The best way I can think of to respond to Rep. Foxx, and to celebrate (if that's the proper term) passage of the hate crimes bill in the house, is to Netflix The Laramie Project. It's a beautiful, heartbreaking film that never whitewashes bigotry but also never reduces people to caricatures--that recognizes the surprising capacity for basic decency in people whose values are otherwise unsympathetic. Who are, in fact, exactly the people we'll need to win over to achieve marriage equality in our time.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
American Robin
Caught red-beaked (I beg forgiveness of the male Cardinal). Additional evidence here.
You Can't Make This Sh*t Up
The co-executive director of the Miss California Organization has confirmed that the organization paid for Carrie Prejean's breast implants just weeks before the Miss USA pageant. Yes, that's this Carrie Prejean. Miss Prejean, who believes in "opposite marriage", is all about following what she sees as God's will in that regard. So why would she flout God's will for her body by getting breast implants?
And now the ungrateful child is ducking her funders...
Carrie is still involved in a media frenzy, sparked by her controversial response at the Miss USA pageant, and Shanna [Moakler] claims the young woman has been avoiding responding to her Miss California bosses. “We’ve tried really hard [to get in contact] and she keeps referring us to her mother and her PR person,” Shanna claimed.
...while apparently shilling for NOM (yeah, that NOM). At least the producers of this ad were able to edit down her rambling response to something resembling a sound bite. Maybe they should have hired an actress to play the part of the poor, oppressed beauty queen forced to choose between the crown and her convictions (conveniently ignoring the part where Miss North Carolina -- the new Miss USA -- also won the swimsuit and evening gown competitions). We know how well that worked for them last time.
h/t Pam
Apocalpyse Baby Shower Now
Barbin MD has a great Kos diary up about how the GOP is doubling down on their anti-gay marriage rhetoric. Meanwhile, in the real world, the suburban mom favorite magazine "Real Simple"--home of great quickie meal ideas, wonderful home craft projects, advice on what to do about toxic friends and all around cozy mommy world runs a straight up, no comment, picture rich photo essay and journal about the double pregnancy and happy delivery of "twins" by a sweet young lesbian couple. Its not available yet online--its the May 2009 issue--but nothing could be more ordinary, heartwarming, aesthetically pleasing and utterly non threatening than the text and images in this article celebrating the arrival of the "twins" born three weeks apart to these young women. The ship in homophobia has sailed, and as far as I can see it is sinking with all hands on deck just over the horizon.
Guess Obama has Driven them Right 'Round the Bend
I understand Echidne of the Snakes drew our attention to this astonishing moment of “Exit, stage right” from a libertarian. I admit that for a very long time I thought libertarians, as such, didn't exist—that they were a kind of made up foil, an internet myth, used by leftist mommies to explain to their children why the farthest right form of social organization would lead, via libertarian anarchy, to corporate fascism and then social death. At least that's how I used it. But here, apparently, is the real deal. I apologize to everyone I ever derided. These people exist, they are stuck in some early teenage hell of solipsism and death anxiety, and they are going galt to boot. At least emotionally. What else are we to make of Peter Thiel's opening paragraph:
“I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.””He “stands against...the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual?” Straight outta The Life of Brian. But now we have the answer to who learns at the knee of Glenn Reynolds. I take it that this is a tip o' the hat to either cryogenics or robotology. Still, good luck with that. Me, I was standing against “the ideology of the inevitability of death” too until I realized that I had crossed the threshold from non cancerous to “pre-cancerous.” I tried calling myself a lot of things—a member of the “loony party” or the "its not really happening to me party” or, in my five year old's felicitious phrase a member of the “but the real people don't die party” but although many of them would accept money to join it turned out that none of them had a real plan for beating that darned ideology at the polls.
** edited to add--apologies to Amanda at Pandagon. I think it was she, apparently, and not Echidne (whose post I couldn't find) who took down Paul Thiel. Now she's scrapping with Andrew Sullivan over it. Who knew that Stingray had such an illustrious following?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Fleet Those Fleeting Fleeters
The Supreme Court majority, that is:
By 5-4, the [U.S. Supreme] court upheld the Federal Communications Commission's authority to regulate "fleeting expletives." These can be passing uses of what the court's conservative majority delicately termed "the F- and S-words," among other things.So those motherfleeters want to take away my fleeting expletives? Just let them fleeting try.
Do Not Want
Fuck Specter and fuck the DSCC if they treat this as a case of an "incumbent" Democrat running for his own seat in 2010. But no doubt they will suppress any Lamont like run from the center/left and go with the devil they know. I was explaining to my children the meaning of "Quid Pro Quo" recently and I'm damned if I can understand why a ten year old gets it but the entire Democratic Party does not. If Specter won't caucus with the dems as a certain vote *until* 2010 he should not be treated as anything more than a g-damned wart on our body politic. Schumer and Obama can say all the nice things they want but if Specter is planning to be a blue dog let's force the fucker out in the primary and get us some more and *better* Dems in the Senate. No sloppy seconds.
aimai
Monday, April 27, 2009
Monday Movie Review: Cadillac Records
Cadillac Records (2008) 8/10
Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) meets Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright) and forms Chess Records.
The movie opens in a field. It looks like it may be one of those idyllic Kansas wheat field kind of things, and then you see it's sharecroppers, breaking their backs and singing. The scene is definitely not idyllic, but the music is beautiful.
The movie opens in another field. Again you wonder: Kansas? Something beautiful? This time it's a junkyard, where Leonard Chess is making love with his girlfriend. Soon her father will show up and express his disapproval.
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These opening sequences embody everything that's right and wrong about Cadillac Records. On the right side, of course, is the music, which just gets better and better and better with each scene. The music plus the earthy quality, a grittiness, make this a very watchable movie. You feel present in every moment, and as we move to Chicago and the mixed bag of success in the blues and early rock and roll, that immediacy and grit carry you through.
Also right is the terrific cast. Jeffrey Wright, from sharecropper to blues god, is magnificent, mumbling and preening and living deeply inside his music. Adrien Brody is one of my favorite young actors, and here he's doing not just his usual great work, but also working his voice into a hustling Chicago immigrant, without mucking around with an accent. He's sure and good-hearted and also kind of a prick. There's an extensive supporting cast. Beyoncé as Etta James is surprisingly good; her work in Dreamgirls didn't indicate to me that she could do this kind of physical role. Eamon Walker, unknown to me, blew my mind in a small role as Howlin' Wolf.
The movie has been criticized for being too shallow, touching lightly on too many little bits of this moment in history without ever landing. And again, back to the two fields: We fly over a lot of spots, and it is kind of shallow. But it's also a musical, not just because it's a movie where a lot of people sing, but because its story is told through the music. These are people whose lived experience resides inside performance. Muddy Waters is the guy with the guitar, Howlin' Wolf is that big voice. While a deeper story can certainly be told, a rich, textured, deeply musical overview is not at all unwelcome.
Okay, sure, it's a little all over the place. There's no clear main character, and the women (as usual) are a little invisible (Etta James isn't introduced until fairly late). Chess's wife is barely a presence at all, and while Gabrielle Union does the best she can as Muddy's wife, Geneva, she's nothing that can't be summed up by "Muddy's wife, Geneva." Chess himself remains a cipher.
But then I'm back to that great cast. Brody pumps life force into a slight bit of scripting and makes the character seem rich, just as almost every actor in this fine ensemble does.
(Mannish Cross-post)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Friday Random Ten
Pan and Regaliz - Waiting in the Monsters' Garden
Au Pairs - It's Obvious
Rufus Thomas - Walking the Dog
Dengue Fever - March of the Balloon Animals
Big Youth - Hit the Road, Jack
Shonen Knife - Ah, Singapore
Scientist - Plague of the Zombies
Shriekback - Devil's Onions
Karl Hector & the Malcouns - Mystical Brotherhood
Los 5-U-4 - Baila, Ven y Baila
What are y'all listening to this morning?
Party Like It's 1999
There were potential benefits in a change in leadership, one being that the Democrats would now share authority and responsibility for the age and its difficulties. They'd get the daily raw threat file, they'd apply their view of the world and do their best. A primary virtue of that: On the day something bad happened—and that day will come, and no one in the entire U.S. intelligence community will tell you otherwise—we would as a nation be spared, as we got through it, the added burden of the terrible, cleaving, partisan divisiveness of 2000-08. This would help hold us together in a hard time.Yes, Peggy, that day will be a real tea party.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Wednesday Wildflowerblogging
Blue Dicks (Dichelostemma capitatum) in Rockville Hills Park, Fairfield. More below the fold.
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In the Marin Headlands. 
In Edgewood County Park, San Mateo County. 
Along the Matt Davis Trail on Mount Tamalpais.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A Gaythering Storm
Uh, No. Dan. When Poor People Do that Shit they Get Locked Up For It
Jeezus christ on a two toast points but Dan Savage's white male privilege is showing. I guess its all Mrs. Spitzer's fault, the humorless bitch, for not wanting to be choked during sex. Ladeez, pleez, don't bother the rich white guy. He *had* to act out a common fantasy of *choking his sexual partner*--everybody wants to choke their sexual partner and if their wives are not amenable (maybe he couldn't tell her! Its the saddest story of all!) then they just "go elsewhere." And everybody does the same thing. It has never happened, in the history of the world, that people who dont' get what they want just sit on their desires and think of England? And when poor people do this shit they don't get any notice at all! Poor Elliot. On top of being publicly humiliated because he was so sexually dull and uninteresting and ungenerous that he had to pay for sex instead of getting it for free from his wife he's publicly humiliated because he's a rich guy! In short, Spitzer was horny for something he wasn't getting at home—perhaps he was refused, perhaps he never asked—and he did what most men (and women) do when they're not getting something they desperately need at home. He went elsewhere. Which doesn't excuse his hypocrisy—as NY's attorney general, Spitzer prosecuted people for running the kind of prostitution services he patronized himself—and, yeah, he was taking enormous risks... something the rich and powerful and the poor and penniless have been doing for tens of thousands of years. The big difference: We don't hear about it when the poor and penniless get caught.
How stupid is Dan, really? More... When poor people (lets pretend for the sake of argument that lots of women have violent fantasies they want to play out on their husbands. Just for a second. Lets try to do this in a non gendered way) can't get their husband or wife to agree for sex with torture I'm sure they also go "outside" to get what they need. But if they can't afford Spitzer's out--to actually pay a prostitute to *let* them choke them during sex choke their sex partners we call it uh...wait...lemme see...its on the tip of my tongue. Oh yeah. We call it assault with intent to murder. Maybe we add "by a horny guy who was strapped for cash" but we don't think its "just the natural order of things." Because whatever the natural order for animals is, humans live in a social order. Yeah. You heard it here first, apparently. We have a social order that prescribes some behavior and proscribes others. One of the things it proscribes is inflicting harm on another person for mere sexual pleasure. And it double dog proscribes paying a prostitute to consent to physical harm. And one of the people who used to know that, because he made a living prosecuting prostitutes, was Eliot Spitzer himself. Rich guys can buy temporary consent. That may make it inevitable. But it doesn't make it moral. And it certainly doesn't make it anything other than the usual privilige accorded to rich white men. But that doesn't mean that their wives, or other women, or poor men are permitted to enjoy the same luxury. When ordinary, poor people, can't get sexual or other satisfaction in their private lives they have to suppress their desires.
Here's the offending paragraphs:Spitzer was horny. And like a lot men out there, he had the means to hire someone to act out a "difficult" fantasy—choking, apparently—that either his wife wasn't willing to indulge or that he was too ashamed to ask the wife to indulge. And, like many men who go to pros, when Spitzer weighed the benefits—getting off—against the risks—getting caught—he miscalculated. And lots of men are terrible at monogamy (women aren't much better), and it's possible that Spitzer's wasn't just after choking action, but a little variety as well. And about the choking action: Many men have sexual fantasies that involve ritualized sexual violence, and it's often difficult for these men to incorporate their fantasies into their marital sex lives—their own madonna/whore hangups; their wives' inability to see incorporating kinks as a kind of lovemaking—and many of these men seek the services of pros. And in most cases, the services of pros aren't a threat to these men's marriages, but rather the thing that makes it possible for these men to remain content in their marriages.
San Francisco Chronicle: Wrong Again
What with the record high temperatures and all, today's Chron has a front-page article headlined "An early taste of summer".
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
When the marine layer moves in, maybe today, maybe tomorrow--that's an early taste of summer. What we've got right now is an early taste of mid-May, or maybe a very early taste of late September. Summer--not so much.
Get it right, people.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Hurry Up and Show Some Long-Term Results Already!
WaPo Deputy Editorial Page Editor Jackson Diehl:
Obama sent a conciliatory public message to Iranians, and the United States joined in a multilateral proposal for new negotiations on its nuclear program. The regime responded by announcing another expansion of its uranium enrichment facility and placing an American journalist on trial for espionage....The President, in his March 24 press conference:
Obama is not the first president to discover that facile changes in U.S. policy don't crack long-standing problems.
Q: Mr. President, you came to office pledging to work for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. How realistic do you think those hopes are now, given the likelihood of a prime minister who is not fully signed up to a two-state solution and a foreign minister who has been accused of insulting Arabs?If only the President had as much patience and persistence as the nation's editorial page editors.
OBAMA: It's not easier than it was, but I think it's just as necessary....
How effective these negotiations may be, I think we're going to have to wait and see....
You know, leaders from the two sides of Northern Ireland that, you know, a couple of decades ago -- or even a decade ago -- people would have said could never achieve peace, and here they were, jointly appearing and talking about their commitment, even in the face of violent provocation.
And what that tells me is that, if you stick to it, if you are persistent, then, then these problems can be dealt with.
That whole philosophy of persistence, by the way, is one that I'm going to be emphasizing again and again in the months and years to come as long as I'm in this office. I'm a big believer in persistence....
When it comes to Iran, you know, we did a video, sending a message to the Iranian people and the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And some people said, well, they did not immediately say that we're eliminating nuclear weapons and stop funding terrorism. Well, we didn't expect that. We expect that we're going to make steady progress on this front.
Monday Movie Review: Wanted
Wanted (2008) 7/10
An ancient weaver's guild discovers the mystery of becoming super-powered assassins. Wesley (James MacAvoy), a stifled and anxious white collar drone, discovers his father was a member of this cult, and that he has their powers.
For what it is, Wanted is very enjoyable. It turns out it's damn hard to make brainless, entertaining, comic book fare. Most of it is drivel that makes me believe that I don't really like senseless action/adventure. Which is annoying, because I know that I do like it, but what I generally see on screen isn't senseless and entertaining, it's dumb and unacceptable.
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The suspension of disbelief is a delicate balance. It's a bargain between the filmmakers and the audience. Sitting in our seats, or home on the sofa, we want to believe, we just want the film to meet us halfway. We want the movies to care whether or not we're still with them, and to act like it's at least possible we might not be.
There's lots of ways to do it badly, and lots of ways to do it well. Wanted does it well by saying, "We're doing the impossible here. See this? Impossible. We have a thinly plausible explanation that we're breezing by quickly. Wave bye-bye to the explanation and lets get a move on." You know what? It works.
James MacAvoy is one of those actors who everyone assures me I love. I don't. He's okay and all, but when I see him, I don't run to the IMDb to find out what else he's been in. Angelina Jolie, on the other hand, is amazing. She's so beautiful you can almost forget she's talented, and so talented you can almost forget she's beautiful. As an assassin who takes Wesley under her wing, she's perfect; self-contained and self-assured, amused, grounded, and relaxed, she makes it seem as if her part has some depth (it doesn't).
The movie isn't winning any feminist points. Jolie is a Smurfette; there are no other female assassins. And, being the lone female, she hits all the cliché notes, including the daddy issues. Nonetheless, her presence is much appreciated.
On the other hand, I think I'm over Morgan Freeman. He's a great actor and I love him, but his roles are now almost entirely imitations or paradies of his previous roles. Yawn.
Wesley's disaffection with his lifestyle struck me as a cut-and-paste from Office Space (including the red stapler) and Fight Club. You say "homage," I say "write your own damn movie."
Despite its flaws, my verdict is that Wanted is wildly fun, just a crazy drive down twisty streets. The climax is too gorey, and the implausibility could add up if you let it, but you don't have to let it, because it's a movie that reaches out and invites you to play along.
(Curved-through-space cross-post)
Seen in Carpool Line This Morning
A bumper sticker reading "Honk If You're Paying My Mortgage", complete with a fake Obama logo 'o' in the first word.
I had the impulse to jump from my car and offer sympathies to the poor soul who is having trouble covering the mortgage in rich white Republicanville. "So sorry!" I would say. "Have you received an eviction notice? Did the mortgage assistance help you get back on your feet, or were you forced to vacate your 3,000-10,000 square foot McMansion and move into an apartment in the same wealthy school district?"
Of course I didn't, as I'm quite sure the driver is paying the mortgage just fine and simply wants to poke fun at the evil Obama administration's attempts to keep other people from losing their homes. Not to mention keeping said driver's bank afloat so the ATM will keep spitting out cash.
But y'all already knew that.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Friday Random Ten
[unknown Ethiopian artist] - Bhmgnot Alnorem
Tinariwen - Assoul
Dengue Fever - Tap Water
Fall - Gut of the Quantifier
Lene Lovich - The Night
Sonantes - Mambobit
Classics IV - Spooky
Nick Cave - Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
Gun Club - Walkin' with the Beast
Thin White Rope - The Fish Song
In other music news, if I weren't way too old for live music, I would definitely go see Wanda Jackson tonight.
Bonus video below the fold...
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Northern Cardinals
I photographed this breeding pair of Northern Cardinals a split-second after they simultaneously spotted me sighting them up (note how they're each looking at the camera through a crook in the shrub branches) and a split-second before they flushed and were gone. Ever since then, they have avoided me like I'm a serial (bird-) killer. I'm hoping it's just a phase. (See a larger version of the shot here.)
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Rude Pundit and Matt Taibbi are all over town saying the same basic thing but saying it oh so very well. The Tea Bagging party is another one of the opiates of the masses. Here's the Rude Pundit saying it a bit more pungently:
Ah, fuck this. Fuck the puns and the mocking. It's just too fucking depressing. Somewhere, Karl Marx is laughing his bearded ass off. Because what is this but classic exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie? It's a bunch of rich fucks, beginning with that tool Rick Santelli on CNBC and ending with the slavering profitmongers at Fox "news," making the poor idiots, who are desperate from fear of or actual job loss and heath insurance loss and home loss, do their bidding. Look at the people attending. More... Bedraggled Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin wannabes, clinging to the image of those who create the illusion of the working class without the work or the class. Ignorance is such bliss, man.But you know, once you've diagnosed the problem its pretty clear that something needs to be done about it. Just making fun of people, or rolling your eyes, or observing (rightly) "'twas ever thus" is not useful.
This movement's gonna die a horribly gruesome death. It really is just the last hideous gasps of a kind of right wing populism that's got nothing to do with actual populism and everything to do with a desperate scrabbling to preserve the status quo for the wealthy. It's ideological endgame, motherfuckers, and the checkmate ain't gonna be pretty.
If Religion is both a "haven in a heartless world" and a kind of chain then atheism's the cure. For the Dark Ages we needed an Enlightenment. And for the End Times Tea Bagging side show freaks, well, we need a serious intervention. If the NRA, the White Supremacist Movement, the Anti-Gay Crowd, Glen Beck and all the others are the problem, we need a solution. Its not enough to say "this is the last gasp" of this movement. Because its not. I don't agree with our new catchphrase "the arc of history bends towards justice" or any of that other guff. The ark of history is taking on water at a tremendous clip and we'd better start bailing.
The first thing we need to do is realize that half the people who show up at these things are *really hurting* and we need to figure out how to be the people who solve their problems. Then they won't have to show up and stamp their feet and wave their badly lettered signs. They can go back to work, or caring for their sick relatives, or knitting, or whatever they would actually rather be doing. The second thing we need to do is to make it clear that we are the people who are going to solve their problems--we, the liberals, the dems, the gays, the jews, the blacks, the teachers, etc... As g-d makes us repeat during the Seder we "and no other." And the third thing we need to do is to point and wave and piss on the remaining 15 percent of the country who are completely and irredeemably insane. But the one thing we can't do is just rely on making fun of these tea baggin' losers. They have no sense of humor. They have no sense of shame. And they are very, very, frightened. And fear is a dangerous thing when combined with a pathetic level of gullibility.
aimai
Wednesday Wildflowerblogging
Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophila menziesii), at Point Arena Lighthouse in Mendocino County. More specimens below the fold.
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The patch of Baby Blue Eyes right next to the lighthouse.
Along the Raven Trail in Morgan Territory Regional Park. 
Along the Coastal Trail on Mount Tamalpais.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Jokes Just Write Themselves
In, um, honor of tomorrow's mass teabagging:
via Paul the Spud at Shakesville; cross-posted at Birmingham Blues
e.e. cummings, eat your heart out
April in New England -- the brutal beauty of grime-covered snow piles still not quite melted -- inspires its own flavor of poetry: Limericks!
I just love the new prez named Obama,
but he won't promise change without trauma.
Let the teabaggers whine,
"I just want what's not mine!",
while Glen Beck cries in anguish, "Yo Mama!"
The Somalis, who're dying at high rates,
formed a "Coast Guard" of rubber-boat shipmates.
Never mind the dumped waste,
the fish gathered in haste,
We're in power, so let's call them "pirates"!
April is the Poemiest Month
I was going to post this tomorrow, right smack in the middle of the month, but that might interfere with our enjoyment of the pure poetry of tomorrow's festival of tea-baggery in wingnuttia. So here it is today, a poem for National Poetry Month:
CrowsShare a favorite poem of your own in comments, if you feel so inspired. (And thanks to my Mary for
In Japan, in Seattle, in Indonesia -- there they were --
each one loud and hungry,
crossing a field, or sitting
above the traffic, or dropping
to the lawn of some temple to sun itself
or walk about on strong legs,
like a landlord. I think
they don’t envy anyone or anything --
not the tiger, not the emperor,
not even the philosopher.
Why should they?
The wind is their friend, the least tree is home.
Nor is melody, they have discovered, necessary.
Nor have they delicate palates;
without hesitation they will eat
anything you can think of --
corn, mice, old hamburgers --
swallowing with such hollering and gusto
no one can tell whether it's a brag
or a prayer or deepest thanks. At sunrise, when I walk out,
I see them in trees, or on ledges of buildings,
as cheerful as saints, or thieves of the small job
who have been, one more night, successful --
and like all successes, it turns my thoughts to myself.
Should I have led a more simple life?
Have my ambitions been worthy?
Has the wind, for years, been talking to me as well?
Somewhere, among all my thoughts, there is a narrow path.
It's attractive, but who could follow it?
Slowly the full morning
draws over us its mysterious and lovely equation.
Then, in the branches poling from their dark center,
ever more flexible and bright,
sparks from the sun are bursting and melting on the birds' wings
as, indifferent and comfortable,
they lounge, they squabble in the vast, rose-colored light.
--Mary Oliver
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Bad Actors
2nd UPDATE: Here's another link to the audition tapes. Don't know how long it will be working.
UPDATE: I see NOM has yanked the Rachel Maddow video off YouTube, but I'm quite sure it will turn up again.
In more than one sense of the phrase. The National Organization for Marriage (no, I'm not linking; feel free to Google if you must) released a scare ad this week in which actors played the parts of various oppressed people whose lives have been devastated because they are no longer permitted to discriminate against gays and lesbians. The finished product was bad -- a combination of ridiculously overblown rhetoric and unconvincing line readings -- but the audition tapes were...well, they were just horrendous. I have no idea where NOM (maybe the funniest acronym ever!) got these people, but -- trust me -- I would look like Meryl Streep if I went up against them.
NOM was unhappy when the audition tapes hit YouTube, and its minions have been busy scrubbing them. It's embarrassing when the whole world can see that you couldn't get any real actors to show up for your casting call.
Unfortunately for NOM (but good for us), Rachel Maddow captured some of the most egregious moments last night.
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And if the audition tapes weren't funny enough, the parodies are a hoot.
NOM, you done messed with the wrong people. Seriously.
videos via Pam
Friday Random Ten
Chris & Cosey - Cowboys in Cuba
Byrne & Eno - Help Me Somebody
Young Marble Giants - Choci Loni (live)
Talking Heads - The Overload
Link Wray - Big Boss Man
James Brown - The Payback
Budos Band - Chicago Falcon
Tuxedomoon - Loneliness
Love & Rockets - Ball of Confusion
Johnny & the Hurricanes - Sand-Storm
Bonus track: Roland Alphonso & the Skatalites - Shake a Lady
And with that, I'm off to Point Arena for the weekend.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Northern Cardinal (Male)
Prime suspect in recent crabapple disappearances. There's a larger version of the shot here.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Wednesday Wildflowerblogging
California Saxifrage (Saxifraga californica) in Rockville Hills Park, Fairfield.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Hypocrisy is the tribute that Vice pays to Virtue
You know, I for one am glad that Rick Warren now finds it inconvenient to acknowledge his homophobia and his anti gay political history. I think its a huge step forward. And I can't see how it doesn't signal a huge sea change for the better. Either Warren is going to pay for this big time with his more homophobic church members or he's not. That, as my children say, is a win/win. His church will either split into two much less effective warring camps or it will stay together under a now uneasy, less antagonistic, headship. Warren has clearly come to the conclusion that outright, vocal, anti gay activity is not in his personal interest and since everything I know about Rick Warren tells me that he is a very shrewd operator indeed that means he's come to the conclusion that he can grow his church and his private pocketbook better by ceasing to be an overt homophobe. And who am I to contradict him.
Rick, I celebrate your newfound gayitude. Better late than never, better lyingabout love for the new lord than giving voice to your old hates. To mix my metaphors hell has frozen over so pass the popcorn and enjoy the fireworks. Rick Warren has come to Jesus and discovered that he's not a homophobe.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Monday Movie Review: Duplicity
Duplicity (2009) 9/10
Ray (Clive Owen) is former MI6 agent. Claire (Julia Roberts) is a former CIA agent. In 2002 they met, slept together, and she stole some papers from him. Now they're corporate spies on the same team. Or are they? Written and directed by Tony Gilroy.
There is something delightfully retro about Duplicity. It feels like a charming caper from the sixties, like the original Thomas Crown Affair. It's in the bounciness of the filming, especially when scenes are entered via split screen. There's a smartness and a sense of ease, as if nothing that happens is all that serious, even though the stakes are high.
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I saw a review that likened Duplicity to a screwball, and I can definitely see that; it's especially similar to His Girl Friday. Owen and Roberts are certainly a better physical and personal match for Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell than for Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway! But it's mostly the rapid-fire romance, and romantic humor, juxtaposed with a gritty, even dark, story.
This may sounds as if Duplicity is kitsch. It is not. The core story, of corporate espionage, is told in an almost naturalistic style. None of the cast, other than the two leads, have dazzling movie star good looks. The CEO rivals are played by Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti, and the other security agents and tech geeks are equally unbeautiful. The blend of the sparkling stars with the rest of the cast isn't quite seamless, and is the only place I'd fault the film.
We open in Dubai. Ray and Claire meet, flirt, make love, and he wakes up alone. Then it's the present day, and we don't know quite what's going on. Throughout the film, we learn more and more. From 2002, the flashbacks move steadily forward, until, in the end, we see exactly how the present events fit with Ray and Claire's past history. It's not confusing, except inasmuch as you don't know the whole plot—but why should you? The reveal is part of the pleasure, and each time information is revealed, you know more. It's not The Usual Suspects, with a final twist that reverses the previous movie, or Swordfish, with a final twist that pretends to explain everything but is just more gobbledygook. It's a steady, bit-by-bit accumulation of knowledge throughout a dizzying sequence of events. Delightful.
And the thing is, there's a real story being told here. Tony Gilroy is interested in the workings of trust and distrust, of love and eroticism, and of how they all interact as understood by two spies in a relationship that may or may not be real. It's a good story, well-told, and a lot of fun as well.
(cross-cross-cross-post)
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Friday, April 03, 2009
Friday Random Ten
Mekons - Eve Future
Ray Barretto - El Watusi
Fastbacks - Rocket Man
Dengue Fever - Tiger Phone Card
Young Marble Giants - Credit in the Straight World
Essential Logic - The Order Form
Voodoo KungFu - Chian
Nortec Collective - Tengo La Voz
Godfathers - I Want Everything
Kinks - Oklahoma USA
What're y'all listening to this morning? Bonus video below the fold...
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Thursday, April 02, 2009
Emptiness
Street-level commercial space at the corner of California & Front, in the heart of the financial district, San Francisco.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Feds Drop Corruption Charges Against Ted Stevens
You may recall that former Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was convicted the week before the 2008 elections but still came close to being re-elected to his seventh full term. Now the Justice Department is dropping the charges:
More... Stevens was convicted of seven felony counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and home renovations from a wealthy oil contractor.
The trial was beset by government missteps, which continued even after the guilty verdict was read. The trial judge grew so infuriated he took the unusual step of holding the Justice Department in contempt...
...U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan held Justice Department lawyers in contempt in February for failing to turn over documents as ordered. He called their behavior "outrageous."
Sullivan had ordered Justice to provide the agency's internal communications regarding a whistle-blower complaint brought by an FBI agent involved in the investigation of Stevens. The agent objected to Justice Department tactics during the trial, including failure to turn over evidence and an "inappropriate relationship" between the lead agent on the case and the prosecution's star witness.
It's not surprising that the Bush Justice Department screwed up. It still surprises me that federal prosecutors went after Stevens at all, given the political climate at the time.
The Justice Department (the new Justice Department) is investigating the prosecutors who tried Stevens' case, and AG Eric Holder says this:"I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement released Wednesday. He said the department must ensure that all cases are "handled fairly and consistent with its commitment to justice."
I applaud Eric Holder's efforts to restore integrity -- and credibility -- to the Justice Department. IMO, he's made the right decision here, although I suspect he's also getting out in front of the likely reversal of the conviction in appeals court. ( Not to mention the extreme unlikelihood of Ted Stevens making a political comeback at this point.)
As for the broader implications: a rich white Republican gets his conviction effectively overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct so obvious that the judge called it out. Will we see similar results for poor defendants with court-appointed attorneys who are too busy, too inexperienced, or too uninterested to pursue similar misconduct? Should I hold my breath?
Wednesday Wildflowerblogging
Miner's Lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) along the Matt Davis trail, Mount Tamalpais.
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