Song: "True Love Waits" by Radiohead

Event: College.  Yes, ALL of college.

"True Love Waits" was the perennial b-side for Radiohead fans.  Performed live for many years, the achingly depressing song of a misspent existence wouldn't be officially released until the I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings EP in 2001.  (Yes, nerds - it was available on various bonus discs in various other countries, but you know the point I'm trying to make)  The song tends to be performed acoustically (as above) and is a much more stripped down number without all of the various production trickeries of Jonny Greenwood that Radiohead has employed since 1995's The Bends.

And when I hear the song, besides noting how heartbreakingly sad and perfect it is, I think of days full of naps, marijuana smoke, bullshit conversations and extensive philosophy readings.  In short, I think of college.

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Today's word of the day is "dread."

via GeekWeek

Dread

1. to fear greatly; be in extreme apprehension of
2. to be reluctant to do, meet, or experience
3. Archaic. to hold in respectful awe.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

- Alexis de Tocqueville

Today's word of the day is "repose."

Via Picture is Unrelated

Repose

1. the state of reposing or being at rest; rest; sleep.
2. peace; tranquillity; calm.
3. dignified calmness, as of manner; composure.
4. absence of movement, animation, etc.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

- George Bernard Shaw

Via University of Otago

As the Senate sends the Health Care Reconciliation Bill back to the House to make minor adjustments/vote on it, I find myself expectantly looking to Comedy Central at 11pm, but finding only the emptiness and bitterness that comes with a rerun of The Daily Show.  But some part of me keeps hoping against all rational thought that Jon Stewart and his team have randomly decided to come back to comment on the insanity of the situation, the dickishness of all involved and the hyperbole of the media.  But instead, I find only week-old jokes about Chris Dodd's wattle.  And then I realize how often it seems that The Daily Show goes on a break and some large news story happens that gets the media abuzzing and falling overthemselves to declare things in the most superlative and unsubstantiated ways possible.  Some of these news events seem planned to coincide with the infotaining show's leave of absence, while others are just bizarre coincidences.  It seems like it's quite often that Stewart and his crew are unable to lend their rational, deflating voice to the partisan squabbling that clogs up much of the airwaves.

I'm not one of the large demographic of people that gets his news from The Daily Show.  I tend to frequent New York Times and Huffington Post for that.  However, I am someone who turns to The Daily Show's invaluable army of interns and media libraries as they expose all the various instances of hypocrisy that I tend to miss while I avoid cable news channels.  And it seems I'm not the only one who deeply misses Stewart's clarifying call for accountability and civility.  The Huffington Post generated this list of the 12 largest news stories that occurred while Daily Show was on a break.  And so, in light of this collective longing for the humorous and insightful critique of our government and media, I humbly propose that The Daily Show develops...The B Team!

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Today's word of the day is "lamentable."

Lamentable

This is how we go on: one day a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root canal at a time; boat builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps behind as something comes up the hall; we say yes, I agree that clouds often look like other things - fish and unicorns and men on horseback - but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightning flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on. 

-- Stephen King

New Segment! Every wednesday we present a picture of a nerdy tattoo and a recommended comic book.

Via Great White Snark

Today's recommended comic book reading is We3 by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely

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Today's word of the day is "perfidious" -

Perfidious

deliberately faithless; treacherous; deceitful

We're deathly afraid of that stabbing word "pretentious," the word that students use to curse each other's ambition. It's a young person's word, a shortcut-to-thinking word. I'm a big fan of pretension. It means "an aspiration or intention that may or may not reach fulfillment." It doesn't mean failing upward. It means trying to exceed your grasp. Which is how things grow. 

-- Warren Ellis

There's a recent spate of books being culled from blogs where an author can reach a wider audience while preserving their voice.  Of course, the intimacy and accessibility that comes from a free blog found by fans on the net is sacrificed for the sake of monetary compensation and greater exposure.  But the fans will continue to follow the artist as long as that artist doesn't change his voice or whatever ineffable qualities he exhibited that attracted people to him in the first place.  But is it worth paying money just to get something that's mostly free online?  True, many authors add some previously unreleased material - but that usually doesn't count for the majority of the text.

Enter Brian Cronin's Was Superman a Spy? from Penguin Books.  Based on Cronin's column "Comic Book Legends Revealed" that he writes for the Comics Should Be Good Blog at Comic Book Resources, the book is an examination of the comic book industry - with particular interest in superheroes, the business aspect of comic books and the cultural impact that they've had since World War II.  Cronin uses some key characters from the "Big Two" comic companies (DC & Marvel) to act as a gateway into the evolution of the medium and the industry, and examines the various changes and interesting anecdotes that have befallen them over the years.  In particular focus are Superman, Batman, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Captain America, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and Walt Disney comics.  There are extenuating chapters on bits of comic book arcana covering other characters, with interesting and curious stories of particular creators or characters.

I tend to think of myself as a person fairly well versed in comic book lore, who knows a lot of the storied history of these iconic characters - their fictional origins as well as the inspirations their creators drew on to give birth to these figures of the new mythology.  Even with that snobbish background, this book is incredibly accessible and packs a lot of information into a sparse few chapters. 

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Today's word of the day is "circumspect" -

Via Geekologie

Circumspect

1. Watchful and discreet; cautious;
2. Well-considered

At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.

- Gore Vidal