The Call Up

The best of the internet as curated by me. Put me in coach.

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April 23, 2013 11:47 am
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After last season ended with a woman hitting on Don Draper, and Don Draper giving her—and us—that “I’m up for it” look, I feared we’d get a season just like the one we now have. I know the shot was meant to be ambiguous, but it never really struck me that way. I’ve written quite a bit about my annoyance with pop culture’s current obsession with cynicism, darkness, and anti-heroes. It’s not so much that I pine for naiveté, as I pine for something different and new—especially in the same series. Watching Don Draper in his sixth season, I can’t escape the feeling that I’m watching Don Draper in his third season.

Except he’s lost something. Don is a beautiful philandering stud. That was always there but it was wrapped in so much more—his role as father to a young daughter (gone thus far), his role as a kind of father to Peggy (gone by necessity of plot), his relationship with Roger as some future image of himself (also gone), his relationship with Anna (gone to the grave), his fear of unmasking (seemingly also gone.) What’s left is a dude who makes adultery look beautiful.

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More evidence, to me, that Don Draper is going to the big bar in the sky come the end of the season/series.  All those little devices and distractions that kept him on his toes — and gave his character depth — are gone.  Now it’s just him and his misery.

(Source: The Atlantic)

February 23, 2013 10:06 am
"She and Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead guitarist, played Frisbee in Golden Gate Park. “I would sit with these guys on Sunday afternoons at the Fillmore dance parties. I was so shy, and Jerry Garcia wouldn’t talk a lot either. We just sat there eating hot dogs."

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This is absolutely perfect. Sally Oren, wife of Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, and former bohemian extraordinaire.

(Source: The Atlantic)

January 24, 2013 11:00 am
"If white artists don’t portray characters of color, they’re whitewashing; if they do, they’re appropriating or misrepresenting. That both criticisms are valid makes it even harder to imagine a way forward."

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The most thoughtful response to the lack of non-white characters in primarily white television/film/art that I’ve read.  I think these filmmakers and show writers are under greater scrutiny simply because their output is visual.  Do we skewer authors for failing to include non-white characters in their novels?  No, they’re writing what they know.  Which is exactly what Lena Dunham is doing.  

(Source: The Atlantic)

January 23, 2013 8:29 pm
Oh California schools…your predilection for Asian students knows no bounds.  But actually, interesting charts in here.  Top schools are doing well integrating hispanics, not so much with blacks, and the white population is steadily falling.  

Oh California schools…your predilection for Asian students knows no bounds.  

But actually, interesting charts in here.  Top schools are doing well integrating hispanics, not so much with blacks, and the white population is steadily falling.  

January 16, 2013 11:00 am
"In her experience, women have proven more successful with off-cycle requests, meaning they seek opportunities to negotiate outside of year-end reviews. The best time, Schroth strongly believes, is in the wake of an achievement. Instead of looking for a new job outside the company, where the same problem may come up again, look within. Women should focus on developing skills, which might mean switching departments internally. Regardless of the means, Schroth argues that listing achievements not only makes a woman’s case stronger, but allows her to feel more comfortable in the discussion."

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How to fix the gender pay gap.  Interesting comments in here — especially how women are very good at advocating for their employees, but terrible at doing it for themselves.  

(Source: The Atlantic)

January 15, 2013 10:00 am
"I’m about 95 percent certain,” he says, “that if I’d met Rachel offline, and if I’d never done online dating, I would’ve married her. At that point in my life, I would’ve overlooked everything else and done whatever it took to make things work. Did online dating change my perception of permanence? No doubt. When I sensed the breakup coming, I was okay with it. It didn’t seem like there was going to be much of a mourning period, where you stare at your wall thinking you’re destined to be alone and all that. I was eager to see what else was out there."

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Interesting.  The dark underbelly of online dating: promiscuous dating lives!  Who knew?!  Good piece, though.
January 12, 2013 12:00 pm

Japan is a weird and beautiful place.

January 11, 2013 11:00 am
Last year, Americans likely spent more than $6 billion in baggage, cancellation, and change fees, on top of their ticket price, in 2012.What conclusions can we draw from these graphs…  (1) Delta and US Airways are the worst. Maybe you knew that already. This graph is one of those things you already knew but never really wanted to see quantified, because you knew it would just piss you off.  

Last year, Americans likely spent more than $6 billion in baggage, cancellation, and change fees, on top of their ticket price, in 2012.

What conclusions can we draw from these graphs… 

(1) Delta and US Airways are the worst. Maybe you knew that already.

This graph is one of those things you already knew but never really wanted to see quantified, because you knew it would just piss you off.  

January 10, 2013 7:09 pm
Just gorgeous.  And heartbreaking.

Just gorgeous.  And heartbreaking.

December 17, 2012 12:37 pm
"There are an estimated 280 million to 300 million guns in private hands in America—many legally owned, many not. Each year, more than 4 million new guns enter the market. This level of gun saturation has occurred not because the anti-gun lobby has been consistently outflanked by its adversaries in the National Rifle Association, though it has been. The NRA is quite obviously a powerful organization, but like many effective pressure groups, it is powerful in good part because so many Americans are predisposed to agree with its basic message."

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Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in this month’s Atlantic is both extremely ill-timed and extremely well-timed.  A lot of thoughtful insights in here, valuable because they were not made in hindsight to Friday’s tragedy.   

(Source: The Atlantic)

10:00 am
"When you look the globe over, women are 44 to 45 percent of the world’s Internet users. They spend more time online than men—17 percent more a month. If you look at social-networking sites on a global scale, women are the vast majority on most sites, with the exception of Linked-In. Facebook is an extension of social communication, which has often been the realm of women."

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Intel’s Genevieve Bell.  As the most recent election just highlighted — to ignore women is to do so at your own peril.  

Other interesting stuff in here — the unfounded fascination with young users, the strange American-specific fear of artificial intelligence, the ways in which technology has yet to engage its users (think of cars “When you sit in a car, look at all the different ways you have to engage with the machine.”).

(Source: The Atlantic)

December 14, 2012 4:23 pm
"Not even kindergarteners learning their A,B,Cs are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action."

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg (via theatlantic)

I am so sick of this shit.   

(via kateoplis)

December 11, 2012 1:32 pm
AMAZING little book.  A peek inside the moleskines and scribblings of designers, musicians, directors, artists, authors, etc. 

AMAZING little book.  A peek inside the moleskines and scribblings of designers, musicians, directors, artists, authors, etc. 

November 29, 2012 1:45 pm
"That’s partly because Tumblr is generally, in ways that other social media platforms aren’t always, lighthearted. It is generally, in ways that high-stakes political campaigns aren’t always, fun. On Tumblr, Olin and her team could…joke and wink and otherwise Internet, in a context that both suited and rewarded the effort. In a campaign whose whole point was to convert voters from potential to actual, the Obama for America staff could tackle that stark task much more subtly than the blunt forces of political persuasion typically allow. They could build community — and the kind of group accountability that comes with it. An engaged voter is a likely voter."

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Interesting little piece in the Atlantic about the Obama campaign Tumblr.  And about how memes and GIFs and general internet nonsense are affecting the way people interact with campaigns and participate in politics. 

Tumblr is the king of quirk.  The medium itself is conducive to short form, image/GIF-heavy posting.  Light on text, depth, banter, trolling, or any of the other things that once defined blogging; Tumblr is all about connecting followers in a positive way and cultivating a blog’s image based on aesthetics or originality, as opposed to thoughts.  The Obama team used it beautifully.

(Source: The Atlantic)

November 16, 2012 7:31 am

theatlantic:

When the Nerds Go Marching In

President Obama’s reelection campaign brought 40 engineers into their ranks to build the technology they needed to get the president reelected. This is the very human story of how they helped out, even if they never fit in.

Read more. [Image: Daniel X. O’Neil]

Great piece. I’m so glad there are people out there equipped for these things.