Deborah L. Carver

In Order of Most Interested to Least Interested:

1. Prometheus
2. The Master
3. The Amazing Spider-Man (chosen solely on the strength of its most recent trailer and hopes that Jesse Eisenberg plays Venom, uncredited)
4. Men In Black III
5. Rock of Ages
6. Brave
7. Moonrise Kingdom
8. The Bourne Legacy
9. Les Miserables
10. The Great Gatsby
11. The Hobbit
12. The Dark Knight Rises
13. Snow White & The Huntsman
14. That’s My Boy
15. Here Comes the Boom
16. Ryan Gosling Is a Gangster and Loves Emma Stone
17. On the Road

Did I miss any?

theoreticalgirl:

Get tickets: http://ticketf.ly/IqBS3b

Fri, June 15, 2012
at MilkBoy Philly (1100 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA)

Eternal Summers
Bedroom Problems
Catnaps


Doors: 8:30 pm / Show: 9:30 pm
$10.00
21+

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ETERNAL SUMMERS (VA, Kanine Records)
http://www.facebook.com/eternalsummers
http://kaninerecords.com/eternalsummers
The Roanoke, Virginia duo Eternal Summers made their name in underground pop circles with a ramshackle guitar-and-drum sound that celebrated a resurgence several years ago. Time has told it’s a formula that generally only goes so far, so it makes sense that for their sophomore record Correct Behavior, the band has fleshed out its sound with the addition of a new bassist. Dreamier territory comes with those textural expansions, and on “Millions” Nicole Yun’s honed melodies shine and snap with newfound clarity that at times recalls a hyperactive Sundays, or Amelia Fletcher in Heavenly or Tender Trap. This is a well-paced progression that doesn’t feel overtly recycled or deliberately slick, and a proper maturation for an indie pop band coming further into its own. — Jenn Pelly (Pitchfork)

BEDROOM PROBLEMS (Philly)
http://www.bedroomproblems.com/
Bedroom Problems is Maria, Mary Beth, Matt, and Roxy. What originally began as the home recording project of Maria in the summer of 2011 has since blossomed into a full-blown band. Bedroom Problems draws sonic inspiration from the catalogs of Homestead and Harriet Records. They have received favorable reviews from their friends, and from a drunken fraternity dude who described the band as “really playing to play” before going outside to vomit. In April 2012, Bedroom Problems released a new digital single (“Oceans/Obligated”) via Bandcamp.

CATNAPS
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Catnaps/180188005367838
Catnaps are an indiepop band from Philadelphia. They like to write silly love songs and we want to feel alive - with charming lyrics sprinkled on top of cute melodies. Let them capture your heart!

I don’t recommend slacking on a ticket for this. 

I can’t go to this show, but if there is a printed version of this poster, I will purchase it.

I am glad that the NYT’s most emailed article right now is on how people don’t know how to use commas. They don’t, it’s true, and I think I clicked on that link last week and it explained the reason why you write “my friend Jennifer” and “my mother, Laura.” You can find it, I’m sure. I’m not going to bother linking. Worst practices.

I didn’t email it to anyone. Everybody hates a corrector. Reading people’s thoughts on grammar or commas or misused words online is infuriating not because they are usually wrong (they probably are!) or because the writer is almost never a professional editor  - it’s aggravating because because they inevitably make it seem like all editors do is pay attention to commas, which generally leads people to say “It doesn’t matter anyway.” Editors do way more than commas!

Look, if you’re a copy editor, and you hand me a manuscript you just proofed, and all you’ve fixed are the serial commas, you’re an amateur or at least a beginner. You probably missed something huge, actually. You suck at your job if all you can find are style corrections involving serial commas… and I will hate you so much more if you call it an oxford comma.

It’s not that commas don’t matter. They do. It is important to be clear about what you mean, and language is the tool to help you do that. Sometimes you purposely want to be unclear so you fuck with the language and that’s called poetic license and soyoudowhateveryouwant and it’s fine… as long as you know what you’re doing. But you’d better learn the ins and outs of the CMS before you get to play, my writer friend. And I’m not talking about internet writing on your blog or in that casual literary magazine with no business plan - whatevs to that. I’m talking about the writing you’re submitting as a professional - you have to learn how to draw before you can do Rothko or whatnot.

But, like internet feminism, grammar gets a lot of traffic online from people who have opinions.* I hate to tell you this, but you’re bad at grammar, and you’re sexist, too. You’re also racist, sometimes. Them’s the breaks of being a person. Go write a story, and read the Chicago Manual of Style. You’ll find all the answers in there. Then, hand the draft to a copy editor.

*If anyone had told me that two of my interests, grammar and feminism, would be such huge traffic producers, I would have skipped grad school and gone right to making internet specifically for grammar people and feminists and made a whole ton of money. Ha, but I’m happy doing what I’m doing now, which is casually excoriating you on my personal blog.

This year I’m travelling a lot for work and for weddings. Since maybe I’d like to do some travel writing one day, here’s a new blog exclusively for my thoughts on the places I’ve been. Only one post so far, and I imagine I will try different styles of posts in different places, but for now, there is one on my recent trip to Chicago.

Read, follow. First new non-work blog in five years, y’all!

Last night because I am staying in a hotel room I watched the fifth episode of Girls, which was the first episode of Girls that I ever watched. Generally, my reaction to others’ reactions of that show and other shows on HBO is as following: “Wait, you’re a freelance writer. How can you afford HBO? Oh, you download episodes through torrents! Don’t you aspire to be a cultural producer? And don’t you complain about how much money you make? And how much time you never have? Okay, then! Girls!” (And here I am talking about the folks who don’t get to screen things because they professionally review culture often.)

Anyway, I thought I was giving Girls a chance! I liked everything about Tiny Furniture except Lena Dunham’s character. She got it right: the color, the pace, the framing, the drummer from Bad Company’s daughter (that is what happens when you are the product of “Feel Like Makin Love” and it is marvellously charming) the totally lame-awesome sister, the stupid things dudes say to you when you are 22, and the fact that everybody fucks the hostess. I mostly liked it, except that the main character was a horrible person with no redeeming qualities. Which is why, generally, people shouldn’t star in the things that they write and direct. 

But I thought the payoff in Girls was dull. I have no interest in watching it again, unless I hear that it gets better. My reaction to episode five was pretty equivalent to Tess Lynch’s, so I won’t say more, except that I liked the first season of Sex and the City because it was funny. I haven’t watched the other seasons, but I would. Girls was not really funny. It was only smirky. I won’t go out of my way to watch it again.

Another thing that is more funny than Girls is my own recollection of the hilarious things I did when I was 21-28 and the uproariously stupid mistakes that I made, and the conversations I had with my friends, who were much cooler than those friends on that tv show. I know that you are not supposed to fall into the trap of seeing yourself in Girls, but I see myself in Girls because I was the girl off camera, having way more fun. After college, I stopped writing about my own encounters because I thought that someone would always one-up me in sex and party stories, or in sad depictions of cleverness, and also there are plenty of other things to write about! Now I am the one doing the one-upping! I have a tv season’s worth of way better stories!

Watching Girls and doing other “girls” things like reading lady websites makes me think that I should be writing about my own experiences instead of having a legit writing career with another type of writing, and all of those feelings are not good feelings to follow. And anyway I haven’t thought of myself as a Girl for years. (It is totally cool to be a woman, y’all.)

wr3n:

I have found the epitome of Hipsterdom.

Hipsters, a couch, a bike, a vacant lot at 26th & Lyndale. I’m certain there are PBR cans at their feet.

Do you think they got the couch at the Room & Board outlet?

Things I don’t believe in, May 2012: manicures for women with tiny fingernails, fingernail polish in general, coloring your own hair, people who write badly and for free, adult prom, urban chicken farming, Joss Whedon, Best Coast.

Things I believe in: treat yoself, pedicures, getting your hair did, Pinterest, any dance night where there is a chance “Lust For Life” will be played, New Girl, watching the Triple Crown even though horse racing sucks, bath bombs, frequent flier miles, furniture shopping, subscribing to every magazine, pear brandy, becoming a total fucking yuppie seven years before yuppies will once again replace hipsters as the most talked-about sociocultural annoyance, still feeling like a rebel, the 76ers, First Aid Kit.

I never want to read the word “backlash” again.

Call your girlfriend.

carrieabigstick:

adrianeq:

annotations:

Okay Cupid - Kitty Pryde

I can’t stop listening to this.

this is the f*&xking GREATEST song i’ve ever heard in my entire universe. leonard cohen and david berman had a baby called kITTYPRYDE and she is a fourteen year old lady sovereign with lorrie moore pun chops. 

THE YEASTIE BEASTS (MARY AND CARRIE) CONDONE THIS. 

I always thought I was cool when I was a kid, but it turns out that I never was.

The best flowers for this crazy month.

• Baguette and Barramundi fillet, leftover from dinner. Sriracha and mayo, avocado, amazing tomato, spinach. Asparagus on side.

There’s no photo because I ate it. Oh God it was good.

Last week I celebrated my fourth blogaversary eating whitefish in Chicago, with pistachio puree. Not much to report; I vacillate between Beef and Ray these days.

I don’t particularly care for Florence & the Machine, but there’s a whole world of music that they (she?) could be compared to that’s not Lady Gaga, who doesn’t sound remotely like Florence Welch. (And if I say the puns are bad, they are probably pretty bad, because lord knows I love puns.)

Or: “Chicks, man” is not a critical stance.

Don’t tell me what to do, Skype.

The Current informed me that today is Kate Pierson’s 64th birthday. If I had to settle, if I could sing like anyone, it would be like Kate.

There was a time when everyone had never heard “Rock Lobster,” and then they heard it, and it changed everything, and everyone started dancing, like above. Gamechanger, or watershed.

It’s Friday, I have the day off, and you should read this memoir of the B-52s, which is one of my favorite things on the internet.

Aww, hey Joe Dowling, Artistic Director of the Guthrie Theater, why do you have a job? Is it because you know the most about theater because you clearly know which plays are the best plays all by yourself?

Can we overload the Guthrie’s mailboxes and inboxes and everything with some educated discussions of privilege, and how it plays out in the arts? Can we bombard the board members of the Guthrie with emails and letters and calls about how this is absolutely terrible? No, really, I am not overreacting, this is actually really backwards.

Can we send Joe Dowling to grad school so he can learn the basis of the past 40 years of scholarship about diversity and education and arts administration?

Can media folk stop reviewing the Guthrie’s mediocre Shakespeare productions (the “best” theater)? Can the selection of upcoming seasons be a board-centered process that includes a diverse board that represents the city, or the world population, which includes women and people of color? Can we write the State Arts Board and Guthrie donors - which surely include women and people of color - and encourage them not to renew funding next year? Can we encourage boycotting? Can we launch a direct mail campaign that rivals the Guthrie’s of awareness?

The Guthrie doesn’t care about your perspective because you haven’t had one throughout history, see, and it’s a historical theater.

Can we get this guy fired? Fuck his noise.

See also: the very amazing Marianne Combs.

I was watching this video and thinking about Jason Molina and going places on the internet I don’t need to be going and almost burned my house down because I forgot that last piece of perfect steak was in the broiler and it is no longer perfect.

Is there a better call to get off the internet than the smell of burning meat and smoke from the other side of the apartment?

Here I am, back on the internet, but the broiler’s off. Time to do the dishes.

Jenny, I’ve got your number.

thedependentclause:

shortformblog:

futurejournalismproject:

Norway’s second largest tabloid is offering readers a button at the top of its Web site that will remove all articles about Anders Breivik, the man who went on a murder rampage in Norway last July, and now stands trial.

As Journalism.co.uk points out, this is similar to a Guardian experiment last year when they too had a button to remove articles. In that case, the offending media frenzy readers sought refuge from was the royal wedding.

Any story you’d like to see removed from the news sites you read?

I’d like a button that removes all the racist comments from online newspaper articles. Also known as a button that removes all the comments from online newspaper articles.

Are people advancing the thesis that daily newspapers keep comments on their websites not to promote user engagement but to keep the trollgaze flowing? What I mean is, are newspapers huge bigot factories because they profit from the pageviews driven by racism of casual commenters? Or are newspapers just stupid for continuing to give resources to their comments sections?

Can a grad student give me some metric analysis of the amount of financial resources poured into a U.S. daily’s comments section vs. the amount of actual news and/or advertising gain?

Also, I want a button that removes all the child abuse and domestic abuse stories from my newspaper. There would be not much of a local newspaper left, but can I have that, please?