More Thoughts on "Mind Freak"; Also: the Sweet Insanity That is the Georgia State Fair

Thought I'd throw in a little more about that spinning dancer illusion/mind test. Blogger Andrew Sullivan posted the test up on his blog (he was clockwise), and not long after, readers started writing in on ways to force the direction to change. Here's the link, but I'll just write what the reader wrote here:

"Stare at her left heel, the one that "hits" the "floor". Now look at the reflection of the foot as it hits the floor. "Make" it change direction. Imagine it goes counter clockwise. Soon it will. There is some kind of "jerk" in the image...when the loop starts again or maybe it is on purpose. That's where I can reverse it.

Now, while still concentrating on the "reflection" of her left heel, bring your focus out a bit until you see her leg swinging counter clockwise. If it is still going clockwise, look at only the reflection of her foot again. Keeping trying that until you get the leg swinging counter clockwise."

This method didn't really work for me, but when I opened the page again with the spinning woman on it, it was counter-clockwise for me, and, for a little while, impossible for me to force her to change direction. (The method that does seem to work, is to start typing into the URL bar above the dancer, anything will do just so long as your attention is fixated there, and as you're typing, the dancer will switch back and forth down in your peripheral vision. That works really well for me.)

By now, I don't know at all what this test proves, if anything at all. On the face of it, it purports to show once again how "creative" people are right-brain dominant and will see the woman turning clockwise, and how "logical, analytical" people are left-brain and will see a counter-clockwise direction to the spinning. But the results so far, sent in by the folks who read this blog, don't seem to neatly conform to this standard. For example, my wife, who's very strong analytically, saw the dancer spin only clockwise, and never once counter-clockwise. A lot of you who I know to be quite strong creatively, saw it switch back and forth without either direction emerging dominant. And now I'm seeing it counter-clockwise. Does that mean that I'm having a left brain day today? Doubtful I've ever had a left-brain day. So maybe it means this test says a lot less about us then the test's makers had hoped. Maybe.

In other news, I went to the Georgia State Fair yesterday. Good times. Here are some pitchers.

















Just a wide shot of the fair. This was the section containing all the rides that I'd never ever go on. So, you know, kind of boring to me. But there's fair-food here too, so not a total waste of time.























There were quite a few canopies covering a phenomenon I'd never seen nor heard of before: extravagantly souped-up golf carts. This seems like a deeply redneck thing to build, buy or covet, but the fact is I would really love to drive and/or ride around in one of these things. The way these things have been supercharged, they seem like the safe alternative to ATVs. Then again, the taller and faster they get, the likelihood of toppling seems greater, no?


















Here's another one. Check out the raised back seat. At a certain point, you do enough of this up-souping and they just become a Popemobile. And who wouldn't want to take the Popemobile for a spin?


















This is me just prior to experiencing the taste explosion that is the Deep-Fried Twinkie. At first: not so much. It just tastes like fried dough, which is good, but nothing to write home about. But then comes the cream filling and this is what cinches the deal: the cream is still cold. The outside of the package being so hot, the still-cool center is a shock, but a glorious shock of delight at that!


















Here are some people who have either a.) eaten nothing at the fair, or b.) want to bring what they've eaten quickly back up. I don't think even astronauts would ride this thing.


















The words 'Pork' and 'Butt' together are disgusting enough, especially in that they are meant to describe a food item, but the fact that it's 'on a stick', makes it somehow seem palatable. Oh what sweet madness the State Fair!























This character seems to be the next evolution in sidewalk entertainment. First there were mimes and jugglers and caricature artists, then came the breakdancers, then the unconvincing statues that turn out to actually be people who move suddenly in order to scare small children, and in 2007 it is the 7-foot tall robot man with an outdated crew cut. While my father-in-law and I went to retrieve the car, my wife said she saw a child screaming for its life upon her first sighting of the metallic and oft-dancing robot freak, shouting, "I don't want to see the robot!" I think the true mark of a successful sidewalk novelty is whether or not they inspire a feeling of horror and/or loathing in small children. So this guy's got to be the next big thing. The person inside the suit is raised up on mega-platform shoes, and the flat-topped robot head is planted atop the person's actual head. The robot's elbows are actually the man-in-the-suit's arms. Pretty ingenious, and the effect is mesmerizing. It took me a minute to discern whether or not it was an actual robot. The second time we came across this guy, my wife and in-laws and I were all gawking appreciatively at him when the robot leaned down to my wife who was standing in front of me. It said in its synthesized robot-voice: "I don't want to alarm you, but although you're looking at a giant in front of you--" my wife started to laugh here, knowing where he was going with it, "--there is also one standing behind you." The crowd laughed with the synthetic freak at my own natural freakiness, suddenly the center of the group's attention. I saluted lamely to laughter. As the robot shifted his attention to another gape-mouthed child, he saw in his peripheral vision that I was leaving, turned and said, "Fe-fi-fo-fum, dude."

Anyway, don't be surprised if this thing appears on a promenade, boardwalk or Monster Truck rally near you.

British Author Doris Lessing Reacts to Nobel Win

Her under-the-breath "Oh Christ" is worth checking out. For the cameras she's all world-weary and "seen it all before", sure, but once she goes inside I'm sure she does at least a tiny jig.

"Life of Pi" Illustrated; Gore Wins; Lessing Wins; Bloom Pooh-Poohs

If any of you have read Yann Martel's "Life of Pi", this might be of interest to you. My wife and I read/listened to this book on our drive cross-country back in 2005 and liked it generally (though I remember tiring pretty quickly of the cheerful, Indian-accented narrator who read the book. A little bit of him went a long way). Aside from some problems I had with its vaguely evangelical ambition, I thought it was well-written and made its points elegantly.

I just found out that the publisher of "The Life of Pi" has decided to put out an illustrated edition of Martel's novel.

I just ran across this link on a favorite blog of mine, drawn.ca, (which, by the way, is a great place to see what's going on in the world of illustration). The publisher of Martel's novel ran a contest to find the best illustrator for the assignment, and decided a Croatian artist named Tomislav Torjanac was the best guy for the job. Judging by the example above, it's hard to argue. If you click on the first link there, you can find out more about Torjanac's process, which is to sketch first, then paint, then photograph, and finally run that photograph through Photoshop where he adjusts it, sexies it up, and creates the final image. Anyway, I thought this image was striking and made me wish I were a painter.

The illustrated edition just came out Oct. 1st, and in it there are 30 (count 'em 30!) illustrations; might be a worthwhile purchase, or at least fun to flip through next time you find yourself in a Barnes or a Borders. I wish publishers would do this sort of thing more often.

In other news, some notable Nobels were handed out this week.

First, my man Al Gore split the Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Will this award push Gore to a presidential run, as Christopher Hitchens hopes it will?

At this point, I'm not sure I even hope he will run anymore. The odds seem stacked against him. Aside from tens of millions of Democratic voters (and maybe some independents these days), no one seems to be poised to jump into the fray and fight with him. The so-called "liberal media" who unfairly trashed him in 2000 might cast a favorable eye on him this time around, or they might just decide to trash him again in '08; the Supreme Court helped Bush steal the Presidency from him -- in a close election, what's to stop the Republican machine (and an even more radically conservative court) from stealing a second election?; the right-wing press continues to trash him and the volume level will only increase if he does run as they try and tear him down, which would be demoralizing; and Hillary's so entrenched right now as the frontrunner, you'd have to have a keener understanding of on-the-ground Democratic politics than I do to see how it's possible to wrench the necessary number of donors and fundraisers and endorsers away from the Hillary juggernaut and over to Gore. And if he did decide to run, there would be the unseemly but inevitable attempt by the Clinton campaign to trash Gore with snide insinuations and whispering campaigns; and Hillary would have no choice but to publicly attempt to define Gore with soft but damning adjectives (witness what she's done with Obama, calling him "inexperienced" and "naive", apparently to great effect). And as the weeks drew down closer to nomination time, the knives would really come out. None of that would be fun to watch.

But if he does decide to run, I will, of course, support him. He would be the best candidate.

One further interesting observation Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo made after hearing the news of the Nobel: "You know, with Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize for his environmental activism, it really makes the Nader voters look prescient, doesn't it?" Word.

And finally, novelist Doris Lessing won the Nobel for Literature this year, which makes her the oldest recipient ever awarded the prize. In response Lessing said, "Oh, Christ. I couldn't care less." I guess you have to be 3 years shy of 90 years old to understand why that could be so. Anyway, no sooner than the award's announced than that fat old gasbag Harold Bloom, who always seems to be on-hand immediately whenever one of these prizes is handed out, called the award "pure political correctness". I haven't read Lessing, so I don't know if it is or not, but why is it Bloom can't wait a week before he rains on an old lady's parade? Even one she doesn't care about? Anyway, what an asshole.

Enjoy your weekends, folks.

Mind Freak

My mom sent this to me today.

When you click on the link, you'll see the woman in silhouette to the left, only she'll be in motion. But the direction in which she'll be turning (clockwise or counter-clockwise) will depend on which hemisphere of your brain is dominant.

I won't say in the post (though I will in the comments) which direction she turned for me, but I will say that when I'm watching it, I have a very hard time figuring how anyone could possibly see her spinning in the opposite direction.

A couple of hours ago, however, I did see her turning in the opposite direction, but just as soon as I'd perceived it, she started turning the way she always turns.

Anyway, pretty interesting.

My Trip to Philadelphia (and also Scranton, but since there are no photos of Scranton, this post is mostly about Philadelphia)

My wife and I traveled to Philadelphia and Scranton over the weekend to attend a wedding for one of her college friends. Though I took my camera, I forgot it on Saturday (the day of the wedding), and so I have no pictures at all of the event. But here are a few of the ones I did take.














Shortly after arriving in Philadelphia, we drove our rental car (a Hyundai Santa Fe which, aside from its being a gas-guzzling SUV, was a pretty good drive) into the wilds of South Philly. Our destination: Geno's Steaks (pictured left). Geno's is world-famous. Whenever Presidential candidates come through Philadelphia, they're required to stop here, the nexus of cheesesteaks, for food and photos. John Kerry dropped by in 2004 and ordered himself a Geno's cheesesteak just as he was supposed to: with Cheese Whiz. If he hadn't done this, if he'd ordered a normal cheesesteak with Provolone, Philadelphians would have screamed "Phony!" and maybe, perhaps, voted for the other guy. Probably not, but why take chances.














Anyway, if you're like me, the idea of polluting a perfectly good cheesesteak with cheese whiz sounds like, well, like something Northerners would do. But as I wanted the authentic Philly cheesesteak experience, it had to be whiz. Cheese whiz slathered on thinly-sliced steak wasn't actually too bad, which may not be a surprise to those who know me and my penchant for Kraft Singles, which, like Cheese Whiz, is not in any way cheese. So here's a photo of me enjoying a whiz-laden cheesesteak.

Before I leave Geno's, let me tell you that never will you find a more blatantly right-wing eating establishment in this country. Remember "Freedom Fries"? Even though the French, to whom "Freedom Fries" were meant to offend, have gone and elected themselves an honest-to-God conservative as their president, and even though all but the nuttiest right-wingers gave up on the whole "Freedom Fries" shtick when they realized that the ratio of Frenchmen Offended to Themselves Made to Look Stupid was so skewed in the latter direction, "Freedom Fries" are still served at Geno's. You know how "Free Mumia" is a cause celeb for hippie left-wingers? Geno's has festooned their corner eatery with posters showing the cop whom Mumia is alleged to have killed. A sign next to the ordering window exhorts the would-be orderer to "Order in English". No "please" to clutter up an otherwise perfectly good sign. They even sell, for just $10, t-shirts that say, "Because I'm an American, I Order in English". (We bought one for my father-in-law; he'd heard about the t-shirt and the fracas over the previously mentioned sign before we departed for Philly). Over the outdoor sound system, martial, vaguely World War II-sounding music is piped. Beneath rows of framed photos of various celebrities who've taken a photo with the owner, is a long tackboard filled with patches from various law enforcement agencies; the implication being that if you're a beautiful enough person to don the uniform, no matter what that uniform might be, you're worthy of adulation, and the respect of Geno's. And, in keeping with their American conservative worldview, everyone there was generally unfriendly.

Anyway, I ordered the whole deal: cheesesteak with cheese whiz, freedom fries drenched with cheese whiz (also called "Cheese Fries"), and a Coke. Partly because I was very hungry and partly because everything I was consuming was so deliriously bad for me, the food tasted glorious. But even I couldn't eat those last fries swimming in Whiz at the bottom of the cup.

Then my wife and I walked across the street to Pat's, the other world-famous cheesesteak place.














Yes, Pat's. Also a must-stop cheesesteakery for all Presidential hopefuls campaigning in Philadelphia. And conveniently located adjacent to that other one! Anyway, my wife and I split a sandwich and a Pepsi at Pat's (pictured above along with a guy who looks like he's enjoyed many a cheesesteak), but instead of Whiz, we did the Provolone. Verdict: very good. My wife had opted for Provolone at Geno's, of which I'd had a bite, and of the two I thought Pat's was better. The bread was airier, the cheese meltier. When we returned with friends To Pat's on Sunday, I tried Pat's cheesesteak a la Whiz to taste-test the whole range of offerings from this cheese steak nexus of North America: again, Pat's Whiz-laden sandwich also better than Geno's. As my wife and I were eating, some other tourists were talking about possibly going over to Geno's and sample their wares. My wife told them we had just done that, which elicited smiles from all the other diners. One woman said, "I just sent my son over there for one." An older lady turned around and asked, "And which one did you prefer?" I told her that I thought Pat's was better. She nodded sagely: I'd chosen wisely. (Which I guess was an easy bet, seeing how she was eating at Pat's herself). Another guy about my age was smiling and nodding at me as I went on to say the cheese was "more melty" than at Geno's. He said he thought Pat's was better too. When my wife and I met up with some friends in Philly the day after the wedding, they, too thought Pat's was the better of the two places. So there it is: Pat's is better than Geno's. Everyone thinks so.


And, just for your edification, here's a photo of the cheese whiz stocked against the back wall at Pat's. This was taken on Friday afternoon. When we returned on Sunday afternoon, what seemed to be a whole new stack of Cheese Whiz cans had replaced these. My guess is Pat's and Geno's probably go through gallons of the stuff a day.


So then we drove to Scranton. We were on a tight schedule all weekend, but particularly on Friday because it takes about 2 hours to drive from Philadelphia to Scranton, and we had about 3 hours before we had to check in at the hotel, change, and then report to the wedding rehearsal at the church. So with bellies freshly loaded with both cheese and steak, we were on our way. Once you get out of the city, Pennsylvania's beautiful again. The leaves were all in the midst of their autumnal color change, so the scenery was pleasant. Too many frickin' tolls though.

Saturday: the wedding. It went fine. Open bar and decent hors d'oeuvre. The DJ was a jerk, but no wedding's perfect.

On Sunday, we checked out of the hotel and drove back to Philly. We stopped in at the Liberty Bell. (We neglected to take a photo of the Bell by itself, so here's one with me in it. Sorry.) What is there to say about the Liberty Bell? I read most of the accompanying text in the exhibit and I couldn't discern any real reason why the Liberty Bell had come to be a significant historical artifact, other than shameless dissemination of misinformation. It was built in Whitechapel, England (home of Jack the Ripper), for use in the Pennsylvania State House. The Bell called to order the First Continental Congress, which is, I think it's sole factual claim to fame. Over the years, people have believed that the Bell was rung on July 8th, 1776 to summon the citizens of Philadelphia for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. (It did not.) Or that it was rung on July 4th, 1776 to proclaim the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (Again, it did not.) But because the Liberty Bell (so named in the mid 1800's by abolitionists) had become synonymous with the best intentions of the Founding Fathers, it's become a powerful symbol for the abstract concept of "liberty". Symbols in and of themselves are pretty dull, but now I can say I've seen it.














Outside the Liberty Bell exhibit, there was this demonstration against the genocide in Darfur. This guy (pictured above) was speaking to the crowd in a thick African accent. I'm not sure where he was from, but I might safely assume him to be Sudanese.

Here's a wide shot of the gathering. Not a massive rally by any stretch, just a chance for interested people to learn a little more about what's happening there. These photos were taken as we first passed by the area. On our way back, two bearded guys with guitars were singing under that white tent.














And this is Independence Hall. We had tickets for the 3 p.m. tour. After a short wait outside (back behind the building) about 60 of us trooped into a small room. In came a man with a ponytail wearing a US Parks Service uniform. As soon as he began to speak, I started to worry about the hearing loss I'd sustain from prolonged exposure to his voice. He spoke as though his sole interest was in being crystal clear to some hypothetical 90-year old legally deaf person sitting in the far corner of the room. Actually, my wife and I were sitting in the far corner of the room and his voice was so loud even back there that I couldn't think of anything else but what he was talk-yelling. The echo in the room only heightened the effect. Anyway, he gave us the rules for the tour and then a bit of history, and then led us into a courtroom where, among other things that happened, the royal emblem of the British Monarchy was taken down from its place above the head of the presiding judge and burned. After that, he took us into the next room.














In the room pictured to the left, the 13 delegations drafted first the Declaration of Independence, and then, after the Revolutionary War, the Constitution of the United States. The chair (behind the aforementioned talk-yeller standing in the mid-ground) was the actual chair George Washington sat in while presiding over the Constitutional Convention. It's one thing to see the Constitution and the Bill of Rights at the National Archives in D.C., it's quite another to be inside the room where those documents were argued over and finally drafted and signed. I wish I'd had more time to spend here.

Afterwards, our GPS led us to the Catholic elementary school my wife attended back when she lived on the Naval base in Philadelphia. This shot was taken from the parking lot behind the school. This parking lot was where the kids had recess. Yikes. The chain-link fencing around the school is a new development from the time my wife attended. We guessed it was to discourage graffiti artists from expressing themselves all over the school's walls. For me: kinda depressing.

Anyway, that was the trip.

Finally, (and unrelated-ly), here's a clip from writer George Saunders' appearance on "The Colbert Report". Firstly, I have a random observation of the clip: George has grown a lot of hair since his visit to the Letterman show. Anyway, though it's not as good as his appearance with Dave, (Colbert has to do his own comedy during the interview which can slow things down, get guests out of their flow, etc.), it's certainly worthwhile. In this clip, Saunders talks a little about the title essay from his new collection, "The Braindead Megaphone" (which is a great book, and I enthusiastically recommend it). Check it out.

Jon Stewart Has a Dick Moment, More "Mist", Lovecraft News, and Famous Authors Get Called Out

Anyone catch Chris Matthews on Jon Stewart's show last night? Here's a link to the clip. (and if that doesn't work, try another one from this page.)

Matthews was on to promote his new book, "Life is a Campaign", and, for the first time since I've been watching the show, Stewart laid into the author's book hard, arguing strenuously against the book's basic premise. When Matthews attempted to battle back with reasons why his book wasn't, in fact, an absolute waste of time to have written, Stewart laid into him all the harder, apparently willing to accept nothing less from Matthews than hearing him utter the words, "You're right. I'm going to ask the publisher to recall all copies and have them pulped."

Back when Stewart appeared on Crossfire and went after Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala with rhetorical guns o' blazin', (and essentially helped get the show canceled), part of me thought that Jon Stewart had, perhaps, gotten too big for his britches, had bought too deeply into his own press; but this part was overwhelmed by the other, larger part, that agreed with everything Stewart was saying, and enjoyed watching Tucker Carlson being called names to his face on live TV. But this Matthews thing seems totally different.

I don't believe Stewart believes Matthews is "hurting America" as he did with the Crossfire gang, only that Matthews' book is wrongheaded by taking something that is, in many ways, false and dishonest, namely a political campaign, and spinning it into a useful way to conduct one's life.

I think if Matthews knew he was going to get sandbagged on the show, he would have come prepared with some comebacks, of which I think there are many. Because he wasn't prepared for a Stewart attack, his defense of his own book consisted of little more than a couple half-hearted anecdotes and his usual foghorn guffaw. (And despite the cheery smile and laughter, you could tell Matthews was pissed throughout). Stewart's main point (if I may prattle on for a bit longer), seemed to be that campaigns are all "contrivances" and lies, and that his book was a "recipe for sadness". Matthews never had a good comeback for anything Stewart said.

But here's the thing: isn't much of one's life, particularly one's working life, a contrivance? And if so, doesn't it hold that a political campaign might be a good handbook for navigating the waters of all those hours spent in a world of "contrivance"?

Any poor bastard who has to work for a living has to lie and dissemble just to keep their job. If your boss is an idiot, or is doing something stupid, (which, for some people, is a daily fact of life), do you get all honest on them and say, "You're an idiot, boss. Here's what should happen." No, you either keep your mouth shut (as political candidates do when there's an issue that doesn't benefit them to speak on), or you couch it in diplomatic language designed to inform as much as possible without offending (as Hillary and others do when they refer to Republicans, many of whom voted for her husband's impeachment, as: "my friends from the other side of the aisle.") Isn't that contrivance? The majority of Americans are in jobs they don't really like, and working at them for 10-12 hours a day when they'd rather be doing anything else. If that's not a recipe for sadness, I don't know what is. So I think it's entirely plausible that the lessons of a well-run political campaign, cynical as they might be, might be of use when trying to make a living in a working world fueled almost entirely on bullshit.

So I guess the real question is this: what crawled up Stewart's ass last night? Was it really the book, or was it Matthews, or was Stewart just having a bad night? And why did he have to make me try and defend Chris Matthews' book?

Some other things:
1.) Check out this brief webisode from the making of "The Mist". This one's interesting because it shows off the very cool set of the web-choked pharmacy, which, as it is in the novella, is adjacent to the grocery store in which the bulk of the movie's set. And it also shows how the scene looks in the final movie. Pretty decent effects, I'd say. Also it's nice to watch Darabont dote on actress Frances Sternhagen, who's been a great character actor for a lot of years, and has a fun scene here.

2.) Also from shocktillyoudrop.com, there's a report that after Guillermo Del Toro finishes "Hellboy 2", he's going to film one of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories, "The Mountains of Madness". No one of note has ever attempted to film Lovecraft, and though I didn't much like "Pan's Labyrinth", I think Guillermo's just the guy to do it. Like Peter Jackson and "Lord of the Rings", Guillermo's reverence for Lovecraft might translate into a unique horror film.

And 3.) Someone named Melvin Jules Bukiet wrote an essay taking to task a whole school of fiction he's calling the "Brooklyn Books of Wonder". Read it here. I have to admit that I take a bit of pleasure reading a takedown of Eggers, Lethem, Kunkel, Safran Foer, and Chabon, authors whom I all hate owing to their seemingly effortless writing ability. Some of Bukiet's punches land, but many only succeed in making the essayist seem a humorless curmudgeon who probably doesn't like much that's been written in the last 100 years. Though when he lambastes "The Lovely Bones" for being an "escape novel", it's hard not to take his point. [SPOILERS AHEAD!]:

"Generally speaking, the sex-murder of an adolescent offers little that’s good. But in The Lovely Bones, mom and pop hook up and so do Ray and Ruth, whose body Susie is allowed to occupy just long enough to have real, true, beautiful sex for once in her afterlife. “I had never been touched like this,” she tells us. “I had only been hurt by hands past all tenderness. But spreading out into my heaven after death had been a moonbeam that swirled and blinked on and off. . . . Inside my head I said the word gentle.” The book ends with a glow.

Every impulse in every sane reader must shriek No! at this pabulum. It’s not lovely that Susie’s been slaughtered, hacked, and dumped in a pit. It’s not lovely that icy Mr. Harvey gets his comeuppance by a conveniently dropped icicle as the pit containing Susie’s body parts is being drained, leading us to assume that her remains will be found and that she will finally get a lovely stone.

Nice thought if you can abide it. Unfortunately, it’s false to all human experience to find “growth” in tragedy. In fact, the dull truth is that pain is tautological. The only thing suffering teaches us is that we are capable of suffering."

I doubt this essay will be, in any way, a game changer for contemporary literature. This wide-ranging critique seems a bit like B.R. Myers' 2001 critique of authors like Cormac McCarthy, Dom DeLillo, Annie Proulx and others, for writing so-called "perfect" prose at the expense of all else. Myers called this style of writing "The Cult of the Sentence", and in the wake of that essay, absolutely no one's minds seem to have changed on any of those writers. I doubt being labeled a writer of "BBoWs" will do much to diminish sales for this new crop of talented, albeit occasionally precious, writers either.

Oh yes! Two friend-related links. Check out Brian O'Connell's new La-La Land-oriented podcast, and Monolith has revamped and restarted his blog, which sports an excellent title for a blog. Also he's been updating it like crazy. So, you know, check those out.

And that's it.

Maybe Darabont Should Hire Struzan to Cut A New Trailer

This is the new "Mist" poster, which I like even more than the first one, which is saying something. I looked but wasn't able to locate artist Drew Struzan's name anywhere on the poster, but it looks like his style, so it's probably on there somewhere.

This new image suggests a grander film than the first poster (or first trailer, for that matter). This movie poster's advertising a film packed with spectacle and an almost Spielberg-brand wonder (Spielberg in the late 70s and early 80s, that is), which is great. I really hope the next trailer the studio puts out hints at a "Mist" that more resembles what this poster so perfectly evokes: awe. One thing that makes me hopeful: the overturned cars just outside the windows. The wrecked cars make me think Darabont won't shy away from filming a moment that occurs late in the story that's horrific, spectacular, and, at least as I imagine it, damn expensive to film. And beyond all that, it's just a fantastic piece of illustration.

In other news, "Halo 3" came in the mail yesterday. So far, so good. I'm eager to get pwned on the multi-player as soon as tonight.

Immigrants, Unhappy Women, Shoplifting Bird, Big Haul at the Book Fair

Some links:

1.) The federal government released some new questions immigrants seeking citizenship must answer. The New York Times put together a 10 question quiz, which you can take here. The questions are all drawn from the redesigned test, and the answer link is at the bottom of the quiz. I missed 3 straight up. Immigrants have to get 6 right, so they can only miss one less than I did. All 100 questions and their answers will be made public, so immigrants seeking to become citizens will have the chance to study the questions they'll actually be asked. There have been some complaints about ambiguity, however. For example, this question: "What is the rule of law?" The answer: "That all people follow the law." Weird, huh? When some of the other questions are so specific, trying to answer one so vague/simplistic might be a challenge for someone trying hard to answer 6 questions correctly. You can see all 100 of the questions (and their answers) here. My wife made a good point about the test: is it really more important that a new citizen of the country know exactly how many voting members of the House of Representatives there are, or that they know, once they're citizens, no one may in any way restrict their right to vote; or that their taxes are due on April 15th every year. The kind of real-world citizen stuff that might actually bite them in the ass if they don't know it. But I guess history and a basic understanding of how the US government works is better than nothing.

2.) That frown on your wife/girlfriend's face isn't your imagination. American women are getting unhappier all the time. Check it out. Some choice bits from the article: a.) men enjoy spending time with their parents more than women do by a huge margin. The article suggests this is due in part to the fact that, when visiting with the parentals, men can sit back and watch a DVD, or the game with dad, (for example), while for women, visiting parents often resembles work in that they're helping with household tasks or planning some event. And b.) dusting is at the very bottom of everyone's to-do lists:

"Mr. Krueger’s data, for instance, shows that the average time devoted to dusting has fallen significantly in recent decades. There haven’t been any dust-related technological breakthroughs, so houses are probably just dirtier than they used to be. I imagine that the new American dustiness affects women’s happiness more than men’s."

Pretty funny. So not only are women getting more frustrated, houses are getting dirtier. (Though I take exception to the idea that there haven't been any dust-related technological breakthroughs. Swiffer Dusters, anyone? Those things work like magic!)

3.) My father-in-law sent me an amusing forward today. (I know! The legend is true! Amusing email forwards still exist!) According to the email (which is true according to email-forward-debunker Snopes.com), there's a sea gull in Scotland who's taken to shoplifting. Here's the story, and at the bottom of the page, the video. This line from the email, was my favorite detail about the story: "Customers have begun paying for the sea gull's stolen bags of chips." I just love the idea of Scottish customers paying for the gull's stolen cheese Doritos (which is the only kind he takes, by the way). Before, a person could show their consideration for nature by going out of their way to give the Earth's menagerie of animals their space and their lives. You know, don't tease the animals, don't lay out traps that kill, whether in one's house or in the wild, don't go out into their habitats to hunt, etc., etc. . But because people have had less and less interaction with animals as we've all been pressed into cities these last couple of centuries, opportunities to show consideration for wildlife are generally rare. But when an opportunity does arise for us to show respect for animals, even the dirty annoying ones like gulls, we take it. In this case, showing respect for animals means reimbursing a shopkeeper for a sea gull's premeditated larceny. I laughed a good bit at this, so I thought I'd share.

4.) Went to a book fair this afternoon at Perimeter Mall and found deal after deal after deal on used books. Hardcovers, trade paperbacks, all of it. I got about 15-18 novels and short story collections (I still haven't gone through my haul), some of which were on the shelves as new books mere months ago. A couple of hardcover Alice Munro hardbacks in great condition, an old and hard to find Ian McEwan trade of short stories, a hardcover Margaret Atwood, and more than few major prize-winners. Anyway, it was a hell of a lot of fun and I could have easily gotten about 10 other books, but thought I should only get as many books as I could physically carry.

All right, that's all I got. Have a good weekend er'rybody.

Sundown in North Georgia

This is what it looks like, right now, in Marietta, Georgia.

Okay, maybe a little darker by now.

Hitch Wants Gore, Columbia President Lays the Smackdown on the President of Iran, MacArthur "Genius" Grants, And, Finally, Reference Photo (w/drawing)

For your pleasure, some links of (possible) interest:

1.) Gadfly, public intellectual, and quasi-liberal raconteur Christopher Hitchens resurrects the possibility of an Al Gore run on Slate today, putting it in a context I hadn't really considered by focusing on the very real likelihood that Al Gore might win the Nobel Peace Prize on October 12th. If he did, Al Gore would, in the year 2007, be the author of a bestselling book ("The Assault on Reason"), the recipient of an Oscar (for "An Inconvenient Truth"), and the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize. According to Hitchens, this trifecta of achievement should have the effect of forcing Gore's hand. Hitchens writes:

"Should [Gore] make up his mind not to run, he would retrospectively abolish all the credit he has acquired so far. It would mean in effect that he never had the stuff to do the job and that those who worked and voted for him were wasting their time. Given his age and his stature, can he really want that to be the conclusion that history draws?"

Hitchens, who hated Bill Clinton with a passion bordering on the inappropriate (no, it more than bordered upon; it was just straight up inappropriate), who loved the idea of invading Iraq and is still one of that bad war's few deluded boosters, sounds a lot like someone who's hot for a Gore presidency. From Hitch, this is crazy, though I agree with him that Gore is the best candidate going right now. Though I don't agree with the above statement Hitchens makes, I kinda hope Gore believes it and, if he wins the Nobel Peace Prize on October 12th, feels compelled to quickly assemble a crack team of politicos, deep-pocket donors, and jump in the race. Don't get me wrong. I think Obama's great but his campaign's floundering right now; and Hillary would be a fine president, as centrist Democrats go, but Gore talks passionately about the things I care about, and Hillary doesn't. Not once. So I hold out hope, but am still pessimistic that Gore's going to change his mind this late in the game. Getting flayed unfairly by a thought-free, bandwagon mentality press, and then shafted by the supposedly above-the-fray Supreme Court should be enough to make any man say, "I've had enough, thanks." But I hope that, in this case, Gore does the unreasonable thing and runs.

Anyway, it's an interesting and uncharacteristically brief essay by Hitchens. Give it a look.

2.) Did anyone catch any of the speech Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University, gave yesterday? Take a look here. Given just seconds before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke, it was harsh, awesome stuff. A lot of knee-jerk conservatives were giving Columbia a hard time for allowing Ahmadinejad the opportunity to speak. Bollinger's speech should shut them all up pretty well. In his remarks Bollinger called Ahmadinejad "ridiculous", "a dictator", "uneducated", "petty and cruel", and a "Holocaust denier" among other things. The boldness of the speech clearly took Ahmadinejad aback -- during the question and answer session, Ahmadinejad essentially recanted his previous denials of the Holocaust, saying it was "given" that the Holocaust had, in fact, occurred. A small triumph. Later on during the Q&A, Ahmadinejad said that "we don't have gays in Iran like you have here." The audience laughed and laughed, but poor Ahmadinejad was clearly not in on the joke. Iran regularly hangs gay men.

Another higher-up at Columbia started some controversy prior to Ahmadinejad's speech, telling an interviewer that Columbia would invite Hitler to speak (if he were still around, that is). After having viewed Bollinger's speech, I see why that hypothetical invitation isn't so bad as it sounds. If our nation's universities made a habit of inviting the world's nastiest world leaders to speak in their lecture halls, and then, prior to these dictators' lying, disingenuous speeches, clear-eyed and articulate professors got to insult them at length to rapturous applause, then I think that would be something everyone could get behind. I wonder if the world's tinpot dictators will think twice before accepting another invitation from an American university. My guess is they will.

3.) The MacArthur "Genius" Grants were announced today. Stuart Dybek, a Chicago short-story writer Shawn mentioned reading and enjoying, was one of the recipients. Maybe now the chain bookstores will start carrying his books and I will be able to read them.

4.) And, just for fun, here's a reference photo my wife took for the graphic novel proposal I've been working on. Just below the photo is the drawing I came up with:





































Anyway, that's all I got today.

Taser Guy: Free Speech Martyr or SuperDouche?

Whoo boy, my back hurts. Lower back. It's been varying degrees of not good since mid-to late August. I think I exacerbated things this afternoon while folding shirts. Now in addition to bending down, standing up straight is a dicey proposition. But anyway. I remember how bored and annoyed I was when my brother so much as alluded to his back pain, (he tells me, "just do like ten sit-ups a day. It'll go away." What he forgets, of course, is that sit-ups are exercise, and I don't do that), so I'll quit whining about it now. [Update: I stayed in bed today, the 20th, to give my back a rest. We'll see how it feels tomorrow.]

Anyway, I've been seeing a bunch of stuff on the internets (you may have noticed that calling the internet the "internets" has become de rigueur for "hip" blogs and websites when referring to the internet, alluding, I guess, to Bush's famous verbal slip-up from the 2004 campaign; so I'm succumbing to "peer" pressure, just this once), and I wanted to share some of that stuff with y'all.

1.) Taser guy. Did you guys hear about the University of Florida student who got tazed by campus security because he was being obnoxious at a John Kerry event? Here's a video of that. After seeing it, I felt conflicted. On one hand, this guy's one of those ass-holes who go to events and ask questions primarily to hear themselves speak. There's one at almost every author signing, though never this egregious. They don't care about the answers, they just want to be the center of attention. This guy seems like that kind of guy to me. But when the campus cops arrive on the scene after he's managed half a question, standing just to one side with arms crossed as though waiting for him to ask what they might deem an "inappropriate" question, it gets my dander up. Why did the campus cops need to be there? He was being annoying, but not yet disruptive. He asks his 3 questions, all of which seemed worthwhile, if not articulately stated (though being inarticulate is still legal I believe), and then at the mention of Skull and Bones, they just start hauling him away. The crowd applauds because the punk is going away, but the question he keeps asking the cops, "Why are you doing this?" seems pertinent, and "Because you're annoying the crowd," doesn't seem like a good enough answer.

On the ground, he says, "Please don't taze me, bro." And then they taze him.

I'll spare everyone my cheap outrage. I think it was a clear overreaction on the part of the campus cops, and I think that overreaction is endemic of a more pervasive atmosphere of clamping down on speech that comes right down from the Bush administration. If it's okay to confine protestors to so-called "free speech zones", if it's okay to boot people from public places for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts, then it's not a stretch that some campus cops would think tazing an obnoxious but non-threatening questioner would be a-OK. These are not happy times for people who enjoy civil rights. Is it January 2009 yet?

On the other hand, there's this. This makes him a less-than-palatable free speech martyr, particularly the part about him barging suddenly to the front of the line. I don't know what else preceded what the video shows, but the fact that four campus cops appear alert and ready to go so soon after he takes the mic makes me think Andrew Meyer was, perhaps, up to some serious douchebaggery prior to the clips. Not that that excuses what the cops did, but it might help explain it.

One other thought: what if these cops did not have a taser? What would they have used to "subdue" Meyer? Would they have used their billy clubs a la Rodney King in front of John Kerry and all of those students and cameras? Doubtful. I think they would have done what they'd begun to do, namely carry him bodily out of the room. But when Meyer made that too difficult, the campus cops decided to pin him down and make use of the handy-dandy, non-messy, non-lethal zappy toy that makes people do what you tell them. If I dared talk back to a cop with a short fuse, would I rather be billy-clubbed into submission or tazed? Kind of a shitty choice, sure, but though a taser doesn't pose the same threat of undo concussions as a enthusiastically-wielded nightstick, I think the advent and rapid adoption of tasers by law enforcement is a real danger to we, the unarmed citizenry. (sigh) Oh, cops.

2.) The New York Times Book Review has a blog now. Called Paper Cuts, it's updated by Dwight Garner, the senior editor of the Book Review. It's cool because the blog offers a glimpse into what one important institution of the New York literary scene thinks is worth posting up about on any given day. Every now and again, Garner talks to a novelist about what music they're listening to. In this post, Garner asks Joshua Ferris, author of recent much-discussed novel (written in the first person plural -- "we did this", "we did that") "And Then We Came to the End", this question. The question I have after reading these posts, is "where are they exposed to all of this music?" Where do they get their super-awesome taste? I, for example, listen primarily to film soundtracks. This excludes me from most cool-guy music conversations, which makes me sad. Stephen King is always talking about what new music he's listening to, but a.) he's rich and could buy whatever CDs he wants, and b.) he gets whatever CDs he wants for free anyway. Is it internet radio? I know it can't be regular FM radio, so what is it? Are they just spending their money on CDs as opposed to books? Me wantee new music, the liking of which will make me cool.

I guess I'm suffering from new music withdrawal. Since downloading music off of Morpheus essentially shut down my laptop with viruses, I haven't gotten back into the practice of stealing music since the computer guy cleaned it off. Score one for the RIAA, I suppose.

3.) Did you know Richard Russo has a new book coming out next Tuesday? A review was published in the Boston Globe this past Sunday for Russo's first novel since his brilliant "Empire Falls", which won the Pulitzer in 2001. I've read everything this guy's put out and this is, for a book nerd, pretty exciting news. Pity me.

I guess that's enough for one post.

Have awesome Fridays tomorrow, all of you. I demand it.

"The View" Hires Second Crazy Host to Speak to Nation's Morning TV-Watching Crazy

New "View" co-host Sherri Shepherd was hired, like, last week. Judging from the above clip, I'd say the show's producers, quite stupidly, neglected to ask the standard, "Do you think the world is flat?" question during the interview process. I'm as shocked at their negligence as you are.

It's bad enough they have one airhead on the show who still thinks Bush walks on water, but now they have one who doesn't believe in evolution and has "never thought about" whether the world is round or flat. I never thought I'd miss Star Jones.

One other interesting thing about this clip: the existence of God is never called into question, even as a hypothetical. There may be a resurgence of doubt in a Supreme Being in the country, manifesting itself in books by writers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and most recently Christopher Hitchens, but for the audience that "The View" is trying to reach these days, any hint of atheism is strictly verboten.

Anyway, sorry to post up another video clip (and an infuriating one at that, as opposed to a fun one like last time), but I've been working hard to get these stupid hands to draw good, and it's taken all of my time (at least all the time my brain functions on any given day). But so far the work has been coming out pretty well, and I've just got two more panels and I'll be just about done with the hard stuff. But perspective issues are making them a couple of tough nuts to crack. Perspective (along with anatomy, color, draftsmanship and character consistency) is my Achilles heel when it comes to drawrin'. But I'll keep you posted.

The Funniest Writer Working Today Appears on Letterman

In case you missed it, writer George Saunders was a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman last week. In the the above clip, Saunders tells about a childhood experience at Wrigley Field involving a Bears game and not enough tickets, and life working as a "de-knuckler" in a meat processing plant in his late 20's. Quite entertaining. For those not familiar with Saunders' work, he writes hilarious short stories that also happen to be literary and brilliantly written. He won a MacArthur grant last year, also known as the "genius grant" for his, well, genius. In short, he's a great writer who deserves to be a regular on Letterman and a perpetual presence on the bestseller lists.

One other funny thing: before Dave talked to one of the brightest, funniest people contributing to American culture, namely Saunders, he spoke to one of the dimmest, least charming people "contributing" to American culture, namely Jessica Alba. I'm not just being an effete culture snob here. While I was waiting for George to show up, I watched her appearance. I was open to liking her.

But after a period of Alba being vapid and slow on the uptake, Dave showed a really awful-looking clip from her forthcoming Dane Cook vehicle, "Good Luck Chuck". After the clip was finished, Alba spent about 2 minutes trying to convince Dave that a stunt performed in the clip was done by her, when it was obvious to everyone, including Dave, that this "stunt" was actually a split-second effects shot and that she was lying. At first I thought maybe she was trying to be funny, saying not only that she'd done the "stunt" but that she'd done it multiple times, but when I realized she was genuinely trying to pass off a transparent and baldfaced lie as the truth on the filmgoing public, I had to turn the channel in embarrassment.

Anyway. George Saunders. Click, watch, and enjoy.

"Duma Key" Cover Rocks Your Thursday

To stay with King for another entry, I thought I'd post up the cover for Stephen King's new novel, "Duma Key", which comes out on January 22nd of next year.

With few exceptions King's stories and novels have been set in his home state of Maine. This is his first novel set in Florida, where he now owns a house. He "winters" there, as the rich people say.

I think it's a cool pulpy cover and beautifully illustrated. Looks like some serious Dali influence in there. King describes this novel as "the Maltese Falcon" meets "The Shining"" and deals with, in part, the fragility and fluidity of memory. Or so I take from what I've read. I would say, "I'll let you know how it is once I've read it," but I think I said something similar about "Lisey's Story" and a quick search of this blog reveals I never did let you know how it was. So, you know, I lie.

Frank Darabont's Adaptation of Stephen King's "The Mist"

How you like that Drew Struzan poster? Nice, huh?

Frank Darabont loves him some Stephen King. He's only directed three movies and two of them he adapted from Stephen King material. To those of you who didn't know, I'm happy to be the one to tell you: Frank's back with a new Stephen King adaptation.

This time it's straight horror with an early Stephen King novella called "The Mist". A lot of King fans consider this story one of King's best so if Darabont hits one out of the park, then we'll have not only another classic horror film, but another excellent King adaptation to help offset all of the really terrible adaptations folks have produced in the past. (Hearts in Atlantis, Needful Things, and anything Mick Garris has touched are all good examples).

The story's about a guy named David Drayton who happens to be in a grocery store with his son the moment a thick fog rolls into town. It isn't long before Drayton and the people inside the grocery store with him discover the mist is not a weather-related phenomenon, and that there are things inside of it. Really bad things.

Anyway, the first trailer for the film came out today.

"The Mist" isn't an epic like the other two Darabont/King films -- no grand helicopter shots to be seen in this trailer -- and the action is all close-up and the atmosphere is claustrophobic. When the You-Are-There approach works, it can make a film almost unbearably suspenseful, but if it doesn't work, if, for example, the acting isn't quite there, then the mistakes are magnified, and the not-quite-right moments seem tragically obvious; all that can kill a movie. I'm a little worried from the trailer that Darabont's lightning-fast shooting schedule might not have allowed him sufficient time to work with all those actors, but then again I don't want to prejudge too much on the basis of a trailer. Thomas Jane and Andre Braugher (not to mention Darabont regulars like William Sadler and Jeffrey DeMunn) look great, but Marcia Gay Harden's evil Bible-thumper worries me a little -- like maybe she wasn't quite up to making this character work. Anyway, like I said, not a lot to go on here. I'm still hyped to see it. Darabont hasn't made a bad King film yet, so the odds are in this movie's favor.

Larry Craig: Yet Another Member of the "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" Party Revealed

Mark Foley.

Ted Haggard.

David Vitter.

Conservative "Christian" men who have all recently been outed as "sexual deviants". Not my terminology of course, but if any of these guys had been asked what they thought of the "homosexual lifestyle" or prostitution and those who engage in it before their own "misdeeds" were publicized, I'm sure you could have gotten any of them to use just those words.

And now add US Senator Larry Craig from the great state of Idaho to that list of inveterate hypocrites. Three months ago, Craig was arrested in a Minneapolis airport for lewd conduct, a charge to which he pleaded guilty to. According to the police report, he solicited an undercover police officer for sex in the men's restroom at that airport. Craig, along with Foley, Vitter and Haggard, enthusiastically supported the impeachment of "naughty boy" President Bill Clinton Larry Craig's words), supported amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage, and opposed anti-discrimination laws that would punish people who discriminated against gays on the basis of their sexual orientation. And, to give you a real sense of who this guy is, when he was being arrested Craig reportedly took out a business card proclaiming his US Senator-ness, handed it to the cop and and asked him, "What do you think about that?"

Tony Perkins, the head of the conservative Christian organization the Family Research Council, was on Hardball today to essentially offer the Evangelical point of view on the Craig scandal. A little surprisingly, Perkins was only too happy to cop to the fact that this arrest reveals Craig's hypocrisy. When it comes to discussing issues with Christian evangelicals, getting them to state the obvious often feels like a triumph in and of itself, which is probably why Hardball host Chris Matthews didn't take it much further.

But at what point do these outings of pillars of the evangelical community cause Christian evangelical voters to question their own personal stance on homosexuality? After men like these are revealed to be homosexual men (Vitter excepted) can they still honestly say that homosexuality is a choice? Do they believe that Reverend Ted Haggard thought being a gay man seemed like a lot of fun and something he ought to try? Or that Larry Craig would jeopardize his career and good name in the world of conservative Christian politics just to try him out some anonymous gay sex? Obviously there's much that these so-called "values voters" believe that have very little to do with rational thought, but when does logic demand a person take stock and question long-held assumptions?

I was watching an episode of "Clean House" on the Style channel (my wife likes the show), and on that show, the "Clean House" crew visited two gay guys whose cluttered house had gotten out of control. One of the men, the younger of the two, told of how his family had disowned him and kicked him out of the house when he'd come out as a homosexual to his parents. Even though I know this sort of thing still goes on, it still kind of surprised me. The idea that something your preacher tells you can have more weight than the love you feel for your own flesh and blood is astonishing to me. I bring this "Clean House" story up because these backward, outmoded beliefs have real and terrible consequences for real people, and when supposed adherents to these harmful beliefs are revealed to be indulging their true selves while damning to hell anyone else who does so, I think that the degrading mugshots and the embarrassing questions are the very least these men deserve.

What's happening to Larry Craig now must be deeply humiliating, and is, in a way, kind of sad. But because this man, who is very probably homosexual, has so actively worked against the interests of those like him, and has so actively promoted the idea that homosexual men and women can anticipate an eternity in hell for being who they are, this public scourging seems much less like one man's story of public shaming and more like a necessary purging of one more dishonest politician.

Maybe the Best Song Ever Recorded

I've been annoying my wife with this video clip for a week or so now, ever since I saw the parodies it had inspired collected on an "Attack of the Show" segment. As it's had 7 million plus views, I'm guessing most internet addicts have already seen this, but in case you haven't, enjoy.

Alberto "I Don't Recall" Gonzales Has Left the Building

When I turned on CNN this morning, news that Alberto Gonzales had resigned was the top story, as it was the rest of the day. I'd read a rumor onTalkingpointsmemo.com yesterday that Alberto's resignation might be happening today, but the crew at TPM made an Alberto-less Justice Department sound like a pretty far out-there rumor. After all Bush is hardheaded and, perhaps, none too bright, so why would he do something that would help him, you know, do his job?

So in that the far-out rumor turned out to be true I was surprised, and that Bush finally let go of the man in whom the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee had lost all confidence I was surprised, but in the end this wasn't the moment I thought I'd been waiting for. Sure, it's good he's gone, but good for Bush. Bush is notorious for putting personal loyalty over the good of the country; he's done that his whole tenure -- but now that he's proven himself willing to cut away some of the stinkier, greener patches of rot from the gangrenous arm that his administration has become (excepting, of course, the biggest and greenest patch he cannot excise, namely himself) by first accepting Rove's resignation earlier this month and today Gonzales' -- Bush is putting himself in a position to actually do something with his last 18 or so months in office. Not that I'm too worried Bush will manage to push something through a Democratic Congress, but I am worried that unencumbered Bush will be able to focus pushing some new policy initiative the Repubs can use to make the crop of Dem candidates for '08 look like either a.) Bush/Cheney Lite, or b.) bumbling Dukakisi. The Republicans may not be able to use the Executive to do anything but govern incompetently and strip civil rights with brutal efficiency, but they sure can use it as a destructive political tool.

I guess in this case, I'll have to content myself that enough evidence was uncovered in the US Attorney Firings Scandal that any reasonable person who decides to read about Gonzales, Alberto or Rove, Karl would conclude that these men committed impeachable crimes. All of that information is in the public record and will follow these "ends justifies the means" kind of guys for the rest of their lives. Even still, it's more than a little deflating that instead of spending well-earned time behind bars, these ethics-free "public" servants get to go out of their jobs hailed as "honest" and "honorable" men by the leader of the free world.

Michael Vick

As an Atlanta resident and longtime fan of the Atlanta Falcons, I feel I ought to weigh in on the Michael Vick dogfighting case. I'm sure most everyone's heard about this case, given how disgusting it is, and how famous Michael Vick is. On Monday Vick pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges, essentially guaranteeing Michael Vick will spend at least a year behind bars, possibly more.

As soon as I read the lowlights of the indictment last month, I knew that, for my own part, if Vick remained with the Atlanta Falcon this season, I would never watch another Falcons game so long as either Vick played or Arthur Blank owned the team. I'm quite positive that a sizable percentage of Falcons fans felt the same way, such was the rage people felt after reading the charges. Fortunately for Blank, the NFL never game him a choice as to what to do, promptly banning Vick from training camp until it decided what to do next. I'm not so sure that Blank, who a couple years ago signed Vick to a 10-year contract worth $130 million dollars, wouldn't have put aside the city's (and perhaps his own) disgust for their former football star's crimes in favor of recouping a bit more of his wacky, wrongheaded investment.

We knew from the incident at the airport with the weed and the water bottle that Vick was none to bright. Not a particularly damning charge to make against an NFL player. But this? This proves how little we can truly "know" people in public life. Not bright, kind of pompous, but a man who tortures animals to death? Though it might not be to others, it is a surprise to me just how disgusting a guy Michael Vick turned out to be. These charges, which Vick yesterday copped to, make me wonder what happened in Michael Vick's life that made him believe, like the rapist thug Sugar Ray in "L.A. Confidential", that "dogs ain't got no reason to live"? I don't mean to be flip by referencing what was, in context, a funny line from that movie. To the point, I remember when I saw that film and heard that line specifically, I thought to myself, "no one really thinks that." I thought a sensibility like that was just a flourish from the half-phony hard-boiled imagination of James Ellroy. I just couldn't imagine a person could bear such steadfast, unapologetic animus towards, of all animals, dogs. Now I know there are people like that in the world, and, up until a month ago, one of them played QB for the hometown team. What an embarrassment.

Who was it that instilled in him the idea that animals, specifically dogs, are not living things but insensate toys? Did his parents lead him to believe that? Was it more widespread in the culture that Vick came up in? While he was electrocuting, drowning, shooting, and beating pit bulls to death, did Vick understand that their howls and thrashings were more than just the product of synaptic messages sent from the brain into the body of the animal, but were in fact a product of a sentient animal feeling pain? Did he care? I'd ask what pleasure could Vick have possibly derived from making these animals suffer before extinguishing their lives, but I know already. You can see hints of that same glee in the photographs taken of soldiers humiliating detainees at Abu Ghraib, broad smiles and upward-turned thumbs while posing next to a detainee who was tortured to death, or a man quailing in terror from an attack dog. I don't mean to equate humans and animals here; I understand that the degradation and torture of an animal isn't comparable to that of a human, but by the same token, isn't this idea -- that animals are so much "less than" human beings -- what allows the animal-torturer (like Vick) to engage in this sort of behavior in the first place? If animals are, in fact, so much less than human beings, why give them any legal protections at all? Is it a convention of so-called polite society? Is it because "decent people" don't hurt animals? Is dogfighting outlawed because it's the sort of thing that's "just not done"? I don't know.

I think this case is so clear-cut because, at the end of the day, Vick was more than inhumane to these animals, he was cruel. And if there's anything our legal system abhors when it comes to how humans interact with animals, it's cruelty. Andrew Sullivan wrote this about Michael Vick today, and I think he says quite succinctly how a lot of people feel about this matter:

"... it seems obvious to me what is wrong about [what Michael Vick did]. In a word: cruelty. It's a vice we don't talk of much, but it is essentially the aspect of the human psyche that sees a vulnerable person, animal or thing, and exploits that vulnerability with further violence or power. It's evil. It's why I despise torture in every form. It is not just the absence of love or respect; it's the active presence of its opposite. And animals, creatures over which we have near total control or dominion, are more vulnerable to such cruelty than many humans. Vick is an inhumane bully, an exemplum of cruelty and arrogance."

Right now the NFL is deciding what to do with Michael Vick. Obviously, he can't play before or during his inevitable prison sentence, but what to do with him afterwards? My strong preference would be to ban Michael Vick from the NFL for life. I think he's earned that much.

The Best and Worst Movies of Summer 2007

I saw "The Bourne Ultimatum" last night at our new local AMC here in Marietta, and as I walked out of the theater it occurred to me that the summer movie season of 2007 is basically over. Yeah, "Rush Hour 3" comes out this weekend, and though it seems a lot like a summer tentpole release, it's really just an opportunity for Chris Tucker to come out of retirement and collect a quick $20 million and for Ratner to continue to pretend he's a film director. So, it's over. As I saw most of the big movies this summer, and because I've been pretty lazy about posting up movie reviews on the blog, I thought I'd do a quick roll through the summer movies. Here we go.

1.) Spider Man 3. Yeah I did a review of this way back in early May, but reading back over it, I think I was too kind. This was a straight up bad movie. I think I may have been too shocked to believe it, considering how good the first two were. At least that's what I'm going with. Probably one of the worst studio films of the summer.

2.) 28 Weeks Later. Perfectly serviceable urban zombie movie. Not as good as "28 Days Later", but then again, it's perhaps unfair to expect the sequel to a movie that redefined the zombie movie to exceed the original. One funny quirk of the summer though: both this movie and "Grindhouse" featured helicopters used to chop up zombies. Weird.

3.) Oceans 13. Much more fun than the fairly awful "Oceans 12", and featured some really interesting film acting from Al Pacino, who's been too long in his Histrionic Al phase. He quiets down in this movie, plays it straight, and walks away with his scenes. Good stuff. The ultra-hip, self-aware schtick the "Ocean's" movies have been wallowing in has run its course I think, but probably only did so just as the end credits on this film went up. Good timing.

4.) Shrek 3. Same characters, same sense of humor -- but so middling and forgettable it actually made me look back at the previous two and wonder what there was exactly in those films that I enjoyed so much. I think I can remember two scenes from this film if I really try hard. But wait, I don't want to expend the energy.

5.) Pirates of the Carribean: World's End. So far, (and this is pretty easy), worst film of the year. I felt my tenuous hold on this life slipping while ships circled a giant bathtub drain. I nearly died watching this film.

6.) 1408. Frickin' great. Straight up horror from a crew of filmmakers who understand how important build is, and how excruciating suspense can be. Cusack shows everyone he can still act after disappointments like "Must Love Dogs" and whatever that one with him and BBT and Randy Quaid was. "1408" got into my head pretty good, and even though I can see where it could have been stronger, its minor imperfections couldn't put a dent in how much fun I had watching this movie.

7.) Live Free or Die Hard. Nah. The first one is still genius, but they've gotten worse with each subsequent film. This sequel launches the franchise many miles further into Worseville. The director, Les Wiseman, was not up to the task of resurrecting El Franchiso de Yippee Ki-Ay as it turns out, and though Bruce is both game and believable as a still-potent McClain, the script is too balls-out ridiculous to do much more than elicit a knowing smirk here and there. Too bad.

8.) Ratatouille. Read Craig's post for a great, short and sweet review of this film. I was worried about Pixar after the less-than-great "Cars", but this film, which is as good as any in the Pixar canon, restores my faith in the studio that doesn't seem capable of making a bad movie.

9.) Sicko. Good, moving but most importantly, entertaining, which is why we plunk down the money in the first place, nevermind the generally un-entertaining subject. I wish Moore had been a little more willing to show the other side of the argument (or at all willing), but I guess I'd be pretty dumb to go into a Michael Moore documentary expecting anything but a one-sided argument strenuously presented.

10.) Transformers. This was kind of an odd moviegoing experience. During this movie,I had to persuade myself more than once that I was actually enjoying myself. "But none of the jokes are working, and all Bay seems to want to do is tell jokes!" I exclaimed. But then I came back with: "Why is it so important that jokes have to be funny? Hmm?" So true. "They went to all the trouble to bring back Peter Cullen to voice Optimus Prime, and all they have him say are these ridiculous lines that sound like something Hasbro might have recorded for their pull-string Optimus Prime doll!" To this I retorted: "Shut up, Brian. It's a Michael Bay movie. It's supposed to be a piece of shit." I had a good point. Now that the weird imperative to enjoy myself at the movies is no longer in effect, I see that "Transformers" is a steaming pile. Not much at all to recommend it. A reviewer on Aintitcool had an excellent line in his beyond-scathing review of the film in which he criticizes what a lot of fans thought was the best thing about the movie: the robot fight scenes. They actually sucked. "Imagine you took apart a whole bunch of cars," reviewer Vern wrote, "mixed the parts up and welded them all together into a giant ball maybe 15 or 20 feet in diameter, then rolled it down a hill. Shoot that in closeup and you got every fight scene in this movie." He's exactly right. Whenever there was a shot of a Transformer in slow-mo, the movie had me. Unfortunately, there were about 4 shots like that, and they lasted a sum total of 30 seconds. That's not a good ratio. Anyway, a real disappointment, but silly me for expecting much more from a movie based on the toys I grew up with. My own self-written adventures featuring Starscream, Cobra Commander and Man-at-Arms were way better than this crap.

11.) Knocked Up. Very good. Not as tight or as funny as "40-Year Old Virgin", but what is? Though I laughed a lot, I kind of had a problem with how quickly the hot blonde chick whom the funny Jewish guy knocks up decides to settle for the funny self-described "ugly as fuck" Jewish guy and have his child. I thought it would have been more believable if she'd agreed Seth Rogan should "be a part of the child's life" and then slowly agree to have a real relationship, but for her to agree to give him a full, good-faith audition for the part of baby's father and mommy's hubby seemed too convenient and not at all realistic. Aside from that and being a little flabby in places, good times.

12.) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Best of the series so far. "Azkaban" was the most successful from an artistic point of view (and also a damn good movie), but this one, for me, succeeded in being the most exciting an engrossing of the series to date. Everyone's under duress, everyone's experiencing life-changing conflict, and the stage is set for what ought to be an amazing "Half-Blood Prince" (which "Phoenix" director Yates is also helming.)

13.) The Simpsons Movie. A hell of a lot of fun and well worth the wait. If you ever enjoyed an episode of "The Simpsons", you'll enjoy this film.

14.) The Bourne Ultimatum. I liked this film quite a bit, and part of the reason is because the production team behind the Bourne films were so committed to the idea of making the three films into an organic, continuous story. Same characters, same sensibility, hell even the same score (which is great). To some extent, this third film in the franchise has the feel of a prolonged third act, with all the heightened suspense but without feeling exhausting; Greengrass knows very well how to pace his action sequences by letting the audience take a breather. But if you thought the CIA was a nefarious organization in the first two movies, it essentially morphs into an office-chair death squad in this film. Some pretty gripping scenes happen in a non-descript office filled with computers and CIA techies. Though some of what Bourne manages in this film strains credulity much more than in the prior two films (there are a couple moments that might have been more at home in something like "T4"), I'd much rather an action movie raise a skeptical eyebrow than be boring, and "Ultimatum" is never that.

Anyway, those are the movies I saw this summer, or at least during Hollywood's definition of summer. All of August and a bit of September have to roll through before the studios start putting out the so-called "prestige pictures", and a handful of those are always good every year. Right now the only thing I'm hyped for (or the only thing I can think of that I'm hyped for) is "No Country for Old Men". I fully expect that film to herald the return of the Coen Brothers.

All right, folks. I'm out.