Last night on American Idol, Simon Cowell trotted out this old chestnut in critiquing one of the participants: "It's like Chinese food -- I love it, but then I'm hungry again an hour later." I don't understand this. Whenever we spring for Chinese here, it's usually for dinner, and I can't begin to contemplate eating again until breakfast the next morning.
As for the show itself, well, I seem to have no feel whatsoever for what's going on this season. First they eliminated "Scooter Girl" last week, who struck me as an incredible weirdo when she first appeared but who quickly grew on me; then the judges continually gush over Fantasia, who I admit has undeniable presence but who also has yet to sing a song that I like, so I don't feel that I can judge her yet; and tonight, the hot blonde who did a torch-song rendition of "Orange Colored Sky" didn't get voted to the next round. Color me baffled.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Ohhhhhh, I'm sorry, but that was incorrect!
"I'm sorry, Wes, but I'm afraid you have not been able to overtake the current leader, and thus, we have to say goodbye to you now. But we have some lovely parting gifts for you tonight: a Bunn coffeemaker, this matching set of deck chairs, and of course, all of our contestants get the Home Version of The 2004 Race Game, so you and your family will have hours of fun calling attention to the current Administration's failures. You've been a great contestant, though, and don't forget: you may be eligible for an appearance on the new show we're working on, which we are tentatively scheduled to debut at noon on January 20. You could play a Secretary on the new show, so keep your options open! Let's give Wes a nice hand, ladies and gentlemen!"
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Happy Birthday, Maestro Goldsmith
Composer Jerry Goldsmith, who along with John Williams is one of the living titans of film music, is 75 today. He's best known, probably, for his work on the Star Trek films, of which his score to Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a true classic. (The others are all superb, with the exceptions of Insurrection, which is merely good, and Nemesis, which is downright bad.)
He's written a lot of other wonderful scores, but Goldsmith's name tends to be in the shadow of John Williams because, well, Goldsmith writes scores for really crappy movies that nobody ever goes to see. His score to the third Omen movie, The Final Conflict, is magnificent -- but who on earth has seen that movie? Who on Earth has seen The Thirteenth Warrior (an appallingly bad swords-and-brawn epic)?
Of all the films Goldsmith has scored -- and there are many -- the only "classics" are probably Patton and Alien (and I wouldn't even include the latter). Since I suspect that, for the general public, film music is viewed only in the context of the film (a wrongheaded view, but prevalent), I expect that Jerry Goldsmith won't ever have the same cultural visibility of a John Williams or a John Barry (at the height of his career, which was quite some time ago).
Anyway, happy birthday, Maestro Goldsmith.
He's written a lot of other wonderful scores, but Goldsmith's name tends to be in the shadow of John Williams because, well, Goldsmith writes scores for really crappy movies that nobody ever goes to see. His score to the third Omen movie, The Final Conflict, is magnificent -- but who on earth has seen that movie? Who on Earth has seen The Thirteenth Warrior (an appallingly bad swords-and-brawn epic)?
Of all the films Goldsmith has scored -- and there are many -- the only "classics" are probably Patton and Alien (and I wouldn't even include the latter). Since I suspect that, for the general public, film music is viewed only in the context of the film (a wrongheaded view, but prevalent), I expect that Jerry Goldsmith won't ever have the same cultural visibility of a John Williams or a John Barry (at the height of his career, which was quite some time ago).
Anyway, happy birthday, Maestro Goldsmith.
The Buffalo Weathercast
Aaron reports that a rare astronomical event will take place on June 8: a Venus will make a transit of the Sun. A transit, for those who weren't paying attention in class, is when a planetary object moves across the face of the Sun, as seen from Earth. In fact, total lunar eclipses are transits that merely happen to be eclipses by virtue of the Sun and Moon having the same apparent size when viewed from the surface of the earth (this is pure coincidence). Due to differences in the Earth's and Venus's planes of orbit, Venusian transits are very rare.
This guarantees, of course, that June 8 will be a cloudy day in Western New York.
This guarantees, of course, that June 8 will be a cloudy day in Western New York.
Must....not....foam....at....mouth....
John Scalzi thinks that George Lucas is the weak link in the Star Wars chain.
Consider my lip "bitten".
(Although, aside from Greedo shooting first and a couple of instances of new footage upsetting the pacing toward the end of The Empire Strikes Back, just what is so damned awful about those Special Editions? I rather liked how they turned out, overall. The people who bitch that the new dance number in Return of the Jedi sucks really floor me -- it's supposed to be campy and dumb! What did they expect, Astaire and Rogers? OK, I'll stop now.)
Consider my lip "bitten".
(Although, aside from Greedo shooting first and a couple of instances of new footage upsetting the pacing toward the end of The Empire Strikes Back, just what is so damned awful about those Special Editions? I rather liked how they turned out, overall. The people who bitch that the new dance number in Return of the Jedi sucks really floor me -- it's supposed to be campy and dumb! What did they expect, Astaire and Rogers? OK, I'll stop now.)
Maybe he was on a secret mission for Henry Kissinger?
Kevin Drum's been doggedly following the documentary evidence, such as it is, surrounding the questions about George W. Bush's service in the National Guard. At the end of today's post, Kevin asks:
"Bottom line: if Bush's story is really true, he can put a stop to all this speculation instantly by simply ordering all the relevant archives to release his entire record, warts and all. Why won't he?"
That's a good question, considering that releasing service records in their entirety used to be par-for-the-course for Presidents (except in the case of Clinton, who never served), up until this particular President. My suspicion is that the answer to Kevin's question is twofold: First, there really is something embarrassing in Bush's service record, although almost certainly nothing that rises to the level of, say, Michael Moore's insistence that Bush is a "deserter" (why General Clark didn't distance himself from that is beyond me). There probably is a bit of self-preservation going on here; likely, Bush's service was spotty enough to warrant some kind of "slap-on-the-wrist" discipline, and they don't want that getting out.
Second, though, I suspect that the Bush people don't want to release the records because to do so would be to turn from their constant attitude to date of, "We are the Executive Branch, you will listen to us, you will take whatever we decide to give you, and you will like it." The idea that anyone should have any question about anything pertaining to the President beyond what has already been doled out piecemeal is completely alien to their mindset.
(To be fair, this is not a failing unique to the Bush Administration, although I think they elevate it to amazing levels, what with their tendency to bleat "But it's wartime!" at every instance of potential criticism and request for information. The Clinton Administration's reluctance to just fork everything over at the outset of the whole Whitewater mess kept that whole embarrassment simmering along, right up to the arrival on the scene of "that woman, Miss Lewinsky".)
"Bottom line: if Bush's story is really true, he can put a stop to all this speculation instantly by simply ordering all the relevant archives to release his entire record, warts and all. Why won't he?"
That's a good question, considering that releasing service records in their entirety used to be par-for-the-course for Presidents (except in the case of Clinton, who never served), up until this particular President. My suspicion is that the answer to Kevin's question is twofold: First, there really is something embarrassing in Bush's service record, although almost certainly nothing that rises to the level of, say, Michael Moore's insistence that Bush is a "deserter" (why General Clark didn't distance himself from that is beyond me). There probably is a bit of self-preservation going on here; likely, Bush's service was spotty enough to warrant some kind of "slap-on-the-wrist" discipline, and they don't want that getting out.
Second, though, I suspect that the Bush people don't want to release the records because to do so would be to turn from their constant attitude to date of, "We are the Executive Branch, you will listen to us, you will take whatever we decide to give you, and you will like it." The idea that anyone should have any question about anything pertaining to the President beyond what has already been doled out piecemeal is completely alien to their mindset.
(To be fair, this is not a failing unique to the Bush Administration, although I think they elevate it to amazing levels, what with their tendency to bleat "But it's wartime!" at every instance of potential criticism and request for information. The Clinton Administration's reluctance to just fork everything over at the outset of the whole Whitewater mess kept that whole embarrassment simmering along, right up to the arrival on the scene of "that woman, Miss Lewinsky".)
Monday, February 09, 2004
The Writer's Ideal Day Job
I've seen this topic come up a few times in various writing-related message boards: what is the ideal day job for an aspiring writer or a writer who isn't up to subsistence levels of writing income yet? I'm sure that there's no absolutely ideal such job, since everybody's different and yada yada yada, but here's what I've discovered.
:: Any job that involves long periods in front of a computer screen is lousy for a writer, because it's really hard to spend seven or eight hours at a desk and then come home, sit down at a different desk, and keep right on doing computer stuff. My last job was in telesales, and the first few months there killed my writing output. Luckily, the solution there was obvious, for me: I wrote longhand at home, because the atmosphere was totally different. Plus, working longhand is the only way to be "portable" for a writer who doesn't have a laptop, and I really enjoyed packing it all up in my canvas Land's End book bag and taking it to Borders or wherever. The big downside there was that writing longhand is slower than typing, but I often found that all to the good, since I can often type faster than I can think. (The results thereof tend to show up here, of all places!)
:: A non-computer job, then, is good. But another consideration isn't just the "in front of a computer for hours" syndrome. There's the little matter of mental energy. A job that doesn't involve a whole lot of deep thought is good for writing, because then one can do a lot of "mental story processing" while working at something else. I'm finding myself doing this a lot at the store: let's be honest, wandering around with a broom and dust butler isn't the most mentally stimulating of tasks, but I get to do a lot of thinking about the current story or chapter in the novel, which is great. If you wish to be a writer, an essential skill to cultivate is the ability to think in a "writerly" way even when not actually sitting down just a-stringin' words along. In the current job, I have been finding myself thinking about my characters and what they're doing, even as I'm attending to the demands of the job at hand. I couldn't do this in telesales, because you just can't mull over an upcoming conversation between two characters while you're trying tocon entice the pharmacist on the other end of the line to buy twice as much Phenytoin Oral Suspension as he says he needs.
Ah, but! You don't want too much consumption of mental resources on the job, else you won't be able to think about writing; but it can go the other way, as well. A job that requires one to do the same repetitive task, over and over and over again, for hours without change in tasks, is just as mentally draining and consumptive of resources as the sales job. This I discovered when working in the university library years ago; back then it usually fell to me to sort together the shipments of new cards for the card catalog, which came in thousands at a time. The effect of this was numbing. So, too, was the time in the telesales job when they had me do nothing but conduct "customer service" surveys, in which I made calls with no sales component. Again, the repetition killed my ability to divert mental energy to thinking about writing at the same time I was simply reading the same questions over and over again. So here you need a job that moves you from one duty to the next.
:: Restaurant management, I always found, had moments when I could think about writing and moments when I couldn't, and the higher on the management chain of command I ascended, the fewer the "writing-able" moments were. The implication here is pretty obvious: avoid too much responsibility, because it kills the ability to think about story.
:: I've never held any kind of editorial position, so I'm not prepared to advance any claims as to how spending hours upon hours reading dreadful story after dreadful story from the slushpile affects one's writerly acumen. I have my suspicions, though.
So what's the point of all this? Simply to say that I'm optimistic about my current job not killing my writing -- especially once I'm again used to, you know, punching a clock and actually doing something.
:: Any job that involves long periods in front of a computer screen is lousy for a writer, because it's really hard to spend seven or eight hours at a desk and then come home, sit down at a different desk, and keep right on doing computer stuff. My last job was in telesales, and the first few months there killed my writing output. Luckily, the solution there was obvious, for me: I wrote longhand at home, because the atmosphere was totally different. Plus, working longhand is the only way to be "portable" for a writer who doesn't have a laptop, and I really enjoyed packing it all up in my canvas Land's End book bag and taking it to Borders or wherever. The big downside there was that writing longhand is slower than typing, but I often found that all to the good, since I can often type faster than I can think. (The results thereof tend to show up here, of all places!)
:: A non-computer job, then, is good. But another consideration isn't just the "in front of a computer for hours" syndrome. There's the little matter of mental energy. A job that doesn't involve a whole lot of deep thought is good for writing, because then one can do a lot of "mental story processing" while working at something else. I'm finding myself doing this a lot at the store: let's be honest, wandering around with a broom and dust butler isn't the most mentally stimulating of tasks, but I get to do a lot of thinking about the current story or chapter in the novel, which is great. If you wish to be a writer, an essential skill to cultivate is the ability to think in a "writerly" way even when not actually sitting down just a-stringin' words along. In the current job, I have been finding myself thinking about my characters and what they're doing, even as I'm attending to the demands of the job at hand. I couldn't do this in telesales, because you just can't mull over an upcoming conversation between two characters while you're trying to
Ah, but! You don't want too much consumption of mental resources on the job, else you won't be able to think about writing; but it can go the other way, as well. A job that requires one to do the same repetitive task, over and over and over again, for hours without change in tasks, is just as mentally draining and consumptive of resources as the sales job. This I discovered when working in the university library years ago; back then it usually fell to me to sort together the shipments of new cards for the card catalog, which came in thousands at a time. The effect of this was numbing. So, too, was the time in the telesales job when they had me do nothing but conduct "customer service" surveys, in which I made calls with no sales component. Again, the repetition killed my ability to divert mental energy to thinking about writing at the same time I was simply reading the same questions over and over again. So here you need a job that moves you from one duty to the next.
:: Restaurant management, I always found, had moments when I could think about writing and moments when I couldn't, and the higher on the management chain of command I ascended, the fewer the "writing-able" moments were. The implication here is pretty obvious: avoid too much responsibility, because it kills the ability to think about story.
:: I've never held any kind of editorial position, so I'm not prepared to advance any claims as to how spending hours upon hours reading dreadful story after dreadful story from the slushpile affects one's writerly acumen. I have my suspicions, though.
So what's the point of all this? Simply to say that I'm optimistic about my current job not killing my writing -- especially once I'm again used to, you know, punching a clock and actually doing something.
If only it were real....
Darth Swank is perplexed. Traffic at his blog is through the roof, but it's apparently due to an image on his site or something like that. He is directly soliciting tech help from the techies of....well, Techland, I suppose. So if any of my readers can help him with a fix so his SiteMeter is more realistic, he'd appreciate it.
I hope she steered well clear of the really tall canned goods displays....
Observed today at the store: a woman doing her shopping, and as she did so, she ticked off the items on her shopping list -- which was displayed on the top window of the screen of the laptop computer she had balanced atop the child seat. Wow. Some people really fetishize this whole "paperless life" thing, eh?
(My first thought was that she was some kind of vendor or management person doing something related to pricing or inventory, but no dice -- I saw her in the checkout lane, and again a minute later while I was sweeping outside.)
(My first thought was that she was some kind of vendor or management person doing something related to pricing or inventory, but no dice -- I saw her in the checkout lane, and again a minute later while I was sweeping outside.)
A WHAT for every student?!
Kevin Drum reports that his local middle school is supplying all students with PDAs. They're using mini-keyboards to type in their crappy essays and "beam" them to the teacher, who is just agog at how easy everything is. And I'm sure the teacher is paying close attention to spelling, and not merely running each student's work through the spellchecker. You know, so she can catch things like "too" when the kid means "to". Right. I'm enormously sympathetic to teachers and the work they have to do and the basic lack of respect they get for doing it, but all the same I'm not sure that we should really do things like this on the basis that it makes their lives easier.
Look. I'm a firm believer that we should be spending tons of money on our schools, that there should be one teacher for every ten kids, and that a teacher should make a lot of money. (I also wouldn't mind seeing the teachers' unions put up so many roadblocks to getting rid of bad teachers, but that's another issue.) But this "Give the latest tech toy to every kid" thing just drives me crazy, and not just because it pisses me off that kids are being given laptops when I might be able to afford a laptop sometime in 2006, if I play my cards right and sell a novel or two. Mainly it's because I envision all the little tykes with their spiffy iMacs or Vaios or whatevers, and then I immediately envision the way my seventh-grade math textbook, which had been brand new when given to me, looked when I handed it back in nine months later. And I was far from the worst student when it came to keeping my books from being dropped on the floor out of clumsiness or deposited there by virtue of my running into my school's version of Nelson Muntz.
Kevin also points out the tech support problems: are schools that give out freebie tech toys going to employ a full-time tech dude to change batteries and fix broken screens and repair keyboards and whatnot?
And finally, how many art and music programs could be funded for the cost of a PalmPilot for every pupil?
Look. I'm a firm believer that we should be spending tons of money on our schools, that there should be one teacher for every ten kids, and that a teacher should make a lot of money. (I also wouldn't mind seeing the teachers' unions put up so many roadblocks to getting rid of bad teachers, but that's another issue.) But this "Give the latest tech toy to every kid" thing just drives me crazy, and not just because it pisses me off that kids are being given laptops when I might be able to afford a laptop sometime in 2006, if I play my cards right and sell a novel or two. Mainly it's because I envision all the little tykes with their spiffy iMacs or Vaios or whatevers, and then I immediately envision the way my seventh-grade math textbook, which had been brand new when given to me, looked when I handed it back in nine months later. And I was far from the worst student when it came to keeping my books from being dropped on the floor out of clumsiness or deposited there by virtue of my running into my school's version of Nelson Muntz.
Kevin also points out the tech support problems: are schools that give out freebie tech toys going to employ a full-time tech dude to change batteries and fix broken screens and repair keyboards and whatnot?
And finally, how many art and music programs could be funded for the cost of a PalmPilot for every pupil?
Sunday, February 08, 2004
I am not locked in here with you; YOU are locked in here with ME.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Rorschach Test, including the actual inkblots. I confess that my first thought is to print them out, blow them up, and give them to my daughter as coloring pages. Is this test still administered? My skepticism is captured by this statement from the site:
"Many psychologists think the Rorschach test is hopelessly unreliable; others see it as one of the cardinal tools of modern psychodiagnosis. Even among those who acknowledge the value of the test, there is disagreement on interpretation of responses."
In other words: "Lots of shrinks believe this is total bullshit, and the ones that don't think it's total bullshit don't agree on what it means." OK, then....sounds like a couple of the undergrad philosophy conferences I attended while in college, but without the possibility of being chucked in the sanitarium.
(via Scott of Archipelapogo, who's sporting a ton of nifty linkage lately.)
(And a cyber-gumdrop for anyone who gets the reference in the title!)
"Many psychologists think the Rorschach test is hopelessly unreliable; others see it as one of the cardinal tools of modern psychodiagnosis. Even among those who acknowledge the value of the test, there is disagreement on interpretation of responses."
In other words: "Lots of shrinks believe this is total bullshit, and the ones that don't think it's total bullshit don't agree on what it means." OK, then....sounds like a couple of the undergrad philosophy conferences I attended while in college, but without the possibility of being chucked in the sanitarium.
(via Scott of Archipelapogo, who's sporting a ton of nifty linkage lately.)
(And a cyber-gumdrop for anyone who gets the reference in the title!)
On this date....
...in 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded.
...in 1725, emperor Peter the Great of Russia died.
...in 1915, the film Birth of a Nation opened.
And, most importantly, in 1932: composer John Williams, the film composer to whose music I return most often, was born. Happy 72nd, Maestro Williams, and stay healthy -- Episode III is still in the offing!
(Historical events courtesy This Day In History by the History Channel.)
UPDATE: In Maestro Williams's honor, I am now listening to the score to The Empire Strikes Back, and as always happens when I listen to this music, I'm sitting here bobbing my head like a goof and thinking, "Best F***ing score ever!" We now end this moment of extreme geekery.
...in 1725, emperor Peter the Great of Russia died.
...in 1915, the film Birth of a Nation opened.
And, most importantly, in 1932: composer John Williams, the film composer to whose music I return most often, was born. Happy 72nd, Maestro Williams, and stay healthy -- Episode III is still in the offing!
(Historical events courtesy This Day In History by the History Channel.)
UPDATE: In Maestro Williams's honor, I am now listening to the score to The Empire Strikes Back, and as always happens when I listen to this music, I'm sitting here bobbing my head like a goof and thinking, "Best F***ing score ever!" We now end this moment of extreme geekery.
There is a malfunction in the AE-35 unit....
Over at Terminus, Drew Vogel has arrived at his review of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in the course of his ongoing look at all of Stanley Kubrick's films.
What always gets me about this film is the minutiae of the daily-life details Kubrick has in the background. There's the famous shot of the flight attendant walking up the circular wall before delivering food to the pilots, and Heywood Floyd's phone call to Earth, but there's a lot of other small-scale detail in the course of the movie. Consider Dr. Floyd's briefing of the scientists at the Clavius Base: it's free of the kind of pretentious "movie speak" that a lesser film would have used, and a surprising amount of Floyd's verbiage in that scene is devoted to bureaucratic administrativia. And a few minutes later, while Floyd rides a shuttle with a couple of scientists out to where the lunar monolith has been "unearthed", they crack open a cooler and eat sandwiches. Imagine that: these fellows are on their way out to see the first true evidence of extraterrestrial life ever found, and they're saying things like, "What is this, chicken?" "Yeah, looks like it. Got any coffee?"
Incidentally, this kind of detail -- the fact that this is a place, with people doing everyday stuff there -- is one facet of why I love the Star Wars movies so much. One of the best "tiny details" of this sort comes in the scene where Ben Kenobi is cutting the power to the tractor beam: while he's working, two stormtroopers are standing near the door, just shootin' the breeze:
"You know what's going on?"
"I dunno, maybe it's another drill."
"Hey, have you seen that new BT-16?"
"Yeah, some of the other guys were telling me about that. They said it's quite a thing to see."
I love stuff like that.
One of the most haunting aspects of Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001, which wasn't reflected in the movie, is how Dave Bowman carries on after he has to pull Hal's plug and everyone else on the Discovery is dead. In the book, Bowman buries himself in routine, and struggles to maintain some connection to the human race from which he is now separated by millions of miles. It's all very startling, and I've always appreciated how Clarke depicts Bowman's struggle to maintain his rationality in the face of wonder mounting upon wonder. In this way, the book exceeds the film.
Drew is correct that 2001 should not really be seen in connection with the sequel 2010, although the latter is a decent enough film that really doesn't hurt anything.
What always gets me about this film is the minutiae of the daily-life details Kubrick has in the background. There's the famous shot of the flight attendant walking up the circular wall before delivering food to the pilots, and Heywood Floyd's phone call to Earth, but there's a lot of other small-scale detail in the course of the movie. Consider Dr. Floyd's briefing of the scientists at the Clavius Base: it's free of the kind of pretentious "movie speak" that a lesser film would have used, and a surprising amount of Floyd's verbiage in that scene is devoted to bureaucratic administrativia. And a few minutes later, while Floyd rides a shuttle with a couple of scientists out to where the lunar monolith has been "unearthed", they crack open a cooler and eat sandwiches. Imagine that: these fellows are on their way out to see the first true evidence of extraterrestrial life ever found, and they're saying things like, "What is this, chicken?" "Yeah, looks like it. Got any coffee?"
Incidentally, this kind of detail -- the fact that this is a place, with people doing everyday stuff there -- is one facet of why I love the Star Wars movies so much. One of the best "tiny details" of this sort comes in the scene where Ben Kenobi is cutting the power to the tractor beam: while he's working, two stormtroopers are standing near the door, just shootin' the breeze:
"You know what's going on?"
"I dunno, maybe it's another drill."
"Hey, have you seen that new BT-16?"
"Yeah, some of the other guys were telling me about that. They said it's quite a thing to see."
I love stuff like that.
One of the most haunting aspects of Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001, which wasn't reflected in the movie, is how Dave Bowman carries on after he has to pull Hal's plug and everyone else on the Discovery is dead. In the book, Bowman buries himself in routine, and struggles to maintain some connection to the human race from which he is now separated by millions of miles. It's all very startling, and I've always appreciated how Clarke depicts Bowman's struggle to maintain his rationality in the face of wonder mounting upon wonder. In this way, the book exceeds the film.
Drew is correct that 2001 should not really be seen in connection with the sequel 2010, although the latter is a decent enough film that really doesn't hurt anything.
A Suggestion for scientific study
I think that some scientist should identify just why it is that Heavy Metal, which I watched a few nights ago, is incredibly bad if one starts watching it sober, but gets better and better and better until it's the greatest cinematic journey since Lawrence of Arabia if one drinks beer during the screening at the rate of one 12 oz. beer every fifteen minutes.
I mean, the movie's just dorky as hell, but if one drinks enough while watching it, it slowly becomes endearing -- and when the space ship that's shaped like the 1970s "Have a nice day!" happy face shows up, well, at that point you just kind of sit back and grin -- which happens to be what the two stoner-aliens piloting that spaceship do at that point, as well. And when Tarna shows up....geez, just thinking about it makes me want to crack open a beer. And I'm writing this on Sunday morning.
I mean, the movie's just dorky as hell, but if one drinks enough while watching it, it slowly becomes endearing -- and when the space ship that's shaped like the 1970s "Have a nice day!" happy face shows up, well, at that point you just kind of sit back and grin -- which happens to be what the two stoner-aliens piloting that spaceship do at that point, as well. And when Tarna shows up....geez, just thinking about it makes me want to crack open a beer. And I'm writing this on Sunday morning.
New at GMR
For the first time in the year I've been with them, one of my reviews is granted "Feature Review" status at Green Man Review. The review in question is Guy Gavriel Kay's new novel, The Last Light of the Sun, which should be available for purchase in Canada this week and in the US sometime in the next month. Scoring advance review copies of books rules, and getting one of Kay's -- well, that's just golden.
I also have a review up of a children's picture book called Hello, Harvest Moon.
I also have a review up of a children's picture book called Hello, Harvest Moon.
I don't think Hostess would market these....
Janet Jackson's exposed nipple, in cupcake form. Because, you know, what's the point of a national scandal -- even so lame a scandal as this one -- if you can't memorialize it in a bit of pastry and icing?
(via Outside Counsel)
(via Outside Counsel)
Saturday, February 07, 2004
There's no earthly way of knowing....which direction we are going....
I hate it when I'm channel-flipping and I catch the last minute or so of a sketch on some comedy show which I suspect I would have really wanted to see in its entirety. Case in point: I flipped past FOX a short while ago, and MAD TV had a bit in which Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was crossed with The Apprentice.
In the bit I saw, an actor playing Donald Trump in an outfit that was part business suit, part whacky-suit a la Gene Wilder, and he was singing to the winning contestant of The Apprentice as the glass elevator of Trump Tower shot up toward the sky and out of the building.
Then the sketch cuts to a news anchor sitting at a desk, reporting that the Air Force has shot down a glass elevator that was flying unauthorized NYC airspace, and that President Bush has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to devote resources to "terrorist magic elevators".
Hell, I don't know, maybe the sketch sucked. But it sure sounds funny.
(Which reminds me of Al Gore's stint as Saturday Night Live host last year: my favorite sketch of that episode was when Gore played -- you guessed it -- Willy Wonka's accountant brother, the guy responsible for working the financing of a factory whose labor force is Oompa Loompas and which uses a river and waterfall as a stirring mechanism. For some reason, I just found Al Gore, dressed up in dusty Dickensian rags and barking lines like "You hear that, Willy? We're Oompa-Loompa-Doompity-Screwed!", absolutely hilarious.)
In the bit I saw, an actor playing Donald Trump in an outfit that was part business suit, part whacky-suit a la Gene Wilder, and he was singing to the winning contestant of The Apprentice as the glass elevator of Trump Tower shot up toward the sky and out of the building.
Then the sketch cuts to a news anchor sitting at a desk, reporting that the Air Force has shot down a glass elevator that was flying unauthorized NYC airspace, and that President Bush has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to devote resources to "terrorist magic elevators".
Hell, I don't know, maybe the sketch sucked. But it sure sounds funny.
(Which reminds me of Al Gore's stint as Saturday Night Live host last year: my favorite sketch of that episode was when Gore played -- you guessed it -- Willy Wonka's accountant brother, the guy responsible for working the financing of a factory whose labor force is Oompa Loompas and which uses a river and waterfall as a stirring mechanism. For some reason, I just found Al Gore, dressed up in dusty Dickensian rags and barking lines like "You hear that, Willy? We're Oompa-Loompa-Doompity-Screwed!", absolutely hilarious.)
Bzzzzt, wrong answer....
I just have to say that I'd have a lot more respect for Janet Jackson if she'd just say, "Yeah, I displayed my breast on national TV for 1.9 seconds. Deal with it, you bunch of puritanical nutjobs." Especially after reading Peggy Noonan's latest screed in which she wrings her no-doubt icy hands. I think that Noonan has been playing some right-wing weirdo variant of the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Game", in which any event at all is connected with 9-11-01:
"I pulled my car into the carwash yesterday, and immediately after driving away with my pristinely shining new body and windshield so clear it's almost like I could reach right through it and touch the clouds where the little birdies frolic. But the illusion was spoiled when a monarch butterfly was caught in a downdraft, and found itself striking my windshield with such force that its poor, delicate body was splattered across the glass. And yet, as I looked upon that orange smear that had formerly been a pretty little butterfly, I had to think back to that day, that horrible day, when I found myself next to some guy who was no doubt thinking the exact same things I'm thinking now. And I think of 9-11, and all the little butterflies, and I realize that America's values are butterflies splatting upon the windshield of liberals."
I do wish, though, that someone would make a videotape of Noonan while she writes a column, just because I always wonder if she tosses her head while writing like she does while speaking on live TV. Over to you, Bob.
(link via TBogg, who is in the process of a redesign. Not that he asked my two cents, but he should keep the archives -- just move them down to the bottom of the sidebar, if need be -- and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think one needs to "upgrade" to use Blogger's RSS feature. I'm using it, and I've never upgraded anything.)
"I pulled my car into the carwash yesterday, and immediately after driving away with my pristinely shining new body and windshield so clear it's almost like I could reach right through it and touch the clouds where the little birdies frolic. But the illusion was spoiled when a monarch butterfly was caught in a downdraft, and found itself striking my windshield with such force that its poor, delicate body was splattered across the glass. And yet, as I looked upon that orange smear that had formerly been a pretty little butterfly, I had to think back to that day, that horrible day, when I found myself next to some guy who was no doubt thinking the exact same things I'm thinking now. And I think of 9-11, and all the little butterflies, and I realize that America's values are butterflies splatting upon the windshield of liberals."
I do wish, though, that someone would make a videotape of Noonan while she writes a column, just because I always wonder if she tosses her head while writing like she does while speaking on live TV. Over to you, Bob.
(link via TBogg, who is in the process of a redesign. Not that he asked my two cents, but he should keep the archives -- just move them down to the bottom of the sidebar, if need be -- and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think one needs to "upgrade" to use Blogger's RSS feature. I'm using it, and I've never upgraded anything.)
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