Barkerburgh

From Michael Moore’s Wednesday, November 5, 2008 newsletter:

“But today we celebrate this triumph of decency over personal attack, of peace over war, of intelligence over a belief that Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs just 6,000 years ago. What will it be like to have a smart president? Science, banished for eight years, will return. Imagine supporting our country’s greatest minds as they seek to cure illness, discover new forms of energy, and work to save the planet. I know, pinch me.”

Pinch him, not me.

Oh hell, pinch me too!

(Read the whole thing here.)

The Yahoo News AP story about how the title of Kevin Smith’s new movie offends people, especially Dodgers’ spokesman Josh Rawitch.

Quote: Commercials for the film during Los Angeles Dodgers games on Fox Sports were dropped at the team’s request after some viewers complained, said Dodgers spokesman Josh Rawitch.

One complaint came from a man watching a game in September with his young son, who did not understand a suicide-squeeze bunt the Dodgers tried, Rawitch said.

“He was explaining to his son what a squeeze bunt was. Commercial break, the ad comes on, and the kid asks, ‘Dad, what does porno mean?”‘ Rawitch said. “Dodgers baseball has always been about family (emphasis Himself’s), and we’ve always been sensitive to the type of advertising that runs on our games.”

Unquote.

So ‘porno’ is worse for a child than ’suicide’. Yeah. Great fuckin’ dad.

Over the last two nights, on Space (Rogers Cable 50, downtown) they showed a two-parter that took place entirely in the ‘Mirror, Mirror’ universe from the classic series.

There was the usual duplication of people in nearly identical capacities or roles (but working for the Empire not the Federation), and the link to our universe was the Defiant, which had been lured through a transverse spatio-temporal discontinuity (I made that term up) by the Tholians.  They captured the Defiant, killed the crew and began to dismantle the ship which was technologically advanced.

Mirror Archer (no evil Cartman beard) and his crew captured the ship from the Tholians (no beards), and so on.

Scott Bakula’s acting was horrendous, but the show was good.  Grim and sad, even the ending, but much more satisfying than the other episodes that I saw before I just stopped watching it.

Okay, score one (and only one) for Braga and Berman.  Lucky dummies.

Peter and Leslie heard this (or a version of it) on the BBC in France a few years ago.

I googled a few key terms that they remembered but all I found was this transcription from an English girl’s blog on Bebo. It’s the right bit, but no attribution or credit…

Does anyone know who originally recorded and/or wrote it?

Welcome to Hufflepuff

You’ll just have heard the Sorting Hat mention, in his curiously insensitive song, how Gryffindor is for the Brave, Slytherin for the Cunning, Ravenclaw for the Wise, and Hufflepuff for… The Rest. And I realise that to hear that, and then almost immediately to find yourself sorted into Hufflepuff, well, it’s not quite the ego boost one hopes for on one’s first day at school.

You are one of “The Rest”. The Sorting hat has looked deep into your very soul, and what it saw there evidently didn’t impress. Oh, I’m aware that the hat has, in the past, occasionally described you as “kind”. Yes, and I’m sure that you also have lovely hair.

Some of you may be wondering about the thinking behind the school’s decision to put all the appalling duffers into one house, call it “Hufflepuff”, and give it the symbol of a Badger. A little harsh, you may feel. You may even, who knows, be questioning the wisdom of trusting the school’s entire admissions procedure to a Hat.

These are not, alas, questions I can answer. All I can do is urge you to look on the bright side. At least you’re not in Slytherin! (Another curious decision from the school there. To dedicate an entire house to the children in its care who are Evil. Surely a recipe for trouble.)

Anyway, being in Hufflepuff isn’t all bad. We have our moments of excitement and achievement. Last year, one of us was killed! That was exciting! And it’s something we can all aspire towards.

I have recently reacquired copies of two of my favourite albums; Joni Mitchell’s 1985 album ‘Dog Eat Dog’ and Jennifer Warnes’ 1986 Leonard Cohen tribute album ‘Famous Blue Raincoat”.

Wow. Listening to these tracks after not hearing them for a few years is still visceral, still exciting and suddenly startling.

Why startling? Well, my situation is considerably different now from what it was in, say, late 2001. The music while still beautiful, means so much more. Email me and I’ll send you a breakdown. I dare you.

I’m listening to ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ as I type this. ‘Bird on a Wire’ right now, as it happens.

Ah. Cohen’s poetry and Warnes’ voice.

Kill me now.

Well, not now. But you know, let me finish listening to the albums again. And I have a week of house-sitting to do involving feeding cats, and I have a doctor’s appointment on May the 8th, and some genetic counselling and testing in July, so kill me later. We should talk.

Thanks to nuts, the once canceled Jericho returns with the first of several new episodes tonight.

I know none of you will be watching (and since we’re Canadian, it wouldn’t matter if you did) but after some ups and downs last season, it turned out to be a good show.

I’ll let you know how it is.

Avoid the film ‘Cradle Will Rock’!

The well-known radical leftist Tim Robbins wrote and directed this sensationalistic and overblown paean to Communism, anti-Fascism and creeping Trade-Unionism. Only somewhat fictionalized, it is inspired by a particular period in 1937, when the House Committee on Un-American Activities was young, and when labour unrest was rising, the former being demonized while the latter is praised. One does not expect objectivity in films like this, from people like this, and one is never disappointed.

Set in the lead up to WWII, among the actors and artists, magnates and industrialists of New York City, populated by the rich and the poor, the wicked and the kind, the clever and the canny, the story is based around the character of Marc Blitzstein, a left-wing composer, and the production of his pro-union musical, ‘The Cradle Will Rock.’

He is played by Hank Azaria, who, curiously, only ever uses one voice – although I am certain I heard Moe Szyslak in one crowd scene.

The producers managed to reconstruct Diego Rivera’s fresco commissioned for the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York. Then, appropriately, on camera, as in real life, they destroyed it as part of the movie’s action, of course, but also as a subtle warning to Communists and trade-unionists. Fictionally, the destruction was moved from 1933 to 1937, and the scenes of its destruction were intercut with scenes of the impromptu opening night of Blitzstein’s play.

I will admit the casting was quite fine, even including Susan Sarandon’s bad Italian accent. John Turturro, Vanessa Redgrave, Bill Murray, John Cusack, Cary Elwes, Emily Watson, many others, all did a fine job, while revealing their left-wing sympathies, and making sure their names go on secrets lists in Washington and under Cheyenne Mountain (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dupont Corporation.)

All in all, very enjoyable, for a left-wing, subversive, anti-establishment, hippy, yippy, People’s Republic, beatnik, Tommy Douglas in Ho Chi Minh City out on a Saturday night, kind of movie.

But don’t let it sway you.

Am I impressed? Not so much. (more…)

30 Grams Per Week

The Toronto Star has been publishing their weekly TV magazine for decades; Star Week. Up until recently the daily TV listings were presented in narrow columns, maybe five or six to a page. New TV series often had a brief synopsis of the episode’s highlights or the plot, usually with an ‘N’ in brackets to indicate a new episode. Movies usually had a one or two person cast list, the production year, and maybe the genre. There was usually useful information along with the bare listings. It was helpful.

Suddenly they changed to a tabular format with no room for descriptions or synopses. I am not a married-to-the-past traditionalist in any way (ask anybody) and I usually take things like this on a case by case basis. This time, the old way was better.

25 Grams Per Week

A week or two after they made the change they had the gall to tell us in a short article on an inside page of the Saturday Star that people had expressed the opinion that they preferred the tabular format. (Well, nobody asked me. Harumph.) As before they have a section for daytime listing that vary only slightly from day to day, but now they only have a single page for weekday primetime, with almost no detail, then at the back, late night weekdays. Often all we know about a movie in a particular timeslot is that it is a movie, because it just says ‘Movie’, especially in the late night listings. After a few weeks - responding to kudos, I’m sure - they added a sort-of highlights box with synopses of that night’s popular shows’ episodes, maybe Gray’s Anatomy, House or Heros, but forget the others. It’s better now though.

No, it’s cheaper. In more ways than one. The new format reminds me of nothing other than those free regional ad-driven TV magazines you used to find all over the place that had no room for details because of all the ads. This isn’t quite that bad, but you can see the resemblance. It isn’t better; it’s a rip-off, a cop-out and a fuck-up. It’s an increase in the chocolate ration.

Why the title of this post? It’s a reference to Orwell’s 1984, and Winston Smith’s task of trying to rewrite history by spinning the fact that the chocolate ration went up from 30 grams per week in 1983 to 25 grams per week in 1984.

‘Nuff said?

As some of you may know, I will be turning 50 on June 26, 2007, three months from now. Which is to say I will have completed my 50th year of life.

With greatest respect to my dear friends, I don’t want a surprise party, or presents, or anything like that.

Please make a donation of any size to a children’s charity of your choice or a literacy charity of your choice. I’ve included the Google strings below for your perusal.

My preferences would be The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who do great work (here’s their donations page), and ProLiteracy Worldwide who I discovered at the first Gathering of the Fellowship back in 2003 (here’s their donations page).

Once you’ve made the donation, have them send me a note that says something like ‘ A Donation Has Been Made In Your Name To…” just so’s I know. And can feel validated.

Of course, feel free to send me a card too. But no Star Wars pyjamas for grown-ups.

Children’s Charities Google String

Literacy Charities Google String