IntenseDebate - samaraweiss

9 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup! · 0 replies · +13 points

Well, the worst geniuses-are-assholes-and-look-I'm-an-asshole-draw-the-obvious-conclusion guy in my class sent a series of drunkenly abusive emails to our more successful classmate, and consequently is more or less blackballed by every institution that might have given him a hand up, so I find that cheering.
On the other hand, I know a writer who behaved like a monumentally terrible person while dating my oldest friend, and frequently pops up in the NYT, the New Yorker, etc.; I don't actually think she's talented, but she does seem pretty successful. So being a self-centered asshole may correlate with success. But I don't believe it correlates with talent.

9 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup! · 4 replies · +29 points

I love Peter Shaffer and Amadeus (though Equus is my favorite), but I really have to wrinkle my nose at it and at Isaac Butler for signing off on the "genius is a product of selfishness" idea. Some geniuses have been selfish, and selfish misbehavior gets some people attention which spreads to their art, but the two aren't necessarily correlated, and the idea that they are seems to inspire legions of Those Guys in Your MFA to be their very worst selves in the mistaken belief that it's a signifier of their greatness.

9 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup! · 0 replies · +16 points

I would also settle for "eaten by Nymeria" as an end for Littlefinger.

10 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup! · 0 replies · +9 points

Like, I feel like he is right in a general way about that first point, but it seemed to me that he grossly misread Balk -- I read it as "men who do not fit the conventional image of masculinity and are wrongheaded enough to believe that they need to compensate for that gravitate to David Foster Wallace because they mistakenly believe that he will lend them some socially-approved masculine cred and consequently get into deeply ridiculous dick-swinging business about him."

Also, I know someone who is friends with Freddie, and that mutual acquaintance of ours, while hardly the worst person in the world, did at one point tell me that feminism just needed to accept that it was natural for men to be attracted to thin, blonde women. Of course, it's not fair to judge someone by the company they keep. Cough.

10 years ago @ The Toast - Things Women In Litera... · 0 replies · +31 points

People in Shakespeare frequently die of double casting.

10 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup! · 0 replies · +3 points

Dead Again is funny, because Thompson is doing basically just like, Basic Standard American, whereas Branagh is doing a sort of old-fashioned California accent you don't hear very often -- I associate it with film noir extras and my father when he gets really ticked off -- which would have been more appropriate on Thompson's black-and-white character.

Also, that movie is the most enjoyable movie ever made.

10 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup! · 0 replies · +3 points

I really enjoyed the minority religions roundtable. It did bring this back into my mind: the Ottoman parliament discussing whether America was biased against Muslims in particular or just polygyny in general.

11 years ago @ The Toast - How To Get Rid Of Clut... · 2 replies · +40 points

Get rid of all your clothes that don't spark joy? It is winter in New York and I have to go to work; those two facts necessitate a lot of clothes that do not and could never spark joy in my Californian heart.

11 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup · 0 replies · +2 points

Thank you, so, so much.

11 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup · 1 reply · +4 points

Also, I believe that the son she had who survived, Sean MacBride, founded Amnesty International?

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