Just for Fun

This page offers you the possibility of fun in three categories: stuff I wrote, academic silliness, and humanistic delights.  Enjoy!

 

Stuff I Wrote

A quiz on Alison Bechdel's brilliant comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For.  Warning: very tough!

A quiz on African American Literature: I give you three characters' names, and you identify the novel, play, or autobiography.

 

Academic Silliness

Librarians do Gaga

Peep Research 

My all-time favorite article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: Dial-a-Doctorate, by Thomas Bartlett

Humanistic Delights

Anita Sarkeesian's lovely video about The Bechdel Test. A film (or any other work of narrative art) passes the Bechdel test if one can answer "yes" to all of the following questions: Does the film include two women (who have names)? Do the women talk to each other? Do the women talk to each other about something other than a man?  It's amazing how many films fail this simple test.  When a film fails the test, it exposes the fact that the film imagines men as people and women as adjuncts to people.  The Bechdel test speaks to my favorite definition of feminism: "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."

I love Peter Brathwaite's "Rediscovering Black Portraiture," in which he photographs himself re-staging paintings--some well-known, some nearly forgotten--that include Black people.

I also love the #GettyMuseumChallenge. At the heart of the pandemic lockdown, the Getty Museum invited people to recreate works of art using  materials they had on hand at home. Toilet paper, an obsession at the start of the pandemic, was a common prop. You can see my contributions at the bottom of this page.

Fredde Gredde, Wind Waker Unplugged. Soothing, beautiful.

LaWhore Vagistan with Auntie Kool Jams, Sari. When I feel blue, I watch this video, and it always makes me feel better.

Taylor Mac sings Amazing Grace on the streets of San Francisco. I watch this video when I need to feel better about the world.

Drunk Girls Get Surprised with Puppies.  Extreme cuteness ensues.

Non-Jews try Jewish Food, with mixed (but understandable) results.

Engagement photographs by Amanda Rynda

Gothtober, a collection of animated shorts on a Halloween theme. My favorite short features a friendly little quiz on ventriloquism.

The Museum of Bad Art

The Ultimate Dog Tease never fails to make me laugh.

Happy Boobs Make Happy People. I love what can only be described as the choreography in this video.

"Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving," by Allie Brosh. This story made me laugh so hard that tears literally streamed down my face.

My responses to the #GettyMuseumChallenge: