tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-136454072024-03-07T11:27:59.157-08:00Cali-for-nyaah!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger216125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-15671115658431137162009-03-24T19:12:00.000-07:002009-03-24T19:49:29.884-07:00Two Minutes of MeanFirst: I want to be very clear that I have the deepest sympathy for people who were tricked or defrauded into taking on a mortgage they cannot afford, particularly veterans who would have qualified for stable, low-interest Federal loans and were instead funneled into sub-prime and/or adjustable rate mortgages. You were rooked, and I am sorry.<br /><br />Second: Some people currently affected by the real estate market probably knew they were buying at the top of the market, and carried out their plan, thinking that it still made sense. Now some aspect of their lives have changed, they cannot make their payments, need to sell and cannot. That is a hard situation, and I am sorry.<br /><br />But if you are basically fine, except for being somewhat underwater on your house: Shut up about it already.<br /><br />Not just because there are people in much worse situations, although that is a good reason to shut up about it.<br /><br />No, you should shut up about it because there is NOTHING SPECIAL about your situation. Pretty much everything there is in the whole world loses value as soon as you buy it.<br /><br />Cars. Food. iPods. Furniture. Clothing. Jewelry with the exception of perhaps a dozen really major pieces, most of which are held by the British royal family or Elizabeth Taylor -- they all lose value as soon as you buy them. Which is to say, having bought a head of lettuce or an iPod Touch, you will not be able to find someone to buy it off of you for anything close to what you paid.<br /><br />The reason for this is that anything for which there is more supply than demand will experience falling prices.<br /><br />I know, real estate seemed like a special case, a situation in which demand would outstrip supply forever and ever.<br /><br />That was wrong. Real estate was not a special case. And hearing people -- smart people, ethical people like Elizabeth Warren -- talk about being underwater on a mortgage as if it were akin to, say, losing your house completely... well, it's infuriating. Let's save our sympathy and our energy for the people who ARE in peril, who WILL lose their houses. <br /><br />I know it is hard to look at a mortgage and see how many thousands of dollars you owe on a property that is not currently worth that amount. But try not to get too worked up about it.<br /><br />Think of your home or your condo as a iPhone, which you bought on the first day Apple was selling them. Sure, lots of people paid 10-25% less for the same exact (or even nicer) device, but did they have the use of their iPhone for the last two years? NO! And you did! So you've paid a premium for that convenience -- isn't that one of the foundations of our modern world?<br /><br /> We live in a nation that worships market forces. We seem to think there's no problem in the known world that cannot be fixed by market forces. When GE bumps 200% in 5 years and someone sells his stock to buy a house in Bermuda, we're like: YES! Go market forces!<br /><br />But these same market forces have dragged down real estate prices, behaving according to the exact same principles of supply and demand that pushed up GE in days of yore. So to stand around now, complaining that It's Not Fair and It's Not Right and I Should Be Able to Adjust My Mortgage Even Though I Can Make My Payments Just Fine?<br /><br />Shut. Up.<br /><br />Or failing that, take that head of lettuce back to Whole Foods and see if they'll give you back half the price because now that it's a couple days old, no one will pay you the $7 it originally cost.<br /><br />It's like gravity. We love gravity when it pulls the basketball through the hoop on a free throw. We love gravity when it drops the club into the hand of the juggler. And you notice that we don't stand around complaining when gravity makes a basketball player hit the ground like a ton of bricks. We don't stand up and yell "Boo gravity! This is bullshit!"<br /><br />It's the nature of market forces that some prices will rise, and some prices will fall. To get all worked up about the fact that right now, the market is doing what markets do, is like getting angry at gravity for making your pen fall off your desk.<br /><br />This concludes this week's Two Minutes of Mean. Please return to your regularly scheduled civility and good manners.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-62758650926655244002009-03-20T20:38:00.000-07:002009-03-20T20:38:01.018-07:00Yet More Excerpts of Prose That I Like a LotSome good-humored ribbing of David Foster Wallace over at <a href="http://johnaugust.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">JohnAugust</span>.com</a> sent me on the hunt for a portion of "Infinite Jest" that has stayed with me from the day I read it.<br /><br />I think I have explained this before, but my position on David Foster Wallace is: Thank God. As in, literally, thank you, God or what/whoever confluence of events and causalities brought him to fiction writing within my life time.<br /><br />I suspect that my feelings about David Foster Wallace and "Infinite Jest" are roughly akin to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">cinephile's</span> regard for Orson Welles and "Citizen Kane." Neither the man nor the work are without flaws, but in both cases, you have someone at the top of his game, swinging for the fences with every fiber of his being. Accusations of trying too hard, going too far, not accomplishing his goal -- these are the very things that haunt every artist, and for a brief moment, they both said "Fuck it, I'm going for it." If you love that art form (for me, fiction; for others, film), you are profoundly grateful for their bravery.<br /><br />Okay, so now that I've bored everyone with my rambling, here is the excerpt, which explains how a tennis player came to join his college football team as a punter, despite a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">disasterously</span> bad try-out moments earlier:<br /><br /><blockquote>What metro Boston <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">AAs</span> are trite but correct about is that both destiny's kisses and its dope-slaps illustrate an individual person's basic personal powerlessness over the really meaningful events in his life: (100) i.e. almost nothing important that ever happens to you <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">happens</span> because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">trenchcoated</span> out of an alley with some sort of <span style="font-style: italic;">Psst</span> that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer. The destiny-grade event that happened to Orin <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Incandenza</span> at this point was that just as he was passing glumly under the Home goalposts and entering the shadow of the south exit-tunnel's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">adit</span> a loud and ominously orthopedic cracking sound, plus then shrieking, issued from somewhere on the field behind him. What had happened was that B.U.'s best defensive tackle -- a 180-kilo future pro who had no teeth and liked to color -- practicing Special Teams punt-rushes, not only blocked B.U.'s varsity punter's kick but committed a serious mental error and kept coming and crashed into the little <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">padless</span> guy while the punter's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">cleated</span> foot was still up over his head, falling on him in a beefy heap and snapping everything from femur to tarsus in the punter's leg with a dreadful high-caliber snap. Two Pep majorettes and a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">waterboy</span> fainted from the sound of the punter's screams alone. The blocked punt's ball caromed hard off the defensive tackle's helmet and bounced crazily and rolled untended all the way back to the shadow of the south tunnel, where Orin had turned to watch the punter writhe and the lineman rise with a finger in his mouth and guilty expression. The Defensive Line Coach disconnected his headset and dashed out and began blowing his whistle at the lineman at extremely close ranger, over and over, as the huge tackle started to cry and hit himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand.<br /></blockquote>This passage arrives at the bottom of p. 291 of the hardcover edition of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">IJ</span>, and represents the moment when I fell <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">wholly</span>, completely in love with the book and its author. It is probably a mistake to post it here, stripped from the previous 290 pages which, in a variant of Stockholm Syndrome, softened me up like a clementine, until I fell apart at the gentlest touch. And I mean fall apart in several ways, including the vernacular phrase for losing control, as I put my head down on pages 292 and 293 and laughed until I almost could not breathe.<br /><br />Then I went back and started from "What had happened..." and began to uncontrollably giggle at the phrases "beefy heap."<br /><br />All the while, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">btw</span>, my roommates at the time were in the next room, watching an especially farce-heavy "<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Frasier</span>," a show I loved at the time, and were themselves laughing uproariously at some misunderstood confusion between Daphne and Niles, and still, though I could hear David Hyde Pierce's flawless comic timing wringing gales out of both my roommates and the studio audience, I remained totally absorbed in my book.<br /><br />A guy named David <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Bordwell</span> taught film studies when I was at Wisconsin, and as you might expect, he had a giant professor boner for Orson Welles and especially "Citizen Kane." He wrote a textbook that virtually every undergrad at Wisconsin bought or read at one point, myself included, and early on, there's a still from CK, one of those massive-depth-of-frame specials from the newsroom scene. Now, years later, I still understand the technical accomplishment of the shot, but for the life of me, I have no idea what <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Bordwell</span> thought was so amazing.<br /><br />I know many people feel that way about "Infinite Jest" -- they have no idea why anyone would think it was so amazing. They find the prose pointlessly abstruse, they think the critical adoration that rained down on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">DFW</span> was undeserved. That's a perfectly valid reaction, and one I would never try to argue with, anymore that I would welcome a 30 minute lecture on how I'm a philistine because I only kind of like "Citizen Kane."<br /><br />But if you can make it through the first 150 pages of "Infinite Jest," the pay off is there. Not in the ending, which is either 1150 pages ahead of you or 150 pages behind you, depending on you look at it, but in the reading itself, which is so rewarding that when you at last come to the true end of the story, you wish only that it would keep going for another 1300 pages.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-63810379751156492009-03-19T20:16:00.000-07:002009-03-19T20:16:01.037-07:00Found ComedyI am profoundly grateful to Emily <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Yoffe's</span> recent piece in Slate on <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2213740/">narcissistic personality disorder</a>, which is not only a ripping good read, but also drew my attention to perhaps the best two sentences to appear in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/us/politics/15blagojevich.html?scp=1&sq=preferred%20black%20Paul%20Mitchell&st=cse"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">NYT</span></a> in this or any other year:<br /><blockquote>[He] is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">unapologetically</span> late to almost everything, and can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush. He calls the brush “the football,” an allusion to the “nuclear football,” or the bomb codes never to be out of reach of a president.</blockquote>This sentence describes the beloved ex-governor of Illinois, but it is also a miracle of concise comic character development, of a caliber I have not seen outside of Dickens, or early Fellini.<br /><br />We are told earlier in the article that this information comes from former employees, and for all that Blagojevich is held up for ridicule, this passage also has the tang of long-suffered humiliations finally redressed, of teary conversations in supply closets finally coming to a much deserved resolution, of panicky dawn nightmares finally put to rest. In short, like all comedy, it contains a seed of great pain.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-21173726366171067622009-03-09T20:06:00.000-07:002009-03-09T20:06:00.311-07:00Some of My Super PowersI know most super heroes like to keep their powers under wraps, so as not to alarm the populace.<br /><br />However, there is little point in my trying to be all slick and Jane Not-S0-Special, because as you probably know, the word "Powers" is actually part of my name. Me = busted by my own birth certificate. Also, my dad who has that name, and my mom who took his name when she married him.<br /><br />So in order to help the public feel a little more comfortable around super heroes, I've decided to pull back the curtain and reveal some of my not-secret-for-very-much-longer abilities:<br /><br />1. Gravy - I've been pretty forthright about this, but let me clear up any lingering misconceptions: I make the finest G.D. gravy known to man. It can from a turkey, it can be from a standing rib roast, no matter. The resultant liquid will be so potent and flavorful that grown men will attempt to fill a syringe with it, the better to inject directly into their veins. Needless to say, my powers of gravy making come with tremendous responsibilities, and I have always been careful not expose small children or the mentally feeble to the full brunt of my abilities.<br /><br />2. Advance Planning - I have executed post-college nine moves to date, three of them involving transitions across multiple states and/or time zones. Five were solo missions, one of which involved picking up a Budget rental truck in the Bronx and driving the length of Manhattan in order to reach the Williamsburg bridge. In order to move to Los Angeles, I planned a week-long cross country drive, tied to the one night in July when there was an available cabin at the Grand Canyon National Park. I have also planned a wedding for 130 guests, a handful of mindblowingly elaborate birthday & Christmas dinners, and my own application to and enrollment in graduate school.<br /><br />I totally rock the check list, yo.<br /><br />3. Predicting the Future - First thing this morning, I discovered that the charger outlet in my car had died. This was a minor problem, in as much as my iPod adapter needs live current to play through the radio. But a brief rummage through my glove box revealed: a) a small box of replacement fuses, and b) a fuse-puller. Why were these things in my glove box? Because I know me, and I know that I will want to replace a burnt fuse THE VERY SECOND I realize it has gone to the Fuse Shop in the Sky. I will not want to stop at an auto supply store and buy a fuse and fuse puller. And so, very cleverly, I stocked the very things I would need, in my glove box.<br /><br />(Also in my glove box: a jar of Advil Gel Caplets, a thing of Secret Powder Fresh, nice stationary, a ball point pen, and a disposable camera -- in case I'm in an accident and need to document the scene.)<br /><br />4. Solving - Simple math problems, of course. But also larger difficulties, like: Why doesn't this drawer open smoothly anymore? Why does this one chair make such an annoying squeak when anyone sits in it? Why doesn't my iPod adapter work? How can I make sure the cats have a satisfactory scratching post without buying them a new one every six weeks?<br /><br />(MG says this last power is obviously something I get from my engineering-minded Dad, but I submit that my Nurse Practitioner Mom diagnoses 8-year-olds with a thermometer and a juice box, and treats homeless people with whatever medical supplies can fit in a large suitcase, so I think they both have to get credit.)<br /><br />5. Ability to Identify A Movie from Less Than 1 Second of Footage - This is probably the most terrifying of all my powers, and something I know MG struggles to accept, because it's one of those things, like x-ray vision, that just doesn't seem possible. But in the past month alone, I have identified "Some Like It Hot" from a shot of the mafia banquet -- a frame that did not show either Jack Lemmon or Tony Curtis, and "Jaws" from a shot of a sneakered foot climbing around the edge of the boat.<br /><br />(MG, btw, should know better than to doubt me, since he can identify pretty much any jazz standard in under 10 seconds, no matter how unbelievably deconstructed/riffed upon the performance.)<br /><br />6. Mastery of the Obscure Cocktail Recipe - When I recreated Brennan's Absinthe Frappe, I thought it was a one-time thing. Also, I was incredibly motivated, because I love Brennan's Absinthe Frappe, and when the hell am I ever going to get back to New Orleans? But I have now mastered the Queen Elizabeth, a recipe so complicated it calls for an eye dropper, and I think we have to face the very real possibility that this is yet another one of my super powers.<br /><br />7. Seek, Locate, Obtain - I am descended from apparently the Queen Mother Champion Berry Gatherer of Northern Europe, because there's almost nothing I cannot track down, given sufficient resources and time. Sometimes I use this power for my own personal gain, as when I tracked down a replacement Burleigh Arden tea cup and saucer, to replace the set that broke some years ago. Sometimes I harness these abilities for the benefit of others, as when I found a vintage fertility pamphlet produced and distributed in 1963, as part of my research for a certain show set in the year 1963, in which certain characters were struggling with fertility issues.<br /><br />An off-shoot of these powers is my mighty Research Fu, which is so relentless that I will get up at 6 a.m. in order to reach a volunteer docent at a Navy museum on the east coast in order to find out how WWII vets pronounce "keitan," the Japanese word for their one-man suicide subs. As with many of the martial arts, this one involves me entering an out-of-body state, in which I seem not to register pain or fatigue. You might also call it a kind of focused, berserker rage, a description born out by one witness's observation that I am "a fucking Viking" when I'm tracking down an answer.<br /><br />And that, for now, will have to be the final power I reveal today. The first draft of this list was quite a bit longer, but the government redacted the remaining items as classified and not for public knowledge, so I'll have to content myself with this partial inventory.<br /><br />However, in the spirit of encouraging public discourse, I invite you to post your own secret powers in the comments.<br /><br />Embrace your awesomeness, Super Persons! You have nothing to lose but your cleverly disguised alter egos!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-62374674995214265932009-02-23T18:30:00.000-08:002009-02-23T18:30:00.552-08:00If I Were Still in Grad SchoolI have the greatest fondness for the Critical Studies courses I took in film school, and especially for the insane papers I was given license to write for said classes.<br /><br />For Prof. Drew Casper's Hitchcock course, I explored Hitch's use and subversion of Cary Grant's public persona. This was hugely enjoyable, not least because it allowed me to a) watch <span style="font-style: italic;">Notorious</span> over and over and over again and b) rail at length against the fiasco that is <span style="font-style: italic;">Suspicion</span>. God! Just saying the name of the movie makes me angry all over again. It's a perfectly good, even chilling piece of suspense -- it even has a haunting scene involving a staircase, as in <span style="font-style: italic;">Notorious</span> -- but with one glaring flaw.<br /><br />Someone convinced/bribed/forced Hitchcock to re-edit the end of the movie, on the grounds that the American public did not want to see Grant as a bad guy. Result: You waste two hours of your life watching a movie that STRONGLY IMPLIES that Grant intends to kill his wife, and then see the whole thing go pouring down the drain when it ends with heavily doctored scene of the two actors, apologising to each other for all the previous two hours of misunderstandings, and agreeing to go forward in marital bliss.<br /><br />(I say "heavily doctored" because each actor delivers the crucial lines with the back of his/her head to the camera -- the better to conceal that whatever's being said, it isn't what actually came out of the actor's mouth when they shot the scene the first time.)<br /><br />Almost as enjoyable, but utterly indefensible as a serious critical studies paper was my James Bond paper, exploring the motifs from <span style="font-style: italic;">Thunderball</span> borrowed/misappropriated by the BBC production team behind the mid-60s seasons of <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span>. This involved multiple viewings of <span style="font-style: italic;">Thunderball</span> and a grainy, US-format videotape of a DW episode entitled, I believe, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Silurians.</span><br /><br />I realize that might sound insane, but the production team actually admitted they had, in fact, based the Third Doctor and his various toys on James Bond, so in many respects, this paper was far more factual and academically valid than my Grant paper.<br /><br />Film school is far, far behind me now. (Er, by which I mean it's been about a year since I graduated. Whoo hoo! Fourteen months of MFAhood!) But I still feel the urge, now and then, to hole up with a pile of books and a couple of DVDs and whip off 12 pages on some intersection of high and popular culture. In recent weeks, the list of possible papers has been stacking up in my mind, so I'm making a blog post of them, the better to inspire topic-hungry scholars everywhere:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Dollhouse</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> vs. </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">A Doll's House</span> - Joss Whedon a) is a graduate of Wesleyan, with b) well-documented feminist beliefs (see: <span style="font-style: italic;">Buffy the Vampire Slayer</span>), and c) has eyes. Therefore, there is zero chance he has not read/studied the ur-feminist drama, Henrik Ibsen's <span style="font-style: italic;">A Doll's House.</span> In this paper, we will explore the thematic commonalities between the two works, including the female protagonist who is underestimated by everyone in her world, the rigid institutions around both Echo and Nora that will not allow them to grow into full personhood, and the explicit debt each woman owes and is endeavoring to repay by "serving" in one or more roles within the existing power structure.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Becker</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> vs. </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">House</span> - Two likeable comic actors, two surly misanthropic medical doctors. One is a monster hit, one is a little-respected sitcom now enjoying a belated popularity in syndication. What the hell?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">From Fast Ball to Sleaze Ball: The Evolving Dramatic Personae of Ted Danson -</span> The same guy that America scorned when he played a surly misanthropic doctor, now enjoying critical acclaim for his turn as an utterly corrupt pump-and-dump CEO on <span style="font-style: italic;">Damages</span>. Is it the silver hair? What the hell?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jack Lemmon: Stinking up the Joint Since 15 Seconds After Filming Wrapped on </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Apartment</span> - Yes, agreed. Jack Lemmon was amazing in his early films. And then he ossified in a horrific caricature of his earlier performances. So much so that I believe Mamet deliberately cast him in <span style="font-style: italic;">Glengarry Glen Ross</span> because Lemmon's terrible, overly-mannered acting was the only way to show the audience exactly how rote his character's salesmanship had become.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Dreyfus: The Anti-Jack Lemmon -</span> Unlike Lemmon, I think Richard Dreyfus has delivered a lifetime of smart, unique performances. (Not counting his laugh, which is always the same, no matter what movie. But I can't hold that against him. A man's laugh is like his sex face -- it's not really the kind of thing he can change.)<br /><br />(Mom, if you're reading my blog, now might be a good time to stop.)<br /><br />But in 2009, there is an unthinking tsunami of critical admiration for Lemmon that he does not deserve, primarily because so many of his early films are considered classics. While Dreyfus, who has turned in marvelous performances in so-called fluff, such as <span style="font-style: italic;">Jaws</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">What About Bob?</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Moon Over Parador</span>, enjoys no such acclaim. I call bullshit -- it's high time we recognized Richard Dreyfus for the unique American talent that he is.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Quint's </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Indianapolis</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Monologue: A Critical Exploration</span> - Yes, since you ask, I did see <span style="font-style: italic;">Jaws</span> on HBO last week. So what? My larger point is still valid, i.e., as a piece of dramatic storytelling, Quint's monologue is without peer. It segues seamlessly between the drunken scar comparisons that come before, and the boisterous singing that comes after. It explains Quint's maniacal determination to bring down the shark, and it reminds the audience -- who hasn't seen anyone eaten for almost an hour at this point -- exactly what the worst case scenario is. And, of course, it sets up the dramatic irony that is cruising towards Quint in about 20 minutes time.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Getting High Off His Own Supply: Why You Never Want to See the Words "Written and Directed By" in the Opening Credits of Any Movie, But Especially If the Next Words Are "M. Night Shyamalan," "Paul Haggis" or "Charlie Kaufman"</span> - I also saw <span style="font-style: italic;">The Lady in the Water</span> on HBO last week. It was not a good experience. <span style="font-style: italic;">In the Valley of Elah</span> made me so angry it gave me a headache.<br /><br />And I cannot pronounce the world "synecdoche," so I'm throwing Charlie Kaufman in there for good measure.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-13001492705082512382009-02-20T15:45:00.001-08:002009-02-20T16:06:29.592-08:00I Made This! (NSFW!)<embed src="http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1119352258" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashvars="videoId=11903371001&playerId=1119352258&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swliveconnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" height="225" width="300"></embed><p>If we're Facebook friends or you follow me on Twitter, or we otherwise know each other in one of the 9 million forms of acquaintance that exist in this modern age, then you already know about this, and I apologise for bringing it up again.<br /><br />The AMC website calls this a "minisode." It's basically a 4 1/2 minute sketch, using the characters from the original dramatic series "Breaking Bad." I believe it is wholly, entirely awesome, but just to hit some of the essential points:<br /></p><p>* From the very beginning, the show was determined to make these minisodes only if it would throw a little work and/or cash to the various aspiring writers/assistants on staff. </p><p>* I had given up all hope of getting to write one, and on the last day before we wrapped for the holidays, I got a call from a producer, telling me to bring in a finished draft when we started up again in January.</p><p>* I got a lot of great feedback on that script, and then the whole thing was thrown out because the cast, subject matter and setting needed to be "more edgy."<br /></p><p>* So instead, we went with this, which is many things, but most especially, it is more edgy. If by edgy you mean dirty.</p><p>* The whole thing is covered by the WGA, which means that, thanks to last year's writers' strike, I now can tip my baby toe in the warm pool of milk and honey that is the Writers' Guild of America. But only my baby toe.</p><p>* One Saturday back in January, MG & I drove out to watch them film this, and I have probably never had more fun in my whole life. (Previous never-had-more-fun-in-my-whole-life: Staying up until 2:30 a.m., watching the final day of shooting on Season One of "Mad Men.") Our cast is so incredibly talented and they were so generous with their time and ability. They took a script written by a writers' PA and worked with the same focus and energy they bring to every episode. I am beyond grateful.</p><p>* There is one minor gaffe. If you watch it more than once, you'll probably spot it the second or third time through. I'm not just saying that to drive traffic. Although it would be awesome if these things got a bajillionty hits apiece. (And that goes for all of them -- the other four minisodes are written by my fellow assistants, and they are EVEN FUNNIER than this one, so go watch them on <a href="http://www.amctv.com">www.amctv.com</a> now!)</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-53997525118369794112009-02-13T13:24:00.000-08:002009-02-13T14:05:31.728-08:00J'adoreIn time for Valentine's Day, a brief list of things of which I am especially fond:<br /><br />* Clementines. These things will be the death of me. Whose bright idea was it to sell them by the crate? Do you know how many of these bastards I can eat in a sitting? Do you know what that does to my digestive tract? You know what, forget I asked.<br /><br />* <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Wasabi</span> crackers 'n peanuts. Spectacularly addictive. The packaging insists that they're "baked not fried!", as if that somehow means they're not still junk food.<br /><br />* <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Wasabi</span> tuna poke from Bristol Farms. It is probably a leading cause of over-fishing, and I have to stop buying/eating it, but it dumbfounds me that that $8 buys you 6 oz of red, tender tuna tossed with sesame oil, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">wasabi</span> and seaweed. I don't know how authentically Hawaiian it is, but if this is any indication of the food there, I am suddenly a lot more interested in visiting.<br /><br />* Roaring 40's Blue Cheese. Grab a chair, Stilton. Put your feet up, Gorgonzola <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Piccante</span>. I have found the domestic, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">artisanal</span> blue cheese of my dreams.<br /><br />* "30 Rock." You complete me, Liz Lemon. The Generalissimo plot line and the line "But first, I would like to admire picture of your grandchildren." The callback to Liz's Mexican cheese curls. Your scrappy determination to squeeze every last product-placement dollar out of America's advertisers, if it means hanging around long enough to become a certifiable hit.<br /><br />* "Damages." The women on this show are so strong, I cannot help suspecting that they're written via the "Sex and the City" method, wherein all the female characters are actually men, but for a few details of names and pronouns. Even so, I do not care. Also, I do not want and will never own a Cadillac, but I freely admit that otherwise, this show could sell me anything. The gracious good taste of Patty's offices; the witty clothes; the gorgeous, gracefully-aging beauty of Glenn Close and Marcia Gay Harden. (Although I think someone went after MGM's with a syringe full of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Botox</span> late in the season, because from scene to scene, her brows alternate between normalcy and a yanked-up arch that says "I can't feel anything north of my nostrils.")<br /><br />* Rye. This is what happens to you when you work on "Mad Men" for any length of time. The fumes coming off the various early-evening tumblers are so enticing, with notes of vanilla and cinnamon. Eventually, you have no choice but to buy your own bottle. And then you are in terrible, terrible trouble, because it is amazing. About a thousand times smoother than bourbon, and tragically, worth every penny of its insanely steep price.<br /><br />* Timely car repairs. Even though I had to rent a car to accommodate the brake shop's lack of Saturday hours, it gave me tremendous pleasure to drop off the Honda this morning, and get the follow up call that all is well, and that I am in good time to have my brakes replaced. This comes as quite the relief, since the service guys at the dealership have been pushing to replace the front brake pads replaced for the last year 12 months, and I was *almost* positive that they were fishing for extra repairs, but then again, you don't want to rip up your rotors just to prove a point. It also gives me an extra jolt of pleasure to use a highly ethical local guy and not the boobs at Honda of Santa Monica, who charged me $105 to fix my driver's side window in such a way that it actually was far, far worse and would not shut at all. <br /><br />* Michael. Between triking over to the brake shop to pick up my car key before they close (see: lack of Saturday hours) and keeping me stocked with espresso and milk for my morning fuel, he takes such amazing care of me, and I am so grateful to have him in my life. He is my Lemon Pepsi.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-22543960929773834752008-12-10T15:14:00.000-08:002008-12-10T15:39:11.579-08:00MiscellanyThings have quieted down considerably on this end, but best not to rush into some bold new enterprise. Instead a few brief notes, by way of re-entry:<br /><br />1. We recently decided to keep some cash on hand in the apartment, partly because I unexpectedly got some cash as a gift, and partly because neither of us could be bothered to take it to the bank. "Okay," I said, stowing the cash in a cunning-but-handy location, "this is the official hiding place of the Emergency Zombie Riot Fund."<br /><br />"Yes, good," MG replied. "Because orderly, law-abiding zombies are nothing to worry about."<br /><br />2. Songs playing in our cats' heads at all times:<br /><br />Anna - "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy<br />Fifi - "Girl from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Ipanema</span>," by Antonio Carlos <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Jobim</span><br />Willa - "The Banana Splits Theme Song" by The Banana Splits<br /><br />Oddly, the last two are instrumentals, but for whatever reason, Anna hears lyrics. Maybe it's a side effect of her thyroid medication.<br /><br />3. There's been a lot of irrational talk of buying an elliptical for the apartment in recent weeks, but I'm happy to say cooler heads have prevailed and instead we've gone with the far more rational alternative. Yes, we are getting a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Wii</span>.<br /><br />Note to Santa and/or relatives: This was planned and executed late last week, before any <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">intra</span>-family discussion of Christmas began. There comes a point in one's life where, if one really wants to play Mario Kart for 12 hours straight, one should be adult enough to buy said game for oneself, without any parental cajoling or letters to generous, bearded residents of the North Pole. That time, for MG and myself, is now. Or more accurately, about 3 p.m. PT last Thursday.<br /><br />That said, we don't yet have a copy of Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 2 bundle. I'm just saying.<br /><br />La la <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">laa</span>! La la-la <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">laa</span>! La la la la-la la la <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">laaa</span>!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-70949022274466606902008-11-04T17:43:00.001-08:002008-11-04T19:10:34.162-08:00JittersI remember 2004 with horrifying clarity -- the knot in my stomach during the debates, the depressing aftermath of election day, the week-long peppermint bark binge.<br /><br />November, 2004 taught me to pay attention to the half of this country that doesn't think the way I do, and to respect the power of their dissent. That month, and for quite a while later, I listened carefully for whispers of just what, exactly, a second Bush Administration would mean, and mostly, what I heard made me sick.<br /><br />Growing up in the last quarter of the 20th century, there was no shortage of young adult fiction to illustrate all the worst mistakes in our nation's history. I grew up reading about the idiotic death toll at Gettysburg, the senseless cruelty of the Japanese-American internment camps, the insistent refusal to see the truth behind Hitler's propaganda, and thinking: God, the shame of living through that time, of knowing that was going on and not being able to stop it.<br /><br />Now, thanks to the miracle of the Guantanamo detainees, I now have some of that shame for my very own. My nephews, and perhaps my own children, can now ask me in years to come why my country did this horrific thing and why I did not try to stop it, and I will have exactly no answer. Well, other than: I was afraid of never being able to board a domestic or international flight without a full-cavity search.<br /><br />Thank you, President George W. Bush, for making me a party to this utter fiasco and for illustrating, with greater clarity than I could have ever desired, the wisdom of G.K. Chesterton when he wrote "<span class="text">My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'"<br /><br />So, there's that.<br /><br />Then, happily, there is Barack Obama. Sweet holy mother of all that is good, there is Barack Obama.<br /><br />As it happens, I was living in Chicago when the state senator made his run for the Senate in 2004. I went to a fund raiser for him at the Chicago Historical Society, heard him speak and shook his hand. From that moment to this, I've known he was an extraordinarily gifted leader, and I've been more than a little afraid that we'd never be smart enough to let him rise to the limits of his abilities.<br /><br />I won't even pretend that I have some rational defense for this position. Much has been made of how some Americans vote for the guy with whom they'd like to have a beer. You may take from my use of the phrase "with whom they'd like to have a beer" that my decision metrics are a little different. <br /><br />I want to vote for a guy who could pick up the phone and through sheer implacable reason and legal wit, bully my insurance company into covering my migraines. I want to vote for a guy who can talk for ten minutes about the balance of power and religion in Iran without once mispronouncing a name or forgetting any of the major players. I want to vote for a guy who, if he showed up in a movie, you'd bristle in disbelief and think, "Nobody's that smart." I want to vote for a guy who makes President Bartlett seem like kind of a schmuck. <br /><br />I want to vote for a guy who would do his job the way I do mine. If we need to send flowers to a funeral home in South Bend, IN, I do not call 800-Flowers. I do not go to FTD.com. No. I hunt through Notre Dame alumni websites until I find the nicest hotel in town, then call their concierge to recommend a florist. And that's the kind of President I want -- the kind who will do whatever it takes to do his job to the best of his abilities.<br /><br />I would vote for that guy if his name were Theodore Roosevelt. I would vote for him if he were Dwight Eisenhower. I swear to god, I would vote for him if he were Gerald Ford. But the fact that he happens to be a Harvard-educated, former University of Chicago law professor with a Kenyan dad and a single mom and a grandmother who just died of cancer?<br /><br />Done.<br /><br />Oh, and at the same time I get to vote to re-affirm the right for gay couples to marry? Don't mind if I do.<br /><br />So now all that remains is for me to sit here on the far left edge of the country, waiting for polls to close and states to flick over from white to red or white to blue, and see what happens. It's almost more than I can bear. I can't wait. <br /><br />And yet I'm so terribly afraid that the waiting is going to be the best part of this or any year for many years to come.<br /><br />Or... uh, <a href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html">not</a>.<br /><a href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html"></a><br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-59491804976896549022008-10-13T19:55:00.000-07:002008-10-14T19:25:57.683-07:00It's OnSo <a href="http://biteandsmile.blogspot.com/">Joe Janes</a> linked to me on his blog yesterday, thus throwing in to bold relief my total lack of posts for, oh, the last six months or so. Agh, the shame.<br /><br />Okay, I can do this. How hard can it be? I just can't blog about <a href="http://www.amctv.com/originals/breakingbad/">work</a> (hi, Genny!) or my personal <a href="http://www.mikegerber.com/">life</a> (hi, Michael!), or rag on any tv show that I kind of want to work on someday (hi, <a href="http://www.fox.com/house/showinfo/">David Shore</a>!)<br /><br />Uh. Hmmm.<br /><br />Oh! I went to Chicago this weekend and saw 84 members of my extended family, including my cousin Kelly who TOTALLY called me on my snark towards the filmed-in-Toronto-but-set-in-Chicago "Dresden Files." I stand corrected -- actual, dyed-in-the-wool Chicagoans will in fact ride in an open-top vehicle in the dead of winter between Chicago and South Bend, IN.<br /><br />On that note, I scored a ride to Midway Airport in my dad's smokin' 1972 cherry red Oldsmobile Cutlass 442. Top down, scarf over my head, plexiglas safety goggles to keep the road grit out of my eyes -- it was like something from the Golden Age of Hollywood, if Ava Gardner's dad had kept a lot of industrial safety equipment in the back seat of his car. My dad has a CD he made with his own two hands, exclusively for playing on the CD player of the Cutlass. I distinctly remember "Love Shack" playing at one point, and although I got out before it came up, I know "You've Got a Friend in Me" is also on the playlist. That's pretty much my dad in a nutshell.<br /><br />I also made time to see a little -- a very little -- Chicago theater over the weekend, including the excellent ten minute play "Cheddar Moon," by Joe Janes. Everything you've heard about it is true and then some -- it's just like every other one act love story between a bearded cafeteria lady and the ghost of the boy she loved some twenty years ago.<br /><br />It is, in fact, hilarious and full of the kind of lines that make me pull out my notebook and start jotting things down so I don't forget them. I will just say this: Best stage fight with a soup ladle and bouquet of novelty pencils *ever.* Also, it kind of defies belief that the funny, adorable Mike Johnson can also play an oppressive and unlikable high school principal, but so it is.<br /><br />Mainly though, I just walked around. As in, around the eight million tourists and smelly marathoners who were wandering the city in slow motion this weekend. I realize now that I am using Chicago to get my NYC fix, much the way heroin addicts will drink cold syrup and eat honey right out of the plastic bear. I log a couple miles every day, opting to walk every possible route instead of grabbing a cab or bus. It's not that I'm shopping or running errands. I'm soaking in it -- the reasonably coherent urban planning, the public transit that I never respected until I lived in a city that makes the CTA look like the Paris Metro, the historical architecture -- all the things that, honestly, are not readily available in Los Angeles.<br /><br />In very little time, I began to miss Michael; waking up to a face full of sunlight; falling asleep in a soft, slightly salty breeze; the satisfaction of another miraculous piece of research delivered, but it was a nice change of pace, and in another two days, I might almost be caught up on my sleep.<br /><br />I don't know much about what the coming years will bring. I think I can pretty much count on two weeks off between Christmas and New Years', even if it's my only vacation of the year. And it seems almost unavoidable that I'll be working through every summer as far as the eye can see. If a show starts in January, it works until August (and that's just for a 12 episode run.) If a show starts in May, it works until December (ditto.) I suppose somewhere there might be shows that staff up in September and wrap in May, but I haven't heard of one yet. Also, as supporting evidence, I notice a ton of industry people take their families to Hawaii for Christmas, which has the strong whiff of parents making it up to their kids for years of missed summer vacations.<br /><br />But what I'm starting to realize is that I can squeeze a crap ton of vacation into a 48 hour bag, make a Sunday afternoon in Anaheim stand in for the week off that I really need, and enjoy the hell out of three days in Chicago.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-28864958281152228302008-04-17T20:58:00.000-07:002008-04-17T21:32:39.142-07:00She Looks Cold to Me. Does She Look Cold to You?<a href="http://www.nakedjen.com/">This woman</a> has balls. Not literally, of course. (And in fact, you can verify this by scrolling down her page -- she takes that URL very seriously.)<br /><br />Her blog is a no-holds-barred, here's-what-happened extravaganza of relationship-pile-up post-mortem. And it's frickin' riveting. Man, you just never know what you're going to find in the NYT.<br /><br />The only other blog that even comes close is probably the <a href="http://www.dooce.com/topic/poop/">Constipation Chronicles</a> on Dooce. Alas, mental health has descended on Heather Armstrong, depriving us all over her awesome, blow-by-blow accounts of her lower colon's complete and total inability to get in the game. <br /><br />I have nothing even remotely that juicy to spill, but reading through NakedJen's blog, I realized I have never recounted the Delicious Tale of How My Fiance Dumped Me.<br /><br />I continue to stick with that title, even though I have since acquired a second, sturdier Fiance who toughed it out and actually went and married me, thus becoming an actual Husband.<br /><br />But I digress. As our scene opens, the Fiance (or F) and I have been engaged for almost a year and a half. Our wedding is scheduled for nine months hence. It is universally believed among my friends that F is kind of a douche. When I defend him, my friends point to the fact that I bought him a framed, vintage Soviet propaganda poster for Christmas -- because he loves all things communist -- while his gift to me was a computer printer, which was promptly set up in his office. At this point, I generally changed the subject because there is no reasoning with some people.<br /><br />The curtain rises on an apartment on Ave. B in NYC's East Village. It is Friday, March 15, slightly after 7 p.m. Kate is home from work, and sitting in the living room in anticipation of "The X-Files", which will start in about 55 minutes.<br /><br />F enters from stage right and takes a seat in the really nice Crate and Barrel side chair F and Kate had purchased a few weeks earlier. Actually, since his raise, F has been on quite the tear with spendy, spur-of-the-moment purchases. But then his job is incredibly demanding and stressful, so if it he wants to spend some of his paycheck on a taupe side chair, so be it.<br /><br />F then proceeds to explain that their relationship, the relationship between F and Kate, is not going well. He's not happy. Ah. Would he consider couples' therapy? Yes, he would. But for now, he thinks it would be a good idea if they considered themselves broken up. He does? Yes, he does.<br /><br />There is more to this conversation, but all too soon, an hour has passed. F looks at the clock and observes that it is almost time for "The X-Files," and really, what more is there to say?<br /><br />At that moment, Kate realizes that F has timed this conversation with Swiss watch precision, so that he'd only have to discuss this unpleasantness with her for approximately 55 minutes. Because after that, of course, she'd want to watch "The X-Files."<br /><br />And scene.<br /><br />Needless to say, I no longer argued with my friends about whether F was a douche. I did not, in fact, watch that episode. To this day, I have never seen it, but I'm told I'm not missing much. (It was about the Mexican Goat-Sucker, which has another name I cannot spell.)<br /><br />F's timing our break-up conversation in this manner has won a number of bets for me over the years and several informal who-has-the-shittiest-break-up-story competitions. Four months later, he took me out to dinner and tried unsuccessfully to re-start our relationship. I haven't seen him since.<br /><br />A week later, I left for Ireland and spent almost the whole time making out with an adorable guy named Tom. And, as we know, I ended up marrying a hilarious Yalie with a passing resemblance to Ewan MacGregor. So it all worked out in the end.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-25963938460159404472008-04-16T19:19:00.000-07:002008-04-16T19:56:13.448-07:00Did I Mention The Co-Pay Is Very Reasonable?Thanks to the miracle of Facebook, the whole world knows I had a birthday recently. (Not that I'm complaining -- I haven't gotten that many birthday wishes since the year my mom brought cupcakes in second grade.)<br /><br />This is also the time of year when I check in with my doctor and fill up on prescriptions for the coming year, including the all-important Bay-Bee-No-Hav, aka, birth control. <br /><br />Now, I realize that fertility is a growing challenge for women in their 30s, and there's apparently a really terrifying chart that looks like Wile E. Coyote taking a short trip off a tall cliff which represents what will happen to my reproductive system in another five or ten years. (Although I may be an exception, given that my grandmother seems to have produced kids into early menopause.)<br /><br />But I think it is JUST POSSIBLE that my doctor is laying it on a little thick. She asked, as she always does, about the MG + KP Plan for World Domination. And, as I always do, I said that we were thinking of kicking things off in a few years.<br /><br />"Oh," she said, blanching to the color of her labcoat.<br /><br />"What? Is that... not a good answer?"<br /><br />"It's just you don't want to wait too long."<br /><br />I don't say so, but no, of course I'm not going to wait too long. C'mon, who wants to start popping babies out on their 40th birthday? But my doctor seems to think I'm waiting for her to say something, so she clears her throat and continues.<br /><br />"You know what happens to a woman's ovaries as she enters her 30s?"<br /><br />*Enters* her 30s? I think to myself.<br /><br />She shakes her head sadly. "They age. Harden into shriveled up raisins."<br /><br />My mouth goes curiously dry as I listen to this.<br /><br />"I had a patient, she coughed during a pelvic exam. Her left ovary fell out, hit the floor and cracked in half like an M & M."<br /><br />I struggle to find words. "That seems... odd."<br /><br />"Not really, it's all drying up in there." She points at my navel with her pharmaceutical-company-branded pen. "Like one of those Salvador Dali paintings with a melting watch."<br /><br />"Really? I thought it was more-"<br /><br />"Last week, an OB-GYN friend of mine went into the delivery room with a patient -- she couldn't have been more than 34."<br /><br />"The OB-GYN?"<br /><br />"The patient. She got up on the table, had her epidural, did her breathing... gave birth to a pound and half of sand."<br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"Swear to God. But you know, she and her husband wanted to wait."<br /><br />Then she scribbled something on my chart, flipped it shut and gave me the same smile she probably uses when her small child stands bereft over his just-dropped ice cream cone. <br /><br />"See you next year!"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-42255135343717127332008-04-04T07:59:00.000-07:002008-04-04T00:30:54.007-07:00Great Moments in American HistoryThe latest issue of <font style="font-style: italic;">Written By</font> came this week. The official magazine of the WGA, it features a ton of great interviews and useful articles. Maybe my favorite thing, however, are the "for your consideration" ads that run in advance of certain award seasons -- usually with an excerpt from the script, to help the Guild members remember why this project deserves their recognition.<br /><br />With the Emmy noms just a month or two away, I noticed that HBO wasn't wasting any time building support for "John Adams." Although I suspect there was some confusion at the printer's. Seems to me like a different version of this scene ran in Sunday's broadcast, didn't it? I'll have to check my Tivo.<br /><br /><font face="courier new"></font><blockquote><font face="courier new">John continues to read from the London papers. Abigail sips her tea, pensive. Colonel Smith stands behind John, covertly reading another paper with visible disgust.<br /><br /></font><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;">JOHN<br />The Morning Post and Daily<br />Advertiser... ah, they, very<br />helpfully inform their readers<br />that I was so pitifully embarrassed<br />as to be very nearly tongue-tied.<br /><br />SMITH<br />You must pay them no mind sir.<br /><br /></div><font face="courier new">John looks his shoulder. Smith quickly hides his paper. John can’t help himself -- he’s drawn back to the printed page.<br /><br /></font><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;">JOHN<br />(bursts out laughing)<br />Here is someone calling for me<br />to be hanged! Post haste! Charming.<br />God, what a country.<br /><br />ABIGAIL<br />Colonel Smith, remove these papers<br />at once.<br /><br /></div><font face="courier new">Smith begins to clear the table.<br /></font><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;">JOHN<br />It is of no account. Let them say<br />what they will. Although...<br /><br /></div><font face="courier new">John grabs the top most sheet of newsprint.</font><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;">JOHN<br /></div><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;">I defy any man to tell me this page three<br />engraving is an accurate depiction of...<br />(reads)<br />Miss Mary Holden’s god-given anatomy.<br /><br />ABIGAIL<br />(looks over)<br />She does rather<br />over-fill her corset.<br /><br />JOHN<br />(studies the page)<br />Yes. She does.<br /><br /></div><font face="courier new">Smith looks over John’s shoulder. His eyebrows go up in amazement.</font><br /><br /><font face="courier new">Abigail clears her throat.</font><br /><br /><font face="courier new">Both men jump. John quickly balls the page up and stuffs it into the fire.</font></blockquote><font face="courier new"></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-60402691113849066382008-04-03T08:31:00.000-07:002008-04-03T14:06:07.587-07:00Boulud Is Rockin' That Leather Blazer, ThoughI don't know why I love "Project Runway" and yet have so many problems with "Top Chef."<br /><br />If anything, "Top Chef" has several marked advantages -- I do actually know about/like food, as opposed to clothing. (See: My several earlier posts w/r/t how I wear nothing but J. Crew.) Also, I'm from Chicago, and you can get me to watch ANYTHING -- including multiple seasons of "Early Edition" -- if there's some outside chance I'll be able to play "What's that neighborhood?" And if I were a gay man, I'd want to be Ted Allen. So there's that.<br /><br />Sure, both shows have contestants with deeply questionable hat choices. (Trucker hats vs. novelty fedoras? Hmm. Might be a draw.) Oddball hairstyles. (Was there a workshop on using a whisk as a comb that I missed? Since when is "tufty" a look?) Cocky f***ing bastards. (Christian vs. Spike? I'd pay to see that any day. Winner takes Chef Molecule.)<br /><br />One big, big problem: Tim Gunn vs. Padma. No. No. No. Not the same. One of these is a sage mentor, whose knowledge and wit is apparent in his entire person. One of these is an underweight bombshell who...<br /><br />Yeah. Why do I care what this woman thinks? Honestly, I think I'd rather know what Michael Kors thinks of this food. She just does not convey food knowledge and experience at all. (Yeah, I know about the cookbooks. What. Ever.)<br /><br />Then there's all the little things, like the way the contestants on TC are constantly being prodded into announcing the stage directions (time remaining, coaching people ou the door, whatever.) Notice that we never need that kind of false theater on PR -- we can see from the clock that it's late, that time is running down. Then Tim comes and tells us the designers have two hours to get their models to hair and make-up. Neat, economical, elegant. Why can't Padma do that? Oh yeah, because she's so annoying I zaa-zaa whenever she comes on screen.<br /><br />Look, I'm in a tough spot. The writers' strike, the extra time on my hands -- God, I would give anything for PR to come back for a new season next week, but it's not going to happen. And "Battlestar Galactica" returning on Friday is actually going to make things worse. So I'll keep watching TC, and I'll zaa-zaa through the stuff I don't like.<br /><br />But let's make one thing perfectly, perfectly clear:<br /><br />Richard Roeper is NOT and HAS NEVER BEEN a "famed Chicago film critic." <br /><br />Nothing against the man personally, but Chicago is not such a cow town that even Richard Roeper qualifies as famous. Well known? Okay, sure. Roger Ebert -- who won the first ever Pulitzer for film criticism in 1974 -- is a famed Chicago film critic. Ebert's late friend/sparring partner Gene Siskel is a famed Chicago film critic. Roeper is a guy who successfully navigated the rounds of auditions after Siskel's death to become the permanent fill-in on Siskel & Ebert's TV show. For that matter, Roeper would not get to set toe number one on TC, except that Ebert's continuing health issues have, for now, left him unable to speak. <br /><br />(Now, is Posh Spice is an international style icon, as Die Klum informed us? That is for Mr. Blackwell to resolve.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-44881579872615985752008-04-02T18:35:00.000-07:002008-04-02T16:49:31.895-07:00Almost As Good As the Zombie InvasionI haven't lived in Chicago for going on three years now, and when we moved, it had been some months since I'd done any improv. So why do I still check <a href="http://www.chicagoimprov.org/index.php">Chicago Improv Network</a> every couple of days to see what's going on?<br /><br />Because without CIN, I'd never have seen the work of <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=7039080">Zack</a>, who wonders... <br /><br />What if they were Klingons?<br /><br />For example:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwCz46374Q6Nxj6y7DpbMPF2dvjxdtiXX2P26W_OXSnUHRdIo6IHBT7scOaNqGxElERsHf9K20yZZ_M5aiC39_d7Fx-0I8y2kvLFNPfMvhioja2jGlj0PzbVCcgtOaBWJvqgM/s1600-h/mandy.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwCz46374Q6Nxj6y7DpbMPF2dvjxdtiXX2P26W_OXSnUHRdIo6IHBT7scOaNqGxElERsHf9K20yZZ_M5aiC39_d7Fx-0I8y2kvLFNPfMvhioja2jGlj0PzbVCcgtOaBWJvqgM/s200/mandy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184796644377771650" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Oh Man'dee, you cut my heart out with a bat'leth!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQSgRCDajj6yvGFXOxj0zzrGr6aRYqztb7zcxde-zt33d-8BM-Bw1Mm5fWZsDdj-Bnea6W8vLmP10qbkrp-15_CXFEzs8LPtTvMvnvKisuRSzZGbdjnrma1rLSM6SxPC_fe1Co/s1600-h/ernie.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQSgRCDajj6yvGFXOxj0zzrGr6aRYqztb7zcxde-zt33d-8BM-Bw1Mm5fWZsDdj-Bnea6W8vLmP10qbkrp-15_CXFEzs8LPtTvMvnvKisuRSzZGbdjnrma1rLSM6SxPC_fe1Co/s200/ernie.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184796880600972946" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />Rubber Ducky, you're the one, to be sent to Gre'Thor! Prepare to die!<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbAWaxboH9Z1bvv-YVRApvIA-vGh8jUQcoPplCaW524O2WENz0R0chkz5fNcmiUSMg5uHcW4ekwDJccQ8u0gdGAwa-SSAR9j_TUdQQHakdVfbZ96PQsaLAPz2qam1UCHa1Z6pK/s1600-h/obama.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbAWaxboH9Z1bvv-YVRApvIA-vGh8jUQcoPplCaW524O2WENz0R0chkz5fNcmiUSMg5uHcW4ekwDJccQ8u0gdGAwa-SSAR9j_TUdQQHakdVfbZ96PQsaLAPz2qam1UCHa1Z6pK/s200/obama.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184797026629861026" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The only candidate to trust with ending the Romulan War is the one who voted not to attack the Neutral Zone in the first place.<br /><br />Well played, Zack. Well played.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-1550012715394498312008-04-01T08:15:00.000-07:002008-04-01T11:49:18.662-07:00Don't Make Me LaughThis is just a guess, but I think Benedict Carey is a guy.<br /><br />You probably don't know Mr. (?) Carey, but he writes about health and medicine for the NYT, including today's piece on, oh boy!, pranks.<br /><br />Here's the part that makes me think Carey is a mister:<br /><blockquote><br />“Being duped holds up this mirror to people,” Dr. Vohs said, “and may in fact show them where they are on the scale” — too trusting or too vigilant. Paranoia, too, has its costs, and it can sour relationships.<br /><br />Running back the tape mentally, in this case meditating on how an embarrassing event might have turned out otherwise, is known to psychologists as counterfactual thinking. “The feeling of ‘I should have known better’ is the sort of counterfactual that serves to highlight your own shortcomings,” said Neal Roese, a psychologist at the University of Illinois. “A good deal of research has shown that these counterfactual insights can kick-start new behaviors, new self-exploration and, ultimately, self-improvement.”<br /><br />Those observations may not leap to mind if you just showed up in go-go boots and an Elizabeth Taylor wig to a bogus 1970s cross-dressing party. Or if you fell for the e-mail message announcing you had won an award and should forward a draft of your acceptance speech to a supervisor.<br /><br />But a good prank is, in the end, a simulation of a crisis and not the real thing. And it serves as a valuable reminder that not every precious box contains precisely the treasure you might expect.</blockquote><br /><br />What. The. Hell.<br /><br />Here's a crazy, crazy thought: What if you just didn't pull any pranks? What then? OMG! Catastrophe! Disaster! People not being forced to discover they are too trusting!<br /><br />Perhaps it's baldly sexist to say so, but I don't think most women pull pranks. Even among the institutions with the worst reputations, pranking is not the done thing. No, in our darker moments, my gender goes in for straight up, knife-in-the-back cruelty.<br /><br />I've known women to do many, many shitty things to other women, but none of them fell under the casual veil of a prank. Stealing a boyfriend, us vs. them ostracizing, systematically humiliating a coworker -- this is the stuff of months, if not years in the making, not some one-day-a-year whimsy. It's far worse than cellophane over a toilet, and once it's discovered, the object knows well that the next step is to get far, far away from her tormentor.<br /><br />As an Aries, I have a certain affection for all things April, with the strong exception of April Fool's Day. But upon reflection, I think my problem isn't that April Fool's is unnecessarily cruel. No, what I hate about April Fool's is that it's amateur hour, with short-lived pranks that suggest there's nothing worse lurking in the shadows. That, I think, really is foolish.<br /><br />Edited to ad: No, wait. New theory. Women don't do pranks because we're really, really bad at it. <a href="http://jezebel.com/">This</a> is just sad.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-71946602988707349072008-03-31T08:46:00.000-07:002008-03-31T10:46:01.134-07:00Interview with a Somewhat Attractive BloggerI think it may be that the human mind can only comprehend a certain amount of excellence. Perhaps our memory fades, or newer memories push older experiences aside. It may even be that our mania for top ten lists is, in some ways, a defense against our inability to hold even ten excellent things or people or moments in our minds for any length of time.<br /><br />This would explain why every conversation about the "top ten (insert superlative here)" anything always generates contributions that some participants consider extreme long shots, and why such conversations often degenerate into bickering about the basis for judging whether something is or is not among the top ten (insert superlative here) X, Y or Z. We are, essentially, making it up as we go along.<br /><br />I do not, therefore, have a list of my top ten favorite books. I have a reliable list of books that I buy/recommend/give, depending on the recipient. "Harriet the Spy" has been given to many ten-year-olds of my acquaintance. Several of my brothers and one boyfriend have all gotten copies of "The Things They Carried," and I have given so many copies of "The Blind Assassin", I should probably buy the things by the case.<br /><br />Predictably, I am very fond of "Pride and Prejudice," although I am terminally over-exposed to all things Austen right now, and have a bit of a literary ice cream headache where she is concerned. I read "Bleak House" last year and readily admit that it is a triumph and then some.<br /><br />However, there are just two books that have earned an unshakable place in my heart, both for the same reason: I find myself forgetting that they were books and not people I once met. The first is "Whites," a collection of short stories by Norman Rush. The second is "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. <br /><br />I know IJ is a tough slog. In a long series of "brilliant novels by new writers," it is a much harder read than Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" or Mark Leyner's "My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist," much less the breakthrough works of Dave Eggers or Jonathan Safran Foer or Zadie Smith or... well, you get the idea.<br /><br />I have stopped recommending it to people and I have abandoned all hope of MG ever getting past the first twenty pages. If you're thinking of giving it a shot, I will offer the following advice: Get through the first two hundred pages, then decide whether to give up or not.<br /><br />Maybe I am the only person who, years after reading IJ, frequently forgets that she doesn't actually know six recovering addicts from a halfway house in Boston. But something about DFW's writing blurs the line between thinking and experiencing. I have never -- could never -- meet Don Gately, and yet I feel like I could recognize his Prince Valiant haircut from across a crowded room.<br /><br />All this is preamble to this <a href="http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html">link</a>, from a commencement speech given by DFW in the spring of 2005. (I found it through Jackie Danicki's <a href="http://www.jackiedanicki.com/">blog</a>, which is a comforting blend of travelogue, diary and beauty advice.) <br /><br />Like his best fiction, DFW's address seems like something you're thinking yourself, except, of course, you're not. Here's my favorite part:<br /><br /><blockquote>This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.<br /><br />Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship...<br /><br />...Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.<br /><br />They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.<br /><br />And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.<br /><br />That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-65307473234432249162008-03-30T11:09:00.000-07:002008-03-30T11:59:25.710-07:00Agggh! Windmills! In My Mind!Halfway through last night's viewing of the 1968 version of "The Thomas Crown Affair," I realized with a pang it is the bizarro universe version of "Out of Sight." <br /><br />I have seen the literal Thomas Crown remake -- made, by coincidence or not, a year after "Out of Sight" came out -- and remember liking it okay. But I'm startled to discover that everything that I love about "Out of Sight" -- the rhythmic editing, the syncopated graphic elements, the irresistible performances, the inescapable story logic -- has a joyless, dire twin within the original "The Thomas Crown Affair."<br /><br />I don't think Elmore Leonard was consciously aware of the overlap when he was writing OoS, although if he was, I tip my hat to him. TTCA is such a shambling wreck of a movie, one fairly itches to take a crack at repairing its biggest flaws.<br /><br />To wit: although Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is a stone fox, his most likable quality is that his crimes are very, very nearly victimless (not counting the guy who takes a bullet to the calf.) Sure, the bank is out the cash, but if anyone has ever been able to make an audience root for and sympathize with a bank, I will give that person a dollar.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Vicki the insurance investigator (Faye Dunaway) exploits a hapless bankrobber's marital discord, steals his car and kidnaps his boy. Crimes so full of victims they're practically a victim fruitcake. By the time Vicki is telling the robber that his boy is fine and he can have his car back, I was consumed with hate for her and desperate to see Thomas humiliate her utterly.<br /><br />That's not good.<br /><br />"Out of Sight" fixes all those problems. Jack Foley is loyal, resourceful and kind. Karen Sisco gets dragged into the story against her will, and her interactions with criminals show a moral compass -- she gives a scraggly loser a second (and third) chance, but beats the crap out of a threatening thug.<br /><br />The later film takes chances that could have backfired disastrously, and yet they work where TTCA falls flat. First: "Windmills of Your Mind." OMG. Also: TTCA's grid-and-panel credit sequence, which made me think that Thomas Crown would end up stealing a Mondrian. Um, no. <br /><br />And: Faye Dunaway's implausible glamour. Seriously. Is Faye Dunaway making nail extensions out of her plucked eyebrow hairs? Why do her brows get thinner and her nails get longer in every movie? By "Chinatown," she's like one of those neurotic birds that plucks itself bald.<br /><br />I don't, actually, think the similarities are anything more than coincidence -- I mean, how many ways are there to tell a caper story? Although I will say that "Three Days of the Condor" conversation is just a little suspicious. Yes, Karen and Jack need some shared point of reference, and it's a nice touch that they talk about two characters who quickly fall in love. But it also happens to be a Faye Dunaway movie with a handsome blond costar.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-17845166634660425002008-03-29T20:10:00.000-07:002008-03-29T20:49:25.124-07:00Ear PythonThis has been going through my brain since an ill-advised tipsy viewing of "The Mikado." <br /><br />(Which, btw, was wildly over-edited, with badly eroded vocal tracks -- granted, the print might be over 50 years old, but still. Hey, PBS! As soon as you're done with the Compleat Austen, let's get cracking on the Compleat Gilbert & Sullivan.)<br /><br />Three little maids from school are we<br />Pert as a school-girl well can be<br />Filled to the brim with girlish glee<br />Three little maids from school<br /><br />Everything is a source of fun<br />Nobody's safe, for we care for none<br />Life is a joke that's just begun<br />Three little maids from school <br /><br />Three little maids who, all unwary<br />Come from a ladies' seminary<br />Freed from its genius tutelary<br />Three little maids from school<br />Three little maids from school<br /><br />One little maid is a bride, Yum-Yum<br />Two little maids in attendance come<br />Three little maids is the total sum<br />Three little maids from school<br />Three little maids from school<br /><br />From three little maids take one away<br />Two little maids remain, and they<br />Won't have to wait very long, they say<br />Three little maids from school<br />Three little maids from school<br /><br />Three little maids who, all unwary<br />Come from a ladies' seminary<br />Freed from its genius tutelary<br />Three little maids from school<br />Three little maids from schoolUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-50231394585086522122008-03-28T19:45:00.000-07:002008-03-28T20:08:41.131-07:00Smells Like AnhedoniaI miss sushi. Yes, I realize, Los Angeles has sushi. But I miss *my* sushi. The spicy tuna roll made with chunks of tuna and just a little spicy mayo, not this pureed mush they sell all over the Southland. I miss the Green Turtle Roll, delicious treat topped with shrimps and a wasabi creme. (Yes, I said it: creme.) I miss sushi that was easily obtained on my way home, or with a short walk around the corner. Maybe most of all, I miss sushi restaurants that are nice and good and not ridiculously overpriced. You can get two out of three, tops, on this side of the 405, but that's it.<br /><br />I miss anger. I know it's around here somewhere -- or else, why did that cat flyer bother me so much? But for the life of me, I cannot seem to get angry about things that deserve my anger. No, those things only make me very, very sad. The best I've done so far: Some irritation with people who insist on walking in the bike lane. That's not going to cut it!<br /><br />I miss delight. I don't know where it went. Maybe it's hanging out with anger? But nothing seems to do it these days. The movies in theaters seem like well-marketed wallpaper. Chocolate frosting helps for about 30 seconds, and then... blech. <br /><br />Yes, I can connect the dots. I've been to this neck of the woods before -- dissatisfaction with the available options, local factory belching out the oppressive smell of unhappiness? This is Depressionville, population: me. My brain chemistry is protecting me from something, some lingering realization that's slouching towards me with a wicked gleam in its yellow eyes. In the meantime, my lobes slosh around in a tepid chemical mix, devoid of highs and lows, just this exhausting constant non-anything. <br /><br />And like the driver of a 1981 Dodge Horizon, puttering through Gary, Indiana at 53 mph, there's not much I can do but roll up the windows, put the A/C on recirc and study the horizon, waiting for the distant outline of my destination to slowly emerge from the haze.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-12343017214544676232008-03-27T18:49:00.000-07:002008-03-27T19:12:10.215-07:00Go Ask AliceThe coffee shop around the corner has a flyer on its community board. The headline reads "I hate my life." Then there's a picture of a fluffy tabby cat. <br /><br />Underneath the picture is this caption: "It was bad enough when my owners got a second cat. Then they got a dog! But to add insult to injury, they've started having kids -- two so far! Please take me away from this hellish existence. My name is Alice. I am seven years old and have been using a litter box since I was a kitten. If you adopt me before April 15, I will even help with your taxes."<br /><br />Ha ha ha. So amusing. I am amused.<br /><br />Also, incredibly, incredibly angry. Who are these fucking bastards with their humor and their droll attempts at covering up their total lack of decency? You love Alice enough to see her placed in a new, loving home AND YET not enough to say, slow down your rapid acquisition of non-Alice compatible lifeforms?<br /><br />Understand that as I say this, underneath my chair is Anna, a napping jellical born in 1993. She's grumpy and stiff on cold mornings, has clumps of fur on her backside where she cannot lick herself anymore and when unhappy, tends to venge-poop 6 to 12 feet from the litterbox. But she's in my house, living with me. In fact, I adopted another cat some years later to keep Anna company, because I thought my long work days were making her lonely. Two years after that, MG moved in with his cat Fifi. Three cats in one apartment -- it can be done. It helps if you have a closet or a bathroom to hold the litterboxes, but it can be done.<br /><br />Would we love to have a dog? Yes. Ideally a big, elegantly-nosed black lab along the lines of MG's beloved Lucy. But labs need space and we live in an apartment. With three cats. And in our weaker moments, we're not so much writers as shut-ins. So, no dog for us just now. And don't even get me started on why we're not hip deep in kids.<br /><br />Really, it's the seven years that kills me. Anyone can decide that a kitten isn't working out after a week or two, and return the blameless animal in time to place it in a better home. But to hold onto an animal, leading her to trust you, and believe she has a home with you, and then cast her out because she's not as much fun as the rest of your menagerie? Because you like your bright-eyed Jack Russell terrier better? It's more fun to watch Spongebob Square Pants with your kids than clean Alice's litterbox, so what the hell, why not just toss Alice out on her tabby ear?<br /><br />It strikes me as unforgivably mean, and it leads me to think that the flyer's author was righter than he or she will ever know: Alice does hate her life, or she soon will.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-75706274540346603542008-03-26T18:42:00.000-07:002008-03-26T18:42:38.433-07:00Oh, Malcolm Gladwell!How could you?<br /><br />It was with great personal satisfaction that I rolled my eyes and clicked away from Jack Shafer's recent <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2186982/">anti-Gladwell</a> dissertation on Slate. Mr. Gladwell's great crime? He'd told a funny story in public, and then, allowed the funny story to be taped and broadcast on "This American Life." Like virtually every funny story since the dawn of time, this particular tale wandered some distance from the literal, historical truth.<br /><br />Yes, I said it. Sometimes, in order to be funny, people will fudge the truth. Worse, many writers are unable to resist the temptation to be funny. Sweet Jehosaphat on toast! Can you imagine? A person so addicted to being amusing that they do not report their experiences with the cut and dried precision of an AP News brief! Someone call Dr. Drew.<br /><br />In his better moments, Mr. Shafer is a impish avenging angel, swooping down on <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2126636/">weasel words</a> and wringing the breath from ill-researched trend stories. For these acts of righteous journalistic vengeance, I have nothing but gratitude. But for whatever reason, Mr. Shafer is drawn to the Personal Yarn as if it were the journalistic killing fields, site of all that is horrifying and unethical in the world. (Note, for example, that Stephen Glass is not known for his hilarious monologues.) But he is, inexorably, drawn back to this topic every few months. Not too long ago, he went off on David Sedaris, and, as I say, last week he took aim at Mr. Gladwell.<br /><br />Why this seems such a slippery slope is beyond me. Yes, we want Mr. Gladwell to be scrupulously honest in his reporting, but I have no difficulty believing he's capable of such effort and still, say, crack a joke now and then. One would sooner confuse the veracity of a Sedaris article with a Susan Orlean feature.<br /><br />Ah, well. That was my position, anyway. And then <a href="http://gawker.com/5004517/its-always-the-cover+up-that-gets-you">Portfolio</a> ran an article about Mr. Gladwell's spotty fact-checking. Then, a few hours later, they pulled the post.<br /><br />Thank you very fucking much, Portfolio. Now I feel like a boob for writing off Mr. Shafer as a journalistic bluenose. And, for bonus points, I feel certain we can expect weeks, if not months, of additional <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2187301/">posts</a> on this subject from my favorite journalistic bluenose.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-62407127274232401602008-03-25T08:44:00.000-07:002008-03-25T10:23:04.266-07:00Get the Honorable Gentleman from Virginia Some Oil of ClovesHBO's "John Adams" continues to alternate between thought- and giggle-provoking.<br /><br />First and foremost, I would very much like some kind of primer on What Is The Deal with Wigs?<br /><br />I can see, and even approve of the production designer's decision to keep George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in their own hair, at least through the second installment. (Likewise, Ben Franklin goes au natural, but then, how would you know he was Ben Franklin if he wasn't bald on top, with flowing gray locks?)<br /><br />But the whole variety of wigs raises a lot of unanswered questions -- what does a man wear a wig in his natural hair color, even if he has no hair of his own underneath? When does a man decide to switch over to a gray wig? And what are the subtexts of the curly sheep's wool wig vs. the frizzy crown favored by South Carolina's Mr. Rutledge vs. the carefully styled option favored by everyone from the Quaker Mr. Dickinson to the Unitarian Mr. Adams?<br /><br />Then, and this presses on me most fearfully, what is the deal with curious head bandage/unraveled turban worn by Dr. Franklin's fellow Pennsylvania delegate? I've been through Wikipedia, HBO and an interactive version of John Trumbull's painting, without finding any information. Really, it's most distracting.<br /><br />And lastly, there is a kind of ludicrous grandeur to the entire proceedings. MG has issues with the dialogue, but that's not what bothers me. Rather, I wish we could have skipped scenes like the one in which an unknown delegate walks to Adams and regrets that they are not all on their way home already. Adams is like, "Uh, yeah, I guess." This aimless conversation continues for a few moments until, at last, Adams addresses the delegate as Mr. Jefferson. That mystery solved, Jefferson excuses himself, while the narrator explains "And that was the day that John Adams met Thomas Jefferson." Except, you know, not.<br /><br />I'm still not clear on why Washington wore his military uniform to a civilian gathering, except that it, along with his perennial expression of "Cripes, my teeth are killing me", are his chief identifying qualities.<br /><br />It seems I can expect no shortage of such moments, considering a later scene in which Franklin revises the Declaration of Independence, then compliments Jefferson on the excellence of his newly invented chair. The only thing missing was the moment where Franklin fishes out a key, ties it to a kite string and walks out into a pouring rainstorm.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-33397866711891898432008-03-24T08:45:00.000-07:002008-03-24T11:01:38.091-07:00Also the Final Season of "Blake's 7"Dear "Torchwood,"<br /><br />I love you, but you are not a good show. Sorry, but it had to be said. That wedding episode was full on retarded, up to and including the final scene in which, OF COURSE, it turns out Captain Jack was once married. Jesus, what hasn't that guy done? Give birth by C-Section? (Note: That would have been a much better idea, btw. Not that you asked me. I'm just saying.)<br /><br />Nothing personal, I am a fan of the not good (see also "Scarecrow and Mrs. King," "Wizards and Warriors," and long stretches of your older cousin, "Original Formula Doctor Who, Now With Even More Monsters Made From Garbage Bags.")<br /><br />Your with great affection and not especially reliable taste where genre fiction is concerned,<br /><br />KateUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13645407.post-78430635665013129362008-03-23T13:20:00.000-07:002008-03-23T13:54:56.837-07:00On Insane Conversations<pre style="font-family: lucida grande;" linespace="1.5">Sometimes, all you can do is wait. Wait for lunch to come so you can set it up for the<br />read through. Wait for the call to come so you can transfer it to right line. Wait for the<br />call to end so the writers can go back to breaking the episode. Wait for the notes to<br />come in so you can make the necessary changes and publish the next draft.<br /><br />Wait, wait, wait, wait.<br /><br />At times like this, I think of Kenneth Koch's poem "The Boiling Water." It begins:<br /><br /><linespace="1.5">A serious moment for the water is when it boils<br />And though one usually regards it merely as a convenience<br />To have the boiling water available for bath or table<br />Occasionally there is someone around who understands<br />The importance of this moment for the water -- maybe a saint,<br />Maybe a poet, maybe a crazy man, or just someone temporarily disturbed<br />With his mind "floating," in a sense, away from his deepest<br />Personal concerns to more "unreal" things. A lot of poetry<br />Can come from perceptions of this kind, as well as a lot of insane<br /> conversations.<br />Intense people can sometimes get stuck on topics like these<br />And keep you far into the night with them. Still, it is true<br />That the water has just started to boil. How important<br />For the water! And now I see that the three is waving in the wind<br />(I assume it is the wind) -- at least, its branches are. In order to see<br />Hidden meanings, one may have to ignore<br />The most exciting ones, those that are most directly appealing<br />And yet it is only these appealing ones that, often, one can trust<br />To makes one's art solid and true, just as it is sexual attraction<br />One has to trust, often, in love. So the boiling water's seriousness<br />Is likely to go unobserved until the exact strange moment<br />(And what a temptation it is to end the poem here<br />With some secret thrust) when it involuntarily comes into the mind<br />And then one can write of it. A serious moment for this poem will be<br /> when it ends,<br />It will be like the water's boiling, that for which we've waited<br />Without trying to think of it too much, since "a watched pot never boils,"<br />And a poem with its ending figured out is difficult to write.<br /><br />That is not, rest assured, the end of the poem. Like water about to boil, what seems<br />to be the end turns out to be the start of something else.</pre>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0