This is a bit outside my usual wheelhouse, but I wrote an article about how TV ratings are measured in this age of screen fragmentation for Ars Technica. Check it out if you think that sounds interesting.

•  9 December 2010  •  1 note

“Following the 17th century the town became famous for its manufactories of kontusz belts, some of the most expensive and luxurious pieces of garment of the szlachta. Because of the popularity of the belts made in Slutsk, all the belts worn over the żupan were often called the Belts of Slutsk, despite of their real place of origin.”

Really need one of these. (From the Wikipedia page on the town of Slutsk.)

Almost feel like I should rename this blog “Belts of Slutsk.”

•  7 December 2010

I know it was tough for some of you guys to not have access to markslutsky.com for nearly 24 hours. It was hard for us too. Welcome back. And happy Chanukkah.

•  6 December 2010  •  1 note

celebraterickysargulesh:

This amazing story is called “What I Think It Would Be Like to Be Friends With Harry Potter” and it’s by the terrific Montreal carpenter and poet Mark Jim Slutsky. It gave me chills!:

A few years ago, on a fall afternoon sometime in the early ‘00s, I found myself listlessly poking through the…

I am so proud to be part of this year’s first-ever Harry Potter Week.

•  1 December 2010  •  5 notes

oldhollywood:

via Hour of the Wolf (1968, dir. Ingmar Bergman)

“Sometimes I probably do mourn the fact that I no longer make films…Most of all I miss working with (cinematographer) Sven Nykvist, perhaps because we are both utterly captivated by the problems of light: the gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, living, dead, clear, misty, hot, violent, bare, sudden, dark, springlike, falling, straight, slanting, sensual, subdued, limited, poisonous, calming, pale light. Light.”

-Ingmar Bergman, in his autobiography The Magic Lantern (1989)

•  1 December 2010  •  310 notes

I say this with no false modesty—that I feel I have done no really significant work, whatsoever, in any medium. I feel that unequivocally. I feel that what I have done so far in my life is sort of the ballast that is waiting to be uplifted by two or three really fine works that may hopefully come. We’ve been sitting and talking about Faulkner, say, and Updike and Bergman—I mean, I obviously can’t talk about myself in the same way at all. I feel that what I’ve done so far is the … the bed of lettuce the hamburger must rest on. I feel that if I could do, in the rest of my life, two or three really fine works—perhaps make a terrific film or write a fine play or something—then everything prior to that point would be interesting as developmental works. I feel that’s the status of my works—they’re a setting waiting for a jewel. But there’s no jewel there at the moment. 

I’m inclined to disagree. Woody Allen is 75 today. Read the 1985 interview with Michiko Kakutani that quote comes from, or this fascinating and extensive overview of his pre-movie comedy and writing career.

•  1 December 2010

Jungen: Once again, there is a debate in Jewish newspapers about whether or not you are an anti-Semite. Does this hurt you?

Godard: That’s nonsense! What does ‘anti-Semite’ mean? All peoples of the Mediterranean were Semites. So anti-Semite means anti-Mediterranean. The expression was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and WWII. It is inexact and means nothing.

My respect for JLG kind of withered and died when I read that (and it gets worse). I still love (a lot of) his films, but that smirky, evasive non-answer is the equivalent of saying “How can I be a misogynist when I love my mother?” It really depresses me.

•  16 November 2010  •  1 note

Sometimes I feel like Facebook is trying to lure me into the afterlife.

•  16 November 2010

•  4 November 2010

“Well, we’re all monsters, in one way or another, aren’t we? We all have a part of us whether it’s overeating, or drug addiction, or hoarding – that can be monstrous. And there’s always a lot of shame attached to that side of us, the side we want to keep hidden. I sure wanted to keep who I was hidden for a long time. But I think people like monsters because we’re putting it out there – I mean, I am literally out howling at the moon, and I think that’s a pretty relatable kind of self-empowerment. Boy, I just really hope we can get this reunion going. The 3D thing is really exciting to me, and some of the stuff we could do with social networking. It’s an exciting time. For me. For monsters. For everyone.”

— Seth W. Owen interviews The Wolfman at Human Minute.

•  29 October 2010