Is it weird that I can respect an artist whose ideas I find repugnant, if the art itself is good? You know, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were anti-Semites, but brilliant poets, and Eliot one of my favorites. Same with Philip Larkin. Frank Capra was extremely conservative (and I think you can find that in his films, like…

Dunno, how good was Jason Bateman's last movie?

Eh,it worked for me. Reagan is a very disappointing president.

Nah, Reagan is the crux of the season—he's America buying into delusions because of the frustrations of the 1970s. He's a symbol of the lies we tell ourselves about this country, about what we're supposed to be, while denying what we are. Reagan promised "Morning in America", but what we got was corporate greed…

Since no one else has said so, I really dig the artwork.

Definitely check out BackStory—they're professors, but the shows aren't dry lectures. It's really well-produced, has guests, etc. It's a little like RadioLab, though not as aurally inventive.

Oh, I still use the DVD subscription—I have a long queue, and I'm not giving up till I've watched everything on it.

What did you expect? "Welcome, sonny"? "Make yourself at home"? "Marry my daughter"? You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

This was easily one of the worst regular games I've ever seen—seriously, did they run out of contestants and just throw these guys on? "King Arthur"? "*bubble wrap*"?!?

Oh good, I'm not alone in this.

I remember my mom taking me to see the movie when it was in the theater, and being skeptical, because I was adamantly anti-feminine. (Can't say I was a tom-boy, because I was already in my early teens, and lazy.) I just assumed it was two hours of girls sewing and being wholesome. But I fell right in love with it as…

Sure, but when's the last time someone mentioned Dar Williams?

Wow—"The Christians and the Pagans"— that's a pretty deep cut these days.

You mean uncool people like you find in the audio-visual club?

Wow—that's horrifying. How did things go from there?

You're a real jonny-come-lately there, spammy.

Christ, it's like no one writes sonnets anymore.

(The segment might qualify as the first time an Anderson movie has ever inspired nightmares in viewers, or at least ones that weren’t centered on getting lost in a vintage record shop full of elaborately constructed dollhouses.)

Thanks!

It's funny—I adopted the name Tlachtga after a bad break-up about twelve or thirteen years ago, and it's stuck to me, so that I always use it online—I don't go by any other name besides my legal name. But it's a weird name to take, in part because no one can pronounce it, and in part because her story is pretty grim,…