Return of the crank

8 Comments

• Petey says:

  June 12, 2014 at 6:55 pm

  I’m cranky about the lack of true crank­i­ness in this piece.
  I’m call­ing the FTC. That’s the most blatant claim of false advert­ising I ever heard in my life.

• Asher Steinberg says:

  June 12, 2014 at 11:40 pm

  I believe I dis­agree with much of what you’re say­ing in this piece, but I’m not sure because I’m not sure what you’re say­ing. That said, just a copy-editing nit to pick; I think you meant to put a second “not” into this sentence:
  Just as Shakespeare did not him­self demand that art hold up a mir­ror to nature, so too did the car­toon­ist and writer Allison Bechdel demand that in order to be deemed accept­able, every nar­rat­ive work of art, par­tic­u­larly cine­mat­ic, that she encountered had to con­tain a con­ver­sa­tion between two women in which the sub­ject of men was not broached.

• Cadavra says:

  June 13, 2014 at 12:41 pm

  Where can I get that T‑shirt? 😀

• Gordon Cameron says:

  June 13, 2014 at 2:47 pm

  I also wanted to point out the copy error that Asher men­tioned. I was con­fused until the con­text sug­ges­ted the sen­tence should read ‘neither did’ or some­thing similar.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  June 14, 2014 at 1:05 pm

  I’m hav­ing that second “not” put in.
  As to what I’m say­ing, it’s the usu­al amusing-ourselves-to-death, fid­dling while Rome burns stuff, with an extra dose of dis­ap­prob­a­tion for the “watch­ing TV is more com­plic­ated than ever” section.

• Petey says:

  June 14, 2014 at 8:57 pm

  “As to what I’m say­ing, it’s the usu­al amusing-ourselves-to-death, fid­dling while Rome burns stuff, with an extra dose of dis­ap­prob­a­tion for the “watch­ing TV is more com­plic­ated than ever” section.”
  Meh. Somewhat more inter­est­ing than that.
  The John Lennon lyr­ic would include Twitter today.

• Dan C. says:

  June 20, 2014 at 2:46 pm

  What a great col­lec­tion of epi­graphs (with no imputa­tion inten­ded toward the writ­ing between). The essay is just ellipt­ic­al enough that the pleas­ure in asso­ci­ation hides the extent of its crank­i­ness, but I share your sense that the (mainly con­vin­cing) recu­per­a­tions of tele­vi­sion and young adult fic­tion vin­dic­ate incuri­ous taste. In that vein, the “amus­ing ourselves to death” thing seems less poin­ted than the parts about dilu­tion and dimin­ished expect­a­tions. It’s depress­ing to ima­gine a world (future or present) where all social justice has become con­cern trolling and all cri­ti­cism has become cul­tur­al studies.

• Joel Bocko says:

  July 13, 2014 at 7:03 pm

  What Dan C. says in the last sen­tence above. And what you say in the last para­graph of the art­icle. +2