WWWednesday: June 19, 2019

Cons:

Punakha Suspension Bridge, image from Atlas Obscura

Terry and I will be attending ReaderCon in Boston in two weeks. Here are some of the people I look forward to seeing (some are deceased and I don’t expect to actually see them).

Books and Writing:

You write a nonfiction book, and part of your premise is based on your faulty understanding of an old legal term. This is discovered shortly before your book is released. What do you do? In the case of Naomi Wolf’s Outrage: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalization of Love, what Wolf wants and what her publisher wants is very different. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt wants the release date delayed while the content is corrected. Wolf wants the book released and states she’s acknowledged the mistake publicly.

The Washington Post takes this example and an embarrassing gaffe from journalist Cokie Roberts to talk about why historians are so important. It turns out that no, looking on the internet for a while about something doesn’t make you an historical expert.

Salman Rushdie discusses Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. This article may be behind a semi-permeable paywall.

Wow, Earnest Hemingway admitted he wasn’t good at something. I’m stunned. The letter to his dad recently sold at auction for $25,000, and in it, Hemingway complains that he isn’t better at bullfighting. The 1924 version of a humblebrag, I’m thinking.

I was reading this, considering it for the column, and I was just about to roll my eyes and think, “‘Mankind this, he that’ what stale white bread this is,” when I got to Item 9, “The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience.” So here’s the article. This is Screencraft’s selection of screenwriting tips from Rod Serling. (Thanks to File 770.)

Book fans in Britain created a new Tube map, replacing place names with the names of novels set in those areas. I only wish this video were a bit longer!

I didn’t expect this article to be about writing… but it is. And it’s about humility and resilience.

The Verge’s list of recommended reads contains quite a few books about the moon in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

Reneval Bridge, Image from Atlas Obscura

Internet:

This is old but it popped up on Twitter this week. Do not give accurate answers to the online security questions, because those answers might be readily available on social media now. The article also recommends password manager application.

TV and Movies:

Warning, NSFW, language. I didn’t know what “deepfake” was, but a friend sent me this as an example. In it, Jon Snow apologizes for Season Eight of GoT.

Inspired by Child’s Play, the folks at IO9 take a look at horror franchise remakes.

USA Today has only one question about the new Men in Black; International; where’s Will Smith? (Be aware, this site drowns you in ads.)

If you guessed that Dark Phoenix hasn’t done well at the box office, you are correct. (Men in Black International didn’t do that well either.) This Forbes article examines some of the possible reasons Dark Phoenix didn’t prevail. (It doesn’t help that in the poster image, Jean Grey looks like she’s about to say, “Razzle, Rozzle, Drozzle, Drone, Time for this one to come home.”)

Earth:

Enjoy this New Hampshire video of a bald eagle swimming to shore. The bird doesn’t seem as if it’s enjoying itself, but it makes it.

Atlas Obscura asked readers to provide photos of their favorite bridges. Here they are, the beautiful, the inspiring, and the suspenseful (pun intended). One of my favorites, the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado is on here. Today’s images are from this article. All photographers are credited in the article.