Friday, February 16, 2007

Recommended Reading & Viewing

Jonathan Lethem's essay "The Ecstasy of Influence"; via Cory Doctorow, who's right -- you need to read this one straight through to the end. I know that everyone's talking about this one, but the reason they are is because it's great. Read it.
• I've plugged Fred Clark before, but he's done some good posting recently; I particularly recommend his post on theology and the prisoner's dilemma, and his review of another review of the Left Behind series. (Update: And this amazing post, "Let us Reason Together" too. Damn but FC's on a roll...)
• I've been enjoying this debate between Andrew Sullivan and Sam Harris about religion.
• I didn't like his defensive opening paragraph, but Jonny Thakkar's "Visions of Infinity" -- a close literary reading of Bob Dylan's "Visions of Johanna" -- is wonderful.
• Speaking of Dylan, I think you may need to know the original Dylan video to appreciate this parody by Weird Al Yankovic, but the latter is really awesome. And has palindromes! (via)
• Whereas, to find this video funny, all you need ever have done is called a help desk, or worked at a help desk. Oh, and read a book too, probably.
• This parody of the government's get-ready-for-a-terrorist-attack site (via) is hilarious.

No comments: