1) Diet Coke should grow on trees.
2) If Diet Coke did grow on trees, each can would be a fruit. Diet Coke the nectar. And that tab you use to open it the seed. The plant convinces you to carry the fruit. Then wherever you are when you do consume, the tab is discarded, left to form another plant.
3) This post constitutes prior art for any bioengineering start-up attempting to make my life's dream reality.
4) On second thought, Diet Coke should not grow on trees. Instead, it is more a bush or a shrub. Its plant takes the form of mini-fridges. A hardy oak of a full size refrigerator with attached freezer takes upwards of 35 years to mature.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Friday, September 08, 2006
Dr. Foster's Dictionary, September 8, 2006
Today's entry in Dr. Foster's Dictionary comes from the section on slang usage, under "R".
ran-dom [ran-duhm]
adj.
1. occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern.
"Since they still rely on fixed inputs for their algorithms, computers remain unable to generate truly random numbers.
2. [slang] irrelevent, disconnected, lost, apropos of nothing:
"Most of the Phi Kappa Alpha guys love Seth MacFarlane's random humor."
3. [slang] distasteful, tacky, or otherwise unaesthetic:
"Jane noted on her MySpace profile that her taste in music was 'really random'. She liked everything from Panic! At the Disco to Ashlee Simpson."
4. [slang] signifying choices made for the wrong reasons (usually because of inebriation and/or low self-esteem):
"Tori was not really looking for a relationship because of her recent success with random hookups."
5. [slang] as a beat, or placeholder, in the hipster patois.
"I was at some random bodega in this random part of Park Slope with these random people trying to find directions to this random gallery opening at random in random."
ran-dom [ran-duhm]
adj.
1. occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern.
"Since they still rely on fixed inputs for their algorithms, computers remain unable to generate truly random numbers.
2. [slang] irrelevent, disconnected, lost, apropos of nothing:
"Most of the Phi Kappa Alpha guys love Seth MacFarlane's random humor."
3. [slang] distasteful, tacky, or otherwise unaesthetic:
"Jane noted on her MySpace profile that her taste in music was 'really random'. She liked everything from Panic! At the Disco to Ashlee Simpson."
4. [slang] signifying choices made for the wrong reasons (usually because of inebriation and/or low self-esteem):
"Tori was not really looking for a relationship because of her recent success with random hookups."
5. [slang] as a beat, or placeholder, in the hipster patois.
"I was at some random bodega in this random part of Park Slope with these random people trying to find directions to this random gallery opening at random in random."
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Parallelism isn't necessary, and necessary.
My father always used to say "Consistency over Accuracy." This means that if you aren't sure how to, use commas, you're supposed not to, use them the same way. That way, when people realize that you don't know how to, speak English or, make yourself understood, they can filter your idiocies. This is much better than guessing at, how to use commas. Incidentally, this means that once I started listening to crappy Pop Punk/Emo as a teenager, I had to keep listening to it.
I believe in Consistentcy over Accuracy. And so I hate Shuffle. Don't give me snippets, give me the whole album. If they have a good single, goes my reasoning, the rest of the album must be decent, right? Christina Aguilera's video for Ain't No Other Man is good, therefore her new album is on my portable digital music device. Like I said, I'm devoted to this principle. Instead of per-song Shuffle, I use per-album Shuffle. Great.
Except it menas when I'm not in the mood for a song, I'm not in the mood for the next 15 songs. Please oh Please Apple, won't you let me fast forward an *ALBUM* instead of per song?
I know, I know, this is ugly. It would require a new button. You have those 4 buttons arrayed so elegantly around a slide wheel that also controls volume! And 1 in the middle! Beeeeeeeeutiful.
But worthless. I spend my life click-click-clicking past B-side albums purchased in a wake of fanboidom that are best listened ot at night; when demo tapes were meant to be reverently passed around to and listened to in the same hushed tones with which they were produced. Add a new button I can customize. Y'know what? Fuck other people who don't care about this. Add a button that fast-forwards to the next album. It must not be able to do anything else. And it only works if your name is Dan. And if you don't like Indie (the taller/smarter/more handsom/better older sibling of Pop Punk/Emo) and press it accidentally, it electrocutes you. Then throws you in a pool of Stingrays to be Irwin-ed.
Please Apple, give up your fanatical devotion to Metal/Lucite aesthetics and Turtleneck/Jean wardrobes and give me this ability. I will pay $100 for it.
Signed,
A Concerned Customer
P.S. Alternatively, make it quick again to fast forward without the lag as you spin up your disk to find the album art for this song that WAS THE SAME ALBUM ART AS THE LAST 8 SONGS. I have a hint for how you could speed up this embarrassingly linear access pattern. I can't just come out and say it, but it starts with a p, ends with an h, and has a refetc in the middle.
I believe in Consistentcy over Accuracy. And so I hate Shuffle. Don't give me snippets, give me the whole album. If they have a good single, goes my reasoning, the rest of the album must be decent, right? Christina Aguilera's video for Ain't No Other Man is good, therefore her new album is on my portable digital music device. Like I said, I'm devoted to this principle. Instead of per-song Shuffle, I use per-album Shuffle. Great.
Except it menas when I'm not in the mood for a song, I'm not in the mood for the next 15 songs. Please oh Please Apple, won't you let me fast forward an *ALBUM* instead of per song?
I know, I know, this is ugly. It would require a new button. You have those 4 buttons arrayed so elegantly around a slide wheel that also controls volume! And 1 in the middle! Beeeeeeeeutiful.
But worthless. I spend my life click-click-clicking past B-side albums purchased in a wake of fanboidom that are best listened ot at night; when demo tapes were meant to be reverently passed around to and listened to in the same hushed tones with which they were produced. Add a new button I can customize. Y'know what? Fuck other people who don't care about this. Add a button that fast-forwards to the next album. It must not be able to do anything else. And it only works if your name is Dan. And if you don't like Indie (the taller/smarter/more handsom/better older sibling of Pop Punk/Emo) and press it accidentally, it electrocutes you. Then throws you in a pool of Stingrays to be Irwin-ed.
Please Apple, give up your fanatical devotion to Metal/Lucite aesthetics and Turtleneck/Jean wardrobes and give me this ability. I will pay $100 for it.
Signed,
A Concerned Customer
P.S. Alternatively, make it quick again to fast forward without the lag as you spin up your disk to find the album art for this song that WAS THE SAME ALBUM ART AS THE LAST 8 SONGS. I have a hint for how you could speed up this embarrassingly linear access pattern. I can't just come out and say it, but it starts with a p, ends with an h, and has a refetc in the middle.
Facebook's Folly
Warning: Among our small but sophisticated readership there will no doubt be some for whom this post is just so much nonsense. Perhaps these people have the best of it.
What has it been--all of 72 hours since Facebook.com introduced its new Orwell-meets-People Magazine "feed" format? And how long will it be before it's gone, or at least swept under some e-rug? I give it weeks, or less. In a delicious example of the twisted, ultra-reflexive physics of virtual space, the most prominent news(?) items on my facebook feed--and I supppose on many others'--are all about how much the feed sucks. Just a few examples of Facebook groups started or joined by "friends" of mine in the past 48 hours:
FACEBOOK FEED SUCKS
BRING THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK
FACEBOOK MASS EXODUS
STUDENTS AGAINST FACEBOOK NEWS FEED
THE NEW FACEBOOK LOOKS LIKE IT WAS DESIGNED BY A HYPERACTIVE FIVE-YEAR-OLD
I'm especially fond of this last one, created very early on by my buddy Neil and apropos of precisely nothing.
In any event, the lessons here are as many and varied as they are trivial and trite. For one thing, this display of hyperirony goes to the dubiousity and double-edgedness of the "democratizing of information" brought on by the internet and blogosphere revolutions. It used to be that things like laziness, lack of ambition, poverty, and death-squads kept the mouth-breathing masses from opining at the top of their lungs about whatever was grinding their gears on a given day. But the price of opening your mouth has gone down drastically in terms of dollars, elbow grease, and blood. And even this band of anonymous troglodytes that calls itself the American public can point and click.
Behold the era of the Blog Montaigne, the Message Board Martin Luther and the Forum Oscar Wilde. But 92% of it is still tripe, and there is no democracy of taste.
The other thing--and here I borrow again from Chuck Klosterman's stuff on Snakes on a Plane--is that people don't know what they've got til they've got way too fucking much of it. The secret demographic of Facebook, MySpace and their ilk has always been the Peeping Tom, the voyeur, the stalker in all of us. We worshipped the deus ex machina that told us where our exes had last logged-on; we relished in secret the infidelities implied by Joe's girlfriend's claim to be "single" and interested in "anything [she] can get", and we imposed ourselves upon the ever-abiding trust of 19-year old party girls as we scrolled through their photo albums. All of this under a greasy skin of anonymity, safe from reproach in our dormroom lairs.
Let's get down to brass tacks: Facebook and MySpace are gloryholes for the young bourgeoisie.
always have been, always will be. All the feed amounts to is a sign reading "PLACE GENITALS HERE". It reveals to you nothing that you wouldn't have found out yourself on a lonely enough night. But the danger of gonzo-marketing to people's basest desires is that you remind them just how base those desires are.
Mason Malmuth, a guy who was taking down Hold Em pots when your Friday night game was "Shit in the Diaper", is on to much the same thing when he talks about winning at tables full of terrible players. The worse thing you can do, Malmuth says, is put on too many plays. As long as it seems like you're all just having a little fun with your paycheck, your straightforward, correct play will be rewarded. But start getting cute, check-raising, over-punishing bluffs, pushing your position too hard, and you'll actually bully your "amiable gambler" opponents into playing correctly. You'll remind them that this is a poker game, and that your objective is to take their money, and the result will be that you get less of it. Mutatis Mutandis for the Facebook feed. All it has done is bully its perverted base into virtue.
Oh, and forget the fact that I write these words on these topics using the software of the biggest blogging host in the world--bask in the sheer postmodernity of it, be comforted by the fact that string theory does indeed predict this result, and rest assured that present company is excluded.
Feedback: What has been your favorite Facebook Feed so far? I would have to say that mine is "J.D. Removed Star Trek: TNG from his Favorite TV Shows" (name repressed to protect the innocent)
What has it been--all of 72 hours since Facebook.com introduced its new Orwell-meets-People Magazine "feed" format? And how long will it be before it's gone, or at least swept under some e-rug? I give it weeks, or less. In a delicious example of the twisted, ultra-reflexive physics of virtual space, the most prominent news(?) items on my facebook feed--and I supppose on many others'--are all about how much the feed sucks. Just a few examples of Facebook groups started or joined by "friends" of mine in the past 48 hours:
FACEBOOK FEED SUCKS
BRING THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK
FACEBOOK MASS EXODUS
STUDENTS AGAINST FACEBOOK NEWS FEED
THE NEW FACEBOOK LOOKS LIKE IT WAS DESIGNED BY A HYPERACTIVE FIVE-YEAR-OLD
I'm especially fond of this last one, created very early on by my buddy Neil and apropos of precisely nothing.
In any event, the lessons here are as many and varied as they are trivial and trite. For one thing, this display of hyperirony goes to the dubiousity and double-edgedness of the "democratizing of information" brought on by the internet and blogosphere revolutions. It used to be that things like laziness, lack of ambition, poverty, and death-squads kept the mouth-breathing masses from opining at the top of their lungs about whatever was grinding their gears on a given day. But the price of opening your mouth has gone down drastically in terms of dollars, elbow grease, and blood. And even this band of anonymous troglodytes that calls itself the American public can point and click.
Behold the era of the Blog Montaigne, the Message Board Martin Luther and the Forum Oscar Wilde. But 92% of it is still tripe, and there is no democracy of taste.
The other thing--and here I borrow again from Chuck Klosterman's stuff on Snakes on a Plane--is that people don't know what they've got til they've got way too fucking much of it. The secret demographic of Facebook, MySpace and their ilk has always been the Peeping Tom, the voyeur, the stalker in all of us. We worshipped the deus ex machina that told us where our exes had last logged-on; we relished in secret the infidelities implied by Joe's girlfriend's claim to be "single" and interested in "anything [she] can get", and we imposed ourselves upon the ever-abiding trust of 19-year old party girls as we scrolled through their photo albums. All of this under a greasy skin of anonymity, safe from reproach in our dormroom lairs.
Let's get down to brass tacks: Facebook and MySpace are gloryholes for the young bourgeoisie.
always have been, always will be. All the feed amounts to is a sign reading "PLACE GENITALS HERE". It reveals to you nothing that you wouldn't have found out yourself on a lonely enough night. But the danger of gonzo-marketing to people's basest desires is that you remind them just how base those desires are.
Mason Malmuth, a guy who was taking down Hold Em pots when your Friday night game was "Shit in the Diaper", is on to much the same thing when he talks about winning at tables full of terrible players. The worse thing you can do, Malmuth says, is put on too many plays. As long as it seems like you're all just having a little fun with your paycheck, your straightforward, correct play will be rewarded. But start getting cute, check-raising, over-punishing bluffs, pushing your position too hard, and you'll actually bully your "amiable gambler" opponents into playing correctly. You'll remind them that this is a poker game, and that your objective is to take their money, and the result will be that you get less of it. Mutatis Mutandis for the Facebook feed. All it has done is bully its perverted base into virtue.
Oh, and forget the fact that I write these words on these topics using the software of the biggest blogging host in the world--bask in the sheer postmodernity of it, be comforted by the fact that string theory does indeed predict this result, and rest assured that present company is excluded.
Feedback: What has been your favorite Facebook Feed so far? I would have to say that mine is "J.D. Removed Star Trek: TNG from his Favorite TV Shows" (name repressed to protect the innocent)
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
An Elegy for Irwin
I'm a philosophy student, so sure, I'll buy that "every death is a tragedy"--even the deaths of minor celebrities. But the news of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's passing hit me a little harder than I expected. A lot of people saw Irwin as novelty act, a slightly crazed and comically earnest punchline to be filed next to William Hung. But would some East Asian Premier weep on national TV at the death of Hung, as the Australian PM did today? I don't think so. Maybe it's because Steve Irwin, as a compelling, entertaining spokesman for conservation, made Al Gore 2006 look like Al Gore 2000.
More likely it's that Steve Irwin's unselfconscious enthusiasm and almost (almost) naive wonderment were a breath of fresh air in a culture too crusty in our cynicism and shadenfreude to ever risk such ingenuousness.
Suffice it to say that the world was a bit more interesting with him in it.
More likely it's that Steve Irwin's unselfconscious enthusiasm and almost (almost) naive wonderment were a breath of fresh air in a culture too crusty in our cynicism and shadenfreude to ever risk such ingenuousness.
Suffice it to say that the world was a bit more interesting with him in it.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Rants on a Blog
This is likely the last Snakes on a Plane blog post you'll ever read, but it won't be the last X on a Y post. That's because, like this guy's tattoo, the novelty of SoaP took about a week to wear off but its effects will be felt for quite some time. This much Chuck Klosterman notes, along with just about everything else there is to say about why this movie is bad for your soul, in his Esquire piece.
Among my generation, irony is a language, hyperirony a currency, and hyperirony-for-its-own-sake a narcotic. In other words, to get by a healthy amount of the first is essential, a bit of the second is useful, and too much of the last is dangerous. Call me old-fashioned, but I usually look for films, TV, music and other bits of culture that I enjoy. In any other century that last sentence would be unambiguous, but allow me to clarify: to 'enjoy' something in my sense is to enjoy it intrinsically, and not as an irony delivery mechanism or as fodder for the sneering, self-satisfied, sarcastic nuggets of your fellow hirsute hipsters.
Life is too short to continuously blast Raffi's "Banana Phone" or The B-52's "Rock Lobster" just for grins like my ex-roommate did (unless, of course, you actually like Raffi or the B-52s, in which case God bless). That's why when my buddies sent me a canned voicemail of Samuel L. Jackson demanding that I get off my ass and see Snakes on a Plane, I politely informed them that I'd just as soon be on a trans-Pacific flight stocked with a surfeit of venomous serpents.
Oh, and as for the supposed brilliance of the film's title, file it under Ecclesiastes' dictum: There is NOTHING new under the sun. For one thing, nearly every sitcom ever aired followed the same formula of the using the title to spell out the concept, we just never got excited about it because the concepts themselves were usually less absurd (mental exercise: figure out why it is that That 80's Show is a title conceptually closer to Snakes on a Plane than either is to That 70's Show). Then of course there is that other bastion of the upfront title: porn. Now, I know what you're thinking, porn titles at least go so far as to give us some assonance or a second-rate pun (e.g. Butt Fuck Sluts Go Nuts, and Weapons of Ass Destruction, respectively). But lowest-common-denominator literalism gets even lower and more literal than that. To wit: I am apartment-sitting for my buddy and his girlfriend in Jersey City, and one day I took a ganders through their DVD collection in search of amusement. To my delight I found the 1999 gem Hookers in a Haunted House, which was Snakes on a Plane 8 years before Snakes on a Plane was Snakes on a Plane.
And it's got tits.
Among my generation, irony is a language, hyperirony a currency, and hyperirony-for-its-own-sake a narcotic. In other words, to get by a healthy amount of the first is essential, a bit of the second is useful, and too much of the last is dangerous. Call me old-fashioned, but I usually look for films, TV, music and other bits of culture that I enjoy. In any other century that last sentence would be unambiguous, but allow me to clarify: to 'enjoy' something in my sense is to enjoy it intrinsically, and not as an irony delivery mechanism or as fodder for the sneering, self-satisfied, sarcastic nuggets of your fellow hirsute hipsters.
Life is too short to continuously blast Raffi's "Banana Phone" or The B-52's "Rock Lobster" just for grins like my ex-roommate did (unless, of course, you actually like Raffi or the B-52s, in which case God bless). That's why when my buddies sent me a canned voicemail of Samuel L. Jackson demanding that I get off my ass and see Snakes on a Plane, I politely informed them that I'd just as soon be on a trans-Pacific flight stocked with a surfeit of venomous serpents.
Oh, and as for the supposed brilliance of the film's title, file it under Ecclesiastes' dictum: There is NOTHING new under the sun. For one thing, nearly every sitcom ever aired followed the same formula of the using the title to spell out the concept, we just never got excited about it because the concepts themselves were usually less absurd (mental exercise: figure out why it is that That 80's Show is a title conceptually closer to Snakes on a Plane than either is to That 70's Show). Then of course there is that other bastion of the upfront title: porn. Now, I know what you're thinking, porn titles at least go so far as to give us some assonance or a second-rate pun (e.g. Butt Fuck Sluts Go Nuts, and Weapons of Ass Destruction, respectively). But lowest-common-denominator literalism gets even lower and more literal than that. To wit: I am apartment-sitting for my buddy and his girlfriend in Jersey City, and one day I took a ganders through their DVD collection in search of amusement. To my delight I found the 1999 gem Hookers in a Haunted House, which was Snakes on a Plane 8 years before Snakes on a Plane was Snakes on a Plane.
And it's got tits.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
The Top 25 Revenge Movies of All Time
The situation in southern Lebanon has me ruminating quite a bit on that dish best served cold--not seviche, but vengeance. And so, the best of it on film:
25. Office Space
24. Red Dawn*
23. Robocop
22. Heathers
21. The Punisher (1989)
20. Gladiator
19. The Bourne Supremacy
18. Diabolique (1955)
17. Friday the 13th
16. The Count of Montecristo (2002)
15. Batman (1989)
14. Rocky IV
13. The Karate Kid
12. Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
11. Unforgiven
10. Kill Bill (vo1.1-2)
9. For a Few Dollars More
8. Conan the Barbarian*
7. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
6. Get Carter (1971)
5. Carrie
4. Death Wish
3. Man on Fire
2. The Crow
1. The Godfather
Honorable Mentions: The Toxic Avenger, Revenge of the Dragon, Payback, Revenge of the Nerds, Ocean's Eleven, First Blood I-III (Rambo), Clear and Present Danger*, Commando, Flight of the Intruder.*
*denotes the involvement of John Milius, American cinema's master of vengeance, as writer and/or director.
This list is nought but convtroversial. I suspect many will be confused and upset by how films such as Star Trek II and Conan the Barbarian made it into the top ten while films like Gladiator is ranked comparatively lower. I know there'll be contingents who think Revenge of the Nerds belongs on the list, or another Eastwood movie, or some Bruce Lee movies, or that the Godfather isn't really a revenge movie (it is), or that older films are under-represented in general. Perhaps most fearsome is the cadre of raving children of the 80s who will demand Rocky IV be promoted to #1 or higher (I include it at #14 only as a begrudging compromise. In my mind, anything after Rocky II is barely canonical). In any event, feel free to disagree and state your case.
25. Office Space
24. Red Dawn*
23. Robocop
22. Heathers
21. The Punisher (1989)
20. Gladiator
19. The Bourne Supremacy
18. Diabolique (1955)
17. Friday the 13th
16. The Count of Montecristo (2002)
15. Batman (1989)
14. Rocky IV
13. The Karate Kid
12. Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
11. Unforgiven
10. Kill Bill (vo1.1-2)
9. For a Few Dollars More
8. Conan the Barbarian*
7. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
6. Get Carter (1971)
5. Carrie
4. Death Wish
3. Man on Fire
2. The Crow
1. The Godfather
Honorable Mentions: The Toxic Avenger, Revenge of the Dragon, Payback, Revenge of the Nerds, Ocean's Eleven, First Blood I-III (Rambo), Clear and Present Danger*, Commando, Flight of the Intruder.*
*denotes the involvement of John Milius, American cinema's master of vengeance, as writer and/or director.
This list is nought but convtroversial. I suspect many will be confused and upset by how films such as Star Trek II and Conan the Barbarian made it into the top ten while films like Gladiator is ranked comparatively lower. I know there'll be contingents who think Revenge of the Nerds belongs on the list, or another Eastwood movie, or some Bruce Lee movies, or that the Godfather isn't really a revenge movie (it is), or that older films are under-represented in general. Perhaps most fearsome is the cadre of raving children of the 80s who will demand Rocky IV be promoted to #1 or higher (I include it at #14 only as a begrudging compromise. In my mind, anything after Rocky II is barely canonical). In any event, feel free to disagree and state your case.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Long John Schill-ver
Wise was aloof Mr. Depp,
when,impressed by Walt Disney's rep,
after years spent ensconced
in the hills of Provence
he did finally get back in lockstep.
when,impressed by Walt Disney's rep,
after years spent ensconced
in the hills of Provence
he did finally get back in lockstep.
Monday, July 10, 2006
NB: I'm selling my television
Copy of a letter I just sent to Wolf Blitzer's CNN beardfest "The Situation Room":
I wanted to thank Mr. Blitzer and his "Situation Room" correspondent for their piece on the World Cup headbutting incident.
As if to visually underscore the unpleasentness of Zidane's maneuver, the report included a collage of other headbuttings captured on tape and amassed, no doubt, from the computer desktop of an early adolescent of middling intelligence.
Years from now I'm sure I'll tell my grandchildren it was on July 10, 2006 that the world's premiere cable news network first had the courage and rectitude to show me a video of a grown man's head engulfed by an elephant's anus.
I trust Mr. Blitzer is at this very moment working on his Peabody Award acceptance speech.
In Earnest,
DRF
I wanted to thank Mr. Blitzer and his "Situation Room" correspondent for their piece on the World Cup headbutting incident.
As if to visually underscore the unpleasentness of Zidane's maneuver, the report included a collage of other headbuttings captured on tape and amassed, no doubt, from the computer desktop of an early adolescent of middling intelligence.
Years from now I'm sure I'll tell my grandchildren it was on July 10, 2006 that the world's premiere cable news network first had the courage and rectitude to show me a video of a grown man's head engulfed by an elephant's anus.
I trust Mr. Blitzer is at this very moment working on his Peabody Award acceptance speech.
In Earnest,
DRF
Friday, August 12, 2005
Eventual Gander: Guess Who
On a recent cross-country trip, I found the airlines sending me a not-so-subtle message. Through the miracle of film-scheduling the inflight-magazine promised-me, I was being shown the same film on both my way there and back. Rather than keep my eyes all the way closed for a total of 5 hours to avoid the seven-inch screens the modern jetliner has, I embraced the mediocre and watched the Ashton Kutcher/Bernie Mac vehicle Guess Who.
And to be honest, it wasn't awful. Now, don't get me wrong, it was no Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. Serious issues of class in America were avoided, jokes were stretched out and taken to absurdity for laughs. Bernie Mac is no Spencer Tracy. Ashton Kutcher is no Sidney Poitier. And Thandie Newton is no forgettable generic actress.
But it wasn't trying to be the original. Not only has movie-making changed since the it came out, America has. Back then, Civil Rights was still a buzzword. Now, in 4 states, the majority of people are non-white. We have reached an unsteady equilibrium. And the face of this unsteadiness is... Bernie Mac?
In the original, the father held all the power. He was dominant in the social situation (being the protector of his daughter and family) as well as in the racial climate. In today's shaky family values situation and uncertain racial climate, Messieurs Mac and Kutcher fairly evenly split what power and resentment there was. This was a surprisingly effective twist: no longer was one man in a position to browbeat another. Though the search for mercy through personal experience played great then, now we want situations more immediately embarrassing.
So, how good is it? Good enough to bear if inflicted upon you. Not worth renting. And so, I leave you with this joke of theirs that gets perfectly at the awkwardness the movie lumbers along with: upon first meeting his fiance's family, Ashton experiences a moment of silence. Bernie Mac just mistook Ashton's black cab driver as his daughter's boyfriend, and only now realizes the overwhelming truth. Ashton says, nervously, and ridiculously for anyone with the simplest grasp of genetics: "Wow, I wish she had told me you were black."
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
I: Maxims and Barbs
Forward
As the better part of August comes and goes, I thought it a good time to post the first section of my long unawaited Twilight of the (American) Idols: Or How to Philosophize with a Remote Control, a philosophical tract on the status of the American Public and its Media.
As the better part of August comes and goes, I thought it a good time to post the first section of my long unawaited Twilight of the (American) Idols: Or How to Philosophize with a Remote Control, a philosophical tract on the status of the American Public and its Media.
I. MAXIMS AND BARBS
1
Ours is the age of celebrities as whores, and whores as celebrities
2
The genius of Scientology, like the genius of Viva-La-Bam, is its sympathy with (its identity with) its audience: Scientology was Tom Cruise long before Tom Cruise was a Scientologist.
3
Oprah is the opiate of the masses
4
By violently wedging non-sequiturs and flashbacks between plot points, Family Guy achieves in twenty-two minutes an A.D.D. semblance of the pop-culture-shredding absurdist genius it has taken The Simpsons thirteen years to craft.
5
Andy Warhol later said, “I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, ‘In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.’” It is now approximately 13:52.
6
Boardroom adage amendments passed by unanimous vote: “(homo-, metro-, bi-)sex sells”
7
If I had a bullet in my lower intestine for every time MTV played back-to-back music videos, I’d retire at age 67 along the Florida panhandle.
8
Reference is the new meaning
9
To wit: it is possible among men of our age to converse exclusively in bits of Will Farrell dialogue.
10
Precisely what’s wrong with Seth MacFarlane and most university students is that they think nos. 4, 8 and 9 are good things.
11
It should surprise no one that as hip-hop artists shift from have-nots to haves, so too does their audience.
12
Pimp my Ride as exemplar of media marketed to 18-25 year olds: hot bodies and digital effects slapped on the same rusted out old frame with the same shitty transmission.
13
Give it five years and ABC will look like HBO, HBO will look like the Playboy Channel, the Playboy Channel will look like a hardcore gangbang flick, and a hardcore gangbang flick will look like a bunch of Asian children being taken out into the street and shot.
14
Precisely what's wrong with me is I think (most of) no. 13 is a good thing.
15
I mistrust all Six Feet Under fans and avoid them: the will to melodrama is a lack of integrity
16
Zack Braff’s worst crime was making it impossible to like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, since it is an immutable law of nature that every girl who lists Garden State among her favorite films lists it as well.
17
That Conan O’Brien evades any mention of his Harvard education on his show—usually by knocking over his desk mike and making a poop joke—is what success with his target demographic has meant.
18
I was once at a poker table in Atlantic City across from a young man wearing a t-shirt with “NO LIMIT TEXAS HOLD’EM” printed across its front. Sizing up our competition, a friend remarked to me that he had never seen a New York Yankee wearing a “PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL” t-shirt. Apply analogical reasoning when interpreting a Surreal Life cast-member’s claim to be “an actor.”
19
The only thing we have to fear is Fear Factor itself.
20
The Axis of Comedic Evil: Andy Dick, Kathie Griffith, and Kathie Griffin
21
I have been called, among other things, a metrophopic. These charges are unwarranted. I said only that I have a sneaking suspicion that the Queer Eyes are running out of Straight Guys, and that as a result I fear for my flannels.
22
Heron and Trippi had it backwards: The Television will not be Revolutionized.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Oh What a Night
[ an assignment for my Playwriting class. I was suposed to write the most outrageous and teasing first 2 pages of a play that I could. See if you can get the subtle reference to bloodless revolution buried in there. ]
Walter: (the clerk in a convenience store, on his cell-phone, of ambiguous ethnicity) Yes-- I be home 20 minutes. Fine, fifteen. I do have reason! I stay here Tuesday night two hours preparing for health inspector then have to stay three hours Wednesday getting things back to normal. Fine. I promise-- I be there in 15 minutes. No excuses.
Janet: (woman in her 20's, storming in to the store) No, it's not negotiable.
David: (her boyfriend, behind her, but not as hurried) C'mon, Janet, everything's negotiable. (her look says no). Except our safety and health. I just wish you would listen to my-- (she crosses her arms, but doesn't walk away) We've been in a committed, monogamous relationship for five *and a half* months, we've both been tested twice, I trust you and your history of your former partners and, well, (chuckle) we both know I wasn't getting any before-- (trails off)
Janet: You done? (he nods) OK, then we're just going to pick up some condoms now--
David: It's just, honey, if you loved me--
Janet: Y'know, the more you talk, the more I think we won't be needing any tonight.
David: (eyes bulge when he puts two and two together) Oh, no, we will. (picks them up) See, happy? Just, can we get something else, I don't want the cashier to think--
Janet: To think what? That you have sex? Or that you have sex with me?
David: (realizes defeat) I'm sorry. I was wrong. What kind of flowers do you want?
Janet: (kisses him) That's better. Now let's go get us some chips and dip.
Ms. Tarence: (50-something matron walks to counter with bagel and coffee) 3.12, yes yes. (after plopping down money and taking her change) thanks. (exit)
Judge Cranston: (enters, wanders, 60) (to Walter) Excuse me, sir, where do you stock your tobacco, pipes, and tobacco accessories?
Walter: (perplexed) We have cigarettes. Here. Here. And up here. Nicorette over there.
Cranston: Hmm. But no pipes? (Walter shakes his head) Any cigars? Cigarillos?
Walter: (repeating) We have cigarettes. Here. Here. And up here. Nicorette over there.
Janet: Daddy? Daddy! Okay, weird. Well, Daddy, this is David, my-- my boyfriend.
David: Hello Mr. Cranston. (pause, foot in mouth) Doctor! Hello Doctor Cranston! Is a J.D. a doctorate? I mean, does it entitle-- I've heard so much about you. (trying again) Judge Cranston. Judge Cranston? Justice Cranston-- (settles on one). Your Honor.
Cranston: Yes. You as well. (observes the package) So, off to fornicate with my oldest and only daughter? (David blisters and blushes) No matter, you don't want to tell me, I don't want to hear. (to Janet) he's just as you described him, Janet. For better or worse. Speaking of For Better or Worse, is that a ring you're wearing, Mr. David?
Janet: Daddy, it's a-
David: Actually, Daddy, (realizes his mistake) Sir! I mean, Your Right Reverend--
Janet: It's an engagement band. We're engaged!
Ms. Tarence: (rushing back in, to Walter) I gave you a 20, and you only gave me 6.88 in change! You owed me $16.88! This is ridiculous, can't you people do anything right? I come here every day for 7 years, get the same damn coffee and bagel, and you can't even give me proper--
Walter: You want 16.88? That just glorious! Oh, I gave you the ten dollar bill. (opens cash register, pulls out a bill) See here. One ten left. At start of shift, I have two. Where the other one go? Hmm, let me see, let me see, I bet your fat fingers no able to hold it. Before you accuse me, how 'bout you check in between those massive hams you call breasts. I know no one else look there since 1994. What you use for bra? Hoover Dam?
Ms. Tarence: Oh, you little Jook, you better give me that bill or I'll really give you something to be known as lazy over--
Saul: (entering, with ski mask and revolver) Give me your money, this is a hold up!
Walter: (to Ms. Tarence, thrusting the bill upon her) Is yours, we settled.
Janet: (to Saul) Saul, is that-- Is that you?
Saul: Janet. What-- What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since you-- since we-- You told me you had to move!
Janet: Move on, Saul. I had to move on.
Ms. Tarence: Young man, I can't believe this. That you would stoop so low.
Saul: Listen lady, I'm not going to stand for this. You have no idea--
Ms. Tarence: Oh spare me Saul Solomon. No graduate of my third grade *should* stand like that. (reaches out to adjust his posture) Head straight, young man
Saul: (slapping away her hand) Ms. Tarence?!?!
Craig: (entering, with ski mask and revolver) Give me your money, this is a hold up!
Walter: (the clerk in a convenience store, on his cell-phone, of ambiguous ethnicity) Yes-- I be home 20 minutes. Fine, fifteen. I do have reason! I stay here Tuesday night two hours preparing for health inspector then have to stay three hours Wednesday getting things back to normal. Fine. I promise-- I be there in 15 minutes. No excuses.
Janet: (woman in her 20's, storming in to the store) No, it's not negotiable.
David: (her boyfriend, behind her, but not as hurried) C'mon, Janet, everything's negotiable. (her look says no). Except our safety and health. I just wish you would listen to my-- (she crosses her arms, but doesn't walk away) We've been in a committed, monogamous relationship for five *and a half* months, we've both been tested twice, I trust you and your history of your former partners and, well, (chuckle) we both know I wasn't getting any before-- (trails off)
Janet: You done? (he nods) OK, then we're just going to pick up some condoms now--
David: It's just, honey, if you loved me--
Janet: Y'know, the more you talk, the more I think we won't be needing any tonight.
David: (eyes bulge when he puts two and two together) Oh, no, we will. (picks them up) See, happy? Just, can we get something else, I don't want the cashier to think--
Janet: To think what? That you have sex? Or that you have sex with me?
David: (realizes defeat) I'm sorry. I was wrong. What kind of flowers do you want?
Janet: (kisses him) That's better. Now let's go get us some chips and dip.
Ms. Tarence: (50-something matron walks to counter with bagel and coffee) 3.12, yes yes. (after plopping down money and taking her change) thanks. (exit)
Judge Cranston: (enters, wanders, 60) (to Walter) Excuse me, sir, where do you stock your tobacco, pipes, and tobacco accessories?
Walter: (perplexed) We have cigarettes. Here. Here. And up here. Nicorette over there.
Cranston: Hmm. But no pipes? (Walter shakes his head) Any cigars? Cigarillos?
Walter: (repeating) We have cigarettes. Here. Here. And up here. Nicorette over there.
Janet: Daddy? Daddy! Okay, weird. Well, Daddy, this is David, my-- my boyfriend.
David: Hello Mr. Cranston. (pause, foot in mouth) Doctor! Hello Doctor Cranston! Is a J.D. a doctorate? I mean, does it entitle-- I've heard so much about you. (trying again) Judge Cranston. Judge Cranston? Justice Cranston-- (settles on one). Your Honor.
Cranston: Yes. You as well. (observes the package) So, off to fornicate with my oldest and only daughter? (David blisters and blushes) No matter, you don't want to tell me, I don't want to hear. (to Janet) he's just as you described him, Janet. For better or worse. Speaking of For Better or Worse, is that a ring you're wearing, Mr. David?
Janet: Daddy, it's a-
David: Actually, Daddy, (realizes his mistake) Sir! I mean, Your Right Reverend--
Janet: It's an engagement band. We're engaged!
Ms. Tarence: (rushing back in, to Walter) I gave you a 20, and you only gave me 6.88 in change! You owed me $16.88! This is ridiculous, can't you people do anything right? I come here every day for 7 years, get the same damn coffee and bagel, and you can't even give me proper--
Walter: You want 16.88? That just glorious! Oh, I gave you the ten dollar bill. (opens cash register, pulls out a bill) See here. One ten left. At start of shift, I have two. Where the other one go? Hmm, let me see, let me see, I bet your fat fingers no able to hold it. Before you accuse me, how 'bout you check in between those massive hams you call breasts. I know no one else look there since 1994. What you use for bra? Hoover Dam?
Ms. Tarence: Oh, you little Jook, you better give me that bill or I'll really give you something to be known as lazy over--
Saul: (entering, with ski mask and revolver) Give me your money, this is a hold up!
Walter: (to Ms. Tarence, thrusting the bill upon her) Is yours, we settled.
Janet: (to Saul) Saul, is that-- Is that you?
Saul: Janet. What-- What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since you-- since we-- You told me you had to move!
Janet: Move on, Saul. I had to move on.
Ms. Tarence: Young man, I can't believe this. That you would stoop so low.
Saul: Listen lady, I'm not going to stand for this. You have no idea--
Ms. Tarence: Oh spare me Saul Solomon. No graduate of my third grade *should* stand like that. (reaches out to adjust his posture) Head straight, young man
Saul: (slapping away her hand) Ms. Tarence?!?!
Craig: (entering, with ski mask and revolver) Give me your money, this is a hold up!
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
The Eventual Gander: Doonesb-ehry
So, this post wsas going to be all about Doonesbury, a wonderful strip that for 40 years has striking down the powerful with vicious satire of advertising and performance art (oh the 80's!). It lampooned start-ups and conglomerates, Senators and Shorties. But one thing it's found in its old age (or perhaps that I've been able to appreciate in my newfound 23-ness) is an ability to make us really feel for characters as we also find humor in them. Cf. B.D, a character we've watched grow from a self-centered football star to a Vietnam soldier to a California Highway Patrolman to a College Football Coach to a Gulf War II amputee. Along the way he married a starlet, had a kid, hired a man named Zonker as a nanny, and gave up his fixation with wearing his helmet. Yeah. In the funnies. Perhaps the epitome of this is this strip. Touching, topical, recent, everything. Incorporates the history of the saga of families and friends while also being funny on the surface.
I was going to review it like that, until I saw this article on Martha Stewart and became totally apathetic to real art, craft, story, or people. Instead, I got focused on Ms. Stewart and her felonious ass. Apparently, she is known in the joint as M. Diddy. Also, she's a nice person, really. While she's filming her new soul-killing reality show The Apprentice spin-off, she's going to be nicer than trump. Quoth the matron:"
She says her version of "The Apprentice" will be different than Donald Trump's and that she doesn't want to be portrayed as mean and harsh. She says she would never use Trump's catchphrase, "You're fired."
"We're trying to come up with other ways to say it," she says. "For instance, if someone is from Idaho, I could say, 'You're back in Boise for apple-picking time.' ""
-D"Goin' Back to Cali^wBoise"an
I was going to review it like that, until I saw this article on Martha Stewart and became totally apathetic to real art, craft, story, or people. Instead, I got focused on Ms. Stewart and her felonious ass. Apparently, she is known in the joint as M. Diddy. Also, she's a nice person, really. While she's filming her new soul-killing reality show The Apprentice spin-off, she's going to be nicer than trump. Quoth the matron:"
She says her version of "The Apprentice" will be different than Donald Trump's and that she doesn't want to be portrayed as mean and harsh. She says she would never use Trump's catchphrase, "You're fired."
"We're trying to come up with other ways to say it," she says. "For instance, if someone is from Idaho, I could say, 'You're back in Boise for apple-picking time.' ""
-D"Goin' Back to Cali^wBoise"an
Saturday, July 02, 2005
The Eventual Gander: Of Comics, Web and Otherwise
I'm a computer scientist. What that means, roughly, is that I don't expect pretty pictures on these beasts of burden of post-modernity and relativism. Microprocessors can munge text with the best of 'em, but a single .gif or .jpg confuses them to the point where they would throw up their arms if they had arms. And thank god they don't.
Do you know about Linux? Pardon the digression, but if you're a resident of Earth, odds are onlya bout 1 in a billion that you're reading this, anyway. Some people say Linux is an Open Source Operating System (OSOS). Maybe it is, but you'll never be happy if you think of it like that. You'll spend all your days frustrated that your computer, the product of 50 years of innovation, can't even open up a stupid interweb game. Instead, Linux is a video game. I have beaten the level where you get firefox working, and I rescued the princess that allows me to look at pictures, but I'm stuck at the boss that is video.
Therefore, this Eventual Gander is focused on comics, that visual form of communication that's still exclusive to we humans. The thing that separates us from the machines is that we laugh at these while the computors[sic] just whir along. Unless you're talking about the New Yorker, in which case we all just whir along.
Strip number 1:
IndieTits. A comic strip titled off the seeming naughtiness that we at the Enfranchised have commented on before. Written as the moonlighting of Jeph, the author of Questionable Content and a man whose dialogue has all the shortness of Ron Jeremy (to wit: Jeph enjoys bludgeoning to death the kernel of a good joke more than Foster does a baby seal's testicles), the strip is visually identical to itself. There are 4 or 5 or 3 or who knows how many backdrops, over which he writes jokes that are obscure or silly. But man did he hit a homerun in this one. He gets to the core of what a comic is. Is there one bird, or two? Which one is telling the story? Beautiful use of post-modernism, man. Just effing brilliant. Especially considering that it was probably written 5 minutes before your deadline when you hadn't actually thought of a joke for the day.
That's what theories of academia are supposed to be used for: covering your ass.
Join us next time on the Enfranchised when I talk some more!
Do you know about Linux? Pardon the digression, but if you're a resident of Earth, odds are onlya bout 1 in a billion that you're reading this, anyway. Some people say Linux is an Open Source Operating System (OSOS). Maybe it is, but you'll never be happy if you think of it like that. You'll spend all your days frustrated that your computer, the product of 50 years of innovation, can't even open up a stupid interweb game. Instead, Linux is a video game. I have beaten the level where you get firefox working, and I rescued the princess that allows me to look at pictures, but I'm stuck at the boss that is video.
Therefore, this Eventual Gander is focused on comics, that visual form of communication that's still exclusive to we humans. The thing that separates us from the machines is that we laugh at these while the computors[sic] just whir along. Unless you're talking about the New Yorker, in which case we all just whir along.
Strip number 1:
IndieTits. A comic strip titled off the seeming naughtiness that we at the Enfranchised have commented on before. Written as the moonlighting of Jeph, the author of Questionable Content and a man whose dialogue has all the shortness of Ron Jeremy (to wit: Jeph enjoys bludgeoning to death the kernel of a good joke more than Foster does a baby seal's testicles), the strip is visually identical to itself. There are 4 or 5 or 3 or who knows how many backdrops, over which he writes jokes that are obscure or silly. But man did he hit a homerun in this one. He gets to the core of what a comic is. Is there one bird, or two? Which one is telling the story? Beautiful use of post-modernism, man. Just effing brilliant. Especially considering that it was probably written 5 minutes before your deadline when you hadn't actually thought of a joke for the day.
That's what theories of academia are supposed to be used for: covering your ass.
Join us next time on the Enfranchised when I talk some more!
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Prelude to a Prologue...And a Side-Order of Colored Greens
Rumors of my demise, and my originality, have been greatly exaggerated.
--I've been back stateside for a few days now, splitting my time between Northern New Jersey and Manhattan, and its safe to say I'm living the life of Riley. Gone are the uneventful afternoons in 800 year-old libraries, the langourous strolls through Christ Church Meadow, and the seemingly never-ending procession of pound-pints at the Oxford Union. Now is the summer of two-hour commutes, five dollar beers, resevoir dogs and slave-labor at an obscure think tank. Yessir, I've made my separate peace with Oxfordshire and am glad (in many ways, I mean it) to be home. Adieau Isis, Hola Hudson. Run down the Union Jack and run up the Stars and Stripes. Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, Wish they all could be California Girls.
You get the idea.
Anyhow, there's good news and bad news about my return for you blogophiles. The good news is I'm feeling particularly pensive, reflective, wistful even. The bad news is that my soulsucking New York job has sapped all my creative energy (I know, don't tell me, I've already missed a few opportunities for puns in this VERY POST). So all I can tell you is to be patient, and BE READY. I've got a couple of whoppers in the works. By means of cockteasery, I'll give you their titles:
"'Fear and Loathing' Without the 'Fear'"
and
"Twilight of the (American) Idols: Or, How to Philosophize with a Remote Control."
Stay tuned, kiddies.
-DRF
P.S. WORST. FREUDIAN SLIP. EVER.
I'm waiting at the deli after a long day at work and my kindly attendant (a young African-American man) asks me what I'd like.
I look him dead in the eyes and I order "A half-pound of rare roast beef and a pound of white America"
The BURN, sir. The BURN.
--I've been back stateside for a few days now, splitting my time between Northern New Jersey and Manhattan, and its safe to say I'm living the life of Riley. Gone are the uneventful afternoons in 800 year-old libraries, the langourous strolls through Christ Church Meadow, and the seemingly never-ending procession of pound-pints at the Oxford Union. Now is the summer of two-hour commutes, five dollar beers, resevoir dogs and slave-labor at an obscure think tank. Yessir, I've made my separate peace with Oxfordshire and am glad (in many ways, I mean it) to be home. Adieau Isis, Hola Hudson. Run down the Union Jack and run up the Stars and Stripes. Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, Wish they all could be California Girls.
You get the idea.
Anyhow, there's good news and bad news about my return for you blogophiles. The good news is I'm feeling particularly pensive, reflective, wistful even. The bad news is that my soulsucking New York job has sapped all my creative energy (I know, don't tell me, I've already missed a few opportunities for puns in this VERY POST). So all I can tell you is to be patient, and BE READY. I've got a couple of whoppers in the works. By means of cockteasery, I'll give you their titles:
"'Fear and Loathing' Without the 'Fear'"
and
"Twilight of the (American) Idols: Or, How to Philosophize with a Remote Control."
Stay tuned, kiddies.
-DRF
P.S. WORST. FREUDIAN SLIP. EVER.
I'm waiting at the deli after a long day at work and my kindly attendant (a young African-American man) asks me what I'd like.
I look him dead in the eyes and I order "A half-pound of rare roast beef and a pound of white America"
The BURN, sir. The BURN.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Missed Connections
No, not a Craiglist Personal, in this Enfranchised, we celebrate the repetitively ephemeral. Cf. Gatsby, p. 16 (in the only edition that matters: mine). "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it." Think what you may of Daisy (and I know many of you do), she's a character. (In that last parenthesis, I was referring partly to my friend Michelle Michelle Miller[sic] who hates her for not trying to examine herself and partly to my co-blogger Foster who likes this book so much he named his pet lamb Effscott).
You can never truly miss the longest day, you can just have to wait for it again. Same thing with the bus, or any holiday, or the moment in a relationship when the love finally leaves it and it's over no matter how much more fighting or making up or protestations of love there may be left.
It is only mortality that may rob us of our privilege of reexperiencing the recurrent. I will most likely never see Halley's Comet. Luckily, I don't care to, either. I may get to our nations tri-centennial (I certainly hope I make it to at least the French-Indian War. For no particularly great reason...)
This year offers us many of these similarly roundly irreproducible celebrations. They include, but are not limited to:
Make sure to celebrate them while you still can.
You can never truly miss the longest day, you can just have to wait for it again. Same thing with the bus, or any holiday, or the moment in a relationship when the love finally leaves it and it's over no matter how much more fighting or making up or protestations of love there may be left.
It is only mortality that may rob us of our privilege of reexperiencing the recurrent. I will most likely never see Halley's Comet. Luckily, I don't care to, either. I may get to our nations tri-centennial (I certainly hope I make it to at least the French-Indian War. For no particularly great reason...)
This year offers us many of these similarly roundly irreproducible celebrations. They include, but are not limited to:
- Guy Fawkes's Day. (1605) In England, a serious holiday celebrated with tea, more gunpowder than the man himself had, and effigies. In the US, a holiday counted down to by Anglophiles and Eccentrics. I count myself both.
- Einstein's annus mirabilis. 100 years ago, the funnily-haired Patent Clerk came up with the photoelectric effect, relativity, and probably some other stuff. Now, a century later, we have more confusing theoretical math and scary branches of physics with names such as Quantum Chromodynamics. Truly a great man.
- Johnson's Dictionary. If I ever made a Best Of list of lists of words in English in alphabetical order, this would make the top 5.
Make sure to celebrate them while you still can.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Adventures in Retail (or The Gods Must Be Crazy)
Well damnit, if they're not going to tax me heavily enough, I guess I'm just going to have to spend my surpluses. Surpli. Extra Money.
So, in a fine tradition inspired by my roommate's insistence that we TiVo VH1's Best Week Ever (a nostalgic look back at the past 7 days narrated by a series of half-wits whose job titles are all "comedian"), we bring you: A Tribute to Dan's weekend purchases.
So, in a fine tradition inspired by my roommate's insistence that we TiVo VH1's Best Week Ever (a nostalgic look back at the past 7 days narrated by a series of half-wits whose job titles are all "comedian"), we bring you: A Tribute to Dan's weekend purchases.
- A new cellphone. Man I hated having room in my pockets. Or the ability to walk down a street and think about anything other than protecting my fragile (my precioussssss) telecommunication device. So, Treo 650 it is. Just in case any one was wondering, just for a second, if I was cool. This way, they'll just be able to stay clear of the ginormous hunk of PalmOS Powered Silicon and Plastic on my hip.
- A case for said cellphone that quickly devolved into a farce of social interaction. I walk into a Verizon Wireless store because Cingular's business plan is apparently to sell expensive electronics en masse while providing no way of protecting investment in our industry's future. They got Fry's and Radio Shack in on the plan, so I spent the better part of a day treating my primary method of Rest-of-the-World contact like a Faberge egg. I walk up to a salesperson, and, seeing the orange name of my phone, he worriedly asks if it's all right that the case for the phone (which fits perfectly) is all right because it has the Verizon logo on it. Now, I understand that some peopl are proud of the choices they make. If you're rolling a Bentley, well, heck, damn right you oughta be proud. Or if your sound system is powered by Kenwood, sure, a sticket is appropriate. Those reading Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code don't even realize they shouldn't be proud of having his name prominently displayed down the spine of their book (the only spine they have, incidentally). But who the heck tries to front (front? Is that the term? Oh these kids and their hip lingo. Just give me the good ol' Passive Periphrastic anyday over this "dis" and that "dat" (note: the Passive Periphrastic is a grammatical form in Latin and has not been widely used in English since there was English))? I mean, really, what person even likes his cell phone service enough to have brand loyalty?
- A clever shirt from Questionable Content, an indie webcomic that is not wholly unfunny. If only he learned pacing, and how not to kick a joke to death, he might be onto something.
- Shoes. Because I'm a girl. Man, you sorta wish that $47 (including tax + shipping) shoes lasted longer than 3 months.
- Toothpaste. And this is the one that gets my goat. Call me a lavish man, call me frivolous, but when it comes to toothpaste, I'm willing to splurge. Tell me the best, and I'll put it in my cart without a second thought. And yet, nobody does.
Now, I understand that different brands may have different central tenets of design of compoyadda yadda blah blah blah. I even have mastered the gel/paste duality. But why is it that Colgate can't just tell me "hey, buy this tube." I'm willing to be a sucker. I'm willing to pay twice as much for toothpaste that's 10% better. But, work with me, you need to give me some indication. What's more important: Cavity Protection or Tartar Protection? Neither sounds like something I really desire to protect. For a moment I was hoping that "Total" would signify an ultimate. But while its standard features seemed alluring, one box promised extra blurghle crompotion while a second sang sweetly in my ear that it could give me lower fluhurking fimining.
Thus my weekend. Another two days spent in the malls, strip malls, bars, and internet. My money flies away, and in return I get the objects that modern society largely agrees is sucking and stripping away our humanity.
But now with 35% more gremanahine.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Eventual Gander: Batman Begins
Batman is what every Republican aspires to be. Born into wealth, but he earned it himself. His arsenal of expensive toys and gadgets (serviced by his Manservant, Alfred) is only effective when coupled with his merit. He drives an SUV, and he actually needs it! Bruce Wayne is fabulously wealth *and* helps the public, better than if his income were turned into taxes to support the corrupt government of Gotham.
And that's not to say the new movie Batman Begins is bad. Or good. It is good, excellent, even. It manages to introduce these issues of helping society without passing judgment on any but the most extreme alternatives. Perhaps this is the point of supervillains: never do Democrats and Republicans seem most aligned than when being killed in mass numbers by a poison gas.
Christian Bale's acting is as troubled as it needs to be, but not anguished to the point of melodrama. He holds himself as, during different points in the movie, a bon vivante, a dorky Princeton flunk-out, a Man-in-Black, a ninja (!!!), and lover. Michael Caine's Alfred is alternately helpful, challenging, witty, and inspiring. Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson surprised me by being in this movie. Katie Holmes, for a moment, made me not want to smack her for being engaged to Tom Cruise and this close to choosing Scientology.
There are a few minutes of comic book hokieness. Characters look at each other with horrified looks and slowly piece together the conundrum they're in and that we've recognized they're in for the past 5 minutes. The plot is summarized, the bad guys are pawns of badder guys. But overall, this is a superhero of the Oughts, as opposed to the 80's. Christopher Reeves's Superman was challenged by kryptonite and beams. Tobey Maguire's Spiderman, the first in this new era, was appropriately emo. We get the feeling that if his girlfriend (Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane) died, he would be more hurt not by her loss, but having been responsible for her loss. Pixar's The Incredibles grappled with their own humanity even as they were animated. Batman, we learn in this movie for the first time on the big screen (after 4 predecessors that ranged from watchable to featuring George Clooney's nipples), is the product of immense loss.
The directing is peccable, but quite good. My colleague, Manohla Dargis, has criticized the action shots for not being followable enough. But this is the point. The Bourne Identity did a great job of creating fight scenes where we felt like we understood what was going through Jason Bourne's head as he created convoluted fights that knocked down soldiers. He was a machine. Batman is a man. He uses fear, he uses darkness. If we were to see what he was doing in full, we would not be experiencing in even the slightest the emotional impact of his fighting.
But the focus of this movie is the script. It uses standard tricks of the summer movie. Laughs come when you expect them, for the most part. But it adds something more. Scenes that follow idioms also have deeper meanings. The first occurrence of a repeated phrase is not the most appropriate, but the least. It is later, as our knowledge of the world expands, so do our understandings of its utterances. And, in a surprisingly profound finale, Batman Begins teaches us that sometimes we have to rip down the creations of our Fathers to maintain their legacies.
(this review is in a series of reviews that consider not only the art in question, but previous thoughts about it. See also reviews of Tom Wolfe's new novel or The Finer Point of Sausage Dogs, )
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Reminders of Times Past
Hold bacon before a dog and he would compose a sonnet to have a chance at the strip of pig flesh. The word "scholarship" has roughly the same effect on high schoolers. So when Duck brand duct tape offered $5000 to the couple with the best duct tape outfit to prom. This relatively modest sum (when placed against tuition), combined with an excuse to ditch social and stylistic norms, prompted hundreds to purchase what must be enough duct tape to permanently affix the moon to the earth several times over. The results can be seen here, but they strike a deep chord within me.
Memories of high school flood back to me. Social awkwardness, emo, Catcher in the Rye, all that. But the largest thing I'm taught by these pictures is: high school students are, as a general rule, either clumsy, ugly, or both.
-D"my prom date was a model"an
Memories of high school flood back to me. Social awkwardness, emo, Catcher in the Rye, all that. But the largest thing I'm taught by these pictures is: high school students are, as a general rule, either clumsy, ugly, or both.
-D"my prom date was a model"an
Monday, June 13, 2005
The Passing of an American Flash in the Pan
We Enfranchised have recently mourned the passing of a few of our own. After so many losses and so much emotional turmoil, we still found it in our hearts to ask the one questions on everyone's mind when one heard the news that Destiny's Child was breaking up: "They were still together?"
These ladies had a way of winning our hearts for the duration of the release of a single, album, or movie tie-in as was deemed appropriate and profitable by their handlers and sponsors. They teased us with titles that implied sequels never forthcoming. My peers felt this unanswered promise and dealt with the betrayal by adjusting their lexicon to incorporate the fact. Cf. my friend Tina Christakos, who insists on paying for herself by proclaiming "I'm an Independent Woman (Part 1)". What other group has started a phrase by turning their writer's block into a fantasy for a generation? Certainly no others that had lyrics about the transparency of fabric in the face of male arousal ("The club is full of ballas and their pockets full grown").
Just as Marc Antony found difficulty in trying to find bad things to say about Caesar, I fear that as I come to praise Destiny's Child, I can only bury them. So, I will end with my fondest memory that includes them: A sketch, on MadTV, of Bill Clinton hosting the oscars and instantly devolving into the sketchy stand-up meets mc that Chris Rock dreams of being. He reproaches Madonna vaguely British overhaul by reminding the audience that her coochie has had "more members all up in it than Destiny's Child."
Thanks for 2 months of memories (over the course of 6 years).
These ladies had a way of winning our hearts for the duration of the release of a single, album, or movie tie-in as was deemed appropriate and profitable by their handlers and sponsors. They teased us with titles that implied sequels never forthcoming. My peers felt this unanswered promise and dealt with the betrayal by adjusting their lexicon to incorporate the fact. Cf. my friend Tina Christakos, who insists on paying for herself by proclaiming "I'm an Independent Woman (Part 1)". What other group has started a phrase by turning their writer's block into a fantasy for a generation? Certainly no others that had lyrics about the transparency of fabric in the face of male arousal ("The club is full of ballas and their pockets full grown").
Just as Marc Antony found difficulty in trying to find bad things to say about Caesar, I fear that as I come to praise Destiny's Child, I can only bury them. So, I will end with my fondest memory that includes them: A sketch, on MadTV, of Bill Clinton hosting the oscars and instantly devolving into the sketchy stand-up meets mc that Chris Rock dreams of being. He reproaches Madonna vaguely British overhaul by reminding the audience that her coochie has had "more members all up in it than Destiny's Child."
Thanks for 2 months of memories (over the course of 6 years).
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