Some famous and some not-famous blogs I recently decided I wanted to reside in my right-hand column (in alphabetical order):
Creek Running North
Fetch My Axe
Hullabaloo
Medical Reviews of House
Nemeton
UPDATE: All links fixed.
Archive for October 12, 2006
Added to the Blogroll
I am a ditz
(And Roberta says, “Yes yes, we know.”)
I saw Before Sunrise on TV a few weeks ago, and I liked it enough to want to see the sequel. So I added Before Sunset to my Netflix queue.
Except I just got a notice from Netflix that Before Sunrise has shipped. Fuck. Now I know why they put numbers in the titles of sequels.
This is like the time I tried to rent Edward Scissorhands and came home with Ed Wood. Hey! Not my fault! Same director, same star, “Ed” in the title, next to each other on the alphabetical shelf. Anyone could have done it! (Although the current mix-up is worse, because I actually hadn’t seen Ed Wood, and I ended up enjoying it.) A week later, I actually came home with The Lady Eve as intended, even though All About Eve and The Three Faces of Eve were right there. It was pretty stressful, lemme tell ya.
Oy.
Relational Rights
Per Shakes, today is National Coming Out Day. Shakes posted a list of reasons why she, a straight woman, is so fierce an advocate for gay rights. I want to add my own.
Gay rights are my rights. Yours too.
If gay rights aren’t a reality, we’re voting “yes” on standardized sexuality; on forcing all of us to goosestep to a sexual norm. And I may not be gay, but I ain’t normal.
Is anyone? (Actually, yes, some people are.) Most of us like a little kink, or have strolled into the forbidden zone. Few of us want to be confined by a bunch of heterosexual rules that expand like housework to fill the space allotted them.
Gay rights are human rights. They are relational rights. They are our rights no matter who we are.
Halloween is coming
So is Samhain, but I’m not talking here about the Celtic Day of the Dead, or the honoring of the Ancestors, or any of that religious stuff.
I’m talking about costumes.
My office has a come-in-costume tradition. The only such office I’ve ever worked in. I have no idea where I was in 2004; in 2005 I was in Tennessee, so this will be my first Halloween with the costume crew.
What to wear, what to wear.
I made a kickass pirate at Starwood, but I’m thinking gypsy. It’s almost the same as a pirate except a skirt instead of pants and I don’t have to say “Matey.” Which is an advantage. Plus I have massive gold ring earrings.
What are you wearing (and to where)?
Bubba and the Comedian
So about six weeks ago I saw this standup comic while I was on a cruise. The crowd was mostly African-American. (Actually, it was too dark to see the crowd, but when he said “How many sistahs are here?” he got a huge round of me! me! type applause. Definitely a majority.)
So he does a Dubya joke. He gets a weak laugh, maybe half the crowd or less, and a smattering of boos. Then he starts to do a Clinton joke (by which I mean, he gets as far as “Well, at least Clinton isn’t President anymore, he…”). A huge eruption of booing. I mean, stop in your tracks, can’t finish your joke kind of booing.
I guess it’s true what they say about Big Dog being the first black President of the U.S. I tell you, it was heart-warming.
Marshalling everyone into straight lines
Garrison Keillor wrote a brilliant piece in The Funny Times, on the attacks on Nancy Pelosi, California, and San Francisco. Here’s the money quote:
People who want to take a swing at San Francisco should think twice. Yes, the Irish coffee at Fisherman’s Wharf is overpriced…but the Bay Area is the cradle of the computer software industry, which continues to create jobs for our children. The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco. There may be a reason for this. Creative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous. Creativity is a key to economic pregress. Authoritarianism is stifling. I don’t believe that Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard were gay, but what’s important is: In San Francisco, it doesn’t matter so much. When the cultural Sturmbannfuhrers try to marshal everyone into straight lines, it has consequences for the economic future of our country.
Nice. Smart that someone ties the scary nasty gay gay California free gayness to Silicon Valley and economic growth. Because Keillor’s right, they are related. Just like living a fearful, repressed life full of hatred is tied to a lack of creativity. And I also like not standing there with our tails between our legs when they talk about our wild lifestyle. Fire both barrels, sez I!
(I left my cross-post in San Francisco.)
Monday Movie Review: Network
Network (1976) 10/10
Howard Beale (Peter Finch), a news anchor with declining ratings, is fired. The next day he announces, during his newscast, that he intends to blow his brains out on the air. A sensationalist programming director (Faye Dunaway) decides that Beale should continue on-air, and he is given a show as “the Mad Prophet of the Airwaves.” Directed by Sidney Lumet.
Network is a satire of a medium that nearly defies satirization. Fortunately, screenwriter Paddy Chayesfsky was up to the task, and the movie holds up even today. Stand Network next to Broadcast News, which takes its characters less seriously and its comedy less black; they’re both saying the same thing, that news is not news when it’s on television, it’s entertainment, and that has repercussions. James L. Brooks‘s movie is concerned with what that does to news, while Lumet’s is concerned with what it says about entertainment, and what entertainment means to us anyway. Network predates and predicts reality TV and lurid freak-of-the-week talk shows, but its aim is wider. Network is skewering not just TV, but the way that TV makes us think.
Standing beside the dark comedy of the TV show itself (Sybil the Soothsayer, anyone?) is the relationship between fired news producer Max Schumacher (William Holden) and Diana Christensen (Dunaway). Each scene between them is played as a television scene, each line of dialogue is either about television, or sounds like a television script. Until the end, they speak entirely in cliches, and in self-awareness about the cliches, and in network lingo. Diana, Max finally realizes, is television. She has scripts, not experiences, and is numb to real feeling.
The screenplay is as smart as smart gets. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” “You have meddled with the primal forces of NATURE!” “It’s not a psychotic break, it’s a cleansing moment of clarity.”
Network has long been called a writer’s movie. But it doesn’t suck for actors, either; three of whom won Academy Awards. (The brilliant William Holden was nominated in the same category as co-star Peter Finch, who won posthumously. It’s impossible to compete with a corpse.)
The film is sharply funny, full of witty flourishes, and yet works as drama as well. Despite the satiric nature of the relationship between Diana and Max, they are genuinely moving together, and Dunaway’s Oscar was well-deserved.
I first saw this movie in 1976, and, other than a few very famous clips, hadn’t seen it since. I find it remarkable that, after thirty years, some scenes were still vivid in my memory. Network is like that; it paints a strong and memorable picture.
As a postscript, have you noticed how the darkest, most portentious, most dystopic movies of the past are now being described as “timely”? Sorta fucking miserable.
(I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to cross-post anymore!)
Cutest spam ever
I get a lot of comment spam trying to sneak in as a regular comment, so a lot of it says things like “good site!” and “helpful info, I learned so much” and all this crap. In fact, “good site” is a moderated phrase.
Anyway, a spam comment came up in the moderation queue that just said:
Very good site! I like lesbians!
Me too, Mr. Spam Guy, me too.
How Do You Communicate?
|
You Communicate With Your Ears |
 You love conversations, both as a listener and a talker. What people say is important to you, and you’re often most affected by words, not actions. You love to hear complements from others. And when you’re upset, you often talk to yourself. Music is very important to you. It’s difficult to find you without your iPod. |
Update on the Ultimate James Bond Fan Book
A lot of people are asking, and believe me I want to give good answers.
The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book is about to go into a second printing. The first printing was an exclusive, shipped to Barnes & Noble, and given front-of-store table space in their 120 biggest stores. Woo hoo!
Unfortunately, there were some things that had to be left out of that printing. The main thing is that the second printing will have a rather lavish index. It will also correct some typos and a handful of factual errors. (See, that’s the thing about writing late at night; instead of a typo, you actually type the wrong actress’s name. The whole name. In the wrong movie.)
The second printing was scheduled to be out in stores by October 1. You may have noticed that October 1 has come and gone, and this isn’t an announcement about oh thrill oh joy the second printing is here. My poor editor has discovered that a lavish index has some drawbacks. Mostly in her ability to sleep at night. This is a highly specialized project, and almost impossible to farm out to assistants who aren’t super-familiar with it. So she’s suffering alone. As did I.
The revision should go to the printer on Tuesday the 10th, at which point, it’s just a matter of printing it. Don’t forget, though, that black ink takes longer to dry. (The black ink is soooo pretty, though.)
Several people have asked me if Amazon will be shipping the first or second printing. I honestly don’t know. I thought the first printing was an exclusive to B&N, but someone told me last week they saw it in Borders. So I can’t be certain.
Once the second printing is out, I will have copies available for autographing if you’re willing to pay the extra shipping cost.
In the meantime (shameless plug), you can shop at my James Bond Store.
