Stacia Brown on the racial prism, saying some super true truths about New Haven, CT, where I lived for a few months.

On teaching diverse literature.

A round-up of reactions to the utter madness of Rachel Dolezal, of which my favorite is the Guardian article by Meredith Talusan. Plus one more from Jamilah Lemieux.

For real, though, authors: Don’t respond to negative reviews of your book. It’s entertaining for me but very very embarrassing for you. Think of Anne Rice.

There was this whole thing where the Mary Sue posted an idiotic article about romance novels, and all the romance authors got cross and it was magical. Subsequently.

Billy Crudup is starring in a forthcoming movie about the Stanford Prison Experiment. I am fascinated by that experiment, but not sure I can tolerate watching it unfold on screen, despite my well-documented love for Billy Crudup(‘s work). Anyway, The New Yorker talks about what the Stanford experiment really means.

In response to those folks who think Tim Hunt has been feminist witchhunted.

Interesting: An analysis of what sales numbers mean for indie comics (which includes all of Image’s titles) (wonderful Image!).

“The Year I Couldn’t Even Steal a Goddamn Snowglobe”: the Harry Potter books from Voldemort’s perspective.

I don’t have a link for this, but just wanted to add at the end here that I am so saddened and angry about the murders in Charleston this week. I’d like to think that this tragedy would lead to real conversations across partisan lines about the social patterns of racism in America that this event fits into. But I know that won’t happen. I just wish that it could. I wish that in moments of tragedy, it were possible to set aside the urge to dog-whistle the shittiest constituencies, and instead talk seriously about the complex issues in play here and how we can make them better.

And since I don’t want to end on a really sad note, even though this has been a really sad week, here is a puppy in a boot. It will not fix America’s problems around racism and sexism and violence, but hopefully it will make you smile.

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Edit to add: Edit to add: Yes, ick.  That’s all I have to say about this book.  It creeped me out and I was loath to finish it but I finished it anyway because I was stuck in the airport and I had nothing else to read except for The Ape Who Guards the Balance, which I had already finished, Jenna Starborn, ditto, and my Norton Anthology of American Literature.

It was all about how people with power over other people become power-mad and psychologically abusive.  It was creepy.  The Stanford Prison Experiment was creepy, creepy, creepy, in addition to being, may I just say, bad science; and I know that the author said he was sorry, but I don’t think he was striking the right tone of total all-encompassing abject remorse.  So I say ick to this book.  It was interesting in a way but mainly I felt icky after I had read it and had to wash it down with Doctor Who, Juno, and part of The Two Towers, all of which were my in-flight entertainment.

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