Snob

By Winston Rowntree  Published: November 15th, 2013  The worst response to sexism is of course to brush it off or cheer it on or suggest that it is somehow "over"; let that not be in doubt. But as good as it would feel to go off on a jeremiad about such things, it's likely going to be more productive t

Las Suicide Girls tienen tantos fanáticos como detractores, enemigos del tatuaje y la perforación que a menudo esgrimen argumentos relacionados con la vulgaridad o directamente la "fealdad" o la "gordura" de algunas de sus modelos (señores que luego exigen naturalidad, paradójicamente), pero su popularidad y su éxito están más allá de toda discusión. Ahora además hay que añadirle a su cualidad de pioneros, la filantropía entusiasta de querer enseñarnos cómo se lía un canuto. La clase corre a cargo de Rambo, Radeo, Kiefer y Lanei. Aunque seguro que no os hace mucha falta.

Dominación femenina y kilos de kaviar.

The latest installment of my Breathless column for Vogue is about, you guessed it– ORGASMS! What are they, where do they come from, and do they serve them at bars? Also, what’s “strategic lesbianism”? To find out all this and more, click HERE!

Es tener que escribir sobre Superman y terminar, sí o sí, afirmando que “es un personaje que casi nunca ha funcionado en sus diversas series regulares”, que “su todopoderosa definición nunca lo ha hecho atractivo a mis gustos lectores” y, por último, que “donde podemos encontrar las mejores historias del Hombre de Acero es, sin lugar a dudas, en los Otros Mundos y series limitadas con el superhéroe de protagonista”.

Llegado el momento de la última aseveración es cuando saco a colación el limitado puñado de títulos que considero lectura obligatoria sobre el personaje creado por Jerry Siegel y Joe Shuster, un pequeño corpúsculo compuesto por el ‘Hijo Rojo’ de Millar, Johnson y Plunkett, el ‘For all Seasons’ de Loeb y Sale, el ‘Orígen’ de Johns y Frank y, en una primera posición compartida con ‘It’s a Bird!’ de Seagle y Kristiansen y el ‘All-Star Superman’ de Morrison y Quitely, este ‘Identidad secreta’ con el que Kurt Busiek y Stuart Immonen sorprendían a propios y extraños hace casi una década.

Enmarcada dentro de aquella línea llamada Otros Mundos, el equivalente decero de los ‘What if?’ marvelitas, que tantísimo exploró la editorial de Batman en tiempos pasados antes de que las Nuevas 52 convirtieran a todo lo que hubo antes en una realidad alternativa, ‘Identidad secreta’ servía a Busiek para dar salida a una premisa de partida tremendamente original que encontraría en su desarrollo una voz única —la que siempre le hemos visto al guionista en ‘Astro City’— con la que posicionarse como una de las tres mejores historias de Superman que hayan visto la luz.

La idea es muy simple: un chaval llamado Clark Kent que vive en un pequeño pueblo de Kansas y que tiene que soportar las constantes bromas pesadas de sus compañeros de instituto descubre un buen día que tiene poderes similares al personaje de ficción. Tras este arranque, al que Busiek dota de un ritmo espléndido, resolviéndolo en poco más de diez páginas, ‘Identidad secreta’ explora el impacto real de un humano con poderes en un mundo que no siempre estará dispuesto a aceptarlo, siendo quizás lo mejor de cuánto se saca el escritor de la chistera esa constante y ominosa presencia de una ogranización gubernamental secreta que perseguirá al protagonista a lo largo de toda su vida, resolviendo el relato de forma magistral el choque de poderes entre ambos extremos del espectro.

Y si el guión de Busiek está a un nivel que rara vez se ha visto en las páginas del último hijo de Krypton, el arte de Immonen se escapa por momentos a cualquier burdo esfuerzo que uno pretenda hilvanar mediante el uso de los epítetos habituales: con un estilo que nada tiene que ver con el que actualmente le estamos viendo en las grandiosas páginas de ‘All New X-Men’, el dibujo del artista estadounidense —que aquí y allá imita a la perfección a los de aquellos nombres que fueron alguna vez puntales en la historia del personaje— dota de singular verismo a la historia, descansando gran parte del peso de la efectividad de la misma en una narrativa dinámica y un trazo vigoroso y de arrebatadora personalidad.

Lectura de esas que no importa las veces que se haga, siempre aporta algo nuevo, ‘Superman: Identidad secreta’ funciona además a las mil maravillas con aquellos lectores no habituales de cómic que conozcan los fundamentos básicos de la mitología del personaje —vamos, los que ilustraban Richard Donner y Christopher Reeve en el ‘Superman’ de 1978—, apasionándoles en similares medidas a lo que un veterano en las lides del noveno arte puede extraer de tan ejemplar obra.

 
To get an idea of how seriously certain sections of the British Establishment feared the threat of Punk Rock, take a look at this incredible piece of archival televison from 1977. It’s an edition of the BBC’s Brass Tacks, a current affairs series in which reporter Brian Trueman (also famed for classic kids’ shows Chorlton and the Wheelies and Danger Mouse) introduced a brief film on Punk, and then hosted a live studio debate between some of the youngsters featured in the piece—along with Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley and Radio One DJ John Peel—arguing the toss with a selection of town councillors, from London, Birmingham, Newcastle and Glasgow. These councillors were out to ban Punk from various inner city venues. There was also comment from the press and Pastor John Cooper, who wanted everyone to come to Jesus. Alleluia.

Okay, this all may sound like the comic ingredients to some grand mockumentary, but these fears over the political aspect of Punk Rock and the potential for anarchy in the streets of Britain were all very real at the time. As Brian Trueman says in his introduction:

“Punk Rock is more feared than Russian Communism.”

But why? What the fuck were these people thinking? What were they scared of?

Well, to start with, 1970s Britain was in a mess. It had high unemployment, 3-day working weeks, nationwide power cuts, tax was at astronomic levels, food shortages, and strikes were commonplace, and the Labor government feared a revolution was imminent.

To explain why this all came about, let’s rewind the tape to a mass demonstration at Grosvenor Square, London, March 1968. This was where an anti-Vietnam War rally erupted into a massive pitched battle between protesters and the police. Outside of the American Embassy 200 people were arrested; 86 were injured; 50 were taken to hospital, half of which were police officers. The Labor government of the day, were stunned that a group of protestors could cause such disorder, and near anarchy, that could have led (they believed) to a mini-revolution on the streets of London.

In fear of such anarchy ever happening again, the government decided to take action. At first, ministers considered sending troops out into the streets. But after some reassuring words from Special Branch, Chief Inspector Conrad Hepworth Dixon, they were convinced that the boys in blue could handle any trouble. Dixon was allowed to set up a new police force: the Special Demonstration Squad.

This was no ordinary police operation, the SDS had permission to be literally a law unto itself, where its officers could operate under deep cover, and infiltrate left-wing, fringe organizations and youth groups, with the sole purpose of working as spies and agents provacteurs. Harold Wilson’s government agreed to pay for this operation directly out of Treasury funds.

The SDS carried on its undercover activities against any organizations that they believed threatened Britain’s social order. This include animal rights organizations, unions, and anti-Nazi, and anti-racism groups. They were also allegedly involved in the planting incendiary devices at branches of department store Debenhams in Luton, Harrow and Romford in 1987; and one member was later involved in writing the pamphlet that led to the famous “McLibel” trial of the 1990s.

The workings of the SDS were on a “need to know basis,” and only a handful of police knew exactly what this little club were up to. But their presence fueled genuine fears amongst the British Establishment that there were “Reds under the beds,” and that revolution was a literal stone’s throw away.

This was all going on behind-the-scenes, while out front, muppets like the councillors and journalists lined-up on this program, pushed the hysteria of Punk Rock riots and civil disobedience, that reflected the very genuine fears at the heart of the UK Establishment. (Note London councillor Bernard Brook-Partridge mention of “MI5 blacklists.”)

So, that’s the background to this fascinating archive of the year that politicians (and even the BBC) thought Punk Rock was a torch-bearer for bloody revolution.
 

Every November writer Refe Tuma and his wife commence upon Dinovember.

What is that, you ask?  Well, in Tuma’s words on Medium.com,  they “devote the month of November to convincing [their] children their plastic dinosaur figures come to life while they sleep.”   Every morning their kids wake up to find that their toy dinosaurs have gotten into some sort of mischief around the house.

The couple’s motivation for their antics is to keep the mystery and joy of childhood alive for their kids in a time of ubiquitous technology.  “Because in the age of iPads and Netflix, we don’t want our kids to lose their sense of wonder and imagination. In a time when the answers to all the world’s questions are a web-search away, we want our kids to experience a little mystery. ”

The dinos sure make a mess in the kitchen.

.

‘

But they also show off their artistic side.

They’re known to find adventures in everyday household objects…

And can get a little devious at times.

But mostly are a whole lot of fun.

Tuma can claim that he and his wife do Dinovember for their kids, but something tells me that they have just as much fun with it as the little ones do.  And, given the fans that have joined in on the action on their Facebook page, the idea is spreading to families all over the place.

All images via Facebook

Follow @megelizabeth

 
Sergey Merkurov is best known as a USSR People’s Artist, sculptor of Soviet icons and the master of Soviet “death masks”- Merkurov even made a mold of the late Lenin, himself! Merkurov also produced this delightfully dirty alphabet, complete with orgies, flying dicks, and paranormal partners.

The 1931 book that bore these bare bodies was actually intended to encourage literacy, and likely a part of Likbez, the gigantically ambitious Soviet adult literacy campaign of the 20s and 30s. Around the turn of the century, only about 24% of the Russian population could read, but by the 1950s, the Soviet Union had achieved a 100% literacy rate. With such inspiring teaching tools, one need not wonder how!

Unfortunately, the alphabet below is in Cyrillic, so you probably can’t spell your name out in Soviet porn. Sorry typography pervs!
 

 

 

 

 

 
Via Ross Wolfe

oublio: most popular stuff on the internet "I made a site and I thought MeFi might find it interesting: It shows the most popular image on Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Flickr in real time, as well as the most popular videos on YouTube each day: www.oublio.com. Now you can waste time on social media more efficiently!" [via mefi projects]

Every wondered where your favorite brown liquid came from? Find its starting position on the Bourbon Family Tree.

An excerpt from The Kings County Distillery Guide to Urban Moonshining, which will indeed teach you what it says on the cover.

For roughly the last decade Google has been quietly plugging away at a project that, while not as flashy as Google Glass or as mind-boggling as the self-driving car, has an equally large—and certainly more immediate—impact on humanity. First announced as the Google Library Project in 2004 and then changed to Google Books, Google has been scanning millions of books and uploading them for you to read for free online.

You can currently access 20 million books for free through books.google.com, with the company’s stated goal of having every book ever printed available. Check it out—you can read everything from Tolstoy’s 1918 tome “Anna Karenina” to Kevin Kelly’s 2010 mind-alteringly good “What Technology Wants.” It’s all there.

Except that for nearly as long as Google has been undertaking this project, the major publishers of the world have been trying to sue them out of it. Lawsuits trying to stop Google Books have been ongoing since 2005, and Thursday, eight years later, a judge finally ruled in Google’s favor.

Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. district court wrote that Google’s scanning constitutes fair use because it alters the form the text appears in, and also uses some clever code to prevent the material from being copied en masse by users. Google Books “advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders,” writes Chin.

It’s a big victory for advocates of democratizing information across the web.

“This has been a long road and we are absolutely delighted with today’s judgement,” Google said in a statement. “As we have long said Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age — giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow.”

Yes, yes, borrow—that’s the ticket. (Gets back to reading “Anna Karenina.”)

Image: Shutterstock

Quen di que nos separatismos non hai modas? Claro que as hai! E Portugal xa está moi visto. Vale que os queremos, que teñen unhas cidades moi bonitas e cool e que a lingua é máis doada de aprender que… o inglés. Máis que nada porque hai un 85% de posibilidades de entenderse entre uns e outros sen nin sequera ter que facer o esforzo de aprender a lingua do outro. Pero, en fin, que xa levamos anos escoitando a mesma cantinela e, como todo o mundo sabe, o que chama a atención son sempre as ideas frescas. Así que… por que non procurar outro lugar? Un lugar, por exemplo, que estea unido a Galicia por milleiros de anacos de historia compartida? Poderíase escoller Irlanda (que a lenda – en fin – di que foi colonizada por un dos fillos de Breogán!! – ou algo así- ) pero iso é como bailar co máis feo. Pero non… o que Galicia clama (ou claman 130 persoas neste momento en Change) é o de converterse en parte do Reino Unido.

Total, eles van perder Escocia, así que van ter un oco no mapa que poden encher con algo. E que mellor que facelo con Galicia? Nesta carta aberta a David Cameron, o primeiro ministro do Reino Unido, glosan as vantaxes para que Galicia se converta na nova Escocia sen moitos esforzos. Xa hai un Celtic de Glasgow (chámalle Vigo), moitas gaitas, un tempo de merda, unha paisaxe encantadora, o océano Atlántico, Edimburgo (quen di Edimburgo di Compostela), unha bandeira azul e branca (tampouco van notar moito cambio nos desfiles, non?) e moito alcol.

O organizador desta sorprendente secesión tamén apunta unhas cantas cousas que Galicia podería aportar a Reino Unido, como Zara, un acento máis doado de entender que o escocés ou marisco (aínda que nós non temos claro se serán argumentos de peso, deberían engadir que España esquecería dunha vez por todas Xibraltar porque Galicia ten máis metros cadrados ou- esta é a outra alternativa- que terían máis posibilidades de gañar Eurovisión porque recibirían os votos da Escocia independente e os da España decidida a levarse ben co novo veciño).

Polo momento todo é ficción, claro está, ou política ficción, como prefirades, porque as cousas en Change.org só se conseguen cando se alcanzan os números de sinaturas requiridas. Pero en canto iso suceda, David Cameron non terá máis remedio que analizar esta proposta territorial. E quen sabe… en tres meses poderiamos estar cantando God save the Queen! con verdadeiro (verdadeiro!!) acento de Oxford!

THE END

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Tumblr has disabled all the tags they disapprove of.  So #clit, #cum etc no longer have results.  Fuckin Yahoo ruining the internet for years...

Salon recently devoted an article to saying Thought Catalog has started a “trolling revolution.” James B. Barnes has already written a response piece to that (thanks for the shout out in there, James!), but I’d like to talk about a website that actually is trying to start this revolution: the people of returnofkings.com.

If you’re not familiar, returnofkings.com is run by a bunch of “Men’s Rights Activists” (i.e. white guys who think the world is somehow out to get them for being white guys… yeah, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds) who seem to strive for a world straight out of a Tucker Max book. Or maybe a Chuck Palahniuk novel? Oh! I know! The Matrix. MRAs absolutely love the Matrix. In other words, it very well may be the worst website to exist in the history of the internet.

Anyyyyyyway. Let’s take a look at their “About” page.

Return Of Kings is a blog for heterosexual, masculine men.

Okay, well, every site has to have a demographic. Fair enough.

ROK aims to usher the return of the masculine man in a world where masculinity is being increasingly punished and shamed in favor of creating an androgynous and politically-correct society that allows women to assert superiority and control over men. Sadly, yesterday’s masculinity is today’s misogyny.

Hrm…

Women and homosexuals are prohibited from commenting here.

Um… Well, let’s see what they list under “Community Beliefs.”

1. Men and women are genetically different, both physically and mentally. Sex roles evolved in all mammals. Humans are not exempt.

I worry about where this is going..

2. Women are sluts if they sleep around, but men are not. This fact is due to the biological differences between men and women.

After the first sentence, I had hope that they were making a point of highlighting one of society’s greatest double-standards. As it turns out, they simply want to reinforce it.

Let’s skip down a bit.

6. A woman’s value is mainly determined by her fertility and beauty. A man’s value is mainly determined by his resources, intellect, and character.

Hear that, ladies? If you’re not fertile and beautiful, you have no worth. Guys, on the other hand, have free reign to be sterile and ugly, while not being judged on that basis.

7. Elimination of traditional gender roles and the promotion of unlimited mating choice in women unleashes their promiscuity and other negative behaviors that block family formation.

Oh, what the fuck? What decade are we in? Hell, what century are we in?

References to “Tyler Durden” and “taking the red pill” make up the basis of so many of the site’s posts. “Have you swallowed the red pill?” one article asks. It seems entirely lost on the site’s writers that the very imagery they’re referencing are the creations of people who wouldn’t even be allowed to comment, let alone post on their site (Chuck Palahniuk is gay; Lana Wachowski, one of the writers and directors on the Matrix — where the red pill/blue pill originated — is a transgender woman). There’s certainly some irony in the fact that their core philosophies are based on the writings of people they advocate against.

There’s also quite a bit of hypocrisy among the authors. In various pieces, they lash out against those who hide in anonymity on the internet. They accuse people of trying to manipulate and misrepresent who they are. All of this, of course, is said as they write behind ridiculous pen names like Law Dogger (whose most recent piece is titled “The Worst Bang of My Life”) and Nascimento (whose most recent article is titled “Why You Should Try Sober Game” and describes himself as a “young and aspiring Casanova”).

Somehow, this bastion of misogyny has generated more than 2,000 fans on Facebook (click here to see if anyone you know likes them), and more than 400,000 unique visitors have stopped by the site.

More than ⅓ of the site’s readers are under the age of 25, 40% of visitors don’t have a college degree, roughly 70% of readers are men, and nearly 80% of visitors to the site are white. More or less, it’s exactly who you’d expect to visit a site like this.

I read through their entire archive, and I’d like to highlight the 20 trolliest examples of trolling to have ever trolled. Most articles are NSFW for content purposes, and consider a trigger warning for misogyny, rape apologist language, transphobia, homophobia, and cissexism to be applied to all of the below.

1. The Myth of Male Privilege
2. Have You Swallowed the Red Pill? Take the Test
3. Misandry is Real
4. All Girls Like Rough Sex
5. The 9 Ugliest American Feminists
6. 3 Signs She’s Making a False Rape Accusation
7. What I Learned from Banging 5 Girls in 7 Days
8. The Myth of Date Rape Drink Spiking
9. How to Turn a Feminist Into Your Sex Slave
10. “Your Son is a Fucking Faggot”
11. Why We Need to Fight For the Patriarchy
12. How to Convince a Girl to Get an Abortion
13. 24 Signs She’s a Slut
14. How to Control Your Woman’s Diet
15. 5 Reasons Fat People are Evil
16. 5 Ways to Bully Fat Sluts on a Date
17. Why You Should Beat Your Kids
18. How Contraceptives Distort Gender Relations
19. 8 Ways to Spot a Transsexual
20. Stay at Home Moms Don’t Work that Hard

In order to keep my out faith in humanity alive, I really do have to believe this is just a collective of trolls. I shudder at the thought that there actually are people who believe the ridiculous, sexist, delusional things that get posted to that site.

Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts. "This is what our lives are like, and here are our defense mechanisms, and here is why we think differently." (SLKinja)

"Poverty is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain. It's why you see people with four different babydaddies instead of one. You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long-term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long-term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it."

(The comments section is worthwhile, particularly as the writer responds patiently to those who attack her for her vices.)

National Socialists with Cats

The Gender Bent Justice League. Photo by Pat Loika 

The most interesting things for me at Bent-Con—the annual Los Angeles-area LGBT comic convention held last weekend—were (no surprise) the cocks and asses. There were comic book drawings of hyper-muscular red-skinned devils showing off their cocks, a guy dressed up as Cyclops from the X-Men shaking his ass, zombies with undead semen dripping off the heads of their decaying dicks... You get the picture.

The convention is still in its early years. Its mission is to give space for LGBT creators and fans of comics and speculative fiction, sci-fi, and horror. It rests squarely in the deep cultural overlap between geek and queer communities, both of which are on display in all their full-frontal glory.

“More people are photographing me than the celebrities here!” said one among the hundreds of registrants, a guy dressed like a reptile. The costume was almost esoterically specific—he was a Sleestak from Land of the Lost—but plenty of people, myself included, got the reference. There were people dressed as wolf-headed manga characters, Game of Thrones gays, and Joss Whedon web series villains. It was a blend of a particular and detailed kind of language with over-the-top spectacle, hyper-real against the beige convention center walls. In other words, it echoed a sort of condensed LGBT culture: A culture that languished in its own hidden cues and communications in a former age and has increasingly settled into the happily exaggerated politics of visibility.

Warning: The next image is a fantastical illustration of an iceman ejaculating into his own mouth. If you're at work, and your employer would be upset with you viewing such an image, we'd wait until you get home.

"The Iceman Cummeth," by Jezza Smilez

But what was up with the devil dicks? Not to mention the books about guys with human bodies and fox heads having sex, or the paintings of Captain Kirk lifting his shirt to show off his six pack. (William Shatner should probably send the artist a thank you note.)

It would be easy enough to dismiss all the fucking, I suppose. But if there’s one thing comic conventions teach you, it’s that everything inconsequential is actually very important. I don’t just mean the way geeks overvalue detail (like when they say things like, “Hey, in issue 274 of The Amazing Spider-Man, why does Spider-man’s webbing dissolve after only fifteen minutes instead of two hours?” or whatever). I mean that what geeks understand better than most people is that themes of pop culture have serious influences on everyday life. That’s why there were discussions on how Wonder Woman influenced feminism, how Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is actually one of the first mainstream gay movies, and how Superman gives us hope that people with white privilege will use that privilege to help others.

A group that gets this as much, if not better than, the geeks are people in LGBT communities, whose entire lives are shaped by pop culture. Media representations of gender expectations and demands to be in typical straight-people-style monogamous relationships have defined LGBT struggles. What I’m saying is, if there are a bunch of comics featuring werewolves with huge boners for sale at a queer comic convention, there’s a reason.

The author, right, with Eternity, the Big Gay Universe

Sex, of course, has been a mainstay and defining aspect of gay culture since people began to acknowledge there was such a thing as “gay culture.” But it’s not exactly obvious why people would want to see their favorite fantasy characters, including inhuman ones, banging each other.

“All I knew as a little kid is that I wanted to hug Freddy from Scooby-Doo,” says Phil Jimenez, one of the world’s best-known superhero comic illustrators, and Bent-Con panelist. “Hug him really tightly.” Some comic book scholars suggest that the less detailed a work of art is, the easier it is to project onto it and have a relationship with it. In other words, the less perfectly human something looks, the easier it is to imaginatively interact with. So comic and cartoon characters, unlike living, breathing people might provide an easy receptacle for the sexual fantasies of developing LGBT youth.

Or maybe it’s about power—super or otherwise. Jimenez suspects that, because sex, gender, and power interrelate, sex is a natural theme for marginalized people and the art they engage with.

“I met this woman from New Jersey at an Italian comic book convention once. She was the muse of an Italian comic artist and she was dressed like a barbarian. Like Conan, but with huge boobs and big nails. She told me that as a girl, everyone around her wanted to be a cheerleader, but not her.” Fixated on being more powerful than a mere cheerleader, “she was fantasizing about being a barbarian.”

Gender-bent Luke and Leia. Photo by Pat Loika 

LGBT people often experience similar fantasies, of being someone that stands out for who they are, rather than hiding their true selves away. Since a major aspect of sex is power dynamics, superheroes, who, after all, are super-powerful, are inevitably sexualized. And while mainstream comics prominently feature female characters with huge breasts and pert asses, the iconography at Bent-Con is decidedly phallocentric. But since it’s all tied up in super-ness, in powers and fantasy, it comes across as masculine, but not really male. Many women at the conference—including some lesbian-identified ones—engage with the dick-and-butt show naturally.

In the vendor room, the Tom of Finland Foundation featured its iconic images of gigantic guys with anaconda-sized bulges. A few booths down, Anne Ishii displays the work of Japanese comic-bondage artist Gengorah Tagame and others. It’s part of her efforts to bring Japanese erotic comic art to American audiences. That a woman was doing this work might still seem atypical elsewhere, but not at Bent-Con. Her booth doesn’t express overtly sci-fi work, but the drawings themselves are speculative and fantastic. The world of these gigantic men in compromising positions is a fantasy world, and their presence at the comic con doesn’t seem remotely out of place.

As the long second day of the convention wraps up, there’s a costume contest, and the sexuality and spectacle of the geek world makes me realize how much of LGBT life (including my own) is spent fantasizing. Fantasizing about a world where we fit in, and also a world where the drama of being an outsider is exciting rather than frustrating. And of course, fantasizing about sex.

The contest is fun and hilarious. Lex Luthor in green tights and a jiggling package struts around. A woman takes the stage dressed as Harley Quinn, the Joker’s insane female sidekick. Her face is clownish and she carries a baseball bat, which she shoves down her pants. Deadpool (maybe a woman, maybe a man—the costume is sort of genderless) fake shoots him/herself in the head and a sexy Death comes up to the stage and escorts him/her away. Someone dressed in black and a curving headdress takes the stage. There are stars all over the outfit, which is tight, and even though it totally obscures the attendee’s face, it’s still revealing. It’s Eternity, the character who represents the living embodiment of the entire Marvel comic book Universe. It’s not the most elaborate costume, but it’s my favorite. At Bent-Con, the whole Universe is queer, and it looks kind of awesome.

@ConnerHabib

 
Feminist performer, punk icon, writer and frontwoman for Bikini Kill, Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin, Kathleen Hanna’s talents also include being an engaging public speaker. Thanks to her experience talking in front of journalists, unruly crowds at concerts, tamer audiences in university classrooms, libraries and lecture halls, she knows what she’s doing. Here she explains how to get up in front of a group of people, who may or may not be throwing things and yelling sexist insults at you from the mosh pit, and get your point across without undue worry about whether you suck at public oratory.
 

"The McRib is like Holbein's skull: we experience it as (quasi-)foodstuff, as marketing campaign, as cult object, as Internet meme, but those experiences don't sufficiently explain it. To understand McRib fully, we have to look at the sandwich askew." By Ian Bogost (Previously). Also previously, The McRib as Arbitrage.

by Bradford Evans

FXX has only been a cable network for a little over a month, but they've already made their first cancelation. Defamer reports that FXX has canceled Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, which is currently airing new episodes four nights a week in the middle of its second season. The show's final episode, with Jim Norton as the scheduled guest, is set to air tomorrow.

The Chris Rock-produced late night series premiered on FX last fall and was earning decent ratings on that network, but ratings have dropped since moving to sister channel FXX this past month. On some nights, Totally Biased has been the lowest-rated late night show on cable, mostly thanks to FXX being available in 26 million fewer homes than FX and the network not featuring original lead-ins for Totally Biased every night of the week. FX canceled its other new late night show, Brand X with Russell Brand, in June.

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The Cult of Cthulhu: A Real Prayer For a Fake Tentacle

Esta película educativa ofrece múltiples ventajas, como por ejemplo dejarnos mirar tan de cerca a los adolescentes. También nos permite observar cómo follan dos mujeres, cosa que yo no había visto nunca, porque desde luego eso que hacen a veces dos mujeres en las películas no guarda ningún parecido con la realidad. Por si fuera poco nos permite también mirar a Adèle Exarchopoulos durante tres horas. Esta mujer tiene una piel tan perfecta que no puede existir nadie en el mundo que no esté dispuesto a fornicar con ella.

La vida de Adèle. Ghalya Lacroix & Abdellatif Kechiche. 2013.

by Josiah Hesse

Just as the news broke on Monday that sociopathic dreamboat Anthony Jeselnik’s Comedy Central show The Jeselnik Offensive was canceled (to no small amount of glee from certain New Zealanders), Huffington Post Live released a video interview with Artie Lange, where the recently sober comic addresses his past use of the word “faggot” and other offensive slurs. “Times have changed, comedy has changed,” Lange says. “We live in a more enlightened time where you should think twice before you speak, because we’re talking about people.” While Lange was only referring to himself, it was a very timely comment for Jeselnik, who has built a career out of manufacturing public outrage. But this ultimately begs the question: was Jeselnik canceled for being too much of a button pusher? Or, perhaps more importantly, should he really be considered offensive if he’s doing it on purpose?

Halloween is the perfect time of year to take the pulse of moral outrage in society. Julianne Hough was moved to tweet a public apology after the outrage surrounding her black-face “Crazy Eyes” costume from Orange Is The New Black. Similarly, a 22-year-old from Michigan has been receiving threats of rape and torture after proudly posting a pic of her “Boston Marathon” costume on Twitter. While both of these are considered “too far” in the eyes of the public, the two are wildly different in their intent: One was based on ignorance, the other on provocation.

You could really never accuse Anthony Jeselnik of ignorance. If he ever dropped a joke that was offensive, and he was previously unaware that it could be taken that way, his only apology would be that he wished he’d have known so he could’ve spruced it up for added outrage. In the same way that W. Kamau Bell has built a career on being offended, Jeselnik’s entire shtick (down to his every standup joke) is constructed around impertinence. So, if anything, expressing your outrage toward him makes you culpable in the joke — because without your anger, the motive falls flat.

I spend a lot of time in comedy clubs, and whenever I see a self-righteous audience member storm through the crowd, ready to give the comedian what-for after his/her set, they phrase their “let me tell you why you were offensive” line with a tone that suggests they believe the comedian is unaware of how off-color the jokes were. When the grievance is for something like the word “faggot”, I almost understand — because typically the kind of person who would casually employ that slur is ignorant of its meaning or impact. But if a comedian cracks wise about 9/11, Sandy Hook, or Matthew Shepherd, I’m always baffled by the backlash. What’s the point?

It’s for people like this that Jeselnik exists. In twenty-first century comedy, audiences are loaded to the gills with those who are just so damn eager to express their disapproval, that they leap at the opportunity to call foul. This creates a tension that appeals to comics like Jeselnik, who can use the fever to hook and release the rest of the comedy fans that don’t manufacture their politics.

Lange is right when he says that we're living in a more enlightened time. Most of us can tell the difference between a comic who uses outrage deliberately, and those who are offensive out of ignorance or blind hatred. Though even in the face of this societal evolution, the reason so few have come to Jeselnik’s defense over the last year is because, if you strip away the acrid concept of his jokes, there really isn’t much left.

On the surface, there’s probably no living comedian more offensive than Louis CK. I mean, honestly, how much lower can you get than laughing about sodomizing a dead child in a field? Yet rarely do people attack CK with the same level of vitriol that they do comedians like Jeselnik or Daniel Tosh. "Of course, slavery is the worst thing that ever happened,” Louis CK said in his recent special Oh My God, defending the most universally loathed human institution. “But every incredible achievement in human history was done with slaves. … There's no end to what you can do when you don't give a fuck about a particular people. That's where human greatness comes from — fucking others over.”

Not only was there no NAACP backlash from this, but CK has gotten away with being offended himself by the n-word. “Not nigger,” he explains. “The n-word. Literally, whenever a white lady on CNN says ‘the n-word,’ that’s just white people getting away with saying nigger. When you say ‘the n-word’ I’m like ‘oh she means nigger.’ You’re making me say it! Why don’t you say it and take responsibility. Just say it, don’t hide behind the first letter like a faggot.”

Contrast this with Anthony Jeselnik receiving death threats for poking fun at the death of a New Zealander that nobody had ever heard of. With all of his irreverence toward obesity, terminal illness and rape, for some reason Jeselnik’s “Shark Party” bit last spring — when The Jeselnik Offensive was only four episodes in — remains to this day his prized pig for infamy.

Following the shark attack of filmmaker Adam Strange in New Zealand, Jeselnik commented on his show “was he killed? You bet your sweet ass he was. And he had a family and everything.” This was immediately followed by a troupe of dancing ladies in shark costumes bursting into a showtunes bit, with Jeselnik making a connection between the death of Strange, and the senseless killing of sharks for their fins, and how this human had it coming.

But if you’re going to pull out the heavy artillery and make a joke about a tragedy, you better be prepared to shoot at something. Jeselnik might have been considered a witty commentator if Strange were a controversial shark hunter, but he was an ocean-loving documentarian with no nefarious background in fin-hunting. This is why CK is so beloved, and seemingly few people mind that Jeselnik was canceled: if Louis is going to roll the dice on pissing off a few audience members, he’s at least going to give them something to think about while doing it.

By stimulating different parts of the brain other than the anger-generating amygdala, audience members are too preoccupied with insightful thought to be bothered with simple outrage. So Louis CK can lay out the idea that we should legalize pedophilia in order to save the lives of children and be celebrated as a genius; meanwhile Anthony Jeselnik tweets “There are some lines that just shouldn’t be crossed today. Especially the finish line,” the day after the Boston Bombing, and he badly damages his career.

Unlike Artie Lange’s previous use of the word “faggot,” neither of these comics are ignorant of how spicy their comedy is. And, for the most part, neither are their audiences. It’s not so much Jeselnik’s button-pushing that lead to the end to his Comedy Central show, it’s that his brand of comedy was reminiscent of a child who doesn’t care if he gets good or bad attention –- so no one cared when he fell and scraped his knee.

We still have the ability to be offended in the twenty-first century, but with so many entertainers campaigning for our vote of outrage, it becomes increasingly necessary that we pick our battles with who we get pissed off at. So there’s really no time for comedians whose solitary goal is to raise our blood-pressure and get us to call foul.

Josiah Hesse is an arts reporter based in Denver, Colorado. His writing has appeared on comedy blogs The Spit Take, Laughspin and Splitsider. He is a regular contributor to the Denver alt weekly, Westword, where his comedy news column, Funny Ha Ha, appears every Tuesday. Find him on Twitter at @JosiahMHesse.

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