TC FantasyMoguls.com Summer Movie Box Office League You're invited to join (yet another) fantasy league. Think you know what will be a surprise hit and which projected blockbuster will belly flop? Test your predictive powers using the magic of the interweb! They have it on computers now. So, if you think the Simpsons movie will open huge, or that people are dying to see CGI Autobots vs. Decepticons, put your fantasy dollars where your typing fingers are.
I missed Heroes over the long break. When the promos started up again a few weeks ago, I had some genuine anticipation. They could still kill off about half the characters and I wouldn't really mind. And you do have to overlook somethings here and there. For example, if you're Mohinder the scientist guy and you've just knocked out the superpowerful, crazy evil guy who killed your father do you (a) kill him or (b) pick up Peter's corpse and take it to an address you found in his wallet, leaving the crazy evil guy to wake up. Also, if you're Peter, why do you carry your mother's address in your wallet? Don't you have it memorized?
But mostly, it is a well-plotted show and it has some seriously enjoyable characters. How many people watch the telepathic cop trying to figure out if he's more like a Gutenberg or more like that doofus from Road Rules? I like the villian and in Hiro they have someone who perfectly embodies the silly/serious, dorky/cool vibe of the show. I like the show enough that I avoided all those spoiler-ific rumors about ripping off The Watchmen. After last night's episode, I can see that as a valid complaint. A massive disaster in NYC makes Americans put their faith in an unworthy leader. Seems to me like they're riffing on 9/11 as well.
About 3-4 years ago, I suffered two weeks of Berenstain Bears overload. I'll never forget it. See, I hate the Berenstain Bears. Everything that's wrong with children's books is in these particular books. Sloppy illustrations, poor writing, boring stories, platitudes. The gender stereotypes are beyond belief and yet every bear is basically the same bear with different outfits. Sister Bear is Brother Bear with a pink jumper and a bow. Father Bear is a big Brother Bear in overalls and Mother Bear is a dumpier Father Bear in an ugly house dress and hairnet(?). These bears have so little personality (beyond the gender stereotypes) they actually have no names. Brother Bear is called "Brother Bear" by his own father and by people outside his own family. I can't tell you how angry this makes me.
I had a rule with my kids. They could take one Berenstain Bears book out of the library at a time (with all the other, unregulated books). They figured out how much these books bugged me so they pulled their one Berenstain book off the shelf and read it far more than they probably really wanted to. It was the equivalent of pulling a Band-Aid off slowly so eventually I just let them take as many as they wanted out of the library. Two weeks and they were sick of the Berenstain Bears. Not an easy two weeks, but just two weeks.
I bring this up because a few months ago, my older daughter got into the Babysitters Club books and I went straight for the rip the Band-Aid off approach. The babysitters are a bunch of middle school girls who, like the Berenstain Bears, are kind of the same with different things stuck to them. They're all know-it-all butinskys, but this one is shy, that one bossy, that one "artsy." But they all learn an appropriate lesson by the end of the book and they're all boy crazy. (I checked the books out first. There was nothing inappropriate, just a lot of "cute boys" and descriptions of the dumb ass clothes these girls wear.) So I went straight for the "You want to try a cigarette, huh?" approach.
Do you know how many Babysitters books there are? The main series has about 120 books, plus the 20 mystery books and the 20 "super specials." So over the past three months or so my daughter has read somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 pages of Babysitters books, not counting the ones she re-read, before coughing on the noxious fumes and refusing to dive into the "Little Sister" spin-offs. That's a lot of crushes, "but I'm your best friend"s, baby-sitters one-upping the parents, leggings and lessons. You know the theory that the act of studying is more important than the material studied? Let's hope it's true. (I can't disrespect my daughter's reading taste in general. Harry Potter remained her one true love through it all and she's read so much more widely than I ever would have expected, but man, these books are crap.)
Is everyone watching planet earth on the Discovery channel? I've been consistently stunned by these things. Even when it's a subject like "Great Plains" and I think I won't be interested I see something amazing. Not only are they showing things that I've never seen before - and I'm a veteran nature documentary watcher - they're filming them exquisitely. The action shots are spot on. Other shots are so mesmerizing I'm convinced this show is a massive hit among stoners. They've turned nature into a special effect, and I don't mean that to sound cheap because, let's face it, special effects are cool.
Let me put it this way. A couple of weeks ago I saw a completely serviceable documentary on PBS' Nature series about scientists searching for a giant (20+ feet) crocidile. They didn't find any and the show was mostly about the people and the not finding. People don't appear in planet earth and they seem to find everything weird and beautiful that you want to see. For an hour, nature is powerful and dominant and lush and in focus.
If you can, try to catch the one with the Gelada monkeys that play and tackle each other while on near-vertical cliffs.
Can they sink any lower?Newt Gingrich has joined fellow creep Rush Limbaugh in blaming the Virginia Tech tragedy on liberals. I hope Gingrich runs for president. His idiocy on parade will do nothing but damage to his own party. Follow the Gingrich link, it's a doozy. Did you know video games were liberal? Me neither. Did you know you can no longer say "Murder is wrong" in America without some liberal getting all in your grill? Me neither. That liberals alone support dehumanizing name-calling? Me neither. Thanks Newt. Please run for president.
(BTW, Gingrich and Limbaugh have at least three divorces, at least one drug habit, tons of ethical problems and two long histories of de-humanizing name-calling between them.)
KSR's Next Stan reveals in a Locus interview that he's working on another historical novel ...
I've sold a book about the birth of science called The Galileans. It will have a science fiction element, but a strongly historical narrative as well. I researched the subject when I was writing The Years of Rice and Salt, which includes an alternative scientific revolution. Having done that, I thought, 'Well, what actually happened is fascinating.' So this new book is constellated about the figure of Galileo. Because he was famously put on trial by the Pope, he's still a good way to discuss the relationship between science and religion, and how those two can be reconciled (or not).
He also recommends a historical novelist I've never heard of: Cecelia Holland. If he thinks she's one of our greatest novelists, I'm intrigued.
When I asked his teammate David Ortiz, himself a borderline folk hero, how he would describe Ramirez, he replied, “As a crazy motherf----r.” Then he pointed at my notebook and said, “You can write it down just like that: ‘David Ortiz says Manny is a crazy motherf----r.’ That guy, he’s in his own world, on his own planet. Totally different human being than everyone else.” Ortiz is not alone in emphasizing that Ramirez’s originality resonates at the level of species. Another teammate, Julian Tavarez, recently told a reporter from the Boston Herald, “There’s a bunch of humans out here, but to Manny, he’s the only human.”
I happened to be flipping channels and caught the graduation dance in Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Forest Whitaker doing a dorky dance to cover of "Life in the Fast Lane" by the skinny-tied new wave band and I realized that Fast Times is now a four Oscar movie (Whitaker, Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage, writer Cameron Crowe) and will quite possibly finish as a five Oscar movie in the quite-possible event that Jennifer Jason Leigh wins one. Would this be more or less likely than Predator being a two governor movie?
I can only comment on the ones I've read, pardon the formatting:
Historian, The Kostova, Elizabeth Little, Brown 2005 [I can't believe this. I almost didn't finish this book, it was so bad. Two word review: pedestrian, bloodless.]
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Haddon, Mark Random House 2004 [Worthy.]
Da Vinci Code, The Brown, Dan Transworld 2003 [A good read, but one of the 100?]
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Rowling, J.K. Bloomsbury 1997 [I'm OK with this.]
High Fidelity Hornby, Nick Penguin 1995 [OK]
Suitable Boy, A Seth,Vikram Orion 1994 [Yes. I wouldn't have bothered linking the list if this hadn't been on it.]
Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow Hoeg, Peter HarperCollins 1992 [Yeah, so I'm noticing that lots of the ones I read were made into movies. Great book, good movie.]
English Patient Ondaatje, Michael Macmillan 1992 [I'm thinking of Elaine at the movie theater, unable to bear the overwrought drama. I actually liked both the book and the movie, but I get the attitude.]
LA Confidential Ellroy, James Random House 1990 [Ellroy was on one of those shows on the Biography Channel, or Court TV, one of those things, talking about his mother's murder, his investigation of it, etc. It was kind of creepy how he talked about is feelings about his mother and how he's written about it. Very odd character, that one. Great novel though.]
Remains Of The Day Ishiguro, Kazuo Faber 1989 [I stand by this.]
Bonfire Of The Vanities, The Wolfe, Tom Macmillan 1987 [I wouldn't have included this one.]
Watchmen Moore, Alan Titan 1987 [Yeah.]
Perfume Suskind, Patrick Penguin 1985 [Definitely.]
Handmaid's Tale Atwood, Margaret Random House 1985 [OK]
Love In The Time Of Cholera Marquez, Gabriel Garcia Penguin 1985 [Absolutely.]
Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Kundera, Milan Faber 1984 [Yep.]
Neuromancer Gibson, William HarperCollins 1984 [Zzzzzzz. So many better sci-fi novels to choose from. I guess this is where I'll rant about how there is not a single KSR book on this list. Idiots. This over "The Years of Rice and Salt"?!?!? Over the "The Gold Coast"?! Ugh.]
Money Amis, Martin Random House 1984 [Yep.]
Name of the Rose, The Eco, Umberto Random House 1983 [Ironically, or not, I just finished Krugman's "The Great Unraveling" and was looking for a book I haven't read in a while to reread and "The Name of the Rose" wound up getting pulled off the shelf.]
I'm a little discouraged by the 19% read rate. More discouraged that the literati apparently think so little of Stan Robinson's novels. I mean, fine, if you were put off by the science and pacing of the Mars books, I don't get it, but lots of people were so, I can see how those could be overlooked. But they slogged through Gibson's overrated prose and liked that better? Better than a half-dozen or so of Stan's books that were better than at least half the 19 listed above? I just don't get it.
Sooner or later, I'm going to read Malcolm Gladwell's book Tipping Point so I can make sense of things like Don Imus' firing. Don't get me wrong, publically calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" is reprehensible - and this is coming from a UConn fan who thought he would never stand up for Rutgers about anything. Still, he has said equally nasty things for years about women, blacks, Jews, homosexuals and more without a suspension, never mind a firing. Colin McEnroe has an interesting post about this (written days ago) pointing out that it's not about Imus, it's about the McCains and Rudys and Liebermans who go on his show. Is this why Imus is finally in trouble, not because of the comments, which frankly would barely qualify as a warm-up for Howard Stern, but because of the company he has to keep?
Or is this because of Nipplegate? Bear in mind that less than a week after the Columbine killings Howard Stern noted how attractive some of the fleeing high school girls were and wondered why the killers passed up the opportunity to rape some of them. He did this on the air and kept his show. Surely that's worse.
I just go back to the idea of the tipping point. Some formula with unknowable variables puts Imus in the trouble he should have been in years ago while Stern hasn't hit his. It always amazes me that Cheney and Bush can go on Rush Limbaugh's show and no one points out what a hate-filled creep they're associating with. He hasn't reached his tipping point. (When drug-boy does, it'll be a doozy.) Somehow the reaction to Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a faggot was far stronger than the reactions to her past vile comments. It's like they haven't really gotten away with this stuff, they just haven't been held accountable yet.
Sol LeWitt, 1928-2007, a nice obituary in The Hartford Courant. His minimalist and conceptual wall art and other pieces probably had as many detractors as fans. I wonder how many people walk past the lines gouged into the wall in the Wadsworth Atheneum without realizing that it's actually a pretty cool piece of art and not something under construction. As LeWitt was born in Hartford and mantained Connecticut ties through his life, many local museums boast a cube or wall of his.
If you happen to be a TV poker viewer, you'll have to figure out where the Game Show Network is on your TV since that's where the World Poker Tour will be. I never really figured out why it was on the Travel Channel anyway. They never particularly toured the casinos, which are hermetically sealed from their communities anyway.
