For the Good of Society
As people who use the English language and blogging platforms, we might just know what’s Good for Society. We shall give you tips, tricks, hacks, psychological complexes that are surprisingly affective, whatever we need to do to make the world a better place.
Today Minnesota, The Tangential’s home base, is poised to legalize gay marriage. That’s a dramatic, very welcome, and long overdue change—but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ways in which the public and private faces of romantic relationships are changing, in a good way. As Katie’s pointed out, many defenders of “traditional” marriage conveniently ignore the fact that marriage wasn’t invented so that Ozzie and Harriet could save on their taxes. The legal, social, and emotional implications of marriage...
In this installment of KYFH, we’re going to shed some light on the true history of a pretty controversial subject: holy matrimony. OK, so, about eleventy billion years ago, God said unto Adam and Eve: “Guys! I just invented marriage; you should try it! I mean I haven’t dabbled myself, what with being the non-corporeal genderless omnipotent creator of heaven and earth, who leads you from temptation and delivers you from evil and all that, but seriously, you should try it! Adam, do you? Eve,...
For individuals in this era, nothing is more interesting, and nothing is more authentically representative of self, than the things you simply don’t do. What you say you don’t do: “I don’t have a Facebook account.” Translation: “I am an invisible Facebook creeper who spends 11 minutes of each hour refreshing Twitter. Yesterday I pretended I’d never heard of the show How I Met Your Mother even though I watched half a season on a plane on my way to my uncle’s funeral—even though there...
10. You couldn’t do any better. Line of argument: If you, critic, could make a better play/movie/book/record, you would. Since you have not made a better version of this thing you’re reviewing, you are unfounded in saying that it could possibly be better. Response: Am I not entitled to say whether or not I like a flavor of ice cream, and give reasons for that opinion, unless I go home and make a better one? 9. You don’t appreciate how much work this takes. Line of argument: You think...
Crankle - When the back of your ankles sting from sitting hard on the edge of the coffee table while you’re couched and watching Netflix. Known cure: Pillow under the feet, or lay down on the couch and accidentally fall asleep. Narcoltoe – When only your left pinky toe falls asleep while driving for more than three hours. Known cure: None. No amount of shifting in the driver’s seat or adjusting your leg will prevent this. The Probably Not a Brain Tumor – The week-long...
I have read all the articles and I have these requests: • Stop talking about how my generation is pathetic because some of us live at home after college. The economy crashed because generations before us were greedy and irresponsible with money, not because we spent too much time as teenagers watching Internet porn. (Also, some millennials live at home after college because boomer parents are so fucking rich that kids don’t have any incentive to move into crappy apartments with 5 roommates when they can...
After a stint in Santa Fe, the exhibit More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness has just opened at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The show’s theme is the way that contemporary artists play with perceptions of reality, and the pieces selected by curator Elizabeth Armstrong suggest that the pliability of truth has become a central theme of contemporary life in part because it’s an unescapable feature of the past decade’s seemingly unending war. “Truthiness,” the word that inspired the show’s title, was coined by Stephen...
When predicting advances in transportation technology, sci-fi writers always overshoot the mark. We were supposed to have flying cars, for example, decades ago, and a lot of 20th century sci-fi writers had people living on Mars right about now and living to see the invention of faster-than-light travel. Transporter beams? Child’s play. And yet, no one managed to think up an iPhone. Parts of it, sure. Arthur C. Clarke famously predicted the use of communications satellites, and in 2001, Heywood Floyd talks with his daughter (played...
One thing I’ve noticed happening slowly over the past few years is an increasing anger around any stories where people perceive someone is writing about something that they have not themselves experienced. This pertains of course to white male authors writing as black females but also just to people writing about a type of drug they’ve never taken. The former causes indignation and the latter annoyance. “What do they know about being a woman?” vs. “What do they know about taking Xanax?” At first this kind of...
For those who haven’t seen it I won’t give away the ending of the second season of Girls, but I’ll say that it ends with a grand, cinematic gesture by someone who’s trying to make a relationship work. It was all too familiar—I haven’t done that, but I’ve made grand gestures. Running through the rain, handwriting 20-page letters, creating elaborate art projects. Universally, the reaction I got was never anything near the reaction the character gets on Girls. The reaction I tended to get was more like this....
To have no willpower is to say to yourself, “Self, don’t do that thing I know you’re thinking about doing.” And then yourself goes, “Shutevz, you’re not my mom! Because if you were then I’d be my own mom, and that’d be weird!” and then goes and does that thing anyway. To have no willpower is to face almost constant defeat, every moment of every day, because on some level you’re probably doing something you told yourself not to do. Literally. Every. Moment. To have...
I feel like “lying about getting raped” is about as popular of a TV drama catalyst as “accidental pregnancy leading to quirky romance in universe where abortion does not exist” – a la Juno, Knocked Up. Both seem to be go-to ways to move characters around like interesting chess pieces, rather than actually constructive or realistic plot lines. In fact, I’d argue that the former is incredibly destructive. And I don’t think it’s even an argument really, just something someone should point out. So here’s how...
My Dream Date with Benedict Cumberbatch
May 24, 2013
Linguistic Reasons Why Pronouncing GIF with a Hard G is Just Fine
May 23, 2013
The Worst Harry Potter Book Covers From Around the World
May 22, 2013
Ten Easy Ways to Make Your Life More Like a Movie Trailer
May 21, 2013
Ten Kinds of Book People It’s Impossible to Have a Conversation With
May 20, 2013
