Laurie Penny – yes, ‘tis she – wants to expand our minds with her deep knowledge of marriage:

More women are living alone or without a partner than ever before, and the question on the table once again is not how to have a better marriage, but whether to have one at all.

I suppose there’s also the question of whether those living alone, perhaps in the name of feminism, are happier than they otherwise might be, more satisfied, and more prepared for later life. Sadly, Laurie waves aside the, as she puts it, “vanishing amount of security offered by coupledom” – coupledom which she assumes must be antithetical to “personal autonomy.”

The notion that a person’s sense of freedom – say, from doubt, isolation or poverty – might be enhanced by the practical and emotional support of a lifelong exclusive relationship, is oddly unexplored. The advantages of a second income, shared labour, shared troubles and an expanded circle of relatives on whom one might call for support – and above all, a sense of personal commitment through thick and thin – these things are apparently much too bourgeois and conformist, and so unworthy of attention.

Instead, Ms Penny thrills to the “growing power of uncoupled women” and “the threat this poses to the socioeconomic status quo.” Posing threats to the status quo is, for Laurie, a thing of great importance, something to be championed, seemingly regardless of what that challenge might realistically entail. This, after all, is someone whose pronouncements often suggest a pretentious teenager hoping to scandalise elderly relatives, and who believes, or pretends to believe, that “romantic love is a systemic lie designed to manipulate women into lifelong emotional labour.”

As so often, Laurie’s sincerity is somewhat in question, and either way, one has to wonder how this dark conspiracy, this “systemic lie,” might explain the romantic feelings of gay couples, or those who are fairly sure that their partnership is not in fact a sham, an idle reflex or the result of subtle brainwashing.

This being a Laurie Penny article, the spotlight soon shifts to her glorious self:

I had been struggling to find language for my growing anxiety over the fact that, at almost 30, I still have no desire to settle down and form a traditional family. I’ve been waiting, as open-mindedly as possible, for a sudden neo-Darwinian impulse to pair up and reproduce. And yet here I am, and it hasn’t happened. Despite no small amount of social pressure, I am happy as I am.

Which would explain all those cheery, contended articles she churns out.

I am quite content with the fact that my work, my politics, my community and my books are just as important to me as anyone I happen to be dating… I live in a commune, I date multiple people, and I’m focused on my career.

Potential suitors please take note. You are but one of many, and of no more importance than Laurie’s books.

Stalker. (h/t, Damian) // Chores. // Horse yoga. // The wrong sperm. // Clothes-folding robot steams and de-wrinkles. // Ravel conducts Boléro, 1930. // On the distribution of lions. // We three. // Robotic bee. // Christopher Snowdon debunks some myths. // Who earns what (maybe) in a hypothetical $200M blockbuster movie. // It is difficult to overcook mushrooms. // Discuss. // An oldie but a goodie. // The strange story of Tetris. // “On September 3, 1967, all traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right.” // Levitating plant rotator. // This. // “The heart has already formed.” // Concentrated coffee. // Attack of the clams. // Picasso meets Kubrick. // “The largest private residential ship on the planet.” // The crushing patriarchy.

A footnote of sorts, lifted from the thread following this and in reply to Ben’s comment: “The only thing that’s shocking about any of this stuff is how fucking awful it is.”

Watching these things – almost any of them - you have to wonder, was there ever a time when the people involved looked at what they were doing, at each other, at any of their peers, and thought, “Hm. We’re a bit shit at this, aren’t we?” Was there ever a brief flickering of shame or humility, or even just frustration at their own inadequacy? Was that thread ever pulled at?

Answers on a postcard, please.

I bring you art. Twelve minutes of it. In which Ms Eames Armstrong and Matthew Ryan Rossetti thrill onlookers at the 2015 MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival with a terribly radical rendition of music from Les Misérables. As readers will no doubt be aware, the MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival is where gathered artistic juggernauts “create queer experimental media through an ever-changing constellation of means.” The participants, we’re told, “make art for ourselves and our community, not for markets or museums.” Consequently, the festival is a “decisive launching pad for emerging talents.”

No skipping ahead to the good bits.

The festival, including the soul-engorging splendour of the piece featured above, was sponsored by both the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. An earlier performance by Ms Armstrong and Mr Rossetti, in which Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is, um, enhanced and made transgressive, can be found here. You lucky, lucky people. 

The chronically captious ladies and other-gendered beings at Everyday Feminism, where everyone is terribly complicated and fascinating, want us to know that people with narcissistic personality disorder are also victims of heteropatriachal capitalist society. And that not being overly keen on the company of pathologically narcissistic people, possibly because of their dishonesties, neediness and obnoxious sense of entitlement, is “ableist,” bigoted and therefore wicked. Apparently, we mustn’t “minimise the experience” of people who are very often unbearable, manipulative, exploitative, emotionally unstable, and indifferent to the wellbeing of anyone but themselves.

Sometimes comment is superfluous.

BBC Radio 4 veers into Alan Partridge territory: 

Can you ever trust a gorilla with a child?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Magic words. // Assorted dicey moments, illustrated. // Japanese log relocation. It’s a vigorous business. // Vitruvian man action figure. // Voltige, a cautionary tale. // At last, Star Trek: The Next Generation swimsuits. // We’ll be seeing more of this, I think. // Not thinking things through, I fear. // Animations of note. // American shopping malls circa 1989. // This. // That. // The other. // Post-It notes and beer. // Mechanical Pong. // “The stench started masking the smell of their popular hickory-smoked ham.” (h/t, Ace) // Yes, apparently, it does happen. // Made of sand. // Done with suction. Crime-fighting applications under consideration. // Something is licking his tent. // This is one of these. // And finally, via Damian, some cat comradeship.

Or, You’ll Get What You’re Given And Like It, Bitches™.

For readers with an interest in really bad art and its coercive public funding, this post and subsequent discussion over at Artblog, which some of you may have missed, offers quite a lot to chew on. Because I’m vain and shallow, I’ll quote myself:

The political uniformity and extraordinary conceits of our own publicly-funded arts establishment have entertained us many, many times. As when the writer Hanif Kureishi told Guardian readers that culture, as represented by him, is “a form of dissent,” while the paper’s theatre critic Michael Billington claimed that a reduction of taxpayer subsidy for loss-making plays is nothing less than “suppression” of that “dissent.” Likewise, when the playwright Jonathan Holmes claimed that he and his peers are “speaking truth to power” – I kid you not – and insisted, based on nothing, that “the sole genuine reason for cuts is censorship of some form” and “the only governments to systematically attack the arts have been the ones that also attacked democracy.”

You see, the suggestion that artists might consider earning a living, rather than leeching at the taxpayer’s teat, is apparently indistinguishable from fascist brutality and the end of civilisation. Though when the status quo in London’s dramatic circles is overwhelmingly leftwing, and when publicly subsidised art and theatre tend to favour parties that favour further public subsidy for art and theatre, what “dissent” actually means is somewhat unclear. And reluctant taxpayers please take note: Despite all the years of providing hand-outs, you’re now the oppressor.

The whole thing, as they say.

Thomas Sowell on dubious graduation messages: 

Two themes seem to dominate Commencement speeches. One is shameless self-advertising by people in government, or in related organisations supported by the taxpayers or donors, saying how much nobler it is to be in “public service” than working in business or other “selfish” activities. In other words, the message is that it is morally superior to be in organisations consuming output produced by others than to be in organisations which produce that output. Moreover, being morally one-up is where it’s at. The second theme of many Commencement speakers, besides flattering themselves that they are in morally superior careers, is to flatter the graduates that they are now equipped to go out into the world as “leaders” who can prescribe how other people should live. In other words, young people, who in most cases have never had the sobering responsibility and experience of being self-supporting adults, are to tell other people — who have had that responsibility and that experience for years — how they should live their lives.

Michael Strickland learns that interracial smiling can be a sign of “white fragility” and therefore proof of racism, at least when people of pallor do it: 

They continue to ponder if they are racist for crossing the street the wrong way, or when they smile at people of colour. “Am I doing the ‘white guy smile’?” asks one of the students.

Robert Tracinski on the vanity and incompetence of Mrs Bernie Sanders: 

While her husband has been out promising everyone free college, [Mrs Sanders] used to run a $25,000-per-year private college — which just announced it will be closing down due to the crushing weight of debt it incurred under her leadership. The debt was backed by fraudulent claims about millions of dollars in pledged donations. The case of Burlington College is a nice little microcosm of what we can expect from her husband’s economic agenda: grandiose schemes for expansion and improvement and lavish benefits offered to everyone — based on lies and financed by reckless, unsustainable borrowing, resulting in eventual collapse. It’s a microcosm of socialism in one other respect, too, which is that Jane Sanders and her friends and family did pretty well skimming the gravy off the top of the system while she ran it into the ground.

And Katherine Timpf on what that student debt is getting you: 

A professor at Santa Monica College took a group of students on an “EcoSexual Sextravaganza” trip earlier this month, during which they “married the ocean”… The students were specifically instructed to think of this marriage as one involving sex, and encouraged to “consummate” the marriage and “make love to the water” by sticking parts of their bodies into it.

Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

The complete, scrollable Star Wars. By all means spend your lunch hour checking for errors and omissions. // Mitsubishi bees. // At last, a 3” turntable for all those 3” records you’ve kept. // Cat watches Psycho. // Why snow and confetti ruin YouTube video quality. // Can you tell what it is yet? // A pumpkin’s life. // Supaidāman, 1978. // Twerk it, sister. // Where to test your satellite antenna. // Low pass, Budapest. // Chart of note. // Air raid sirens of the Los Angeles area. (h/t, Coudal) // Cooking with dog. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) // Can you spell “grade inflation”? // Cosplay triumph. // Boys and girls. // British diet data. We’re drinking less tea, apparently. // Travel snaps of note. // Fire from the sky. // And finally, this chap plays the piano better than you do and he has no fingers.