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Archive Page 22 of 25

Say it with me: Jean-Claude-Van-Damme

Published on October 23, 2007 in movies and trends.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams likes saying the words “monkey god” over and over, because “for some wonderful reason, that combination of words – monkey god – releases a little snort of serotonin directly into the part of my brain that likes it the most.”

For me (and at least one or two other people) the words Jean-Claude Van Damme produce a similar effect. It’s hard to say why this is so. If you have any clues as to why the name of a short Belgian martial artist/actor would be so intrinsically funny, let me know.

As it happens, there is a new movie on the way that will star Jean-Claude as Jean-Claude. It’s called JCVD in JCVD. It sounds like a documentary but it isn’t. It’s a biopic that will star the actual subject.

Leave it to Jean-Claude to break with convention and create an entirely new film genre—the auto-biopic. I’m sure that my blogging comrade Visionary Larry saw this coming.

Movie Review: Into the Wild

Published on October 19, 2007 in movies.

There’s a scene in Into the Wild in which the 24-year-old Christopher McCandless pithily lays out the philosophy that drives him to shun human contact and light out for the Alaskan wilderness.

Before McCandless, played quite well by Emile Hirsh, delivers his raison d’etre, he acknowledges that he’s “paraphrasing” Thoreau: “Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness … give me truth.”

Whether you think McCandless is a purely heroic character or a tragically misguided one rests on your interpretation of this quote and whether you agree with its priorities.

Is the quest for truth more important than the quest for love? And are they incompatible?

The heartbreaking aspect of “Into the Wild” is how McCandless effortlessly engenders love in other people and then subsequently leaves them behind without hesitation.

Throughout his two-year sojourn that zigzags the American west and ends in Alaska, he continually meets people who plead with him to stick around, but his desire for truth—something that he’s convinced can’t be found in a materialistic culture—keeps sending him back to his solitary existence.

It’s ironic that McCandless’ guiding principle—the one that spurs him to abandon his family and friends in the name of pursuing truth—should come from Thoreau, who, even while living on Walden Pond, went into town regularly for human contact.

Come on [insert comma here] Bill

Published on October 17, 2007 in uncategorized.

Commas freak me out. Half of the time I worry I’m using too many of them in the wrong places, and the other half I worry that I’m not using enough of the little buggers.

Maybe you can sympathize. Then again, maybe you’re a comma king or queen. Maybe you could care less if you use them correctly or not. That’s a healthy attitude–unless you’re in the publishing industry, and in that case your carefree attitude will get you into trouble, as it no doubt did the person in charge of editing Bill Cosby’s new book, which is entitled, if we’re to believe the cover, “Come On People.”

Graphic design, in lots of cases, obviates the need for certain punctuation and capitalization. And there are a lot of headline writing conventions that break rules. This is not one of those cases, however, where commas don’t matter. They matter big time in this case.

“Bill Cosby is either one kinky bastard or a guy who never learned about the comma of direct address,” Bill Walsh, a Washington Post editor, wrote on his blog (Blogslot) recently. Even if the meaning is clear—we know Bill Cosby isn’t into that kind of thing—it’s embarrassing for the writer, editor and publisher.

I bet editors everywhere will have a good laugh over this. But it will also terrify them, because everyone, regardless of his or her comma command, will occasionally screw the pooch.

Hat tip: Blogslot, the very best blog about editing in the entire sphere-o-blogging.

Here’s something novel

Published on October 16, 2007 in politics and trends.

I am an occasional user of Jott.com, a free service that allows you to phone a message (which is then magically transcribed) to an e-mail address. It’s a handy way to send reminders to yourself. You call up a number and a recording asks “Who do you want to Jott?” You give it a name or say “myself” and then there is a beep and you state your message, which is then transcribed and sent to the recipient’s e-mail address. Pretty neat.

Today, I got an e-mail from Jott about a new program called Jott the Vote, wherein you can phone-email a message to any presidential candidate.

You could send a message to, say, Rudy Giuliani: “Hey, Uncle Rudy, why don’t you tell us about 9/11 one more time.”

Much has been written about how the internet is changing our politics, perhaps even making it more democratic. Where does Jott the Vote fit into this concept?

Is a Jott to a presidential candidate worth anything? I’d like to explore this further, but I gotta go. Maybe later.

Nothing is obscene anymore

Published on October 15, 2007 in music and politics.

Last week, I came across some great footage of Frank Zappa on Crossfire.

The subject was music, obscenity and censorship. The show (it aired in 1986) also featured Robert Novak (who, curiously, looks exactly the same as he does today—old and crotchety), a columnist from the Washington Times named John Lofton, and host Tom Braden.

A lot of commentators say we’re shriller than ever before, but when you look at this video, you’ll consider the possibility that we have made progress since the culture wars of the 1980s.

Not surprisingly, Zappa takes the anti-censorship side. He’s conservative in the libertarian sense of the word—he doesn’t want the government to tell him what he can listen to.

On the other side, there’s the goon from the Washington Times. I say goon not because he supports censorship, but because he’s a ridiculous caricature of the hyperventilating social conservative. Mencken wouldn’t have bothered to dress this guy down. To make your counterpoint is simply to let him talk.

The debate veered toward one song that the Washington Times guy thought was particularly offensive—“Sister,” by Prince. He claimed the song promoted incest. It’s certainly a foul song, and my guess is that Prince, now a Jehovah’s Witness, would like to put it as far behind him as possible. But I doubt that it had much of an effect on the sexual mores of innocent listeners at the time.

Continue reading ‘Nothing is obscene anymore’

The necktie returneth

Published on October 12, 2007 in trends.

I don’t know about other bloggers, but whenever I have an itch to write a post, I throw on a button-down shirt and necktie.

Well, not really, but what if doing so made me a more productive blogger? What if it made me a more productive AND hipper blogger?

According to the NY Times, the necktie is back. But these days, instead of signaling a desire to get ahead, the half-Windsor knot reveals the desire to be seen as a cool and groovy guy. Someone cool and groovy like, say, Justin Timberlake or Frodo Baggins.

“Wearing a tie is a kind of style. It’s a thing you’re doing. It’s seen as ‘creative,’” a 31-year-old film executive told the Times.

Continue reading ‘The necktie returneth’

I guess that makes me a Dodd-ball

Published on October 11, 2007 in politics.

I was surprised at the results of a candidate-matching exercise I did today.

Sen. Christpher Dodd, D-Conn., and I disagree on only one issue—immigration.

I checked the ‘provide a path to citizenship/secure border’ option. I think the discrepancy comes from the fact that, according to this site, Dodd would like also to see a fence along the border.

My idea of securing the border has nothing to do with erecting physical barriers. In fact, securing the border, for me, is more about terrorism than immigration. But the more I think about it, the less practical border security seems as a terrorism prevention measure. Similar to how to you can never have a totally poo-free food supply, you’ll never have a hermetically sealed border, even if (god forbid) that were the top domestic priority.

I hate fences. My opinion on fences matches that of Owen Wilson’s character in Shanghai Noon:

I am like a wild horse. You can’t tame me. You put the oats in the pen, though, and I’ll come in for a nibble every day… But if you ever shut that gate, I’ll jump the fence and you’ll never see me again.

OK, it’s not the most apt quote, but my point is that fences aren’t the answer to anything. They never have been. Not only do they not work (people have been successfully jumping them as long as they’ve been around) they’re philosophically and aesthetically repulsive, and that’s enough for me to never support them. So, to be clear, even if they were the best way to curtail illegal immigration, I think a fence—and what it represents—is a bigger threat to the republic than Mexicans looking for work.

I might consider quarantining Texas, though.