an empty ship

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/jan/25/mckellen-stewart-godot-broadway
"Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart to reprise Godot roles on Broadway"

Gaaah.  I would give limbs I haven't even grown yet to see this.  Waiting for Godot has just become my new obsession, and with that casting--!

Thanks to Wheelrider's post, I went off on a tangent and found a couple links that were of amusement and interest to me, and hopefully to some of you.

Fantasy author Jim C. Hines took it upon himself to reproduce some of the anatomically questionable, physically torturous, and notably objectifying poses of female characters on a selection of sci-fi/fantasy book covers.  Except it's him instead of a non-existent woman of unlikely proportions:  "Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers)"

To address the righteous outcry of those pointing out that women aren't the only victims of objectification, Hines then tackled some men on book covers, concluding (aptly, I think) that yes, men are objectified, but not in the same way and not to the same extent: "Posing Like a Man"

It really does my dessicated heart good to see men defending "feminist" notions such as the respective portrayals of women and men in media, and their overt or covert implications.

"Misogyny isn't caused by male horniness."
I like this article because it addresses a few points I have strong opinions on myself.
I especially liked the author's inclusion of the Nice Guy trope.  Permit me to go off on a tangent about the Nice Guy that is not quite related to the author's point.  A guy who complains in the hearing of a woman that women don't really want Nice Guys (meaning, of course, himself) has just generalized and made insulting presuppositions about a member of the gender he supposedly wishes to attract; in thus doing, he actually is not coming of as a Nice Guy at all.  I've met a few Nice Guys, and they've been arrogant, condescending jerks.

Re: The True Size of Africa.
A response to that image of Africa with the US, China, about half of Europe, and other localities nestled inside it.
I appreciate the effort to educate people as to the actual relative sizes of places on earth, but I also fear that the way the "True Size of Africa" graphic is presented encourages the reactionary idea that (Caucasian) cartographers draw maps this way because of some subjective and ethnocentric way of weighing the importance of places.
The Mercator projection is the standard for most 2-dimensional maps.  The technique involves greater distortion the closer one moves toward the poles, thus land areas nearer the poles take on an exaggerated size.  Hence, let us be clear that the reason Europe and North America are enlarged on most maps is because they are further from the equator than Africa, which actually intersects it.

Happy Birthday, SWG!  (Or so my LJ homepage tells me today.)

Happy Stabbiversary, Caesar!
No seriously, watch that, it's an awesome musical number from Histeria.
Who remembers Histeria?!  Best show ever.

Ah!  Voici une chose que je peux regarder/écouter pour practiquer ma français?!  *wince*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Reine_Soleil

"Fires in the Mirror." We watched about half of this in a class yesterday.  I found it quite riveting.  People should all watch this.  Anna Deavere Smith is an amazing actor.  She plays characters of sundry genders, races, and creeds here, all to excellent effect.  Woman's like a fricking chameleon.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106916/fullcredits#cast

if you haven't already caught this bit of Hobbity news, there has come to light a particularly noisome little film adaptation from the 1960's.

"We were well into the Hobbit screenplay when The Lord of The Rings came out in paperback editions. Having assumed there was only The Hobbit to contend with, and following Snyder's wish, we had taken some liberties with the story that a few years later would be grounds for burning at the stake."

This makes the Rankin-Bass version look like gold. Actually, I hold that the Rankin-Bass version does have its redeeming qualities. Of which this thing has none at all, unless it be the biggest, baddest crossbow EVER.