Given the choice between being born poor and being born female, which would you choose?
]]>note: I can't contain myself anymore so I'm going to start discussing The Deathly Hallows. Read on at your peril.
Perhaps it's blasphemy to even suggest it, but didn't the epilogue read to you as a perfect seven-page treatment for the pilot of Hogwarts: The Next Generation, airing at 5:30 weekdays on The N? Think of it! Short, silly half-hour stories, set among students preoccupied not by the specter of unthinkable evil but by the more daunting prospects of homework, cliques, and navigating their way through adolescence.
- SPOILER! The real wizardry in Deathly Hallows, Slate, 07.24.07
One of the most interesting and debatable areas of the book is the epilogue and where our heroes are as adults. We're given an unexpected result -- normalcy -- and a quick peek at the next generation of wizards. I'm willing to put Harry's adventures to rest but I could get down with checking out the new kids and a world of fantasy and magic where death isn't lurking around every corner. With a little teen angst thrown in for good measure.
There are plenty of reasons for Obama's magic voice: where he grew up, how his parents talked, how he breathes. But perhaps most important is one Obama doesn't want to talk about: cigarettes. Obama is an occasional smoker.
- Smoker's Voice by Juliet Elperin, Slate Magazine, 01.16.07
Written as a series of alternating sections or flashbacks, What Is the What—bad title, terrible cover—calls itself a novel but was created closely out of the story told to Eggers by Valentino Achak Deng, who reached Atlanta, after 14 years in refugee camps, in 2001. Achak survived the government helicopter gunship obliteration of his village in southern Sudan and a frightening and painful trudge to safety in Ethiopia. His personal experiences, as he says in a preface, are in essence no different from those depicted: Every event in the book could, and indeed did, take place, but not all to him, nor in the order presented. As such, the narrative reads very much like reporting, which accounts perhaps for its power—but also poses a number of interesting questions.
- True Grit by Caroline Moorehead, Slate Magazine, 12.05.06
Cohen is acting; they are real. It is easy to forget that although reduced to subculture stereotypes, these are individuals whose trust Cohen is taking advantage of. Their lamentable and often distasteful sentiments and prejudices should not divert us from recognizing that they have been "entrapped."
- Richhallucinations, Playing "Find the Bigot" with Borat, Slate Magazine.
Some truths about me: I've never been able to sit through an entire episode of Da Ali G Show. I've seen lots of episodes of Punk'd but I rarely laugh. I generally skip the fake interview segments on The Daily Show and the real (but in character) interview segments on The Colbert Report. I don't get the "shock comedy" (or pretty much anything) in Jackass. I've never found candid camera shows very funny and I'm highly uncomfortable when comedic situations are portrayed in "the real world" where participants in the comedy aren't in on the joke.
I love challenging comedy. I'd just rather it not be willfully mean-spirited.
For the next eight weeks, Slate, in collaboration with eco-Web site treehugger, invites you to consider your own individual contribution to global warming—and challenges you to go on a carbon diet. The goal is to reduce the amount of CO2 that you put into the atmosphere by 20 percent. If you're a carbon glutton who doesn't bother to turn off the lights when you leave the house, you may find this diet pretty painless. (And just think of the fringe benefits—lower heating bills, poorer oil barons.) But even if you're already a svelte recycler or a carpooler, there's a lot more you can do.
I've been fat smashing for 6 weeks now (i think, it's all blurred together now and I actually cheated for the first time for real yesterday in grand fashion by having a full on Popeye's lunch of fried chicken wings, biscuits, and cajun rice -- the first fried food I've had over a month) and with that discipline (ignore the cheating) I figure I can handle an eco-green diet.
Don't you wanna play too?