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February 28, 2007
PIC OF THE DAY (OK, OF THE MONTH):
Two of the premier follicularly challenged white athletes on the planet (Theodore Vegas and some soccer guy) moments after head-butting each other and then making up. (For the sports-challenged: That other guy is Algerian-French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane—he of the Headbutt Felt Round The World (Cup).)
LAMENT OF THE MONTH:
The world has been SO bloggable lately and I‘ve been too busy to blog about it. The same week brings us the first NBA player to ever come out as gay and the first NBA player to openly come out as a gay hater. Bush is following the exact same dubious script for a build-up to war with Iran as he did with Iraq--in fact the exact same headlines could be re-rerun from early 2003. The number of candidates for paternity of Anne-Nicole’s baby girl is now rivalling the ever growing number of candidates for the 2008 presidential election. And now The Oscars!
Such bloggable abundance. And I've been too slammed at work to quip and comment. The following is my lame, fragmentary, three-quarter assed attempt to make up for my extended absence. Ok, let me start transcribing the napkins and cocktail coasters….
OSCAR NOTES OF THE MONTH:
Missed the Oscars. And only watched it on TiVo last night. Or, more specifically, only watched the first 3 hours of it--as that's when my Tivo recording terminated. Hence, saw all the foreplay, but none of the big awards. But that said, some random notes...in chronological viewing order.
Daniel Craig's ears. Wow. Face is a blend of Steve McQueen, Joe Montana and Ed O'Neill. Ears are a blend of Franz Kafka and Spock.
The Sound Effects Choir: Joke or No Joke?
Rachel Weitz. Breathtakingly beautiful. In a way that sort of creeps up on you--rather than just knocks you out on first sight (like Jennifer Connely or Charlize Theron or Keira Knightley or Penelope Cruz). Speaking of which: Where were Jennifer Connely, Charlize Theron and Keira Knightley? They should be manditory aesthetic enhancements at this annual procession of famous faces.
Liked when Will Ferrel and Jack Black were doing their little "I'm gonna kick the nominees' butts" song and Will Ferrell said "And Marc Wallberg. Well, actually you look pretty tough so I'm not even gonna try to kick your butt" and Mark Wahlberg --looking like a true Worcester tough--was seen mouthing something, the general meaning of which was "Damn right, or I'll kick your ass you fruity funny guy faggot."
Alan Arkin. Genuinely touching. His emotions as naked as his pate.
Enjoying seeing Ellen wandering around in the lesbian equivalent of Hugh Heffner's smoking jacket.
Mark Wahlberg doing his best to make nice with Ellen after she infelicitously chose him to chat with--moments after losing out in the supporting actor category to Arkin. Looked like he wanted to punch Will Ferrel all over again.
James Taylor singing about the changes.
Jerry Seinfeld looking bored by Al Gore and Leo DeCaprio and the fate of the planet.
Ellen's cutest bit so far: The Oscar Bjorn--for carrying your Oscar and keeping your hands free at the post-Oscar parties.
Was it just me or did it seem the applause for Tom Cruise was a bit muted? Like the crowd hadn’t taken its anti-depressants or something?
And was it just me or did it seem that--despite the academy's pretentions to a new internationalism--the applause for the reel of world cinema masterpieces was even more muted?
Most beautiful woman of the night: The wife of the director for "The Lives of Others" --the German film that won for Best Foreign Film. She was only on the screen for a moment. And, maybe by sheer coincidence, my heart stopped beating for that exact same moment. I'd like to see the guy do a follow up film called "The Wives of Others." Sort of a cross between Heidi Klum and Charlize Theron. Damn.
Pilobolus. Just delightful.
Must be fun being George Clooney, Talented, handsome, dignified-seeming bastard.
That girl from "Little Miss Sunshine: Such a radiant smile.
Al Gore came off with some real dignity and gravitas. If he had been a fraction that self assured and relaxed and dignified during the 2000 election, we would be living in an almost unimaginably different (read: better) world right now.
Favorite Part: Tribute to the Italian Film Score Composer (Marconi?). Just beautiful to have that wordless interlude. Very moving. Then to have him speaking in Italian for about a minute and no one understanding him (before Clint Eastwood finally intervened to offer a translation)--the words like another music. Sound more than meaning. And then finally him dedicating the award to his wife and seeing the dour-looking old matron smile the eternally youthful smile of love.
Oh, and finally--and this is the last thing I saw before the taping was interrupted: John Travolta's joke while presenting with Queen Latifah: "I love a full figured woman who can sing her heart out in front of the mirror. But enough about me." Was that some role he played in some movie? Or is that a reference to his Scientologically sanctioned Thetan level 7 psycho-sexual self-realization exercises?
RACIAL-SEXUAL-LINGUISTIC OBSERVATION OF THE MONTH:
I noticed that the gay NBA player responded to the homophobe's "I hate gay people" comment by saying "It's vitriolic, and may be exactly what he feels," Whether he's honest or not doesn't inoculate us from his words.." Vitriolic? Inoculate? It's weird. The gay guy must have misheard the homophobe. He must have thought he said "I despise, loathe and abhor people of a homosexual orientation" instead of "I hate gay people." :)
The gay player (John Amaechi--a light skinned black guy born in Amercia but educated and raised in England) also became the first NBA player to come out as hyper-articulate.
Actually, the politics of this kind of rhetoric are fascinating. Especially in the wake of Biden's recent "articulate" comment. Not only was it certainly the first time the words "vitriiolic" and "inoculate" had ever been used by an ex-NBA player not named Clyde Frazier--but it was a classic instance of a passive-aggressive response to an aggressive-aggressive attack. Much as "articulate" has been code for "surrpisingly un-black seeming for a black person" these polysyllabic latinate offerings are code for "that ignorant little monkey can kiss my gay black ass."
The racial and sexual subtexts are perversely fructifying and totally blogerific!
FAQs of the MONTH:
Cash or credit?
Could you please stop doing that?
Could you describe exactly what I get for my $300?
Where did I put my keys?
Why the long face?
Where does the time go?
Could you lend me a hand?
What was he thinking?
Are those real?
What the....?
LFAQs of the MONTH:
What's more important: your net worth or your net worthlessness?
Who is the Wayne Gretzky of traditional Shanty singing?
Who has more facial expressions: Ariel Sharon or Tobey Mcguire?
When did Charlie Rose start looking like a pudgy old drunk?
RETHINK OF THE MONTH:
I was feeling really judgemental about the guy in the bathroom walking out without washing his hands until I realized there was no sink.
LITERARY EXCERPT OF THE MONTH:
"People have new assumptions. They've grown up believing in the orbiting eye, the subdermal micro-chip, the circling drone, and they've no more afraid of them than they are of moonlight. Perhaps that's because they're born onstage, these creatures, and the first thing they see is the snout of Daddy's Handycam. Their first steps, their first words, their first Little League at-bats are all directed towards the lens. In time, they have nothing inside them that hasn't been outside. No depths. No interiors."
-Walter Kirn from his new book "The Unbinding."--beautifully expressing something I've often thought about.
CHARACTERIZATION OF THE MONTH:
Cornell West. The thinking man’s Don King.
STRANGE FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH:
"I miss you too baby. If only I had a teleport, I'd be there in two hours."
OBSERVATION OF THE MONTH:
Bad acting is only truly objectionable when it happens in the context of a drama that presumes to be dealing with matters of real emotional compexity and truth. In those instances, an actorly mis-step resonates with a kind of obscene falseness. Indeed, as a general rule, thespian un-truths are excruciatingly offensive in direct proportion to the pretentions to profound real-ness of the work in which they take place. (For what it's worth, I thought about this during a particular exchange between Greg Kinnear and Randy Quaid in "Dinner With Friends.").
POIGNANT COMMENT OF THE MONTH
You are the person I wish I were in love with.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH:
"I feel something. I'm not talking about God. For given the world he's created, to believe in him would be an impiety."
John Banville in "The Sea."
MUSIC-RELATED THOUGHT OF THE MONTH:
On hearing a certain Lloyd Cole song I hadn't heard in years...
Certain songs carry specific moments of our emotional lives inscribed within them--striped and encoded like information on a reel of video tape or a strand of DNA. They are the soundtrack of our acutest longings--our unrepeatable adventures in time. What we hear is less the melody than the accumulated history of our listenings to it--the specific texture of a time and a place. The song--the specific grain of its recording (for an alternate performance will not do the trick) --is the key that unlocks the room in emotional space where a specific part of our past life still lives, a chamber in which a window is partially open and in which a scratchy record of that very same song has just begun to play.
JOURNALISTIC EXCERPT OF THE MONTH:
"In these private chats, Kidd openly described to the Strahans how he'd
strayed and wanted to get back into Joumana's good graces through
religion and jewlery."
-NY Post article.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MONTH:
There are few things less appetiziing than seeing Charlie Rose fighting to keep from climbing over the table to try to mount Maureen Dowd whenever she is on his show. But, in his defense, she does come across as incredibibly flirty. It's her mouth mainly. She works it like a signifying sexual organ.
STATE PRIDE MOMENTS OF THE MONTH:
A woman astronaut is arrested for driving across country, donning a disguise and kidnapping the woman she took to be her rival for the affections of her fellow astronaut love interest. She wears an adult diaper en route, so as not to be delayed by the exigencies of mother nature en route. The next day, a weight-obsessed emotionally unstable former Playboy Playmate of the Year Reality TV Star, Trimspa Spokesperson and child bride of an Octagenarian Billionaire dies suddenly amidst suspicious circumstances and a tantalizingly unresolved case involving the paternity of her baby girl. A media circus breaks out. What do these two tabloid treats have in common. Need you ask? It's Florida, baby. Florida.
REALIZATION OF THE MONTH:
I used to flatter myself into thinking I was something of a lion or a tiger, but as i've gotten older i've come to the less flattering realization that I am more of a house cat. I really just like to get petted occasionally (with praise, not hands) and then be left alone. Oh, and to take naps. I am not quite as fastidious as my feline domestic counterparts, and, regrettably, I am not limber enough to lick my genitalia. But on the other hand, I am more fun at a karaoke bar than the average Tabby or Calico and I have a slightly better outside shot.
IMMODEST DECLARATION OF THE MONTH:
The things I don’t know could fill a matchbook.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE MONTH:
He was a distinct no one who dreamed of being an an indistinct someone.
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Posted on 2/28/2007
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February 05, 2007
SUPERBOWL NOTES OF THE DAY:
Guess the image above says all you need to know about what kind of a game Chicago Bear's Quarterback Rex Grossman had. (I received this lovely JPEG from a friend with the header "Grossman's Mounting Problems.")
Saw the game in high def on a plasma screen TV. Amazing. You could see all kinds of things you probably couldn't see on a regular TV. Like all those fumbles! A friend quipped that on a regular screen TV, there were no turnovers in the first half. Actually, the first half (mainly the first quarter) was great. Almost every other play was a T.O. or a T.D. Thanks to the rain and the pressure, it had the anything-can-happen feeling of a high school football game.
I thought the Coke ads were the best that fine purveyor of colored sugar water had done in ages. It was nice to see feel good ads that genuinely made you feel good. I also really liked the Snickers inadvertent man-on-man kissing ad, but thought it should have ended with that moment of homophobic awkwardness and not the blatant ripoff of the 40-Year-Old Virgin's chest hair waxing scene.
Was also struck by the coded African-American Tostitos ad. It shows a bunch of black people watching the football game with the double entendre broadcast commentary: "It's not just about getting here. But what getting here represents." Yes, black Americans, you've understood the coded message. You've arrived. After generations of struggle and strife, you have become an advertising demographic.
And speaking of coded racial communications: I was struck by how articulate both of the African-American coaches were--particularly the nice looking, lighter skined guy (Just kidding, Joe Biden)
As for that Prudential Financial commercial that kept asking "What can A rock do?" in a way that sounded exactly like "What can Iraq do?"--well, kill a lot of people and divide a country or two for starters.
As for the football game. Truly unsatisfying after the delightful amateur- hour first quarter.
FAQs of THE DAY
Could you pass the chips?
Is she pregnant?
Is Rex Grossman Jewish?
Do you have that in blue?
Has anyone seen my keys?
Have you been tested?
What ever happened to manners?
Do you know what the next stop is?
Would you like to supersize that?
LFAQs of the Day:
Could you do me a favor and die?
How do you tell a colleague who, in meetings with clients, frequently says "infer" when what she means is "imply" and commits the "between you and I" linguistic botchery that he/she is not only mangling the mother tongue but is doing grave perceptual harm to the integrity of our company--without coming off as an imperious prig, a patronizing asshole or a fussy little scold?
Is that an acorn in your pocket or are you just unhappy to see me?
ENCOUNTER OF THE DAY:
A little after noon, I went to my corner Starbucks and ordered my usual "small" regular coffee. There was a new "barista" in there. A young woman who, perhaps in response to my confounding nomenclature, said to me in all apparent seriousness and sincerity. "Enjoy the rest of your evening." Remember, it was about 1 p.m.
I said, "Wow, I must have slept later than I thought.l But I will enjoy the rest of my evening. And you enjoy the rest of your Super Bowl Sunday evening as well."
"Yeah, the Super Bowl," she responded, with more spacey sincerity. "Go Buffalo!"
I have no idea if she was crazy or drugged or trying to be funny. But I do know that she helped me out. I had been having the hardest time deciding whom to root for in the big Indianapolis-Chicago showdown. But she helped me make up my mind once and for all: I'm rooting for Buffalo!
I have never felt so good about Starbucks.
SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE DAY:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070202/pl_afp/unclimateusdeny_070202142458
Right Wing Think Tank Offers 10K For Scientists to Dispute Global Warming.
That's what the Right Wing calls the Scientific Method.
The Old Scientific Method:
1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and revise hypothesis accordingly if need be.
7. Publish results
The New Scientific Method:
1. Define the conclusion.
2. Bribe someone to twist the facts to support it.
ONIONESQUE (SHALLOT-LIKE) HEADLINE OF THE DAY:
Woman, 73, finally resolves her Brand Identity.
TRIBUTE OF THE DAY:
Tribute to Larry Porwick for his tireless and selfless service in the cause of providing inadvertent comedic inspiration that he insists on retroactively claiming was intentional.
MOVIE REVIEW OF THE DAY:
"Letters from Iwo Jima." Certainly a very good movie. Important for humanizing the enemy by telling the story from their perspective and for thus driving home the madness and futility of war. It was cool to see the Americans represented as the strange and menacing Other for a change. But still, watching it, I could not stop thinking how, for me, all war movies, even the most starkly and powerfully realized, feel fundamentally similar --with the glaring exception of Terrence Mallick's "Thin Red Line", a lyrical and powerful meditation on war, manhood, existence, love and death besides which the others seem somewhat prosaic and formulaic. Indeed movies like Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket, Casualties of War and this fine effort by Clint Eastwood all have the expected range of archtypical male characters (the brutal authority figure, the sympathetic authority figure, the gung ho soldier, the reluctant sensitive conscript etc.) working in the same mercilessly adverse circumstances. But only "Thin Red Line", expands the narrative space beyond the present conflict in order to pose fundamental questions of existence itself and somehow transforms the experience of war in the process.
Oh and the movie featured a Japanese Richard Gere lookalike--which is nothing to sneeze at.
CONCEPT OF THE DAY:
23/6.
It's a new movement that actively embraces lower expectations. We're not gonna give you that 24/7 nonesense. 23/6 is plenty good enough. And in this new ideology, the number for the devil isn't 666, it's 555. Why go all the way to 666 when you can just as easily stop at 555? The name of the movement would be 23/6. Or perhaps The Almost Movement. It embraces a world vision wherein almost is good enough. I'd like to write up a Manifesto of the Almost movement. But maybe almost doing it is good enough.
SINGLE SENTENCE RANDOM PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
Deep down, he was superficial.
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Posted on 2/5/2007
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February 01, 2007
FAQs OF THE DAY:
What time is it?
How do you swipe these cards?
Who's your daddy?
Quien es mas macho?
Are we there yet?
When do we get paid?
Have you seen a doctor for that?
LFAQs OF THE DAY: (L is for "Less")
Could Dick Cheney produce a perfectly symmetrical smile if his life depended on it? (I mean literally: Like if there were a gun to his head and he was told "If you can't smile perfectly symmetrically, we pull the trigger.")
Parler Vous Yiddish?
TRANSPARENTLY LAME TRICK OF THE DAY:
Double spacing to stretch the material.
GOAL OF THE DAY:
To corner the market on this whole "FAQ" and "LFAQ" thing.
SUPER SHORTY OF THE DAY:
Speaking of Super Shorties, (and not to be immodest), I am pleased to report that the altitude-challenged Judiac Jitterbug (aka Teddy Vegas, 5'8 1/2" on a tall day) had an excellent inaugural wearing of the Brazillian Blur's (aka Leandro Barbosa's) Phoenix Suns #10 Jersey (albeit with "T. Vegas" written atop the back of it) last night during his Wednesday night basketball game. I'd say that inch-for-inch he was one of the better players on the court. The hoop felt lake-like in its perceived diameter and I was more than pleased to honor Leandro's Barbositude in Judaic Jitterbug rather than Semitic Slug-like fashion.
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Posted on 2/1/2007
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