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Inspired by various posts of zzersonat, I pulled up what is now clearly my favorite animated short of the 2007 Florida Film Festival. This piece just resonated on the big screen. It was partially inspired by the William Blake poem The Tyger and while it takes some time to download, I is worth the wait.

Tyger

Sharpie on a post it, photoshop. July 7, 2008

In the words of the great modern philosopher Liz Lemon, "Blurg."

I'm not sure when my internal clock developed Swiss precision, but I'd appreciate it if it would make adjustments for different time zones. Despite the fact that I stayed up extra late reading, and despite the fact that my 5:45 a.m. flight out of Asheville yesterday and the time adjustment meant that I had effectively been up for twenty-four hours straight when I let my head finally hit the pillow (with one brief, restless, ineffectual nap upon getting to the hotel), I still woke up at my regular eastern time zone time which means the 3:00 a.m. hour here. I slept only fitfully after that, so I'm feeling fairly wrecked.

I know there are far worse afflictions than being a bad sleeper, but sometimes this feels really brutal.

housematehorror
Horror stories from the world of shared living spaces. EEK!

Thirty-one Ways to Celebrate NATIONAL HOT DOG MONTH

1. Read about the maddest mutt in the whole whacky world.
2. Enjoy some cinematic glory from 1984.
3. Learn how to pilot a Viper.
4. Listen to a record.
5. Play a board game.
6. Try to do in a poor, innocent hamburger chef.
7. Pursue higher education.
8. Wear a diabolical new t-shirt.
9. Celebrate Halloween early.
10. Made good use of a roll of quarters.
11. Brush up on this history of Jughead's canine companion.
12. Read a British magazine.
13. Aw, go ahead and read a different magazine.
14. Learn fire safety while staying inside the lines (or outside the lines, if you prefer).
15. Check out some Swedish blues.
16. Laugh now.
17. Blow some bubbles.
18. Watch an appendectomy.
19. Buy some independent records.
20. Or listen to a record that has got to be horrible.
21. Admire some classic art.
22. Watch a program about stuff.
23. Laugh it up with an old cartoon.
24. Ummmm....
25. Root on your favorite old Phillipine Basketball Association team.
26. Get creative with your cuisine.
27. Play a game of pinball.
28. Enjoy the music of a Japanese cover band.
29. Encapsulate the joys and troubles of the twenty-first century.
30. Get down with Taiwan's godfather of rap.
31. Expand your bobblehead collection.

Eleventh in a series...

dwseason4
A journal where the alternative fourth season of the TV show Doctor Who is being written.

lol_comics
Keep youself smiling at the little things with some funny comics.

bikes
A community for everyone who loves bicycles, motorbikes, and more.

Drove out to Delafield, about 40 minutes west of Milwaukee, this morning to meet casinoqueen for a little hike. The chosen spot was Lapham Peak in the Kettle Moraine Forest. We'd decided to do the 4-mile portion of the Ice Age Trail that cuts through the park -- seemed more interesting than one of the loop trails, which are designed mostly for cross-country skiing in winter.

It was a great day for a walk. A slight breeze, 70ish degrees. It's a beautiful area. There's a lot of prairie and wetlands on one end.






Then the trail rises up to the 1,233-foot "Lapham Peak" in the park's center. You even get to climb this huge, wooden observation tower get a good view of the whole area.



The second half of the journey was more wooded, and we encountered quite a bit of muddy trail. Perhaps this would have been expected if I'd read the definition of "kettle" before we left: "A depression left in a mass of glacial drift, formed by the melting of an isolated block of glacial ice. A pothole." My shoes certainly look like they've walked through a glacier's pothole. And, of course, I have no pictures of that part of the journey because I'd decided to put the camera back in my backpack and didn't feel like getting it back out. (And besides, I was with a master "documenter.")

I saw my first ever eastern towhees -- a pair of them scratching in the leaves under a tree to look for food. Also saw either a northern flicker or a red-bellied woodpecker; it flew off before I could tell for sure.

It was a good morning. Muddy shoes and all.

Here's a partial listing of things I did yesterday:

--Finally--finally!--finished What is the What
--Read Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings
--Started reading David Hajdu's The Ten-Cent Plague
--Scoped out the Elbert Theatre
--Lost at Scrabble and cribbage
--Neglected to post an entry in this space, the first daily posting missed since last October

So I now have to erase the triple-digit number under the "Consecutive Day Without A Missed Posting" header on the Jelly-Town^TM factory floor chalkboard and write in a big "1." Ah well, we'll just get back at it tomorrow.

Switching things up, I'm staring off with my Bonus picture - my favorite of the week. Our weekend was spent near Elberton, GA. Old town, old buildings, gorgeous architecture mostly rotting. We found a job for coffeefortwo, a storefront for me to create some business in, and the perfect house (2800 sq. ft, hardwood, 4 porches, built in the 30's, fully restored, new everything, less then $220k). Oh, and the environment? Hot, flat, dry, broken, and totally not where we would ever end up. But it was an excellent weekend of laziness.


BONUS pic. self explanatory.


( PROJECT 365 - Week 26 )

That fella from yesterday served as inspiration for this topic.

As always, please play along...

( Coffee. Starts with a C and ends with an E. So does the word 'choke.' So, what, we're going to choke to death? )

The Robert Downey, Jr. of cookies. Very nice.

today in the mail I received yet another air check tape from my days as an actual student dj...it seems she's been lugging around that box of unlabeled tapes that I thought I had misplaced in my wandering days...she promises me there are more ...I LOVE her...anyway here's the tracklist...

Tin Machine - Under The God
Jesus and Mary Chain - Far Gone and Out
Fugazi - Repeater
Social Distortion - I Was Wrong
Replacements - Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out
Sugar - Good Idea
Pixies - Debaser
Meat Puppets - Backwater
Elvis Costello - Radio Radio
Husker Du - Important Years
REM - The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight
David Byrne-Hanging Upside Down
Lemonheads-Confetti
The Clash - White Man In Hamersmith Palais
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Mama Let Me Turn You On
Dwight Yokum - Goin Nowhere
Velvet Underground - Can't Stand It
Replacements -I Don't Know

After yesterday's experiment in terror, I thought it might be appropriate to usher some dissenting viewpoints into the mix. I was pretty harsh towards Michael Bay's work, after all. It's only fair to provide equal time to his supporters.

So, with some previous help from caker_66 I looked to The Official Shoot For The Edit Forums at michaelbay.com. Here is the unsolicited and unwitting editorial replies from members of that forum:

PEARL HARBOR

alexsm: "Pearl Harbor is a great movie. I've seen it a few times and I love it. The romatic story is nice and all the battles are AMAZING. Maybe the best flying combats ever filmed. Also IMO the movie has Bay's best camera work (well... now i think i'm not too sure about this... Bad Boys 2 and The Island are hard opponents)."

JesterJJZ: "Pearl Harbor is a cinematic masterpiece."

BAD BOYS II

Grazer: "Bad Boys 2 re-defined action for me. I cant watch action in films the same way anymore."

Mobe1969: "Wow, what an absolute ride. Like Superfreak says take away the action and it is still an awesome comedy. I mean that whole scene in the video store where they are talking about what Smith did to Lawrences behind and the after affects of it makes me laugh just thinking of it. And that is just one funny bit. And the action in it. My god, that freeway car chase was superb. And that was just one of the chases."

THE ISLAND

darthrage: "I really liked The Island. Out of all of Michael Bay's films, I felt that the Island was the most deep and though provoking of them all while keeping the it feeling like a Summer Blockbuster."

Chemical Superfreak: "I will say it has some of the best cinematography in recent memory. Delicious visuals, and i'm not talking about 'ScarJo''s deliciousness."

TRANSFORMERS

Halofan1: "Technically, it's one of the best films ever made. Anyone complaining about the effects needs to be pistol whipped."

vogeler: "I did love all the characters in the movie. The Special Effects where awsome! and all the military equitment and computorised technology were great. Now I cant whait for the Second Transformers movie!!!!!"


And lest you think that the dedicated contributors to the Michael Bay discussion boards are mere sycophants who only watch Michael Bay movies, know that they offer insightful commentary on other films, too. Like Titanic:

"I actually really enjoyed Titanic, although I tend to ignore old Rose, young Rose, and all the jack inbetween. P.S. ROSE IS A BITCH FOR THROWING A PRICELESS JEWEL INTO THE FREAKING OCEAN. If I was here kid, that is grounds for disownment."


I'm glad we could borrow from that forum to raise the level of cinematic discourse around here.

In the summer of 1998, firthofforth and I were vacationing in Colorado. As we're prone to do, we took some of our spare time to go and see a movie. Since we were in the mood for something fun and light--a junk food movie, if you will--we ventured to a nearby theater and saw Armageddon, Michael Bay's third feature and his follow-up to the flawed-but-mindlessly-entertaining The Rock.

My old colleague in movie criticism soul_shear once talked about the sensation of so loathing a movie while you watch it that if the director happened to be sitting next to you in the theater you would feel compelled to spin around and punch him (or her, but disproportionately him) square in the face. That's exactly how I felt watching Armageddon. I despised it and despised Michael Bay for making it. As finally, blessedly left the theater, I swore I would never again watch a Michael Bay movie. Ten years later, that pledge is retracted today in the most brutal fashion I can imagine.

Since Armageddon, Michael Bay has directed four features: Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II, The Island and Transformers. Today, I'm going to watch them all. In succession. And I'm bringing you all with me, liveblogging all the way.

I'm still not certain of the best way to do this using the livejournal interface, but I'm planning to post regularly as I go, definitely after each film with a few observations scattered throughout. Keep watching this space. Unless the general critical consensus about Bay's artistry is off-base, today is going to get ugly.

( Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001). )

( Bad Boys II (Michael Bay, 2003). )

( The Island (Michael Bay, 2005). )

( Transformers (Michael Bay, 2007). )

THERE...I did it. I feel a little like someone installed a radio tuned between stations inside my skull, but I did it.

Now I think I should go read a book for awhile.

This culture is set up to end the debate before it even begins. The boundaries of debate are decided long before Nightline goes on the air by who they've selected to sit there. You don't see the fringe people—they put on Perot and put on Jesse Ventura largely, they think, to expose them as clowns. It's just funny to watch the gyrations and the machinations and the gymnastics that this culture goes through to bullshit itself. It's fun. To me, it's all entertainment; I'm here for the show. Philosophers say, "Why are we here?" I'll tell you why: I'm here for the show. I love it, and they entertain me to no end.
--George Carlin, 1999 interview with The Onion AV Club

In the Roman Empire portion of his 1981 film History of the World: Part I, Mel Brooks cast himself as Comicus, a stand-up philosopher. I doubt he was trying for anything much more profound than wedging some Borscht Belt comedic stylings incongruously into a much different era, but I think he was actually on to something. Complex, deeply considered examinations of the contradictions and mysteries of human life and society have fully receded from our national dialogue, relegated to the highly buffered confines of the collegiate classroom as the rest of the populace engages in debates of no more challenge and import than which American Idol contestant is most deserving of being voted off next. Dissenting voices--not just politically dissenting voices, but those that challenge deeply entrenched cultural norms--are unceremoniously prevented from any sort of mass distribution, respect or even recognition. If someone wants to get up in a public square and question the veracity of God, the inherent value of religion or government, the worthiness of humanity itself, then that person had best find a means of couching their commentary in something palatable enough that they will actually be heard. Humor is a wondrous salve, offering allowance to speak uncomfortable truths or, more often, challenge the conventional wisdom about what is and isn't true. It can go beyond that safety net of "I was only joking" to an open door to discussion for the taboo and slinging rocks against the power structure.

George Carlin was a hell of a stand-up philosopher.

I remember being a kid and hearing George Carlin's records played at the adult parties where I was allowed to bang around unnoticed. The spinning vinyl unleashed a brisk torrent of dirty words and funny voices. This was the 1970's, so Carlin's material was still fairly safe: supermarkets and childhood mischief in Catholic school, household pets and the vagaries of language, undoubtedly his most enduring subject. Eventually I got older and got my own copies of those famed albums, listening to them with close attention, practically memorizing favorite routines. I awaited each new HBO special and late night talk show appearance like a devoted disciple, always hoping for the inclusion of some classic routine--"Baseball-Football" or "A Place For My Stuff"--the way someone sits through all of the new songs at a rock concert waiting for the band to get around to playing their one big hit.

What I decided was that I didn't give a fuck about what happens on this planet to these people. I mean, I see the nice things in people, I see the good things, but I also see what a depraved, sick species we are, the only species that kills its own for personal gain. I'll go back to square one on this: We squandered a lot of gifts. Human beings were given a lot of great gifts. We were given the ability to reason, this extra-large brain, walking erect, having binocular vision and the opposable thumb, and all of these things, and we had such promise, but we squandered it on goods and superstition. We gave ourselves over to the high priests and the traders, and they are the ones we allow to control us. I think that's a huge mistake and it's disappointing to me.
--George Carlin, 2008 interview with Salon

Carlin famously broke away from a straight-laced stage persona in favor of a looser, more counter-culture approach in the late 1960's and early 1970's. His physical appearance evolved to a hippie scruffiness and his bits were infused with melodically deployed vulgarities. The more significant stylistic change happened in the 1990's. Carlin begin fueling his performances with his indignation over the state of the world, the hypocrisy of the power structure and a cultural compact built upon the foundation of self-delusion. He was still never especially political, but his material was awash in broader social commentary. I remember watching an HBO special around this time that concluded with a bit called "The Planet is Fine," which deconstructed the notion of "saving the planet" with savagely sound logic. He found the arrogance embedded in the seemingly altruistic stance and the way in which the choice of terminology obscured the fearful self-preservation at the core of the sentiment. It was a turning point, a revelation of the way in which having a microphone and quick wit could yield something more for potent that withering complaints about airline food. Comedy could be built on deep discontent and the result could interlace fierce honesty with the punchlines. I was no longer interested in new recitation of classic routines. Now I was anxiously to hear anything new that Carlin had to offer. If you wanted a sound assessment of the state of American society in recent years, you were better off listening to George Carlin than any elected official or newschannel pundit.

He was an absolute master of his chosen craft, in part because his was a blessedly restless mind. When he discussed his field, he did so with the command of detail of a lifelong student. He thought about what worked and what didn't in comedy. He could explain the evolution of stand-up better than anyone. This was because he's lived and worked through most of it, but also because he was fully awake to the ramifications of a Lenny Bruce or a Richard Pryor, considering their significance and their shortcomings as another means to hone his own talent. He wanted to always adapt and grow as a performer and as a writer. His longevity made him into an elder statesman of sorts, but that term, fraught with the connotation of a settled soul, shortchanges the vitality of his contribution right up to the end. Losing Carlin isn't just losing a legendary comedian, it's losing a great mind.

Rights aren't rights if someone can take 'em away. They're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of temporary privileges, and if you read the news even badly you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter and shorter. Sooner or later, the people in this country are going to realize the government does not give a fuck about them. Government doesn't care about you or your children or your rights or your welfare or your safety. It simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in its own power--that's the only thing--keeping it and expanding it wherever possible. Personally, when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true. I think either we have unlimited rights or we have no rights at all. Personally, I lean toward unlimited rights. I feel, for instance, I have the right to do anything I please. But, if I do something you don't like like, I think you have the right to kill me. So where you gonna find a fairer fuckin' deal than that? So the next time some asshole says to you, "I have a right to my opinion," you say "Oh yeah, well I have a right to my opinion, and my opinion is you have no right to your opinion." Then shoot the fuck and walk away.
--George Carlin, the closing words of his 14th and final HBO special, 2008's It's Bad For Ya!

knitted_wedding
Follow one woman's quest to knit an entire vow-renewing wedding. Encouragement is encouraged.

brigits_flame
For writers interested in an ongoing competition that tests your narrative chops.