davidthompson

A Coincidence, I’m Sure

The chronically captious ladies and other-gendered beings at Everyday Feminism, where everyone is terribly complicated and fascinating, want us to know that people with narcissistic personality disorder are also victims of heteropatriachal capitalist society. And that not being overly keen on the company of pathologically narcissistic people, possibly because of their dishonesties, neediness and obnoxious sense of entitlement, is “ableist,” bigoted and therefore wicked. Apparently, we mustn’t “minimise the experience” of people who are very often unbearable, manipulative, exploitative, emotionally unstable, and indifferent to the wellbeing of anyone but themselves.

Sometimes comment is superfluous.

But Childcare Is So Expensive

BBC Radio 4 veers into Alan Partridge territory: 

Can you ever trust a gorilla with a child?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Friday Ephemera

Magic words. // Assorted dicey moments, illustrated. // Japanese log relocation. It’s a vigorous business. // Vitruvian man action figure. // Voltige, a cautionary tale. // At last, Star Trek: The Next Generation swimsuits. // We’ll be seeing more of this, I think. // Not thinking things through, I fear. // Animations of note. // American shopping malls circa 1989. // This. // That. // The other. // Post-It notes and beer. // Mechanical Pong. // “The stench started masking the smell of their popular hickory-smoked ham.” (h/t, Ace) // Yes, apparently, it does happen. // Made of sand. // Done with suction. Crime-fighting applications under consideration. // Something is licking his tent. // This is one of these. // And finally, via Damian, some cat comradeship.

Cargo Culture, Reheated

Or, You’ll Get What You’re Given And Like It, Bitches™.

For readers with an interest in really bad art and its coercive public funding, this post and subsequent discussion over at Artblog, which some of you may have missed, offers quite a lot to chew on. Because I’m vain and shallow, I’ll quote myself:

The political uniformity and extraordinary conceits of our own publicly-funded arts establishment have entertained us many, many times. As when the writer Hanif Kureishi told Guardian readers that culture, as represented by him, is “a form of dissent,” while the paper’s theatre critic Michael Billington claimed that a reduction of taxpayer subsidy for loss-making plays is nothing less than “suppression” of that “dissent.” Likewise, when the playwright Jonathan Holmes claimed that he and his peers are “speaking truth to power” – I kid you not – and insisted, based on nothing, that “the sole genuine reason for cuts is censorship of some form” and “the only governments to systematically attack the arts have been the ones that also attacked democracy.”

You see, the suggestion that artists might consider earning a living, rather than leeching at the taxpayer’s teat, is apparently indistinguishable from fascist brutality and the end of civilisation. Though when the status quo in London’s dramatic circles is overwhelmingly leftwing, and when publicly subsidised art and theatre tend to favour parties that favour further public subsidy for art and theatre, what “dissent” actually means is somewhat unclear. And reluctant taxpayers please take note: Despite all the years of providing hand-outs, you’re now the oppressor.

The whole thing, as they say.