Whatever you can say about Joe Biden

Dude knows how to pose for a photo with Kanye.

Also, while I didn't watch the speech, I did read it, and while I was fairly annoyed, as usual, by the endless parade of specific examples, this bit rang beautifully true: "It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect." I'm not sure that's inherent in the Constitution, but it should be.

Publication

Review of Solange's album here. It's very good, as you've already learned from me.

Listy (Food)

Finally, there's a food blog list meme thing going around, and I've meant to get to it for a few days. So here we go. It's called The Omnivore's Hundred, and here are the instructions.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.


1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile [does alligator count?]
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp [I think so?]
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart [yum]
16. Epoisses [double freakin' yum]
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese [I believe I've tried a tiny piece, but I won't count that]
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava [meh, baklava is boring]
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar [not together!]
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O [not as in shots?]
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail [we used to eat oxtail soup all the time when I was a little kid, but I haven't had it in forever]
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects [only lobster...]
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more [not yet; I believe laphroaig ain't quite that much]
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin [but I don't like it that much]
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine [definitely on my list to try]
60. Carob chips [carob sucks!]
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin [I have, indeed, thanks to John Kessler; thought it might be better, but it's dirt]
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie [I don't think I've ever had Hostess brand]
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare [what's the distinction here between hare and rabbit?]
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam [Hmm, not sure on this one]
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

There's nothing on the list I wouldn't eat, although I'd be rather careful with my fugu chef. There are, however, things I wouldn't go out of my way for, like whole insects. I mean, yes, if Ferran Adria put them on the menu, I'd eat them, but I'm not popping the next cricket I see into my mouth. My high school history teacher firmly maintained, in one of his favorite debates, that we don't eat bugs (at least not the exoskeleton kind) because it takes more calories to process them than they contain. Many of the things I haven't eaten, I see merely as coincidence or as the whims of the listmaker. There are things that probably should be on the list that aren't, like soup dumplings or seaweed. What else should be there? I tag no one specifically, but please feel free.

Lil' hobby

Just because it's bipartisan doesn't make it a good plan. Compromise is a wonderful idea in theory, but in practice it often saddles us with No Child Left Behind, another bipartisan plan highly touted as such. The idea that reaching across the aisle makes for a better plan just doesn't really work out all that well when the middle's been defined by one side moving farther and farther away. If I want to kill nobody and you want to kill everybody, killing half the population is not really a great compromise. Sure, it's better than no compromise at all, but it's not nearly as good as simply going with the side that's in the right.

Also, more debate on public art. I can't really see a reason to object to more bus shelters built the same way they were last time. Lack of concern for beautification also leads to that brick and tan syndrome we've got spreading like influenza.

And David Lynn argues effectively in favor of franchised trash collection.

Looking for a home

We've had these theater chairs for a long time. They were pulled out of the Tate Theater last time it was renovated, and we managed to snag them, but I think it's time to let go. If anyone's interested, please speak up. I don't think we want money for them so much as someone to come pick them up.

Police Blotter (toothless redneck edition)

Assault: On Aug. 17, deputy Lisa Price was dispatched to a home off Epps Bridge Parkway where the man said a person he knows hit him in the face and he doesn't know why. The man had a red eye and four of his teeth were missing. The victim said the suspect is leaving for Alabama.

Don't make it so easy to make Alabama jokes.

Burglary: On Aug. 11, deputy Matthew Pilkington was dispatched to a home under construction on Colbert Diamond Hill Road, Colbert, where a man and woman were seen leaving the house, then fleeing the scene on bicycles. Pilkington spotted the woman in Colbert and stopped her. She was carrying a bag containing $655 in merchandise, mostly cabinet door handles, door knobs and sink parts. Sgt. Jeffery Roberts saw the man on Peachtree Street and took him into custody. Sara Watters, 24, and James Q. Faucett, 24, both of Kingston Hollow, Colbert, were charged with burglary.

Green burglary, though.

Complaint: On Aug. 15, deputy Jeff Strickland spoke with a 31-year-old Hull man who said his ex-wife, who lives in Athens, sent him a text message saying "I see how Madison County people get married, the old fashioned way, redneck way." The man said she is not supposed to contact him.

But... more details?

Oconee. Madison.

Comics

Seeing Things, by Jim Woodring: It's pretty impressive that my attention can be held by this book, the first Woodring I dove into, because it has no narrative. Sure, there are hints of something like the make-up of a world in individual drawings, but there's no dialogue and there are no explicit connections between more than two panels at a time. Still, Woodring's obsessions (symmetry, pattern, bulginess) are fascinating to look at, and look one does. It's a short book, but each picture takes some time to look at. I'd recommend it even to the unartistic and impatient, especially if the power's out, like it was when I read it. [4 of 5 stars]

The Frank Book, by Jim Woodring: Much as I liked Seeing Things, reading something with a narrative, like The Frank Book, puts Woodring's abilities in a whole new light. It's part Carl Barks and part Fritz the Cat, only without that icky feeling the latter gives me. Frank is a creature of pure id, moving in a world that is held together by visual themes. Clues are all around, but how much they mean is hard to tell. Danger? A sign of something that needs to be done? It's easy to understand why Frank himself frequently becomes frustrated enough to resort to violence against other creatures. He wants things, and he doesn't know how to get them. It's also, despite a feeling of unease that permeates the whole thing, a sense that disaster could strike at any moment and destroy the whole world, kind of awfully cute. The characters are cartoony without crossing over into completely eyelashed critters, and Frank's little polygon dog thing that looks out for him seems quite pettable. Jim Woodring seems like he's done a lot of drugs, also, but his work is still appreciable by the extremely sober. [5 of 5 stars]

8 1/2 Ghosts, by Rich Tommaso: Four stars seems a little high for such a brief work, but Rich Tommaso kept surprising me, and I'm a fan of the source material (8 1/2 and Thirteen Ghosts), even if it's treated rather loosely. Yes, he draws a fair amount like Dan Clowes, and he's comparably misanthropic, but there's still no way you mistake this voice for Clowes. It's louder, for one thing, and goofier than most stuff the elder statesman has done. It draws on a different set of references (pulp ones). And its violence and sex carry no menace with them, just gooniness. This seems like a self-amused project, but it makes me curious to read more Tommaso. [4 or really 3.5 out of 5 stars]

Notes for a War Story, by Gipi: Maybe I should just find the list of what's won best book at Angouleme each year and go by that for a while because they certainly seem to have taste. I wasn't really looking forward to reading this, with its William Steig-esque art and its serious subject matter (war in an unidentified Balkan country), but it really grabbed me. For one thing, Gipi's art has a real depth to it. The drawing bit might be scritchy-scratchy, but the oils (yes, oils) that overlay it suggest night and rain and Europe and darkness in a beautiful way. The repeated dreams may have a fairly obvious symbolism to them, but the character development, even in a relatively short book, is impressive. The three main characters are easily distinguished from one another, not only visually, but in terms of background and motivation, and the narrative provides new insight into what, exactly, feeds wars these days (self-interest rather than misguided patriotism; the patriotism is, for the most part, a front). Really interesting stuff. [4 of 5 stars]

Town Boy, by Lat: Yet again, I learn not to be prejudiced against international comics, even when they appear to be coming of age stories. Town Boy is more Sergio Aragones than Robert Peck, and while its narrative does cover the years between ten and the late teens, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of structured growth in any of the characters. Its story exists at all mostly to provide Lat with a chance to fill some pages, and, really, Aragones is the comparable artist who comes to mind, each page overflowing with weird, fat-bellied, spindy-legged, completely goofy-looking characters who fight and gawk and shop for brassieres and whatever else you can think of as a background to our main character Mat's wanderings. It's not a particularly deep book, but it's tremendously enjoyable and a quick read. [4 of 5 stars]

Also, at the other place, Seth's It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane season 2 #1, a bunch of kids' stuff from Top Shelf, Ed Brubaker's Criminal vol. 3: The Dead and the Dying, and King-Size Spider-Man Summer Special #1.

Publication

Grub Notes visits Golden Dragon International Buffet on Epps Bridge and Lucky Dawg Billiards and is, unsurprisingly, unimpressed with both.

Lil' hobby

An interesting report on the commission's current plans for trash pick-up can be found here. The article certainly is attracting a lot of comments, especially from those who don't want their trash picked up by anyone else or to pay for it, a fairly immature attitude. Government does plenty of things that I don't take advantage of, and yet I am willing to pay for them. It seems that trash service should be considered rather like a tax in aid of increasing recycling rates throughout the county and regularizing the pick-up outside the old city limits. That is, it'll bring both Clarke County and Athens closer together, and while it's not sewer service for everyone outside the old limits, it's a step toward it. It should also end up saving the county money, in that, while there will be some administration of the program, I can't see that it necessarily requires more than currently exists, and it removes the cost of paying sanitation workers' salaries. I have really enjoyed being able to choose my trash pick-up, and I recommend Curbside Services strongly as being inexpensive and reliable, much more so than the city was when I lived in a city pick-up area. Still, there is something to be said for the new plan.

Viewing Diary

Charmed, season 2: In a way, season 2 is less fun than season 1, perhaps because the show seems to get vaguely more competent. That is, we still have the same post-credits opener every week, in which a song of the era plays (sometimes lyrically thematically related to the content of the episode) over various scenes of San Francisco, which means that, even if you're getting up for a pee break, you have a bit longer than just the cover of "How Soon Is Now." Shannen Doherty still does a lot of skeptical squinting, sometimes to the point of almost nondiagesis, as though she can't believe she's been asked to say these lines of dialogue. They still treat their men like dirt. Alyssa Milano got glasses, though, and the fashion is amped up in ridiculousness, including a halter top made out of a pair of jeans (it ends up looking like you've managed to pull a pair of jeans up to your armpits) and a lot of I Dream of Jeannie-inspired outfits. There's a lot of discussion about the past two years because Charmed happens in approximately real time and otherwise how would we know the season was almost over, with no arc to follow. There is also a lot of Leo, a guest appearance by French Stewart, and a telekinetic monkey. We will continue to watch.

Oh god, constantly dawdling

That's how the 2008 Footbizzle draft felt, but in the end, it concluded, leaving us with the following fellas, drafted in the following order:

Ryan Grant (RB) (keeper)
Laurence Maroney (RB) (rookie keeper)
T.J. Houshmanzadeh (WR)
Anquan Boldin (WR)
Dwayne Bowe (WR)
Jay Cutler (QB)
Lendale White (RB)
Owen Daniels (TE)
Isaac Bruce (WR)
Phillip Rivers (QB)
Bobby Engram (WR)
Justin Gage (WR)
Brandon Jackson (RB)
Randy McMichael (TE)
Buffalo's defense
Josh Brown (K)

We're fairly happy with it. A plan was made and a plan was followed.

Also, there is a photoset from later in the evening, during which Jared and I were forced to renew our vows onstage, due to it also being our 12th anniversary. Only this time around, they involved a lot more handjobs being promised. There are no photos of that bit taken by us.

Listy

Well, Diablo Cody picked her top ten Criterion Collection films and then Molly Lambert picked her top more than that. The power of the list calls.

I managed to narrow it to 20. No doubt I could cut more, but at least three of my absolute tops of all time films are on the list, and I don't know if they'll be venturing into Tarantino any time soon. So it works out pretty well. Doubling up on some directors could not be helped. It's rather Anglo, on the whole, with everything else being French except for one weird Bergman choice, but so be it. I am, myself, rather Anglo-Franco.

The 39 Steps: Kind of a mess, but one of Hitchcock's most unburdened films. Sure, there's peril, but it takes a long time in coming, and there's tons of goofing off.

Black Narcissus: Indelibly weird and beautiful. I might have picked Colonel Blimp had I seen it more recently, but I hadn't.

Charade: A perfect movie and rather the opposite of The 39 Steps in that, despite its lightness, it contains a good deal of surprisingly scary stuff. Where that film dances around despite having no balance, this one is frightened of not being grounded.

Grey Gardens: There but for the grace of god.

House of Games: My favorite Mamet, and that's not a term of comparative praise, like la fea mas bella. Twisty, dark, smart, and amazingly well-acted.

Kicking and Screaming: Before Baumbach expanded his bag of tricks. Sure, the actual relationship stuff is boring, but you watch the movie for the verbal jokes (and a few that are less so), for the horrifying feeling it shows of impending adulthood, and for Carlos Jacott and Chris Eigeman, of course.

The Lady Eve: Ignore the plot. Preston Sturges is never really about that, but about throwing together a bunch of characters to fight and love and look at each other. This is the prettiest Henry Fonda ever was.

Monty Python's Life of Brian: For the songs and also for the sense they have that minutiae is hilarious. Kind of Tory, but so be it.

The Magic Flute: Yes, it's opera, but for kids. My first Bergman, it might have lip-synching, but it's also the best-filmed opera I've ever seen, and I love the music.

Metropolitan: Hmm. I guess that's two Chris Eigeman movies. Whit Stillman is one of the best meditators on economics out there, but he also writes good jokes.

My Man Godfrey: There's a whole subcategory of this list called "charmingly chaotic," into which this film and a few others fall. Also, the DVD has outtakes, proving Carole Lombard had a filthy mouth!

Naked: I do not ever get tired of this movie. Mike Leigh has made some great ones, but this, to me, is the most riveting as well as the most touching, even though it has a tremendous asshole at its center.

Notorious: I've gotten into a terrible habit of singing Duran Duran's song of the same title whenever I mention this movie, and it fills me with a giddy glee because of its utter inappropriateness. The film is so classy and smooth and beautiful, and it shouldn't in any way be associated with the song, but that makes it more delightfully wrong. Ingrid Bergman was perhaps the most beautiful woman in the world, and this movie proves it.

The Rules of the Game: A tough choice between this and Grand Illusion, both of which live up to the hype, but I sometimes prefer this Renoir because of his own performance in it, which is terrific and sad.

Rushmore: It still works. Why pick this over Royal Tennenbaums, which is more ambitious and better? Perhaps because it's shorter, but perhaps because it pains me less (though still some).

Shoot the Piano Player: The best Truffaut. So many of these choices boil down to great faces doing great things onscreen, and this one, while it's impressive in its cinematic collage, is really more about Aznavour than about genre-mixing.

Spartacus: Too long, but it's some spectacle, and far superior to Ben Hur.

The Third Man: This and Black Narcissus are the only two films on this list I've seen only once, which means they must have made quite an impression. Well, they did.

This Is Spinal Tap: Because there's so much there.

Le Trou: The best film on this list that most film nerds haven't even seen. It's a prison escape drama, and it's the best one ever, with amazing tension in both the more actiony sequences and in the quieter moments (one scene is both!).

Viddy

Really, this is more of a "you should hear this song" thing. It just happens to have a video.



And the video's fine. It's shiny and bouncy and man does Solange wear a lot of different kinds of shoes in it, but the song is superior to its visual interpretation. I believe that this is sort of what Donna Summer was going for earlier this year with her comeback but didn't quite make it to. The whole Solange album's pretty darn good, with some nice production that draws on the here and now and on yesteryear, but this is my favorite song off it so far.

Lil' hobby

Whoda thunk being a traveling beef jerky salesman doesn't pay all that well? Or that team building exercises can actually work? Well, we'll see on that latter conclusion.

Also, fine, you can have your streetlights. At the expense of affordable housing or bus routes or government-run (as opposed to private) probation. I suppose I have to admit that this is responsiveness to the desires of the community, which is exactly what the commission's supposed to be doing, but it also seems to be the opposite of the response to NBAF concerns, in which the commissioners have generally been all "you have nothing to worry about." Anyway, I suppose we can at least stop talking about it.

Lil' hobby

Spending money to alleviate your fears when they aren't well-founded is nutso.

Scientific studies mostly show that there's no link between streetlights and crime.

"(W)hile there is no statistically significant evidence that street lighting impacts the level of crime ... there is a strong indication that increased lighting ... decreases fear of crime," says a 1977 U.S. Department of Justice report that is still considered the most complete on the topic.

People whose homes or neighbors' homes have been broken into, though, have a hard time believing the experts.

"They know that's a lie," Spring Valley neighborhood association president J.T. Jones said. "Criminals like to operate in the dark."

And when you say "a lie," Mr. Jones, do you mean "a factually and scientifically considered conclusion"? I think it's marvelous that Lynn mapped crime data with streetlights, and unless anyone has evidence other than conspiracy assumptions or anecdotes or guesses or fear mongering, they really should chill the heck out.

Why I am still watching Charmed

They turned Shannen Doherty into a man. Only for an episode. Part of an episode. But she was a man. And she said "penis."

Movie Diary

Anything Else: I guess this is seen largely as one of Allen's failures, and it's certainly not upper-echelon, but if it's a failure, it's at least an interesting one. The only other two movies of his I can think of that are so overtly misanthropic are Stardust Memories and Deconstructing Harry, but at least those are viewed from the perspective of the artist, who usually has good reason to hate humanity. Anything Else, on the other hand, just sets up the most miserable romantic relationship imaginable and keeps piling on. It's punishment for the Jason Biggs character's (Jerry's) sins, for leaving his girlfriend for the Christina Ricci character (Amanda), and it's punishment for his not being able to accept having sins. He says yes to everyone who treats him poorly, a fact that's not only emphasized but discussed in the movie. Therefore, the universe treats him poorly. The film walks a very fine line as far as whether it's funny or not. It's certainly painful, as it's clear he should get out of this relationship from the very beginning, but the heaping up of indignities and neuroses does lead to some amusement, of a dark sort, as in one of the earliest scenes, when they're supposed to be celebrating their anniversary at a nice restaurant, and she arrives late, as he waits in the rain, and having succumbed to stress eating, not wanting to order anything. She lists on and on all the things that she's eaten. They argue. Finally, he says, "let's just go home and I'll have some eggs." "There aren't any eggs," she says. "I ate them." Allen's character, of course, gets all the best lines. I'm still not sure what I thought of this, exactly, other than that it fits neatly into Allen's whole "is there true love? and can it coexist with neurosis? and is there such a thing as grand passion?" set of themes, answering that set of questions with a resounding "no."

Police Blotter (at least they're not on her knuckles edition)

This actually ran last week, but it's one of the more fascinating police blotter stories this year, so here we go:

Arrest: On Aug. 4, deputy Timothy Nix followed up on a complaint about an object coming off a truck and breaking a windshield. He drove out Hudson River Church Road, where he had seen similar trucks and as he pulled into a residence where such a truck was parked, he saw Charlie Van Wilkes Jr., 31, in the yard. Wilkes walked toward the deputy, who said there was a large lump in Wilkes' jeans, a wire hanging out of his pants pockets and a syringe sticking out of his pants pocket. Nix removed the syringe and Wilkes said he had a homemade vibrator that he made out of a battery and small motor in his pants. The syringe tested positive for methamphetamine, so Wilkes was placed in handcuffs. More methamphetamine was found on a work bench in the shed and inside the suspect's home and truck. He was arrested for possession.

Dedication:

Complaint: On Aug. 6, deputy Jason Ring was dispatched to a home in Hull, where a woman said an unwelcome neighbor came onto her property and complained about her dogs. The neighbor once reported her to the local animal control officer, but they determined the dogs were fine. The neighbor has tattoos reading "spayed" and "neutered" on her arms.

Madison.

Lil' hobby

City Pages' look at ACC's discussion of trash pick-up is pretty interesting stuff. But it doesn't mention green bins, which is something I've been in various commissioners' ears about. What if you increase the percentage recycled from a household rather than increasing the percentage of households recycling? And, really, shouldn't we be hearing from the people who aren't slinging their empty Miller High Lifes straight into the recycling bin? Sure, some of them are no doubt conspiracy-minded wackos--we have plenty of those in Athens--who think all recycling is a scam, but how to increase participation by those who don't fall into that category?

Sonny appears to be scrapping those property tax grants, but the reasoning is bizarre. They were supposed to provide an incentive to drive local taxes down. And how, exactly, considering they made it easier, due to the lack of strain on people's wallets, for local governments to raise property taxes? The article also acknowledges the reason property taxes haven't stopped going up: services need to come from somewhere, and if the state won't provide the required ones, then local government tries to find a way to. Which makes this editorial, opposed to local assistance grants, a little weird. I'm not saying that historic preservation is the number-one priority in a difficult economic situation, but it's a little harsh to dismiss programs that fund it as "a publicly funded vote-buying scheme for incumbent legislators." Shouting about using moneys only for public safety and education is all well and good, and those things probably should take priority, but putting the issue just as "updated firefighting equipment or computers for the local middle school" is odd. My guess is that the middle school needs textbooks and its lunch program funded, and that public safety and education are about more than equipment.

Competition! Yay, bring it.

Read

Well, if you never ever want to go into a hospital again and spend your life cowering in a Howard Hughes-esque state of OCD fear, read Jerome Groopman's piece on how many horrible antibiotic-resistant bacteria are out there, due to our/doctors' abuse of antibiotics as a cure-all. Ah, and because of this:

In the past, large pharmaceutical companies were the primary sources of antibiotic research. But many of these companies have abandoned the field. “Eli Lilly and Company developed the first cephalosporins,” Moellering told me, referring to familiar drugs like Keflex. “They developed a huge number of important anti-microbial agents. They had incredible chemistry and incredible research facilities, and, unfortunately, they have completely pulled out of it now. After Squibb merged with Bristol-Myers, they closed their antibacterial program,” he said, as did Abbott, which developed key agents in the past treatment of gram-negative bacteria. A recent assessment of progress in the field, from U.C.L.A., concluded, “FDA approval of new antibacterial agents decreased by 56 per cent over the past 20 years (1998-2002 vs. 1983-1987),” noting that, in the researchers’ projection of future development only six of the five hundred and six drugs currently being developed were new antibacterial agents. Drug companies are looking for blockbuster therapies that must be taken daily for decades, drugs like Lipitor, for high cholesterol, or Zyprexa, for psychiatric disorders, used by millions of people and generating many billions of dollars each year. Antibiotics are used to treat infections, and are therefore prescribed only for days or weeks. (The exception is the use of antibiotics in livestock, which is both a profit-driver and a potential cause of antibiotic resistance.)

What else about that Batman movie

--I think I really would have preferred an R rating. I understand all the reasons why not, and I'm not saying you have to show a pencil going into an eye or throw in a bunch of senseless violence just for thrills, but I think about this movie's slitting of someone's mouth and I think about when it was done in Pan's Labyrinth, and, you know, I kind of preferred seeing it. This because I am a sicko desensitized voyeur, but, heck, whatcha gonna do. Punching is not quite enough, sometimes, to convey real menace. At least to adults.

--They should have blown up at least one ferry. You can still illustrate your prisoner's dilemma point, Chris Nolan! But, even if not doing so is a rebuke to the viewer, it seems like a wasted opportunity, as well as an indication that the Joker does follow the rules he sets.

--Much as I am amused by this new AV Club feature, IMDBates, and by the term "Jokerotica" (ew), I think it's a mistake to dismiss the "sexy Joker" idea out of hand. It's a sexualized performance to some extent, although I can't quite figure out why. It's magnetic, certainly, but it may just be that there's something Marlon Brando-ish or James Dean-ish about what Ledger chose to do with his eyes and mouth in the role at many moments, leaning the top of his head forward to emphasize his eyes and kind of pouting his mouth. Again, it's a performance based in body language, and there seems to be something going on there, including his physical delicacy.

Meanings change

The thing about this little bear couple in their RV is that their sculpture evokes another meaning from the intended one through its title: "Home Is Where You Hook Up." What's going on in that RV!?

Due Diligence

That period's past. The house is pretty much sold. We'll be moving in about a month. Hooray!

Movie Diary

The Dark Knight: Yep, see, I wasn't resisting out of pure stubbornness. I just wanted to wait and let some of the waves of adulation calm themselves a little, and now that the movie's down to one theater and only three showtimes, the time seemed right to see just want Chris Nolan etc had created. Well, fine. It's very good. It shouldn't be winning or nominated for Best Picture, and it doesn't quite transcend its genre (too much punching?). It didn't make my adrenalin shoot up as much as other movies have. It didn't change my life. I'm not really sure it's better than Memento on the whole, although Nolan certainly isn't interested for the most part in showing us a sense of humor, that's for sure. The action scenes are annoying, shot mostly in tight closeups that make them just a hail of thudding punches and confusion. I'm sure this is intentional, perhaps a statement about how unclear things can be in the heat of the moment, a la The Descent, but I still always prefer to see what's going on. Christian Bale's still doing that silly, grunty voice, too, which is an imperfect solution to a problem that obviously needs to be solved and leads to a gruff-off of sorts between Batman and Harvey Dent, in which they're both all jaw and diaphragm. And Wayne's/Batman's seeming violation of his own rules as long as he's driving (that is, he'll smash into god knows how many cars and create plenty of dangerous situations on the road, but he won't take a life when face to face) continues to bother me as well. The echoes of September 11 and general terrorism-associated issues are weird and, while I don't think/mind that they're exploitive, I don't think they're emphasized enough or well enough or something.

All that said, I am forced to admit that not only is the movie good, but Heath Ledger is amazing. Damn it. Every time he's offscreen, you want him to come back. His close-ups, with that mouth like a piece of split fruit, are riveting. His body language and, indeed, his whole demeanor bring Henri Bergson's theories to mind. He proceeds regardless of situation or reaction, as though running along a track, and this disregard for the normal elasticity of relationships and behavior gives him the appearance of an automaton. Why is it funny when he croaks, "Just let me finish" (or "Give me a minute" or whatever the exact quote is) while being arrested? It's funny because it disregards adapting to the situation and, therefore, social rules. And it's frightening for the same reason. That is, see this big honking chunk of text:

But society asks for something more; it is not satisfied with simply living, it insists on living well. What it now has to dread is that each one of us, content with paying attention to what affects the essentials of life, will, so far as the rest is concerned, give way to the easy automatism of acquired habits. Another thing it must fear is that the members of whom it is made up, instead of aiming after an increasingly delicate adjustment of wills which will fit more and more perfectly into one another, will confine themselves to respecting simply the fundamental conditions of this adjustment: a cut-and-dried agreement among the persons will not satisfy it, it insists on a constant striving after reciprocal adaptation. Society will therefore be suspicious of all INELASTICITY of character, of mind and even of body, because it is the possible sign of a slumbering activity as well as of an activity with separatist tendencies, that inclines to swerve from the common centre round which society gravitates: in short, because it is the sign of an eccentricity. And yet, society cannot intervene at this stage by material repression, since it is not affected in a material fashion. It is confronted with something that makes it uneasy, but only as a symptom--scarcely a threat, at the very most a gesture. A gesture, therefore, will be its reply. Laughter must be something of this kind, a sort of SOCIAL GESTURE. By the fear which it inspires, it restrains eccentricity, keeps constantly awake and in mutual contact certain activities of a secondary order which might retire into their shell and go to sleep, and, in short, softens down whatever the surface of the social body may retain of mechanical inelasticity. Laughter, then, does not belong to the province of esthetics alone, since unconsciously (and even immorally in many particular instances) it pursues a utilitarian aim of general improvement. And yet there is something esthetic about it, since the comic comes into being just when society and the individual, freed from the worry of self-preservation, begin to regard themselves as works of art.

I think it explains quite nicely the tension that's created by Ledger's performance, which doesn't inspire abject fear so much as anxiety, unease, worry (and yet a longing for more of the same, which says what, exactly, about us, or me). I think that I might also have something to say about tranvestism at some point, but those thoughts haven't quite worked themselves out yet.

Read

Oh, Anthony Lane, it hurts me so to see you get it wrong. Not in the content of the entire review of In Search of a Midnight Kiss, which I haven't seen and am not all that interested in, but in a detail, in which he says, of L.A., "Viewers in other countries, who know the city only from films, could be forgiven for not realizing that it has a subway; they know that it has at least one bus route, thanks to 'Speed,' but beyond that their best guess would be that Angelenos are born in their cars and die there." But, um, if they do know it has a subway, they would also know that from Speed. It's the less interesting part of the movie, i.e., the climax, but it's a movie I associate with Anthony Lane strongly, considering that it's the first review of his I really remember reading, and it's not as though he disliked it. He pointed out flaws and he poked fun, but he recognized its craft too. Anyway, fact checking!

Popfest

We did less Popfest this year. Partially because we were having a crucial part of our electrical system replaced, which all went very well and was completed in time for us to head out and catch a few bands at Little Kings, including One Happy Island (pictured below). We know that dude from high school and, in Jared's case, before, but he lives in Boston. Anyway, they were quite enjoyable although they seemed a little thrown at first by having to soundcheck etc on the fly.

Following this, we went and gorged ourselves at Golden Dragon Buffet on Epps Bridge Parkway, which, let me warn you, is not in the superior class of Chinese gorge-fests. If you're vegetarian or, god forbid, don't eat fried food, there is not going to be a whole lot for you, except an outdated mural of New York City etched in glass. I'm sure it was done fairly recently, too, which makes it all the stranger why two particular buildings appear.

Then we went home for a satisfying nap and came back out for Ruby Isle, who were my #1 reason for Popfest this year and perhaps would be for any year. This is the only photo we took, but not due to their lack of photographability. We just figured other people would take better ones: of the breakdancing, of the lion tamer routine, of the jumping on each other, of the general insane level of posing. They didn't disappoint at all. Okay, in one tiny bit, in that they don't do the bridge to "Show Me How It Hurts" live. Sigh. It's very high. But they did: talk about Bigfoot, jump around to unbelievable extent, sort of impress one relatively unimpressable dude, and rock my face off. If you're in a city they're touring to, I would like to encourage you, strongly, to go.

Then the Buddy System, by which point we had wandered to the back. But you can see Pierre in this photo, having a conversation.

And finally the Lolligags, who had new stage thingies and lots of candy to throw out, and whoa boy, despite all the naps, we were tired. So we watched and then we went the heck home and did nothing cool for the rest of the night. I'm sure Saturday and Thursday and all the other days were wonderful. Thanks, guys.

Honesty

It's still weird to hear the voiceover in an ad say, "If you gave up on Heroes last season...." It's kind of cute that the ad as a whole reads as "Sorry, dudes. We know it started sucking. We dropped the ball."

Stop trying to make me gay, 11 Alive!

Whoever's responsible for this marketing campaign should receive at least a severe talking to.

Want

This.

Part one: creating.

Part two: celebrating.

I was just poking around on his website trying to find out where one would mail the dude a copy of something. I think he might like this book about rings I've been working on.

Why I'm continuing to watch Charmed

Okay, so the first episode of season 2 was a little jumpy and weird, but not in the way I'm used to from the show. The second episode, however, reminded me why I enjoy it so much.

1. It's called "Morality Bites." The only way this could have been better is if there were vampires in it, which, sadly, there are not, or perhaps some kind of clever computer play on "bytes."

2. The Halliwells go to the future (i.e., 2009). The futuristicness isn't emphasized too much, apart from the occasional Taurus with a couple of new panels on it cruising by to a sound effect no doubt labeled as "future car."

3. It does, though, include this shirt. In the future--next year, y'all--we will wear crossing-guard-inspired shirts.

4. The shirt is really probably the best part of the episode, but what a part it is.

Lil' hobby

It does sort of make sense that the areas targeted for streetlight removal are, um, those with more streetlights. But applying simple objective criteria is probably going to piss some people off.

The Boulevard, Cobbham, East Athens, Spring Valley, Newtown, Pulaski Heights and Glenhaven neighborhoods appear to be losing an inordinate amount of streetlights, said Lynn and Commissioner George Maxwell, who represents central Athens.

When the commission approved the criteria for choosing which streetlights to remove Aug. 5, Maxwell raised the question of whether the policy would be applied fairly across racial and economic lines.

"I really can't say whether it's fair or not," he said Wednesday. "There are some places I think the lights shouldn't be taken down."

Maxwell's right to bring this stuff up sometimes, and he may be right in his general thrust here (i.e., don't take streetlights away in some of these neighborhoods), but suggesting that it may not be fairly applied is, you know, not really fair either. Note that Lynn, according to Flagpole, has suggested mapping crime statistics on top of the streetlight map, which is a good idea.

Also, Obama people, calling me out of the blue when I don't know you and asking me to come to a house meeting via a kind of creepy message on my answering machine = not necessarily a good tactic. It feels a little like being stalked. You at least need to work on phone voices.

Our Mayor

I may get on Heidi's case sometimes, but there is plenty to admire about her, including her display of patience last night at the commission meeting as person after person got up to talk about streetlights, fueled by fear and misinformation and idiocy. Sometimes, you know, staff meetings in the office can be similar. Everyone wants his or her voice to be heard, even if that voice isn't necessary and, ultimately, ends up wasting the time of a lot of other people. Yes, it would have been dramatically more efficient and less irritating just to have a sign-up sheet that said, "Please don't take the streetlights out of my neighborhood." That would have covered pretty much everything. But the philosophy behind open comment is rather the same as the philosophy behind democracy, which is that it doesn't matter if you're stupid, you still get equal time because it's not fair for me to judge that you're stupid and shouldn't have that time. It's about authority and equality and who possesses both. Anyway, she did a nice job acknowledging comments that were ill-informed or further disseminated misinformation without, I believe, making those who commented feel too idiotic, even if the idea that the ACC government would come and rip all the streetlights out of any neighborhood, let alone a high-crime one, is exactly that.

Police Blotter (wet undershorts edition)

Arrest: On July 31, deputy David Gilstrap clocked a black car going 84 mph in a 55 mph zone on Georgia Highway 316, near Jimmie Daniel Road. The car went through the intersection and then picked up speed when Gilstrap pulled out to pursue the car. The car took a fast right onto the Oconee Connector, then another onto Mars Hill Road. Gilstrap followed the car, but lost sight of it. He then noticed a Jeep coming toward him flashing its lights. He stopped, and the driver of the Jeep told him the car had just taken the first left. Gilstrap eventually spotted the car and had to make two U-turns to catch up to it. When the car finally pulled over, Gilstrap told the driver to get out of the car and that he was under arrest. The driver said he wasn't trying to get away, that he was just looking for a friend's house in Athens. Gilstrap told the driver they weren't in Athens, that this wasn't his first day on the job and that the driver wasn't the first to try to elude him to avoid a speeding ticket. The driver, Rishi Navendra Patel, 21, of Savannah was charged with fleeing and attempting to elude a law enforcement officer.

I'm guessing "you're not in Athens" implies a "boy" to follow and is, um, scary to hear.

Arrest: On July 28, deputy Alan Stratton was off duty about 4:30 p.m. when he exited CVS in Hull and Geraldine Parham, 60, of Hull, asked him to buy her two cheeseburgers. Stratton told her no and that she shouldn't bother people by begging for money. About 6:45 p.m., Stratton was on duty and was dispatched to the store on a complaint that a woman was bothering customers. The deputy learned that on July 17 she had been warned to stay away from the store. She was gone when he arrived, but he received another complaint at CVS about 9:45 p.m. A Georgia State Patrol trooper in the area saw Parham leaving CVS and Stratton arrived and arrested her for trespassing.

But they're for her twin babies, just born. And I think she has a show booked at Tasty World.

Damage: On Aug. 2, deputy Jason Ring responded to a 911 call from a resident of Madison Street, Comer, where a man said someone had knocked out a window and a mirror on his pickup. Someone also damaged a water pipe causing his well to go dry. Ring and the man went to an outbuilding where they found a man, who was wearing a pair of wet undershorts, lying on a mattress. The man said he had been held captive by his sister and her friends for four days and that they had sexually molested him and shot him repeatedly with a Taser. He was taken to an Athens hospital for a mental evaluation.

Alexandre Aja, I have your next script.

Dispute: On July 31, deputy Joshua Fowler met with 28-year-old Hull woman who said she and her husband were in the living room watching TV, when he approached her to give a hug. The woman told him that she knew he only wanted to get the keys to the car. The man did take the keys and when he tried to leave in the car, they struggled and she fell against the car door and scratched her back. The woman said she plans to file for a divorce.

Oconee. Madison.

More Publications

It's the back-to-school/Popfest issue of Flagpole, so here's the link to the round-up of Grub Notes for the summer.

It also means that here's my review of the Ruby Isle record. The review is a little scattered, but mostly because, well, love does that. I also wrote the three sentences in the pick-em section on Popfest. Basically, I might beat you up if you don't go to this show.

This Is Why

I exchanged a high-five over the weekend with someone newly met over the idea that Grant Morrison, you know, maybe not all that. And this PW article, oh boy... It's not even that nonsense about the demons so much as it is the first photograph. It ties him in with the people on the magic shows WATL airs on the weekends--not just the secrets-based ones but also the magic awards and just, you know, lots of terrible, terrible shows about magic. People who believe in real magic and people who believe in the awesomeness of that type of magicians have a big overlap in the Venn diagram I just drew in my head, and they would very much think Grant Morrison's outfit is cool in that photo.

Also, um, it's actually quite a lot that nonsense about the demons.

I'll still happily read his stuff, and I've made my peace with Alan Moore worshiping whatever that thing is he worships and wearing silly rings and talking complete shit about, basically, things very similar to this, and maybe I'll make my peace with Grant Morrison talking about it too, but, yeah, we'll see...

Publication

They gave me that new Randy Travis CD to listen to, and I wrote about it. Sure, it's a little Jesus-y and corny, but it's also Randy Travis, and I love Randy Travis.

Headgear

Look, there are a lot of differing opinions on Olympic hats, from the horror that was the "berets" propagated by Roots to this year's improvement with Ralph Lauren's newsboy caps, which look good on American basketball players and terrible on the crop of tall, well-tanned girls with masses of blonde hair who make up a large portion of the team, but is anyone going, "Why must we have hats at all?" Because, you know, JFK broke that barrier. Do you think the menfolk ignored Clark Gable's example and went for undershirts? I assume, of course, it's that people will buy hats, as they're much easier to size. That is, hats are forgiving. But, you know, if it's about consumerism, why not official Olympic handbags? I know. I'm sure they exist, but the team's not carrying them yet. You could stitch a damn big pony on the side of a cute little man bag, Mr. Lauren.

Viewing Diary

State of Play: When Casey Westerman told Jared about this show, and then Jared conveyed it to me, there was just sort of happy gushing. Well, it's because the show encourages it. Not quite as disillusioned as The Wire on the workings of a newspaper, or perhaps that's just because it's English, and while they have corporations who run their papers there and cut funds and don't want to piss off the government, the folks on the ground are still good at getting around the barriers in their way. Or maybe it's just because it's a television show full of very smart people. Anyway, there's something about the way a larger but not grander picture is built through the ferreting out of details that is very similar to David Simon's method of storytelling. Characters aren't removed but added. Detail is rarely simplified. And the means by which they all go about learning things are a pleasure to watch. Basically, it's a show about the acquisition of knowledge, and what could be bad about that? Well, apart from that whole fall from god's grace hoo-ha, and besides, it's not as though the show has a simplistic view of what digging can get you. Bones, a lot of times. And sometimes it derails your story. Bill Nighy is a pleasure, as always, and Kelly Macdonald is wonderful, and all the characters are not only intelligent and driven but nice and round. Is it dissatisfying when your story is published? Yes, but only because no one knows the piles of paper behind it. It could be read as a series about authorial discontent, but it's so darn contenting itself in many ways. Gush gush gush. You should watch it.

Yes, fine, two videos in one day

This is continuing to run through my head, though. "This is our review-ooo of barbecue." It is overwhelmingly accurate, although it says Georgians are indecisive about a style, which is true.

Other weekend activities:

--Brief cat sitting



--Garage trim fixing (this took up most of the weekend)

--Frittata making (frozen spinach, homegrown cherry tomatoes, six eggs, 1 cup grated good Parmesan, 2 tablespoons of butter, and a bit more salt than I actually added = goodness)

--An entertaining experience at Southern Surplus on Atlanta Highway, which houses the Elvis bulldog and at least one fairly hilarious dude

--Rigging up a way to keep my brandywine tomato plant from falling over because it has too much fruit on it and also is huge (the fix involves some pink yarn tying one cage to another)

Comics

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home (Season 8, vol. 1) by Joss Whedon: I would prefer if I had liked it a little more. Three stars is a little misleading, but it's not really worth four. For one thing, the art is all over the place, and while it may seem silly to complain that this Buffy doesn't look like Sarah Michelle Gellar, I spent seven seasons watching one that did, so it's a little disorienting. All their faces are sort of made up of these flat, flesh-colored planes, which leads to considerably less expressiveness. It is, however, a massive step up from the previous, non-Whedon-written Buffy comics, in both art and script. There are some good lines Whedon gets in, and some interesting plot developments and thematic issues. Maybe it's just that this whole first volume feels like the equivalent of about two episodes. And while I hate to complain about getting only two episodes, seeing as it's two more than I would have had before, I'd still like more. I'll certainly read the next one. [3 of 5 stars]

The Left Bank Gang, by Jason: Four stars, but a slightly lesser four stars, despite the awesome characterization of these famous people and how easy it is, in some ways, to recognize them, even though they've been Jasonized, i.e., turned into animals. Pound is, of course, scruffy. Fitzgerald looks cute and pathetic. Joyce is neat. And so on. I'm not sure the heist plot quite comes together, although I like the multiple perspective method of showing it. I probably prefer, in the end, that he make up his own characters, although I do like very much the fact that these Left Bank expatriates all do comics instead of literature. Still totally worth the read and with beautiful coloring. [4 of 5 stars]

Ghost of Hoppers, by Jaime Hernandez: I feel a little strange giving Ghost of Hoppers five stars when I've given other Jaime collections only four, but there's something very intense about this one, something truly spooky and yet familiar and all adding up to the fact that you can't go home again and, actually, you probably shouldn't because home is a pretty messed up place and it most likely infected you already with its defects and weirdness and pain. This book is mostly Maggie and some Vivian, which explains why the latter shows up so much in The Education of Hopey Glass, which comes after this one as a compilation. I'm more relaxed now about reading the books out of order, but you still gain things by going about the project in a linear way. Anyway, I'd say this is the book that best explains (not the right word at all, but I'm not sure which one to pick instead; presents? introduces? Those aren't right either) Maggie's darkness. Heck, you can tell that from the cover. And yet it does so without delving into dourness and depression. Anyway, the point is that your new life is probably better than your old life, but you'll never pick the scabs of the old one off. [5 of 5 stars]

The Pro, by Garth Ennis: Well, it's not the worst Garth Ennis I've read... Oh boy. The more of this guy's stuff I read, the more I think maybe I need to take another look at Preacher, that maybe I was wrong and it's not that good, but I sure liked it a ton. My guess is that Preacher's strengths overwhelm its flaws, i.e., it has a compelling plot. I really wanted to like The Pro, and the punches it throws at the entire Justice League are occasionally amusing, but they become less so as it moves along. I love profanity. But it gets tiresome after a while if not used creatively. And I can only see our heroine on a toilet so many times. That is, it's a bratty little book and it's probably no more than that. If you are endlessly amused by cursing and blowjobs and the idea that the entire Justice League is a bunch of hoity-toity do-gooders (admittedly, Ennis's take on both Batman/Robin and Green Lantern really is pretty funny), and you think the proper response to villainy is extreme violence, including ripping people's arms off, then this is your book. I wonder how Ennis feels about the Pro's little speech about terrorism these days, but that's probably not fair, considering he was writing the book right after September 11. Still, endorsing mindless violence was maybe not the best move, in retrospect.

Also, over at the other place, Uncanny X-Men #500 and Tom Strong, vol. 1. Coming soon: It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken and a bunch of Top Shelf kiddie stuff.

Very professional videography

No laughing in the background or anything. That was the hardest part.

No space pandas = fail

That is, sure, the Olympics opening ceremony was beautiful and inspiring and culturally diverse, not to mention sweaty and full of dudes crammed in boxes, but where were the pandas?

Also, more news stories should have quotes from four-year-olds.

Lil' hobby

I'm guessing that state lawmakers didn't take into consideration that it's their absolute unwillingness to raise taxes that's helped get us into this fucking mess in the first place. Now, I think freezing this grant is a regressive method of taxation to some extent (although many of the truly poor don't own property and won't be affected by it), so I'm still wavering on whether or not it's an acceptable way out of the state's budget crisis, but if you repeal taxes all over the place and operate on a thin-ass margin as it is, yes, an economic downturn will fuck you. So, you know, perhaps our governing body should recognize that "tax" is not always a dirty word.

"What we've come to a consensus on is that none of us think that the right thing to do in a down economy is raise taxes," said House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin, R-Evans.

Right, but, um. It's also apparently never the right thing to do in an up economy. Or any economy. Or ever ever at all. I know that the current Republican plan is to drown government in the bathtub, as per Grover Norquist's instructions, but they do know they'll be out of a job if that happens, right?

Publications

A couple of CD reviews just got posted. One of Dr. Dog's Fate, which, you know, if you like the band (and you should because they're quite good), you'll like the record. It's very strong. The other is of Ron Sexsmith's Exit Strategy of the Soul and contains a double entendre. Really, that song "Brandy Alexander" is a charmer.

Garden

I've been watching this dude for a while now. My first ripe Brandywine, although I took the picture before it was riper than it is. Anyway, I can grow big tomatoes as well as little ones. Also, Jared's been making salsa with the cherry tomatoes as we don't know what else to do with them.

Here's the plant from a distance. If you know the size of your average large tomato cage you can tell that it's one tall puppy by this point. Not only taller than I am, but taller than people who manage to reach average height. After the brief downburst yesterday afternoon, it fell over, a truly tragic sight, all those long feelers spread out on the ground. I think the wind must have twisted the cage, and it's also pretty heavy with fruit. Anyway, we righted it and pushed the cage farther into the ground. Jared's dad is pretty emphatic that the cage is set up upside-down. Really? I've seen both ways online.

I also made another jar of pickles, but I didn't take pictures of this one. Not because it was any less pretty. I just figured it'd be repetitive. It included okra this time around. And I sliced the carrots in larger chunks because they're really the best part.

Read

Kelefa Sanneh certainly is providing a new perspective over at the New Yorker, not to mention pulling his weight. I've always sort of been a fan of Tavis Smiley, and Sanneh's profile of him confirms some of the reasons for that, as well as providing me with plenty of reasons I shouldn't be. I really liked his BET show, and I like his willingness to question conventional wisdom, but that can often lead you into stubborn idiocy. I know. I've been there. Any of us who looks at things skeptically has; it comes with the territory, which is shaped by an idea that your eyes are smarter than everyone else's (sometimes they're not). But his devotion to capitalistic ideals, to Tavis Smiley LLC, kind of creeps me out, as with this:

Smiley is also a broker in a different sense: a branding and partnership specialist. He offers companies a chance to position themselves as supporters of black political uplift without courting controversy. Nearly every project at the Smiley Group has had its own underwriters, from the college tour (Anheuser-Busch, Toyota) to the State of the Black Union symposium (Wells Fargo, ExxonMobil). “There are no perfect companies,” Smiley often says. In 2004, he invited H. Lee Scott, the president and C.E.O. of Wal-Mart, which sponsors “Tavis Smiley” (and sponsored the “Morning Show” commentaries), to appear on the PBS show. Smiley began by quoting e-mails from three viewers, one of whom told him he was being used as a “little black pawn.” Then he noted that Wal-Mart was “still No. 1” on Fortune’s list of the most admired companies in America. He asked Scott, “Who’s right? These three people who wrote these e-mails or Fortune?”

See, this is less questioning conventional wisdom, it strikes me, and more finding ways to justify who writes you checks. Smiley's right when he says there are no perfect companies, and if he wants to take Wal-Mart's money and turn around and use it for his own purposes, more power to him, but just saying Wal-Mart's admired, based on one magazine, and reducing the complaints against it to three emails is not really a fair way to make your case.

EDIT: Casey just pointed out that the article also totally makes it sound like a) Smiley is gay and b) Cornel West is his boyfriend. Apparently, the internet is not on this yet, except in this Yahoo Answers thread, which kind of boils down to "I DONT KNO WHO HE IS BUT YEA HE PROBALY IS." The internet has spoken. And Casey has started a great rumor.

Viewing Diary

Okay, fine, Wipeout's gotten better. Or maybe my expectations have lowered. At any rate, last week, in the "all-ball" qualifier, I'm pretty sure they set a record for saying "balls" on TV. They said it so much in the first half hour that they hardly said it at all later, presumably because even standards and practices got wise. I'm not proud that it amuses me, but balls to y'all.

1) Charmed, season 1: Insanely dumb and dated and yet, in some way, appealing. At first I thought it was just all the painting and yard work we were doing to get our house ready that made us like Charmed. We were so brain dead, it was all we could process. The flaws were so glaring--people walking from room to room for no reason, clunky exposition, actors with copious amounts of vaseline on their teeth, fashions that should have been burned--and the merits so relatively few that even an idiot could mock it. But then, maybe, it got better? Or perhaps we became invested in the characters. Anyway, there is a little bit of genuine drama in season 1 of Charmed and hope for the future of the show. The "Wendigo" episode, in particular, is both stupid and then unexpectedly smart (which is not to say really smart, just a little bit smart). Sure, Shannen Doherty just walks around making bitchface all the time because she's Shannen Doherty, but I've discovered myself to be an Alyssa Milano fan. Jared even made me watch the episode of Who's the Boss where she gets her first bra, and I could see how she was adorable then and now. I guess I always just thought of her as a sexpot, but she's better than that. And Holly Marie Combs is totally entertaining, too, as the neurotic of the three. Basically, it's probably still insanely dumb. The establishing shots--the same one, every time, of people walking past Buckland's--are terrible. Quake is complete ridiculousness. The rhymes that they have to say for spells are painfully awful. But, um, I want to keep watching more. Maybe it's some misplaced 1990s nostalgia, of the kind I thought I'd avoided, or maybe it's misguided faith that the show will really go somewhere, or maybe I breathed in too many paint fumes. But season 2 is in the queue.

2) Sugar Rush, series 2: Sadly, the last series, as the show was canceled. Series 2 is dramatically better than series 1. Things change. Kim grows up, a little. She stops obsessing over Sugar, a little. We get new characters and some moments of real hilarity. Everyone still behaves like an idiot, but that's largely what we expect of TV, and it remains shiny and colorful and fast, all things I like. Oh well.

Police Blotter (bad drama edition)

Arrest: On July 26, deputy Laura Teet was dispatched shortly after 2 p.m. to a report of a car in a ditch along Luke Circle, Bogart. When she arrived, she saw the car's nose down in the ditch, where it also had run over a mailbox. The bumper still was in the road. A man wearing black dress pants, a white dress shirt, black tie and no shoes, came out of the ditch and said he was on an unfamiliar road and had lost control of his car. The man appeared agitated as he spoke loudly. He had two black eyes, stitches on his nose, bloodshot eyes and he smelled of alcohol. Teet asked him how much he had drank and replied, "Just enough to be legal in the state of Georgia." She asked if he would take some roadside sobriety tests and he began shouting profanities. The man accused Teet of violating his civil rights and that he was a professor at Georgia Perimeter College. Teet decided to arrest him, but he resisted, so she had to pin him against her patrol car to get him in handcuffs. As she placed him in the car, a woman ran up and screamed that someone else was driving the car. The suspect, identified as Anand Ram Swamy, 40, of Luke Road, told Teet he needed to go to a hospital, so she called for an ambulance. When a medical vehicle arrived, Swamy complained that the handcuffs were on too tight. The woman identified herself as Swamy's girlfriend. Teet asked her if she was driving and warned her the consequences of lying. She denied driving the car, but revealed that Swamy had been arrested earlier in the month for DUI in Clarke County. As Teet took Swamy to jail, Teet said she was "called every foul name that I have ever heard." Teet stopped her patrol car "to have a chat with Mr. Swamy. The rest of the trip to the jail, Mr. Swamy pretty much remained quiet." He was charged with DUI, failing to maintain a lane, obstruction and disorderly conduct.

That must've been some wedding...

Fight: On July 25, deputy Joshua Fowler was dispatched to Jones Mathews Road, Hull, for a 911 hang-up call. When Fowler arrived, he saw a 40-year-old woman standing beside a house bleeding from her nose and mouth and a 53-year-old woman stretched out on the porch following a fight. The women were sisters and the younger one said they had engaged in an argument on their way home from visiting their mother. She said her older sister ordered her out of the car, but she refused and when they got home the older sister locked her out of the house. She said she beat on the door and told her sister "if you don't open this door I am going to whup your ass." The older sister opened the door and they began to fight. Neither woman wanted to press charges.

Seems like she was damned if she opened and damned if she didn't.

Harassment: On July 26, a Danielsville man reported that he received a telephone call from a man who told him to pay up on a $45 debt or he would experience "bad drama." The man couldn't identify the caller.

Oconee. Madison.

Lil' hobby

I believe this, y'all, was the reason to vote Overend. I'm sure C. R. Chisholm has the absolute best intentions, and there certainly have been some high-profile underage drinking cases lately, and there just as certainly are some bars who serve the underage blithely, but those also tend to be high-volume establishments. How are you gonna know who precisely served the underage drinker and driver in question? Which drink is it based on? The first? The last? The one that put him/her over the limit or any drink, since it's illegal for him/her to have even one? Is Chisholm aware that, especially on fall nights, it's rather common to have more than one bartender working at a given establishment? Who's fingering the guilty party? The underage drinker? And seriously, an arrest warrant? Why, also, are underage DUI cases more important than those DUIs by people of age? Perhaps there's a better method out there to prevent DUIs by people of any age.

More from the Big E

Here's some video of the first contestant in the youth divison of Elvis impersonators. I think the length of the intro really captures the feel of the event as a whole, which featured a dog wandering in and out of the house constantly and long, long breaks between competitors to change out CDs. If DVDs of last year's competition hadn't been $20, and there hadn't been only five of them, I would have bought one. I could stand to see the whole thing.

Vote

Dudes, I almost forgot about voting today, and I may forget again, but I'll do my best to remember. Jim Martin v. Vernon Jones. And while I'm sure the former has been calling your home, leaving annoying and slow messages on your machine--as he has been on mine--at least he's not a complete jerkoff in his voting record, by which I mean the candidates he's voted for. Jones has tried to make a big issue out of Martin voting for Edwards in the Democratic primaries, but, really, Edwards or Bush, especially Bush the second time around? I believe in affirmative action to the point of wanting to vote for Jones, and I wouldn't mind my former county (DeKalb) being represented in the Senate, so it's pretty sad that he's entirely failed to convince me, coming off as a Clay Davis type more than anything else. I'm not brimming with joy to vote for Martin rather than a more liberal candidate, but of the two we have left, he's the slightly more so.

Read

Sure, David Samuels's piece "Dr. Kush," on the medical marijuana industry, is full of great details, like the fact that Tibetan prayer flags pretty much equal dope smoker or dealer or grower, but it's also the first New Yorker piece I can remember--perhaps there were some in the 1970s--that features the reporter getting high quite a bit. He's a little obscure in his pronouns sometimes, but "we" appears often enough. And yet he ignores this:

In 2003, the California State Legislature passed Senate Bill 420. The law was intended to clear up some of the confusion caused by Proposition 215, which had failed to specify how patients who could not grow their own pot were expected to obtain the drug, and how much pot could be cultivated for medical purposes. The law permitted any Californian with a doctor’s note to own up to six mature marijuana plants, or to possess up to half a pound of processed weed, which could be obtained from a patients’ collective or coöperative—terms that were not precisely defined in the statute. It also permitted a primary caregiver to be paid “reasonable compensation” for services provided to a qualified patient “to enable that person to use marijuana.”

Come on. You're supposed to elbow the reader at least. Or remark on the coincidence, if it is one.

Excursion

So, Mr. Brown decided we were going on a day trip on Saturday, only he wouldn't tell me where. Soundtracked by Ruby Isle, we started heading north.

Along the way, we ran into the Big E Festival in Cornelia, an annual Elvis tribute event that we've meant to hit up for literally years now. Joni Mabe, Elvis worshiper and owner of the Elvis Wart (as well as the domain elviswart.com, according to banners), runs a museum out of the Loudermilk Boarding House, and once a year Elvises small and large, male and female, converge on the porch and perform for judges. Photography is not allowed inside the house, but we are sneaky and also appreciative of Ms. Mabe's art. Talk about the convergence of art and craft, serious and kitsch. I think she's kind of a genius. Note that it's the 31th anniversary of the festival.

We then stopped at the Tallulah Gorge overlook, which is free and freaky. Us Georgia folk who don't come from up north in the state are not used to big gouges in the landscape. The trading post attached sells all kinds of crazy junk, including Peach Nehi. Yum.

And finally we ended up at the Dillard House, our true destination, where Mr. Brown has been many a time and I never had before, despite possessing and using a copy of the very simple but good cookbook (most recipes have about three to five ingredients). Sure, $19.95 for lunch is kind of a lot, but the family-style service means you do get plenty for that dollar outlay: fried chicken (meat a little dry, but batter really good, even though floury), bbq chicken, bbq ribs (weak), salisbury/hamburger steak with brown gravy (frigging delicious), country ham (yum yum, salty goodness, esp the fat), some kind of acorn squash thingie (too sweet; and also I have had traumatic grandparent-based experiences with that vegetable and tend to avoid it), potatoes and onions (good), collards (a little too sweet, but good texture and still with some bitterness), green beans, corn on the cob, black-eyed peas, some kind of cabbage casserole with tons of cheddar, biscuits, cornbread, a roll, a bunch of side dishes (melon, coleslaw, tomato and cucumber salad, chow chow, some kind of sweet apple thing?), and more that I am forgetting. Plus, the experience was just generally enjoyable. Is it the best southern meal ever? No, hardly, but it's less touristy in a lot of ways than Blue Willow, and it's a pleasant time and a great view.



There was also a bbq and bluegrass festival in Dillard going on at the same time, but it was $10 to get in, and it was too hot and yucky, and I was too full, so we headed back, which included a stop at Black Mountain, the highest state park in Georgia, where we went to another overlook, even higher than the Gorge, and got freaked out and also saw this wonderful bit of graffiti.



Finally, farther back down the mountain, we checked out the Foxfire Museum, which I referred to accidentally as Firefox about twenty times, showing that my interests tend to be more in the realm of the internet than that of traditional skills and crafts. Anyway, this thing I'm posing with is a hog-scalding pot. Also used for making soup! And soap. This experience would have been a lot more relaxing if not for the fact that the chapel has a bell, which they encourage you to ring. People. Just because a bell is there does not mean you have to ring it. It's not an Everest situation. My namesake climbed that sucker not only because it was there but because to do so was a genuine achievement. You yanking on a rope and disturbing my peace is not so much.

Anyway, there is a large and unlabeled photo set over on Flickr that will be labeled and winnowed at some point.

Snax

One of the things that I bought on a whim the last time I went to Super H Mart was a container of dried, stir-fried anchovies, thinking, "Hmm, well, I love anchovies at Five and Ten and also, when they are good, on pizza." Turns out, yes, it was a good idea. You have to get over the fact that you are eating a bunch of whole tiny fish, eyeballs and all, and occasionally you get one that seems to have been cooked with its little mouth open, as though it's screaming, "Don't eat me." This isn't that hard. They're fish. Salty, yummy little fish. And they're very easy to grab a pinch or two of for a quick salt + protein fix. Plus, as I learned one of the more recent times I went to the doctor and they asked me the usual questions, as a lady, about my calcium intake, eating whole little fish is one way to get calcium, as it's all up in their tiny bones. Yum. Calciummy. We'll see if the "glutinous rice dumplings" I bought, in an unrefrigerated package, work out as well.

Lil' hobby

I certainly support the idea behind the Free Flow of Information Act (nice titling there, fellas). Whistleblowers and journalists helping them out could use some protection, and besides, information wants to be free. But:

Briefly, the bill would prohibit the federal government from requiring journalists to identify confidential sources. It does, however, include guidelines that could compel journalists to reveal sources in connection with eyewitness observations of a crime; information that could help prevent a death, kidnapping or substantial bodily harm; or information that a federal court determines could help stop an act of terrorism or other national security threat.

I'm glad that the last bit is at least assigned to the courts, but if there's anything we've learned over the past six-plus years, it's that "terrorism" can be a pretty amorphous concept, ranging from the serious to Jimmy Joe Bob yelling at his neighbor from his porch, and it can be used as a justification for government doing just about anything it wants to. It seems to me that the "information that could help prevent a death, kidnapping or substantial bodily harm" might almost cover it, with the exception of, perhaps, economic terrorism. I also sincerely doubt that concern over applying the label of "terrorism" too widely is what kept Chambliss and Isakson from voting in favor of the bill...

Right then, chicken lovers

Clearly not gross at all...

O-fficial.

Our house is now on the market. It's clean and cute and ranchy. There will be a sign in the front yard soon and people traipsing through it, commenting on our decorating taste, probably just like on TV. If you want to be one of those people, call Chastain, Jenkins, Leathers. Whew.