You can’t show that on an iPad
Recent highlights from the Ideas blog
James Joyce’s “Ulysses” is one of the most famously banned books of the 20th century. But while the US legal system has basically given up on the regulation of sexually explicit literature, Apple is keeping up the pressure. The UK edition of Macworld reports that the creators of “Ulysses Seen,” a Web-comic adaptation of Joyce’s masterwork, had to remove nudity from its pages in order to win Apple’s approval to sell the work to iPad owners.
Said one of the authors: “While the first chapter of the book, the one now at iTunes, doesn’t contain ‘offensive language’ our comic does have frank nudity. Something we figured we might have to pixelate or cover with ‘fig leaves.’ But Apple’s policy prohibits even that. So we were forced to either scrap the idea of moving to the tablet with Apple or re-design our pages.”
Lord, who would go on to befriend Picasso, Giacometti, and other major 20th-century artists, was sent by the Army to Boston College, in preparation for service in Europe as an intelligence officer. In Chestnut Hill, he is sexually approached, for the first time, by a fellow serviceman, who then introduces him to gay Boston (and also to the word “gay”). One of their first stops is the Hotel Statler, now the Park Plaza:
The lobby was long and high, expensive, gold-plated, busy with wartime visitors....The crescent-shaped bar was packed with servicemen, several rows deep, too many to count, a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty, most of them drinking beer from the bottle, loud with flighty talk and piercing laughter. Crowded tight together, jostling back and forth, not one lady or girl among them, only a handful of civilians. “Yes,” said Jerry, “they’re all gay.” “But this is a public place. People who don’t know could come in, couldn’t they?” “Oh, yeah. Straights stray in. It happens. But usually they notice something and stray right out again. I mean, we have a right to Lebensraum, haven’t we? Anyway, there’s a straight seating area right up there to keep things looking honest.”
Later, it’s off to the Napoleon Club.
Among his conclusions: “If you ask people to name colors long enough, they go totally crazy.” (This is backed up by some comments from participants: “it’s pink, but not totally pink, but it’s purple, but not totally purple...thank you for what will surely stave off any hopes i have at a decent night’s sleep”; “now i’m just getting freaked out, nothing looks like a proper colour anymore.”)
After tossing out data from people who had spammed the survey or whose answers were random or contradictory, Munroe created a map of their answers — a crowdsourced answer to the question, “What color is that?”
Since Munroe made his data available, at least one other blogger, Stephen Von Worley, has made his own map, viewable at www.weathersealed.com. It’s also cool, and even more fine grained than Munroe’s.
Christopher Shea is a weekly columnist for Ideas. He can be reached at brainiac.email@gmail.com. 
