Antidisingenuousmentarianism

I've been wanting to post this since October, when it went up on my coworker Dr. Manoguerra's door. It coincided with the folk art show we had at GMOA, and I really thought this drawing could have been in there. That is not to say that the work of untrained artists looks like the work of children. It is to say that awesome art is all around us, even in the work of children.

Labels: art

Maybe. One of the highlights of this last trip to the Super H Mart (I couldn't buy the tomato-flavored popsicles, as we didn't have a cooler) was this black raspberry wine, Bohae Bokbunjajoo. It's not a bad idea at all. It's a little bit like a lambic and a little bit like wine, but with the chest warming that comes from sherry and other fortified wines (presumably due to that 15-percent alcohol content). It doesn't really taste like black raspberry, but it tastes like what that fruit might become. About $6.50 per smallish bottle.

Labels: wine

I appreciate that Wired is trying to expand the number of people who have real art on their walls, as opposed to that "College" poster of John Belushi or a picture of an Italian chef they bought at Steinmart, but what this admittedly already brief article boils down to is: Buy prints. Hmm. Prints are great and all, and they're better when they're designed as prints, but if you want original artwork, don't you want... original artwork?

Ugh. That's such a naive way of looking at it, but a giclee is just not the same thing. It's a great way for artists to make a little money and for those without much moolah to have something at least slightly less mass produced, but it's a pretty minor step up from a poster. It's a nicer, often limited-edition poster. At least an etching was, you know, etched. By the artist. And paying $2000 for a glorified poster, no matter how big it is, seems a bit crazy. Lots of galleries have holiday sales at which they sell smaller work priced much lower (Anno Domini's Fresh Produce is a particularly great example, as they even put images and prices up online; they also take Paypal). Save it up and cover less space with something better.

Labels: art, commerce

Which is: "Why the eff do no reviews of Janet Jackson's new record mention the fact that half the interludes between songs (of which there are many) feature her talking to a robot voice named Kyoko? It is about a hair away from NRBQ's 'Big Dumb Jukebox' in terms of silly electronic interaction."

Labels: music

Michael Specter turns in an excellent piece on carbon emissions and businesses' efforts to measure them. The short version, as is often the case, no matter the subject of the article, is that approaching things simplistically leads to a lot of problems.

“We have to remember our goal: reduce emissions of greenhouse gases,” John Murlis told me not long ago when we met in London. “That should be the world’s biggest priority.” Murlis is the chief scientific adviser to the Carbon Neutral Company, which helps corporations adopt policies to reduce their carbon footprint as well as those of the products they sell. He has also served as the director of strategy and chief scientist for Britain’s Environment Agency. Murlis worries that in our collective rush to make choices that display personal virtue we may be losing sight of the larger problem. “Would a carbon label on every product help us?” he asked. “I wonder. You can feel very good about the organic potatoes you buy from a farm near your home, but half the emissions—and half the footprint—from those potatoes could come from the energy you use to cook them. If you leave the lid off, boil them at a high heat, and then mash your potatoes, from a carbon standpoint you might as well drive to McDonald’s and spend your money buying an order of French fries.”

My favorite part of the article comes shortly after that quote:

“Crisps are easy,” Murlis had told me. “They have only one important ingredient, and the potatoes are often harvested near the factory.” We were sitting in a deserted hotel lounge in Central London, and Murlis stirred his tea slowly, then frowned. “Let’s just assume every mother cares about the environment—what then?” he asked. “Should the carbon content matter more to her than the fat content or the calories in the products she buys?”

I put that question to the next shopper who walked by, Chantal Levi, a Frenchwoman who has lived in London for thirty-two years. I watched her grab a large bag of Doritos and then, shaking her head, return it to the shelf. “Too many carbohydrates,” she said. “I try to watch that, but between the carbs and the fat and the protein it can get to be a bit complicated. I try to buy locally grown, organic food,” she continued. “It tastes better, and it’s far less harmful to the environment.” I asked if she was willing to pay more for products that carried carbon labels. “Of course,” she said. “I care about that. I don’t want my food flown across the world when I can get it close to home. What a waste.”

You know that woman didn't put those Doritos back on the shelf because of their carbs. How do you not know Doritos are made of carbs? It's not like they're an obscure snack food. She put them back on the shelf because she was being interviewed and she was embarrassed to be buying Doritos, whether because of the carbs or because of her Frenchness or because of their emphatically non-locally grown/organic status.

In his speech last year, Sir Terry Leahy promised to limit to less than one per cent the products that Tesco imports by air. In the United States, many similar efforts are under way. Yet the relationship between food miles and their carbon footprint is not nearly as clear as it might seem. That is often true even when the environmental impact of shipping goods by air is taken into consideration. “People should stop talking about food miles,” Adrian Williams told me. “It’s a foolish concept: provincial, damaging, and simplistic.” Williams is an agricultural researcher in the Natural Resources Department of Cranfield University, in England. He has been commissioned by the British government to analyze the relative environmental impacts of a number of foods. “The idea that a product travels a certain distance and is therefore worse than one you raised nearby—well, it’s just idiotic,” he said. “It doesn’t take into consideration the land use, the type of transportation, the weather, or even the season. Potatoes you buy in winter, of course, have a far higher environmental ticket than if you were to buy them in August.” Williams pointed out that when people talk about global warming they usually speak only about carbon dioxide. Making milk or meat contributes less CO2 to the atmosphere than building a house or making a washing machine. But the animals produce methane and nitrous oxide, and those are greenhouse gases, too. “This is not an equation like the number of calories or even the cost of a product,’’ he said. “There is no one number that works.”

Or, um, like carbs.

Labels: environmentalism, New Yorker

Students always need people to flip their burgers and deliver their pizzas. Recession-proof! So, slightly fewer crap jobs to be created in Athens over the next year.

Labels: ABH, opining

Here, fine, read Ryan Lizza's "On the Bus: Can John McCain Reinvent Republicanism?" and start liking him again. I'm committed to an anti-McCain view, and even I softened a bit. A consistently irreverent sense of humor will do that. But remember this:

McCain showed a flash of anger. “And those same people were saying McCain’s political ambitions are at an end. The fact is you also know that John Edwards was calling it ‘the McCain strategy’ and ‘the McCain surge,’ and not because he was trying to flatter me. That was a genuine seminal time as to whether we were going to go forward with the additional troops, which was, I admit, highly unpopular—highly unpopular.” McCain picked up his index card. “Quote: ‘You don’t want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you’re going to be gone.’ That’s not helpful! That’s not helpful!” He tapped the index card on the table as he pronounced each syllable. Another reporter gently tried to point out that Romney didn’t support withdrawing the troops. McCain wouldn’t yield: “If he didn’t think that they were going to be gone, then he wouldn’t have said that. It’s just a statement of fact.”
This episode, the final important volley of the Republican primaries, nicely captured two sides of McCain. There is the principled McCain, who, more than any other candidate running for President this year, has a record of sticking to a position even when it puts his political future at risk. In this campaign, his positions on the surge and on immigration (he supported a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegals) almost sank him. But there is also the political McCain, who knows that a reputation for standing on principle is a valuable commodity, though only if it’s well advertised. If it takes flogging a dodgy quote to emphasize a larger truth about your own character, then so be it.

And this:

Factor has reason to be concerned. In a recent Foreign Affairs article, McCain called for the kind of costly nation-building capacity that makes libertarians shudder, arguing that the United States should “energize and expand our postconflict reconstruction capabilities” and create a “deployable police force” that would prop up collapsing states. Echoing Norquist’s book, Factor insisted that the war in Iraq is not a unifying issue for the right. He told me, “The bottom line is that to the base of the Party the war isn’t Communism—to the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan, Communism was a rallying point. This is not like that.”

And this:

McCain has modified his rhetoric on immigration and made peace with Jerry Falwell, whom he described in 2000 as an agent of “intolerance.” But his promise to make permanent the Bush tax cuts, which he twice voted against—once calling them an affront to his “conscience”—is probably his most brazen pandering.

In the end, does it matter whether you want to be in Iraq for cynical reasons or for idealistic reasons? McCain may have criticized the management of the war, but not the reasons for going in in the first place. It's one thing to be an isolationist, and it's another entirely to oppose the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes and violation of sovereignty for any reason you damn well want. A crusader is not exactly what I want right now. The Crusades didn't end particularly well.

Labels: New Yorker

Damage: On Feb. 15, deputy William Elrod was dispatched after 6 p.m. to meet with the owner of some forested land off Rockingwood Drive. The man showed Elrod where someone had destroyed a deer curtain valued at $400. Elrod thought the damage was done by either a sword or machete and he could see a path cut to the site in the woods, apparently with the same blade. Elrod followed the hacked path to the back of a home on Spartan Lane. He went to the front door, which was open. Elrod announced his presence, but no one answered the door, so he entered to see if anyone was inside. In a bedroom, he saw a large sword with bits of tree sap still on the blade. Elrod secured the home, then returned to the crime scene to speak to the property owner. After returning to the scene of the crime, the deputy could see headlights pulling up to the house on Spartan Lane, so Elrod returned and introduced himself to the man and his teenage son. The son admitted that he had cut the trees on the property, despite the no trespassing sign. However, he denied cutting the deer curtain. The property owner spoke with the teen's father and they decided that if the son did the damage, the property owner would be reimbursed.

There can be only one deer curtain...

Arrests: On Feb. 12, deputy Jason Ring was dispatched to a domestic dispute on Georgia Highway 174, Danielsville. Ring asked the husband what they were arguing about and he said, "you name it." He said his wife was going to leave in the truck, but he took the keys from her because she had been drinking. He showed Ring his bloody ear, where she had kicked him. The wife said she only kicked her husband because he had put his hands around her throat. They told Ring they have never had counseling for their problems, nor have they ever been arrested. Linda Bullock, 35, and Mark Bullock, 46, were both arrested for battery.

That's an impressive gymnastic feat.

Arrest: On Feb. 15, deputy Donald Carr was patrolling Georgia Highway 98 West, when he saw a black Ford F-450 wrecker with an invalid tag. The wrecker turned onto a private drive known as Reggie Ingram Road and stopped. As Carr approached, he recognized the driver as John Marcus Wood, 36, of Danielsville. Wood had bloodshot and glassy eyes and would not remain still. As Carr patted down Wood, deputy Joshua Fowler arrived and asked the passenger for his identification. However, the passenger, Joshua Eugene Alexander, 27, of Lavonia got into the driver's seat, locked the door and put the vehicle into gear. Carr went to the truck and attempted to pull out Alexander. While this was happening Wood ran off. Carr and Fowler were unable to remove Alexander from the vehicle, but the truck's engine stalled when he let the clutch out too quickly. Carr pulled out his Taser and used it in Alexander, but because the man was wearing a heavy winter coat, the probes didn't work. Carr then put the Taser into stun and pressed it against the man's shoulder, but he kept swinging his arms. Finally, he used the Taser on the man's chest and Alexander came out of the truck. He kept resisting until he was stunned a fourth time. Inside his jacket pocket, the deputies found some methamphetamine. Alexander said he had swallowed some drugs and his stomach was hurting so the deputies summoned an ambulance. Alexander was taken to the jail's observation room, where he was held on the drug charge. Warrants for obstruction and altering a tag were obtained for the arrest of Wood, who could not be found. Wood later turned himself in to the jail.

One method for dealing with potential Tasering.

Oconee. Madison.

Labels: police blotter

Yeah, it's been a while since I knit anything, but my friend Jenny got a scarf for her birthday. Simple *K3 P3* K last 3; *K1 P1* K last 1 ribbing with this Yarn Bee Icelandic Jewels stuff that I didn't know what else to do with. It's a long, soft scarf, and it turned out nice.

Labels: knitting

Reviewed this CD by the Billie Burke Estate, which I quite like. Yay, well-crafted chamber pop!

Labels: music, writing

Okay, so if you live in a neighborhood with yards and stuff but where the houses are separated by a normal distance (that is, no one's lot is bigger than about an acre), and if you have a dog that likes to bark (a lot), is it not kind of rude to keep that dog outside all the time and not even go yell at it occasionally to make it shut up? We used to live in bliss. Then we got new neighbors on both sides, who were fine for the most part. They each had a dog, but it was a quiet dog. Now they've each obtained a new dog, or possibly several, that rarely stop barking and are always always outside. I know animals need exercise, especially dogs, but are you even enjoying your animal's company if it's always in your yard and you are not? Do you just learn to tune out the sound of your own animal? What's Newman's phone number??

Labels: neighborliness

So next time you can't find your keys, Mr. Thompson, how about we just take 'em away? Most of this editorial is thoroughly reasonable and cognizant that the university system is a giant entity with so many arms that it can't hardly be blamed for not knowing what each is doing. But I guess one always needs a conclusion:

There's another taxpayer-related point to be made here. If some number of computers, for instance, can turn up missing or whatever on a regular basis, and no one seems too perturbed or inconvenienced by those losses - or apparent losses, anyway - isn't it possible there may be too much inventory at UGA?

Granted, the University of Georgia is doing extremely important work on a daily basis - educating the next generation of this state's business, government and community leaders, doing research in the biological sciences and other arenas that will have a direct bearing on the future quality of life in Georgia and elsewhere, and providing a range of readily available expertise to diverse constituencies across this state.

However, the importance of that work shouldn't excuse the university from ensuring the state's taxpayers that it is being a careful steward of the resources those taxpayers provide each and every year. To borrow from an old automobile commercial, that ought to be Job One.

Dude, it's not like we all have three computers. There are just a lot of us.

Labels: ABH, opining

Trantasia: Not a fabulously well-made documentary, in that you can see the wheels turning throughout. The girls that get focused on are indeed the girls who win things, mostly. It's a little less obvious in something like Spellbound. Anyway, the premise is certainly interesting, although a beauty pageant for transsexuals in Las Vegas isn't all that different from a beauty pageant in Las Vegas for ladies born as ladies. That is, the hair is high (whoa is it ever), the outfits sparkly and revealing, and the eyeshadow applied with a paintball gun. Some of them might yet have wangs, but they are almost all girlier than I am.

Labels: movies

It shouldn't be necessary to explain an acronym to someone who demonstrates an understanding of what the individual words that make it up are. Still, let me point out that it's NIMBY, not Not In Anyone's Back Yard. It might apply to entire communities, but it's also not Not In Our Back Yard. Both of those would be harder to pronounce, anyway.

Labels: ABH, opining

This would be the sales moment on Rob & Big, the foot that stuck in the door and then kicked my television-loving brain in the ass.



Re. Lent. Less.

Not only have we been renting all the episodes, but, sirs and madams, we have also been watching the commentaries. And not only is it a highly entertaining show, but it is also both educational and inspiring, two facets that are illustrated in this brief clip.

Mr. Dyrdek goes balls-out after whatever he decides he wants: pop music, his own company, amusement park prizes, miniature horse. But he doesn't just head towards things with energy and conviction. He researches. He thinks. He doesn't get so thoughtful that he can't continue to move forward, but he doesn't just dive into it either. It's a marvelous combination of preparation and drive.

Things that are important:

1. Cleanliness. While maintaining a clean home is not always tops on the priority list, it is on that list.

2. Kindness to family and friends.

3. Health and fitness. Don't eat nine burritos, son.

4. Empathy. Take some time to walk a mile in the shoes of others, even if that means shoes that have stilts in them.

5. Research skillz. Google is your friend.

6. Openness. Be willing to try what is new.

7. Fearlessness. Not in all situations. Maybe "minimizing fear."

8. Following through on your promises. Don't just say you're going to do things. Do them.

9. Self-awareness. Do not think you're the coolest kid in the room. Be cognizant of your failings while striving to improve on them.

10. Responsibility. This relates to #8. If you have obtained something like, say, a miniature horse, which lives for 40 years, then you must not get tired of it in a week and toss it out. You have taken on responsibilities that must be lived up to.

11. Creativity. There are always new ways of looking at a problem.

I'm sure there are more.

Labels: Enrique, TV

1) The Hoax: Pretty clever, especially for Lasse Hallstrom, although it is recognizably one of his films due to the golden glow of everything, as though it's all been dunked in liquid sunshine (I'm not saying I don't like this glow--it's kinda pretty--but maybe he should give it a rest occasionally). It's fun to see Richard Gere really go for it. The interviews (or chunks of) with the real Clifford Irving that are on the disc show what a good job he did, and the idea of having him improvise a lot within the script was clever, too, lending some reality to his on-the-spot spinning. His interactions with Alfred Molina are the best thing here, and sometimes I forget just how much I love Molina, especially when he smiles looking up from underneath his eyebrows. The end goes on a bit giving all the gory details, and there's a bit much guilt and alcoholism and recrimination for lies, which is a shame because this is the sort of movie where you want the liar to succeed, not be caught and punished.

2) Juno: If you're going to kick off with a Barry Polisar tune, you're pretty much going to sink your hooks into the nostalgia part of my heart and pull the rest of it along eventually. Sure, there are problems with the film, things that are unaddressed, perhaps too much of a tendency to brevity, but I'd rather want and be denied more than be annoyed by being handed too much. Unless it's not enough Michael Cera, which is one of the problems with the film, but I suppose it balances Knocked Up pretty nicely in that sense. It is a little precious with the dialogue at times, but again, an excess of cleverness is a very minor sin in filmmaking. It's an odd combination of suppression of emotion and the difficulty of doing that--and that trembling display of feelings is what Cera brings to the screen. He sometimes seems as if he's been stripped of the top layer of his skin, or doesn't have enough fat, like a chihuahua. I guess it's been faulted for Juno's poor decisions, but she's a sixteen-year-old. She is expected to make some very, very stupid decisions, and being a smart sixteen-year-old makes them no less likely. Anyway, it's unexpectedly kind throughout, and, as such, is a relief. Cruelty is important, too, but not constantly.

3) Hannibal Rising: El sucko. There is almost no reason to watch this movie unless you are some sort of serial killer completist or you want to see Rhys Ifans say the word "fuckboy" (about half a second's worth of entertainment). It looks great (and by this I mean that it is visually pretty), but it's amazingly boring. I thought I might care about how Hannibal Lecter was formed, but if the answer is just "he ate his sister," then apparently I do not. For a movie in which tons of people get fairly horribly murdered, this sure is a snooze.

Labels: movies

Dressing up like a princess or a fairy or a fairy princess at home is no longer enough. It must be documented.

Labels: advertising

Man, if Team Brown had just liveblogged the debates, you would have had quite an entertaining evening last night. As is, you had to be content with the pundits talking about which moments were inspirational (pretty much none of them, for realz).

1. Hillary Clinton should maybe not nod the entire time Obama's speaking, as it suggests she's voting for him too. Jared thinks it's to soften her image, which is probably right.

2. Disrespect for the awesome Jorge Ramos! Let the dude ask his questions. They are direct and smart.

3. Fighting about health care is entertaining. It also illustrates philosophies.

4. Talking about soldiers crawling through the door in a parade does not make me want to vote for you. It makes me tune out.

5. Many points boil down to: "I am older than you." "Well, I am younger than you." Preview of the general election!

6. Hillary makes one point about how the Iraqis just have to get their act together. This is the kind of shit that enrages me. Admittedly, they do, but you can't just go in, trash the place, and then complain that it's a mess.

7. No one makes a big deal about the superdelegate question, not even Donna Brazile when they ask her after the debate.

8. The AP sure picks a weird headline for its focus.

9. Also, ha ha, remember when her husband got a BJ in the oval office? Man, that makes her awesome.

Luckily, you've got Wonkette for some irreverent coverage (part one, part two).

Labels: debates, politics

Because I'm sure it is much more comfortable and convenient than a G string just to tape up your hoo-ha.... (Technically, this link probably is safe for work.) You think "couture" has a different pronunciation in this case?

Labels: fashion

So I'm working on Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, in between all those books with pictures in them and the New Yorker. It's a bit dry, even surprisingly so (the introduction raised expectations), but I've just hit some of the good stuff, when he discusses art as a part of culture. These are the things I know about, not despots (okay, I know a little bit about despots--you have to, in literature--and I've appreciated putting the full puzzle together a bit better). This part struck me as still true, in many ways, from the section "The Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century":

Why, it may be asked, were not these reproaches, whether true or false, heard sooner? As a matter of fact, they were heard at a very early period, but the effect they produced was insignificant, for the plain reason that men were far too dependent on the scholars for their knowledge of antiquity--that the scholars were personally the possessors and diffusers of ancient culture. But the spread of printed editions of the classics, and of large and well-arranged handbooks and dictionaries, went far to free the people from the necessity of personal intercourse with the humanists, and, as soon as they could be but partly dispensed with, the change in popular feeling became manifest. It was a change under which the good and bad suffered indiscriminately.

The first to make these charges were certainly the humanists themselves. Of all men who ever formed a class, they had the least sense of their common interests, and least respected what there was of this sense. All means were held lawful, if one of them saw a chance of supplanting another. From literary discussion they passed with astonishing suddenness to the fiercest and the most groundless vituperation. Not satisfied with refuting, they sought to annihilate an opponent. Something of this must be put to the account of their position and circumstances; we have seen how fiercely the age, whose loudest spokesmen they were, was borne to and fro by the passion for glory and the passion for satire. Their position, too, in practical life was one that they had continually to fight for. In such a temper they wrote and spoke and described one another. Pog- gio's works alone contain dirt enough to create a prejudice against the whole class--and these 'Opera Poggii' were just those most often printed, on the north as well as on the south side of the Alps. We must take care not to rejoice too soon, when we meet among these men a figure which seems immaculate; on further inquiry there is always a danger of meeting with some foul charge, which, even if it is incredible, still discolors the picture. The mass of indecent Latin poems in circulation, and such things as ribaldry on the subject of one's own family, as in Pontano's dialogue 'Antonius,' did the rest to discredit the class. The sixteenth century was not only familiar with all these ugly symptoms, but had also grown tired of the type of the humanist. These men had to pay both for the misdeeds they had done, and for the excess of honour which had hitherto fallen to their lot. Their evil fate willed it that the greatest poet of the nation, Ariosto, wrote of them in a tone of calm and sovereign contempt.

. . .

The career of the humanists was, as a rule, of such a kind hat only the strongest characters could pass through it unscathed. The first danger came, in some cases, from the parents, rho sought to turn a precocious child into a miracle of learning, with an eye to his future position in that class which then was supreme. Youthful prodigies, however, seldom rise above a certain level; or, if they do, are forced to achieve their further progress and development at the cost of the bitterest trials. For an ambitious youth, the fame and the brilliant position of the humanists were a perilous temptation; it seemed to him that he too 'through inborn pride could no longer regard the low and common things of life.' He was thus led to plunge into a life of excitement and vicissitude, in which exhausting studies, tutorships, secretaryships, professorships, offices in princely households, mortal enmities and perils, luxury and beggary, boundless admiration and boundless contempt, followed confusedly one upon the other, and in which the most solid worth and learning were often pushed aside by superficial impudence. But the worst of all was, that the position of the humanist was almost incompatible with a fixed home, since it either made frequent changes of dwelling necessary for a livelihood, or so affected the mind of the individual that he could never be happy for long in one place. He grew tired of the people, and had no peace among the enmities which he excited, while the people themselves in their turn demanded something new. Much as this life reminds us of the Greek sophists of the Empire, as described to us by Philostratus, yet the position of the sophists was more favourable. They often had money, or could more easily do without it than the humanists, and as professional teachers of rhetoric, rather than men of learning, their life was freer and simpler. But the scholar of the Renaissance was forced to combine great learning with the power of resisting the influence of ever-changing pursuits and situations. Add to this the deadening effect of licentious excess, and--since do what he might, the worst was believed of him--a total indifference to the moral laws recognized by others. Such men can hardly be conceived to exist without an inordinate pride. They needed it, if only to keep their heads above water, and were confirmed in it by the admiration which alternated with hatred in the treatment they received from the world. They are the most striking examples and victims of an unbridled subjectivity.

Labels: history, literature

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1. ????

2. Partnershipping.

3. I want this channel.

Labels: spam

Joshua: Movies where you want everyone to die except, maybe, one person are frustrating to watch. Add a baby that almost never stops crying and it's kind of a wonder we got through this. Some people should not have children, and these are them. I'm sure it's plenty possible not to love your child, especially if he might be evil, but at least lie convincingly when he asks you how you feel about him. Don't, please, make a videotape of your misery upon his birth, label it "Joshua," and leave it lying around very close to a VCR, where he can find it and then use it as motivation for his rage. I'm not saying one identifies with Joshua exactly--after all, he is a creepy, evil little dude--but one certainly doesn't feel all that bad as his parents come to bad ends. Nico Muhly, the subject of that New Yorker article I'd blogged about a few days ago, did the music, which I assume means he composed the slightly dissonant version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" that Joshua plays at a school recital as a giant middle finger to his parents (the only thing better would have been following it up with vomiting on the piano, rather than fainting; "Take that, John Cage!" Jared said) and the gorgeous song the movie ends with, in which he essentially confesses his sins/evil plan to his uncle (that one likable character). Really nice stuff and almost worth sitting through the teeth gritting of the rest of it. Not even Sam Rockwell can evoke sympathy for a dimwitted jock hedge fund manager, although he sure tries.

Labels: movies

1. You should go look at this picture of Trebek and the competitors. Why with the hands? Photography is evil.

2. Naren failed me. His buzzer skills seemed to be lacking. Instead, we have Zia and two Rachels in the final three. How many questions tangentially relating to being a teenager will they ask them this time?

Labels: jeopardy

Sigh. That is a lot of what the Jeopardy Teen Tournament, now in its second and final week, boils down to--i.e., moments of feeling like you are about to punch the television or maybe yourself. Whenever most of the kids are forced to interact with other people, one is reminded of why they probably know all this stuff: lots of time spent alone in a room. Sometimes this spills over into the answering of questions and selection of categories. Alex Trebek looks as though he would like to have a stern talk with their parents on occasion or as though he would like to go back in time and choose another career, so he cuts them off awkwardly (it's even worse than it was a few weeks ago, when there was a woman with a watch that played the theme song, which he then asked her to play, only to discover there was no way to stop it). Anyhoo, I'm rooting for Naren Tallapragada, who is awesome and less painfully inept at social interaction than most of the kids and has a cool deep voice and cute parents. He goes tonight. Woo! Naren!

p.s. Shouldn't there be a blog just devoted to Jeopardy? Ken Jennings does comment on it, but not enough!

Labels: jeopardy

Shoot 'Em Up: No, Clive Owen does not quite manage to save this parody of action films that itself falls prey to many of the problems of exactly those films, but, you know, also including poopy diaper jokes. There are some really nicely choreographed fight scenes, which attempt the utterly ridiculous (killing people with carrots [yes, multiple times], shooting a bunch of bad guys while continuing to make love to one's girlfriend) in pretty impressive fashion, but, while I think they're intended to mock the genre, they actually remind me of what I love about it, which is its depiction of humans moving around in interesting and often gravity-defying ways. Action films are kind of like gymnastics. However. The dialogue, while I think it's intended to be dumb, is still kind of dumb. Paul Giamatti is having fun, but that doesn't make it a good part. A lot of it makes me wish I was watching Children of Men again. All that said, I do sort of like the messages of eating one's vegetables and using one's turn signal and not spanking one's children--being a decent human being in a lot of different ways...

Labels: movies

As always, our state government takes a measured and sensible response to the problem of its public defenders being underfunded.

When Melvin Davis points out that Oconee County has more residential water users (as a percentage of population) than Athens (which has more industrial and commercial water users), isn't he in fact making an argument against softening water restrictions in his county? Isn't it more difficult for industrial and commercial water users to cut back on usage than for individual households?

Labels: ABH, opining

Complaint: On Feb. 10, a woman who once worked at the Oconee County Jail arrived to visit an inmate, so she was assigned a visitation booth. She also returned some uniforms to the jail and a letter was found that suggested she had a romantic relationship with the inmate. The letter said, "You know I'm madly in love with you."

He's just not that into her.

Arrest: On Feb. 6, deputy Donald Carr was traveling on Spratlin Mill Road, Colbert when he came up behind a red Corvette without a license tag. He stopped the car and while talking to the driver, he saw a white substance near the gas nozzle that couldn't be explained. Carr searched the driver and found a container of marijuana. Darrell Allen Green, 23, of Diamond Hill Mobile Home Park, Colbert was arrested for possession of marijuana.

But not for statutory rape. It was a vintage car.

Damage: On Feb. 10, deputy Steve Gary responded to a complaint on Mae Drive, Danielsville where a man said that he woke up about 2:45 a.m. after hearing some loud shots. The man said he got out of bed, got his pistol and went outside, only to see a car leaving the area. The next morning he went back outside and saw that his house and pickup had been hit with pink paintballs.

Oconee. Madison.

Labels: police blotter

Grub Notes visits Tu Metapan and Delightful Bitefuls, which, surprisingly, kind of lives up to its name.

Labels: food, writing

You know, the world does not owe you an abiding feeling of comfort. For one thing, being made to feel uncomfortable and simply feeling uncomfortable are two different things, and it's not always clear which is going on. For another, while it is, by definition, not comfortable, being uncomfortable is sometimes valuable. It means you are encountering things and situations that are outside your experience, which most likely will cause you to adapt to them and grow. As an introvert (not an extreme one, but someone who falls on that side of Meyers-Briggs and can more easily do without most people than not), pretty much every situation in which I am expected to interact with people makes me uncomfortable. This is partially what drinks are for, and having stuff to do with one's hands, but it is also something that you have to do, lest you end up mumbling in a cave somewhere. So: People are a mess. They are not always perceptive. Neither are you. You will be uncomfortable in this life, and you should perhaps learn to deal with some of it on your own or you will never be an adult.

Labels: being a grown-up

Rick Geary's The Borden Tragedy: A Memoir of the Infamous Double Murder at Fall River, Mass., 1892: Not just a relation of the tale, but an illustration of a specific narrative about the case, one found in a chest (if I remember right) and unidentified as to author. This choice is characteristic of Geary's interesting approach to his Treasury of Victorian Murder, and it gives sort of a new take on a well-known case, although relating all the usual details. As is the case with several of these, however, the ultimate unsolvableness of the matter, the inability to know what really happened, is a handicap. Can't we figure out who killed Lizzie Borden's dad and stepmom? Come on, CSI!

Rick Geary's The Beast of Chicago: An Account of the Life and Crimes of Herman W. Mudgett, Known to the World As H.H. Holmes: This one's utterly fascinating in its unfamiliarity but also frustrating in that one wants to know more of the gory details, at the same time as being horrified by them. If a guy builds his entire house to facilitate a) commerce, b) renting of rooms, and c) gassing and torturing people, you kind of want to know a bit more.

Rick Geary's The Saga of the Bloody Benders: More Geary greatness, full of maps and historical detail as well as murder most foul related in the driest of fashions.

Rick Geary's The Fatal Bullet: The True Account of the Assassination, Lingering Pain, Death, and Burial of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States: Parallels the lives of Garfield and his assassin, Guiteau, in a way that illustrates potential paths for men in the nineteenth century, and while it doesn't discuss the medical details enough of Garfield's lingering death (it doesn't even explicitly mention the fact that the metal detector the doctors used to try to locate the bullet was in fact beeping at a spring in the mattress below him, leading to a lot of unnecessary and dangerous poking around inside the president), it does give a lot of thought to Guiteau's mentality and strange stop-and-start approach to the assassination.

Dan Clowes's Pussey!: A bit down from Clowes's usual heights, but maybe that's because of the focus of the concept. I mean, I like meta-stuff, and I think the observations about comics are amusing, but the story is less strange and more grounded than usual. Lloyd Llewellyn is also a bunch of semi-random stories, but it's a lighter thing, a way to play around and goof off. The introduction is great, though, and it's not as though I'm recommending you not read this.

Brian K. Vaughn's Pride of Baghdad: This is one of the first things I've been able to see Vaughn's weaknesses in. I think he does an admirable job trying to convey the workings of an animal brain in a way that humans can comprehend (the urges, but with logic), and there is plenty of interesting stuff, but it never quite sucked me in the way most of his other stuff has. Perhaps it's too obviously tragic from the beginning, or maybe it's just too short, without the space for him to spread out in and really explore the narrative. Maybe it's a problem that it's based on a true story. But it exposes his desire to kill or wound popular characters in the same way Joss Whedon does--it's a valuable device, and one most writers wuss on, but sometimes it's too visible as a device, and I think that's what I came away with from this rather than a real sense of sadness. Still, it's interesting to see him do something this different. [Jared pointed out to me that the deaths are necessary for the metaphor, upon which I said I might just not care about lions.]

Brian Azzarello's 100 Bullets, vol. 1: First Shot, Last Call: The stories are fine so far--more than passable tales of revenge, I suppose, although I don't care much about the characters, and that can be a drawback of this episodic style, as opposed to following the same folks through issue after issue. But I expected to be annoyed by this, and I wasn't. The writing's not clunky. And the art is mostly, well, darn pretty. It's partially the coloring, in shades of brown and sunsets and black and gray; and it's partially the paper it's printed on (uncoated, which makes these shades look even better and classier); but the curlicues of hair, the ways bodies move, even the clever methods for hiding boobs (trying to maintain a certain rating?), all are surprisingly beautiful. I'd read more just to look at it for longer.

Monica R. Gallagher's Gods and Undergrads: Lame! Weak story, bad computer art (and coloring), stupid dialogue. The only reason it doesn't rank lower is because the premise (Greek mythological figures interacting with our current world) is pretty cool to me. That said, it hardly gets started in these first three issues, and I can't say that I'll bother to seek out more. It reads like a self-published title.

Labels: comics

Rebecca Mead's piece on young composer Nico Muhly isn't on the New Yorker's site, but it is on Muhly's (yay, techmologie), so you can read the whole picture of Muhly's interests, as well as see (chances are) how much like you he is. e.g.,

Muhly makes some of his recordings available on his Web site, Nicomuhly.com, and on his MySpace page. “People five years older than me are always deeply confused about what MySpace actually is, and people five years younger are deeply into it, but people my age are, like, ‘Yes, this is essentially where pedophiles are, and there is also music there,’ ” he says.

An understanding of how the internet works and what multitasking is leads to, in some ways, a desire to draw on all of it while simultaneously requiring comprehension of none of one's sources by the audience in order for them to experience pleasure. It all lurks, but the lurking provides color, not obscurity.

Also, there is another very nice poem later in this issue, by Kathleen Graber, called "The Magic Kingdom":

And as in the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were, threatened with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain which of them is his fate, I would ask whether it is not better to suffer one and die, than to live in fear of all? —St. Augustine, “City of God.”

This morning, I found on a slip of paper tucked into a book
a list of questions I’d written down years ago to ask the doctor.
What if it has spread? Is it possible I’m crazy? I’ve just returned
from Florida, from visiting my mother’s last sister, who is eighty
& doing fine. At the airport, my flight grounded by a storm,
I bought a magazine, which fell open to a photograph
of three roseate spoonbills tossing down their elegant shadows
on a chartreuse field of fertilizer-production waste.
Two little girls emptied their Ziplocs of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish
onto the carpet & picked them up, one by one, with great delicacy,
before popping them into their mouths. Their mother, outside
smoking, kept an eye on them through the glass. After my cousin died,
my father died & then my brother. Next, my father’s older brother
& his wife. And, finally, after my mother died, I expected
to die myself. And because this happened very quickly
& because these were, really, almost all the people I knew,
I spent each day smashing dishes with one of my uncle’s hammers
& gluing them back together in new ways. It was strange work
& dangerous, even though I tried to protect myself—
wearing a quilted bathrobe & goggles & leather work gloves
& opening all the windows, even in snow, against the vapors
of the industrial adhesives. Most days now I get up late
& brew coffee & the smell rises from the old enamel pot
I’ve had to balance under the dark drip ever since the carafe
that came with the machine shattered in the dishwasher last month.

One morning I found a lump in my breast & my vision narrowed
to a small dot & I began to sweat. My legs & arms felt weak,
& my heart thrashed behind its bars. We were not written
to be safe. In the old tales, the woodcutter’s daughter’s path
takes her, each time, through the dark forest. There are new words
for all of this: a shot of panic becomes the rustle of glucocorticoid
signalling the sympathetic nervous system into a response
regulated by the sensitivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
And, as I go along, these freshly minted charms clatter together
in the tender doeskin of the throat as though the larynx
were nothing if not a sack of amulets tied with a cord & worn
around the neck. But I tell you I sat on the bathroom floor for hours,
trembling. And I can tell you this because the lump was just a lump
& some days now I don’t even dread the end although I know
it will arrive. The garage is filled with buckets of broken china.
The girls chased each other & waved their arms, casting spells,
the trim of their matching gingham dresses the electric pink
of the birds’ wings. They turned each other into princesses
& super-girls & then they pretended to change back.
Oh, no. You forgot to say forever—they took turns repeating
with dramatic dismay, melting into puddles of themselves,
their sandals & sunburned knees vanishing beneath their hems.

It's quite different from Wilbur's in its structure, more a rush of prose formed into a poem than a spare, highly patterned few lines, but they address the same subject, albeit from different vantage points. Graber is younger, for one thing, less at peace and, therefore, more normal in some ways, at least to me, at thirty, certainly not ready to make peace with leaving all this wonderful stuff behind yet.

Your quarterly/twice annual Alice Munro story seems to waver between the two perspectives and is, as always, surprising and good.

Labels: New Yorker

1) Q: If I remember correctly, the budget on this was over a million dollars, which is shocking, considering what it looks like. It's not that Larry Cohen's 1982 NYC monster pic is not entertaining, but it's less good than some of his other flicks (e.g., It's Alive), and the low-budget tricks are more laughed at than with. Also, it's a bit Pavlov-esque, in that the movie almost feels like a bunch of isolated scenes that the viewer puts together into a plot. That said, Michael Moriarty's performance is... something else. After reading a bit more about Moriarty and seeing Troll (see below), I'm less sure that it's a performance. It may just be full Moriarty. I wouldn't want to encounter it in person, but it's a bit like watching Christopher Walken do his thing, in that, from reading the lines of dialogue, I'm not sure you could imagine how they would actually be delivered, even after seeing performance after performance. This character, a cowardly dimwit who's just smart enough to latch onto an idea and a potential advantage for himself, is particularly engrossing, as Moriarty doesn't shy away from his grossness and venality. The actual monster isn't quite so monstery as humanity out for its own interests.

2) Masters of Horror: "The Screwfly Solution": Whew. Even though season 2 has been pretty inferior on the whole to season 1, it's not all crap, and this is one of the episodes that doesn't go on the trash heap. It could go more places with the concept (virus makes men fundamentalist religious loons, hate and beat and kill women) than it does, but it's still fairly frightening and cleverly executed. It also, for once, has a rebellious and foolish teenager pay the price for not listening to her parents, which is, you know, occasionally necessary. Elliott Gould provides a good bit of amusement, too.

3) Masters of Horror: "Sounds Like": Very annoying if you are irritated by loud noises, but ultimately also well done. Thank Jeebus it is only an hour, though, because much more would have made me want to poke my own eardrums out.

4) Troll: Astonishingly weird. We didn't plan on watching this, but it came on, and Jared's seen it before and thought I would be interested, partially because your friend and mine, crazy Michael Moriarty, is in it. Not the best movie we watched this weekend, but certainly my favorite, as it contains many a moment provoking gaping and pointing at the screen, including the revelation that Moriarty's character is named Harry Potter. Sure, it's a common name, but still. And then, there is this:

I must point out that that is a modern English translation of how The Faerie Queene begins, as well as the fact that it has little to do with faeries (let alone trolls and so on), but that bit of music, set in the middle of the movie with no warning, is quite a noticeably odd thing. There is also a wonderful sequence in which Moriarty dances to Blue Cheer's cover of "Summertime Blues" that is not, so very sadly, around in video form on the internet (yet).

5) Little Children: Genuinely good and yet I liked it a bit less than some of this other, less classy stuff. Partially, this is because it is painful and real, and partially, it is because I am tired of seeing things building to a point slowly that do not surprise me, especially when they involve people being thoughtless and/or cruel to each other. This is certainly real, in that it happens all the time, but it's so nice when it doesn't happen that way. Anyway, it's somewhat a reimagining of Madame Bovary, a text directly alluded to in the film (and, I assume, in the book)--in Flaubert's world, we are all pathetic creatures with large blindspots, and we think that our problems are the center of the universe. We don't understand our own scale, and we are worthy of scorn as well as sympathy. But the thing is, Tom Perrotta is not Flaubert, so, while the same impulses are there on the part of writer and reader, the result does not end up in the same elevated place. The characters are frustrating in both works, but they may be more frustrating set in the present day and sans explanation. Why does Sarah get married and have a child when she doesn't seem to want to? Why can't Kathy just let Brad pursue another career (perhaps coaching)? The sadness that is produced is less tragic and more like a splinter that can't be reached.

6) Coffy: Not a bad-looking film nor insanely stupid, but basically the reason to see it is Pam Grier, who brings a lot of depth to a role not written that way. Her face--in disappointment, in rage, in thought, in grief, in resignation, in a daze--is a pleasure to watch, and she manages to be tough and feminine at the same time in a completely believable way. The soundtrack contains much wacka-chicka, and the character actors (like Sid Haig) get to have fun. Also, there is a great extended catfight that pretty much serves as an instructional video on why you should maybe be wary of halter tops.

7) Meet the Robinsons: An interesting mix of good and bad. There is mopey, obnoxious kid stuff and mocking of nerds, both of which are supposed to be bad but are still irritating onscreen, but then there is very amusing stupid villain stuff, with well-executed jokes relying on dumbness. There's a lot less of the future than you might have thought, based on the trailer, and one might be forgiven for thinking that a healthy, white, American boy wouldn't really have a great deal of difficulty being adopted in this day and age, even if he is prone to create messy PB&J guns, but those jokes make one want to keep watching. It's not bad, but it's a good example of why Disney sure as heck still needs Pixar.

Labels: movies, TV

Hey, old man Joe Jackson has a new album. It's a little disappointing. He can do better.

Labels: music, writing

1) Pop Gun War, by Farel Dalrymple: This was a gift from a friend, and the art is wonderful, but the narrative is a little too dreamy for me. I think I can put up with more obscurity in literature that doesn't have pictures, partially because I can untangle words with more readiness than I can visuals. That is, sometimes I understand/perceive that things are drawn a certain way to convey a message. Other times, it whooshes straight over my head. Also, I was sleepy when I read this. The lettering is very nice. I always find it a relief to read hand-lettered stuff.

2) Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (vol. 4): Eep! Cute. Made me stay up too late one of the two nights it took me to get through it. One of the things I particularly like about this series is that there are some bits that are just jokes and nothing else. And then there are some bits that are jokes that are also indicative of characters and so on. But I'm a big fan of the throwaway gag, and vol. 4 certainly has plenty, plus it doesn't go all flashbacky like volume 3, which means way less confusion. And finally, getting it together is an awesome thing and should be applauded.

3) Black Hole, by Charles Burns: Jared and I have been discussing whether this graphic novel merits four or five stars. On the one hand, it's still not quite up there with truly great works of literature. On the other, it's about as good as it gets for this medium. It ends abruptly, without a true wrapping up, but, hey, so do a lot of good books. Mostly, it reminds me of Dan Clowes's Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron in its dreamlike but indelible images. I laughed when I opened the book and saw a drawing of a slit on the first page, but it's not coincidence. It's all vaginas. Each section seems to begin with a new one: a cut in the sole of a foot, a frog split open for dissection, a marijuana flower, thorned branches in the woods. So it's an uncanny work, full of sex and death and strongly, strongly connecting the two--exploring the opposing life and death impulses and how sex draws us toward one or the other, depending on the motivations. It is evocative of senses throughout without hardly talking about them. And, of course, the art is beautiful. Burns's linocut-like panels are each so beautifully constructed and rendered, with slashes of black and white that are a weird combination of flat and round. I would be happy just looking at this book, but it drew me in much more than that. I guess I'm going five stars this morning, having finished it last night.

Labels: comics

Dudes, you really should try to go see William T. Vollman at one of his two Athens appearances today. They're both free. You can go ask him questions at 4 p.m. in Peabody 115 (the Philosophy/Religion building; you might recognize it from Road Trip), or you can just listen to him read at 7 p.m., in "Instructional Learning Plaza North, N106" (I'm less sure of where that is; perhaps in the SLC? Or it could be one of the PJ auditoria). He's a big darn deal and we don't have literary figures of that kind of quality visit our campus often.

Labels: events

What kind of boy do you think Zac Efron is? A car wanker, I guess...

Labels: questing

That latest NBAF meeting was last night, and surely we can get some clarification on this:

Only two commissioners - David Lynn and Carl Jordan - showed up. One, Kelly Girtz, was out of town Wednesday night. Mayor Heidi Davison and several commissioners said Tuesday they wouldn't be attending because the organizers told Flagpole, a local newspaper, about the meeting before inviting them.

Because their schedules were already filled, right? Not because they were being huffy about it?

Labels: ABH, opining

Halloween (2007): Definitely Rob Zombie's weakest film yet, but it still has something going for it, to the point that it's frustrating when it devolves into just running and hiding and screaming at the end, in a house that probably is intentionally confusing but becomes aggravating for the viewer. I'm sure this is to create a sense of claustrophobia, to make you want out of there as much as Laurie Strode does, but there's a point where it tips over into just anger at the director for trapping one in a space one doesn't know the geography of (as Jared put it, "Does this house have any doors?"). So let that be said. It's also a bit too long--one does desire it to be over--and has the usual horror movie plot holes ("How does Michael Myers know she's his sister?" I suggested that a scene in which he visits the public library to do genealogical research might have been awesome). Okay, so now that we have all the complaints out of the way, it's possible that this is better than the original. It's at least arguable that it is, although there's a little bit of a self-sufficient feminist message. I like that Zombie wants to explore motivations, to set up characters before they get hacked to death. It's just vastly smarter and more carefully made than almost any other recent horror movie I can think of (his own excepted). And he has a brilliant eye for casting. The cameos are great, but the leads are even better, especially Daeg Faerch as the ten-year-old Michael. There is something in his swallowed pain and deliberateness that is recognizable in ourselves. We have all done things with a combination of care and impulsiveness that we later regretted. It's an interesting step to make us identify with one of the most feared characters in cinema, and it mostly pays off. There seems to be an underlying criticism of permissive parental attitudes, too, from Myers's parents (who don't keep track of him) to McDowell's version of Loomis, who lets him make as many masks as he wants. What if he didn't get access to papier-mache? Would he have regressed as far as he did?

Labels: movies

Richard Wilbur has this poem in the last New Yorker. It's short and sweet and it reinforces how much I like his stuff.

A MEASURING WORM

This yellow striped green
Caterpillar, climbing up
The steep window screen,

Constantly (for lack
Of a full set of legs) keeps
Humping up his back.

It’s as if he sent
By a sort of semaphore
Dark omegas meant

To warn of Last Things.
Although he doesn’t know it,
He will soon have wings,

And I, too, don’t know
Toward what undreamt condition
Inch by inch I go.

There are times when I resolve to myself not to like him as a poet anymore. He's too old, too gray, too content, and too rural in his outlook. Perhaps too concerned with beauty. I should be fonder of feistier poets, to maintain my youth. But Wilbur always has structure, and, uncool as it is, I love structure. I don't like poetry that thrashes. I like poetry that hums along with the universe, with the mostly quiet, mostly happy, almost swimming movement of the double helix. If I have to pick one, I will pick life, and although this poem is about death, it's more about the progress toward it, i.e., life.

Labels: New Yorker, poetry

Facetiousness sometimes hits on things. I know Nathan Collins is not being serious in his suggestion that ACC ban political yard signs, but I think it would be a wonderful idea and a step toward a more unified community. The people down the street from me have a Mitt Romney sign in their yard, and, not being a saint, I judge them for it. Billboards aren't associated with a specific person you know, most of the time, and one has to get closer to see t-shirts and buttons. Bumper stickers, however, fall into the same category as yard signs. "What an idiot. No wonder he has a Bush/Cheney 04 sticker." "Sheesh, you lazy hippie. I hate your sticker about loving each other." I'm sure you've had these thoughts when behind someone in traffic. It's not that you shouldn't express yourself, but, you know, maybe you shouldn't. Perhaps you shouldn't provide a reason for people to put you in a little box and file you away. Or maybe you should just use more words on your bumper stickers and yard signs to explain why you support a particular candidate at length and civilly.

Labels: ABH, opining

Complaint: On Feb. 2, deputies were called to a middle school where a photo of an almost topless girl was sent to another student's cell phone. The girl said a friend of hers had taken the photo and sent it without her permission. The boy was questioned and he said he had photos of the girl on his MySpace account and on his cell phone. Another boy was contacted and he said he had deleted the photos on his cell phone. Parents were contacted.

She's wearing a top but it's ineffective? Her lady parts are mostly, but not entirely exposed? Is it percentage- or nipple-based? We are in a semantic debate.

Arrest: On Feb. 5, deputy William Evans was on patrol and saw a black Honda abruptly change lanes without signaling. He stopped the car and found that it was uninsured and the man's driver's license was expired. After he arrested the driver, Patrick Barry Hutto, 27, of Twelve Oaks Circle in Watkinsville, Evans asked if there was anything illegal in the car. Hutto said, "I don't think so," and gave permission for it to be searched. Evans found three bags of suspected marijuana and a marijuana smoking pipe in the car. Hutto was charged with driving without insurance and possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

His short-term memory is where he keeps weed laws.

Assault: On Feb. 2, deputy Tommy Williams went to a home on Colbert Danielsville Road, where a woman said she and her boyfriend argued about money and he punched her. She said she didn't want to press charges.

She's used to it.

Oconee. Madison.

Labels: police blotter

I reviewed Justin Brogdon's CD. Please don't beat me up, angry locals.

Labels: music, writing

Here is some media. I had never seen this video (NWA's "Express Yourself") or heard this song before last night, when they ran it at the beginning of Sucker Free Countdown to honor Black History Month (I think).



It's an interesting mish-mash, and, while in many ways it's characteristic of the era, it's not necessarily characteristic of what I think of as NWA. Or maybe it combines elements of both. It's angry and full of love. It's diverse in a way that doesn't detract from its being funny. And it's unexpectedly melodic for 1988.

Labels: video

Yes, I'm late late late on Rob & Big. I love them no less. Garth thinks Rob Dyrdek works as a performance artist. I think that's a good take. But what I've been trying to mull over is how this show, with its ridiculous, artificial situations created just to provide something amusing for the cameras, is different from say, The Simple Life, which was also full of ridiculous, artificial situations created just to provide something amusing for the cameras but ended up making one feel dead inside. And I think it must be that either Dyrdek has better writers and is a better actor than Paris and Nicole or, and I do sort of hope it's this one, the ridiculous, artificial situations arise organically, from the mind of the subject of the show, making them diegetic rather than non-. Also, there's a lot of dancing and making up songs, things I cannot do but enjoy watching very much. And, finally, although Dyrdek certainly does waste his money, he doesn't waste it obscenely. A net gun is a smaller expense (much) than a Bentley. It's more relatable. I'm sure we've all bought something just because we thought it was amusing--this show is that impulse writ large.

Labels: TV

Cashback: It's kind of like a combination of Career Opportunities and the Nicholson Baker novel The Fermata, only English. It does, however, have some of the creepiness of The Fermata, a book that I think was received with a lot of "yuck"s. I mean, stopping time to undress ladies isn't exactly an unpopular fantasy, and I suppose this character does better things with it (sketching) than Baker's protagonist (wank city), but it's still a little gross. Even his invitation of the girl he likes to an art opening at which the walls are covered with drawings of her (clothed) is weird--she doesn't run screaming from the building, either. Anyway, it's a kind of dreamy meditation on beauty and its connection with budding and adult sexuality (that is, it's about the power of women, even fairly ordinary ones, although I'm not sure we see any of their ta-tas, to enthrall, to make one want to stop time and just look--what I'm pretty sure is referred to as "the male gaze") but it's also kind of a goofball comedy about working in a supermarket for the late shift. It has its problems, but it's well filmed, with a lot of neat dissolves between scenes taking place in disparate eras, and it's ultimately kind of sweet.

Labels: movies

Okay, so Pittsburgh is over and done with. I ate at my grandparents' country club for probably the last time. I read not very much Burckhardt because I kept falling asleep on the plane, both ways. I got snow blown up my nose by the wind. I lost the insole to one boot. I sat next to a guy who was about to barf the entire trip there. I acquired some new knee socks that once were my grandma's. I took some pictures, which soon will be labeled. I saw cousins and aunts and uncles and other, more distant relatives. There was hugging and stuff. I remembered that heels are evil. I didn't check my email for three days and I lived. Also, I got my mom signed up for Netflix before I left. I slept tons and still feel like I could use some more zees. Stuff. Now it's time for unstuffing.

Labels: misc

Balls of Fury: What's there is not so bad, but there is much that is not there. It's almost as though there's a genuine desire to make a sports movie driving this thing, and what's so dang silly about ping pong anyway, other than the shorts, which are milked to ample comic effect? Basically, George Lopez continues not to be all that funny, and if you rent this movie thinking he's not a co-star, you will be disappointed. Dan Fogler is a bit like Bobcat Goldthwait in his heyday, but even his reasonably amusing presence/face isn't enough to cover for long passages that seem to have no jokes at all.

Labels: movies

This lovely person has posted the list of questions that were on the East Coast version of the online quiz. I will now cut and paste and comment. I haven't googled anything yet, but I shall. My guess is that I got 33 or 34 right. I know there's one I missed because of time expiring, but I can't remember which one.

1. This Bravo series is hosted by Heidi Klum.

Project Runway, but I missed this one due to complete blanking.

2. North Dakota's capital was named for this man.

Didn't know. Couldn't even remember the capital, which I now discover is Bismarck. Arg.

3. His "Nude Descending a Staircase" caused a scandal at the 1913 Armory Show.

Marcel Duchamp

4. His "Innocents Abroad" started as a series of travel letters about his trip to Europe.

Mark Twain

5. Marie-Louise, this man's second wife, married him by proxy in 1810.

Napoleon? Eff yeah! A correct guess.

6. This is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world.

Yang-Tze (kind of a guess, but it's right)

7. Helium, argon and neon are all classified as these types of gases.

I believe I typed "inert," but it's actually noble. They may be the same thing.

8. This former minister played bass guitar on the "Tonight Show" in January 2008.

Guessed Al Green, who was the only minister I could think of. Didn't know if they meant political or religious. It was Mike Huckabee.

9. This country's traditional dishes include meekrob and nasi goreng.

Indonesia? That might be right, or it might be Thailand.

10. Jhumpa Lahiri wrote this 2003 novel about a Hindu family's transition to life in Massachusetts.

Couldn't think of it. Urg. I guess it's The Namesake. Interpreter of Maladies is short stories, right?

11. This actor-turned-director directed the 2007 film "Into the Wild."

Sean Penn

12. This play begins on a ship carrying the wedding party of Alonso's daughter Claribel.

The Tempest

13. His record-setting baseball was branded with an asterisk before being sent to the hall of fame.

Barry Bonds

BEGINS WITH "R"
14. 4-letter term for a horse with a reddish coat sprinkled with white.

Roan (I may have run out of time)

15. This New Zealand capital is the southernmost capital in the world.

Had no idea... It's Wellington.

16. After losing the presidential race to Lincoln, he was chosen to be secretary of state.

Stephen Douglas? Uh, no, dummy. Seward.

17. His only opera was "Fidelio."

Beethoven

18. In 1953 the Lenin Peace Prize went to this Chilean poet and diplomat.

Pablo Neruda? This guess was right.

19. Mangabey, Rhesus, Proboscis

Um... monkeys? I missed the category. But it's right.

RHYME TIME
20. Donor of a hepatic organ.

Liver giver

21. Christine Ebersole won a 2007 Tony for playing 2 Edies in this play based on a documentary film.

Grey Gardens

22. The third of Henry VIII's wives, she died while giving birth to his son Edward.

I think I guessed Anne of Cleves, but it's Jane Seymour.

23. This reaction ocurrs in the choloroplasts, the oval-shaped, green organelles in plants.

Could not think of photosynthesis and felt like total r-tard

24. Collective term for the "costs" involved in transferring real estate from a seller to a buyer.

I don't think I got "closing costs" in time

25. 19 year-old Bilawal was chosen as a successor for this leader's party.

Benazir Bhutto

26. Born in 1800, he believed God had chosen him to leave his fellow black slaves to freedom.

Nat Turner? Yes!

27. Cygnets are the young of this animal.

Swan

28. From the Latin angere, "to torment," it's defined as the anticipation of danger or problems.

I put angst, but it's anxiety.

29. This color of the Libyan flag is also a symbol of devotion in Islam.

Green

30. It's the first book in the New Testament.

Matthew? Yep.

31. This rapper received 8 2008 Grammy nominations, including album of the year for "Graduation."

I typed Eminem because I was being a moron. It's Kanye, duh.

32. He was the only bachelor president for his entire term.

James Buchanan

33. This Riviera city has a museum devoted to the works of artist Henri Matisse, who spent his last years there.

Dear lord. I think I typed in Monte Carlo... It's Nice.

34. Usually symbolized by a letter, a changing quantity in algebra is called this.

Didn't know. It's "variable."

35. Raila Odinga, who claims to be Barack Obama's cousin, is the opposition leader in this country.

Didn't know. It's Kenya.

36. Johann Eck debated this noted Protestant in 1519 and helped get him excommunicated in 1521.

Martin Luther? Yep.

37. Mary Ann Evans wrote "Silas Marner" and many other novels using this pen name.

George Eliot

38. This Atlantic "sea" is named for the seaweed that can be seen there.

Sargasso? Yep.

BEGINS WITH "A"
39. It's the food of the gods.

Ambrosia

"PER" WORDS
40. Two lines, at right angles to each other.

Perpendicular

41. Sara Gruen's "Water for" these animals explored the circus life during the Great Depression.

Elephants? Yep.

42. Famous for his chairs, in 1946 this designer had the first one-man furniture exhibit at MoMA.

I think I typed LeCorbusier, then changed my mind to Eames but didn't get it in time. It's the latter.

43. In 2002, she became the first African American to win the Oscar for Best Actress.

Halle Berry

44. This Jane Austen novel begins, "The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex."

Sense and Sensibility

45. The first presidential trip out of the US was Teddy Roosevelt's 1906 inspection of this project.

Panama Canal

46. Vinson Massif is the highest point on this continent.

Guessed Antarctica and was right.

47. He's credited with writing "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."

Homer

48. Rhonda Byrne wrote this 2007 blockbuster which had everyone helping themselves through positive thinking.

The Secret

49. In English, this verb form usually starts with "to", as in "to go" or "to be"

Infinitive

50. The original author's last story about this detective was "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place."

Guessed Sherlock Holmes and am correct.

So that's a final score of 31 definitely right and 3 that might or might not be, depending on the answers they choose (inert v noble; Thailand v. Indonesia) and whether I typed it in time (roan). Not quite good enough, but I warmed up toward the end.

Labels: games

You have just ruined my day by finding me as a search result for this question.

Labels: questing

I really am trying to follow Jerry Haas's logic in his column "Measure candidates by their commitment to providence." It's possible that my mistake is assuming its existence. The argument goes like this:

The Declaration of Independence was pretty great (not really in contention). It was mostly grounded in belief in God (well, Deism, which isn't quite the same thing). Also liberty (yep). The men who wrote it were leaders (sure). Leadership is supposed to inspire people to be independent (depends on your goals). Today's government inspires people to be more rather than less dependent on government; therefore, it is not a good example of leadership. What leaders should be doing is making people less dependent on government and more dependent on God (um...). Also, I hate taxes (well, that's pretty clear).

I think it's an interesting reconciliation of theism with hatred of taxes, but I'm not sure it works, especially considering that he's probably in favor of tithing.

Labels: ABH, opining

Eastern Promises: The imdb key words are: "Neo Noir / Investigation / Presumed Dead / Child In Peril / Stabbed In The Eye," but it's more than that. I really was disappointed by A History of Violence, but this is Davey Cronenberg getting back into good stuff--classy stuff, admittedly, without the weird kick of his early exploitation films, but that's not so terrible, especially when the film glows red throughout. Every scene is gorgeously staged and much more beautiful than I thought he was interested in striving for. I spent most of the movie wondering why Viggo Mortensen wasn't nominated for an Oscar only to discover this morning that he is, which, whew. It's not just the accent. He really does inhabit the role impressively, and he makes Vincent Cassel look bad at times. Not most of the time, though; Cassel's more recognizable than Mortensen, but he still tackles the part ferociously; he's a wonderful actor at being drunk, always falling into scenes and grabbing at people even when he's ostensibly sober. Both of them act with the entire body, putting a lot into posture and hand clasps and head tilts. And one can still see Cronenberg's aesthetic/concerns peeking through. There's a little less "eek! vaginas!" in this one and a little more "homosocial relationships are pretty great," but he's into the dark side of the latter and the bright one of the former, so there's development going on. There's one plot choice that I shouldn't reveal that I'm not nuts about, as it explains too much about Nikolai's motivations, but I can deal with it. Still, I was madly impressed with the movie.

Labels: movies

Arrest: On Jan. 25, deputy Laura Teet was dispatched to a home on Snows Mill Road for a theft. The victim said he was inside his home that morning when a man named Danny walked up to his front door and ran the doorbell. The man said he didn't answer the door, but he watched Danny through a window. After ringing the bell again and knocking on the door, Danny walked to the carport and began rummaging through the man's tools. Danny then went to the garage, opened the door and opened a freezer. The man watched as Danny started loading food into a garbage bag. At this point, the man put on his coat and cap and went out the door. He confronted Danny by saying, "What are you doing?" And Danny replied, "I'm sorry man." As Danny began to leave, the man grabbed and tackled the suspect to the ground, at which point Danny began kicking. Danny then took off running across the yard and down the road. The man told Teet that while he didn't know Danny's last name, he knew he lived in a trailer on Rogers Road. Teet drove to the trailer and on the front porch she saw a bucket overflowing with empty beer cans. She looked inside the kitchen window and saw several empty packs of cigarettes. No one was there, so she drove toward Lane Creek Road to look for the suspect. The victim came driving up the road and pointed across a field toward the suspect. Teet drove to the suspect and she asked Danny why he was stealing the victim's groceries. He said he was sorry and that he was hungry. She then asked if he could afford to drink so much beer and smoke cigarettes why was he stealing. Danny didn't have an answer. She placed him under arrest, but Danny complained that his wrist was broken because the victim had hit him with a baseball bat. Teet identified the suspect as Danny Evans, 42, and he was charged with robbery and burglary. Teet spoke with the victim again and he denied using a baseball bat on the suspect. He told the deputy that in the past he had given Danny money and if Danny had asked for help, he would have offered it. Evans was taken to a hospital in Athens for treatment, before he was jailed.

Laura Teet has logic.

Arrest: On Jan. 21, a clerk watched as Michael Curry, 48, entered the Quick Pick store on Georgia Highway 72, Colbert. Curry went to the counter with one of his friends, but didn't have enough money to pay for a .22 ounce bottle of Icehouse beer. He asked for credit, but the clerk told him no. They walked away, then Curry returned and wanted to pay for the beer with a credit card, but again she said no, explaining it was against store policy to accept credit cards for purchases less than $5. Curry then became angry, but she noticed that Curry had something inside his jacket. She told him to return the item, but he turned to leave the store and a bottle of Red Lady 21 wine fell out of his coat and broke on the floor. Curry and his friend went outside, where he continued to shout angrily before they left in a Honda Civic. Deputy Alan Stratton went to Curry's home on Hardman Morris Road, Colbert and arrested him for shoplifting. He also was warned to stay out of the store.

With notes of cough syrup in the nose, apparently...

Oconee. Madison.

Labels: police blotter

Wallpaper stripping, even when it's trim, takes time when you have two layers to get through. It also leaves you too tired to watch the stuff you rented. Instead, you will watch election results while complaining about whitey (sometimes all states should vote like Georgia) and then remember that you can watch PBS's two-part special on the Mormons on the computer, and it's nicely broken up into little chunks, making it quite easy to find stopping points at which to snooze.

We also listened to an episode of "This American Life" called "Quiz Show," the last third of which was particularly interesting and disturbing, about a woman who created a game show on Oxygen for teenage girls and became thoroughly disillusioned and now thinks, kind of, "girls are stupid." No! Teenage girls (well, really between about 11 and 16) are often stupid in that they play up their stupidity. Jared thinks they didn't try hard enough to find smarter girls. Also very possible.

Labels: podcast, reports on life, TV

Grub Notes visits Knuckleheads and Cafe Marigold.

Labels: food, writing

Hairspray (2007): Meh, it's okay. Could have used more woman Travolta. No, really, that's the reason we rented it, and his performance is a thing of weirdness that must be seen. It swings between utterly realistic (sure, he mugs, but the dude can still kind of act) and horrifying (every time he opens his mouth to emit this Dr. Evil-esque mew), with fantastic dancing (in heels and a fat suit) thrown in. To watch him and Christopher Walken dancing on the rooftops of Baltimore is really a pleasure, although it's a thrill mixed with total horror. On the whole, it's mostly another cheapening of its source, or perhaps that's not the right word. Instead, the movie's scrubbed down, with a couple of nods to what Mr. Waters enjoys (rats, smoking and drinking pregnant moms), but mostly a wink-wink-nudge-nudge sense of weren't the early 1960s primitive? We're totally great on racial equality now. And, while it ostensibly promotes a message of "big is beautiful," it's also peppered with fat jokes that kind of drag it down. I mean, Tracy's and Edna's weight is not not a concern in the original, but it's not, like, the focus of the movie. Also, I continue to believe that Zac Efron is the first in a wave of pod people. How are the songs and dances? Not bad. They're often repetitive and don't allow for real skill to shine; there's not a lot of harmonizing, although it's nice when it does show up. And the sets are quite shiny.

Labels: movies

To this. "Imagine Batman's cape is invisible," were the instructions he gave me. It almost works.

Labels: comics, problem solving

Oh, hey, so remember Brian Nichols? Jeffrey Toobin's reporting for the New Yorker on his case as raising a lot of interesting issues wrt indigent defense. Here's a paragraph that sort of encapsulates the whole article:

The Nichols case illustrates a troubling paradox in death-penalty jurisprudence: the more heinous a crime—and the more incontrovertible the evidence of a defendant’s guilt—the greater the cost of the defense may be. Death-penalty trials require juries not only to determine whether the defendant is guilty but also to make other complex moral judgments—why a defendant committed a crime, whether he is likely to do so again, what punishment fits the crime. Defendants are entitled to often costly expert assistance, including the services of psychiatrists, as they prepare their cases. Yet spending large sums of public money on the defense of capital cases is politically incendiary, and in Georgia the consequences may be cataclysmic. According to Stephen B. Bright, the senior counsel for the Southern Center for Human Rights, in Atlanta, “We are just now starting to see the ripple effect of Nichols. The question now is whether the whole thing is going to come crashing down.”

But here's the thing: it doesn't, quite. For one thing, aren't lawyers required to do pro bono work? Nichols's defense is being handled by a firm from North Carolina due to the fact that his crime was committed in a courtroom, against a popular judge, which taints most eligible candidates in Georgia.

Defense costs for travel and lodging have been substantial, though Hill cut his usual hourly rate from three hundred and fifty dollars to a hundred and seventy-five dollars, and his colleagues—Jacob Sussman, from Hill’s North Carolina firm, and Robert L. McGlasson, a veteran death-penalty specialist in Atlanta—are working for less. A fourth lawyer, Penny Marshall, volunteers her time. Still, there is no doubt that using the salaried Capital Defenders would have been cheaper, and the council’s open-ended commitment to pay hourly rates to private lawyers remains at the heart of the controversy.

It's not that Nichols shouldn't be getting excellent representation. It's that the excellent representation should be working for the same rate as any other lawyer who agrees to take on a case like this, for the same rate as the public defender. And it's quite easy to say that, if that's the requirement, good lawyers won't be interested, but aren't they obligated to do a certain amount of pro bono work? Why can't this fall under that?

Another factor is the DA's lack of willingness to plea bargain:

. . . Nichols was prepared to plead guilty to every count in the indictment and accept a sentence of life in prison if Howard agreed to abandon his quest for the death penalty.

Howard said no. As an elected official, he had little to lose by taking a hard line against one of the most notorious criminals in the country. The long wait to bring Nichols to trial has been frustrating for Howard, who works in an office in the old courthouse, five floors beneath the murder scene. Defending his decision to reject Hill’s plea offer, Howard told me, “My belief is that punishment is a question that should be decided by the community. It is not appropriate to kill four people and outline for the citizens what his punishment should be. I don’t think the defendant should choose his own punishment.”

You can't very well complain about the fund for indigent defense running out of money when you show no desire to conserve it. Executing Brian Nichols doesn't do a damn thing for the community other than provide it with a tiny bit of pointless vengeance. Abandoning death penalty prosecutions, it seems, would be the best way to provide all indigents with the defense they deserve, as those cases are most likely to drain the system's resources.

Labels: Georgia politics, New Yorker

The Dark Knight Strikes Again: Ugh. This takes everything that was annoying in the first one and intensifies it: art that looks like it was drawn with MacPaint; "commentary" on the psychoses of contemporary culture that is itself fairly psychotic; debate set up between fascism and inaction and vigilantism, none of which is a good choice; and, most of all, fragmented narrative that perhaps Frank Miller himself can follow, but I sure can't. There is much that I think we're supposed to be able to infer, but either I don't have the comics history or lack the ability to insert myself into a crazy dude's brain. I get that he's riffing on 9/11 and the world after it, but what is he saying? That those in power can't be trusted? Hardly a revelation. That the public is foolish and chases after what's shiny and new? Likewise. I think he's in fact saying the same things he always is. Also, I'm scanning a panel and placing it below to see if you can figure out the physics of it.

Labels: comics

1) Blood Car: So it's often incompetent. They don't care beans about continuity. The acting is rotten, even that from people who are professional actors (I'm looking at you, Anna Chlumsky). It might, at 72 minutes, still be too long. But damn if I don't recommend this movie because it really is, in the end, as the quote they pull from Variety says, "frequently funny." Pretty darn frequently. I suppose it's also smart in its choice of topic (gas is so expensive that a car that runs on human blood is a serious possibility), but it's smart enough to know when to go for the dumb joke. It reminds me of nothing so much as an extended episode of the Silly Spider Monkey Fiasco, but that's a positive thing. It means that, while it's amateurish and sophomoric, I like the latter.

2) Stranger Than Fiction: So very mostly good that it is a real damn shame about that ending. The performances are good and the writing is smart. The premise is great. So why do I find myself liking Blood Car better in retrospect? I think it's all due to that ending, which a) reaffirms the control of the author, if anything (if she's rewritten the book, then he's simply done exactly as he was made to do the whole time; ergo, there is no free will), b) is cliched (and who cares about that boy on the bike anyway? we don't know him), and c) is perhaps a slightly less shitty end than the one she was planning on (who the hell wants to read a book in which someone just dies at the end? unless it's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, in which case you're hoping for it) but is still just, bleh... It's a shame that all the goodness gets squandered so easily, especially when both Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson are real and good people, with appropriate insecurities and problems.

Labels: movies

Masters of Horror: "The Washingtonians": Well, yes, this is the problem with being both an optimist and a completist--you are subjected to a lot of crap, and you can't even blame it on anyone else. Jared is worried that all the rest of this series is terrible, that we've seen all the good ones. I have faith there's got to be at least one more worth watching. But it was not this one, although there are a few striking images and one painting (of George Washington surrounded by naked breasted ladies and chowing down on a dude's entrails; I wonder who from the production staff ended up with it) worth seeing. Peter Medak apparently bonked his head and forgot that you have to tell actors what to do, especially bad actors, or they will take over scenes with their rotten sense for pauses and volume. Spoiler: They don't die, which is a real shame. By the time they might, one genuinely wishes for them to, preferably painfully. There is little to this one, and the little that is there is quite stupid. Damn it.

Labels: TV