beckett finn pasdar…

Pimples…

(this seemed the most appropriate thread)

On Numbers tonight, a direct reference to a string symposium at USC.

Characters were sitting at the “fictional” Cal-Sci (actually at the pond outside Millikan Library at CalTech.)

Art imitating life…

I don’t feel I need to add anything except this: I’d be glad to see Lisa Randall on the cover of FHM. And there are probably others too–other smart women who are attractive and who would, partly by virtue of the surprise and partly by virtue of the sexiness of their brains, go a long way toward selling me on the magazine.

Regards,

e.

Cheers,

-cvj

The problem with Studio 60 is very clear to me. There are no characters to identify or sympathize with. They are cardboard cutouts. The Bradley Whitford character is the same as Josh Lyman. Maybe its an acting limitation not a writing issue but it is a replay.

I think the issue about the comedy is critical. There is an unstated assumption that the skits these people are doing are funny. But they aren’t. He doesn’t get a free pass here.

The premise for the show is ripe for a lot of bizarre plot twists. I didn’t see any.

I love Sorkin’s writing too but I think he just blew it this time. (no pun intended …)

-cvj

But anyway, I’d like to comment on your comment above. Studio 60 is *not* a comedy show even though it is about making one. That’s the great thing about it (or one of the many) it is a serious show about writing, and about the quality of writing in television, standards, and just the behind the scences matters. But it is not about being the show that it is about. This was the genuius of “Sportsnight”, his pre-West wing show that nobody seems to recall. I would never watch an hour long weekly show about Sports. Hell no. But this show, although about the behind the scenes of making a sports show… was not about sports. I htink this is a point that a lot of people just don’t get, and that puzzles me.

I don’t mind if it gets scrapped. I’m expecting it to. Network TV just does not really understand non-super-formulaic material (with occasional exceptions). This would easily fly on somewhere like HBO. But -for all the reasons that are in the show’s script itself, ironically, abotu what is happeneing too network television…. it needs to be tried, jsut in case… just in case people get it.. and ask for more of the same… demeonstrating that they want to start using their brains again when watching tv.

If it gets cut then so be it. Actually, I think that shows in the US (no matter how good) do have the problem tht they go on for too long anyway. One or two brilliant seasons and then quit while you’re ahead, as in the mode common UK model.

Cheers,

-cvj

Re: Athletic??….I think you are on record as playing in a basketball game…;)

e.

I really appreciate having the discussion.

Bye… Don’t be a stranger. Come back and stay awhile again at Asymptotia.

Cheers,

-cvj

By the way, the link to Hamermesh et al. (the classic paper I was mentioning) is actually http://www.eco.utexas.edu/Faculty/Hamermesh/BeautyAER94.pdf . What I gave above is a link to a more recent related paper.

Thanks to all for the instructing chat.

Elliot

Cheers,

-cvj

You may all be interested in the classic research paper about beauty and success,

http://trosenblat.web.wesleyan.edu/home/beauty.pdf

The tone of this paper may be a bit cruel, and it defines success somewhat narrowly, but it’s based on hard data, and starts with a very pregnant Aristotle citation (via Diogenes Laertius):

>> He [Aristotle] used to say that personal beauty was a better introduction than any letter.

-cvj

(click for larger)

…and countless other people of all shapes and sizes and ages who just use it as a means to get around.

But anyway, that’s beside the point.

-cvj

–IP

Not that I’m particualrly in agreement with Dancing Bear’s arguments, but on this point, it’s worth bearing in mind that you have posted quite a bit about your passion for bicycling as a means of commuting. You may not regard that as making you athletic (I bike a fair amount in the Boston area, and know how much better my physical condition could be despite this), but it puts you a notch above many others.

You also said:- “You are both attractive and athletic, Clifford”

We can argue about the first, but… how do you *know* I am athletic? Or more so than average? Aren’t you making an assumption here?

-cvj

(1) How much more could I have achieved had I not been distracted by that?

(2) How many like me were not as lucky as I was to manage to fight through? What contributions could they have made?

As to your last two paragrpahs… I think that IrrationalPoint in the first comment of theirs above, explained rather well already what is missing from the core of those views.

Cheers,

-cvj

of course the Studio 60 remark is not your only data point, and of course you can discuss cultural stereotypes in any context you like. I was just saying that the Studio 60 line was a very benign instantiation of the stereotype, if it was one at all (I tend to agree with anon, here, in that it was a sort of anti-stereotype, implying that PhDs are rarer and more precious than FHM models).

But I must persist on the “biological bias to pay MORE attention and give MORE intellectual consideration to the beautiful and the athletic.” You are both attractive and athletic, Clifford: are you telling me that, on the average, this played to your disadvantage in your professional career, and that it led to your not being taken seriously? If so, I’m sorry: being only moderately attractive has certainly helped me in mine, compared to colleagues of comparable talent.

What I am saying is that, if you are ALREADY in a professional field, it HELPS to be attractive/beautiful/tall, etc. This has nothing to do with the number of people with such attributes that engage in that field. It may be that those attributes open for them other possibilities that are (wrongly) considered by society to be more desirable. It may be that they do not wish to get into a field that they perceive (mistakenly) to be full of nonattractive or unpleasant people. It may even be that they think (as you do) that their attractiveness would play against them. THESE are the prevailing stereotypes that we must fight. You have all my support there.

But you will not be taken less seriously for being beautiful or attractive. I’m sure that spyder’s exceptional acquaintance had the admiration of his peers (both academic and athletic) for his dual endeavor. I (and most of the people with whom I come into professional contact) certainly would have taken him seriously.

–IP