And what are you going to buy now that you know you didn’t get it?
Oh…me? My friends know me. I got 30 bucks worth of iTunes Credits. I really haven’t had any sittin’ and shoppin’ time.
Hey, I’m not going to let our fucked-in-the-ass archive/search function spoil my buzz here… It’s fucked-up, you and I both know it – whatever. And you and I both know that, while I can’t draw any links out of my hat, both Timmer and I have sung the praises of Radio Paradise.
Well, I’ve become a bit distanced of late – choosing instead to tune-in old cable TV reruns – even if I’d seen them three times before – shame on me.
And there is something of my obsessive-compulsive thing at play here… Man, this is way better than my old Macintosh system – S/N wise, but hardly as good as the Yamaha. But the stereo image.. I have to hold my head right here – there’s no dimensional presence… Eegad!
Man, I don’t know. This is leagues beyond watching cable TV reruns. But, damn, I’ve got to work on my room acoustics.
…for this holiday season so here’s quickies for what we’ve seen.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Definitely worth seeing on the big screen. Lots of fun and they did justice to the book. Well done. It’s over before you know it.
Aeon Flux: Charlize Theron in tight fitting clothes. What more do you want? Okay, fine. Add a decent hard science fiction story and a grownup storyline and then you can wonder how the drug use got past then censors for a PG-13 rating. I never saw the animated version so I have no idea how it compares. But this is probably the best science fiction movie I’ve seen in years. It wasn’t watered down. It was much better than we expected and actually had to explain some things to Boyo which almost never happens. It’s already been bumped out of the theaters in our area but definitely worth picking up on DVD to add to your collection. Warning: You may have to think. You may have to decide how you feel about things like genetic engineering and environmental manipulation. You may have to wonder which is the lesser of evils. I’m hoping for a director’s cut version when the DVD comes out.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: I read these books as a kid but only once vs once a year like I did with Tolkien. I don’t have the details memorized like I did with Tolkien. Anyway, the movie was a great tale of good vs evil. It was exciting. Boyo “WooHoo’d” through the battles. A good time was had by all. And most important to me, they didn’t screw up Aslan. Because I do remember Aslan quite clearly. If they had Jar-Jar’d Aslan I would have been pissed, they didn’t. A great exercise in the way CGI should be done.
We’re off to see King Kong this afternoon. I’ll let you know how it goes but from what I’ve heard, I’m thoroughly expecting “WOW.” I’d go see this movie if it was JUST Jack Black or JUST Peter Jackson or JUST a remake of a classic. The fact that it’s all three is a no-brainer for me. We’re going.
Update: And King Kong was amazing! Worth the money. A fantastic movie. We laughed, we cried, etc.. Seriously, the best movie we’ve seen all year.
The most exciting news I’ve heard today, from John Fund at WSJ:
No TV series — not even “Star Trek” — has quite achieved the quirky cult status of “The Prisoner,” which first ran on British and U.S. networks almost 40 years ago. It now looks as if the show, which still airs in re-runs in some 60 countries, will be making a comeback next year.
[…]
The British magazine Broadcast reports that the Sky One channel has commissioned eight new episodes of the series. Executive producer Damien Timmer says they will deal “with themes such as paranoia, conspiracy and identity crisis.” The episodes will be partly written by Bill Gallagher, a creator of the BBC series “Conviction,” an edgy police drama about vigilante behavior in society.
Now, if we can just convince John Cleese to give us a few more eps of Fawlty Towers… đ
Update: Rumors of this have been floating around car guy circles for a month or so now. The biggest question: will the star drive a Caterham 7? But there’s a basic mistake being made here, in saying McGoohan drove a Caterham in the original series. Admittedly, I was only 10 years old when the series came out, and, while I watch The Prisoner reruns on BBC America, I haven’t really given it any thought since then. But, as I recall, Caterham didn’t even exist in 1967, and McGoohan drove an original Lotus 7 series II.
I’ve been waiting for this album since American Idol ended last season. On first listen I was a bit confused. Bo, crooning? Bo doing love songs? And why the hell do some of these songs sound like Bon Jovi? Where did the orchestra come from? WTF? No “Whipping Post?” No “Freebird?”
Okay, shaddup. This is not the album anyone was expecting out of Bo Bice. Someone (producer Clive Davis maybe?) decided that Bo could sing and they made him do it on every track. There’s very little growling, very little dramatic breathing, almost no soaring, there’s just good, solid, rock’n’roll singing. While I want a rock singer to tear it up on every track, I understand that hurts vocal chords in the long run and someone is managing this guy for the long haul. While that’s good to know, I also know what kept me watching Idol, Bo Bice’s vocal RAWKING.
I’ve got one overall problem with the album. There’s very little for me on here. It’s been marketed to the girls. From the love songs to the digital booklet where some yahoo decided that Bo should try to steal Constantine’s “dreamy eyes of death,” this is a chick album. How chicky is it? Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora do some writing and playing on it. Chick. Album. (Note to singer/songwriters/producers, there are now enough songs out there with the title/words, “It’s My Life.” Stoppit. Stoppit now.)
After watching Idol last season and seeing and hearing what Bo is capable of, this album is a bit of a let down. It left me wanting more. I KNOW there’s more there. Everyone who watched the show knows there’s more there. We didn’t get all of what we already know he’s capable of. I feel ripped off.
The last two tracks almost let me forgive him for the photo shoot. Willing to Try, a man and his piano number, and Valley of Angels, a solid gospel number with The Waters backing him up, end this album on a spiritual high that took me completely by suprise.
And I want more. You’ve done the chick album, now give us the rawk album please. Thank you.
UPDATE: Reader Claudia points out that there’s a dual disk version available with more songs from Bo and his band Sugarmoney. This version is not available on iTunes yet. Bad iTunes, bad.
I routinely either applaud or deride reality TV shows on this blog. But I have been silent about the various casino shows. Well, one that has captured my interest is the Discovery Travel Channel’s “American Casino” .
Well, part of that may have to do with the fact that I am impressed with that Green Valley Ranch, and its sister Station Casinos are so classy, while still being down-to-Earth and anathematic – a rare thing in Vegas these days. But I must admit that it has largely to do with the fact that I find the Hotel Manager, Ninya Perna, so damn hot!
Well, on tonight’s episode: “The New Spa”, we find her computer dating – oh yeah! Well, on the broader measure, she may have the depth of a wading pool – we don’t really know. But she’s totally professional at what she does – and that scores big points with me.
But alas, we find out, at the end of the episode, that she is already seeing someone, and was just doing the compu-date thing to appease her friend. *Kevin mopes away – heartbroken* đ
…That the subject of tonight’s season two Project Runway episode, titled “All Dolled Up” involves designing a fashion for BarbieTM? And why not: Barbie puts all other supermodels (especially those her age) to shame. As “Barbie” is, by far, the most licensed trade name of all time (yes, even eclipsing Star WarsTM).
Further, while I have no personal experience here, I understand collector Barbie fashions draw prices befitting those commonly worn by her life-size (and, in fact, living – although sometimes it may not seem so) contemporaries.
Update: I was right!
Update 2: I’m happy to see that our designers are being judged on the full-scale versions of their work, as – from my tangental involvement with this – I know to-scale fabrics are hard to come by.
It seems like Viacom’s buyout of Dreamworks SKG is a done deal. I love these sort of stories.
What a bunch of whiny-assed losers!
They didn’t vote for the one who played the game the best, they voted for the one who was least offensive.
Of all the great vocalists (most notably Sophie Tucker) to play with Frank Sinatra on The Joker is Wild (1957), only one other (perhaps even greater than The Chairman – Sinatra’s ideal) was heard singing. And he/she was not even credited. Give a name, a tune, and a scene.
The Answer! The scene is the after-show party, where Joe E. Lewis (Sinatra) first meets Letty Page (the lovely Jeanne Crain). The rest of the party is behind a screen. The singer, who is obviously too tall to be Bing, is doing “June in January”. And, while the signature is unmistakably Bing’s, it doesn’t quite sound right – like a really good impersonation.
Well, it turns out they didn’t hire Bing to do a fresh cover, but rather, took the recording from the “Musical Autobiography” album, and sped it up just a tad.
If it wasn’t for the radio I probably wouldn’t listen to John Lennon at all. And the little bit I heard today…didn’t do much for me.
Don’t get me wrong, “Imagine” is amazing.
“Happy Xmas” is a nice tune, right up to the point where Yoko starts to, ahem, sing.
The Beatles? Please, his guitar drove that sound.
I’m sad that Lennon was shot. I don’t think anyone should have to go that way. Famous people shouldn’t be targets for psychos.
But why the reverence? What’s the deal? He was a pop singer. He wrote pop tunes. Help me out. Explain it to me.
Just thinking of my comments on Timmer’s post here, our readers might only think I only like “sad” Christmas tunes. Well, that’s hardly the case. But, as a phenomenon of the traditions within my family, where Christmas has been all about the children, now that all the cousins have become adults, and taken off for distant parts of the globe, and – in their turn – started their own families, Christmas is a melancholy season of remembrance, and detachment.
But yes, I like some “happy” Christmas tunes – but they are almost all kiddie stuff, which I used to sing to my little nieces and nephews – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer comes to mind.
But there are a few “happy” and “adult” Christmas tunes I like. Most notable is Santa Baby – which, like any old standard, has many covers. The best, IMHO, is Eartha Kitt’s. Imagine that Catwoman purrrrrr applied to “hurry down the chimney to me” – do you get it? Oh, and there have been huge rape-jobs; what comes immediately to mind are Madonna and Kylie Minogue. Anyway, you will find Eartha’s cover – along with several other greats, including Judy’s Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, here. This would be a good buy.
Also, I want to note: apart from Eartha, I couldn’t think of any better voice to do Santa Baby than Bernadette Peters. And there are many supposed covers out there on the web. But these are phonies. To the best of my knowledge, and a couple of pros I have consulted, Bernadette has never covered Santa Baby.
Caveat Emptor
I’m mostly listening to the soundtrack from “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “Diana Krall’s Christmas Album” and “Barenaked for the Holidays.”
What says Christmas to you? What song does it for you? Do you have to have Bing doing “White Christmas?” Is it Bing and Bowie doing “Little Drummer Boy?” What puts you in the spirit?
Let’s not be mistaken here: my untapped knowledge of movie trivia is still rather encyclopedic. The problem is that it is mostly, well, rather trivial – at least to those outside Hollywood.
I’ve tried to set a guidepost, in all my movie trivia puzzles, things that were of particular impact to the industry, or had impact on a broader scale. In short – things that weren’t really so trivial. I think that has a great deal to do with the series’ popularity on this blog.
But now, I’m feeling a bit taxed. I’m sure I could dredge-up many more goodies – but real life intrudes. So, in order to keep up the momentum, I call upon you – my dear readers – for inspiration. Please e-mail me your movie trivia ideas. I will follow up on them. And, if I think I have something good to offer, do a post.
If I use your idea, I will notify you, via email reply, as such. As well, I will give you a Hat Tip at the close. But PLEASE – don’t answer the puzzle yourself (for obvious reasons). And, please, don’t be offended if I don’t use your idea – you don’t know how many of my own boners I have run through my head since I started this thing – only to reject.
Oh, and please don’t overestimate my feeble intelligence, thinking I should just know why your idea has merit – sell it to me. đ
Name the event, and the (7) films:
David Carradine and Burt Reynolds did it twice. Michael Sarrazin did it once. And Peter Fonda only got half way. But H. Nelson Jackson did it first.
Update: Hey, cool – RPD and 74: I was bigtime into California desert racing back in the early ’70s.
Hint: Anyway – RPD had it pretty-much correct. But he (she?) fell short on the details. But let me give you this: Every personality has at least one film associated with them. That makes 5. And I said, with reference to two: “twice”. That makes 7. Any help there?
The Answer! Well… the event, traveling coast-to-coast via non-tracked motor vehicle, and the first five films are pretty easy. The sixth one I put in just to throw you for a loop. And the final one is just plain obscure:
David Carradine:
Cannonball!
Death Race 2000
Burt Reynolds:
Cannonball Run
Cannonball Run II
Michael Sarrazin
Gumball Rally
Peter Fonda:
Easy Rider (New Orleans is a bit farther than half way, but close enough.)
And finally, H. Nelson Jackson:
The Ken Burns documentary, Horatio’s Drive
Note: Timestamp jiggered.
that I really care about football. I’m the product of a mixed marriage, Dad was a Bears fan, Mom was born and raised in Wisconsin making her a Packers fan down to her very core.
Usually I cheer for both teams when I can watch them play. Except for today. Today it’s different. Today I have to apologize to my Mom and grin up at heavan to my Dad and simply say with no irony:
May the spirit of George Halas be with every one of you.
….For Sony to reconsider the whole imbedded spyware thing on CD releases; I work a Saturday afternoon shift at the classical music station side of Texas Public Radio. Nearly everything we play⊠no strike that⊠itâs everything we play⊠is on CD. We have a couple of shelves of vinyl recordings, mostly rare opera performances, but the record player in the studio is so far off the schedule of playback machines in use that itâs a special chore to route it through the board, so something on vinyl can even be aired. And the other key thing to know is that everything that used to be played back on cart decks, or on reel to reel tape recorders, is now on computer. Everything in the production studio is edited by computer, programs are downloaded from satellite feeds, stored on computer, and played back for airing⊠on computer. Even the music library itself is indexed with computer softwareâŠ. No more cabinets full of little 3 by 5 file cards.
The prospect of taking a recent Sony release into the production studio, and using a selection from it for a pre-recorded program, or one of the staff popping it into the CD drive of their desk computer to review⊠and corrupting the production and library index on which the whole station depends⊠well, it is enough to give us all the cold shivers. Iâve been told that the station librarian is not ordering any new Sony classical releases until this whole thing is resolved. Now, there are probably series techies out there who can explain that the chances of this happening are pretty low, that Sonyâs anti-piracy spyware couldnât possibly damage our library and production set-up, and would they even bother doing this with classical releases anyway? But however small that chance would be, we still canât take it. CDâs with potentially damaging programs hidden in them, versus the security of systems upon which the whole stationâs programming depends?
Ummm⊠not going to happen. And other radio stations are just as— or even more– dependent on library and production software, so I suspect other stations may be considering the same kind of embargo. I wonder if Sony even considered this aspect… it’s not that radio stations buy a lot… but they have a great many listeners, still. I suspect that Sony did not think this one out very thoroughly, or consider secondary ramifications like this one.
I notice PBS is airing Carly Simon’s new A Moonlight Serenade On The Queen Mary 2. A truly magnificent vocalist, on a truly magnificent ship – it should be a great show. Unfortunately, it’s only a one hour show, so I’m pretty sure several of the numbers on the DVD will be missing.
Update: I was incorrect yesterday; it’s an hour and a half. There are three ten minute pledge breaks, which isn’t that bad. However, the selection of tracks is different from the commercial disk set – the latter being old standards. This has about half of those, mixed with Carly doing a few of her hits. The intimate “Chart Room” sequence, which features Carly singing with her daughter, Sally Taylor – an accomplished singer/songwriter in her own right, is not to be missed.
Camile Paglia returns to Salon with a review of Madonna’s Confessions On A Dance Floor. She’s obviously a huge fan of Madonna (a passion I don’t share) but is lukewarm on this album. Anyway, this caught my eye:
Nevertheless, the positive response to “Confessions” probably signals a thirst on the part of the pop audience for emotional directness and shaped melody, which have languished in the hip-hop era, with its aggressive, incantatory rhyming and grinding percussive effects. Even Madonna’s archrival, Mariah Carey, with her virtuoso lyricism, is given to long, meandering vocal lines that assert passionate feeling (stressed in performance by pentecostal hand-waving and arm swoops) but in fact go nowhere. It’s a crooning, swooning, melting style that makes too many of Mariah’s songs sound the same.
Incidentally, the claim repeatedly made by CNN and the British press that Madonna is now “the undisputed queen of pop” was undercut by CNN.com’s current poll, “Who is today’s real ‘Queen of Pop’?” After 93,000 worldwide votes (as of this writing), Mariah is kicking Madonna’s hot pants at 57 percent to 34 percent. Far behind trail Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and BeyoncĂ© Knowles — all of whose careers were in varying degrees influenced by Madonna. The poll results will surely surprise most observers because Madonna, unlike Mariah, has such a hammerlock on MTV and international magazine journalism.
It’s probably not a very good time to invest in a home entertainment system. The reason is the upcoming war between the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray format:
No one knows what the outcome of this format war will be â it all depends on which format consumers can get more cheaply, more quickly, with more movies available for it. Blu-Ray is technologically superior, true; however, the VHS and Betamax war shows that the technologically superior product does not always win. Sales of DVD drives and media only really took off after DVD player prices dropped below $300, and with HD-DVD’s lower manufacturing costs, this could prove to be a large benefit. However, Sony claims that within a few months of launch, Blu-Ray media will be priced within 10% of current DVD prices. With the first products set to hit the market by Christmas of this year, 2006 is going to be an interesting year for High Definition.
I don’t believe Blu-Ray will come that close to the price of HD-DVD – at least not within a one-year timeframe. My money is on HD-DVD. Just like the old VHS/Beta war, HD-DVD is good enough for most applications, it is cheaper, and it will be to market first. In any event, within a year, simple DVD will be obsolete.
So…our faithful ol’ Panasonic that we got on sale at the BX is dying. Through 3 PCS moves and various attacks by startled cats, through being used as various pieces parts of a young boy’s playworld, the speakers have begun to sputter and stop speaking. The remote has…simply disappeared. We don’t know how, we don’t know where, we just know it’s gone. The “surround-sound” is simply sound most of the time. Even the bigger bass units are all beat up. I could rewire one more time, I even started to…Beautiful Punk-Rock Wife (her hair is VERY short these days and CHERRY red, it’s so cool) put her hands on mine and said, “Honey, it’s time to let it go.” It’s sad really. It was a good little system. AM/FM and DVD and CD have all passed through it. It doesn’t play MP3 disks though. Yeah, it’s that old.
So we’re in the market for a new home theater this Christmas. That’s the family christmas present. Our friends down the hill have a Bose Lifestyle 35 and we’re looking seriously at that since we LOVE watching movies at their house. The true beauty of it is that Beautiful Punk-Rock Wife was the one who suggested it.
And you may not understand what this means for me. I’ve loved Bose audio equipment since music class in high school. Mr. Music had a pair of 901s in his classroom. This is how I learned of Bach and Beethoven and the great grandaddy of punk rock, Wolfgang A. Mozart. It was the clarity. It was the first time I felt music as a physical force outside of a concert arena. It’s also the memory of how Mr. Music explained to us how to set up audio equipment not based on how it looks, but how it sounds and why it works better over here than over there. “You want to cover the room, not have the sound all bunched up in one spot with dead spots everywhere else.” He explained why it was called “volume.” He took that kind of time. He cared about music and knew we did too and he explained to us how best to play it in our home on the equipment we had. He also played rock and roll sometimes to show how one principal or another still carried on. He’d let the album play out when he did that and he didn’t have to. He knew the best some of us could afford was a pair of Realistics from Radio Shack. Bose is all tied up in that.
So, I’m sure you audiophiles have your own opinions on this. Have at it. Fire away. Tell me why I’m wrong and should get THAT system instead. Provide linkage please. I could be convinced otherwise. Not easily, but it could happen. Remember, I’m kinda cheap.
How pathetic is this⊠with all the riches of the wealthiest nation on earth (supposedly) at our command, and our culture alleged to bestride the known world like a colossus⊠but there is still not much on the TV broadcast channels to amuse me on a regular basis. The weekly TV guide is beginning to depress me, almost as much as actually having to buckle down and watch the resulting many-times-digested-and-regurgitated pap, piddle and trivia. I am only grateful I donât work as a TV reviewer, and would have to watch it all, as a condition of employment. But at least, I would be paid for having done so, which would take the edge off, somewhat. Having a lobotomy might also do the trick⊠might this be passed off as a business expense for TV reviewers?
My local TV listings in this year of our lord 2005 leaves me wondering of this operation has been performed on those who have a responsibility for the programs gracing (if that is the word that can be used) the broadcast channel schedule. It is almost immediately apparent that all originality, creativity, and genius has fled to the cable channels, the ones that are bundled into a package that I canât ⊠or wonât pay to get, not if they come at a premium. I just canât justify to myself paying more than 45$ a month for fifty channels, not when I am interested in only watching two or three of them. I think Iâll just save the money, and buy an interesting series on DVD down the road a ways.
But I do have the basic minimum broadcast channels, and oh, what a depressing prospect that is: wall to wall doctors, lawyers and cops⊠lots and lots of cops. Whatever interesting concept there once existed about any of those has been wrung dry of originality by copy-catting years ago. Old doctors, young doctors⊠young lawyers, prosecutors (who the hell cast that woman on âClose to Homeâ as a prosecuting attorney— she looks like a particularly earnest Brownie Scout, not a law school graduate), defense lawyers, private investigators, military lawyers and psychic investigators, crime scene investigators, military investigatorsâŠI donât wanna even think about the CSI episode which aired last week, about the guy who ate himself to death. Who the hell programmed that for Thanksgiving evening? I damn near barfed! Grossing out the audience is not a good long term strategy, although maybe a collection of CSI autopsy scenes might work as a diet aid.
I will give a tiny cheer to âCold Caseâ, though⊠for the really quite expertly crafted excursions into the past. See, you can do different eras quite convincingly on a weekly TV series, how come we are all stuck in the present, which we know all too depressingly well!? And next season, according to Drudge, the flav of the upcoming broadcast TV year is post-apocalyptic America, after some unfortunate series of events. Gee, one wonders if that cheery and disastrous prospect—picturing Middle America all gone to chaos and anarchyâisnât giving certain coastal elites a woody of sufficient strength and duration to support a couple of concrete blocks and an small anvil. (Note to the bicoastal cultural elites— Middle America is the place where they have guns and tend to know their neighbors. Word to the wise, âkay?)
Shit, doesnât anyone else in TV land have an original, interesting, non-medical, non-legal, non-law-enforcement job? I canât even bring myself to watch the reality shows: an assortment of people coping with a bizarre collection of real-world and artificial challenges, showing off for an audience and either allying with or backbiting each other— I thought that is what the blogosphere is for. As it is, about the only show where I canât see plot developments coming a mile away is âLostâ. I just hope that the creators and writers for that show have a seriously planned and mapped story arc in mind, and that all these odd little incidents do have an eventual point, and arenât just thrown in every week on a whim; weird for the sake of weird, as âTwin Peaksâ eventually turned out to be. Like, why the heck does Jack have a seriously military appearing tat, and where is the tree-trampling, air-crew snatching monster these days? I eagerly await any explanation of these matters; secure in the confidence that it wonât be anything I would have worked out already⊠which is why I keep tuning in, every week.
To see something different, surprising, amusing, unexpected⊠entertaining, even. Thatâs what I watch TV for; to be entertained, and not to be bored, insulted or nauseated. And that I am bored, insulted and nauseated on such a regular basis⊠well, I can only think that perhaps the broadcast channels donât really want me to watch. And I am happy to oblige. I have enough good stuff on tape or DVD to go for the next couple of seasons. Think on that, major media sources, when you are trying to sell advertising time.
How cool, here we sit in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, waiting for our flight to Denver. Tickets all bought, reservations all made, now I’m live blogging on the wi-fi here. I hope my daughter got more sleep last night thanI did. r-u-f-f! It was something like 10 PM by the time we finished packing and left. Then there was a 2-hr drive to get in position for the ride to the airport this morning.
OK, soon time to go. Then we’ll be in Denver and environs. Tomorrow is practice for the wedding, and on Friday it’s the real thing. Then as Joe and Sheri take their honeymoon, we go do our visiting thing, stopping by my old unit, etc.
Take care friends, we’ll be back here next week!
For the past several weeks, I have been watching the Discovery Channel’s reissue of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. And I am impressed by how well this has held up over the decades.
And I am so amazed at the way he ties the Abyss to the Infinite. This is classic.
I mean, this is all remedial for me: Sagan knew nothing of 11-dimensional String Theory, or Quantum Computing. On tonight’s episode, he marvels at the New York Public Library’s “1015 bits of information.”
I think that’s a gross underestimate. But no matter. Sagan also prophesized the emergence of a “global intelligence.” And is that not what we are approaching with the Internet?
But yet, Sagan also prophesizes about mankind’s rise above the lizard’s instincts of territoriality and homopredation. And I don’t see that we’ve made any progress on that front.
Here, I chose to quote Gene Roddenberry and C. J. Holland (via Patrick Stewart)1 quoting Shakespeare:
Oh, I know Hamlet. And what he said with irony, I say with conviction: “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties. In form, and moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel… In apprehension, how like a god!”
Irony or conviction – your call.
____________________
1) From ST:TNG – Hide And Q 11/23/87
With Hollywood seemingly unable to come up with anything better than yet another treatment of Jane Austen, Eugene Volokh thinks The Last Duel would make a good movie. It’s a history of the last judicial trial by combat authorized by the French central government, in 1386:
It’s got friendship gone sour; a battle to the death; a complaining witness (the wife of one of the combatants, who had accused the other of rape) who would face immediate burning at the stake (on the grounds that she had been proved a perjurer) if her husband and champion was defeated; and a battle scene that’s shocking even to me, after all the battle scenes I’ve read about and watched in movies.
I doubt any Hollywood heavies read either of these two blogs. But who knows?
If you watched Grey’s Anatomy tonight, that should make you laugh uncontrolably for at least a full minute.
God I hate laughing when I’ve got a cold…but my ears popped.
“What’s up?” Stop, you’re killing me.
Luckily for Harrison Ford, this actor could not take this role, named for George Lucas’ dog, because he was already committed to play this character.
Congratz (again) to reader Bill (see comments).