“Can you believe that they do an online MRI? Ooooh, look, that area is lighting up, right when the patient is still in the MRI machine! That’s SO not how it happens. You get the data. Then you sit in front of a computer for 3 days straight, and then, maybe, MAYBE, you see some part of the brain light up. And, it’ll probably be the wrong part.”
My neuroscience professor on “Grey’s Anatomy” -
“Ugh! They name parts of the brain that don’t even exist… like the frontal occipital lobe.”
Nothing too serious or academic. Read quite a bit of Hellblazer comics. As a result, have the Keanu Reeves “Constantine” DVD in my back-pack. Not quite able to commit two hours to it, but we’ll see about Sunday night. Also, really rather enjoyed Marvel’s “Ultimate Iron Man” collection. The art is alright, the story is great. Then, I realized that the story was written by Orson Scott Card, and it all made sense.
As for the dumb-media category, have been tremendously enjoying Tim Roth in “Lie To Me.” I reckon we, in the social sciences, are a bit more understanding when producers take our science and dramatize it. Maybe that’s why the “Lie To Me” message boards are so much more mellow compared to the “Numb3rs” message boards. Still, have always loved Tim Roth, and he is fantastic in this role. It took me about two episodes before I could stop thinking of him as Mr. Orange, and start thinking of him as Dr. Lightman. That’s to his credit as an actor, I think. Somebody suggested that I should also check out “House,” since the general idea of a dickish but brilliant English person solving crime appeals to me as a fantastic premise for TV drama.
Sorry, I really have been very busy. Too busy to post. Too busy to write in complete sentences. More to come later, I promise, but for now, here is a bit of something wonderful – Neil Gaiman on the Colbert Report.
Check about 1:00 into the video… Perhaps it would be a bit more convincing if the guy yelling “This isn’t the Soviet Union” didn’t look so much like Lenin!
- I haven’t seen you around, are you new?
- Oh yes, this is my first year here. I am from the music department.
- How great! What do you teach?
- Well, next semester I am going to be teaching a course on collaborative music performance. It’s a particular research interest of mine, actually.
- Band?
- What?
- You are going to teach band?
- No, ha, ha, ha! Collaborative music! It’s a complex rubric of musicians collaboarting to create harmonious melodies, performing in unison. Very advanced and, uhm, complex. I wouldn’t expect anyone outside of the field to understand!
- Dude. You are teaching band.
- Whatever.
Ben does a ton of interesting stuff. He plays chess, he goes to school, he swims, he can curse in five different languages, not counting three different dialects of Chinese.
He can solve the Rubik’s cube.
He can draw, although it’s usually very post-modern geometric sort of art. Ben is also a lot of fun to interact with. He gets jokes. He tells jokes. He asks deep philosophical questions – if Batman can’t fly, why does he need a cape?
Sam, on the other hand, doesn’t really do much of anything. Well, he eats. He eats quite a lot. And he runs around, and says some things, usually “die die die,” which is Russian for “give me more food, no, not that food, whatever it is you are eating over there.” (It’s also English for “die die die”).
But, Sam does have an absolutely crazy taste in music. It’s quite eerie. While Ben is completely content listening to the standard fare – Raffi, Electric Company, etc, Sam just leaves the room whenever we put on anything that would qualify for the “Not Psychotic Children’s Music” category. He very obviously hates that stuff! However, he is very much into folksy guitar songs, especially if the lyrics are about loveable criminals – so, quite a lot of Johnny Cash and Vysotsky. (For the former, I blame Nate’s influence on the Jukebox playlist during Sam’s most formative period). So, I just need to put on Cocaine Blues, and Sam gets out his rock-star head band and starts to boogie. Here’s a picture, but it’s really something you need to see to truly appreciate the insanity.
I am a bit behind on the blog, and everyone has already had their shot at posting touching and significant thoughts about the inauguration. So, I’ll keep it short. Here are my four take-aways from the inauguration of our new President.
1 – He is a graduate of Columbia College. This means that CCT has some new material, which means that they can finally stop writing all those Lou Gehrig articles.
2 – This is the first time that somebody I voted for has become the President. I know that being from New York, the democratic process will never be anything more than a sweet sweet dream for me (thanks electoral college and Mayor For Life Bloomberg) but still, it’s a nice feeling. Barack Obama, you get a Warm Fuzzy.
3- All John Williams music sounds the same!!!
4 – Obama made a mistake, but it was not during the oath, it was during his speech. He began by saying “Forty-four Americans have now taken the Presidential oath.” This is not correct! As anyone with access to Wikipedia will tell you, forty-three Americans have now taken the Presidential oath, not forty-four. Obama is serving the forty-fourth term, that is true. However, Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms. So, while he took the oath twice, he was still just one man. That makes it forty-three dudes, even if there were forty-four oaths. Anyway, after eight years of Bushisms, I am willing to let this one slide.
Oh my gosh is right. I just noticed that there are no Statham pictures on the front page! Well, here you go -
That’s better, don’t you agree? I love this picture, because it has so many cognitive and conceptual layers to it. What’s Statham going to do? Is he going to punch somebody in the head, or is he going to lift up that bus behind him and throw it at some bad guys? You just don’t know! That’s the magic of it.
And now, I will summarize the state of the publishing industry -
“Right. We are only interested if you can come up with a trilogy about teenage vampires and werewolves in love. Because, you know, nobody’s ever done that before. And, oh, the target audience is goth high school girls, older women on the subway, people in New Jersey, and morons. You got that? Ok.”
Frankly, this whole secret life business is proving to be a bit disappointing. When I decided to have a secret life, in addition to my standard life, I was hoping for something exciting. Perhaps something in the crime-fighting category, although I’d be perfectly willing to settle for a role on the supply side of crime as well. Either way. Not so. Not so at all. In fact, my secret life involves pretty much the same mundane things as my regular life, namely, sitting in front of a computer for many hours, reading and writing and editing… stuff. So, yea. Not awesome, like I hoped.
By the way, this game embodies the Russian mentality better than any film or book or song ever can, precisely because of the following line: “This game has no winner – only a loser, or a losing team if played with partnerships.” Aint that the truth.
So, I’ve been trying to be a proper PhD student, which means that I’ve been staying away from fiction, and all books in general that will not somehow end up in my Lit Review. But this is winter break, so I am allowing myself a bit of non-school-related reading. It’s an entirely covert operation, which means that if you spot me at the Hungarian Pastry Shop, I’ll be hiding the latest Bill Willingham TPB inside my Bear and Connors neuroscience text.
First on the list, Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” series. It’s trashy fantasy, completely pointless, so naturally, I got a huge kick out of it. I read the first two books, and will probably pick up the others as soon as I can get away with it. Dresden is a wizard detective in Chicago, solving supernatural crimes (vampires, werewolves, etc) with tacky magic. One of the tag lines is “Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Phillip Marlowe.” How can you say no to that? Keep a couple of these handy for those sad times when Hulu runs out of new “Legend of the Seeker” episodes.
Next up, we have Howard Zinn. I had to fight a hipster sociology student at the Butler stacks to get my hands on Zinn’s “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.” I won, because I was able to distract him by looking over his shoulder and yelling, “Oh my gosh, is that Chris Richards from Ris Paul Ric?!” Of course he looked, and I made my getaway (hipsters aren’t very speedy, so that part was easy). The book was worth the trouble. It’s a delightful memoir, combining humor with potent messages about politics, society, and education. I’ll read a cereal box if Zinn had a hand in it, so obviously my opinion is biased. This book is kind of equivalent with Frank McCourt’s “Teacher Man,” only with a more political/civil rights slant. Zinn’s voice is clear and powerful, and the book is a quick read, which, I am sure, will leave a strong impression. However, it should come with a disclaimer. Warning: reading this book might make you vote for a third party candidate in the next election, who may or may not be Ralph Nader.
After that, I picked up Edith Hamilton’s “Mythology,” which has long been one of my favorite books. It’s a thorough review of Roman and Greek myths, but doesn’t give much attention to Norse tales. Which is why it pairs so nicely with Crossley-Holland’s “The Norse Myths.” Both books are great to keep around as a pleasant alternative for when your friends start making fun of you for reading “The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul” for the fiftieth time.
Finally, “The Linguistics Wars” by Randy Allen Harris, which is a light-hearted history of modern linguistics for the layman. While pretty much everything in the book was quite familiar to me on a more academic level, I still enjoyed the fast read. It is a fairly humorous, albeit, quite biased survey of the theoretical dispute between Chomsky and his successors. Personally, I feel that Chomsky doesn’t get fair play in this book, which could benefit from a slightly more thorough explanation of generative grammar and Chomsky’s initial reasoning behind the theory. Pick it up, but only as an introduction to the syntax and semantics conflict, and be sure to follow up with more academic texts, including some by Chomsky himself (namely, “Syntactic Structures,” or “Language and Mind.”)
- You know what would make this show even better?
- Hmm?
- If Zed the Wizard was played by Marilyn Manson.
- Wow.
- What?
- After all these years, I feel like I should know exactly what you are thinking, but then you go on and say something like that!
- Just trying to keep it fresh baby!
- Wow. You just did it again. Care to try for number three?
- Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.
- Damn it.
Terrible things are happening in Israel. This is not a political blog, and I’ve been pretty good about not writing on these issues. Buy me a few espressos and and a pastry, and I’ll be happy to wax poetic on any political subject of your choice, but I’ve never felt comfortable writing about it. (Here, I prefer to focus on topics that I have some expertise in, and thus, this is very much a “things I thought about this afternoon on the train” blog, rather than any other kind).
Much thanks to all who got in touch over the weekend and this morning to ask after my family there. I’ve heard from most of my relatives, and pretty much all of my friends. Everyone is fine. It’s shocking and scary to talk to them, mostly because of the realization that war is so much a part of their daily lives. I’ve been talking about this particular instance of the conflict with a lot of people from the US and the UK, and my current conclusion is that analogies to the western world are completely futile. Despite Israel’s seemingly westernized appearance, it is very much a Middle Eastern country. The land is different, the mentality is different, the people are different, and thus, so is the conflict. Drawing parallels with various American and European policies and wars is both stupid and useless. It’s nothing like the Boston Tea Party… Rafah is nothing like El Paso… really, it isn’t.
I’ve been reading quite a lot of political blogs, taking the punditry with a grain of virtual salt, of course. The one I’ve been following most closely is written by Juan Cole, who is a Middle Eastern scholar at the University of Michigan. His opinions are biased, blatantly so, and I disagree with almost all of them. However, his research is impeccable, and his analysis is superb. As long as people are intelligent, and as long as their intentions are good, a difference of opinion should not stand in the way of productive discourse.
Anyway, that’s it from me on this topic. I hope for a quick cease-fire, and I hope that nobody else dies. As of this afternoon, both events seem quite unlikely.
Am I doing a Twelve Days of Statham sort of thing here? No, I am not. You wish that I were, but I am not. Still, there are a few that are left in my between-semester-Statham-bucket. War was one of them. It stars Statham and Jet Li, and begins, like all good things, at a shipyard. That’s immediately an excellent sign, because, as we all know, the best fights always happen in shipyards. But it keeps getting better.
The story centers on John Crawford (Statham), an FBI agent whose partner is killed by a Japanese assassin called Rogue (Jet Li). Three years after that, Rogue resurfaces in San Francisco, and the smackdown begins. Throw in some classic Triad versus Yakuza plotlines, and you got yourself a highly enjoyable action flick.
I won’t reveal much more of the plot, because this one is worth seeing, so you should check it out. My only criticism was that there were too many guns. Typically, that wouldn’t be a problem. But when I pick up a movie starring The Wushu broadsword champion, I expect a bit more in your face martial arts and a bit less snipering from rooftops. Besides that, the action was satisfactory, and the plot was above average for this type of movie. The lack of shirtless grease fighting was disappointing, but not a deal-breaker in the least.
I know that I’m probably the last girl in Hipsterville to see this one, but I’ve been busy. The Transporter Trilogy won’t watch itself, you know.So, I finally got around to watching Napoleon Dynamite. Besides the cult status, I was also interested in this movie because of it’s notoriety as the Destroyer of Algorithms. And, after watching the whole movie, I have to say – what gives? I don’t get it.This movie sucked.It was stupid.And, not at all funny.What is the point?Is this about the 70s? Or the Midwest?Is Idaho even a real place? Was high school like this for anyone? I doubt it.Or rather, I hope that it wasn’t! As far as I am concerned, this movie had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I am stupider for having watched it, actually.I am filing this one in the “wasted two hours of my life” category, and hope to never have to think about it again.
In the Name of the King is a fantasy film based on a crappy Microsoft video game, called Dungeon Siege. It stars Statham (yea!), Ron Perlman (aka Hellboy), Claire Forlani, Leelee Sobieski, Burt Reynolds, John Rhys-Davies (aka Gimli, aka Sallah, aka the Professor from Sliders), Matthew Lillard (aka Shaggy), and Ray Liotta, who just happened to stumble onto the set in search of some cocaine. The movie was directed by Uwe Boll, who has done other films under his alternate alias, I.C. Weiner.
I know what you are thinking – Statham, Microsoft, two hotties, and an assortment of B-list stars, recipe for cinematic success! But, no, no. No. Not at all. This movie was awful. Not “Army of Darkness” awful, either. The bad kind of awful. So, Uwe Boll, whoever he is, was pretty clever to omit his real name from the production credits on this one.
Let’s see about the plot. Statham is a farmer. His name is Farmer. He has rules. Rule number 1. The deal is the deal. Rule number 2. No names. Wait, no.
Farmer lives in a village in the Kingdom of Ehb, in what seems to be Medieval England. The King has a magician, which would imply that they are some sort of Pagans, although they keep saying “God save the King,” and “God help us,” and so on, which is a strange sort of thing to say if you are a Pagan in Medieval England, but never mind. So, there is Statham, with his British accent, and Ron Perlman with his Washington Heights accent, and Ray Liotta with his Jersey accent, and Burt Reynolds with his Midwestern accent, and they are all there, hanging out in the Kingdom of Ehb. The cornucopia of different accents was really unnerving, but I digress.
Farmer’s village is invaded by Krugs, which are Orc type creatures, who burn down the village, kill his son, and kidnap his wife (Claire Forlani). Statham is pissed, and kills a Krug with rope. Statham rejects the King’s (Burt Reynolds) offer to join his army, and sets off to rescue his wife with the help of Ron Perlman and another guy. Stuff happens. They run into skanky forest harlots, who might be elves. In the meantime, we find out that Ray Liotta is an evil wizard who controls the Krugs. He is working with Shaggy (who is the King’s nephew) to overthrow the King and cease the crown. John Rhys-Davies is the King’s magus (Leelee Sobieski is the King’s magus’ hot magus daughter, her purpose in the plot is unclear) and eventually tells the king that Statham is his long lost son. Stuff happens. Sub par fighting. The King is dead. Long live Statham, the new King of Ehb! Some more stuff. Ron Perlman dies, sad. Statham fights Ray Liotta, kills him, saves his wife, lives happily ever after. The end. The long-long-long-awaited end.
Now, this movie could have been made slightly better. First of all, it is not at all improbable that a farmer in Medieval England would take his shirt off once in a while. But, no, Statham has all his clothes on for the entire duration of the movie. Statham does not kill nearly enough. Furthermore, he only uses two non-traditional weapons – a boomerang and a rope. There were so many other things he could have used to kill, but alas, all the other killing is done with a sword. Finally, there is no grease fighting. Again, it’s not a huge stretch that a bucket of grease would spill, and Statham would be forced to roll around in it. But, that doesn’t happen either.
So, in conclusion, this movie sucked big time. Don’t watch it. Not even Statham could justify the two hours of pure idiocy.
