Tina Fey

REVIEW: ‘Admission’ Just Isn’t Princeton Material

I didn’t exactly have an ideal pick and choose of films to review this week.  After watching a few trailers, I decided I’ve never been attracted enough by the Beat Generation to see On The Road.  Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers was drawing me in, mainly because Vice is a webzine I visit frequently and they seem to have some promotional pact going on with the amount of coverage they are giving this film; this might be financial, might not:

Chef Gordon Ramsay

Because Cooking is for Sissies

Out of all of the gloom from last weekend’s Newtown horror and its outraged aftermath (it got to a point where I couldn’t bear to log on to Facebook for the wrathful posts and communal lamenting), one joyous piece of news emerged from toymaker Hasbro: following thirteen-year-old McKenna Pope’s petition of over forty thousand signatures, Easy-Bake Ovens will now be offered in gender-neutral colors.

That intro might seem flip, but in fact this turn of events is particularly significant for me: I have a vivid, upsetting memory of sitting on Santa’s lap over forty years ago at Macys in New York and asking for an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas.  My parents gasped.  The other kids waiting in line giggled.  And Santa himself told me that it was an inappropriate toy for a boy to ask for.

Santa. Himself. Said. That.

My gift wish was immediately altered by my parents, probably to something Santa himself suggested—he was no doubt keen to get the budding homo off his lap.  I was scolded afterwards—how could I ask for that when I had been “expressly told” that was not what I wanted because it wasn’t for boys?  But it was what I wanted, and I was sure Santa himself would understand if I made a last-minute plea while sitting on his lap.  My desperate bid for justice from the patron saint of children had been rebuked because, well, I was just weird and not like normal boys.

So Sue Me, Seema

This will no doubt be the most post-modern ‘meta’ post I’ve ever written.  This is a comment to a comment left on Thursday by Seema Kalia, whose trials and tribulations I commented on in an earlier post.  The Daily Beast has also commented on this combustion of comments with two words: “No comment.”  This post itself will no doubt draw further comment, perhaps even some fire from Seema in the form of a frivolous lawsuit.

I should sue myself for not only having posted this image in an earlier story, but having Photoshopped it. However, I’m in America, snuggled under a blanket called the First Amendment, unlike John Galliano, who is facing prosecution in France for expressing himself.

Why frivolous?  Because the basis of Seema’s complaint against me, as well as The Daily Beast, is defamation, which as any TV legal drama will tell you is extremely difficult to prove in this country.  However, despite having a Juris Doctor degree that should teach her better, or perhaps because of it, Seema has limitless resources and seems to be keen to use them to tidy up her image.

As the old ad campaign goes, there are some things money cannot buy.

Eat The Rich

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

The other day I received a highly unusual email from the alumni association of my alma mater, Trinity School in New York City:

Dear Alumni,

You may have read or heard about an article which appears on The Daily Beast as well as allegations which have been posted on a variety of social networking websites by a Trinity parent. We regret any confusion or discomfort these postings may have caused you. The School’s responsibility to maintain the privacy of individuals and the confidentiality which must surround our conversations with students and families, even now, precludes our giving you a full account of this matter. That said, we assure you that Trinity has acted appropriately in every respect and that any and all allegations and insinuations being made concerning Trinity’s trustees, the School’s endowment and finances, and our personnel are, each and every one, entirely baseless and utterly false.

Either Seema Kalia comes up with some hard evidence to back up her charges against Trinity, or she will end up another New York joke, like Leona Helmsley.

Of course, I dashed to the article in The Daily Beast, a site I read fairly religiously, normally with the hope of catching out my evil twin Andrew Sullivan on some silliness, but his personal daily beast seems to have been tamed since he merged his blog with that site.