Pow! Wham! SNIKT! →

Antony Johnston, in an essay entitled, “When You Say ‘I’m Not Into Comic Book Movies’ You’re Probably Lying. You Just Don’t Know It Yet,” hammers home the difference between a genre and a medium:

So next time you find yourself about to say, “Oh, I don’t watch comic book movies”, try to instead imagine saying, “Oh, I don’t watch book movies” with a straight face.

An important lesson still unlearned by countless amateur and professional media critics alike.

Wisconsin’s State Legislative Districts Are a Big Republican Gerrymander →

What this means is that Democrats probably have to win about 55 to 56 percent of the statewide vote to win control of the state assembly. Or to put it differently, Republicans need only win 44 to 45 percent.

Lots of election results are simply unlucky. This is not one of them. The plaintiffs are right that Wisconsin’s legislative districts were drawn in a way that discriminates against the state’s Democrats by systematically diluting the value of their votes in every election.

– from research by Jonathan Krasno, Daniel Magleby, Michael D. McDonald, Shawn Donahue and Robin Best looking into the argument being made by the Wisconsin Democrats’ federal lawsuit

Pitchfork Reviews the Day of the Dead →

Jesse Jarnow and Pitchfork awards The National-helmed Grateful Dead tribute album an 8.1 rating:

Already containing universes, the Dead’s songbook is what makes the set enjoyable as a whole, transcending the performers and their translations. Perhaps even more than those of Bob Dylan (no stranger to covering the Dead), the songs of Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter welcome musicians of all stripes—loud and quiet, singers and instrumentalists, big-eared non-virtuosos and players alike.

The handful of tracks given to those who preordered the album are pretty fantastic.

I get text messages:

I may have sent some pink and white stuff, so don’t hate me. It is not over the top ruffle-y pink, but very cosmopolitan/subtle pink.

Zack Snyder is Baffling →

Alex Abad-Santos details Zack Snyder’s misguided desire to have seen Bruce Wayne raped in prison before becoming Batman. Because seeing his parents murdered just isn’t dark enough for The Dark Knight anymore, I guess?

There’s a reason these superheroes and their comics have endured. And even when Frank Miller and Alan Moore introduced grit and darkness into their worlds, it wasn’t darkness for darkness’s sake — which is what Snyder seems to be obsessed with.

DC’s movie universe is doomed.

Now you are well served for coming to fight in favour of the American Rebels, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, by catching that terrible Contagion — domestic felicity — which like the small pox or the plague, a man can have only once in his life: because it commonly lasts him (at least with us in America — I don’t know how you manage these matters in France) for his whole life time.

– George Washington, in a 1788 letter congratulating the Marquis de Chastellux on his recent marriage

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