Round-Up! 5/4-ish to Right Now!
by Brian Michael Foote
Commons!
I missed you guys. Last week was nuts. First off – Commons 1.2 is out! Actually, now we’re at 1.2.1 so we’re off and running. Then there was Obama versus the Donald, then Obama versus Osama Bin Laden (Why even bother with links for those right?) Then CUNY, or rather someone at CUNY, decided that Tony Kushner is an anti-Semite and everyone dropped their wineglasses. Tony Picciano @APicciano has been on the Kushner beat and it looks like everything’s been smoothed out. Eeesh though right? I foresee some very awkward dinner parties out in Suffolk county this summer.
Here on the blogs we had a ton happening. Jonathan Cope @JCope1 over at the always excellent Information Literacy Thinking Group blog found a great CBC series with Charles Taylor. If you haven’t read Taylor before clear a little time and check out this series. His work is insightful and I find myself coming back to him again and again. So, yeah, if you trust the Footenotes guy to recommend philosophers…go on…
Speaking of philosophers, Amanda Favia @Afavia has returned to Modal Manda and the Commons after a writing break. Welcome back! Her return post clearly put her on the side of the Boss in the CUNY Commons great “Mannfred Mann’s Earth Band versus Bruce Springsteen – Who Did it Better Face Off” over at Kamili Posey’s @kposey twinkamili. 9 comments and counting and no one’s really taken a side yet. We’ve just kinda pushed the novelty of it all around our plate. If I didn’t make it totally clear – I gotta give it to Mannfred Mann. Sorry Bruce. Seriously people – this is important.
Reason 5 why I love the CUNY Academic Commons – we have a ton of smart, super sharp people hanging around. Wells Fargo thought they could slip a cute picture of a happy guy and his granddaughter having a friendly game of chess past us. Fraud! Long time Commons blogger, francophone extraordinaire, and chess master Tim Wilson totally busted Wells Fargo. I love stuff like this. January is closer than you think Tim @twilson, this is already on the best of the blogs for 2011. You listening @helldriver?
Erika Iverson @eiverson found a gem that got buried in all of the big news last week. We haven’t heard much about it lately but the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder have been working at quietly dismantling Clinton’s DOMA. Thanks for pulling these news stories together Erika!
Susan Thomas @susanthomas also made it back to the Commons after a break. Welcome back to the blogs! She shared her interests in the itinerant and those who wander. It’s a lovely post and more than a few here can relate to playing the Smiths over and over.
Looking forward to next week everyone!
I’m glad Shaft made it on the list twice, though. Totally makes up for his earlier slip-up.
(Funny, I just noticed Bill Wall, in the quote I pasted, actually mixes things up too: “light square to the right, dark square to the left of the player” is correct, not incorrect!)
Yeah, keep an eye out and you’re sure to at least catch a board that’s set up sideways (turned 90 degrees, with a black square to the far right). It happens a LOT in movies, for example:
“The biggest mistake in the movies, is the board being set up wrong (light square to the right, dark square to the left of the player) There is a 50-50 chance they get it right. Some movies that have the board set up wrong include: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Austin Powers II (1999, The Avengers (1998), Black and White (1999), Checkmate (2003), Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Golden Boy (1939), Justice (1999), Life As a House (2001), Pennies From Heaven (1936), Shaft (2000), and The Seventh Seal (1957), The Ghost Ship (1943), Magnificent Doll (1946), Patrie (1946), The Lady From Shanghai (1948), Merry Andrew (1958), What’s New, Pussycat (1965), Time After Time (1979), The History of the World Part I (1981), Chaindance (1990), Dead Beat (1994), The Takeover (1995), Justice (1999), and Shaft (2000), The Actors (2003), Time After Time (1979), Charlie Chan in the Chinese Cat (1944), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and Checkmating (2004).”
[http://www.chessville.com/billwall/ChessInMovies.htm]
In a similar spirit to the chessboard debacle is http://www.psdisasters.com/
Still, spotting that chess blunder is something beyond poor photoshopping. Now I’m going to be on the lookout for weird things like that.
(I assured him he should be…)
Glad you liked the post! I linked it in a Facebook update and one of my older brother’s friends commented: “As a Wachovia (now Wells Fargo) customer I am a little upset by this.” That made me happy.