give each other facials and she'd let me pop her whiteheads. And it was fun. But I can't tell this to people because they get all ill.

Won't click on the blackhead link though. Too scared.

 

[Fata Morgana]

ME TOO! As a kid my aunt and I would give each other facials and she'd let me pop her whiteheads. And it was fun. But I can't tell this to people because they get all ill.

Won't click on the blackhead link though. Too scared.

Fucking freak.

 

[Laurel]

From my experience women gain a certain primate like grooming satisfaction from occasionally (or more if you let them) going over their mate.

Being a young chap working in dusty hot environs I had a gf that loved to sit with me every once and a while and go over me inch by inch. Another gf later used to get as much satisfaction as the first.

I can say with 100% certainty that I'll never go looking for stuff on my gf to coax out of their flesh. I'll do it if asked but I'm not as seeking the experience out.

Not this woman. That's bloody gross!

There seems to be a divide on that. My great-grandma used to let me give her pedicures. She had these gnarly toenails and callouses, and it gave me immense satisfaction to clip and file em down. Not a sexual thing or anything perverse like that - more like cleaning tile grout.

Long ago I made the mistake of mentioning this to friends and found that some people - guys and girls - are horrified. So I keep it to myself. I'm telling you all because you don't know me and I can't see the horror in your faces.

 

[Laurel]

Fucking freak.

Pretty much.

 

[Fata Morgana]

There seems to be a divide on that. My great-grandma used to let me give her pedicures. She had these gnarly toenails and callouses, and it gave me immense satisfaction to clip and file em down. Not a sexual thing or anything perverse like that - more like cleaning tile grout.

Long ago I made the mistake of mentioning this to friends and found that some people - guys and girls - are horrified. So I keep it to myself. I'm telling you all because you don't know me and I can't see the horror in your faces.

I used to have to do some "horrible" stuff for my Dad when he was sick with dementia. I didn't mind doing it, but I didn't enjoy it. And if it wasn't for a loved one, I think my stomach would turn a bit!