brainsplotch

As everyone knows by now, Roe v. Wade was struck down by our ultra-conservative Supreme Court on Friday, defying the will of--if the polls I have seen are accurate--approximately 67 percent of Americans. We are officially living in a minority-rule, ultra-conservative, theocratic, authoritarian hellscape. Democracy in the United States is on life support. This nation is a joke and should deservedly be a laughingstock to the rest of the world. The only way we even begin to get out of this is if the American electorate hits the polls en masse in November and votes the corrupt GOP out. But it's not enough to simply vote, folks on the left have to let the right know that we will no longer tolerate their brazen thuggishness.  If we can't force these authoritarian theocrats out of office and send them scurrying into the rat holes where they belong, they will not stop trying to mold the United States into their own "ideal' society. One in which straight cisgendered white men a...

So it only took me almost four months to get through this book, not because it was bad or difficult to read, but because I was juggling two books at one time (something that never works out well since one almost always supersedes the other one in the "reading hierarchy"). Then, when I was finally able to devote my full "reading attention" to it, I would often put off reading until 10:30 or 11:00 at night and promptly fall asleep after reading about five pages. In the last week, I finally decided to read the book in the afternoon or early evening before I became irretrievably exhausted. So here is a brief blurb I wrote about the book for the library. I thought I'd share it here, too (apologies if the font size does not match the blog--I am copying and pasting it): This is a must-read for anyone interested in the life of Buster Keaton, silent movies, comedy, or the early days of cinema. Film critic Dana Stevens—who is also one of the hosts of the Slate Culture Gab...