Kubrick's rooms, Tumblr teens, Understanding Media reading group

• Douglas Rushkoff's latest column for CNN ('Yahoo wants ​Tumblr's teens') addresses Yahoo's billion dollar purchase of Tumblr. Rushkoff writes that "Yahoo isn't buying a technology company so much as the community that uses it."
  

For its part, Tumblr is working hard to prove it still has indie cool street cred. In his blog post responding to the angst around his "selling out," Tumblr founder David Karp sounded like a young Steve Jobs by insisting "how awesome this is." Then, as if to prove Tumblr is still cool enough to do naughty things even though it's now owned by a zillion-dollar corporate conglomerate, he signed his post, "F*** yeah."

Maybe that'll work, but it looks to me like Tumblr has gone from being cool to trying to sound cool. And we all know where that leads.​

• I recently discovered this Understanding Media reading group​. The site has some interesting posts and a lot of great McLuhan content. For example, a conversation with McLuhan scholar W. Terrence Gordon, in-depth analysis of individual UM chapters, and vintage video clips of McLuhan.
  

• The new documentary Room 237​ features several elaborate interpretations of Kubrick's The Shining. Although the documentary has its flaws, it's slickly-produced and very enjoyable. It made me want to see something similar done for 2001. Joe Pack reviewed the doc for The Epoch Times:
  

​Fans of Kubrick’s 1980 film show how they have, like Kubrick himself, blurred the lines of artistic ownership of material by adding new meaning to a widely beloved, yet controversial film.

[...]

As it is stated by one person in the film, the act of “Shining” is like watching a movie. It is a dream-like liminal space in which the viewer decodes daily experiences and attaches meaning through narrative and action. Danny is able to successfully navigate the pitfalls of the hotel because he is tuned in to the situation, able to understand the past and the dangers of repeating history.