Emily Gordon writes:
Lately I’ve been waging an inner war against millennial modifiers. Is it Gen Y’s fault (let’s blame them!), or the fault of us ad-sandblasted, dichotomy-spurning, latchkey-clutching Xers, that everything is “kinda” and “basically” now? I often used these qualifiers myself before I started noticing how hollow and cynical they sound. I’m objecting to this: “pretty awesome” and “kinda genius” and “sort of hilarious” and “basically the best thing ever.”
It takes character, and sometimes bravery–a Franzen-style commitment to loving rather then insta-liking–to declare a person or a thing actually good or smart or funny. What’s the point of declaring your devotion to something, or admiration for someone, if you can pre-take it back just in case someone else thinks your choice is lame? It’s simultaneously hyperbolic (which, as an enthusiast, I’m fine with), disingenuous (danger!), negating (hipster disaffection masking vague woundedness), and oxymoronic (and how is that a held belief?).
Although it’s already been replaced by Dicking Around, I’m still a proud adherent of the New Sincerity. Will you join me in putting on the sweet high lonesome sound of The Secret Sisters and wearing your heart on your (corduroy) sleeve instead of hiding it in an equivocating, halfhearted irony bucket?
Related: More banned words and phrases.

Emily Gordon writes:
While ambling around looking for photos of Jon Stewart and Laura Kightlinger together after hearing her be witty (and briefly mention having dated Stewart) on the Marc Maron podcast recently, I happened on this Moment magazine profile of Stewart by Jeremy Gillick and Nonna Gorilovskaya. Read it! It’s smart and thorough, and explores, among other things, Stewart’s Jewishness and relationship to Israel and Jewish history and politics. Here’s a graf I appreciated, followed by one that I know friend-of-Emdashes Ben Bass will either have already noted on his blog or soon will:

After waiting to hear some “constructive criticism” of Israeli policies that “may not be in the best interest of the world,” Stewart rolled clips of silence and went for the kill: “Oh! I forgot! You can’t say anything remotely critical of Israel and still get elected president! Which is funny, because you know where you can criticize Israel? Israel!”

Although the topic doesn’t come up often, it’s also evident where Stewart stands on intermarriage. In 2000, he married Tracey McShane, a veterinary technician and a Catholic. Stewart, who does The New York Times crossword puzzle daily, popped the question with a puzzle of his own. The paper’s “Puzzle Master,” Will Shortz, found Stewart a puzzle creator for the occasion.

I also liked this, toward the end:

Despite his effort to be a fair and balanced mocker, Stewart’s reputation as the “most trusted man in America” should be taken with a grain of salt. Such stature is not unusual for a comedian, says Nicholas Lemann, the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. “Johnny Carson in his heyday, you could make that statement about.” Lemann warns against generalizing about how far that trust spreads beyond Stewart’s core audience. “I think that’s a kind of a blue-state perspective and youth perspective. To many of my cousins in Louisiana, Rush Limbaugh is the most trusted man in America.”

Anyway, as I said, read it all!

I was rereading some of Charles Taylor’s beautifully crafted, sometimes contentious reviews on Salon (I didn’t like Million Dollar Baby either), and the web wonderland led me to this 2006 interview with Taylor (or Charley, as I may call him because we’re friends) in Slant magazine. He talked about his career at Salon and elsewhere, the state of film criticism and media outlets (a phrase I already know will make him wince–sorry about that) generally, and more. Here’s a choice response, among many:

JK [Jeremiah Kipp]: You’ve frequently cited Pauline Kael as a major influence.
CT [Charles Taylor]: I got a paperback copy of “Deeper Into Movies” by Pauline Kael when I was in eighth grade. That was a major influence. I still think she’s the best film critic that is ever going to be. She was the best influence and the biggest influence. It was about trusting your instincts, which always the line about her. This is what I loved. This is why all of the “I Was a Former Paulette” articles I’ve read are all, to a one, simply wrong on the facts. I had countless disagreements with her, even arguments. I was never excommunicated. Some of the critics she liked were people she didn’t agree with. She wanted people to be honest. Art should be pleasure, not work. You have to bring your life experience to it, your experience of the other arts to it, you have to be well read, and no one should tell you what you have to like or what you should be interested in. The job of the critic is to help you formulate your own thoughts. Articulate them. Not to tell you what to think, but to get you to think. There was a freedom in her.

Read the whole interview, and the comments, too.

Emily Gordon writes:
My friend Meg (famed Short Fat Dictator blogger and recent transcendent vacation host) just alerted me to a distressing possibility: that Seaon 5 of Mad Men might be in danger. This isn’t new news, but it’s newly distressing to me. People are having tedious arguments about contracts and budgets in some Aeron-riddled, humorless rooms, and that means we might not get to see Don Draper wrestle ever more painfully with the sixties and his multiple superego-id hybrids. Worse, we might be deprived of all those jackets and ashtrays!
Hollywood, it’s time to reorder your mangled priorities and make it happen. Give the man what he wants, even if it’s more episodes featuring his son Marten’s peculiar character Glen. Although if Marten’s brother Arlo could appear on the show as a mysterious diminutive fashion maven, perhaps in a Sally Draper dream sequence, we might all get what we want.

Emily Gordon writes:
I just discovered The Apple and the Egg, a handsome blog about design and illustration for children’s books. The entry linked here is about one of the great heroic tales of our age (or, in my case, slightly before my age), Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. Although I’m loath to denounce anyone these days, especially hardworking illustrators and anyone to do with children’s books, I can’t support the terrible decision to replace Tomi Ungerer’s bold, winning, exuberant drawings. You’ll have to turn to Powell’s and eBay to buy the original, and it’ll be yellowed and will possibly have been dropped in the bathtub once or twice. But it’s worth it! For now, The Apple and the Egg will give you the quick fix you need.
Unrelated, and entirely three-dimensional (or even four, since it’s about time): Colin Quinn’s advice for comics on Broadway.