“No, there’s very little connection between answering questions on the Guardian blog and having sex.” — Writer Alain de Botton during a Q&A we just hosted about sex.
Why is there only men selected at the Cannes movie festival?
An open letter by the feminist collective La Barbe, signed by more than a thousand actors:
Is it not enough for women to aspire to be mistress of ceremonies one day, on the festival’s opening night? Bérénice Béjo in 2012, Mélanie Laurent in 2011, Kristin Scott-Thomas in 2010: women are perfect hostesses, who are perfectly happy with a simple, “you have beautiful eyes, you know”, or other flattering compliments. They become disturbing icons who you manage to leave where they belong: on display on the festival posters. This year, we celebrate Marilyn Monroe, in 2011 it was Juliette Binoche, in 2009 Monica Vitti, and in 1989 the republican Marianne . In 1976, the naked buttocks of a woman were honoured. What could our muses complain about? They are celebrated for their essential qualities: beauty, grace, lightness … Let us preserve them from the torments of bossing around a film crew, let us spare them the painful confrontation with the technical puzzles of a film set. Why allow them to bore themselves in the festival steering committee, where important decisions are made, where only male presidents have ruled since its creation? Let us go on only giving men the heavy load of onerous duties. Let us be even better than Hollywood, where men make up 77% of Oscar academy voters.
Here’s rule #2:
You’re in full view on a public forum, making Twitter the perfect venue to show everyone your intellectual bravery by using every instrument at your disposal to attack your antagonist. Well, maybe not racism as that’s quite frowned on. But misogyny? That is very much on the table. When [food critic] Coren told [Huff Po journalist] Vincent “go fuck yourself you barren old hag”, this was obviously a thoroughly clever reductio ad absurdum of her temerity in saying she wasn’t interested in reading about Coren’s own spawn endlessly. Even if it did look a lot like the plain rank sexism of implying that a woman’s opinion was worthless if she wasn’t pretty, young and fertile. Handily, it also showed that Coren was not, in fact, one step up from a Mumsnet blogpost, but several stages down, and rolling around with the slime in the nappy bin.
To read the other rules, go here
Cher: mastery of subtlety.
Telling it as it is.
(Source: vitruviuss, via nomoretexasgovernorsforpresident)
“So imagine my horror on seeing a poster the other day for American Pie: The Reunion, a film in which the original cast reconvene after 13 years, presumably now in their 30s and dealing with kids and mortgages and paunches and OH SOD EVERYTHING. It’s a piece of nostalgia cashing in on something I was too old for first time around. That’s how you know you’re really getting old. That and the way your eyebrow hair goes all wiry and starts sprouting away from your face like its afraid of something, which to be fair it probably is, considering how knackered you look.” —
Insider tells why Anonymous ‘might well be the most powerful organization on Earth’
Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, sits atop a hillside in an undisclosed location in Canada, watching a reporter and photographer make their way along a narrow path to join him, away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.
It’s been a few weeks of encrypted emails back and forth, working out the security protocol to follow for interviewing Doyon, one of the brains behind Anonymous, now a fugitive from the FBI.
Q: As strictly an online army of hackers, how powerful is Anonymous?
A: Anonymous is kind of like the big buff kid in school who had really bad self-esteem then all of a sudden one day he punched someone in the face and went, “Holy s— I’m really strong!” Scientology (one of Anonymous’s first targets) was the punch in the face where Anonymous began to realize how incredibly powerful they are. There’s a really good argument at this point that we might well be the most powerful organization on Earth. The entire world right now is run by information. Our entire world is being controlled and operated by tiny invisible 1s and 0s that are flashing through the air and flashing through the wires around us. So if that’s what controls our world, ask yourself who controls the 1s and the 0s? It’s the geeks and computer hackers of the world.
Full Q&A
Wishful thinking on their part?
I’ll declare my own interest right here at the start and admit that, like the vast majority of people, I find youthful looks appealing. My husband, whom I have been with since he was 23, hits 40 this year and still often gets ID’d when he buys alcohol. But there’s a big difference between saying that youthfulness is sexually attractive and saying that babyhood is. Under the headline “Is This the Sexiest Ever Face?”, a headshot of the pretty model Karlie Kloss (19 years old – modelling since the age of 13) was analysed feature by feature with reference to a book by Robin Dunbar, called The Science of Love and Betrayal. Alongside the usual do-this-or-you’ll-die-a-spinster must-haves like fine brows and a delicate jaw, the magazine said: “For maximum sex appeal, your eyes should be small and be positioned halfway down your face (like a baby’s – don’t ask) as a way of indicating youth and fertility. Think Kate Moss, whose low-set eyes sit on a par with the tips of her ears.” A few flicks on, a five-age beauty feature entitled “Oh, Baby!” imparts the following wisdom (under a photo of the model-of-the-moment, Lindsey Wixson, who is 18, looks closer to eight and began modelling at 15): “Spring’s most flattering beauty trends are inspired by the first flushes of youth – think virgin hair, cherubic cheeks and plump, peachy skin”.
Illustration: David Foldvari
Vidal Sassoon and the politics of hair
At the age of 17, Vidal Sassoon was active in anti-fascist work in his local East End of London. Working against the blackshirt thugs who would march through his neighbourhood, the young Sassoon was given a bruise or two. Talking about his activities on Desert Island Discs, he said: “After the Holocaust, no one was going to put up with it. ‘Never again’ was the theme. Never again.” He also went on to fight in the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, prompting a Daily Telegraph writer to call him an “anti-fascist warrior-hairdresser”.
Photograph: Ronald Dumont/Getty Images
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“By keeping his position “personal”, Obama escapes attaching himself to particular language in legislation – or to any legislation at all, really.” — Ana Marie Cox on Barack Obama’s personal evolution on same-sex marriage
In praise of … Dustin Hoffman
Here is the paradox: Dustin Hoffman makes his name playing anti-heroes (think Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, or David Sumner in Straw Dogs), yet this week’s reports that he saved a jogger’s life are immediately convincing. The story goes that the Marathon Man star was walking in Hyde Park last month when a jogger collapsed with heart problems. Hoffman called an ambulance and waited with the stricken 27-year-old until paramedics came and he was out of immediate danger. All this chimes with the way Hoffman plays his parts: they’re generally a bit scrappy and more accustomed to losing than winning. But it’s also the actor himself: a Democrat activist, and willing to slog it out on stage as well as appear in front of the camera. Yet despite his credentials as a Serious Actor, he is not naturally pompous: again, that detail about the paramedics mistakenly whisking away his iPod rings true. And have we mentioned Meet the Fockers?
Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
Dan Wasserman, editorial cartoonist for The Boston Globe, remembers children’s author Maurice Sendak.
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.” — Maurice Sendak (via nedhepburn)
(via thehairpin)