Thoughts on the arts, society, politics, and various geeky topics.
This is the blog of Janice Dawley. Why is it called “Central Cortex”? Well, the Cortex was the interplanetary equivalent of the internet in Firefly, a show I was totally into back in 2003 when I first created this blog, and I’ve never changed the name since then. Strangely enough, I’ve barely written anything about Firefly here, but I’ve written a LOT about other TV shows and movies, as well as literature, politics, various cultural topics, and my own life.
Tomorrow morning I’m catching a flight to Madison for the 31st WisCon. WisCon may no longer be the only convention focusing on feminist science fiction, but it’s still the mother of them all, and it’s going to be an impressive turnout of authors and fans. The Guests of Honor this year are Kelly Link and Laurie J. Marks, and the convention will once again be hosting the awards...
Entertainment Weekly made a splash lately by featuring a list of “The Sci-Fi 25: The Best Movies and TV from the Past 25 Years.” I thought it was a decent list, despite its inclusion of several weird items like Total Recall and Quantum Leap. No one is ever going to agree on all the items in a list like this, particularly if they are ranked in order of preference. The fact that I...
Today I received a Citi credit card bill with the second late fee in two months. The first late fee was definitely my fault, but I sent the second payment in 4 days before the due date. So I called customer service to complain. The first guy I talked to said there was nothing he could do, because my account “didn’t qualify” for a refund of a late fee. I asked what account DID...
Were the movie and book enough? Hell, no! In the past couple of weeks I watched TWO more screen adaptations of Pride & Prejudice. The first was the five hour BBC miniseries that came out in 1995. The rapturous testimony of various friends as well the general opinion floating around AustenBlog had made it clear to me that in any RottenTomatoes style smackdown, this version would defeat the...
I was just reminded that Alan Tudyk (who played Wash in Firefly) is appearing in a movie coming out this summer that also stars… Matthew Macfadyen of Pride & Prejudice. It’s called Death at a Funeral, and based on this trailer, looks pretty damn funny.
This is turning into a trend: for the second time recently, I’ve been inspired to pick up a classic book after watching an adaptation of it. In this instance, the starting point was the 2005 movie of Pride & Prejudice, directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. Jane Austen has become even more famous and beloved than ever in the past ten years, so I probably...
Earlier this week the appointed time arrived, and Tim Minear’s new TV show Drive premiered. (I previously commented about it here.) Was it any good? Well… The premise is undeniably absurd, not only from a real world perspective, but also in the context of the show itself. Most of the characters don’t seem to have even wondered who the organizers of the race might be, what their...
For those who have missed it, there’s been quite a controversy in the blogosphere lately about the lack of civility on the internet and what ought to be done about it. What sparked the conversation was a post by tech blogger Kathy Sierra about the harassment and death threats she received on several comment threads in mid-March. Pretty much everyone agrees that the threats she received were not...
This is the first in what I think could become a continuing series on graphic design and visual presentation in general. I have a bit of a background in art and worked in desktop publishing for years, so I definitely have opinions about what looks good and what doesn’t. Today’s item arrived in the mail as a political flyer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. I...
This past Sunday I laughed harder than I have in quite a while. It all started with the NY Times news roundup of George Bush’s trip to Latin America. I will quote it in full since it wasn’t an article per se, and the NY Times will “disappear” it from their web site soon. On Bush’s Trip, a Name Unspoken and a Surprising Phrase MÉRIDA, Mexico, March 14 — Try as they might to...