I Love You Canada Post

Today, a day and a few hours before the Benny piece is due, the final piece of research arrived in the mail from Amazon, sheer minutes before it would have been too late.

Remember the scene in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), when the guys are chasing the wagon and the sun to kill the bad guy before he can fight back? That’s exactly how I felt watching that parcel tracker ticker moving step by step closer to me with one eye, while watching the deadline loom ever nearer with the other.

Saved, just in the nick of time and by a man in short blue pants.

Bless and keep the brave souls from Canada Post!

(Is there anything more than thrilling than real-life Beat the Clock, when it works?)

Help! Help! Help!

Calling all social scientists/humanities folk. I need your brains!

Just was looking over the instructions for submission to the Patai prize. I hadn’t really thought about applicability, as the submissions officer, upon hearing a description of my Jack Benny piece, said it was “just what they were looking for.”

But now I find applicability entails an “ethnography or folkloric approach.”

To be fair, I knew this was part of the deal two weeks ago (the prime clue being that Raphael Patai was a folklorist himself), but I either downplayed it in my head, ignored it, or am just spazzing now cause of nerves. Either way, I am discomforted.

I am certainly no ethnographer… But folklorist?? Perhaps. My stuff deals with oral material in terms of radio and Vaudeville legend… Does this seem to be enough?

Maybe I am just getting too wrapped up in the whole Ozarks image of folklore study.

But I can’t find a half decent definition of this term. I will spend sometime on J-STOR looking for articles defining the folkloric approach and methods, but, so far, everything I have found seems far too interested in extolling its virtues, and not at all concerned with actually telling me what it includes.

Hopefully it is one of those scholarly brackets that fits pretty much anything, because it is too broad and artsy that it can’t really help itself (ritual studies, I am looking in your direction!). But, I can’t be certain this is the case.

So if you have any good descriptions, links, leads, etc., that might help me tweak this piece to suit (or rest assured that it already fits), please, for Pete’s sake, help me.

I beg you.

And We Enter Endgame

Friday. 12.30am.

The Benny piece is due in just over 30 hours.

Re-writes have been accomplished. The thing has been tightened, spot-checked, fleshed out, re-arranged, argued and generally spruced up. And made more academic – so much so that Mr. Sheboygan’s head would explode if he were to read it now.

Edits have been made, except for John’s final read through. The last piece of research should arrive in the mail this morning around 10am, so that will be screened and used where necessary. I may want to enter subheadings, and tighten the flow and order. I still have to edit the endnote text, and move the works cited list down. And write my cover-letter-email and mini-bio.

Other than those minor adjustments, it couldn’t get more ready if I tied a rosy pink bow around it.

Still, these last few hours will be dedicated to reading it and re-reading it until I either memorize it or my eyes bleed. Every last opportunity for improvement must be caught and taken advantage of.

This is Oxford you know (a name so horrifying it has to be typed in big, blue letters). The word alone sends my colon into spasms.

I would ask you to wish me luck, but I think we are rather passed that, now.

Ugh. Canada Day.

The jerks seemed restless tonight, and I asked myself why? Thursday night is, I know, the new Friday (in North America’s ever increasing need to push work life into a small a corner as possible to make more room for leisure time), but the whole thing seems particularly asinine and violent… Why?

Ah, yes, my mind answers. Canada Day approaches.

I am as patriotic as the next person, I think. Perhaps more so, because the thought of turning the nation’s birthday into a reason to get so loaded you fall down (and take with you some stranger you wouldn’t even have said hello to sober), with some barbequed flesh still clinging to your slackened and revolting mouth, and a cheap firework in your hand, is a little depressing (not to mention disrespectful).

Thus, while Canada Day still thrills me a little, deep within my Canuck soul, the behaviour of my fellow humans really makes me hate this day. Along with Victoria Day, Labour Day, and New Years, this is the day that makes me wish I had a biosphere all to myself.

Can’t we possibly make some sort of law that Canada Day can’t fall on a Friday or Saturday night? Like some towns have with prom nights and graduations?

It becomes the ultimate time when jackasses feel they have the right (nay, duty!) to harass as many strangers as possible. When you combine the evil forces of “Saturday night” and “Canada Day,” no good can come of it…

Celebrate your nation by annoying your fellow citizens. Great concept.

JINX!

Am actually starting to feel good about this Benny piece… So when’s lighting going to strike me?

The Power of Blogging

Be it ever so humble, this blog has put some good things in my way. Some good new friends, a couple chances to write comedy (!), and now this. I was contacted by Turner Classic Movies about their upcoming new documentary Edge of Outside, which premieres on July 5 at 8pm, and will be repeated throughout the month during their salute to the great American directors. Having seen my blogging subject matter, they emailed me and asked if I would review the thing! A screener copy! How cool is that?!?

I am including the press release below, because, well, press packets are just cool, and I have never received one that wasn’t CUPE related, so I am making the most of it!

I know many of you will accuse me of shilling for Time-Warner, and I can sympathize. I had mixed feelings, myself. However, I plead innocent here. First, because I am not shilling – if I don’t like the thing, I will say so. Second, I am not speaking to/for the company, but to a dedicated group of folks who make documentaries. The fact that their pay comes from an organization means nothing – I have written reviews of Triumph of the Will, after all. Third, if we can use capitalism to produce a couple half decent films, then I am not going to complain. At least this can make up for a shred of the crud we get from the big business system.

Having said all that, the documentary looks like something that is definitely up my alley. I encourage anyone who likes movies to see as many different documentaries on the industry as they can, and docs on trailblazers like Welles and Scorsese are always welcome in an era filled with Bruckheimers and Bruckheimer knock-offs.

Look for my review sometime next week, with luck, if the copy can arrive on time and there are no hiccups. I aim to have it posted either here or on Clapboard, or both, for next Tuesday or Wednesday, in time for you to catch the premiere.

I still can’t get over the way a blog can change a life (or at least provide so many distractions)!

Turner Classic Movies Turns the Lens Toward the

Fringe of Cinema in EDGE OF OUTSIDE, July 5

New Documentary Features Interviews with Martin Scorsese, Peter Falk, Spike Lee and Others

In a year that saw independent movies taking center stage at the Oscars, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) explores the uncompromising vision, creative spirit and maverick determination of independent filmmakers, both classic and current, in its first fully in-house produced original documentary, EDGE OF OUTSIDE, premiering Wednesday, July 5, at 8 p.m. ET. EDGE OF OUTSIDE kicks off a month-long movie festival dedicated to filmmakers who have worked on the edges of Hollywood. A complete movie schedule is attached.

A tribute to the fight for artistic freedom in American independent cinema, EDGE OF OUTSIDE features original interviews with Martin Scorsese , Peter Falk , Ed Burns , Spike Lee , Henry Jaglom , Arthur Penn , Gena Rowlands and John Sayles as well as friends and crew members who worked with classic filmmakers, including Nicholas Ray, John Cassavetes and Sam Peckinpah. Offering an intimate look at the various issues, creative and personal, financial and emotional, this documentary illustrates the struggles endured by many classic filmmakers to create a personal vision, a vision mirrored by many contemporary directors today. EDGE OF OUTSIDE dispels the notion that an independent film is simply a low-budget film, instead defining the genre by the maverick filmmaker's ability to infuse his or her films with creative spirit and determination.

The documentary also illustrates the work of several maverick filmmakers including Orson Welles , Stanley Kubrick, Nicholas Ray , Samuel Fuller , Sam Peckinpah and John Cassavetes . Each of these directors took a different approach to producing films, whether part of the Hollywood studio system or not. Some have been able to survive within the system, others felt it necessary to be on their own and others were banished because of their fierce independence. However, their adamant drive to create a personal vision, despite many obstacles, exemplifies the significant influence they have had on the independent film movement of today.

“Classic films aren't represented only by box-office blockbusters and Oscar® nominees,” said Tom Karsch, executive vice president and general manager of Turner Classic Movies. “Turner Classic Movies takes pride in recognizing all cinematic accomplishments, no matter how small or large the director or studio, and bringing those triumphs to viewers' attention.”

EDGE OF OUTSIDE is directed and produced by Shannon Davis, senior vice president of original production for TCM and executive-produced by Chris Merrifield, vice president and creative director of TCM on-air creative.

Turner Classic Movies, currently seen in more than 70 million homes, is a 24-hour cable network from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a TimeWarner company. TCM presents the greatest motion pictures of all time from the largest film library in the world, the combined Time Warner and Turner film libraries, from the ‘20s through the ‘90s, commercial-free and without interruption. Expanding TCM's role as a curator of movie history, the network recently launched TCMdb, one of the Internet's most media-rich interactive movie databases. For more information, please visit www.tcm.com .

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, is a major producer of news and entertainment product around the world and the leading provider of programming for the basic cable industry.

Comp Exam Wars

From the tribunal of Advisors, I have one “largely satisfied,” and one “approved,” and one silence (abstention??) in terms of my reading list for the second comp exam. With luck, by the end of June I will have the list all settled and submitted, and out of my hair. Of course, then I actually have to start reading the damn thing… Oh well, a victory is still a victory, even if it means you only get to survive to battle again.

Chance of Thunder

Head is pounding. Damn weather-induced migraines. Trying to press on with the editing, but the pain in my eyes seems determined not to go away. It’s to the point where gluing the lids shut and never opening them again seems like the only valid option.

Gah.

I Think it Will Be Alright

For the past two or three days, I have been sick to my stomach with anxiety and fear. I slept in my clothes for a spell this morning, without having intended to sleep, so I woke up sore and unrested, with a tired and foggy brain. I was hard pressed to even remember that I can speak English, let alone type it.

This morning, amongst the normal chores of life and PhD, I had 2,000 words to write on the Jack Benny piece, on top of a Clapboard review to turn in before Catherine sent goons after me.

I have been playing beat the clock with a DVD from Amazon that must come by Friday at the absolute latest if it can be of any use in my work. Pump those mail-sorting arms, you wretched, order-picking Oompa-loompas!

I have also been harassed. Profs have started to email me with feedback on my last field comp list, and they seem to have conflicting views as to its goal and substance… I just want to get the thing firmed up so there will be one less thing to concern myself with. Currently, I have decided to lay low and wait until the conflict is resolved over my head.

So, I was trying hard not to go insane, for I had the feeling that, if I did, it would be a spectacular breakdown involving fire and horrible visions, a la Barton Fink.

However, the Benny draft is done to the right length, after a burst of mysterious creative energy that resulted in 1,500 words in one afternoon. Don’t ask me if it makes sense or not… But, then, that’s what the editing process is for.

(This piece is due, no matter what, by Saturday night. That will be one thing taken care of, one way or another. So, about four more days, give or take… I think I can just about manage that.)

And I even managed to sneak a mediocre Clapboard review out. Not great, but obligation fulfilling, and, for right now, that is enough.

On a bright note, it seems my student loan is in transit AS WE SPEAK, so they will not have to kick me out of school or take my thumbs. Any other week, this would be a relief… I am not sure how I feel about it right now.

All Work and No Play

Er…?

I have no idea what day it is. All I know is that deadlines loom large. If I make it, I will let you know how it all ends up.

Holly Doesn’t Live Here Any More

We regret to inform you that Holly, or the person who once called herself by that name, no longer exists as such, as she officially lost her mind at around 11.30am. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Go On, Make it Worse

My nervous stomach from earlier has turned in to full-blown nausea, and I am becoming less inclined to lay the blame on too much work to be done. Head is full of cotton, and my innards feel like they have gone on a long sea voyage and forgotten the Dramamine.

Re-writes went well for a little bit there, but now it is becoming a chore to stay upright in my chair and to keep down my water. It looks like someone has the flu, I guess. Let’s just hope it is either a 24 hour one or it is fatal, because I just re-read my instructions, and it seems I have an extra 1000 words I hadn’t anticipated.

Alright. I know when I’m licked. Time to retreat to a sensible, air conditioned bedroom for a couple hours, and see if I can get it to stop spinning. The attack will either resume at 700 hours, or I will admit defeat once and for all and find a nice cool tomb to crawl into.

Yes. I know. This is exactly what I deserve for putting this off until the last minute with no thought as to what happens if I get ill at the 11th hour. Thank you for rubbing it in.

I wish I were dead with my back broke.

St. Benny, Pray for Me

In a surprisingly good mood, actually, despite a nervous stomach and a swimmy head. Good enough to cheerfully work around the sleeping cat who is currently taking up half my desktop, rather than screaming at him about meat cleavers, which is my usual way. However, give me a few hours, and this all-night festival to desperation may turn my mood sour.

The good mood is useful, yet doomed, as I try to keep feelings of hopelessness at bay. Feelings which stem from a firm understanding of how useless a try for the Raphael Patai Prize actually is at my level. I am trying very hard to focus on the doing, not the goal, but that will no doubt become harder and harder to do as the night progresses.

I am also trying my damnedest to forget that I am using the work of two of the judges, and that of a student of the a third, without being 100% sure if I understand the work correctly.

I am up to my eyeballs in Jack Benny Show transcripts and recordings. I need to add a thousand more words to the piece, so I figure excerpts and discussion of jokes may be the answer. Whenever I take the blunt scholar’s scalpel to jokes, the Layton quip about poets being the lovers and academics being the people who examine the sheets come to mind, but it is time to bite the bullet and do what needs to be done.

All in all, I would rather create comedy than dissect it for the joyless crowd, but this is what they pay me to do folks. (Ah, yes – the scholarly Nuremberg defense. Very good.)

Devil and Freethinker

Dawn, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride at these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth is that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.

Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions of opinion and taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

Understanding, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and by Kant, who lived in a horse.

Ambrose Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ?1914), journalist, humourist and world-famous Gringo; author of The Devil’s Dictionary, which, according to me and Groucho Marx, is one of the greatest reads ever and contains more knowledge than three years of post-degree study.

My Boo Boo

My cat just jumped up on the desk. It was unexpected, sure, but nothing akin to, say, an air raid drill or anything. I mean, I do know I have a cat. However, this time his sudden appearance before my eyes sent me into the air.

Not a big deal, except for the fact that I have a massive mosquito bite/wound on my left hand. (I am allergic to the little suckers, and you don’t want to know what the thing looks like. Suffice it to say that “red” and “puffy” would actually be a step-up in cuteness from the black/blue/brown/purple/red/green/puce balloon that is currently residing at the end of my arm where my hand used to be.)

I know that mosquitoes have a place in the ecosystem, but one really must question the hellishness of a system in which things like that not only play a role, but also seem to have some preternatural knowledge of the human anatomy. (As in they seem to find and tap a vein in like two seconds with no hands, when it takes bloodletting nurses in clinics about ten minutes and a million arm-slaps to make it.)

Wonderful. Nature. Screw you.

Anyway, when the cat jumped down, I jumped up, and I banged this throbbing, feverish mess against my desk. After about a solid minute of silent scream and catching my breath, and another minute of rapid-fire curses in several Indo-European languages, I came to realize something:

I am way too freaking jumpy for someone at my age and in my stage of life.

I realize that I have bill collectors, profs, competitors, hillbillies, and now even nature, stalking my every move, but I really needn’t be such a pessimistic and paranoid bundle of nerves wrapped in a dry heaving layer of fears and obsessions.

I know I tend to see life as one enormous hot plate upon which I dance for the two-bits-a-gander sideshow crowd that is my fleet of audiences and critics, but it doesn’t have to be this way!

From now on, I plan to live life to its fullest!

Starting with smearing a sh*t load of medicinal creams on this poor mound of hamburger that once was my second favourite hand.

Whoopee! We’re really living now, fellas!

The Wallet, It Bleeds

Just blew dollars upon dollars on my comprehensive exam books. What was a clean credit card yesterday now hemorrhages money to internet book sellers. All in all, the deals I got beat the cost estimate by over $500, but it still hurts. It may hurt less when I get those books in my hot little hand, but probably not.

Since when do prisoners have to pay for the tools of their own torture?

Being a student isn’t all keggers and sunshine, you know.

To Do: Must Flog Self

I am woefully lazy these days… Like criminally stationary. I have work to do; I know this. That doesn’t change anything. It seems vacation fever has set in whether I want it or not. Or whether I can afford it or not.

I meant to have my new draft of the Benny piece ready for Friday… To this, my conscience replies: It is not Thursday night, yet. And then I pop in another movie.

The humidity around here doesn’t help, but if I start playing the excuse game I’ll never get anything done.

The truth is that I have all the self-discipline of a hedonist found dead in a vat of triple-chocolate-whipped with a pound of meperidine found in his gut.

Is there some secularist monastery out there that takes grad students, puts them in dank cells with nothing but a word processor and a dictionary, and hoses them down with ice cold pickle brine if their attention/energy flags?

That’s the place for me, then.

I think I have become so damned addicted to the rush of narrowly met deadlines that I have absolutely no ability to work on anything early. My life is filled with valleys of doing nothing, with short bursts of enormous and death defying feats of work… The problem is that I am becoming not only used to it, but that I enjoy it. No. I need it.

This is sick and wrong.

And it makes me worry about what kind of academic-equivalent-to-manic-depressive-disorder my dissertation experience will be.

If William Holden Ain’t In Heaven…

Then I ain’t going.

(A mini Holden film-fest has broken out randomly in my apartment... The guy who may be the world's only sexy blond man, folks, and he wasn't a bad actor, either!)

Wow. This is Really, Really Silly.

Am part of the way into my first viewing of the new Pride and Prejudice (2005), and I have to stop and register my sorrow, or surely my head will explode.

So many annoying things, all in one small frame.

Everyone in here seems like they haven’t acted since tenth grade drama class (even, at times, my beloved Donald Sutherland!), and all the hairdos seems to have been excess wigs bought from the touring company of Canada: A Peoples’ History.

Lizzy, who talks like she is continually sucking on a lozenge, is somewhere between Belle from Beauty and the Beast and a truck stop waitress.

Although she is… tolerable, I suppose.

(At least she is younger than Jennifer Ehle, so that is some plus.)

And Kitty, who is usually the better of the two slut-sisters, seems to have been drugged, and her lines appear to consist of nothing more than peels of unreasonable laughter and hysterical gasps.

My teeth are set on edge, as every sentence is read as fast air leaving a whoopee cushion, making me check the speed on the DVD player four times already. Come on, guys, I know it is a long book, but speed of speech may not be the best solution!

The costumes all seem from every which way (and, yes, many seem to have hitch-hiked in from France), and the house full of chattering girls seems to have mistaken Jane Austen for Louisa May Alcott. And I am completely baffled by Mr. and Mrs. Bennett lip-smooching in the living room, as if they were baby boomers preparing to take the kiddies off to soccer practice. This is hardly what I expected from them… Actually, when I first read the book as a child, they seemed so distant I wondered if they were even related at all - I wondered why their nanny was called "Mrs. Bennett".

Aside from the attractive agricultural scenes, the camera work is obtrusive and over-blown (as in, what was with that slow close-in on an unimportant glass of cider for no less than 10 seconds?), and the unbearably-simple-minded Bingley (who is seriously an idiot) appears to have puffed up his bright red pompadour with a bicycle pump (gaze at the horror that is the Red Pompadour, above). WTF?

Don’t get me wrong – Bingley has never been the brightest bulb in the pack, but I have never, ever pictured him as bad as he is portrayed here, by some guy who looks all the world like he could be Paul Bettany’s mentally challenged younger cousin.

Oh, and Judi Dench as Lady Catherine de Bourg? What incredibly innovative casting! (Since sarcasm doesn’t come through blog posts, I will highlight it there.) Not only is this a lame and predictable move, but it is also not at all correct. Judi Dench has a lovely hint of true sparkle and humour under any severity she possesses, so she is the last person I would have cast for this malevolent creature.

Now, Brenda Blethyn! There is a wonderful choice for Mrs. Bennett. (No sarcasm.) Pity they couldn’t give her anything worthy of her.

Right now, I can’t even really get into Darcy (the meat-head upstage left, reading his lines at the speed of an auctioneer), because my gorge would fly open with such a violence as to shatter my computer monitor.

But, incidentally, is it only me who finds it terribly, terribly wrong for him to have a bust of himself in his own gallery at his age?? As if all the nude Greek men decorating his bachelor pad weren’t bad enough, it seems he is also horribly vain and pathetically silly. Lovely.

Arrggh! Only half way through, and I am already inclined to throw this piece of tripe out a window. This is the only second I have spent being glad this thing is shorter than the book deserves – four more hours, and I would go out the window with it.

This is interminable. Fighting… to… not… open… solitaire… program. Must pay… attention! (I’ve already paused once to scan for viruses, thinking something this bad must be contagious.)

Sad, sad day. I didn’t expect to love it, but I didn’t expect complete hatred. I had expected something around the level of Emma (1998) – lightweight, abbreviated, pleasant, pop… but not a travesty of taste and style.

At best, I am hoping this end up as not a totally regrettable experience.

This is really too bad. I had assumed that an adequate version of P&P would be better than no P&P at all, but now I am uncertain.

Then again, “adequate” may be complimenting this version too much.

The Inmates and the Asylum

Went to HMV this morning to get a fresh supply of DVDs (bless those tax refunds), and I managed to pick up a few excellent deals (rather surprisingly, as HMV is pretty hit or miss). But I think the trip took ten years off my soul.

While browsing, I had to listen to the three tacky HMV “team members” braying like asses at the new Pink Panther travesty. It saddened me. These people work at a place that sells movies, for crying out loud! Anyone who has any respect or regard for film should feel only nausea at such a thing: One institution (Steve Martin) being demeaned to degrade another (the original Pink Panther series and the magnificent Peter Sellers).

It’s like making Maya Angelou vomit on the collected works of Jane Austen, and video taping it for the barking pleasure of trained seals.

On second thought, it is not like the insane running the asylum. More like a tone-deaf man with no ears selling pianos.

And, yes, I am getting crankier as I get older. No need to point that out.

Returning to My First Love

My daily routine has become fairly set. Chores or re-writes in the morning (1000 words a day on the Benny revamp project), a movie in the afternoon, housework in the late afternoon, and reading in the evening. Everything in its place and everything covered. Beautiful, really.

And best of all there’s that daily movie – sometimes two movies. This is the true beauty of this system.

See, the thing is that my movie watching isn’t quite work, but nor is it slacking off. That’s the true glory of being a film student! When I get too bogged down in reading or coursework, and I am left with no time to just consume movie after movie, I tend to lose perspective on the task at hand. The point of my degree, I have to remember, is film and what they say about social status and popular imagination.

In the grander scheme of things, quantitative sociological research methods mean very little in comparison to a close comparison of Aaron Altman and Sam Posner.

That is why I love my work; summer isn’t turning out to be so very rotten, after all.

Monsters and Heroes

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

See this picture. Go now. Do not wait.

And don’t give me any of those “But I’m too sensitive” excuses.

It is your duty.


I may never stop crying.

Can I Be Al Brooks When I Grow Up?

Pretty please? I’ll do my homework and eat all my vegetables. Honest.

I am so ashamed to say this, but Sunday I watched Broadcast News (1987) for the first time ever. (A stunned hush falls over the world.) I know, this seems inconceivable. Albert Brooks fanatic? Check. 80s movie buff. Check. Patron of fine comedy and social commentary? Check.

So what the hell happened?

The short answer to this is that I was 9 when this movie was released, so I will plead that defense. Actually, I did watch part of this once, but I was torn away from it, and never got back to it. Then last summer I bought a used copy of it on VHS for 99 cents, but when I tried to watch the thing there was no sound and no picture. That’s not true. I thought I made out Brooks’ Jew-fro in one second before it cut out again.

(Oh well, you get what you pay for, and since I bought it in Hamilton I think of it as charity, for surely 99 cents represents a day’s wages for a family of five in that rat nest.)

On Sunday, I was finally united with the picture I was born to love. And did I love it? As much as one could predict. Clearly, after I see it again, there may have to be a shake up in “Holly’s Top 100 Films of All-Time.”

At one point, I got so wrapped up in it, and so horrified that someone might actually chose William Hurt of all people, the Alpine WASP giant of arrogance, over my Albert Brooks, that I was tempted to charge onto the internet for instant spoilers.

One thing was for certain, if Al ended up losing a battle that he was clearly meant to win, I wanted no part in the rest of the film.

However, I resisted all urges, and was kept gripped throughout.

But, for those of you who haven’t seen this James Brooks masterpiece, there is far more here than a romantic triangle. Satire on the news industry is first and foremost, as the struggle between real news and infotainment rages. Unfortunately, this remains even more true today than when the picture was made, except for the fact that there may not be a struggle anymore. Journalistic ethics, credibility, TV tricks, it’s all in there, and it is a joy.

The movie goes further than that, however, into the world of people who are so emotionally and socially screwed up that they can afford (read: need) to place themselves under enormous daily strain and aggravation at work, simply because it keeps them from thinking about all that they don’t have. And some elements of these obsessive-compulsive overachievers and their quirks and hang-ups did hit too close to the bone. It took me a little while to get over the discomforting self-examination and enjoy myself. (I am just glad I watched it alone.)

I know that Albert Brooks has his critics, and perhaps he is a specialized taste, but I rarely get so much pleasure out of any performance as I do out of his, and every one of his movies has given me a special little thrill at some point. In Broadcast News, he absolutely shined. He was as funny and as touching as I have ever seen him, and I have never been so enamoured with him as I am right now.

Favourite line? “Tom, as nice as he is… is the devil!” Ha ha… I laugh and laugh. But, like all things Al Brooks, you have to hear it from him to get the full effect.

So, if you haven’t seen this, go now! Don’t let my shame be yours!

Esteem Is Not a Brand of Car

It is bad enough the way car companies trash significant cultural and religious terms for commercial use (i.e. Mazda and Cherokee). But I draw the line at their use of abstract terms of value. Do they think people completely without Esteem will sink to buying a car bearing the word in the hopes that it is the same thing?

What is next? “Ford Trim Figure,” or “GMC Feelings of Adequacy”? How about the much-anticipated “Pontiac Respectable Genitalia”?

Too bad there is no truth in advertising, or we may live to see the “Carcinogen XE5000.” Or may favourite, “Earth’s Doom V5XL.”

I have less and less hope for our species every day, I fear.

However, I still posted a new review. Enjoy it while you can.

Happy Father’s Day

I've had a hard life, but my hardships are nothing against the hardships that my father went through in order to get me to where I started.

- Bartrand Hubbard

Dream Baby Got Me Dreaming Sweet Dreams

I have been jittery and worried for some days now, as nightmares were becoming a problem for me, and I remember reading that people over 16 should not have regular nightmares unless there was something wrong with them. Naturally, I assumed that these nightmares pointed to some problem in school that I had not yet consciously realized.

Especially since the nightmares featured one of my professors… And the tailypo (spelled tallypo back home). Neither of which one really loves to see in their dreams.

However, today (we have now gone completely nocturnal), I was finally able to sleep without the vision of razor sharp teeth and horrible cryptozoic carnage.

But I am not sure I should tell you what I did dream about, as it is either the sweetest thing in the world, or the lamest.

I was asleep, with John beside me, and the cat in my arms (he likes to sleep under the covers, with his head on my pillow – it really is quite adorable). What did I dream? That I was peacefully asleep, with John at my side and the cat in my arms!

My heart pitty-pats to know that, for right now, my subconscious desires and my actual life seem to be in perfect accord.

Now if I could only dream of a big sandwich, I would be living all of my wildest dreams today.

Trying Hard to Put My Ducks in a Row (But Not Count My Chickens)

As puffed up as a lord tonight. Got a fantastic response to something very daring today… I am not sure if it will all come through, but just hearing editors describe my stuff as “cutting-edge” and “original” gives me a thrill.

Will light a candle to Raphael Patai tonight, and hope for the best.

And, finally, the Jack Benny work seems to have been good for something, after all. And this one far exceeds the value of the Sheboygan debacle.

However, it was enough to be able to tell the Advisor I am making headway in life.

I felt so good, I pressed my luck and applied for a book review assignment at a journal.

There, that was the gush. Now for the anguish.

I am PILED with stuff to get through. I have been reading the “How to get a Job in Academics” handbook, and the "Guide to a successful PhD program"… This does not really help my nerves, but it spurs me on.

Publish [& present] or perish! Sleep is for the weak!

Four papers to prepare for various submissions, another conference to apply to, and still with the comp reading. Oh, and those pesky RA duties, which keep slipping my mind. (I blame that Nuremberg Interviews book… That thing has sucked all my attention away for the past week.)

Not to mention, of course, the SSHRC applications and dissertation proposal, of which my Advisor reminds me as often as she can. (This I do not mind – I fancy myself in a space capsule, and they are my trusty Houston crew, urging me on and warning of core meltdowns, etc.)

Good thing the cohort cancelled the BBQ (aka “Animal Cremation Ceremony”), or it would have been suicide for me again, I am afraid.

Ever behind. This is me. I shall laugh about this when I am famous… Or people can at least cluck over it at my funeral.

I guess I know what my weekend holds.

Easy Skanking, Indeed

How do you know if you are stoned?

Someone on some balcony close by seems to be smoking the nastiest, raunchiest, most noxious pot anyone has ever scored. Or at least the worst I have ever smelled, and I have been in university since 1996!

I don’t know whether to close the windows and be gassed with it, or leave them open and hope SOME fresh air manages to squeak in passed the reek.

I try not to be intolerant, but MAN!

Smoke some more, folks; I think there may be three people on the tenth floor who can still see straight.

Catch-WLU

I bought a DVD copy of Catch-22 (1970) last March or so… maybe longer ago… but had not watched it until late Monday night (when does it become early Tuesday morning?). I read the book in high school, but I had never seen the picture, but I thought I might enjoy it, and it was incredibly cheap in a groaning bargain bin full of old 70s movies (meanwhile, American Pie 2 sells by the boatloads, but I digress).

However, after buying it, I read some pretty awful and scathing reviews, so I put off watching it for a while, lest my wallet-wound be too fresh when I watched it and hated it.

But Monday night, full of self-doubt and existential angst (such as only a well-fed North American can), I decided to let it have it. And, I must say that, despite all those lousy reviews I read, I absolutely lurved it. I mean, anything involving Jack Gilford and, especially, Alan Arkin has a head start on my appreciation, but I was absolutely surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

(As a side note, am I nuts for finding Alan Arkin so damned appealing? Is that a strange fetish? Bah! I do not fear your pity or your contempt!)

The point of all this is: Have you ever watched a movie and have an absolute clarity of vision in terms of which characters in the film match the people you know in life?

That is what I had about Catch-22.

The fellow grad students I have known over time can only line up with pilots and bombardiers (faced with war in the European theatre) through the use of a great amount of imagination, but I can see parallels that excite and amuse. The stress, the doubt, the paranoia, the goals that always seem to get further and further away, and greater and greater in number… And the subtle forms of mental illness that develop over time under constant pressure.

And I say this with all due respect and love to those of you who may be reading this, and I certainly do not exclude myself from this.

I will not name names, but I can see many of you so clearly when I watch this picture. (And if you have seen this picture, you know why I am reluctant to make so many enemies all in one post.) Nately, the young and sensitive anxiety-case; Aardvark, the hyper-normal one who scares everyone with his seeming-sanity; Dobbs, the hard one who breaks into revolution; Danby, the good-humoured jerk; Major, the absolutely insane junior leader; Dreedle, the hideous general… All these I know, right down to the loveable, confused cleric, Chaplain Tappman (guess who that one is?).

(Oh, I wish-oh-wish I lived in a bubble and did not depend on the good will of others for survival (and could depend on all of your senses of humour) so I could go into details, for it makes me laugh and laugh when I think about it. So, should any of you wish to belly up to the self-knowledge-bar and take a guess, do let me know.)

Naturally, Yossarian I reserve for myself. We all, always, do that with the main character. (Especially the Everyman sort such as this.) However, even objectively, I find some pretty uncomfortable character parallels to even his less admirable qualities… The cowardice, the paranoid ramblings, the irritating personality, the "rants so much he appears insane but is the only sane one" position in society… It all comes a little too close for comfort.

The nebbish with the heart of coal. That is me to a tee.

Yes, I enjoyed this movie much, much, much. If you work in an ensemble group, from a grad student cohort to a telemarketers’ cubicle farm, you may enjoy this film, too.

But, if I were you, I’d keep the associations to yourself.

Meta-Bloggery

Happy International Weblogger’s Day,
to one and all!

I wish an especially great day to those new and interesting comrades I have met via blogging - Amanda, LaTina Marie, Ron, Running24k (who’s mother, I believe was either a jogger or a super computer, hence the name), and many others found on the link list below.

I am very happy to get to know you, and always look forward to hearing from you, in my dank PhD-study-ridden cave.

In fact, I find that I have more in common with the folks I have selected via blogging than many of the people I have known in “real life.” This discovery was a pleasant surprise – variety always pleases a cheapskate.

I will not go into all the reasons I blog, as I have done that already.

However, I will add again that, no, I do not blog because I think people particularly wish to hear about my life (as it even stultifies me at times, and I can only imagine how it reads), but, rather, because I like to record things for memory, and because I am self-indulgent slob, as my generation has trained me to be.

I would love to say something noble and witty about my blogging habit. Something like, “Blogs would be the first thing to be banned by the fascists, so I blog to keep alive the spirit of la Resistance!” However, while this may be true of why I always participate with my Union, it is not true of blogging. (Besides, I am very sure that the fascists would find some way to make perfect and terrifying use of blogs themselves.)

I really am just self-absorbed and egomaniacal. That is the very, very sad truth.

Oh, and it is cheaper than therapy; that previous acknowledgement would have cost thousands of dollars and 16 years, had I been using a flesh-shrink.

E-shrink is both economically possible and quicker.

So, happy blogging day to all, and to all a good blogging night!

(And a special e-hug to my blogging mentor and partner.)

Would the *Real* Bloggers Please Stand Up

Tomorrow is International Weblogger's Day.


If you would like to participate, please go to http://www.chronicled.org/intlblogday and sign-up. You can even get a nifty button:

(oooo! aaaaaah!)

Academically and Professionally Castrated

Or is that just un-endowed to begin with?

Am having a major resurgence of the old CV anxiety. Madly crawling the net looking for anything (conferences, calls for papers, journal submission shots, essay contests… ANYTHING) that might add a line to the poor, anemic resume.

I am completely dickless, professionally speaking, and I would rather set my own hair on fire than to ever set foot on campus or at a department function, ever again… And I have to do both this coming week!

Competitor 1: “What are you doing this weekend?”
Competitor 2: “Solving the problems in the Middle East, and then addressing Harvard.”
Comp. 1: “I may pop round to chair, should I get finished the Princeton thing early.”
Comp. 1: “What are you doing, Holly?”
Holly: “Mhihgsnnifioj – cough.”
Comp. 2: “Pardon?”
Holly: “Eating beans out of a can and watching Catch-22 until this world makes sense?”
Comp. 1 & 2: (Pause) “Haw haw. Oh yes, ra-ther! Good one.”
(All walk a way, rolling eyes.)

Goody, goody.

For Just This Moment

Ever buy a movie that you liked in theatre, watch it once, and then never look at it again? Doesn’t it bug you every time you dust your collection and realize that that DVD represents $19.99 you’ll never see again?

Well, the movie like that in my collection is About a Boy (2002). It was fine in theatre, and again at home, but I have never, ever watched it since. For a while I consoled myself with the idea that maybe some guest would want to watch it someday, and it would come in handy. This situation has never arisen. At this rate, this movie will, sadly, never pay for itself.

Unlike, say, Happy Go Lovely (1951), for which I paid around $5 last January, and have watched 10 times since. At that rate, that is 50 cents a viewing, which is getting well-passed-par with the original door price of the theatrical release.

The only comfort here for me is that, in 2002, theatrical door price was as high as 8 to 10 bucks a head, so seeing this twice will bring me to par.

However, that is very little comfort.

I could, I suppose, trade it in at a second hand joint, or donate it to the Big Brothers, or something, but that just isn’t how I work. Once I purchase a movie, I never let it go. This is because, if I were to do that, I just know that I would suddenly get a yen to watch it, and I would never let myself re-buy or rent it ever, and it would become a cause of irritation.

With my personality, I need no further causes for irritation.

But tonight, I think, I may be ready to watch it. I will give it a chance to pay for itself, just a little. I am annoyed by at least two senseless errands I have to run this week, on two separate campuses, and on edge due to conference proposals and being behind in my readings. And I am feeling particularly misanthropic this week, to boot. For some reason, it feels like time to finally dust this movie off.

If I remember correctly, up until the crap “conversion of the heart” ending, this is a veritable ode to misanthropy, and that might do me good.

(Perhaps, I will stop it just before the bothersome ending, like I do with Ben-Hur (1959), which really should have ended with the chariot race, and left out the conversion malarkey.)

Then if any of you would like to borrow an only slightly used copy of About a Boy, it shall be fair game.

(And before I get complaints: Yes, Hugh Grant is fine. And, yes (Catherine), Nick Hornsby is OMG-so-wonderful-and-this-century’s-Jane-Austen-yadda-yadda-yadda. I can’t justify my antipathy, and there is no real cause for it, except possibly its moral majority message that breeding & spawning are wonderful activities, the notion that it is a generally forgettable film, and the fact that the kid in it has a rather giant face, which scares me a little. Other than that, I can offer no explanations.)

Anne Frank

July 12, 1929 – March 1945

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish!

And what your potential is!

Late Night Frustration

It is late, I am alone, and I can’t sleep. And there is one book in the world that I want to read. I know that I own this book, or at least I once did. Can I find it? Not a chance. There is absolutely no sign of the thing.

Has it gone off to find new company, or is it now off floating in the vast sea of abandoned possessions with all the single socks, pens, eyeglasses and address books I have littered the universe with in my 28 years?

I don’t even own the movie version, for a quick substitute.

It is far too late to find it elsewhere, or to bang around hunting for it in my shelves and collections, so I must give it up for lost. The real pain is that, having set my mind to that one book, there is small chance of choosing another, and even less chance of sleeping now that I am irate over the loss of it.

Are you happy now, you beastly gremlins who seem to have invaded my library?

It Begins

Flutters. Definite flutters.

Sunday evening, after revisions and the inevitable doubts and pangs, I sent off my first “real” conference proposal. My first professional, international, non-studenty-type, completely interdisciplinary conference.

The shot that was heard around the world has rung out.

To make this application, I had to set aside my many worries and fidgets. Surprisingly, such worries did not include any of the “maybe I am not ready” or “what do I know?” variety. (It seems as if my ego may actually be catching up to my credentials, perhaps… Or maybe it was just an especially arrogant day.) There were more of the variety involving the fear of rejection and the crapulence of airports, taxis, reservations, packing, etc., all for a twenty-minute presentation!

Oh, how I long for conferences accomplished entirely via webcam!

So, now it is all up to the selection committee. It is out of my hands. I find myself less concerned about the presentation itself than by the possible success or failure of the application – the importance is in the CV note, not in the doing, sadly. If it is no, then other plans must be pursued.

If yes, then I may actually have some, slight glimmer of hope for SSHRC & OGS season (for which I have just begun my application… and for which I am trying not to hope, with all my heart).

Wish me luck!

(I assume that the fact that I have been hyperventilating since sending it off is entirely unconnected, and does not reflect any loss of that beautiful confidence experienced earlier…)

The Limelight Department

Today in 1891, The Limelight Department, which may have been the very first film studio in the world, opened in Melbourne, Australia, under the auspices of the Salvation Army.

Unofficially dated to the year before, when Adjutant Joseph Perry started a photography studio as a sideline and then later used these photos in a lantern show for the Army, it was officially established in 1891, when Commandant Herbert Booth, recognizing the possibilities of the new cinematic medium as a tool for the organization, funded Perry for his first films. These early works included a series of shorts depicting the life of Jesus, as well as Soldiers of the Cross (1899), which many say may have been the first feature-length film ever made, and related some very gruesome and detailed images of the early Christian martyrs.

Soldiers of the Cross, which reportedly caused fainting fits in the audience, established Perry’s department as a significant player in the early film industry. In 1901, the Limelight Department was commissioned to record the Federation of Australia, using an innovative five-camera set up. This began a precedent for the Department, which continued to expand, to take more non-religious commissions (including footage of the withdrawal of British troops from South Africa after the Boer War), along side of its evangelical projects.

In 1910, however, the Department came under the control of the conservative Commander James Hay who felt that film, with its entertainment element, was not in keeping with the aims of the Salvation Army, and disbanded the company.

It is questionable as to whether Soldiers, or its follow-up film Heroes of the Cross (1909), was the first feature length film, as existing footage places it well-under the required 60 minute mark, and it is likely that the honour of first goes to the UK/Australian production of The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906).

However, through the Department’s use of cameras, and in its recognition of the ideological value of the cinema, it remains a landmark in the history of international filmmaking, as well as a crucial link between the development of the photography industry and the cinema.

A Day at the “Shore”

If you are cruising the blogs, you are likely either disappointed that this is not another gush about the World Cup, or you are grateful for it.

Either way, that is likely to be the absolute last word about the thing on this blog. I am one of those exiled freaks who see only noise and belligerence in soccer championships. I also can't forget the fact that at least one genocidal maniac found soccer teams instrumental in his reign of terror, and it puts me off a little.

So, instead of watching the Cup, we spent the largest part of our afternoon outside. It was a lovely day for it, as the temperature was very nearly perfect, and it seems that everyone else in the world was at home in front of the TV.

We sought two things: Water, and as many cute baby animals as we could find.

We found both in the man-made lake down the nature trail. This is one of my favourite sites in town, as it has the most impressive collection of birds I have ever seen in one small place. Not only were there at least two or three families of mallards and geese, but there is a wide variety of song birds, as well as a few pairs of plovers (or are they pipers?), which I don’t know if I have ever seen in the wild. The other day I was stopped in my tracks as a huge blue heron floated down and stood, impressively, in the water. (Not that flashy colours and size mean everything to me, but these things are scarce enough to make this a memorable experience.)

It was a lovely day. It doesn’t do much to rid me of the strange feeling that living this far from the ocean is contrary to the human soul (seriously, why the hell did anyone settle in this land-locked region, when they could have just as easily stayed out East?), but it was really pleasant to hear some water-lapping-on-stone, even if it a far cry from the Bay.

I realize that such wholesome pastime may not be out in keeping with my personality, but I swear I don’t do it often, and I made sure to chain-smoke the entire time to avoid total Scout territory. You never know with me – today, bird watching; tomorrow, sitting in a café discussing Rudolf Hoess (or is that Höß?).

I am a complex duck.

The Painter of Dreck

I am wallowing in immaturity. Soaking in it till my toes go all shriveled and peely.

Chores done, there is nothing for it besides hours and hours and hours of Weird Al (the obsession is BACK! - can a DEVO revival be too far behind around here?), and the best Photoshop Phriday to come along in quite some time. Take that, Thomas Kinkade!

(But, remember, if you don’t buy some crappy, mass-produced schmaltz featuring some rose covered cottage that would even give your granny the diabetic heaves, the terrorists win!)

The Wood Paneled World

This landslide of nostalgia! It started when I got home and found a Weird Al newsletter waiting in my email with a new downloadable song. Times have changed, yet they haven’t changed at all. Today it’s email… twenty years ago it was Columbia Tape Club.

Now I am thrown back in that fake-wood room with my older brother, a true 80s man (pink shirt, grey sports coat, red leather zipper-tie, DA and all), staring at his Ratt poster, and thinking that there will never be a generation cooler than ours.

Actually, I wasn’t really thinking that. I was probably wondering if Chrissy (my best friend, who, for some reason, always smelled a bit like urine) would have enough guts to do “Money for Nothing” with me at the yearend lip-synch concert. Or possibly I was thinking how stupid the Luba “Drink Milk” campaign was. Or maybe if the Canadians would beat the Russians… At anything – I wasn’t fussy.

Due to the presence of older siblings, the 80s came to me in that room. Sometimes I forget, but it is amazing how easy those neon souvenirs come back to me, all to the sounds of Good Rockin’ Tonight, and with Switchback playing in the background.

When I was five and starting school, do I remember that Barbara McClintock won the Nobel in medicine? Not at all – the defining memory of that year is much more likely to be some strange combination between Jedi and Mr. Mom, or possibly The Minipops and You Can’t Do That on Television. Never mind the fact that, while Reagan ruled the roost, I was more concerned over whether Joey Jeremiah would win the race for class president.

Only later in the decade would I have my first strong political awareness, other than a vague understanding of what Spitting Image was trying to tell me. Other generations got Trudeau, Kennedy, Nixon or FDR. I got Mulroney and Meech Lake, stewed in a sauce of Reaganomics. (Any wonder I am now NDP?)


And, when I was in elementary (Goooo, Lancers!), Weird Al was the king. I thought he was the funniest man alive… Now that has probably dropped to “Funniest Accordion Player Alive,” but that is still pretty good. Al has been one of those constants in my life that I never quite got over. It must be his Zappa-lite qualities, rather than mere loyalty, for Hall and Oates don’t really enter my field of vision any more. Besides, where could the nostalgia possibly come in, now that he is all LASIK-zapped and normal looking (comparatively)? Nevertheless, there it is!

(Anyone else remember “Like a Surgeon,” and the “classic” Al look? That one made you feel so very cool yourself because you didn’t look like THAT. If the world was a funner place, I would desperately look forward to the day when we must choose between the two Als for a commemorative stamp. As it is, I can simply muse in amazement: How is it he is getting younger, while I get older??)

It was an absolutely ridiculous, inane and silly era, but it made me.

I laugh and make fun, but, man, what a decade! I was tacky, but happy. My brother and I were close in a way we never managed again. I am sure that I would not erase the last two decades or so, but what I wouldn’t give for an hour of Pacman, Capt’n Crunch, and some more banging on the wall in a vain attempt to stop my brother from playing that break-up song by Chicago, yet again… Oh, the memories (that somehow come with that special Get Along Gang eraser scent).

Good times.

The Pipes are Calling

I grew up in Nova Scotia, the land of the highland-away-from-the-highlands. Growing up there was both a burden and a gift. If you are not Scottish, it can get discouraging or frustrating to grow up in a land of faux-Scottish nostalgia (including kilts, fiddlers, busts of Scott, etc., etc., etc, as well as a million traditions involving beer), and you can even begin to hate the enshrined Nova Scotian tartan.

Further, what did we learn in public school phys. ed.? All of us - all the German, Native, Jewish, Irish, British, Acadian (and so-forth) students? The "highland fling". Every year. A section on Scottish folkdance, every single year of public school. Can anyone explain why a Jewish student, for example, would need to know how to traipse around a sword for fun? When, exactly, will that ever come up in adult life?

The sad part is that I would be quite surprised if even in Scotland they force kids into that.

However, Nova Scotia is in a particular position. We are long separated from the “home land,” yet the heart still longs to be ore in the highlands hunting a deer. The few actual Scots there who remember what Scotland was actually like are few and far between, so the reconstruction of the bonny over the ocean is furtive and rather sad.

But do not mistake this as entirely commercial or tacky, although Nova Scotia does use this Scottish connection for tourism bucks. Really, many in Nova Scotia cultivate the Scottish connection as some small way to tap into a beautiful and serene place that exists only in their imaginations.

And, yes, this does get a bit much, especially for those groups, like the Germans and the French and the Natives and the Irish, who have done a great deal to build and sustain Nova Scotia in their own right.

However, having said all this, now that I find myself in Ontario I find myself tapping into that old Scottish vibe, or rather the Nova Scotian version of the Scottish vibe, as a way to connect to home.

Today, from somewhere, and for some reason, while we were strolling after supper, I heard the Pipes. I never could tell from where they were coming, as there is no cemetery close by and I saw no parade. They were a long way off, perhaps, but such is the glory of the bag pipe. The way that they drift is a mystical force… Rather like how the Scots themselves have drifted across the world. (And the best thing about the bag pipes is that they are much more moving from a distance than close up.)

But the mere sound made me feel like I was back on Hollis or at the Waterfront in Halifax, for nothing says Halifax in the summer like the pipes. I couldn’t help but smile, and I stopped and listened. It sounded like home in a way that was completely independent of ancestry.

So, I guess I stand before you as an “adoptive Scot.”

Thanks, unknown piper.

Thank You, Angry Norwegian!

Actually, no; this new face doesn’t really have much to do with his spiteful little comment, but the phrase “angry Norwegian” brings thoughts of furious accordion playing and rowdy aquavit consumption with intent, so it made a better post title than, “I am tired of blue and clumsy.”

I had considered changing templates some time ago, but now that the new Firefox/ Explorer controversy has flubbed up the old template (with mucho help from me, I admit), I decided it was now or never. Besides, that blue, tan and green shouted “little league” at me. Grey, red and black seems to suit me better now.

Yay! It’s like a whole new start. I wish I could say that my posts will be as happy and light as the new template, but that is not very likely to be so… Perhaps I can claim it is an ironic template, then. Hey, at least it isn’t the bright pink one. No way, could I have lived up to that amount of cheerfulness.

SUCK ME, GOOGLE

OK… If you are looking at this blog with Explorer, it may look like hell.

This is likely because Google has devised ways to force Blogger users to post through Firefox, which, coincidentally, belongs to Google. I am not sure this is some ploy to drive Explorer out, but I cannot get the template to look right on BOTH Explorer AND Firefox, now, and I am way too tired and MAD to figure this out.

So, just go and die, Google, for you reek of capitalism and you have done enough for today. Sleep well on your big pile of money.

(I have made some adjustments, and have decided to side with Explorer... I never was one to appreciate strong-arm tactics.)

Cripes

I was looking at the hit counter stats again, and checked out what was referring people to me. Again, most were from Blogger update alerts or from blog surfers, and it was common for people to enter through the blogs of friends and associates. Also, some people searching for “666” news… Just a note, if you are seeking out 666 on blogs, Satan wouldn’t want you, so go join the chess club where you belong.

For some reason, several people came through Google Blog Search for “colin firth.” (Colin, if you are seriously out there searching for yourself on blogs, you need help, man… Just contact me, and we’ll sort it all out together. *cough*)

However, one freaked me out a little… A search with these words:

holly waterloo found dead

Ummmm… Do you all know something I don’t know? Should I call the cops? Is it that, through some weird, cosmic mix-up, my grown son can reach me through Google from the future to warn me of impending doom…? (I hope not; that didn’t make for a good movie, and it wouldn’t play any better in real life.)

Anyway, just stop it.

I Am an Island.

Tonight was bound to be a let down after last night, but at least the dishes are done. We had a good supper, and all is generally laid back around the homestead.

I am wrapped up in The Nuremberg Interviews currently, which shouldn’t shock any of you who know me. So, naturally, I have been spending a good deal of my time sitting around, thinking about Nazis. Trying to wrap my head around the personalities… It’s not even a great hate. It’s an absence of ANY feeling, whatsoever. Hate I can see. This…?

That is the main news around here. (And precious little else, I assure you.) By and large, I am not depressed, but I am wallowing in a desire for isolation.

Am wishing the world outside away, but this cannot work. Thursday/Friday, the world invades my apartment for mandatory a/c duct cleaning (read: yearly snoop), and I soon face a jury of my peers (read: department BBQ) for which I find myself completely unprepared, socially. I hate the sun, meat sickens me, and I am less than chatty in the months between May and August… So what’s not to love about a BBQ, in the afternoon, outside, with people? Glurg.

So, now it is back to conference applications and article re-writes, and, as always, the comp reading. I am determined to get back on track there. No more reading in front of the computer! ANYTHING is more enjoyable than these books, so I must lock EVERYTHING out while trying to get through the things…

If only EVERYTHING would let me lock it out. Unfortunately, sometimes EVERYTHING has a master key or a pile of social-obligation-guilt.

sigh

6.6.06. ... Day of the Beast??

Either meeting en masse, or sitting home listening to the infernal CBC of the damned, this “portentous” night…

Enjoy your Cosmic Joy Buzzer.

I Could Have Danced All Night

It is now 10.30am, and I have not yet been to bed! John, who had a day off, and I actually went out… On a real DATE, if you can believe it! This is an event for homebodies like us!

The evening started off with canned fruit and stern coffee at 4pm (such is the nature of nightshift work), and me happening to check the schedule at the Princess downtown. As it turned out, something very promising was playing at 9.10pm. More than enough time for us to get our acts together and get downtown (which is, ironically, “Uptown”). Deciding against the Yuppie pastime of inviting everyone we know to come with us, we instead went out alone. As a couple. (Still, this shocks me.)

After a lovely long walk down town, we stopped and browsed in a few choice shops, one of which is likely the best DVD store I have ever seen (but in which I can rarely afford to actually make a purchase), and I bought one previously viewed movie. Then we hit a sub shop for a very tasty sandwich, and then it was to a nice little bookstore, where I managed to snag a reasonably-priced copy of The Nuremberg Interviews. (Romantic, eh?)

Then to the movies. Thank You for Smoking (2005). Brilliant! Wonderful! Funniest picture seen in a while! Etc! (Really, I would review it, but it seems that everyone and their dog already has, so I decided I would only review it if my opinion was exactly the opposite of everyone, which it isn’t, so there you go.) I will say one small thing by way of why I liked it so much, though. Seldom do you see an American movie so brutally willing to see shades of grey in the cinematic landscape of white and black, and for this I thank all those involved with making this film. I laughed out loud, and never felt lectured, pandered to, or ridiculed. A true gem.

Anyway, we came back and had a rest at around midnight, when we decided to walk up to the grocery store. (Again – oh, so very romantic.) We had a nice, quiet 3am supper, and settled down to read with the cat between us, thinking what a nice evening it had been. Soon, I was onto my new Nuremberg book (shocking, I know, that the comp books could not tempt me), which inspired a desire to watch my copy of the TV miniseries Nuremberg (2000), which is interesting and quite watchable (despite the never-pleasant presence of a Baldwin). John had never seen it, so we had a light snack and watched this until the sun came up.

The romance keeps coming, eh?

We probably should have gone to bed at this point, but have you ever reached a point where things seem too enjoyable to just call it a day? Days off are especially hard to just put to a drab end like that. So, we went for a walk in the park and a smoke, and then decided to watch another film.

This one was the new DVD I had just bought, which neither of us had seen; Nanny McPhee (2005). I bought this because (1) the colours looked wonderful; (2) I generally love Emma Thompson screenplays; and (3) COLIN FIRTH. (You may put those in any order that seems reasonable to you.)

I worried that I would hate it, as there was a distinct possibility that it could go Lemony Snicket’s (in which case, $15 down the drain and a bullet in the head), rather than Harry Potter. It turns out that it went in neither direction, really, and absolutely delighted me. Clever, bright and charming, with only minimal jiggy touches (the anamorphic donkey, especially at the end, was a bit much), it was a treat. Further, it holds the distinction of being the only (nominally) children’s movie that has ever, to my knowledge, used the word “incest,” which should be at least some record.

So, all in all, a night of tobacco lobbyists, Nazi criminals (which rather put the first “villain” in perspective), and magical nannies (who will stay when we need her but do not want her, but must leave when we want her but do not need her). Truly, a very, very strange series of movies, even for us.

However, now it is, I fear, really time to put an end to the evening. It really has been a wonderful night. When I wake up, it will be time to clean and take care of mundane tasks, and tomorrow John returns to work, and I return to my comp reading, etc., etc. But tonight was marvelous. I really could have danced all night… and I think I did.

(But now I must learn to go to bed when I am told. That is lesson one.)

Cuteness Sells

Got a plea in the mails today, urging me to boycott Canadian Snow Crabs in order to save the lives of the cute little baby seals…

Feel like replying: “No worries. I already boycott Canadian Snow Crabs, in order to save the lives of Canadian Snow Crabs.”

Sometimes the right things are done for pretty damned stupid reasons.

Discontent

Can’t sit still, and can’t keep my mind on anything for longer than ten minutes. Can’t nap, can’t read, can’t listen to anything, can’t watch a movie… Can’t even choose a movie, actually. No conversation holds my interest. No adventure seems interesting. I could clean, I suppose, but the thought depresses. Can’t do much else, because John is still asleep.

Cabin fever? In June!?

More like Comp Fever.

One hella bad case.

(New Review, by the way.)

Don't Hate Me Because I Am Different

I Don't Judge You For Your Interests

I Am A: True Neutral Elf Ranger Mage


Alignment:
True Neutral characters are very rare. They believe that balance is the most important thing, and will not side with any other force. They will do whatever is necessary to preserve that balance, even if it means switching allegiances suddenly.


Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.


Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.


Secondary Class:
Mages harness the magical energies for their own use. Spells, spell books, and long hours in the library are their loves. While often not physically strong, their mental talents can make up for this.


Deity:
Silvanus is the True Neutral god of nature. He is also known as the Patron of Druids. His followers believe in the perfect balance of nature, and believe that nature's bounty is preferable to any other 'civilizing' method. They wear leather or metallic scale mail, constructed of leaf-shaped scales. Silvanus's symbol is an oak leaf.


Find out What D&D Character Are You?

Make It So, Baby!

Jean-Luc Picard

An accomplished diplomat who can virtually do no wrong, you sometimes know it is best to rely on the council of others while holding the reins.

There are some words which I have known since I was a schoolboy. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." These words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie -- as a wisdom, and warning. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged.

Zoot Suit Riots!

Today in 1943, members of the Naval Reserves, claiming to have been harassed by members of the pachucos Mexican-American “gang” (or subculture, depending on your stance), entered LA’s predominantly Hispanic neighbourhoods and attacked every man wearing a zoot suit (a style of flamboyant suit favoured by the pachucos), and every man assumed to have been Hispanic, including many black and Filipino men. They beat and humiliated the “zoot suiters” in gangs, ripping off their suits and burning them in the streets.

In response, the LAPD arrested the beating victims for disturbing the peace, and many died in jail as a result of wounds that went untended by doctors.

This rampage led to a week-long series of race riots throughout LA, which has since been dubbed “The Zoot Suit Riots,” now familiar to us via pop cultural references. In reality, the event reflected deep racism on the home front during World War II, and a foreshadowing of the trouble the American mainstream would later have with youth subcultures that critiqued the Andy Hardy norms of public America.

The riots drew attention to social unrest and divisions, and, in some ways, were one of the many midwives of the civil rights movement.

Zoot suits today crop up as colourful backdrops to period-piece movies, or maybe as a stylish rediscovery of the 30s and 40s, but once they represented a splashy and heavily suspicious challenge to socially accepted norms, and were favoured by minorities (including Latinos and African-Americans, but also carnival subcultures and arts communities) in America as a particular way to assert their own flare and hierarchies. The American government had outlawed the production and sale of zoot suits in 1942, claiming their flared, draped and padded jackets were wasteful during war-time, but, in retrospect, it is difficult to believe that the subcultures that favoured them, including the Harlem jazz circles of Malcolm X’s youth, had nothing to do with their decision.

Cool, yes; but also an example of how fashion, too, can be socially significant; the ancestor of the peasant clothing and punk look of the 60s and 70s. As much the physical manifestation of the critically “Outsider” stance of such groups as the music that is so associated with them.