I’ve been planning to write an article for Barbelith for a while now about the inherent facism of super-heroes. Today I found some interesting support for my case – an article by David Brin at Salon about despotism and egalitarianism in two of the most significant science-fiction franchises. Well worth a read: “Star Wars” despots vs. “Star Trek” populists.
Bring out the homoerotics of superheroes – the World’s Finest Superhero Team-Ups. Can you identify them all? Warning: Contains pictures of men snogging each other. [via Barbelith Underground]
More news than you might ever have actually wanted: “Christine Hamilton eyed me up and down then asked me if I’d ever tried it with a woman.”
Up until five in the morning talking with Ralph. I’m completely exhausted today. It’s nearly four in the afternoon and I’m not even vaguely ready for the world.
Matt is currently obsessed by flash movies. Completely obsessed. The latest one he’s found (and posted to Haddock is Thatcher, fish and bunny dominated. Entertaining, but odd.
Derek has a new book out. You should go buy yourself a copy of this book. And when you have done with the ‘buying-yourself-a-copy’ thing, you should go and buy me a copy. Then you can relax. But not until then. You understand?
Another example of the complete moral bankrupcy of politicians. Despite being vehemently opposed to abortion, Bush OKs Stem Cell Funding. Presumably abortion doesn’t have the potential for profit that stem-cell research does.
Spread the word: “life is the mayonnaise through which we squirt“.
And now to answer the call to action. Jason coincidentally put up a post about pre-web writings on the same day I stumbled upon a confessional diary of my teenage years. A few selections purely for the purposes of self-abasement follow:
Sunday 15th April 1990 “The problem with most people is that they are fixated with sex. Of course, I miss the ability to fit in with other people’s sexuality, but even homosexuals seem to categorise themselves solely by orientation. Going to gay bars seems to me to be a self-defeating idea. We will never be fully accepted if we always isolate ourselves in this way. With homosexuals, I suppose this is almost acceptable. I mean, our sexuality is repressed and constrained most of our adolescence and sometimes all our life. When released, sex could easily become the only thing on our minds. I vow now that this will never happen to me.”
Monday 16th April 1990 “Someone ought to tell my parents that having kids is more important than just having someone small and cuddly to look sweet when clean.”
Thursday 26th April 1990 “This day has been horrific. About 2 hours ago, I crashed and totally wrecked my car. God, I am depressed.”
Friday 27th April “The entire incident happened so quickly. I just popped out for a drive in my little car, thinking I could go and get some petrol. I got the petrol, and on the way back, I put on some music. I swerved to avoid something, skidded right over to the other side of the road, tried to regain control of the car, turned the car over and crashed into a wall and a tree. I found that I couldn’t get out of the doors and had to struggle out of the boot. The car is a total write-off. I went into a nearby house and called grandad and had a cup of tea and then the police arrived and the breakdown truck et al. God! I had a breathalizer test, but I haven’t had a drink since Saturday, so there was absolutely no reaction. Eventually got home feeling tired and shaken. I needed to tell someone so I rang up Tony and talked to him for about an hour. Eventually got to bed, but found it difficult to sleep. Still worrying about what mum will say.”
Wednesday 2nd May “Really interesting day. I’ll tell you about it after Dallas.”
Writing a good weblog can be, at times, much like writing a column for a newspaper. I’ve got an old article on writing a column which I’d like to put up in a public place. It’s by Keith Waterhouse – an old Fleet Street columnist. He gives 25 points – not all of which, of course, are appropriate for the weblogger. Pick and choose.
1) It’s not so much what you say as the way that you say it. Your column must have a distinctive voice, to the extent that if your byline were accidentally dropped, your readers would still know who was writing. If your style isn’t instantly recognisable, what you have there is not a column but a signed article.
2) Every columnist needs a good half dozen hobby horses. But do not ride them to death. Once you have sounded off again about, say, Euro Bureaucracy, leave the subject alone for at least six months (unless you happen to be Christopher Booker). “I make no apologies for returning to…” is not an apology but an excuse.
3) Feeling passionate about a subject does not necessarily make it interesting reading. Veal is a good example: outside the news pages, no one has ever written an interesting word about veal.
4) The fact that your column contains no facts does not mean that you need not have checked them like any other journalist. In other words, you must be sure of your case. You are allowed to generalise – “Our children are the worst educated in Europe” only if your wild generalisations, when tamed, can be substantiated.
5) The more cuttings you accumulate, the more you will be tempted to offload them on your readers, like the celebrated Scottish leader writer who, returning late from a liquid lunch with a deadline to meet, clipoed the main leader from the Times, scrawled “What does the Times mean by this?” above it and sent it down to the printer. Packing the column with other people’s quotes is the columnar equivalent of watering the milk. Assimilate the material and then discard it.
6) Avoid kneejerk reactions. You don’t necessarily have to produce a paragraph every time Fergie does something stupid or a politician’s wife announces that she’s standing by him. If the readers can predict what you’re going to say, there’s little point in saying it – and even less in their reading it.
7) Let the bandwagon roll by. Even if every columnist in the land is commenting on the mother unjustly sent to prison or the teacher who handcuffed the child to a radiator, you don’t have to jump aboard unless you have something to say that the others haven’t already said.
8) On the other hand, although it’s not always necessary to write about the main news event of the day, there are times when the occasion demands it. Given a Hillsborough disaster, for example, there is no point in writing about anything else since nobody will be talking about anything else.
9) Let the leader writer write the leader.
10) Having something to write about is not the same as having something to say. If you really have no opinions to speak of beyond, say, liking Princess Di and not liking Prince Charles, you are in the wrong job and perhaps even in the wrong trade.
11) Don’t ever try to fake it. Nothing is so transparent as insincerity – pile on the adjectives though you may, false indignation has the ring of a counterfeit coin.
12) Your thoughts on mobile phones in railway carriages have already been thought. Likewise your musings on muzak in pubs.
13) It is 106 years since Jerome K Jerome related his difficulties in trying to open a tin of pineapple in Three Men In A Boat. Unless you can improve this classic account, keep your problems with packaging to yourself.
14) Notwithstanding Bernard Levin’s celebrated intervention with the Gas Board on behalf of his mother, a column should not be used to pursue a personal grudge against a public utility company, bank, supermarket, commuter line etc. unless it is going to ring bells with most of your readers.
15) Does anyone care about St George’s Day? No. So why keep on asking, year after year, why no one cares about St George’s Day.
16) Be wary about following up items clipped from local papers – unless you are writing for the local paper. References to the barmy burghers of Brent or the wacky wimmin of Wolverhapton do not usually travel well, unless they have a wider implication.
17) Although you may allow your readers a few restricted glimpses into your private life, no one really wants to hear about your personal ups and downs any more than they want to hear about the lady next door’s operation. So your daughter got into university. Tell your mother. If you tell the readers, you will only infuriate those whose daughters didn’t get into university.
18) If you must write about your holidays, do it on picture postcards to family and friends. This rule particularly applies should you be tempted to drool on about five course meals consumed in Normandy with all the wine you could drink and change out of 30 francs.
19) Do not expose your spouse to the glare of the public – especially not by the whimsical name of Him Indoors or She Who Must Be Obeyed. The same goes for the misadventures or quirky comments of your family and the daffy behaviour of your family’s dog.
20) There is no real need to mention that you have been on radio or television again. Your readers no longer regard it as any big deal.
21) If your second topic begins, “Talking of which”, “Which reminds me”, or “While on the subject”, you have picked the wrong second topic. However the item does start, it should metaphorically say, “And now for something completely different.”
22) Should you wear a hat, do not ever offer to eat it. Predictions are for astrologers. If you do make a prediction and you are wrong, as you are almost certain to be, don’t start your subsequent column with the words “All right, so I have egg on my face”. Forget it. Your readers already have.
23) Bitchy comments on the private lives or personal tastes of the famous have enlivened many a column, but there is a point at which they can tip over into mere mud slinging. A good question is: “Why am I saying this?” If the answer is “Because I want to be the new Jean Rook”, spike it.
24) Columnar feuds are amusing to other columnists and may even yield them copy, provided they don’t mind living vicariously. The readers, or what Craig Brown describes as “that diminishing minority of people who do not write newspaper columns” find them bemusing.
25) Make up your own catchphrases. “I think we should be told,” being six words, is the copyright of Sir John Junor.
Buffy spoilers via the astonishing prolific.org: Ain’t it Cool News 1 and 2. They include a wonderful response to the question, “How much faith does Herc put in these spoilers?”. The reply? “Tremendous faith. And more than a little kendra.” Geddit?