Category Archives: writing

Looking At Primer

Posted on November 18, 2013 by | 2 comments

Last week I mentioned that I had stumbled across an online publication called Primer, marketing itself as a young man’s magazine for coping with life after college. I noted it bore a lot of similarities to Art of Manliness, and I had stated I wanted to compare and contrast the two once I had read up a bit more.

I’m not going to do that.

Don’t get me wrong, I did read Primer (and re-read Art of Manliness)- it’s just that the differences between the two aren’t going to take up an entire post to list off. Instead, I’m going to be looking over Primer, which is a pretty dang solid publication all around and fully deserving of a post all to itself.

Let’s get started. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in internet, religion, writing, Youth

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shame Day: Avicii and “Wake Me Up”

Posted on November 12, 2013 by | 11 comments

Sometime last month a friend of mine on Facebook posted the following status:

“So wake me up when it’s all over, when I’m wiser when I’m older. ~ Avicci”

As a person who only really catches up on pop music when he’s sitting in a car listening to the radio, I went to YouTube to check out what this was all about. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was a song that I could listen to 10 to 15 times an hour for days:

Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in morality, music, Shame Day, writing

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Importance of Ms. Marvel as Immigrant Literature

Posted on November 8, 2013 by | 5 comments

I can think of no better way to introduce this subject than with Stephen Colbert’s reaction to the news:

<this is where I would embed the video, if Comedy Central, Yahoo Video, and WordPress would just get along already>

Before I continue I want to point out that the original Captain Marvel was a Kree alien who actually went by the name “Mar-Vell”, and when taking that into account Darlene Rodriguez’s pronunciation actually has a fair amount of validity.

With that out of the way, let’s take a more in-depth look at the young Kamala Khan.

Easily one of the most fascinating aspects about this new character, at least from a writer’s perspective, is how she came into existence. It all began when Marvel editor Sana Amanat, who grew up as a Muslim, began recounting stories of her childhood with fellow editor Steve Wacker. The two moved forward from there, “[noting] the dearth of female superhero series and, even more so, of comics with cultural specificity.” Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in comics, Islam, race, religion, writing

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2 Broke Girls, S3E7 “And the Girlfriend Experience”: A TV Review

Posted on November 5, 2013 by | 4 comments

girlfriendexperience

First thing’s first, I had every expectation that this episode was going to be super duper racist. It was not, but I’ll get to that in a bit because of how much of a big deal my second point is: Dang, this one lady could not get a enough of the jokes this week. She had one of those high-pitched shrieky laughs, too; it was nearly impossible to block her out and concentrate on the actual episode itself.

Now, if you type “2 broke girls racist” into Google you get 4,310,000 results. That speaks for itself, really. My review of the third episode of this season even received a few comments from an honest-to-goodness Polish person who wanted to assert that they do not believe that cats are the reincarnated souls of people who die outside. To be perfectly fair things were far worse in the first season concerning Han in particular. That being said, racist jokes on this show used to be a problem. They still are, but they used to be, too. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Comedy, internet, race, review, writing

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Show By Any Other Name Would Be Just A Spin-off

Posted on November 1, 2013 by | 8 comments

“There is nothing new in art except talent,” words by Anton Chekhov that I was forced to look up because I’ve already cited Ecclesiastes in a prior post. They’re also words that I feel forced to grasp firmly on to as I’m faced with the deluge of television spin-offs soon to flood your televisions and my laptop with more and more of the same. With that being the worst case scenario, of course.

That being said, I’m going to try my best to take the stance I typically take on these sorts of things, which is that ultimately execution trumps everything else. Chances are that you wouldn’t have thought that a movie about a guy with his arm trapped under a rock would be able to hold your attention, but 127 Hours is great. The premise of a work of art does not damn it, though it certainly colours how audiences choose to approach and experience that work. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in bizarreness, media, money, television, writing, zombies

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shame Day: Bob Kane

Posted on October 22, 2013 by | 3 comments

Let’s start things off with a question. Who here likes Batman? Oh, yes, Commissioner Gordon?

Thank you for that very thorough answer, James. But you know what else is important, and begs asking when we all like something? Where that something comes from. Y’know, who made it, that sort of thing. So, who made Batman?

Go ahead and pick up that Batman graphic novel lying next to you, don’t pretend you can’t see it. Tell me what it says inside there, somewhere between the front cover and the beginning of the actual comic. You can read it aloud, that’s fine.

“Batman created by Bob Kane” Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in art, comics, Shame Day, writing

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,