Bullet-Point Friday

• Well, I kept my cell phone on buzz from late September until today hoping that I'd get that call either from the MacArthur Foundation or Sweden. No such luck. I guess I can switch it off (and hold my breath) for another year.
• Since besides keeping a fairly sophisticated monthly budget I don't dabble in economics, and since rarely do I delve into cutting edge scientific research, I thought I'd surely be shortlisted for either the prize in literature or maybe (as a last resort) the peace prize. I guess I need to write more than term papers and angry blog posts. And perhaps do more than save the world everyday from my utter disgust.
• Congratulations to Doris Lessing, whoever she is. I browsed through the table of contents of the Norton Anthology of British Literature last night and couldn't find anything by her. If Norton doesn't bother with her writings, why should anyone else? Perhaps she's just trans-canonical.
• Congratulations to Al Gore, whose name was in the news just a couple of days ago when a British court determined that nine statements in his film on global warming were in error. Thankfully he wasn't up for the Nobel scientific prize. Polar bears drowning, indeed! (Although I have to admit I chuckled out loud during that part of the movie when the computer-animated polar bear went kerplunk into the Arctic waters! Ah, good times. Of course, if you were in the audience and couldn't tell that that scene/scenario was designed purely for an emotional response, then perhaps you deserve a Nobel for naiveté and gullibility.)
• No Nobel. No Genius. At least I'm in good company.
  

Dog Day Afternoon

Saw a dog of a movie this holiday weekend: The Year of the Dog. Who in their right mind liked this film? And why did so many people recommend it to me? Just further proof, it seems, that human beings are ultimately unknowable.

I almost always take my cue from a film’s popularity: if it grosses more than a couple of million, then it’s probably not to my tastes. But everyone was talking about this film. Hell, even Saturday Night Live brought back Molly Shannon to host—only the second time a former female cast member returned to host—because of the success (or buzz) of this movie.

There wasn’t a single likeable or believable character. And a very fundamental note to the director/writer/producer: a real vegan wouldn’t be drinking wine or brushing her teeth with a big-name brand displayed on the tube. Those things typically aren’t vegan! I learned those things when I was a teenager on a farm in East Texas. I have no idea why someone in Hollywood wouldn’t be as smart as a dumb country fuck.

Another DVD I rented this weekend was Strangers with Candy. Still not sure what the point of that was. It was strange and bizarre, but I certainly didn’t find it funny. Thankfully the third DVD was a winner: Wanda Sykes’ stand-up routine filmed in Seattle. Now that made me laugh out loud.

To wash the gullet and clear the (mental) palate from crappy DVDs, I went to see the latest Bourne film this afternoon. Not quite as good as the first two, but still something worthwhile. I really like Matt Damon’s character, and I also really like Joan Allen’s and Julia Stiles’ characters as well. I’m glad Ludlum kept developing those female characters. Finally a film I would recommend.

The Sky Is (Still) Falling

For those of you who are relatively new to this eight-year-old blog, today is the twenty-eighth anniversary of Skylab's descent. I began my own Crash Course shortly before the twentieth anniversary while I was living in Shimonoseki, Japan. (And I chose the Polish/Slavic spelling of the space station for my moniker because I figured it would be easier to consolidate my various online personalities under something a bit more foreign-spelled.)

On July 11, 1979, the abandoned United States space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.

That summer I thought the world was ending, and I obsessively collected every article about and photograph of what was then the largest (hu)man-made satellite ever. I still have that yellow scrapbook I made at my grandmother's house in Arkansas. (And I assume Skylab is the reason I love Wim Wenders' film Until the End of the World as much as I do. Skylab is also probably the reason I'm wary of (or at least ironic about) technojunk.) With a healthy dose of realism/cynicism about the (dis)abilities of humankind since that time, I'm even better "prepared" to face the next American/(hu)man-made cataclysm that falls from the sky.

3 Great Films

It was the end of the world...

...and Claire couldn't care less.

And somewhere on a desert road from Vegas to nowhere...

...I'll talk it over with Brenda.

I have the right to testify in my native language...

You have to do what nobody expects.