Whenever I revisited “Past Tense” I thought the fairly cable-ish vision of the future of the internet was ridiculous, but given the likely death of net neutrality…

I liked the trailer’s sort of documentary-ish tone, and frankly I think a lot of Trek fan projects would work better if they were framed as non-fiction from the future rather than actual stories.

Ahh, I’m in West Hollywood—as a friend said, “I feel bad for you guys. You try so hard! You’re the only place in LA where white people ride the bus but you’re not getting any rail.”

One of the fascinating things in that Hubert Robert book were his paintings of Paris, specifically the tearing town of buildings on the bridges. Even though we (or I, at least) tend to think of the French Enlightenment as going together with neoclassicism like peanut butter and chocolate, all that modern intellectual…

I felt like I didn’t know too much about him but he seems both like the culmination of so much art from the Renaissance while still looking forward—the sort of tradition to Enlightenment to Revolutionary chaos thing also felt appropriate for now (plus it was published by the MFA, the hometown museum).

Rand Paul has been making the “no, just repealing it will make the debt skyrocket” on deaf ears. Rand fucking Paul.

I feel like Trump has driven a lot of people utterly insane. It is quite a shock compared to the very tame and technocratic Bush-era blogosphere where I got my political education.

I felt like I’d become a true Angeleno when I saw the post-election protests and wondered where all the marchers parked.

IMO it’s better for hoary reference works to err on the side of extreme conservatism. For all the problems of the Manual a with-it manual would be worse (and I say that knowing someone who actually published a pamphlet correcting everything he saw wrong in the Manual).

Giant cake delivery to @avclub-72a8ab4748d4707fda159db0088d85de:disqus , courtesy of the University of Chicago Press.

I joined a figure drawing class! Great model—really wanted to do him justice—a lot of fun.

I’ve never read the book but the Orson Welles movie’s an experience—I remember it being a bit of an endurance march to watch, but it worked that way. Can’t imagine watching it at home, though—needs to be in a pitch-black theater.

Please tell me Bunny Crumpacker’s her real name and not an on-the-nose pseudonym specifically invented for this book.

The Idiot cuts too close to home, then?

Every AVC’er should read Rameau’s Nephew by Denis Diderot. It’s a philosophical dialogue that reads like an actual conversation, and is about the separation of art from the artist, cynicism, social climbing, authenticity, and inequality, all framed by the musical culture of Diderot’s time (don’t need to know the…

This is very true in the House, where lots of Republicans were only elected during Obama’s tenure. Thus they don’t remember various disasters of the nineties and aughts (and how illusory that sense of permanent majority is), making a real headache for those who do.

The ultimate irony being the ACA basically is the Republican alternative.

What Are You Reading?

Oh yes, I started following after someone shared his New Year’s message.

I’ve been reading a fair amount by and about Eno lately and two things come to mind wrt this article: