What I'm reading: July 9

What I’m reading: July 9:

• Why we need movie critics. – Slate Magazine – Will someone make a similar argument for music critics? I don’t think they can, just for the simple economics of what’s being critiqued. Now, when new movies ‘leak,’ when it becomes just as easy to sample before buying as music does, I think movie crit will be just as over as music criticism. This article, btw, mostly defends ‘film’ criticism, not the consumer reports of movie critics, the Rotten Tomatoes quick quotes guys from local papers.
• Reason Magazine – Education for Profit – An article about University Of Phoenix, where I’ll be going if this music thing doesn’t pan out.
• The New Yorker: Annals of Medicine: The Itch – This woman scratched her head down to her brain. That’s all I’ve taken from this—kinda hard to read with that image of her greenish nerve fluid dripping onto her pillow still in my mind.
• The Smart Set: Nobody’s a Critic – June 26, 2008 – “Trying to maintain critical distance today is thus a practice in self-alienation…So we need another metaphor. If criticism isn’t about distance anymore, maybe it can be about closeness.”
• Basics – Discovery of More Planets Gives Alien Life-Seekers Heart – This means it’s time to reactivate my SETI @ Home account.
• How Do America’s Super-Rich Get Away With Acting Like ‘Just Folks’? – Grazes too many points without hitting them, but, reminds me a little of Paul Fussell’s Class, though his book’s too old to account for this ‘just folks’ crap.
• McSweeney’s Presents: All Known Metal Bands. – Just the Q’s here.