Just watched this show for the first time (after years and years of putting it off as a thing that might never live up to the hype…when will I learn?). Reading your recaps after each episode was always something I looked forward to. Brilliant writing every single week — I hope you didn't let that bizarre "hate on Todd…

Just watched this show for the first time (after years and years of putting it off as a thing that might never live up to the hype…when will I learn?). Reading your recaps after each episode was always something I looked forward to. Brilliant writing every single week — I hope you didn't let that bizarre "hate on Todd…

I must be a douchebag, according to commenters, because I found this article hilarious.

Yup, which could be a big limiting factor. It does make me think that, at the very least, supporting roles for blind people ought to go to actual blind actors. Maybe a leading role is too much to hope for, given the lack of upwards mobility their disability allows in the field of acting.

I think that's covered in my Thai Emma Stone comparison. My point is I find that argument pretty bullshit when it comes to racial casting, since it feeds into the same cycle that caused that disparity in the first place. So I'm not convinced why I should accept it in other arenas (though, instinctively, I totally do…

Contradictory thoughts, round 1:

Hey assholes, Patton can do whatever he wants! How dare you—

Saw an early screening of this a few weeks ago. It was glorious.

I'll join the devil's advocate brigade and at least mildly agree with you. It's disgusting that he got free, and it's disgusting that he _thinks_ he is in a position to give these seminars. But if his angle is "I totally didn't rape people, but /apparently/ if you heavily intoxicate people and then have sex with them…

Shameless humblebrag: I read it and honestly don't understand why it's treated as such an impossible feat. It's like reading two regular-length books, and no more dense than your standard Pulitzer stuff.

Limiting it to a Top 10 of LPs, and ignoring the huge compilation ones like Ghana because I just don't even know how to start comparing those…

I thought Jimmy was a great host, and I'm glad he's returning, and I have no jokes on the subject.

RIP. I'm sure people will be (with good reason) praising Philadelphia and Silence of the Lambs, but I will always be partial to Rachel Getting Married. It might just be about time and place: I remember sitting alone in my college apartment, transfixed by this lovely little film. It was the first time I learned films…

That's a good point. Though I do think sometimes when Kozelek's oversharing veers into absolute dickishness (e.g. the whole War On Drugs debacle), he hides behind a similar veneer of sarcasm. It's sort of an "I'm just being real with you — but if you don't like how real I'm being, I'm one step ahead of that too."

No joke, I just bought that on my Kindle 45 minutes ago after having this conversation. Excited to give it a read.

This might also speak more about the bias of which authors people recommend to me as "must reads" on the internet. Of the winners since 2000, the only I'd had personally recommended to me were Empire Falls, Oscar Wao, The Road, Adventures of Cavalier and Klay, All The Light We Cannot See, and The Sympathizer. So maybe…

I stand corrected! Apparently I've just been stuck in a streak of male winners from the past 3 years.

Totally possible. I'm just thinking it's fairly well accepted that Pulitzer, etc, tends to slight female authors—I've been making my way through the winners of the past decade and they're glaringly male. Whereas when I think of successful comedy memoirs, I think of Bossypants, Carrie Fisher, etc as the huge…

Hey, on a related note: has anyone noticed that female authors nearly always get ignored when it comes to (adult) fiction, but the world universally agrees that they write the best memoirs?

I'm an unabashed fan of celebrity memoirs, when and only when they actually have an angle. Bossypants is a great example, but I also quite enjoyed Anna Kendrick's and at least mildly enjoyed Amy Poehler's.