#levi

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection — not an invitation for hypnosis. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#images #mass-media #reflection #symbols #television

Television has greater power over the lives of most Americans than any educational system, government, or church. ↗

— Kent Hughes

#education

I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit. ↗

— Stephen King

#pride #reading #television #thought #writing

Good fantasy fiction: ... explores real human conditions through fantastic metaphors which universalize the characters' individual experiences to speak personally to us all. ↗

— Laura Resnick

#critical-analysis #fantasy #fantasy-fiction #fiction #five-seasons-of-angel

The word I think of is precarious. I am struck by how precarious it all is. How the things that hold us are only as strong as the faith we have in them. ↗

— David Levithan

#faith #levithan #precarious #word #faith

At first, I was shocked that Diane could even suggest this family reunion [on television], and then I realized this is just the way of the world, or at least the way of fin de siecle America. Not only would the next revolution be televised, but so would every other little stupid thing. It was already happening: Television reunions between adopted children and their birth parents... ↗

— Elizabeth Wurtzel

#society #television #family

At Sea Oak there's no sea and no oak, just a hundred subsidized apartments and a rear view of FedEx. Min and Jade are feeding their babies while watching How My Child Died Violently. Min's my sister. Jade's our cousin. How My Child Died Violently is hosted by Matt Merton, a six-foot-five blond who's always giving the parents shoulder rubs and telling them they've been sainted by pain. Today's show features a ten-year-old who killed a five-year-old for refusing to join his gang. The ten-year-old strangled the five-year-old with a jump rope, filled his mouth with baseball cards, then locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn't come out until his parents agreed to take him to FunTimeZone, where he confessed, then dove screaming into a mesh cage full of plastic balls. The audience is shrieking threats at the parents of the killer while the parents of the victim urge restraint and forgiveness to such an extent that finally the audience starts shrieking threats at them too. Then it's a commercial. ("Sea Oak") ↗

— George Saunders

#forgiveness

On Friday night, I was reading my new book, but my brain got tired, so I decided to watch some television instead. ↗

— Stephen Chbosky

#funny #reading #television #funny

Also, I feel that crying is almost--like, aside from deaths of relatives or whatever-- totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules: 1.Don't care too much. 2. Shut up. Everything unfortunate that has ever happened to me has stemmed from failure to follow one of the rules. ↗

— John Green

#death

Everything has been homogenized. Over time, with television and jet travel, everybody has blended together. Some of our wonderful charm has been lost. ↗

— Bruce Paltrow

#blended #charm #everybody #everything #homogenized