Coffee and Irony

The official Tumblr fandom flag. I recognize Sherlock and Doctor Who of course looming large, and I’d assume offhand that the triangle thing in the upper right is Supernatural? Either way, good stuff.

TVLine has 55 TV Premieres and Finales in February.

The ultimate guidelines to a happy relationship, according to science. Most of them are useless. The Atlantic

Incandenza over at Pajiba’s Cannonball Read gives a fantastic review, pondering fantasy as a genere, of Patrick Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind, one of the best fantasy books I’ve read in my all too-short lifetime.

Grantland as usual wrote a long and wonderful review, of which these parts are my favorite –

“It’s partly that Beyoncé is just better than Magna Carta, obviously. But it’s also partly about the fact that she’s 32 and he’s 44 and suddenly that gap seems salient. Motherhood as a human hasn’t made Beyoncé the pop star seem all that momlike, but Jay suddenly seems totally dadlike. Works for a corporation, wears a suit, makes a lot of dumb jokes, tries to seem hip by talking about Homeland. His verse doesn’t ruin “Drunk in Love,” but the other night at a party I heard a DJ start the song there, without playing the first three minutes, and I wanted to throw things at him. You’d have to be crazy to think that’s the best part of the song. When Jay walked onto Beyoncé’s stage last night he looked like he’d somehow lucked into taking her to the prom. I love how he walks her down the stairs from the top level of the stage, holding her hand in that almost courtly way, and how the minute they hit the second riser, right when he’s saying “I’m Ike,” she lets go of his hand and just keeps going. She does a little catwalk, lets Jay kind of point at her butt and make a Not bad, eh? face — and then the instant his verse is over, she’s back in control of the whole scene. Jay’s once again just lucky to be up there reflecting her swag, doing that adorable little back-to-back surfboard dance. I loved the surfboard-dance part so much I wish it was a physical place, so I could build a church there and renew my wedding vows inside it. It was A Moment. One the show still cut away from, so we could see how much Taylor Swift was enjoying it.”

“Buckingham and Reznor made perfect sense. They share a passion for innovative recording techniques and writing hot, angry songs about witchy women.”

on Taylor Swift –

“Can’t a girl thrash at a piano like she’s been ravished by the muse/dance in the audience like everybody’s watching/awkwardly configure and reconfigure her hands to a hip-hop beat without having her every awards-show move scrutinized like the Zapruder GIFs? Sure, she’s been lyrically careless with the hearts of the people who have been careless with hers, and yes, she seems painfully aware that the camera’s dead, unblinking gaze is always trained on her, and, uh-huh, she does that thing where she pretends that every new accolade is as unexpected as being named grand marshal of the Three-Legged Rainbow Unicorn Parade when she knows she’s got so many gold statuettes at home she had to build a museum on the back acres of her Dream Garden. ..

And Taylor Swift, god love her, has already entered the Tori Amos–serious artiste stage of her career, where the only special effect needed is integrity. Taylor, your songs about Jake Gyllenhaal are great, but you are 24 years old. Bring back the hobos.”