• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • Comment Policy
  • Nav Widget Area

    • Instagram
    • RSS
    • Twitter

Pretty Terrible

Pop Culture Criticism by Natalie Luhrs

You are here: Home / Links / Links: 11/13/15

November 13, 2015

Links: 11/13/15

Impermanent Sculptures, Vitor Scihietti

Impermanent Sculptures, Vitor Scihietti

  • Musings on the Nature of Feminine Perfection: “Honestly, gender is the worst kind of bully because where as bullies can only hurt you so much, gender teaches you to hurt yourself.”
  • Living and Dying on Airbnb: “The irony is that amateur innkeepers who couldn’t be trusted with the banal task of photographing and marketing their properties are expected to excel at hospitality’s most important rule: keeping guests safe and alive.”
  • How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive: “My hand, trained by the ballpoint, expected that lessening the pressure from the pen was enough to stop writing, but I found I had to lift it clear off the paper entirely. Once I started to adjust to this change, however, it felt like a godsend; a less-firm press on the page also meant less strain on my hand.”
  • Sometimes Writers Block is Really Depression: “The biggest thing to say to you though, is that if you are having trouble writing take a look at what’s going on. Ask yourself if something is wrong with the story, or if the thing that is wrong is outside the story.“
  • “It was very clear the weighty treatments of any topics in science fiction did not include all people as serious and worthy of interesting consideration.”
  • How Apple is Giving Design a Bad Name: “Good design should be attractive, pleasurable, and wonderful to use. But the wonderfulness of use requires that the device be understandable and forgiving.“
  • “The youthful breeziness of the Jersey Shore goofball is gone, and in its place is a woman made by the repercussions of being herself for an audience that wasn’t particularly kind to her.”
  • There Once Was a Dildo in Nantucket: “What could more perfectly complicate the image of starched, buttoned-up, nineteenth-century Quaker women—the ones pacing the widow’s walks and stitching around the stitching circle?”
  • “These student protesters were not a government entity stonewalling access to public information or a public official hiding from media questions. They were young people trying to create a safe space from not only the racism they encounter on campus, but the insensitivity they encounter in the news media.“
  • “In other words, if someone’s story about enduring racism is not sufficiently appalling, listeners are likely to dismiss it entirely. But lots of Duara’s experiences wouldn’t make for satisfying sound bites. ‘Most of it’s quieter. How do you know it’s racism then, my friend asked, and not just somebody having a bad day?’ he wrote. ‘And that’s the thing of it. You don’t. You never do. It’ll drive you absolutely crazy.'”
  • A lost poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley has been found! This is super exciting, as Shelley is my very favorite of the Romantic poets. Have I ever talked about the time I accidentally read all of “In Defense of Poetry”? Because I did. And it was great.
  • Speaking of other things that are great: HAMILTON.

my shot

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Links Natalie Luhrs

About Natalie Luhrs

I'm a lifelong geek with a passion for books and social justice.

Reader Interactions

The World Fantasy That Was
Links: 11/20/15

Comments

  1. Chad Saxelid says

    November 13, 2015 at 3:24 pm

    Hamilton is amazing. A new classic!

  2. Selki says

    November 15, 2015 at 2:01 am

    Thank you for those posts on Missouri balancing out the hand-wringing over the journalist who tried to push his way into a group of long-beaten-down students and was pushed back and told off. Yes, they got heated, and maybe went too far, but my goodness the furor and the assumptions that he should have been treated as a neutral party, contrary to the prior media treatment (dismissiveness / portraying the protestors as violent threats / ignoring until the football angle). See also dismal Occupy reporting standards. As the Post article pointed out, there were other ways he could have pursued that story, more sensitive than the way he *chose*. As the students told the reporter, OTHER reporters were making different choices to document the event. People shouldn’t have to put up a physical barrier for a reporter not to push up against them.

Primary Sidebar

Welcome

a purple haired woman with glasses smiles at the camera

Hello! I’m Natalie Luhrs. I write about books, culture, my health, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I have many opinions.

I am a two-time Hugo Award finalist, in 2017 for Best Fan Writer and in 2021 for my essay “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, Or: The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (Rageblog Edition)” in the Best Related Work category.

Search

Upcoming Conventions

Readercon - July 9 to 11, 2021 (virtual)

DisCon III, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention - August 25 to 29, 2021

Support Pretty Terrible

Updates by Email

Blog posts, cat pictures, and other random things in email? Sign up here.
 

 

2021 Reading Challenge

2021 Reading Challenge

2021 Reading Challenge
Natalie has read 6 books toward their goal of 50 books.
hide
6 of 50 (12%)
view books

Recently Read

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows
The Relentless Moon
A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking
Mischief
Architects of Memory
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
Unconquerable Sun
Bury Your Dead
The Brutal Telling
A Rule Against Murder
The Cruelest Month
A Fatal Grace
The Angel of the Crows
One Summer in Paris
Still Life
The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion
Family for Beginners
The City We Became
Seven Sisters
The Harbors of the Sun


Natalie's favorite books »

Footer

Helpful Links

  • Home
  • About
  • Comment Policy
  • RSS - Posts

Archives

Looking for Something?

Recent Posts

  • 2021 Best Related Work Finalist!
  • What Comes Next
  • Recent Reading, January 2021
  • Could I possibly catch a break now?
  • Some Positive News, For Once

Copyright © 2021 Natalie Luhrs · Pretty Happy On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in
"It's chaos, be kind." Michelle McNamara

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.