nerds, movies, literature
Jun. 30th, 2008 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dwBen Nugent, author of "American Nerds," which has been hyped a lot lately, is on WBUR's On Point show. I don't usually listen to the show because host Tom Ashbrook irritates me in the extreme, but he's on vacation and I like the sub better. I missed a lot of the show, but I guess there was a thread about the world's best nerd movie. One of the callers pointed out that the clear winner should be Apollo 13, because it was the guys in the back room thinking and tinkering who saved the day. A great choice.
Someone else called in to say that "Death of a Salesman" was a good example of nerd and anti-nerd. The author hadn't thought of it that way (nor had I), but the caller put Biff Loman as an archetypal anti-nerd. I wonder whether the writers of "Back to the Future" had him in mind when inventing the character of Biff (also pretty much an anti-nerd).
Someone else called in to say that "Death of a Salesman" was a good example of nerd and anti-nerd. The author hadn't thought of it that way (nor had I), but the caller put Biff Loman as an archetypal anti-nerd. I wonder whether the writers of "Back to the Future" had him in mind when inventing the character of Biff (also pretty much an anti-nerd).
