Only one character in Alien has the wits and wherewithal to survive to the end of the movie at Ripley’s side: Jones the cat. While everyone else on Nostromo was screaming like chickens with their chests ripped open, Jones exhibited the cool becoming a cat. Now Jones finally gets to tell his side of the story, one filled with naps, food, and yes, the occasional alien.

Novelist and film critic Anne Billson wrote “My Day by Jonesy,” a recap of the first Alien film from Jones’ point of view. Apparently, Jones spent most of the film fretting over his food and being annoyed that the humans (or “can openers” as he calls them) keep waking him up from his naps. But he does take some interest in the xenomorph, which he refers to as the “hairless kitten.” He also offers a very different interpretation of the film’s climactic showdown:

To my surprise I see, just before the can-opener does, that the giant hairless kitten has snuck into the mini-Nostromo with us, and has evidently taken my advice to heart, because instead of thrusting its proboscis straight through the can-opener’s brain, it’s hanging back and acting cute. Or trying to act cute, because, frankly, it still has a lot to learn. All that coy tentacle-uncoiling doesn’t seem to be amusing the can-opener at all. In fact, even from inside the hypersleep capsule I can see she’s freaked out by it. She’s backing into a sort of closet, as far away from the giant hairless kitten as possible, and is climbing into some sort of animal trainer’s padded suit, presumably so she won’t get scratched if the giant kitten lashes out unexpectedly.

I wonder whether to intervene, whether to tell her that, in fact, the giant hairless killer-kitten is really only following my advice and trying to be friendly.

But then I think, Nah. This mini-Nostromo isn’t big enough. In fact it’s really rather small. Room for just one cat at a time.

To think, all the carnage of the subsequent movies could have been prevented by a single cat.

[io9]

[…]

Antisemitismo a sinistra è un libro – informato quanto pacato – pubblicato da Gadi Luzzatto Voghera per Einaudi e accolto nel silenzio glaciale della sinistra (lo steso si potrebbe dire di Simon Levis Sullam, L’archivio antiebraico, Laterza). Se il complesso della sinistra fosse scesa dal piedistallo e avesse voluto con interesse, ma anche con reale intenzione di sapere, affrontare un problema che ha, avrebbe intanto capito che l’antisemitismo a sinistra e di sinistra ha una storia, presenta sfaccettature, versioni diverse, immagini ripetute, iconografie spalmate lungo l’asse di tutte le sue diverse “anime”: Ma quel tema (e da ultimo quei libri) non sono mai entrati nella riflessione pubblica a sinistra, perché presuntuosamente una parte consistente del vissuto di sinistra e a sinistra quel tema lo avverte come un fastidio, come se qualcuno pretendesse di fare degli esami di democraticità a qualcuno che per definizione – collocandosi a sinistra – non ha bisogno di superare.

Così periodicamente a seconda dei momenti o dei contesti quel tema e quel sentimento, mai affrontato, solo retoricamente respinto come se qualcuno offendesse il buon nome di qualcun altro solo a proporlo, riaffiora potente nell’immaginario. Riemerge con la stessa facilità e convinzione con cui si fa strada la sindrome del complotto, una visione della realtà che non appartiene solo ai cultori dei Protocolli dei Savi Anziani di Sion, ma anche a molte altre frange politiche, a molte altre tendenze culturali.

Può essere che nel “Giorno della Memoria” quel sottofondo culturale si attenui, ma in realtà entra “solo in sonno”. Poi a seconda della situazione o degli umori ritorna, potente. Appunto perché quella convinzione appartiene a una sfera di idee che non si risolve una volta per tutte.

Il primo passo dunque nasce dalla presa d’atto che l’antisemitismo a sinistra c’è, è diffuso e ha una sua storia (oltre che una sua cultura). Ovvero non è un incidente di percorso o un lapsus. Ma quel primo passo a sinistra non è stato ancora fatto. È uno dei tanti segnali di una “sinistra bloccata”.

[David Bidussa su linkiesta.it]

Books and magazines are information, raw data, literally a stream of words and pictures set in some more or less comprehensible order. The app is no more than the tool that allows you to access these streams. Once a book has become a whole interactive experience with bits where you can look at the characters in three dimensions and access their fake Twitter accounts, it’s not a book anymore. It’s an app.

Touch Press’s iPad app for exploring T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is lovely and engaging, but it’s not The Waste Land, any more than Bjork’s Biophilia app is Bjork’s Biophilia album. There’s nothing wrong with that — and a lot that’s right and exciting and challenging — but it’s still a fundamental difference that I think too many people misunderstand.

Nor is there is no value for you, the reader, in inextricably tying any media you buy, be it a book or an issue of a magazine or a music album, to a specific platform or app. It’s a trick that only benefits whoever owns that platform or app.

Think of it this way: imagine if you bought a hardback book on the understanding that you could read it only as long as you lived in your current house. When after a year or two or ten you pack up your bookshelves in a moving van and go elsewhere, you discover that all of your books are suddenly blank and empty. When you complain to the bookstore — if it’s even still around — you’re told that this is just how things work now, and that you’ll simply have to buy all of those books again, and that if you don’t understand why you’re just a doddering old fool and part of the Old Way and soon to be swept into the dustbin of history.

That may sound absurd, but I think it’s a perfectly apt analogy for the current situation.

Books are not apps; we do not expect, nor should we, to upgrade them every time we decide to exchange one rapidly obsolescing tool for another, the way we do with apps. Call me old-fashioned, but when I buy a book, I expect to keep it until I throw it away or sell it, or until I die. I expect to be able to give my Neil Gaiman books to my children.

The real problem with using open formats and open delivery systems to create and sell ebooks isn’t functionality or delivery system or even piracy or digital rights management. The problem, with this model is that Apple or Amazon don’t make money off of every single transaction…and this is obviously a terrible calamity that must be prevented at all costs.

So the nerds at Cupertino and Seattle invent yet another goofy new ebook format that brings absolutely nothing to the rich media table and won’t play with anybody else’s toys…and try to convince you that it’s better than an open system. After all, why would you simply read something like A Brief History Of Time, when you could have animations of Stephen Hawking doing pirouettes around an animated GIF of the Milky Way while a fucking Skrillex remix of “Rocket Man” bumps away in the background?

Joshua Ellis (no relation) su PandoDaily