"I never thought I would go to college. Never! I’m a voracious reader, but I hated school."

"I was waiting to get out of school so my life could start. I spent my childhood backstage and on movie sets, and knew I wanted to spend my life there. Any second longer I had to spend in a classroom — f--k that!"

From an interview with the actress Zosia Mamet (daughter of David Mamet, who is, by the way, "a great man and a very good dad"). A glimpse of opinion:

[My father] told me I needed to clean up my mouth or I’d never find a man. What’s very important to him is manners. Show up on time. Always send thank-you letters. He is one of the more thoughtful humans I’ve ever met.

A year ago you spoke about how you hated dating — that you’d rather read a good book.

There are some really damn good books out there, you know? I think feminism’s a bit misinterpreted. It was about casting off all gender roles. There’s nothing wrong with a man holding a door open for a girl. But we sort of threw away all the rules, so everybody’s confused. And dating becomes a sloppy, uncomfortable, unpleasant thing.

Grammys.

I have no interest in this topic. I mean I was slightly interested in this photo of Ellen DeGeneres aiming her nose at the "keyhole" opening of Katy Perry's dress and in the fact that Lena Dunham has a boyfriend and he's in a band that had the "Song of the Year." And I'm interested in speculating about whether it was because of the Grammys that they ran such an atrocious episode of "Girls" last night. (The last few episodes of the show had been great, but this one descended into real estate porn: The girl gets a boyfriend seemingly for the purpose of letting us see all the rooms in his expensive house. Oh, that wasn't all there was. There was Lena Dunham — in one of said rooms and in nothing but her panties — playing ping pong. That carried forward the show's theme of really awkward nakedness. That's why I had to correct myself after I said "I might as well be watching HGTV.")

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes about the TV show "Girls."

Says it's okay if a story about white people only has white people in it, and thinks "The guys are more interesting than the girls."

Did you see that "deconstruction of what has come to be known as 'hipster racism'"?

That "moment that challenged" the "privilege" of the "core audience" of the show "Girls"?

In Season 1, Episode 1, they acted like a character could just be black without being about the fact of his being black, but in Episode 2, the main character, saying "you know what, I never thought about the fact that you were black once," was essentially mocking the viewers' own phony pretense that they didn't think, like back in Episode 1, about the fact that he's black.

Also, they made him Republican... and perfectly decent and low-key about it.

By the way, if you've never noticed that there's something that has come to be known as "hipster racism," I see it's got its own Wikipedia article:

Hipster racism, a term coined around 2006 in an article by Carmen Van Kerckhove, is described as the use [of] irony and satire to mask racism. It is the use of blatantly racist comments in an attempt to be controversial and edgy. Its irony is established in a somewhat post-racial belief that blatant expressions of genuine racism are no longer taken seriously and are an outdated way of thinking, thereby making the use of such overt expressions satiric. In some cases, hipster racism can be seen as the appropriation of cultural artifacts by hipsters.

Why hasn't this led to more trouble if it's actually been around for 7 years? Because it's so lame no one can be bothered to get offended? Because no one really does it? Anyway, I guess I can imagine examples of humor that would fit this category, but the notion that it's been some sort of style trend for more than half a decade just seems so sad. We need better trends these days. Pop culture is insufficiently diverting. 

Voting is like having sex... says the Obama campaign.

With this ad, featuring Lena Dunham (of the HBO show "Girls"):



So, really, who do you want to have sex with, ladies? That is the question. Oddly, that was a big topic on the Rush Limbaugh show today.

CNN had to pull a story that they had on their website after reader backlash. "Following a firestorm of negative feedback, CNN hastily deleted from its website late Wednesday virtually all mention of a study about the effect hormones have on women’s political preferences. 'A post previously published in this space regarding a study about how hormones may influence voting choices has been removed,' a message posted on the website at 8:15 p.m. read. 'After further review it was determined that some elements of the story did not meet the editorial standards of CNN...'..."

"I Miley'd the s**t out of this Saturday."

That's how you say you cut your hair really short when you are the creator of the hot HBO series "Girls."

The come-on line everyone's talking about, from last Sunday's episode of the new HBO show "Girls."

Hanna Rosin sets up the discussion at Slate:

I don’t quite know what to make of Booth Jonathan’s come-on: “I want you to know, the first time I fuck you, I might scare you a little, because I’m a man, and I know how to do things.” Marnie was touched by it, obviously...

Marnie is the character whose actual boyfriend is so sensitive to her needs she finds him boring and hopeless. "Girls" is like the new "Sex and the City," and Marnie's the closest thing to Miranda — the main character's best friend, the confidante.

The ladies over at Slate go on and on about this line, e.g.:

[L.V.] Anderson: As that scene and others showed, this was the episode I thought Allison Williams' acting chops proved really not up to the task of playing Marnie. She can do annoyed and bitchy just fine, and we've seen that (and almost only that) in the first and second episode. But between the crying scene (when Hannah tells her she has HPV) and the masturbation scene, Williams in this episode was in over her head. I have never seen such bad fake crying in my life, and the bathroom masturbation is the least realistic scene in this show so far. Could I imagine Marnie going home and masturbating later that night? Sure. Can I imagine her SO INFLAMED with lust that she had to alleviate her sexual urges as soon as possible? Not for a second. What did you guys make of that scene?...

Dana Stevens: Not to get too personal, but do any of you know any woman, however hot and bothered by the manly charms of Jorma Taccone, who would masturbate standing up in an art-gallery bathroom while wearing pantyhose?

Allison Williams is the daughter of TV newsman Brian Williams, and what he feels is:

It’s kvelling, pride. It’s incredibly great. Her co-creator and I have known always that she was going to be an actress. So it’s fantastic.

You’re fine with the awkward sex scenes?

Unmitigated joy.

We've been watching this show, by the way. It's actually quite different from "Sex and the City" in that the sex lives of these girls — called "girls," obviously, to highlight their immaturity — is not glamorized. It's actually so sad it conflicts with the humor. One of the 4 girls is a virgin. (She's the Charlotte analogue.) She's our favorite character, played by Zosia Mamet, who is David Mamet's daughter. (I don't know what's with the famous dads angle, but Mamet is a fine comedienne and Williams is... as noted above.)