I don’t have anything incisive to say about the above video, other than that I love George Carlin. The more I listen to him, the more I think he’s on my side most of the time. I wish I’d been a bit older when his short-lived sitcom was on TV. As it is, all I remember was that I wasn’t supposed to let my brother watch it and that there was a whole bit about crotchless panties.
I realize the “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” bit has become the joke that wouldn’t die, but the particular episode in this ongoing gag has some relevance to a post I just made at one of the other blogs I contribute to, about a New York Times article discussing the way that online word of mouth is becoming key to campaigning among younger voters. I think videos like the above also demonstrate that these sort of word of mouth or “viral” models of distribution also are a key way that people engage with and comment on the political realm. It might not be heady analysis, but it’s commentary nonetheless — perhaps in the vein that fan videos are commentary on tv shows or movies.
Through some twist of lucky faith, I had the immense privilege of serving as column editor for Henry Jenkins way back when I first started working on Flow. One of my favorite pieces was one discussing the problem of Sarah Silverman’s film, Jesus is Magic.
We recently ran a kind of “greatest hits” issue, and Jenkins’s column is there, with a new postscript from the author. Silverman’s humor hasn’t gotten any less intriguing, and as Jenkins rightly points out, that sort of “aww shucks” approach now has several well-known practitioners, including Sasha Baron Cohen of Borat fame.
I think this video works because it plays with the slippage between the homosocial and the homosexual. Also, it’s almost painfully funny.
The video, “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck” is a response to the “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” video that Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon did. In the response video, Jimmy Kimmel says the video is a jab not at Silverman, but at Damon, who he blames for “taking something [he] loved.” For this and other reasons, the video becomes further homosocial as the significant exchange is not that between Silverman and Damon or Silverman and Kimmel, but between Damon and Kimmel.
In addition to being an interesting study in homosocial romantic/sexual exchange, it’s a great parody of Live Aid. Check those celebrity appearances. Gold star to Joan Jett.
As I’m moving toward a place in my academic career where I’m thinking more about publishing my work, I’m drawn to thinking about some of the problems with academic publishing. In particular, I’m concerned about how limited access is to academic journals. danah boyd recently-ish posted about why she’s made the decision to post only in open-access journals.
I think that the promise of open-access publishing is great — particularly as we move more and more toward digital publication. Flow, the journal I’ve been most involved with, is open access to the max, and the model has thus far proven really successful. It’s also involved the volunteer labor of dozens of graduate students and a few faculty, but sometimes that’s what it takes. Most closed-access and print journals involve a lot of unpaid labor, and I know at least some of us over at Flow enjoy the whole mess. I certainly have over the past few years. That said, however, I think the shift is going to be difficult, if it’s possible at all. Many journals that are not open-access are very entrenched — many rightly so, having published often literally decades of significant scholarship. I think the most likely scenario is that there will be an increase in open-access journals, but that this increase will not necessarily unseat the place that traditional subscription-only journals have occupied.
And, finally, if you’re interested in open-access journals, the Directory of Open-Access Journals, which lists over 3,000 journals, is a good resource.
I interviewed Austin-based Brothers and Sisters earlier this evening at band founder Will Courtney’s house. I arrived just as the photo shoot was ending, and stood around while they wrapped up. As the photographer was snapping the last few pictures, Will’s sister and bandmate Lily* pointed out that there was a rib on the floor near the door. Everyone cracked up, because, you know, rib on the floor.
The band seems like a nice pack of people. They’re on the verge of completing their second album, and they’re definitely part of what’s hot and new in Austin music. They sound like a smear of California music history, lots of ’60s dreams — and their song “Without You” made it onto the OC before it got canceled, which doubtless lowered the average age of their fanbase by at least a year or two. In any case, the article should be in the May issue of Soundcheck.
*Note: Will and Lily are the only actual brother and sister pairing.
I’m sorry, but how did someone cast Matthew Lillard, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, and Ron Perlman all in one movie? How? Is it even conceivable to watch the trailer for In the Name of the King and not suspect, strongly, that it’s the work of some mash up genius? But, no, it’s real.
I’ve always loved Burt Reynolds. He, Alan Alda, Shipwreck from the animated G.I. Joe cartoon show, Jeff Goldblum and Joan Jett were my childhood celebrity crushes. My adulation of Reynolds was furthered when, in a college production of the the Vagina Monologues, I performed “The Flood,” in which an elderly woman who’s never had sex describes this beautiful surreal recurring dream she has about having dinner with Burt Reynolds. The deal was sealed when I first saw the glorious full-nude Cosmopolitan Magazine centerfold he posed for in 1972. After months of near misses, I finally managed to purchase a copy of that particular cultural artifact on eBay, and I must say, a thing of beauty is a joy forever — especially when it’s naked on a bearskin rug. The image was recycled last year in an advertisement for DirecTV HD, for which they edited out his smokes.
Reynolds seems almost quaintly unrefined now — all that unruly hair and macho swagger. The increasingly fussy aesthetic applied to what makes someone physically attractive has rendered men like Reynolds nearly parodic, a burlesque of manhood. There are echoes here and there. George Clooney’s got a bit of burly chic about him, and Vince Vaughn certainly does. But, in an era when even the Brawny Man has been cleaned up to look like someone’s nice suburban accountant neighbor, those flashes of unrepentant macho seem increasingly rare.
Plagiarism is reaching new levels of ridiculous: A romance writer has lifted passages from a Defender article about wild ferrets. The author of the original article has written about the experience for Newsweek. Apparently, bits of the nature writer’s semi-dry description of ferret society have been misappropriated as romantic dialog by Cassie Edwards for her romance, Shadow Bear.
The text from Paul Tolme’s article is lifted nearly verbatim, just spliced up into a conversation between the two characters. I expect this kind of ineptitude from the undergraduates I work with. Google-based plagiarism is typically easy to catch — usually, the culprit has picked a piece of writing that shows up on the first page of search hits. That seems to be what Edwards did as well.
While it’s funny to think of romance novel lovers getting off on discussion of ferrets’ eating habits, the incident points to larger problems. The internet may make writers more vulnerable, but it also exposes how brittle notions of intellectual property really are. I work with a number of international students seeking assistance with their writing. Routinely, I find boosted sentences and paragraphs in their work. These aren’t undergraduates avoiding their homework or trying to pull a fast one; usually, they’re highly intelligent, professionally motivated people who have moved to the U.S. for graduate study. In doing so, they’ve moved into a hot zone of proprietary thinking that is deeply at odds with the culture(s) they’ve grown up in. Explaining the notion of “copying” — of plagiarism — and why exactly it’s considered bad is one of the incidental tasks I dread. The concept is one of those that, frequently, just doesn’t translate.
This is a bit of David Lynch talking about how he feels about product placements. I would like to note that David Lynch in person appears much cuddlier than I would imagine him to be based on his body of work.
Apparently, Gary Zerola, a Boston attorney who was considered a top candidate for “The Bachelor” and who made it into People’s list of most eligible men in 2003 has a problem. And, by “has a problem” I mean to say “is an alleged serial rapist.” Zerola’s attorney claims he’s “simply a man who meets women in bars.”
Now, either homeboy has some really lousy taste in women, or there’s some truth to these stories. I’m pretty willing to lean towards the latter. I would assume that the average dude who shells out hundreds of dollars at department stores to wow young women can probably get laid without slamming anyone’s head into a wall.