Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
A boy willing to love anyone he meets has become a compass guiding me toward the man I’ve always hoped to become. Steven Universe, an emotional inspiration. InToni Morrison’s Song of Solomon—my favorite novel—lived a woman named Pilate Dead. (Morrison makes much of names.) The aunt of protagonist Macon “Milkman” Dead, she is a unique woman: a…
Facebook, which has long relied on other people to provide it with content, is going to start paying for its own stuff, too. Facebook is starting to talk to TV studios and other video producers about licensing shows, with the hope of boosting the social network’s video efforts. The talks, which include discussions for scripted…
Image: CBS CBS All Access’ show has added three new castmembers—all reportedly playing Klingons—to Star Trek: Discovery. This tells us that instead of the traditional rotating cast of Klingons, we’re going to have an ongoing focus on specific members of the Klingon Empire. Deadline reports that Shazad Latif (Penny Dreadful) will be playing Kol, a…
In media can have significant influence on how we perceive each other. The need for non-stereotypical, authentic representation in media has become abundantly clear, and calls not just for “diversity,” but for sensitive non-normative stories spun with authority that actually tell the truth and don’t exploit, have been getting louder. Still, it was hard to envision…
Illustration: Jim Cooke, Screenshot: HBO HBO’s Westworld, the haunting tale of what can happen when cowboy sex robots go awry, spent its first season unwrapping many of the mysteries that so captivated its audience—save, that is, the question that has tormented fans most of all. And that’s apparently exactly how HBO wants it. Several days…
Image: CBS via Trek Core Star Trek: The Original Series has a lot of great episodes, running the gamut from the emotionally devastating (“The City on the Edge of Forever”) to the comedic (“The Trouble With Tribbles”). And yet, for my money, no episode is a better example of everything the Original Series got right…
Image: Deleted scene found on the Roddenberry Vault, CBS Home Entertainment With Star Trek: The Original Series celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, you wouldn’t think there was still more new footage to be found. You’d be wrong, and the experts behind the Star Trek Encyclopedia have spent nine years working to show it to…
NEW YORK (AP) — Jake Tapper’s verbal tug-of-war with Vice President-elect Mike Pence last week illustrated a persistent style the CNN anchor is making his signature, and one that he hopes his colleagues take up, too. Tapper asked Pence eight times about the son of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the incoming administration’s pick as national…
The CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who pressed Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Michael G. Flynn’s role in the transition. Credit Lexey Swall for The New York Times Too often television news, especially on cable, serves as a megaphone for politicians who use it to forward lies and propaganda while so effortlessly ignoring questions they’re supposedly…
In the half millennium since a broke German blacksmith invented movable type, innumerable reformers and politicians have attracted public support through books, pamphlets, and broadsheets. From Martin Luther nailing his theses to a Wittenberg Church, to the federalist papers of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, to Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, these works conveyed…