So anyway, Jon Stewart.

Kind of an asshole, apparently. I'm with James Bowman on this; Stewart wants to be able to spew bitter, vicious invective without being called on his opinions. I don't mind that he thinks Crossfire sucks (personally I just find it tedious, but then, I don't assume all programming is tailored to please me), or that he went on Crossfire just to tell its hosts that they suck--I mind him using "I'm just a comedian" as a shield from criticism. He wants his opinions taken seriously, but he doesn't want to be called on them, and I doubt he'd be terribly gracious to a guest who came on his show specifically to tell him he was "hurting America" by not being funny. Which he hasn't been since he realized he could use his position to stump for the dems.

My fortune cookie.

"A romantic mystery will soon add interest to your life."

Hey, great. "Maltese Falcon" must be on.

Hey, ARod.

Smooth move. No one will ever notice you swiping at Arroyo's arm while you're wearing those giant white Mickey Mouse gloves. Criminy.

God bless David Hasselhoff.

He just killed off rap, nearly single-handed*:

HASSELHOFF TURNS TO RAP Former BAYWATCH hunk-turned-London theatre star DAVID HASSELHOFF is turning his attentions to rap music in a bid to become a chart sensation. The actor, who is a pop superstar in Germany and Switzerland, has teamed up with rapper ICE-T in a bid to become an international music star. Ice-T says, "We are going to show a new side of him. The Hoff will surprise people with his rap skills."

"The Hoff". "Rap skills." Consider that shark jumped.

* Link not guaranteed against linkrot. Item found under "Music News" by Angela, who graciously shared.

Because Greg has to see this and my e-mails are getting bounced.

Share it with David: Fellowship 9/11. (I also liked the Fast Times at Hero High one.)

[Link via FAD.]

Dear Guardian: get stuffed.

My friend Sharon alerted me to the following LGF item: Guardian Tries to Influence US Election

In the spirit of the Declaration of Independence's pledge to show "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind", we have come up with a unique way for non-Americans to express your views on the policies and candidates in this election to some of the people best placed to decide its outcome. It's not quite a vote, but it's a chance to influence how a very important vote will be cast. Or, at the very least, make a new penpal.

It works like this. By typing your email address into the box on this page, you will receive the name and address of a voter in Clark County, Ohio. You may not have heard of it, but it's one of the most marginal areas in one of the most marginal states: at the last election, just 324 votes separated Democrats from Republicans. It's a place where a change of mind among just a few voters could make a real difference.

Writing to a Clark County voter is a chance to explain how US policies effect you personally, and the rest of the world more generally, and who you hope they will send to the White House. It may even persuade someone to use their vote at all.

Gentlemen of the Guardian, as a registered Clark County, OH, resident, let me advise you to re-think this plan. What's going to happen to some unfortunate if my name comes out of the hopper is that I'm going to post the return address on my blog and invite anyone who stops by to respond with the reasons why, in the immortal words of GW Bush, we don't give a shit what the Europeans think.

Dear John Lecarre'

[...]Probably no American president in all history has been so universally hated abroad as George W Bush:

And?

for his bullying unilateralism,

30+ country coalition.

his dismissal of international treaties,

Just the ones trying to wreck the US economic engine or subject US citizens to the whims of a faceless world bureaucracy.

his reckless indifference to the aspirations of other nations and cultures,

As one of the youngest countries in the world (albeit the oldest democracy), it would be unseemly for the US to take the world to raise. Let them see to their own aspirations.

his contempt for institutions of world government,

Oil for food. Srebrenica. Darfur. Yeah, I can see how you'd have a whole lot of anything other than contempt for "institutions of world government".

and above all for misusing the cause of anti-terrorism in order to unleash an illegal war

Check with your lawyer. S. Hussein was in violation of the cease-fire terms from the first Gulf War for twelve years, and in violation of numerous resolutions from your precious world body, the UN. I'm pretty sure that makes it legal.

- and now anarchy -

War is hell. The aftermath is messy. I hope you don't call yourself a realist.

upon a country that like too many others around the world was suffering under a hideous dictatorship, but had no hand in 9/11, no weapons of mass destruction,

They should have mentioned that. Might have bought them some time.

and no record of terrorism except as an ally of the US in a dirty war against Iran.

Aside from the established record of aiding terrorists, which Bush specifically said was an outrage up with which we would no longer put. Abu Nidal ring any bells?

Is your president a great war leader because he allowed himself to be manipulated by a handful of deluded ideologues?

No, he's a great war leader because he didn't allow himself to be misdirected by a handful of deluded transnational utopian statist ideologues.

Is Tony Blair a great war leader because he committed Britain's troops, foreign policy and domestic security to the same hare-brained adventure?

No, he's a great war leader because he stood on principle even though it nearly cost him his base. As much as I despise his domestic policies, the man has grit.

You are voting in November. We will vote next year.

Yes, we're both democracies. How nice for us. And now Afghanistand is too! And soon Iraq. Isn't that nice?

Yet the outcome in both countries will in large part depend on the same question: how long can the lies last now that the truth has finally been told?

Ask John Kerry. His campaign seems to be unravelling like the sleeve of a cheap suit.

The Iraq war was planned long before 9/11. Osama provided the excuse.

Uh huh. And Debbie Gibson is pregnant with your two-headed love child.

Iraq paid the price. American kids paid the price. British kids paid the price. Our politicians lied to us.

There's the difference between us: I don't think of the military as a group of big-eyed children in need of milk and cookies.

While Bush was waging his father's war at your expense, he was also ruining your country. He made your rich richer and your poor and unemployed more numerous.

Wrong on both counts, actually.

He robbed your war veterans of their due and reduced your children's access to education. And he deprived more Americans than ever before of healthcare.

Meh. Vague and alarmist. To what, specifically, can you possibly be referring?

Now he's busy cooking the books, burying deficits and calling in contingency funds to fight a war that his advisers promised him he could light and put out like a candle.

I'm sorry, that's a ridiculous characterization, not only of the war and the leadup to war, but of the way the American government functions. No wonder your novels are impenetrable to me.

Meanwhile, your Patriot Act has swept aside constitutional and civil liberties which took brave Americans 200 years to secure, and were once the envy of a world that now looks on in horror, not just at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, but at what you are doing to yourselves.

Look, idiot, I live here. Allow me to assure you McCain-Feingold and the Hatch act have done a fuck of a lot more to restrict my constitutional liberties than the PATRIOT act ever will. This kneejerk reaction to the word "patriot" has got to stop if you expect anyone over here who doesn't live in Berkeley to take your concerns seriously.

But please don't feel isolated from the Europe you twice saved.

Bit late to kiss up now.

Give us back the America we loved, and your friends will be waiting for you.

Ah, if only you loved us when we weren't on our knees.

And here in Britain, for as long as we have Tony Blair singing the same lies as George Bush, your nightmares will be ours.

"The British they cried and cursed Yorktown,
While the band played "The World's Turned Upside Down". -Jimmy Driftwood, "Soldier's Joy"

I display my famous compassion for dead people.

Jacques Derrida died last week. There was a brief period when I thought it quite possible that this nihilistic jackass had done serious damage to modern culture; now thinking of him just provokes a brief, instinctive snort of derision. It's just too bad he didn't have the decency to get taken out in a suitably post-modernist manner, like Lacan getting creamed by a laundry truck.

Town Hall debate, cont'd.

How dare John Kerry bring up intelligence when he can't be bothered to attend the meetings on the Senate intelligence committee, which is his ostensible job?

Town Hall debate.

Bush is finally making the points I've been waiting for him to make, to wit, the WOT can't be limited to the pursuit of bin Laden, and that standing on principle is more important than international popularity.

As for Kerry: if you mean France, say France.

Veep debate, concluded.

It takes brass balls the size of Wisconsin for a lowlife trial lawyer who made his fortune driving up medical costs by channeling dead babies to keep hammering the high costs of medical care as a main theme of his campaign.

Veep debate, cont'd.

Note to Kedwards: trying to use the flipflop meme on the current administration is a non-starter. It just reminds people that you're the poster boys for inconsistency. "I know you are but what am I" is not an effective debate technique.

Veep debate, cont'd.

Edwards blew the AIDS question, going to the "for the children" card out of sequence. Unless there's some epidemic of child-AIDS in this country that I'm completely unaware of.

Veep debate, cont'.

Cheney just basically called Kedwards a pair of vote whores. It's like watching Mr. Wilson pimpslap Dennis the Menace.

Veep debate.

John Edwards is doing the Bill Clinton Thumb. That alone is reason to shun him, the dishonest bastard trial lawyer son of a bitch.

Blogging soon.

I swear. Previous trusty laptop critically injured in terrible DSL installation accident, newly acquired laptop not yet up to speed. Updates soon. Mini reviews:

Sky Captain -- Loved it. Literally slack-jawed in amazement at times. Kept waiting for the evil queen Tika to show up.
Exorcist: the Beginning -- Beginning to wonder how many errors in judgment Stellan Skarsgaard can afford. Opinion of Renny Harlin confirmed.
Hero -- Crouching Pinhead, Hidden Moron. Or maybe I just hate watching the same events unfold four times in different colors.

Time Warner is run by cocksuckers.

Just thought I'd mention it.

To clarify: I'm talking specifically about the cable service. But that assessment is probably good through the top levels.

Take one week of vacation and all hell breaks loose.

More like ten days, really, but that was definitely the wrong week to be out of the loop. While I was developing a nasty allergic reaction to something in the North Carolina air, Dan Rather and CBS spent most of last week building a bonfire out of what was left of their "Tiffany Network" credentials over a group of obviously faked memos from the 70s purporting to cast doubts on Bush's Air National Guard service.* I knew Gunga Dan was a bear of very little brain, but holy crow, what an idiot. The sheer wanton hubris of thinking his reportage is beyond fact-checking by the masses (congratulations to the Freepers and Powerline blog for starting the dogpile) is breathtaking enough; the idiotic defense he subsequently mounted earns him a one-way ticket to Palookaville. I'm only sorry there's no way to tie Walter Cronkite around his neck and cast them both into whatever concentric circle of hell is reserved for abusers of the public trust.

*I gathered most of my own info regarding memogate via Ace of Spades and Allah, who covered everything exhaustively. It would be pointless for me to reproduce their work, so go thou and do likewise.

Bring me the head of Saddam Hussein.

The head from a damaged statue of Saddam Hussein is on display at the Kentucky State Fair, piquing the curiosity of many tourists but angering some who say it's in poor taste.

Alongside the glass-encased bust is a small Iraqi flag and description of how soldiers captured the statue. The display also includes photographs of the intact statue and tank fire striking it.

Sweet.

The bust was first shown for Independence Day at the George S. Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, and will return there after the fair.

Note to self: add Patton Museum to the tour list, along with the Frazier Arms Museum downtown in Louisville.

Now for the dumb shit:

Francene Cucinello, a Louisville talk-radio host, said a state fair is not the appropriate place for a war relic "that represents so many American and Iraqi deaths in the quest for freedom."

"A museum has the reverence that's necessary. It's too important to have on display at a fair," said Cucinello, who said her callers are about evenly split on the issue.

Nonsense. Who the hell even knew about the existence of the Patton museum? Bring the story to the people. Let them marvel. Remind them what we're doing over there and that we won the damn war. Reverence is vastly overrated.

"How would we feel if another country was gloating over its wartime successes? America's too good for that," she said.

I'd say that depends on the gloater and the war. If it's Britain gloating over Bonaparte or any of the Allied powers gloating over Germany and Japan, I'm very much on board with that. As for whether America is "too good" to gloat over military successes, perhaps we should stop celebrating Independence Day out of consideration for the feelings of the British.

[From Angela, who saw the item in question today. She recommends the deep-fried Oreos if you're going to the fair.]

Note to John McCain

...who I'm pretty sure doesn't read this blog: You're about thisclose to being in one of the highly ironic MoveOn.Org anti-SwiftVets ads, buckaroo. John Kerry's service in Vietnam is a legitimate topic of discussion due to the fact that John Kerry has made it the centerpiece of his campaign (in fact, it constitutes pretty much the entire scope of his campaign.) That makes every public utterance he's ever made on the topic subject to intense scrutiny and public debate, and rightly so. I find the idea that you think it shouldn't be more than a bit disturbing, in terms of free speech and the vigorous exercise thereof.

Unusual injury log.

Inadvertently stabbed self in leg with frozen meat yesterday. Top that.

The sink is a dead giveaway.

Withnail alive and well in NYC, living under the pseudonym Mike Toole, apparently.

I'd like to dedicate this post to Bernadine.

Because injuries caused by really stupid behavior make her laugh. Hard.

The setup: "Jackass Contest", Virginia Beach.

The prize: a trip to Mexico.

The winning strategy:

The winner, who has not been identified, told police that the staples had been applied by the Chicho’s crowd, which had passed around a stapler and shot him at random as he walked through the bar.

At one point, he told police, his testicles had been stapled to his stomach.

“We didn’t confirm that,” Santos said. “I didn’t want to pursue that part of it.”

The man had several slice marks on his side, which were the result of paper cuts or caning, Santos said.

The man also told police he’d snorted hot sauce and salt, broken a beer bottle over his head and swallowed and vomited up a live goldfish.

Throughout the interview, the man repeatedly apologized for reeking of urine, Santos said.

He said one part of the contest had involved his lying on the men’s bathroom floor and making “snow angels.”

The man also had lost the use of his left arm, which Santos said hung at his chest in a sling fashioned from a pair of women’s underwear.

“He did a back flip off the bar and didn’t make it,” Santos said.

Despite his injuries, the man told police that he was proud that he’d won the trip to Mexico.

Well, of course he was. If there's one thing reality tv teaches us, it's that a complete loss of human dignity is a tiny price to pay for a trip you could cover out of pocket if you didn't have to pay your medical bills.

[Thanks to Rick, who loves stupidity nearly as much as Bern does. And to MTV, for providing the youth of our fair country with such high quality programming.]

Update: Rick informs me this came from Dave Barry's blog.

Blah.

I'm 40 today. My left knee has become indecisive about continuing to bear my weight and my coworkers have trashed my desk, but I did score gift certificates for Best Buy and Yankee Candle. Feel free to stop by and tell me I don't look a day over 39.

Politics and the artiste.

Elton John. Linda Ronstadt. Henley. (Bwaha.) Suddenly Springsteen feels it incumbent on him to pen a screed for the NYT and organize a big traveling Woodstock show full of angry lefty musicians (REM, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, John Fogerty; the usual suspects.) You'd think I'd be all over Bruce's shit about it, but you'd be wrong.

Sure, I scorn and fleer; most of the political ideals these people hold dear were fossilized sometime in the Late Cretaceous period (roughly around 1968), haven't been re-examined since, and won't be any time soon. But here's the reason I don't mind them organizing their little pep rallies: the concerts are clearly labelled as political events and are thus easily avoided. Were I to pay upwards of $30 (way upwards, in some cases) to hear any of those artists perform on a regular tour, I'd be livid if they spent stage time blathering about Greenpeace (I'm looking at YOU, Michael Stipe, you pissant) and refusing to play their college radio hits. But here, you know exactly what you're getting.

So let 'em play. I'm curious to see what kind of turnout they get.

Yeah, I know. Big of me to grant permission.

Your CD collection is almost as big as your ego, and you can most likely play an instrument or three. You're a real hit at parties, but you're SO above karaoke.What people love: You're instant entertainment.  Unless you play the obo.  What people hate: Your tendency to sing louder than the radio and compare everything to a freaking song.

What Kind of Elitist Are You? brought to you by Quizilla

I'd argue if I could.

[Via Farm Accident Digest.]

A matched brace of deep thinkers.

I was going to write up a post on the Reagan sibs, but I just don't have the energy.  Enjoy Patti's loopy word stylings, in particular.
Patti Davis airing her Daddy issues in public
Ronnie's latest efforts on behalf of stem cell research

[Courtesy of Bernadine and Angela, respectively.]

That goes double for you, Linda Ronstadt.

Viva Las Vegas:

Before singing Desperado for an encore Saturday night, the 58-year-old rocker called Moore a "great American patriot" and "someone who is spreading the truth." She also encouraged everybody to see the documentary about President Bush.

Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air.

"It was a very ugly scene," Aladdin President Bill Timmins told The Associated Press. "She praised him and all of a sudden all bedlam broke loose."

Probably a whole audience of hired Bush celebrity harassers.  "Tossed cocktails into the air."  Damn, I miss all the good stuff. 
 
[Thanks to Angela for the link.]

American crushes Elton John's dissent. Again.

In yet another pointless waste of pulp, the old queen just can't shut up about how the left isn't getting its fair share of ink.

Elton John has said stars are scared to speak out against war in Iraq because of "bullying tactics" used by the US government to hinder free speech.

Name a single instance of the US government actually making anyone shut the fuck up.  I can't get away from people like Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and John himself flapping their gums about how they're not allowed to flap their gums.  Who the hell's stopping them?  Well, no one, actually.  But they're "chilled" by the lack of warmth with which their brave dissent in service of brutal autocracy in the middle east has been met in middle America.

"There's an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious," he told New York magazine, Interview.
"There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn't say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people saying you are un-American," he told the magazine.

Give me a name.  Cite me a single example of HUAC taking some liberal wank like Camryn Mannheim out in handcuffs in the middle of the night.   Then comes the dead giveaway "in MY day" self-centered navel-gazing baby boomer drivel:

The singer said things were different in the 1960s.
"People like Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, The Beatles and Pete Seeger were constantly writing and talking about what was going on.

Yes, they were.  The judgment of time has not been kind to their idiotic opinions.

"That's not happening now. As of this spring, there have been virtually no anti-war concerts - or anti-war songs that catch on, for that matter," he said.

Because you're boring the fuck out of the public, which has already determined that there is a serious problem that requires the attention of serious-minded people, and they don't want to hand you $70 a ticket to hear you bleat about things you have readily demonstrated you're not capable of grasping.  The solution, from your perspective?  Tell your pinko anti-American friends to write catchier songs.

He voiced concern that it appeared acceptable to speak out if you were pro-Bush, using the example of country singer Toby Keith, but not if you were critical of the President, as in the case of country rock band, the Dixie Chicks.
"On the one hand, you have someone like Toby Keith, who has come out and been very supportive of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq - which is OK because America is a democracy and Toby Keith is entitled to say what he thinks and feels.

Mighty fuckin' gracious of ya, Elt.  Toby Keith gets a free ride on that rather terrible "Red White and Blue" song because people support the sentiment.  They share the sentiment.  There is a strong feeling in this country that someone needs a military boot up their ass.  In the face of that sentiment, the fact that the left can't comprehend that the majority of this country doesn't want to hold hands and sing Kumbaya means they're not going to crack the top 40 with "Ode to Osama".  Sorry, dude.
 
This kind of hysteria from the guy who sang "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting", yet.

"But, on the other hand, the Dixie Chicks got shot down in flames last year for criticising the president. They were treated like they were being un-American, when in fact they have every right to say whatever they want about him because he's freely elected, and therefore accountable."

First, their behavior was unAmerican.  Or,  more properly, anti-American.  Second, note by whom they were treated that way.  Certainly not the big, scary Bush administration, unless you believe George Bush mandates record sales (and if he does, we're going to have to have a chat about certain acts.)  It is a sure sign of ego run amok that entertainers are so sure the entire world revolves around their opinions they think there's an actual organized effort at the top being galvanized to stop people from buying their cds.  I have news for you:  you're just not that important.  Nobody cares what you think.  Now shut up and play "Island Girl", you deep thinker, you.

[Via Drudge.]

Red neck, white socks, blue ribbon beer.

Via the Corner, Slate's "Red state/Blue state" quiz.  And yes, I trended into the red by a comfortable margin, though knowing what the LIRR referred to hurt me a bit.

To my surprise...

Richard Cohen slams Ron Reagan for borrowing his dead father's coat to speak at the Democratic convention. [Link via Jonah Goldberg on The Corner. I don't go reading Cohen articles on my own, and since Charles abandoned his ongoing "Scourge of Richard Cohen" project, I've been ignoring his existence.]

It's hilarious to me that the Democratic party thinks getting one of the sillier Reagans to speak at their convention is supposed to be a political coup of some sort. Why on earth would this be a blow to the Republicans? Little Ronnie's never been *on* the reservation, if it comes to that; it's not like he's wandered off and we're trying to lure him back. Last I'd heard of him before the funeral he was wearing leg warmers and whining about he just wanted to--DANCE!--and I haven't taken him seriously in the twenty years or so since then. It surprises me that anyone would.

Sleaze offensive.

First thing I saw when I signed on AOL: "Donald Trump would 'fire' Bush over Iraq invasion", with an article apparently redacted from an upcoming August "Esquire" interview.

Am I supposed to give a flying fuck? Really, is this supposed to be a slam of earthshattering proportions; should I be feeling the foundations of the GOP shudder from this critical blow? Because, frankly, the man's a political idiot, billionaire or no.

"Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in. I would never have handled it that way.

Details. I want details on precisely how Donald fucking Trump would have handled Iraq.

Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country?," Trump said.

By that ridiculous standard, America is not a particularly wonderful democracy. As is bemoaned every four years or so, the percentage of eligible voters who just don't fucking bother is staggering. And yet somehow we manage to muddle through.

"C'mon. Two minutes after we leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. And he'll have weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam didn't have," Trump said in excerpts of the interview released in advance to Reuters.

Right. That's exactly what happened in Germany and Japan. If the short-sighted among us would sit down, shut their cakeholes, and let the adults do their jobs, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Trump would probably have fired Churchill. Fuck him.

Beautiful.

Paula just e-mailed me the following from the Hollywood Reporter, Monday July 12, 2004, Page 3 in the clips section:

Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus dubbed Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" a communist-style propaganda work after seeing it at a festival in Karlovy Vary. "We were used to such messages in the Communist days," Klaus said. "Everybody has open eyes and can understand that this is propaganda. It was a weak film that tells us nothing new."

Apparently "avant-garde" is now a synonym for "shitty".

And the act should probably be billed as "O DEAR GOD NO".

[Thanks to Angela for the giggle.]

In which Michael Moore is eviscerated once more.

Screedy goodness from James Lileks.

Addendum: Dean Esmay gleefully links to Lileks with the further observation that anyone who finds Moore even remotely defensible is a scumbag by association. Personally I wouldn't go that far; I prefer to cut the ignorant a certain amount of slack.

De gustibus non est disputandem.

Ian Hamet points me to Terry Teachout's Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index (TCCI). I respond not because I necessarily agree or disagree with Teachout most of the time, but because of my Pavlovian need to respond to lists of things from which to pick.

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises?
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington?
4. Cats or dogs?
5. Matisse or Picasso?
6. Yeats or Eliot?
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin?
8. Flannery O’Connor or John Updike?
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca?
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning?
11. The Who or the Stones?
12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath?
13. Trollope or Dickens?
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald?
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy?
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair?
17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham?
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers?
19. Letterman or Leno?
20. Wilco or Cat Power?
21. Verdi or Wagner?
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe?
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash?
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis?
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando?
26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp?
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt?
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin?
29. Red wine or white?
30. Noël Coward or Oscar Wilde?
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity?
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev?
33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev?
34. Constable or Turner?
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo?
36. Comedy or tragedy?
37. Fall or spring?
38. Manet or Monet?
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons?
40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin?
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James?
42. Sunset or sunrise?
43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter?
44. Mac or PC?
45. New York or Los Angeles?
46. Partisan Review or Horizon?
47. Stax or Motown?
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin?
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello?
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine?
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier?
52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers?
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde?
54. Ghost World or Election?
55. Minimalism or conceptual art?
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny?
57. Modernism or postmodernism?
58. Batman or Spider-Man?
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams?
60. Johnson or Boswell?
61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf?
62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show?
63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table?
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity?
65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni?
66. Blue or green?
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It?
68. Ballet or opera?
69. Film or live theater?
70. Acoustic or electric?
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo?
72. Sargent or Whistler?
73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera?
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma?
75. Sushi, yes or no?
76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn?
77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee?
78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove?
79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham?
80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe?
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones?
82. Watercolor or pastel?
83. Bus or subway?
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg?
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter?
86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser?
87. Schubert or Mozart?
88. The Fifties or the Twenties?
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick?
90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce?
91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins?
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman?
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill?
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann?
95. Italian or French cooking?
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord?
97. Anchovies, yes or no?
98. Short novels or long ones?
99. Swing or bebop?
100. "The Last Judgment" or "The Last Supper"?

Total of 91 responses, with 57 in concurrence with Teachout, giving me a TCCI of 62.6.

Comments:
I really can't imagine choosing the Who over the Stones. The Mercer vs. Porter choice was much harder, as was Steely Dan vs. Elvis Costello. Batman vs. Spiderman is only valid if we're talking about campy 60s Batman; otherwise count that as a non-response. Oh, and I loathe--LOATHE--"Chinatown" with a passion scarcely to be borne within woman's breast.

Maraschino ice cream.

Stir 1 cup of sugar into 2 cups of heavy cream and bring nearly to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Cool and add 2 more cups of heavy cream, the juice of 1 orange, and one of the following:

1/4 tsp. almond extract, or
1/2 tsp. wild cherry extract, or
2 drops angostura bitters

Drain the liquid from a 16 oz. jar of maraschino cherries (without stems) and add the liquid to the cream mixture. Chop the cherries roughly (about 3 seconds in the food processor) and add to the cream. Chill until quite cold, at least 2 hours or overnight, and freeze according to the directions peculiar to your ice cream maker.

Vote early, vote often.

And please vote for "Ice Station Zebra".

Brando.

Nothing profound to say about him, except that, years ago, he made me really understand the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech in Julius Caesar for the first time. Thanks for that.

I think most of the tributes are going to be left-handed, to put it politely. To hell with that. Here's to the talented fat man.

Reader survey.

Saw this on Sheila's site a couple of days ago and just now got around to lifting it:

1) What is your favorite type of bookstore?
A. A large chain that is well lit, stuffed full of books, and has a café.
B. A dark, rather dusty, used bookstore full of mysterious and vaguely organized books.
C. A local independent bookstore that has books by local authors and coffee.

B. If I'm looking for a specific book I usually don't bother going to a bookstore, I order it online. If I'm browsing, I'd rather browse in a place that might have out of print stuff.

2) What would excite you more?
A. A brand new book by your favorite author.
B. Finding a classic you've been wanting to read.
C. Receiving a free book from a friend in the mail.

B. Most of my favorite authors are dead.

3) What's your favorite format?
A. Novel
B. Short story
C. Poetry

I waver between A and B; my reading stamina is not what it used to be, and a good short story is like a good stiff drink. Then again, sometimes I do like to immerse myself in another world, the deeper the better. Poetry brings up a distant third.

4) Favorite format, part II.
A. Contemporary fiction.
B. Classic novels.
C. Genre (mystery, espionage, etc.)

B, with C close behind.

5) Favorite format, part III (none of the above) Fiction or non?
A. Almost entirely fiction.
B. Almost entirely non-fiction.
C. A mix of both.

C.

6) Does the design and condition of the book matter?
A. Yes, I love a well designed book and keep mine in mint condition.
B. No, the words are what matter.
C. Yes and no, I appreciate good design and treat my books with respect but I am not obsessive about it.

C.

7) On average how many books do you read a month?
A. I am lucky to read one.
B. I am dedicated. I read 4 or 5.
C. I am a fiend. I read 10 or more!

Some months I don't read at all; others I read four or five books simultaneously, keeping them in different rooms and picking them up as the mood strikes. So, um, A to B.

8) Do you prefer to own or borrow?
A. There is a particular joy in owning a book. I have a large library.
B. Why spend money when you can read it for free? I use the public library.
C. Different tools for different job. I do both.

C.

9) Where do you get (the majority) your book news?
A. Newspapers.
B. Magazines.
C. TV
D. Blogs.

I don't really get "book news", per se. D, I guess, in a way.

10) Are books a professional obsession?
A. Yes, I work in the field (writer, reviewer, publisher, teacher, etc.).
B. No, I do it for fun.
C. Kinda, I write the occasional review but have a regular job outside of books.

B.

Signs.

The funniest thing about this is the dry "what is it now?" tone of the article. The second funniest is the term "crop artists".

[Via Dean Esmay.]

These are getting more and more time consuming.

Word game via Ben Kepple, who got it from Emily Jones:

1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book No. 1 -- first sentence.
3. Book No. 2 -- last sentence on page fifty.
4. Book No. 3 -- second sentence on page one hundred.
5. Book No. 4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty.
6. Book No. 5 -- final sentence of the book.
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph.

A prince was born to the royal line of England on January 6, 1367, in the abbey of St. Andre at Bordeaux and given the name of Richard. He was allowed only one cup of coffee. He knows more about the Regiment than the Adjutant, and could not make a mistake if he tried. Yet the latter's position was still not as commanding as he wanted it to be. Our story closes here, as the terms on which Richard relinquished his conquests are to be found in every history of the period.

Book titles furnished on request.

Always late.

I think I may be the last conservative on earth to link to Chris Hitchens' takedown of Fahrenheit 911; I figured everyone who reads this would have picked it up elsewhere, but Greg disabused me of that notion.

Meanwhile, I'm working on what might be a series of posts about the two one-act opera premieres I attended Saturday night in Cincinnati, which will be of particular interest to Bernadine. Four words for you, B: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks.

Haarrrr.

You are The Cap'n!

Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some slit the throats of any man that stands between them and the mantle of power. You never met a man you couldn't eviscerate. Not that mindless violence is the only avenue open to you - but why take an avenue when you have complete freeway access? You are the definitive Man of Action. You are James Bond in a blousy shirt and drawstring-fly pants. Your swash was buckled long ago and you have never been so sure of anything in your life as in your ability to bend everyone to your will. You will call anyone out and cut off their head if they show any sign of taking you on or backing down. You cannot be saddled with tedious underlings, but if one of your lieutenants shows an overly developed sense of ambition he may find more suitable accommodations in Davy Jones' locker. That is, of course, IF you notice him. You tend to be self absorbed - a weakness that may keep you from seeing enemies where they are and imagining them where they are not.

What's Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

Lazy blogging.

Been seeing it everywhere, lifted it from Sheila. Films I've seen in bold, those I only saw on the small screen asterisked.

The Top 100 Grossing Movies (with snide on the side)

1. Titanic - My reactions to this one were a mixed bag; first, most strongly, I wanted to punch that old lady for throwing a diamond of great historical significance into the damn ocean for her own selfish purposes, without a thought for her granddaughter. Thanks for pissing away my college education, Grandma. Second, I found the romance between the principles wildly miscast; DiCaprio seemed in constant danger of being crushed like a lettuce leaf by the robust Ms. Winslet. Third, Cameron lifted the best part of the movie nearly shot for shot from the far superior "A Night To Remember". So when it ended, with me dry-eyed and annoyed, I turned around (front row seats, the theater was packed) and was treated to the sight of an entire theater of weeping females of varying ages. And I laughed.
2. Star Wars
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - I hated this movie. Every adult in it is evil or clueless, and I resent the hell out of having my buttons pushed in a clumsy manner. This movie lies at the root of my distrust of Spielberg.
4. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace - Terrible. The kid playing "Annie" kept reminding me of the youngest kid on "Eight is Enough" (that mushroom cap hair cut--agggh), and that's just bad casting when he's supposed to turn into the baddest mofo in the universe two movies hence. Where's Damien when you need him?
5. Spider-Man - Ok, but...come on, Toby McGuire? Or Tobey. However he spells it, he has the speaking voice of a dork.
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
7. Passion of the Christ
8. Jurassic Park
9. Shrek 2
10. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
11. Finding Nemo*
12. Forrest Gump*
13. Lion King, The - I hate this movie. Just as I hate every Disney attempt at social engineering. And the songs suck ass.
14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
15. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
16. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones - an improvement over Episode I, but not enough. Unfocused plot, and replacing the "Eight is Enough" kid with Hayden Christiansen (or is it Christian Haydensen?) gets us no closer to the badass requirements of the future Darth Vader.
17. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi - This is where the franchise started to smell, with the planet of the teddy bears. Goddamn, if I wanted to see the Care Bear movie, I would have gone to see it in college.
18. Independence Day
19. Pirates of the Caribbean
20. Sixth Sense, The (1999) - One of my favorite theater moments: maybe halfway through the film, older brother Sean realizes what the plot twist is, and bursts out with, "Well, godDAMN," in an aggrieved tone of voice. Heads whipped around toward him, but he didn't elaborate, and I cracked up. I mean, he wouldn't want to ruin it for everyone.
21. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
22. Home Alone* - Words cannot describe how much I loathe this movie. Sadistic slapstick is the lowest form of theater. And no, I don't like f'n Punch'n'Judy, either.
23. Matrix Reloaded, The
24. Shrek
25. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
26. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
27. Jaws* - Just gets better every time I see it.
28. Monsters, Inc.
29. Batman - Another franchise I hate; at least I stopped going to these about the time they cast the talentless Chris O'Donnell as Robin (and on a semi-related rant, who the hell thought he'd make a good update for Buster Keaton in "The Bachelor" (a remake of Keaton's hilarious and exhilarating "Seven Chances")? Wouldn't you think remaking a great silent comedy would require someone who was both physical and, I don't know, funny?) Anyway. The whole franchise is too dark. You'd think they were rationing lightbulbs in Gotham City.
30. Men in Black
31. Toy Story 2
32. Bruce Almighty
33. Raiders of the Lost Ark
34. Twister
35. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
36. Ghost Busters
37. Beverly Hills Cop
38. Cast Away
39. Lost World: Jurassic Park, The
40. Signs
41. Rush Hour 2*
42. Mrs. Doubtfire
43. Ghost (1990) - Vomit.
44. Aladdin
45. Saving Private Ryan* - Thanks to Bern and Scott for making me watch it.
46. Mission: Impossible II
47. X2
48. Austin Powers in Goldmember*
49. Back to the Future
50. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
51. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
52. Exorcist, The* - Every time I watch this I'm astonished by Linda Blair's performance. And I just love Max von Sydow.
53. Mummy Returns, The - What an utter betrayal by the director. I've never seen a bigger dropoff between two movies in the same series.
54. Armageddon*
55. Gone with the Wind
56. Pearl Harbor
57. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
58. Toy Story (1995)
59. Men in Black II*
60. Gladiator - Ridley Scott should stick to sci-fi. He sucks at history, special effects notwithstanding.
61. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*
62. Dances with Wolves - proud to have never subjected myself to this.
63. Batman Forever
64. Fugitive, The
65. Ocean's Eleven - This one sort of puzzled me, though I enjoyed it in a mindless way. What the hell was up with the makeup, wardrobe, and lighting people and their vendetta against Julia Roberts in this movie? She looked like 4 miles of bad road, and everybody else looked great.
66. What Women Want*
67. Perfect Storm, The
68. Liar Liar*
69. Grease*
70. Jurassic Park III
71. Mission: Impossible - If you're going to remake an old tv series, here's something: don't make the hero into the villain. Good God, what a piece of crap this was.
72. Planet of the Apes - I have seen the original, but I think this is the remake. Not really clear.
73. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
74. Pretty Woman*
75. Tootsie
76. Top Gun
77. There's Something About Mary* - I resisted, but Loraine made me watch it. And I laughed, against my will. I was wrong about this one.
78. Ice Age
79. Crocodile Dundee
80. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
81. Elf
82. Air Force One
83. Rain Man - I didn't despise it, but I wouldn't sit through it again.
84. Apollo 13
85. Matrix, The
86. Beauty and the Beast
87. Tarzan (1999)
88. Beautiful Mind, A
89. Chicago
90. Three Men and a Baby* - Schlock. And schlock with shitty values.
91. Meet the Parents
92. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - This is the film I point to when people ask me why I hate Kevin Costner. Any movie with Alan Rickman and Morgan Freeman ought to be watchable. It's not, and it's mostly Costner's fault.
93. Hannibal - Silly.
94. Catch Me If You Can
95. Big Daddy
96. Sound of Music, The*
97. Batman Returns
98. Bug's Life, A*
99. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
100. Waterboy, The*

Top 100 Grossing Movies adjusted for inflation.

1 Gone With the Wind
2 Star Wars
3 The Sound of Music*
4 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
5 The Ten Commandments*
6 Titanic
7 Jaws*
8 Doctor Zhivago*
9 The Exorcist*
10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*
11 101 Dalmatians
12 The Empire Strikes Back
13 Ben-Hur*
14 Return of the Jedi
15 The Sting*
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark
17 Jurassic Park
18 The Graduate*
19 The Phantom Menace
20 Fantasia
21 The Godfather
22 Forrest Gump*
23 Mary Poppins
24 The Lion King
25 Grease*
26 Thunderball*
27 The Jungle Book
28 Sleeping Beauty
29 Ghostbusters
30 Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid - I don't really know how I've managed to avoid this one, but I have. Probably because my parents never really cared for it, and any western my father doesn't like can't be much of a western.
31 Bambi
32 Independence Day
33 Love Story*
34 Beverly Hills Cop
35 Spider-Man
36 Home Alone*
37 Pinocchio
38 Cleopatra*
39 Goldfinger*
40 Airport*
41 American Graffiti*
42 The Robe*
43 Around the World in 80 Days*
44 Blazing Saddles*
45 Batman
46 The Bells of St. Mary's*
47 The Return of the King
48 The Towering Inferno*
49 National Lampoon's Animal House*
50 The Passion of the Christ
51 The Greatest Show on Earth*
52 My Fair Lady*
53 Let's Make Love
54 Back to the Future
55 The Two Towers
56 Superman
57 Smokey and the Bandit
58 The Sixth Sense
59 Finding Nemo
60 Tootsie
61 Harry Potter / Sorcerer's Stone
62 West Side Story*
63 Lady and the Tramp
64 Close Encounters of the Third Kind
65 Twister
66 Rocky - Never seen any of these. Never plan to.
67 The Best Years of Our Lives*
68 The Fellowship of the Ring
69 The Poseidon Adventure*
70 Men in Black
71 The Bridge on the River Kwai*
72 Its' a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
73 Swiss Family Robinson*
74 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - I tried to watch it once. Just couldn't get into it.
75 M*A*S*H* - Overrated. Wildly.
76 Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom
77 Attack of the Clones
78 Mrs. Doubtfire
79 Aladdin
80 Ghost
81 Duel in the Sun*
82 Pirates of the Caribbean
83 House of Wax*
84 Rear Window*
85 The Lost World: Jurassic Park
86 Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
87 Terminator 2: Judgment Day
88 How the Grinch Stole Christmas
89 Sergeant York*
90 Toy Story 2
91 Top Gun
92 Shrek
93 Crocodile Dundee
94 The Matrix Reloaded
95 Saving Private Ryan*
96 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
97 Young Frankenstein*
98 Peter Pan - again, it's not clear which version of Peter Pan this is, but I've seen them all.
99 Gremlins
100 Monsters, Inc.

Weekend roundup.

Better late than never.

Saw Riddick with Angela, see below. Saw Troy for the third time with Sean, Greg, and Kate; Sean thought the dialog was corny (which is precisely why Greg and I like it) but liked the fight scenes. His reaction to Paris: "Let's run away! I'm good at that."

Had three migraines, which was a whole new level of annoying for me. Not the painful kind, for which I am suitably grateful, but it was disorienting to round the corner of the back freezer section at Sam's Club and suddenly start seeing a jagged semi-circle of oscillating light in the periphery of my vision. Lasted about 10 minutes, followed by a mild headache. I was going to casually mention it to the doctor the next time I saw him. After driving back to Ohio Sunday night I had two more, one right after the other, with nausea this time, and woke up the next morning with a pounding headache (though not bad enough to get me out of work.) So I scuttled to the doctor Monday morning and am now sitting on a bottle of Imitrex waiting impatiently for another light show to kick off so I don't feel like I wasted my money. [One would think, also, that one's insurance company would accomodate one in the area of migraine medication in that they would not dare to throw up roadblocks in the way of one's acquisition of said medication. One would be wrong, of course.]

Watched as much of the Reagan funeral on Friday as I could between bites of lunch at Nan's*, and then watched the first half again at Angela's via the miracle of digital recording. As Bernadine noted via email last week, he was probably the greatest president we'll see in our lifetimes, and I'm grateful he came along when he did so I didn't have to spend my college years listening to Carter asking the rest of the world for more gruel. He left the country better than he found it; I can't imagine a better legacy.

*Paternal grandmother, last remaining grandparent. Great cook.

Chronicles of Riddick.

It was...eh. I didn't hate it. The iconography looked great, but Vin Diesel deflated the whole project every time he opened his mouth, and he got more screentime and dialog than anyone. Some of the effects are neat, some are crappy; Judi Dench as an air elemental was nifty, but the catlike critters running around terrorizing the prisoners on Crematoria (which I can't even type without rolling my eyes) were cartoonish, to put it kindly. Also, I thought there was an implicit anti-Christian message underlying the setup of the necromongers (convert or die, attacking the peaceful inhabitants of "New Mecca", etc.) and that tempered my enjoyment of the spectacle.

A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.

Via Ace of Spades (who got it from Michele), the Peter Schmies' word classification test. My score: a vocab-nerdly 172.

O'Reilly.

I watched the coverage on Fox, and didn't change the channel. Leading rant: Chirac is insulting the US by refusing to attend Reagan's funeral.

Frankly, I don't mind if he doesn't. His presence would add nothing.

Funeral notes.

Cheney's eulogy:
He got me. Good, graceful speech.

"America the Beautiful":
Well-sung, but I have an unreasoning dislike of that song.

Benediction:
"Totalitarian towers tumbled"--that's a bit precious, isn't it? I like alliteration in its place, but that just sounded like showing off. Also, third "shining city on a hill" reference by my count. It's a great quote, but not if everybody uses it. Still better than the opener.

Nancy:
Looks unnaturally good, frankly. I almost wish she'd worn red.

Also.

Interjecting "ah" for emphasis midstream in your feelgood "Good News for Modern Man" prayer sounds bizarrely archaic, pretentious, and completely false. He should have dealt with the fact that he's neither Tennyson nor Wordsworth and crossed it out of the text. All things considered, I'd rather have heard Jesse Jackson; at least he knows how to make a prayer sound like more like a prayer than a seminar on getting in touch with your feelings.

Call me an unremitting bitch...

...but "empower us" is not a phrase I care to hear in the opening prayer for Reagan's funeral. Fuck that newspeak gibberish.

Public service announcement.

Because Paula called it to my attention that the Blogger comment system wants--nay, nearly demands that you register, I've re-enabled the old backBlog comments. I hate registering and I'm all about the communications. Feel the love, people.

Pots and kettles.

Angela just forwarded the following AJC article to me (requires registration):

Rabbi calls Madonna 'slut'

This is, of course, on a par with "Pope declares water wet"--but there's an added dollop of irony:

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the former friend and adviser to Michael Jackson, has attacked the Material Mom, calling her a "slut" and a "vulgarian."

The cherry on the cake, the reaction of Madonna's "people":

"I find Rabbi Boteach's comments regarding Madonna frightening," said Liz Rosenberg. "His vile attacks on her character and as an artist are staggering for someone who professes to be a religious person. ... I suggest this man take a look at his own character and what problems he may have that would make him feel that he should make statements about a truly beautiful human being that he does not know in the slightest."

"Frightening"? Really? How is calling her a slut and a vulgarian "frightening"? And, by the way, we all "know" Madonna; she's been very insistent about foisting herself on the public at all given opportunities. As Bernadine always used to say, you can't yell "Free Cookies!" at the top of your lungs and then get mad when someone tries to take one.

Black Walnut Ice Cream

Puree in a food processor (about 2 min.):
1/2 cup black walnuts
2 Tbsp. white corn syrup

Scald in a heavy saucepan over medium heat:
1 cup half and half

Stir into hot half and half until dissolved:
1/2 cup sugar

With the food processor running, pour hot half and half mixture into nut puree and process until completely smooth. Pour through a seive into a clean bowl and allow to cool slightly, then stir in:
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. black walnut extract
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup heavy cream

Refrigerate until very cold (about 4 hours) or overnight. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's directions, adding 2 Tbsp. of black walnut meats in the last 5 minutes of freezing (or to taste).

You're welcome.

Roland Emmerich can stuff it.

Guilty pleasure: I love disaster porn, the more spectacularly ridiculous the better. As I was telling Angela last night, who doesn't want to see LA ripped apart by giant tornadoes? Who doesn't want to see the Statue of Liberty up to her armpits in water? Not in real life, of course, but I'm talking about the kind of giggly frisson you got the first time you saw the Statue of Liberty's head on the beach in Planet of the Apes and realized Charlton Heston was on Earth. I was actually set to pay matinee price to watch The Day After Tomorrow, despite the fact that I know in advance the "science" it's based on is absolute horseshit.

And then I read this translation of a German interview with Emmerich in Tim Blair's comments [Note: Today's Bleat does a better job dissecting the interview than I have. Feel free to skip all the following and go read that.]

Q: Will the anti-Bush mood outside of America be conducive to the success of the film?

A: I had no idea that Bush would get up to all the things he did eventually. During the last election campaign I was already writing the script. I hope America comes to its senses. They have been so lied to by the government. For us Europeans this is crystal clear, but also for a few Americans. However there are still 50% of Americans who want to vote for Bush – this is absolutely inconceivable for me.

Q: Don´t you get into all kinds of trouble when you as a German take such a stand?

Hold it right there. What a stupid fucking question. No one in the US gives two shits what some German filmmaker thinks about our system of government. No one in the government, no one in the private sector--no one.

A: As I already told my mother, they probably won´t let me back in. (laughs)

If only.

Q: But you are not the only one fulminating against Bush. Many filmmakers think the same way.

A: That is indeed new and it is good. I admire colleagues who are commited to political awareness and engage in a critical discourse with people.

No, it is neither, but neither is it terribly surprising. "New"? We've had all the usual suspects spouting the same tired lefty crap about Bush being Hitler (now, there's critical discourse for you) since he got elected--er, stole the election. It's like you ninnies are all singing from the same hymnal, if you'll pardon the Christian metaphor.

[Skipping his laughable recap of the last presidential election.]

Q: Are these things really communicated in the open?

A: Yes, for the first time there are now open discussions.

I love this. This is my favorite quote. Like the US has been behind an Iron Curtain and is just now emerging into the glorious light of liberty for the first time. You know, like when the wall finally came down in East Berlin. In Germany. [polite cough]

Q: Whereas the infamous Patriot Act has even succeeded in muzzling media.

Sadly, the Patriot Act hasn't even dampened their ardor.

A: That is a giant problem. As soon as you criticize something, you are no longer a patriot. What about that?

1) Roland--you're not an American. You aren't a patriot, at least in regards to the US, and never were. 2) Regarding those of your acquaintance who are US citizens and feel aggrieved because some of their fellow citizens have expressed displeasure with their opinions--tough. It amuses the hell out of me that leftists always bleat about wanting debate and reasoned discourse, and they're the first ones to shout down a conservative speaker at a rally or a campus lecture, and the first ones to cry that their feelings are hurt when a contrary view is expressed. And you know what? When you actively work against the interests of your own country, you're not a patriot.

America is the oldest democracy in the world. Since then they have totally developed beckwards. Euope was most of the time under monarchic influence [sic], but is today three or four times as democratic as America. I hope this will soon change. I think that will work out.

I think what we have here is a confusion in terms. Europe isn't a democracy; the individual countries that comprise Europe may have, to varying degrees, elected governments, but the top EU posts in Brussels are not elected. If Emmerich is happy with that situation, good for him, but that doesn't make it a democracy.

There's more, and it would be hilarious if it wasn't so annoying. The upshot is that I'm not spending a single cent to see any movie Emmerich makes from here on out. It's the least I can do as a patriot.

Casting disasters.

Gwyneth Paltrow as Marlene Dietrich. Let me think about it.

Ok, that's enough: No. It's like casting Ben Affleck as Cary Grant.

Great news.

The first volume of The Complete Peanuts is out. (But buy it here, it's cheaper.) Excellent review in the American Spectator.

[Found via the Western Standard.]

Troy.

I'm astonished at the level of vitriol being dumped on this movie. Yes, we all know it's more fun to write a negative review, but while Troy is hardly a perfect film, it certainly doesn't deserve the scorn being heaped upon it by people who should know better (I'm looking at you, Ebert.) In fact, if I were to damn the enterprise with faint praise, the least I could say for it is that it beats the hell out of Gladiator, which travesty of history was greeted with swooning delight by critics and the public at large. Still, the audience will judge a work as they see fit. But there are a few points I'd like to make in defense of the film:

The film isn't called The Iliad for a reason, and that reason is that it's not a direct adaptation of The Iliad. Homer didn't originate the story of the Trojan war. He wrote the best-known versions of two parts of the saga in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but these are not the only source materials. The choice of Paris (i.e., the selection of the most beautiful among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite and subsequent awarding of Helen) does not appear in the Iliad. Neither does the abduction of Helen. Neither does the Trojan horse. Neither do the deaths of Achilles, nor Paris, nor Agamemnon. Criticisms based on a supposed lack of fidelity to the Iliad would seem to miss the point in this regard.

For those waxing wroth over the fact that Troy compresses the timeline and doesn't present the story as a ten-year seige: I'm absolutely agog to hear suggestions as to how to keep the narrative on point and cover ten years in a three hour movie. Hell, it took Peter Jackson THREE MOVIES and something like TWELVE HOURS to adequately cover the events of a single year in the Lord of the Rings saga, and even with that much space to spread out in he completely hosed up the pacing in the third film so that it appears to be a 15-minute ride to the Morannon from Minas Tirith, despite the fact that the same journey took Frodo half the length of the film. (Granted, he was walking/staggering.) The narrowing of the scope of the film seems an entirely sensible compromise.

For those further waxing wroth over the absence of the gods: you've got to be joking. Has it really been so long since Clash of the Titans that you're actually prepared to swear you'd treat the movie seriously if you'd seen Paris being wafted away in the middle of his fight with Menelaus on Aphrodite's cloud? Because that's precisely how he escapes being butchered in the text, and I frankly can't imagine not snickering. The film isn't being presented as mythology; it's being presented as a quasi-historical version of events--much as King Arthur is purported to be (the critical drubbing being extended to Troy doesn't bode well for this film. I can already hear the weeping over the abandonment of Mallory's text. Gad.) Besides, apart from the issue of believability, the movie already has a large cast; adding the gods to the script would only further diffuse the focus of the story.

Having seen it twice I find some of the casting criticisms bizarre, but I won't argue with subjective opinion. I think Brad Pitt is just fine as Achilles. Eric Bana is as steady and somber as Hector ought to be. Orlando Bloom is perfectly-cast as Paris (the worst character in Western literature); he's a doe-eyed prettyboy--which is kinda the point--if a bit too much of a thickie as written. As a bonus, he and Bana also actually looked quite a bit like brothers on-screen. Brian Cox is gloriously hammy as Agamemnon; Brendan Gleeson is good as Menelaus (my personal favorite scene in the film is the ass-kicking he gives Paris. He just looks completely nuts from the helmet-cam perspective. Sure, it's cheesy. But it adds an indefinable something.) I'm pleased to say Peter O'Toole brought his screen presence with him, and as an added bonus you get Nigel Terry as his spiritual advisor. All the women are fine in their parts, under-written as they are; even Helen doesn't get a lot of dialog, but the film never purported to be an exploration of her tormented soul, and I'm good with that.

In all, it's not the greatest film I've ever seen and it didn't force me to reevaluate my entire existence, but I don't generally require that of a film. It's just an engrossing story competently written, shot, acted, and directed. I wouldn't think to ask for more.

Addendum: Bill McCabe may never forgive me if I don't point out that the legendary Sean Bean is excellent as Odysseus.

That was a hell of a thing.

I just watched Randy Johnson throw a perfect game against the Braves. Just when I finally get fed up enough to shun the game of games, something like this happens.

Out of their gourds in Cannes.

Like that's news to anyone.

First item: Fifty Million Frenchmen and Fat Fuck Michael Moore can, in fact, be wrong.

Second item: Sean Penn thinks there aren't nearly enough political films. The money quote:

Penn saw his Oscar win as a sign of hope.

"I think what it says is that while it's absolutely a real concern that the venue for debate is being diminished, that the tolerance for it is still in the will of the American people, still in the will of the business I work in and evidently in the will of the audience," he said.

Is it even remotely possible he thinks audiences vote for the Oscars? Moreover, I don't see how pushing a leftist agenda constitutes "debate". Michael Moore's bullshit documentaries, worshipful biopics of undertalented Stalin-lovin' painter Frida Kahlo, and Ollie Stone mash notes to jackbooted thug Fidel Castro seem to be the only political "art" mainstream Hollywood finds itself capable of producing--and that's not debate. That's propaganda. That is the will of the business Penn works in, and the will of the people be damned.

Links via Drudge.

Quick Van Helsing review.

Cartoonish CGI, assaultive score, bad script, some bad accents. Kevin J. O'Connor is wasted under a makeup job so cheesy ST:TNG would have rejected it, his few soft-spoken wisecracks obscured by the blaring soundtrack and sabotaged by the editing. Hugh Jackman spends his time trying to look sensitive and serious in a role that would have benefitted from some over-the-top swagger. (C'mon, guy, you've got a gas-powered machinegun-action crossbow. Rambo it up a little.) Kate Beckinsale labors to deliver turgid lines in a wavering Bela Lugosi accent. Richard Roxburgh has borne the brunt of the acting criticism for a hammy performance, but when contrasted against the rest of the performances, he was at least moderately entertaining.

Look, it's a popcorn movie. Don't pay full price. Hit the matinee, take some cotton for your ears, sit back and let it wash over you, and don't ask too many questions.

No, I don't know either.

Neither why it's taking for fargin' ever to load this stupid page, nor why the links are hosed. As God is my witness, I typed the anchor tags in the previous post out manually; how Blogger managed to mangle the second and third ones is beyond my ken. It probably has something to do with the fact that I get an error every time I try to publish, although the page publishes anyway. Nice relaunch, guys. The playpretties are no good if they don't actually work.

Update: Ok, now the links are fixed, though I'm not quite sure how I did it. Publishing is still a mess, at least on my end.

Like school, you keep me young.

All the cool kids are doing it, so I thought I might as well join in and flaunt that oh-so valuable English degree (and possibly reveal the parochial nature of my literary tastes.) Titles in bold have been sucessfully completed; titles in italics have been attempted and abandoned either temporarily or out of varying degrees of exasperation.

Beowulf – Verse and prose translations.
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot – Hell no.
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans – I liked it. I don’t care what Twain says.
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays – “To be great is to be misunderstood.” Whatever you say, Ralph.
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll’s House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior – The one interesting book in that damned ChickLit course.
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain – the big thing was Death in Venice when I was in college.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick – I liked the technical whaling info. It was Billy Budd that made me want to kill.
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni – Beloved - Also The Bluest Eye. Agh.
O’Connor, Flannery - “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
O’Neill, Eugene - Long Day’s Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar – Good God, no.
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales – I’ve read them all.
Proust, Marcel - Swann’s Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver’s Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair – The wittier version of War and Peace.
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

There’s a strong whiff of multiculturalist revisionism coming off this list (not to mention a dearth of Roman authors); putting Alice Walker on the same level as Jane Austen is a crime against literature. Personal additions (by no means exhaustive):

The Arabian Nights
Aristophanes – Birds, Clouds, Frogs. Take your pick.
Bunyan, John - Pilgrim's Progress
Gilgamesh
Gogol, Nikolai - The Nose, The Inspector General
Graves, Robert - I, Claudius
Grimm, The Brothers - Grimm's Fairy Tales
Machiavelli, Niccolo - The Prince
Milton, John - Paradise Lost
Mitchell, Margaret - Gone With the Wind
Scott, Sir Walter - Ivanhoe
Shakespeare - Julius Caesar and King Lear
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Tacitus - The Annals and The Histories
Vergil - The Aeneid


Poets: Auden, Dickinson, Donne, Frost, Nash, Pope, Pushkin, Tennyson, Wordsworth.

Feh.

Typically shitty Blogger implementation.

Update: The big kink seems to be the publishing feature, which keeps hanging up. Just like it used to. I wish they wouldn't break the parts that work.

Blogger changes.

Looks like Blogger has changed its interface yet again and added comment ability. Likely to be some confusion around here till I get this straightened out; old comments are likely to be snuffed out at some point.

Baseball is dead to me.

MLB strikes a sweetheart deal with unrighteous Mammon:

In the latest example of a sponsor's stamp on the sports world, ads for the movie "Spider-Man 2" will be placed atop bases at 15 major league ballparks during games from June 11-13.

According to an article Paula sent me yesterday, they originally wanted to spiderweb the foul nets behind the plate, but it was conjectured that that might interfere with play, for some reason.

The promotion, announced Wednesday, is part of baseball's pitch to appeal to younger fans - and make money along the way.

You know what? Screw the younger fans. 1) they can't see the bases from the stands anyway, and 2) chances are they're too busy playing grabass and flicking boogers on each other to care.

"This was a unique chance to combine what is a sort of a universally popular character and our broad fan base, including the youth market we're trying to reach out to," said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer. "It doesn't impact the play or performance of the game."

No, it doesn't impact the play (I hate using impact as a verb, btw.) It does remove whatever tattered shreds of dignity remained to the game and exposes everyone involved as the whores they are, though.

[...] The ads, about 4-by-4-inches with a red background and yellow webbing, won't appear on home plate.

Again, no one's going to be able to see them, except via camera.

[...] "We need to reach out to a younger demographic to bring them to the ballpark," Parkes said. "They are looking for nontraditional breakthrough ways to convey 'Spider-Man' messaging. ... It's the future of how we generate excitement inside the stadium and about the game itself."

What about my demographic--you know, people who work and have disposable income? How the fuck is a 4" square ad going to generate excitement for anybody?

Baseball will receive about $3.6 million in a deal negotiated by Major League Baseball Properties with Marvel Studios and Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Inc., a high-ranking baseball executive said on condition of anonymity.

The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox will get more than $100,000 each, one team executive said, also on condition of anonymity. Most of the other 13 teams playing at home that weekend will get about $50,000 apiece, the team executive said.

Of course the Yankees get extra. It wouldn't be baseball if the distribution was equitable.

[...] Ralph Nader, a presidential candidate and consumer advocate, criticized the deal. He wrote Tuesday to baseball commissioner Bud Selig, denouncing the decision to have ads on uniforms during the season-opening series in March between the Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays in Tokyo.

"It's gotten beyond grotesque," Nader said. "The fans have to revolt here. Otherwise, they'll be looking at advertisements between advertisements."

Ten thousand devils plague Bud Selig and his minions for this: they have forced me to agree with Ralph Nader on something.

[...] In separate promotions, the bases also will feature pink ribbons Sunday as part of a Mother's Day promotion to raise breast-cancer awareness, and they will have blue ribbons on Father's Day, June 20, to raise prostate-cancer awareness.

Brief side rant: ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING RIBBONS. I'M FUCKING AWARE. THE RIBBONS HAVE LONG SINCE STOPPED REMINDING ME OF ANYTHING BUT THE WEARER'S PRETENSIONS TO MORAL SUPERIORITY.

And now the best part of this whole thing:

John Hirschbeck, head of the World Umpires Association, said the ads won't make it harder for umpires to make calls at the bases. And it wouldn't bother him if umpires' uniforms had ads - as long as they share the profit.

"We've got it on jockeys' pants. Why not?" he said.

If you don't know, Hirschbeck, you ignorant slut, I guess there's no point in talking about it. All my baseball shit goes in the dumpster tonight.

Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid.

Because there is no silly game I won't play:

1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don’t name the band, nor the album-title.

Along about round-up time In Texas way out West
I lost a friend and a pal, boys I laid him down to rest
I weeped and moaned over his grave and to me boys it was sad
'Cause I knew down beneath that mound lay the best pal I ever had

[Emily gets the credit or blame, because I saw it there first.]

Couple o' links.

Neurotically Yours, via Dean Esmay (from a day or two ago; so funny I want to be able to find it again, so I'm posting it here.)

And from the where-are-they-now files, today's Wham update on Ace o' Spades. Be warned: the picture is startling.

Boycott the Derby.

It's what the jockeys were threatening to do if they didn't get to wear ads on their pants.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Jockeys can wear advertising patches during the Kentucky Derby, a judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge John Heyburn II's decision two days before the country's premier horse race applies only to seven jockeys who sued, including Jerry Bailey, Alex Solis, Jose Santos, and John Velazquez.

They cited the First Amendment in successfully asking that the judge grant a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of a state rule that bars jockeys from wearing advertising, promotional or cartoon symbols during races.

I wasn't aware the founding fathers were so prescient that they actually drafted a right to sell advertising space on one's clothing right into the Constitution. Silly me, I thought the first amendment only applied to political speech. Guess that's why I'm not a goddamn US District Judge.

The jockeys issued a statement after the ruling, saying the ads would be tasteful.

Oh, heavens, yes. Just like NASCAR, which we all know is all about the tasteful.

"We are very sensitive to the traditions of our sport and our goal is not to offend anyone," said Bailey, a two-time Derby winner who will ride Wimbledon on Saturday.

If you were actually sensitive to the traditions of the sport, this issue wouldn't have come up.

"Jockeys work very hard and risk our lives on a daily basis. We have earned the right to make additional income," he said.

I look forward to the opening of the jockey brothel next door to the Downs, then.

Jockey Pat Day, not part of either lawsuit, said before the ruling that the case could have a major impact on the sport.

"The industry is going through some dramatic changes," said Day, Churchill Downs' winningest rider. "It would be nice to stick with tradition, but we also have to do what's best for the game and for the longevity of the game."

I'll be goddamned. I didn't know Bud Selig had branched out to other sports. [Thanks to Paula for the link.]

The first stirrings of unease re Kong.

First, the good news: casting.

Naomi Watts will play the big ape's love object, Ann Darrow. Adrien Brody will play Darrow's boyfriend, former WWII pilot Jack Driscoll, and Jack Black will be blustery adventurer Carl Denham, who imports Kong to Manhattan.

Jack Black is perfect for Denham. Watts and Brody will be adequate, if dull. Now the bad news: Peter Jackson has lost his fucking mind.

"Everybody's image of 'King Kong' is that it's this amazing beauty-and-the-beast love story. And when you look at the original film, there is as sense that Kong is feeling an attraction toward Ann-probably the first empathy he's felt in his life toward another living creature. But Ann is not giving him a thing. She just looks at him as an object of horror the entire time. She screams at him, she's terrified. Her relationship with Kong doesn't go beyond that. We're having a lot of fun making it more psychologically real."

DUDE. You're making a movie about a giant goddamn monkey. What the hell does that even mean in this context, psychologically real? Are we going to be forced to sit through three hours of Watts and Brody crying like hobbits? Look, this is not Shakespeare. You've basically got a freakishly large monkey, a chick, and the Empire State building to work with. Do not fuck this up by drenching it in emotional excess.

Somewhere Julia Child is laughing her ass off.

We're apparently in the middle of a renaissance of variety meats, which is excellent. If the trend comes down to my being able to buy lamb and veal kidneys at Meijer I'm for it. (For steak and kidney pie. Stop looking at me like that, it's delicious.)

[Via Arts & Letters Daily.]

Torturing Clio.

Once again Hollywood prepares to savage the muse of History so Tom Cruise can put caviar on the table:

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN WAS WON BY A SINGLE AMERICAN AIRMAN (...OR SO HOLLYWOOD IS ABOUT TO TELL US)

Winston Churchill said it was our "finest hour", but yesterday it was revealed the Battle of Britain was won single-handedly by Tom Cruise. Amid outrage from the West's war veterans and military historians, a new Hollywood film will claim that one American, Billy Fiske - played by Cruise - was responsible for the 1940 victory.

Ok, so filming hasn't started yet, and I'm jumping on the bash-Hollywood bandwagon before it's properly left the gate. Not to mention the fact that the people quoted in the article frankly sound like they have an enormous chip on their collective shoulders regarding America's part in WWII. When it comes to Cruise, however, any gun-jumping I do before the fact is absolutely justified--nay, righteous--since he so often proves me right after the fact.

Resign yourself. There will be bitching.

[Via Plastic Gangster, who's just a bit peeved by the news.]