Category Archives: articles

Zizek’s Least Favorite Job

Posted on August 22, 2008 | Leave a comment

When asked “What is the worst job you’ve done?” by the Guardian recently, Slavoj Zizek, in typical Zizek fashion, answered, “Teaching. I hate students, they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring.”

Now, he might be right about most students being stupid and boring (though copping such an attitude displays a tremendous amount of arrogance), but, oddly enough, therein lies one of the pleasures of teaching. To paraphrase something designer Milton Glaser once said, there’s nothing more exciting than seeing a student go from a condition of inertness and inattentiveness to showing an interest in learning new things.

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Posted in academe, articles, quotes, Slavoj Žižek, teaching

The Reviews

Posted on July 17, 2008 | Leave a comment

According to metacritic.com, The Dark Knight is getting the second-best reviews of any movie so far this year. The best reviewed movie of the year? Why, WALL-E, of course.

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Posted in articles, movies

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Denby on Ledger’s Performance

Posted on July 14, 2008 | 2 Comments

Here’s David Denby on Heath Ledger’s performance in this week’s New Yorker: 

As you’re watching him, you can’t help wondering—in a response that admittedly lies outside film criticism—how badly he messed himself up in order to play the role this way. His performance is a heroic, unsettling final act: this young actor looked into the abyss.

Seems like there’s a pattern emerging. Have people pretty much decided that Ledger’s all-consuming commitment to his craft contributed to his death? If so, that’s really interesting.

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Posted in articles, Heath Ledger, movies

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The Dark Knight in the Early Morning

Posted on July 11, 2008 | Leave a comment

Yesterday the New York Times reported that Thursday midnight shows for The Dark Knight are selling out so quickly that some theaters have added 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM screenings to keep pace with demand. Now, why on earth would anyone go to a movie at 3:00 AM or 6:00 AM? Well, part of the reason seems to be Heath Ledger. To quote the article:

This time much of the fan interest has been driven by word of a career-topping performance by Heath Ledger, the Australian actor who died in January. His louche interpretation of the Joker has already inspired Oscar talk.

I plan to buy tickets to the midnight show today. I saw Batman Begins at midnight at the Grove in Los Angeles, and I feel it’s only proper I see the sequel at midnight as well.

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Posted in articles, Heath Ledger, movies

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The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

Posted on July 10, 2008 | 5 Comments

What are the disadvantages of an elite education?

Well, according to William Deresiewicz, it “makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you,” “inculcates a false sense of self-worth,” fosters a loathsome sense of entitlement, makes you afraid to take risks, and paradoxically breeds a perverse sort of anti-intellectualism. Oh yeah, it also doesn’t encourage solitude, and thus by extension, introspection.

Yep, I think that about covers it.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole essay.

(Hat tip: AMT.)

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Posted in academe, articles

Yikes Indeed

Posted on July 7, 2008 | 2 Comments

The New York Observer reports that “A growing number of style-conscious men are becoming more comfortable with the idea of showing some leg during the hot summer months.” God help us.

(Via A Continuous Lean.)

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Posted in articles, masculinity, style

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What’s Wrong (and Right) About Christopher Hitchens

Posted on July 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

George Packer neatly explains what’s wrong with Christopher Hitchens as a writer, and what’s right:

He gets out of the way just when one would want him to interrogate himself. Here is exactly the limit to Hitchens the essayist. But he goes so far and so well before running up against it that I always want to read him.

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

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Posted in articles, Christopher Hitchens, writing

Vertigo in Two Setences

Posted on July 5, 2008 | 1 Comment

Richard Brody’s distillation of Vertigo:

An acrophobic detective (James Stewart), after the apparent death of a woman he loves (Kim Novak), meets another woman who reminds him of her, dresses her up as the late object of his obsession, and then discovers that she’s the same woman. It’s as if Hitchcock were endowing with holy wonder the miracle by which Hollywood turns a shopgirl into a star—and by which he turns an actress into the object of his own erotic fantasy.

Nicely put.

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Posted in articles, movies

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Does America Have Any Culture?

Posted on July 2, 2008 | 1 Comment

A lack of culture is not our problem. The problem is we’ve become too effective at distributing that culture – at the same time, in the same way, and with the same velocity. It all ends up feeling interchangeable, which makes it all marginally irrelevant.

—Chuck Klosterman

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Posted in articles, Chuck Klosterman, quotes

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Academics Who Dress Well

Posted on June 21, 2008 | 1 Comment

Gary Cooper as Professor Bertram Potts in Ball of Fire (1941)

Loved this aside from Russell Jacoby’s recent profile of Paul Piccone:

Another leftist Italian-American of working-class origins coincidentally chaired my department at Rochester. Eugene Genovese, the historian of American slavery, also dressed to the nines. He once addressed us motley graduate students, mainly from New York City and its suburbs, as we clomped about in work boots, blue jeans, and work shirts: “You think the workers like what you are wearing?” he sneered. “They despise it and you.” He fingered his own fine threads. “This is what they like. This is what they would wear if they could.”

The point is that academics need not dress in a slovenly manner; indeed, many academics dress very well, or at least they used to. This is something of a hobbyhorse of mine.

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Posted in academe, articles, style

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