Tag: Sentential Links

Linkage…but first, a cartoon clown named Binky.

If you actually played that clip…yeah, I’m sorry.

Anyway:

:: But this movie… It’s not great. I know everyone saw it when they were kids and loves it to pieces, but it is so long, and frequently so, so boring. (What movie is he talking about? Click through to find out…let’s just say that I could not possibly disagree more.)

:: What is heartening about Persepolis, and challenging to western assumptions about the lives of women in places like Iran, is the level of accommodation and subversion with which the rules are approached. The veil, for example, does not guarantee meek feminine submission, although its enforcement on a state level clearly seeks that; nor are decisions about how and why it is worn remotely simple (or always coerced) on an individual or even a community level. (It’s been several years since I read Persepolis; I should probably do so again. And watch the movie.)

:: My fantasy rider would include grapes, pistachios (natural, roasted & salted,) a gallon of spring water, camomile tea, a fresh pillow with a clean pillowcase, a Snuggie, flowers, and, why not, 4 new hand towels. And peanut m&ms, all colors included, especially the brown ones. Basically I would consume the food stuff, turn on my nature sounds, snuggie up and take a nap.

:: If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech. (Writing advice from John Steinbeck, which is always welcome. I don’t follow this particular piece of advice, though. I just feel goofy reading my dialogue out loud. I do something kind of along the same line, though: I play the scene in my head, like a movie. I have no idea if this helps or not, but I just can’t bring myself to say my own dialogue out loud. Even when I’m writing alone.)

:: Seeing this movie now, you’d never know this was such a big hit, because honestly, it is just terrible. Just… not offensively bad or something I hated, but just an aggressively mediocre movie full of misstep upon misstep. (What movie? Click to find out! I never liked it all that much to begin with, but it does have some kind of odd reverential status in geek circles for some reason. Or maybe it’s not ‘reverential’ status, just…looked back upon with greater fondness than is warranted?)

:: Okay, now I’ll say it, I’ll dare to state the unthinkable… St. Patrick’s Day is the worst freaking day of the year. And I’m Irish!!! (I’ve always wondered what bartenders think of St. Paddy’s Day.)

:: We stand fixated on the man who directed Star Wars.

Why? The reasons are beyond number and impossible to mention in geek company without causing a riot: the special editions, the prequels, the re-edits. The betrayal and heartache as thousands of fanboys and girls took up the cry “Han shot first!” We’re furious. We’re mourning. We’re hoping that the next generation doesn’t think that Anakin Skywalker is cooler than Han Solo. (I only link this to highlight how sick I am of this whole mindset. Now we’re trying to psychoanalyze George Lucas, in our quest to understand how it could possibly be that he made something that a bunch of people don’t like that much. Seriously…give it up. And allow me to renew my objection to anyone who thinks that Han Solo’s story is utterly, completely changed by Greedo getting off a shot in the cantina. All that does is neuter a big laugh in the movie, not a character. Stop, people. Just…stop.)

More next week!

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Linkage…but first, stinkage!

:: Design matters. Design, as it happens, currently makes it extraordinarily easy for better-off Americans to not notice that most of them are as much beneficiaries of “government handouts” as anyone else.* It’s hard to think this is entirely accidental.

:: Kudos to SMG for the most definitive world map of the setting so far, and possibly the last major one before we get the official maps later this year. (Amen to that! I love this map. And there’s a book of Ice and Fire maps coming out later this year? Cool!)

:: Table readings are a necessary part of the production process.

:: He said, “Son, if I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that the hardest thing you’re ever going to deal with is change.” He paused for a moment, then a rueful little grin tugged at his lips. “Especially if you’re like me and you just want things to stay the same.”

:: A lot of fanfare for one little boy? Sure. But, whatever. His birthday only comes once every four years. And he’s worth all of it.

That’s about it. More next week!

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Time for linkage…but first, a song by Pink Floyd!

:: So again, because I can’t say this strongly enough: asteroid 2012 DA14 is not an impact threat for February 2013. (Now I can stop worrying and write that symphony!)

:: A lot of board games come out every year. Some of them are really great. Many of them are okay rehashes of what has come before. Some are crappy. And some are just sort of there. This post is dedicated to the last category. (Man, I really need to do more table-top gaming.)

:: This is what passes for a punchline, presumably because it’s a line of dialogue actually makes you want to punch a fictional character.

:: It is good to be reminded that I have the ability to be grounded and full, that the world is not slipping away quite as fast as I think. (I am so doing this one of these days. Although we have an electric stove, so I’ll have to allow that one.)

:: My vote for the scummiest people on the planet are the lowlifes who own and operate towing companies. Not the good folks from service stations or AAA providing roadside service; I’m talking about the dirt bags who tow your car from parking spaces, hold your car hostage, and then essentially rob you to get it back.

:: The people wanted those services that were provided by the government, and they were willing to pay more than the actual $200 that the tax increase would have cost them in order to get them. The thing is, they would rather pay more than pay the government for those same services. (But…gummint is always bad! Taxes bad! Market good!)

:: Just because everyone has been telling you for years that The Empire Strikes Back was the best of the original trilogy doesn’t mean you have to keep quiet and knuckle under to the mob. That’s what Goebbels counted on, right? So say it proudly: Return of the Jedi is the best of the six Star Wars movies! Come out of the closet! (When asked to name a Best Star Wars movie, I almost always name A New Hope, just because it came first and nothing else would have come after had it not been, well, frakking awesome. But in all honesty, I adore each and every one of these damn movies. Kevin Drum writes a nicely argued post in defense of RotJ, and I’ll go one better to say that I like the Ewoks just fine!)

More next week!

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Time for linkage…but first, check out this execution of a round of Pac Man, in which Our Hero passes straight through a ghost, unharmed, four times! The ghost? It’s…Blinky!

(I’m wondering now how long I can keep this increasingly tenuous series of words that kinda-sorta rhyme with ‘link’ going….)

:: On Thursday night at 6 p.m. I got an email from my landlord telling me there had been a fire in my apartment building but my “cat was okay” and no one was hurt. (If you read only one of the posts I link this week, read this one. I watched all of this unfold over several days, in realtime, via Sheila’s updates on Facebook. It’s harrowing and scary and deeply emotional…and it has a wonderful coda.)

:: March 9th. What a great day. Not only will I be celebrating the life of the greatest rapper of all time who died way to soon (R.I.P. Biggie!), but I will finally get to see Edgar Rice Burrough’s classic Barsoom series on the big screen!!! Given that this is the characters 100 year anniversary and that these stories featuring John Carter are the building blocks for movies like Star Wars, Alien, and Avatar… Well, quite frankly ITS ABOUT TIME!!! (I still find myself wishing they’d have titled this movie anything other than John Carter, which says absolutely nothing about the story. I mean, I hear that title, and I’m like to think it’s a feature movie about the Noah Wyle character from ER. Oh well…I’ll be seeing the movie, though! Probably not opening night, but sometime…soon….)

:: Everyone worked, everyone helped, and in the end we had brewed give gallons of sweet black beer, bottled another five of a coffee stout porter, and made a plate full of giant brats for folks to ziplock and take home to cook up for dinner. All around me was the human side of industry. People who used their kitchen, hands, stoves, cranks, and cappers to create a viking feast of meat and ale. It felt hardy. It felt primal. It felt good.

:: A 25-years-later sequel would be a bad idea for similar reasons. Part of me would love to catch up with Bender, Claire, Allison, Andy, and Brian in middle-age; maybe at a high school reunion. But most of me realizes that I still don’t want to see that. I have my own ideas about where these characters ended up that are uniquely mine. Seeing anything else on the screen is doomed to disappoint.

:: I still can’t believe the events that led to Nola’s promotion! (I love that sentence. Love, love, love it. I’m going to incorporate phrasings like that into my daily lexicon: “I still can’t believe the events that led to this equipment’s malfunction!”)

:: And think of this: unlike other issues, this one has a deadline. Having an actual date on this (imaginary) event makes it seem more solid, more real. I hate to write this, but I expect we’ll be hearing more about people going through with suicide over the next few months because of these doomsday claims. How many of them might have had a chance to seek help, to live longer, if the idea of a 2012 doomsday weren’t so prevalent?

More next week!

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Linkage…but first, the Bond girl named “Dink”!

Boy, the casual sexism of the early Bond films still makes me squirm. Anyway….

:: Do you remember back in the “old days” when you’d be out and about somewhere and something would happen, and you’d think, “I can’t wait to blog about this!” It wasn’t that long ago, really. But these days everyone seems to have a phone that connects to every server in the world, and most people just send these moments to Twitter or Facebook. (I miss the sense of free-for-all conversation that used to be the coin of the realm in Blogistan, but I suppose that was inevitable, as the conversations moved to Facebook and Twitter. Neither is perfect, either — on FB, we select the people with whom we want to interact, and that’s that; on Twitter, anyone can interact with us — unless we block them — but man, that 140-character limit can be a bear sometimes. I’ve seen people on Twitter who decide to abandon their blogs, and then they proceed to post blog-post length items to Twitter, 140 characters at a time, for many tweets in a row. This always irritates me, since Twitter updates chronologically, so unless one is actually on Twitter when one of these starts, you have to scroll backward to figure out what’s being talked about. My audience here is pretty much what it is, although I do probably pick up a reader or two here and there, and lose a reader here and there. And that’s about it…the traffic remains the same, and it’s mostly Google image searches. Does this bug me? A bit…but I can’t shut myself up, so there it is.)

:: A lot of people have asked me why I don’t review the Grammys. Any organization that gives Chris Brown awards instead of putting him in jail is not one I take seriously.

:: Gary Carter was responsible for some of the most memorable moments I’ve ever spent watching baseball.

:: Why, Otis Redding. Why?

Why did you have to leave us so early? (This is a wonderful, wonderful post.)

:: Life is a complicated mix of good and bad, painful and pleasant. Through it all I decide which I will focus on …..what I have to be grateful for or what I have to sorrow about. I pick. I hope I can choose well. (My dear friend Lynda has had a rough start to 2012, after a wonderful 2011. I know that she will try to approach everything with as much strength and laughter as she can manage.)

:: Happiness is 20 kids making one pie. Look at the flour on their hands. Look at the smiles on their faces. If this doesn’t make my 24 hours on 3 different airplanes worth the trip, I don’t know what does.

:: When one believes in something you don’t see or understand, too often we assume its them when it is us. There are fairies, there are gods, there are demons and there are angels. Who are you to say there is not? Without trumpets or wings, I know one passed this way.

More next week!

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Time for linkage…but first, Plinko!

OK, the links:

:: Not wanting to look at this girl directly (lest I be turned to stone) I quickly grabbed a shirt and walked fast to the counter. The T-shirt Girl running the till had heard what I did and we both smiled at each other with our shared secret. For a brief second, we were both in on the same joke.

:: Either way, Komen has stained their charity and it’s going to stay stained when they inevitably cave in to right wing ideological demands again. (I, for one, will never support any Komen-based drive or program again. I will go out of my way to buy stuff without the pink ribbon on it, and I will not donate any money to them. They’ve proven what they’re about. In all honesty, I was already down on Komen with their habit of sending teams of lawyers to enforce their trademark on the phrase “For the Cure”, so that any mom-and-pop selling cupcakes in hopes of raising a few hundred bucks for some disease’s respective research facility had to shut down or change their name. Along these lines, John Scalzi is doing some limited-time fundraising for Planned Parenthood.)

:: There is just something wonderful when Hubble points to nearby spiral galaxies. Sprawling and detailed, we get both great resolution on smaller features as well as a jaw-dropping overview of a grand spiral… like, say, NGC 1073: (Oh, wow….)

:: There were only two shots fired from Greg Stratton’s .22 Magnum rifle. (If you’ve ever wondered what slaughtering a farm animal for meat looks like, this is the post for you. If not…then don’t click.)

:: So I kind of grew up immersed in poetry (some of my older relatives used to recite poetry as well, having learned it in school). I recognize that some people did not. And yet, at the same time, I think the fact that I know it and like it isn’t anything I should have to apologize for or be ashamed for.

:: I’m not a climber and I never will be. I love mountains, but I love the feeling of being in them, surrounded by them. I don’t feel the need to stand on top, to measure myself against them because, well, the mountain wins. Every time. I have no desire to climb Everest or anything else. My fascination is akin to the one I have for polar exploration–the extremes are just so mind-boggling, the bizarre things that this planet can throw up in the face of humans poking their heads into remote and untouched places.

:: I’m not gonna lie, folks: I had high hopes for this storyline after Rose got in her auto accident, and I can’t help but feel a little disappointed by the way it all played out. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly want to see Rose careen off the highway and carve a swath of destruction through the playground at the Toledo School For Adorable But Tragically Blinded Orphans, I’m just saying that in this strip, that’s actually a pretty likely outcome.

:: It was my favorite type of career. Long-lasting, diverse, a little bit chaotic, not overly managed, with moments of brilliance, moments of just good workmanship … and you can tell, you can just tell, that his career has been about acting, yes, but it was about forming relationships. (I hope that when I die, Sheila writes a tribute. Of course, this assumes that when the time comes, I have something to my name to form the meat of a Sheila O’Malley tribute….)

More next week.

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Linkage…but first, Slinky-age!

Wow, those fellows need to get out more. Which is my way of saying, yes, I’m sad that I didn’t think of this myself. (And at the very end, I can’t help thinking, “Dude, watch out! You’ll lose your fingers that way!”)

Anyway, the linkage!

:: I realize this morning that what I have learned from the Curandera, the dream and Brian, is that I’m not a crazy dog lady. I just happen to love my dog. And anyone who is a true animal lover can understand that dogs really are members of one’s family. Yoda and I are a package deal. He’s not in my mate space, but he definitely has a huge chunk of my heart. And I’m never again going to hide that fact from a man.

:: Before I went on Lexapro, I said to the doctor that I felt like I was living on a thin precipice beneath a giant, sucking whirlpool that I couldn’t get past. I don’t feel like that now, haven’t in years, and maybe the drug helped me get past it and I need instead to focus on controlling my anger for myself, by myself, instead of just letting the drug numb me to it. (For various reasons, SamuraiFrog is abandoning his antidepressants, and he’s blogging frankly and honestly about the experience. I hope it all works out for him, and for his wife.)

:: I know I’ve mentioned before in these pages that I think Chuck Norris sucks and the people who like him kind of suck, but just to remind you: Chuck Norris sucks and the people who like him kind of suck. (Yes, SamuraiFrog again, but it’s from a different blog he writes for, so we’re all good.)

:: It’s been well established established that Dagwood and Herb use aggressive, angry breakdancing as a way to express extreme negative emotion. (Note to self: learn to spin around on your head like that! It would be awesome!)

:: On Wednesday, January 25th, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich spoke to a crowd of supporters in Florida. In a short speech guaranteed to create a buzz—online, as well as among space enthusiasts—he declared that if elected president, “… by the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.”

That’s a pretty bold statement. Unfortunately, it’s also impossible.

:: To put it another way, when a competent writer tells you a story, you know what happened. When a good writer tells you a story, you feel it happen to you.

More next week!

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Linkage….

:: There’s a sense that a lot of us have that our public policy ought to be aiming to produce large gains for everyone. You often hear that for one reason or another the United States “can’t afford” this or that. We “can’t afford” to pay people Social Security benefits. We “can’t afford” to build high-speed trains. We “can’t afford” to give everyone early childhood education. But why can’t we afford this stuff? Are we a poor country? No, we’re not. We’re one of the richest countries that’s ever existed. Are we a poorer country than we used to be? No, we’re not. But a very large share of the gains we’ve made over the past three decades have gone to a relatively small number of people. If the gains had been broadly shared, then the burden of paying for that basic infrastructure and public services would have to be very broadly shared. But the gains have been very concentrated, and so if we’re going to afford that stuff, a large share of the revenue has to come from the people who’ve gotten the money.

That’s not envy, that’s math.

:: I could use a little Essence of Yo in my life! (I have never been able to make a yo-yo work. That is all.)

:: I will no longer be talking to Ron Paul supporters about Ron Paul. Paulites are like ultra-conservatives who believe in magic. Or they’re just dumbass college kids who want marijuana legalized enough to not pay attention to the monstrous amount of racism and sexism this man spouts. I’m done with them. “Educate yourself” they always tell me. I have no choice but to assume this is meant as irony. (The most loud-mouthed Paul supporter I know is a college student who is also a 9-11 conspiracy theorist. I don’t bother with Paulites anymore, except to occasionally wander into a pro-Paul discussion, ask something like “So what’s the excuse-of-the-day for Paul’s racist newsletters?” and then wander off without waiting to see what the answer is. Great fun!)

:: Too terrified to hurl themselves from a bridge or put a shotgun in their mouths or even take up smoking, they at least hope that each day is the day that a bag of sodium-laden chips triggers a massive stroke, after which would come blessed emptiness. But even rides on the carousel of death are now denied to them by their cruel creator. (Making fun of Funky Winkerbean is one of life’s finer pleasures.)

:: To those who pontificate anxiously that the Internet keeps us separate and isolated from one another: You literally do not know what you are talking about. This PSA has been brought to you by Sheil-babe. (Preach it!)

More next week!

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The first Sentential Links of the new year, huzzah! (By the way, as we are now officially in an Election Year, expect to see more political linkage crop up in Sentential Links…most specifically, links to blogs that I deem to be eloquently saying mean things about Republicans. Sorry, folks, them’s the breaks.)

:: “RON PAUL 2012!” The logic being, RON PAUL 2012! Frankly, I just don’t understand the infatuation with this guy. He’s 76 years old and apparently doesn’t understand how the internet works – but about a quarter of Iowans think it would be spiffy if he was sitting in the big chair helming the most technologically advanced economy in the world. He talks up the whole personal responsibility thing, but won’t take personal responsibility for newsletters and tweets issued under his own name. (See what I mean? Right off the bat!)

:: My affection for the New York Giants (NFC) started in the 1960s. They were the team that showed up on my CBS affiliate most often, and I can still name some of them by heart (Sam Huff, Y.A. Tittle, Jim Katcavage, Dick Lynch, Andy Robustelli, Dick Modzelewski). (The Giants are the one team that I didn’t hate for some time after they beat the Bills in the Super Bowl. And no, it won’t be all politics, all the time! There are limits to my intestinal fortitude.)

:: “This is why you marry your best friend.”

:: The description on the bottle says it smells like a “fragrant blend of spices, fruits and herbs.” Really? That’s what they think it smells like? I suggest they sniff it again, after they stop sniffing that other stuff that they’ve obviously been sniffing. What it really smells like is a blend of hospital disinfectant and the cheapest, stinkiest men’s cologne you can imagine. (Not unlike “Cherry NyQuil”. In what horrible, toxic-waste and Chernobyl-radiation-blasted region of Eastern Europe do they grow cherries that taste like this?!)

:: “There are times, sir, when men of good consicence cannot blindly follow orders. You acknowledge their sentience, but ignore their personal liberties and freedom. Order a man to turn his child over to the state? Not while I am his captain.” (One of Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s finest moments. I’m thinking I may need to add Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine to my ‘rewatch’ pile. “The Offspring” is one of the finest episodes of any teevee show I’ve ever seen, ever. Some of Trek‘s best episodes were ‘bottle shows’, where the writers simply wrote for the characters and kept the technobabbly hoo-ha to a minimum.)

:: If current Internet speculation is to be believed, Christopher Nolan will do what supervillians have dreamed of for over 70 years now. Nolan will kill the Batman.

:: I maintain that pie is not about politics. “Pie is non-partisan,” I have been known to insist. “It is meant to be shared, to build community, and spread good will. Pie knows no cultural boundaries.” (Now this is absolutely true. I will cheerfully share pie with anyone, even a Republican!)

More next week!

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