Sentential Links

Holy crap, it's been a long time since the last time I did one of these. I know the blog has spent an unfair amount of time on the back burner of late, as I strive to beat Princesses Still In SPACE!!! (not the actual title) into submission, but wow. Anyway, here are some linkworthy links.

:: In the similar mode, I’m suggesting a “slow audience response” movement. Please stop talking when the speaker/movie/concert starts, and wait for the event to actually end before fumbling with your keys. You may actually enjoy it better if you are “present” at the event, rather than treating it as one more thing to check off the to-do list. I KNOW your fellow audience members will appreciate it. (I couldn't agree more. I've never understood why it is that people are always in such a damned rush to get out of the movie theater. And it's like a conditioned response with some folks: their brains are wired to bounce up and head for the exit the second the words "Directed by ___" appear on screen. I've noticed, over the last few years, that sometimes movies will have "Easter Egg" content during the credits, if not actual scenes, so the credits-sprinters will stand up, move to the stairs along the side, and then stand there until they're satisfied that they can leave. Why not just keep your asses in the seats? Where are you going?!

I recall some conversation years ago on some classical music-related blogs on the subject of applause in between movements of multi-movement works. This doesn't really bother me all that much, but I do recall attending a Buffalo Philharmonic concert years ago when they played the Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5. There's a spot in the last movement where everything builds to one long, dramatic chord, which the orchestra holds until the conductor gives the cut-off. There's a pause of a few seconds, and then the conductor cues the orchestra to begin the final portion of the work. The problem is, the folks at the concert weren't musically literate enough to not recognize the fact that that long, sustained chord couldn't possibly be the end of the work. So as soon as the conductor cut the chord off, the audience started applauding. For a work that wasn't even finished. Oy.)

:: They were both great horses, but the difference between Roy Rogers' Trigger and the Lone Ranger's Silver was that Trigger was well-trained. Silver just knew. (I still want to see The Lone Ranger, and almost certainly will, when it comes to DVD.)

:: The waiter apologizes and says he hasn’t felt good all night. He thinks it’s something he ate. Oh, that's comforting. Your waiter has such a high fever he could could fry your Monte Christo on his head. (Mmmmmm...Monte Cristo sandwich...ummm, sorry.)

:: Dear Mr. Card,

I wanted you to know that I recently read your statement regarding the proposed boycott of ‘Ender’s Game’, and I can understand where you’re coming from in your plea for tolerance. Believe me, I can understand what it’s like to worry that your livelihood will be affected by the intolerance of others. Many of my LGBT friends have had to face open discrimination in the workplace due to the kind of open hatred you personally fostered with your time and money…and in fact, continue to foster today, despite your belief that the whole issue is now “moot”. So I can deeply sympathize with your hope that “the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.”

:: What if E.T. and the Thing had a baby, and horribly, that baby was Jeff Bridges?

:: Providence has sent a solution after all! (I can barely process this.)

:: For me, the point of having a personal blog is that it’s basically a journal for me. A place where I talk to myself about whatever the hell I want. A place to work out how I feel about my life and the world, or to document my struggle with weight and mental disorders, or to list my favorite things, or to talk about the movies I saw. If someone else reads it and likes it, cool. That’s wonderful. But it’s not done for them. It’s done for me. It’s done because I feel a need to write it all down someplace. That’s the point of it. Frankly, the only person that I really, truly care about reading it is my wife, because I want my wife and me to know each other as much as possible. She’s really the only one who I need to understand me. It’s not about validation by strangers; it’s just me having fun and introducing a fraction of structure into my weekly routine.

:: And watch Monteith, and how accessible he is, how available. He’s a big strapping guy, a foot taller than everyone else, and his body shows the awkwardness of not quite knowing what to do with himself, but that just makes him more honest, more open: there is no artifice in him, no protection, no holding back. (I've never liked Glee, but my dislike of the show has always been mostly on a conceptual level and in the way it treats the music and the enterprise thereof. The talent involved in the show, however, is quite often jaw-dropping. This young man's passing is a cruel, cruel loss.)

More next week! (I hope!)