On Obama/Satan Lures "Bible Experience" To New York City
Sorry, I'm still stuck on how a fog machine enhances Old World ambiance. Was the "exhibit" designed by Spinal Tap?
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On Meditations on Glasgow with Gerard Butler
Aw, Glasgow is the best. I lived there for about a year to do my dissertation research, and when I exclaimed to one of my flatmates that I felt so much safer there than home, he asked, "But you do know they call Glasgow Stab City?" and I said, "Yep. Still feels safer than Albuquerque."
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On How Slutty Can You Be And Still Trick Someone Into Loving You?
My husband was my grad school professor, and I slept with him on our first date -- although we'd known each other for three years before that first date, so I don't know if that counts. I just figured that was my chance to have sex with him, and that if it led to something, bonus. Worked out great.
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On Is "Prometheus" a Big Gorgeous Bag of Hot Foolish Space Garbage?
Also (SPOILER): why is the surgical pod in Meredith Vickers' custom, self-contained lifeboat living quarters configured for a man?
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On Brush Your Teeth Or Get Cancer And Die
Or, you know, people whose immune systems do not effectively control oral bacteria also do not effectively control cancer cells. Or people prone to inflammatory responses tend to show both gum disease and cancer. It is assumed but not apparently tested that those with lower levels of plaque brushed/flossed more regularly than those with higher levels.
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On Is "Prometheus" a Big Gorgeous Bag of Hot Foolish Space Garbage?
I was most disturbed that in 2012, the best way the filmmakers could come up with to represent an ancestral ur-human was ultra-caucasoid in the mode of 18th-century conceptions of white people as the pinnacle of humanity: whiter-than-white skin and extreme orthognathism (regression of the lower face) in the mode of Greek statuary (see the last entry -- which is not taken from an actual skull, but the Pythian Apollo -- in Camper's 1792 image of facial angle and racial types here: http://www.historyofphrenology.org.uk/images/camper.jpg). Oh, and male to boot. How deep and new!
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On 'Clan Of The Cave Bear': Neanderthal Fan Fic
Because I am an anthropologist, I actually have an answer on the Neandertal names! This was written at a time when one fairly active theory was that Neandertals did not have the throat anatomy to produce the full range of modern human vocal sounds. Auel ran with that, but posited that they had the mental capacity for full language, hence their gutteral sounds but fluent sign language.
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On What's Your Most Played Song?
"Slow Show," The National with 73, followed by "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea," Neutral Milk Hotel! Not surprised.
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On 'The Secret Circle': Teen Witches In ZOMG Love
@tigolbitties IT IS TERRIBLE. And not in an amusing way. It is approximately 20% review of things that happened in the previous books, 30% reused plot points treated as though they've never happened before, and 50% coma-inducing descriptions of cave art.
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On Babies Peeing Everywhere
I read an article about EC and baby-aware bathroom training that said you should come up with a word or phrase to get the baby to associate with relieving himself, complete with the ridiculous and obvious examples of "sissss" and "poo-poo". I asked my husband what he thought (I thought it seemed like every baby I know is told when he's shat yet is not magically bathroom trained) and he said, "Just say, 'You takin' a fucking dump, or what?'" Now I think that every time I overhear someone crooning to his or her baby about the baby's diaper activities.