Linguistic Update III

The following word is to be injected into colloquial speak:

QWERTY

ADJECTIVE: The use of convention out of habit in spite of more rational alternatives.

Ben's qwerty reliance on the archaic measurements of gallons and miles left him hopelessly lost in his excursion to Yukon country.

Please update your logs accordingly.

[The Roman Numerals in the Title will be replaced with Hindu-Arabic Numerals after the next system refresh.]

Cui gives a shit.

I haven't been this excited about a Best Picture Oscar win since 1998.

Ben, Mason and I dressed up like the characters from The Departed for our Oscar party. It was awesome.

One last round of applause for Marky Mark:

Babel

Having just finished seeing Babel for the first time, I feel compelled to jot down my two cents on the film and hopefully start something of a conversation (argument) about it's successes, failures, merit, etc. Sam, Nell, Mason and Schwarz thought it was excellent, while Logan and a surprising number of people on Rotten Tomatoes thought it was...well...not. I'm with the cool kids; Babel is certainly among the best films of the year.

Rather than discuss what I liked about this film, instead I'd like to rant about a couple of recurring criticisms I've encountered. I'll just post a few representative selections here and save myself the trouble of paraphrasing:

...succeeds only in making noise.
-Chris Barsanti, filmcritic.com

If Crash drove you to distraction, then thou best stay away from Babel, this year's towering exercise in socio-political-psycho babble.
-Thomas Delapa, Boulder Weekly

I think our boy Tommy had a few too many daiquiris before getting to the theater and may have fallen asleep/passed out intermittently throughout the film. Or maybe he's just trying to impress a girl by using the phrase socio-political in his review of a movie that takes place on more than one continent. Maybe he just thinks that any two films with interweaving story lines and brown people are alike. Regardless, Babel is not a film about socio-politics. And Chris, if you need to have your hand held when being brought face to face with subject matter that actually pertains to you, or if you like the take-home-message of a film wrapped up with a nice little little bow, you should probably just stick to documentaries. Or rent Crash. Just don't go anywhere near art. Or Wilco.

It's pretty -- oh, what's the word? -- stupid in its dramatization of the silly little connections that unite us, and it's somewhat selective in its choice of them.
-Stephen Hunter, WashingtonPost.com

Comparisons to Crash are fair only up to a point, given how Babel is prone to sacrificing character at the altar of the almighty shock tactic...
-Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

Stephen Hunter, you sir are a -- oh, what's the word? -- douche bag. The connections that unite us as global citizens are neither "silly" nor "little," and I for one found the story not altogether unrealistic. But dude, it's not a documentary, it's a frickin' narrative. And Ed, as far as I'm concerned the comparisons to Crash can stop with your boy Tom and his inability to distinguish between two movies with weavy plots and brown people. As far as you and your impressive position as a Slant Magazine movie critic should be concerned, Crash was a bad movie about tolerance and the socio-economic/racial/cultural divide. But if you'd read some of the commentary from people who actually know what they're talking about, you'd know that Crash doesn't have to do with anything that should show up in this post, let alone any discussion of Babel. And let's just leave any discussion of the character of these two very different films to this.

Putting children in danger is a cheap way to strike an emotional chord with your audience.
-Paraphrasing Logan

And Logan, my beloved roomie; you're not a douche bag, you just have an intellectual-literary chip on your shoulder. Sure, putting kids in danger can be a cheap way to get your readers/views emotionally involved in your story, but it isn't in Babel. It wouldn't detract from the intensity of the various story lines if all the young characters in this movie were 15 years older, and there's no way to meaningfully address the malady of grief in our post post-modern world without depicting the emotional/developmental obstacles children face as members of a "global community." When the kid smashed the gun against the rock, man? Come on! That shit was dynamite. I was never terribly emotionally invested in those two white children, and if you think about it it's pretty clear that Iñárritu didn't want us to get to know them. All we ever knew about those kids was in relation to the nanny. The only time a parent/child relationship has effected me as much as when the nanny was sobbing in the immigration office because she failed to protect--and was being separated from--what felt to her like her own children was when Roberto is finally separated from Giorgio in Life is Beautiful. And that, my friend, is what makes this movie such a masterpiece.

And the award goes to...

It is Oscar season again. You know the drill: Catholic psychoanalytics and choleric ineffectualness.

A couple of weeks ago we surveyed the Best Picture wins and were dismayed by how abysmal the 00 picks have been. Crash and Milliondollar Baby keep me up at night. And Gladiator? Chicago? Is this really how we want to represent the cinematic decade?

At least Babel, this year's sexy pick, is inoffensive. Don't get me wrong, I love Iñárritu, but his movies have strictly followed the law of diminishing returns. Babel lacks the striking Biblical allusions of Amores Perros and the fascinating philosophical undertones of 21 Grams. And it really could have jettisoned half of the plot strands for a leaner narrative, but I guess Arriaga had to really stretch the "we are all connected" wankery for the academy.

Anyway, here are my predictions for Academy night. Feel free to look back and laugh at my poor soothsaying Monday morning. There are two categories, first is who I think will take the prize (ie. Hollywood realpolitik), and second, who should walk away with it.

[One last side note: I will take an Eastwood win for best director or best picture as clear empirical proof that God or any other deity does not exist.]

And the winner is...

Actor In A Leading Role:
Will Win: Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)
Should Win: Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson)

Whitaker wins because he is playing against type, but Gosling deserves the props for his subtle performance.

Actor In A Supporting Role:
Will Win: Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine)
Should Win: Mark Wahlberg (The Departed)

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe go fuck yourself.

Actress In A Leading Role:
Will Win: Helen Mirren (The Queen)
Should Win: Helen Mirren (The Queen)

Helen Mirren is such a babe.

Actress In A Supporting Role:
Will Win: Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls)
Should Win: --

I cannot comment about this category because I never saw Dreamgirls and none of the other nominees inspire me.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay):
Will Win: William Monahan (The Departed)
Should Win: William Monahan (The Departed)

Did anybody see the Director's Cut of Kingdom of Heaven? I hear the additional footage salvages the film.

Writing (Original Screenplay):
Will Win: Peter Morgan (The Queen)
Should Win: Peter Morgan (The Queen)

The Queen is a movie of marvelously small details. And way more entertaining than it has any right being.

Foreign Language Film:
Will Win: El Laberinto del Fauno
Should Win: El Laberinto del Fauno

No competition. Although The Lives of Others and Days of Glory look awesome. If anybody is looking for some others to Netflix, I whole-heartedly endorse Three Times, The Child, and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu.

Directing:
Will Win: Martin Scorsese (The Departed)
Should Win: Martin Scorsese (The Departed)

Hearing Scorsese talk about all the film allusions sprinkled in The Departed made me love the movie even more. I am going to punch a wall if he doesn't win.

Best Picture:
Will Win: Babel
Should Win: The Departed

If Little Miss Sunshine wins, I will vomit.

Two peas in a pod

Jason Kidd, right, with Kobe Bryant at a practice during All-Star weekend. They would be teammates if the Nets traded Kidd to the Lakers.

Kobe: "If you make it to the Lakers we can go clubbin and get some fine honeys, J."
Jason: "Yeah boy. Say, can I get your lawyer's number?"
Kobe: "Sure thing my brother. I read about your wife in the papers, man. Tough luck witchya ho."
Jason: "You said it, man. But if you got off for rape, I'm sure I'll be ite.
Kobe: "True dat. It feels so good, too. Nothing like committing violence against women and getting off with nothing more than an insignificant financial hit."

Pop Quiz Hotshot!

What do Ben and Paris Hilton have in common?

“I'm going to show them a world without you”

The news today is that Lost hit an all time ratings low on Wednesday.

As you may or may not know, I gave up on Lost before the November mid-season finale. And I haven’t and I won’t go back. (Which I hinted at before.)

For those of you who feel the need to be a part of the abused 12-13 million Americans that still think that Lost is only hurting you because it loves you. This is an intervention. Get out now.

And to Lost, it’s creative staff, cast and products. I’m on a mission. To quote the words of the immortal Neo (at the end of the only Matrix movie that I’ll admit exists):

“I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.”

FYI: Carlos Mencia Sucks

Besides having the most unfunny and offensive show on TV. Carlos Mencia is apparently a thief too.

Oh, inverted world.

"Menard (perhaps without wishing to) has enriched, by means of a new technique, the hesitant and rudimentary art of reading: the technique is one of deliberate anachronism and erroneous attributions. This technique, with its infinite applications, urges us to run through the Odyssey as if it were written after the Aeneid..."

-- Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote by Jorge Luis Borges

I have no need for Borgesian textual games. I already live in a world of inverted referents; I was, after all, raised by The Simpsons.

My initial exposure to many cultural products has been through parody.

I saw Cape Feare before Cape Fear and The Shinning prior to The Shining.

My first thought from reading "The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side" was not the Scarecrow mangling the Pythagorian theorem, but Homer Simpson's allusive imitation after stealing Henry Kissinger's glasses.

Worse still, I actually thought it was a joke that Bush had a son named George Bush Jr. Apparently, so did the writers.

The moral of the story is that if I start laughing at some bizarre or inopportune moment, such as the radio play of Falco's Rock Me Amadeus or the purchase of a can of Del Monte, The Simpsons has probably once again recoded and enriched my hesitant and rudimentary life.

Preparing For Wii-entry

The wind was black that day. It had been unseasonably warm in Salt Lake City. But that morning the black wind chose to bring its icy rage –– like a losing streak-ravaged Boston Celtics fan.

Yes, the world was angry that day. But it didn’t scare me. I was on a mission.

I had a sort of envy, you see. Wii envy. And the only thing that would satiate it is getting my own Wii to play with.

The line was miles long. The day cold. But I’m happy to say I bested the unfriendly world and the brusque morning and walked out of Target with my Wii in my hands.

(Okay, so I only had to stand in the cold for 15 minutes and then inside for like another 15. And it was pretty clear the moment they opened the doors and told us they had 56 in stock that I was getting my Wii. Well, mostly clear... it’s so hard to count a big group of people. That’s a skill I would like to develop some day.)

Anyway, if you readers are also Wii owners (Ben), you should give me a call so we can link our systems and we can have a grand old Mii parade.

I quite like the Wii so far... although I have spent more time playing with the Mii, Weather, News and Internet channels than actually playing games. (I just passed the two-hour mark in Zelda.)

Wish me luck

If a monkey can almost surely produce Shakespeare by plunking away on a typewriter, I can prob'ly earn a little money in the stock market, right? Let's hope so, because I just made my first two trades. I bought seven shares of AAPL (Apple Inc), and sixty three shares of the ominous sounding PCBK (Pacific Continental Corporation).

I'm a little freaked out about it, but in the grand scheme of things it really isn't that much money and they're both very safe investments. The trades won't actually go through until the markets open on Monday, but I'll keep you posted on my early progress/emotions/regrets/suicide plans. In the event of the later I'm leaving everything to Sam except Sam's record player, which I'm leaving to Logan.

No, that's not my trick, Michael.

In Memoriam.

Arrested Development was taken off the air a year ago today.

Hopefully in the future, when the conquering cyborgs are rummaging through the refuse of our decadent society they will see that we worshipped a Delphian and sphinxlike GOB.

I implore you all to take a moment today and ruminate over his teachings:

Gob: My God, what is this feeling?
Michael: Well, you know the feeling that you’re... that you’re feeling is what many of us call “a feeling.”
Gob: But it’s not like envy, or even hungry.
Michael: Could it be love?
Gob: I know what an erection feels like, Michael.

Food Fight

I kind of like Anthony Bourdain, and I kind of don’t. He’s cocky, he’s arrogant. But there’s no question he knows food. And he’s a solid writer too.

(Aside: that very special Lebanon episode of his Travel Channel show “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” – the one where he just so happened to be in Beirut when Israel went after Hezbollah – was awesome.

I love this wonderful smackdown of some of the Food Network's personalities. (If you’ve never watched the Food Network, it’s a mixture of primarily 30 minutes segments with some of the most irritating people on Earth and some brilliant chefs and food experts, shot with digital cameras and then reran incessantly.)

The endlessly irritating yet inexplicably popular Rachael Ray is arguably the largest cultural success the Food Network (and Oprah) has had in recent years forcing another celebrity “chef” down our throats. Anthony Bourdain describes her masterfully:

“Rachael [Ray] uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. ‘You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion--you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing…Just sit there. Have another Triscuit…Sleep….sleep….’”

“You Win Universe”

A few weeks ago, we experienced a 36-hour outage of email and Internet at work. It went down at about 4:00 on Tuesday and didn’t work until again Thursday morning.

It was horrible. My office was almost shut down. I had to depend on things like the telephone and fax machine just to get my job done.

But that isn’t the worse thing. I just moved, so I’ve been without the Internet since Friday and will be until tomorrow.

That’s five full days without access to an endless supply of Lindsey Lohan news, up-to-the-minute sports scores and rumors, obligatory message board opinions, social networking and important news from reputable sources.

I’ve only been online (as we used to say) since 1997. That’s less years than I’ve been alive I think. But someone bits of information transported magically through tubes (which aren’t like a big truck) have become an essential, indispensable part of my life.

Weird.

Nerd Alert #498

Joss Whedon in studio disagreement shocker.

More proof that no one should waste their time trying to make DC comics movies!

Calling all men

Dudes, I need some help. Something terrible happened, and I can't find the exit strategy in any of the Worst Case Scenarios books OR on my all purpose goto fix it website.

A group of individuals from the dominant sex invited me to "poker night." I've heard of this custom and seen it depicted on television and in movies. I even recall a story about Logan's friend making a living playing this game on the internet.

This is a big deal. Somehow these fellas or blokes or chaps or whatever they call themselves think I'm one of them. This is my one shot at masculinity -- I must seize it!

So here's the problem: I don't know how to play. Apparently it's not the poker of my youth, which involved me, Moey and two dolls. This is real man poker. Acording to wikipedia, it's called Texas hold 'em.

Here's what I know: The winner get's a pretty bracelet. Here's what I don't know: Everything else. So I'm giving all of you a job based on your skill sets. Please don't let me down...

Brad, you surely know how to relate to "hombres." Has this Hold Them game ever surfaced in your ragamuffin adventures? Fill me in on how the game is played, would you? I understand the basic premise -- I get two cards and there are four community cards -- but there are some intricacies that puzzle me. On the wikipedia page, it gives the example of Carol, who has an ace-high flush: A-K-9-8-7. How can she have a flush without the Q and J?

Logan, I need help with betting. I read the betting structures entry on the wiki page, but it went over my head. Can you dumb it down for me/just give me the essentials? My Jewish instinct should make this one manageable once I grasp the concept.

Ben, help me with strategy. And controlling my emotions. As you know, I'm not much of a poker-faced kid. I wear my heart on my everything, and everyone knows it. If I get a good hand I will smile and swoon like a little girl. If I have lousy cards I will groan and flail like a cranky third grader. Perhaps worse, I will feel bad if I beat my friends. How do I win without making them lose? Or how can I make them lose without knowing I won? No, that won't work.... How about this: How do I play well enough but not bad enough to convince these menfolk that I'm legitimate/not a virgin/not a homosexual/capable of manly greatness?

Ian, if you're reading this, I need help with the lingo and conversation. Brad and Logan can probably help with this too. Here's the central question: How do I talk like a man? Does it involve Brad-style Paige jokes? Or Logan-style sex jokes which often involve rendering women unconscious? Should I talk about having sex? Or playing sports? I played football at the park with my nine year old cousin yesterday. Or fixing things? I could tell them about the time I fixed grandma's chi machine...

Okay boys. I think if we all pitch in, I can do this. To quote Mrs. Hillary Clinton: "It takes a village to raise a child."

Love and kisses,
Sam

PS-- Everyone forward a copy of their answers to Joey Schoenhals. He'll need this advise someday, too.

The Countdown

In this post I’m going to do the impossible; I’m going to list my five favorite albums of all time. Okay, maybe it isn’t impossible. But for some reason it’s always been difficult for me to list my favorite…well…anything. My favorite food is anything but okra, my favorite movie changes every time I see a movie I enjoy, and I don’t think I’ve ever in my life had a favorite color.

That said, this list is for reals. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’m prepared to go on record. In this list you’ll find neither equivocation nor temporary infatuation. The following five albums contain music I wouldn’t want to live the rest of my life without. Each remains relevant despite the major changes in my life, and each seems to only get better with time.

I’ve posted a single song from each album for your listening pleasure. Click the album art to start the download.

5. Black Star, Self Titled

It was tough for me to choose between Black Star and Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides, but the collaboration involved in the creation of this album adds a level of depth and passion that is as inexplicable as it is rare. Listening to this album you can feel that it’s made of hope, love, respect and joy. The rhymes are fantastic and the tracks are flawless. You could play this album anywhere, any time and for anyone, or listen to it on repeat all by yourself. There’s something about this album that just makes me feel good. That may not sound like much of an achievement, but few albums manage to be at the same time this deep, passionate and approachable.

4. Andrew Bird, Weather Systems

I love everything Andrew Bird has ever done, but this is the album I seem to come back to the most. In time I think there’s a good chance that Armchair Apocrypha will overtake Weather Systems on my top 5 list, but I’ll need to spend at least a year with it before I can confidently make that call. Andrew Bird is an extraordinary talent with a totally unique musical and lyrical aesthetic. Few artists manage to maintain a progression as consistently salient as Andrew from album to album, and with each new release he seems to delve deeper into the margins of everything he’s done before. Weather Systems is Andrew’s largest leap from an album prior, and it has a playfully callow edge that I don’t hear nearly as much in any of his work before or since.

3. Propagandi, Potemkin City Limits

For me this album is about as good as it gets. I could listen to it for a month straight and it wouldn’t get old. Musically it’s flawless, and lyrically it’s their most mature work yet. Like any propagandi album it punches you in the face with political and ideological rants, but as these guys get older they're able to make their lyrics far more nuanced while maintaining the intensity that makes them special. There's a clear progression of intensity in each of their albums, and City Limits is by far their most intense work yet. I don’t really know what else to say… It’s about as straightforward an album as you get, and as far as I'm concerned it's just about perfect.

2. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Airplane Over the Sea

In the Airplane Over the Sea is one of those rare flashes of brilliance and intensity that can’t be ignored or denied. Like a dream it’s scattered and at times abrasively incoherent, but it remains strikingly cohesive and rings with a mysterious and reassuring truth. It’s disconsolate yet hopeful, resounding yet unintelligible, and while tender it majorly effing rocks.

1. Refused, The Shape of Punk to Come

I could write a thesis on why I love this album. The thing that makes The Airplane Over the Sea so great is that it almost seems like it was created through divine intervention. It’s as though Jeff Magnum had no choice but bring the album into existence. The Shape of Punk to Come, on the other hand, is a purely sublunary creation. Every aspect of this album is deliberate, and the philosophy behind it as solid as the music itself. This album was created to serve a purpose, and it’s orchestrated as artfully and intelligently as anything I’ve ever seen or heard. It is philosophy as music and music as philosophy, and it accomplishes the task for which it was created. In Deridian terms I’d say it is a “hammer” with which to break through the “pacifying lure of organic indifference”. In Goldsmithian terms I’ll simply say that it is my favorite album of all time.

Early candidate for quote of the year

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 — In an era of meticulous political choreography, the staging of the kickoff for this presidential candidacy could hardly have gone worse.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who announced his candidacy on Wednesday with the hope that he could ride his foreign policy expertise into contention for the Democratic nomination, instead spent the day struggling to explain his description of Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat running for president, as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”