Link Roundup: August 2021

Microtonal reharmonizations of “Red Dress”: mostly a capella version by Stephen Weigel, and synthwave version by FAST-fast – In case you were wondering what this song would sound like if all the backing were in tune with Sarah.  I’m just going to say that this is what I was hearing a glimmer of from the beginning.

Reflections on Jason Voorhees, Virginity in Horror, and the Specter of the Anti-Sex Killer | Ace Theist – A deep examination of how slasher films–especially Friday the 13th–are said to kill off characters who have sex, and leave virgins as survivors.  These supposed tropes are not entirely supported by the text, and it seems that characters who show sex or nudity on screen always die, but the survivors are rarely described as virgins.  Nonetheless, the reading of Jason Voorhees as anti-sexual has some weight to it, and is particularly interesting in light of how popular Jason is as a character.  Jason as an asexual icon is… fairly problematic to say the least.  But I’m reminded of the discourse on queer-coded villains–on the one hand, it’s kind of terrible that there’s an association between queerness and villainy, but on the other hand, villains are actually awesome.

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Blog effort justification

I hope bloggers don’t feel attacked by this…

As a blogger who is often in a position to plug articles from other blogs, I know that bloggers are like to promote the essays that they feel most proud of. And the essays they feel most proud of, are often the longest ones, the ones that they put the most effort into. However, I rarely believe these are the best essays they produce. Indeed, sometimes they are the worst.

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Origami: KNL Dragon

KNL Dragon

KNL Dragon designed by Robert Lang

This is a neat origami model that can be found in Origami Design Secrets, by Robert Lang.  Origami Design Secrets is basically a textbook, so it’s here to demonstrate the “grafting” technique.  Grafting can be used to create a model with one piece of paper, that might otherwise require multiple sheets of paper.  This model, in its original form designed by Kunihiko Kasahara, took three pieces of paper.  Robert Neale made a contribution that simplified it to two sheets of paper.  Kasahara’s head design was combined with a model by Robert Neale, to make a two-piece design.  Finally Robert Lang made a design that only used one sheet.  It’s called the Kasahara-Neale-Lang Dragon, or KNL Dragon.

Among the many models in the book, this is a favorite.  When I’ve shown this to other origami people, they often ask how to make one.  You’re welcome to try this video, but it’s only recommended for experienced origamists.  It involves some very tricky (and small!) sink folds–something I notice Robert Lang tends to scatter all around his designs like they’re nothing!  Nonetheless, it’s a lovely model with a particularly great silhouette.

“Red Dress” is incredible, people are toxic

Recently there’s been a music meme going around, “Red Dress” by Sarah Brand:

It sounds to me that the singer has some variety of tone deafness, causing her pitch to be consistently off, sometimes by more than 50 cents. It should be said that many singers bend their pitch slightly, still feeling like the correct note but adding texture and heightening emotional expression. To my ears, Sarah Brand is doing something similar, but in a much broader range such that to many listeners it sounds like it’s no longer the correct note.

And I love it. It’s fun and catchy, and I would listen to more. I’m not even joking.

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Why have choices that matter?

Last month I played and discussed Tell Me Why, but today I want to discuss the genre that Tell Me Why is part of. The Steam storefront calls it “choices matter”–and just because Steam gives it a tag doesn’t mean we need to think of it as a genre, but I think it’s a hell lot more informative than just calling it a walking sim. After all, the major form of engagement with the game is not walking, it’s choosing.

“Choices matter” is a genre that could encompass many games, from The Walking Dead, The Stanley Parable, Undertale, and Mass Effect, to (some) visual novels, and choose your own adventure books. In all of these, you make choices, and the game responds to your choices in a significant way, or at least appears to. However, choices don’t always serve the same purpose. I’ve identified at least 4 distinct purposes.

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A retraction

I am publicly retracting and apologizing for a blog post I published on my blog A Trivial Knot in March of 2020. That post is “Trump’s Atrocious Trolley Tradeoff“. The essay contained a political discussion of the pandemic, and speculation on possible outcomes, and most regrettably, a comparison to the number of deaths in the Holocaust. This problem with this was pointed out by my (now former) coblogger and friend Sara, whom I treated rudely. Afterwards, Sara chose to disassociate herself with The Asexual Agenda, and the local ace meetup group.

The reason this has been much delayed is that Sara asked me not to explain why she left. However, I could have still retracted the essay without mentioning her. In any case, Sara has finally come forward to explain the problem.

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“Latinx” and intersectionality

Since the issue at hand is about how to refer to people in the US of Latin American origin or descent, and since I am deliberately not favoring any particular word, in this post I will use “Latino/x/e” to describe this group.

In a previous post, I discussed why we grant members of a group special authority to talk about issues related to that group. In this post, as a case study, I examine the word “Latinx”, a contentious gender-neutral term for people of Latin American origin or descent. It’s commonly argued that this word should not be used, on the basis that Latino/x/e people themselves don’t like it, and presumably they have special authority to speak on the matter. I’ve also heard people say that “Latinx” must be coming from misguided non-Latino/x/e people.

As an example of these arguments, there was a recent NYT essay that argued that “Latinx” fails because it is rejected by 97% of Latino/x/e people in the US.

But something that the essay completely ignores, is that “Latinx” has strong associations with specifically queer Latino/x/e people. This is acknowledged by the Pew Research poll that the essay is based on:

The first substantial rise in searches [for “Latinx”] (relative to all online searches) appeared in June 2016 following a shooting at Pulse nightclub, an LGBTQ dance club in Orlando, Florida, that was hosting its Latin Night on the date of the attack.

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