The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

I was going to write something long and pissy about how this film twists the knife in history's side and breaks it off at the hilt, but Kate Beaton does it so succinctly (about a different film, but still relevant to The Other Boleyn Girl) that I'm left with little need to spew.


Still, the anger burns!  Why does this movie make me particularly angry?  After all, I really liked Shakespeare in Love, the Lions of al-Rassan, and other works of fiction that play hell with history.  Here, I think it's the fawning over Mary Boleyn and the extolling of her virtues at the expense of continuing the smear campaign against Anne that was begun by the Duke of Norfolk that sets me off.

Acrobuffos

Acrobuffos is a duo that specializes in what might be called circus theatrical commedia dell'arte street-style performances and workshops around the globe.  Because they stick to movement theater, there is no language barrier to overcome, and their skits are immediately transferable to any locale.  Brilliant!  


Sadly, I have not seen them perform live, and I only know of their existence because of an article in my alma mater's alumni rag on Christina Gelsone.  I *have* had the honor and pleasure of seeing Christina's wonderful performance as Ariel in a Theater Intime production of the Tempest and dancing with her and others in the Aleta Hayes-choreographed Temporary Structures way back in 1994, so I can honestly say I'm jealous of everyone who has seen Acrobuffos live.  

Murderball (2005)

This documentary on paralympic rugby has been in the netflix queue for a long time, and has a lot of rave reviews, but is ultimately disappointing.  I didn't care about Joe Soares "defecting" to coach the Canadian team, and the filming of his semi-functional relationship with his son is forced and hackneyed.  I *did* care about the stories of the people who were actually playing, and wanted to actually see a game played and explained, rather than 20 seconds of explanation of how the game works and a lot of highlight-reel cuts that give no sense of the flow of the game.  Searching youtube reveals few useful stretches of actual gameplay.  Boo.

My new favorite apple farm

Even though I haven't visited there yet, is Scott Farm in Dummerston, VT.  Their apples are now being sold at City Market, and over the weekend I decided to buy and try some... wow.  The varieties I pick locally are more or less the same regardless of the orchard I picked them at.  The Scott Farm heirloom varieties are a shift in what it means to eat an apple, with thicker skins and greater variability in texture and taste.  I still love empires and early macs and will probably continue to eat empires as my winter staple, but these are an amazing change of pace.

City on Fire (Williams, Walter Jon) 1997

This is the sequel to Metropolitan (which I read some while ago) that I finally got around to reading.  I'd forgotten enough of Metropolitan that I was grateful that City on Fire contains enough backstory to make it unnecessary to have actually read Metropolitan first.  It takes a little while for the story to kick into gear, and I spent a fair amount of time annoyed at our primary protagonist, Aiah, but the end comes all too soon and... BOLLOCKS!  there isn't a sequel yet, and according to this interview and Williams' website, and the fact that 12 years have passed since the publication of City on Fire, I'm not sanguine about its chances.

This is a shame. The world of Metropolitan is so visually rich that someone should have exercised the film options by now.

Fixing Return of the Jedi

Our 5-year old likes Star Wars, and recently completed the first trilogy by watching Return of the Jedi with some judicious fast forwarding through the rancor and the Emperor electrocuting Luke.  It's been a long time since I watched RotJ.  I remembered there being lots of problems with this movie (though the good far outweighs the bad) and I winced through the painful Luke and Leia scene in the Ewok village, as expected, and shortly after Mark Hamill awkwardly zigzag exits somewhere backstage, he's replaced onscreen by Harrison Ford... and the scene just gets *worse*.  The killer is that Leia won't talk to Han about what she's just learned.  This isn't some deadly secret that you can't tell, this is a burden that you share!  The only reason I can imagine why the script doesn't call for her to tell Han at this point is so that they can have that "funny" reveal near the end.


Okay, here's how you get the funny reveal and remove that particularly horrendous scene: Han pilots the Falcon during the attack on the Death Star with Lando as his co-pilot.  It never made sense that two of the rebellion's three best pilots go on a ground assault anyway, so we're fixing that, too.  Leia leads the ground team on Endor.  Chewie goes with Leia because he wants to make sure that Han's not-quite-fiance is safe.  Luke goes because... he needs to start passing on his knowledge to Leia?  Hey, it's still not going to be perfect, but in the fixed version, Luke can tell Leia shortly after feeling he's endangered the mission.  Han reaches the surface and rejoins his friends before Luke can get there, wants to know where Luke is, looks up at the remains of the Death Star, and the reveal proceeds as it does now.

Out with a kneecap

(open letter to Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy)


Okay, okay, you've received a trillion e-mails about this already, but seriously? You asked us not to forward the paragraph on Blake Griffin from your NBA preview if he's rolling around holding his right ankle in 3 weeks, and barely more than **3 days** later he's out with a left kneecap?! After you've been joking about this for months, what can you do to make it up to the sixteen remaining true San Diego Clippers fans? (Note: to me, they will always be the San Diego Clippers, because you can take the team out of San Diego, but you can't take San Diego out of the team)

Zach and Miri Make a Porno (2008)

The film starts out badly; the opening scenes in their apartment, going to work, at work, and going to the HS reunion are uncomically dreadfully written and Rogen and Banks can't elevate the material.  I was ready to shut it off, but then the character of Brandon appears at the reunion and everything suddenly starts to click.  Justin Long saves this movie with a cameo!

In the scene where Zach and Miri "do it" for the first time, Smith does a good job of showing the difference between the experience for the people "making love" and the experience the people watching, and contrasting that with prior scenes showing people simply "having sex" for the camera.

Whoever selected the soundtrack deserves some praise; Fett's Vette is a perfect choice during the "Star Whores" montage, and the sequence where Blondie's "Dreaming" is followed by a clip of DMX's "Party Up" (while they're dancing at the cast party), followed by the Pixies' "Hey" (as the party is winding down) is inspired.  Moreover, as Zack and Stacey go back to his room, the pacing, staging, and look on Elizabeth Banks' face perfectly wrap up this section of the story.

Watchmen (2009)

Finally got around to seeing the film now that it's out on DVD, and frankly I'm glad we didn't hire a babysitter so we could go see it in the theater.  The opening credit sequence is outstanding; it both looks great and gives you snapshots of the Watchmen's alternate Earth history.  I was into it for the first half hour or so, and then it begins to lose steam, and by the hour mark I'm glancing at the time and wondering why they've added scenes of Nixon's war room and seem to have added a subplot in which the U.S. is going to make a preemptive nuclear strike on the USSR.  There's already more material in the comic book than you can fit into a 2 1/2 hour movie.  We'll go back to Val Goldman's advice to the Goldman Girls in the Birdcage when they're redecorating the place for Senator Keeley's visit: "Don't add; just subtract!"  Tweaking in the name of clarity for the viewer (especially with the viewer who is unfamiliar wit the comic) is fine; while I liked the alien Veidt built in the comics, I'm cool with the changes there.  I have more problems with Rorschach spending a single day in jail because they've compressed the timeline too much; I have serious problems with adding subplots that don't contribute to the story.


In my personal notes after first reading the comic I wrote: "The medium is used to great effect in the telling of Dr. Manhattan's backstory, which is told from in a thematic, rather than chronological, succession of images/text that would be bulky in purely written form and possibly too jarring in a motion picture."  They tried their best in the film (and Billy Crudup is great in anything), but it's still better in the comic.  That really goes for everything about the film.

the Duchess (2008)

Sometimes the Netflix movie descriptions are highly misleading, and such is the case here.  Netflix describes Georgiana as "a young duchess who indulges in extravagant vices and begins a scandalous affair with politician Charles Grey".  Sounds pretty trashy, and we almost didn't add it to the queue, so we were pleasantly surprised when it was a satisfying, if unexceptional, period piece.  


I highly recommend browsing the Wikipedia entry on Georgiana Cavendish and the links to others in her life -- knowing that Charles Grey later becomes the second Earl Grey after his father is elevated to the peerage and and then the Prime Minister helps to put some of the events in perspective.  Also, the "meat" of the story takes place in the wake of the American colonial rebellion but prior to the Napoleonic Wars.  It also exposes some of the historical liberties they've taken; for instance, Charles Grey was seven years younger than Georgiana (you go, girl!), so he would have been about 10 years old in the scene at the beginning of the film (which actually would have been better, IMO).  Likewise, William Cavendish was "only" 9 years older than Georgiana, so he would have been about 26 at the beginning of the film, instead of 46 and looking like he's 50 in that wig.


Yes, reading Amanda Foreman's Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, would probably be better than the Wikipedia entries, but I haven't gotten to that yet.

the Thursday Next series (Fforde, Jasper)

I actually tore through Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" novels, starting with the "Eyre Affair", last year, but never posted anything. This must be rectified!  The following are my notes on each book:


The Eyre affair : a novel  (Fforde, Jasper)  2001  4/17/2008 

It's sort of a Sue Grafton meets the Bronte sisters meets Terry Pratchett meets Lemony Snicket in an alternate history Britain. I wouldn't say he's a great writer, but very good and very funny with a lot of good literary references that delight the book snob in me.  The eventual "solution" to defeating Acheron's supernatural protections is weak, and there are certain sections of the book where the narrative drags, but Fforde otherwise delivers an incredibly enjoyable read full of "high culture becomes pop culture".

Lost in a Good Book (Fforde, Jasper)  2002  5/21/2008  
More of the same from Fforde's heroine Thursday Next; it's all about the journey and not the destination, but the material remains fresh and it's a fun ride.



The Well of Lost Plots (Fforde, Jasper)  2003  5/27/2008   
The third novel in the Thursday Next series is the payoff on being patient with all the changes introduced in book 2.  Fforde has given Thursday entirely new worlds to explore, and he does a fantastic job in certain chapters of writing in the style of the "type" of book in which the action is taking place.  I'm coming to believe that the purpose of a good western liberal arts education is to be able to read and enjoy the Thursday Next novels without referring to Wikipedia.  Reasonable grounding in popular culture doesn't hurt, either.  


Something Rotten (Fforde, Jasper)  2004  6/9/2008  
My favorite in the series so far.  The purpose of the first three Thursday Next novels is to get to this one.


First Among Sequels (Fforde, Jasper)  2007  6/15/2008  
The Thursday Next series has now reached a point where it's distracting to have to read numerous passages that were written for earlier books but are included here for morons who decide to read the series out of order... or perhaps for the senile, who can't remember a few years later what the Chronoguard is.  With all such redundancies removed, the book might not top 300 pages, but what there is of the new stuff is great, as usual.

Audiosurf album "review" : Violator (1990) Depeche Mode

The 80's and my secondary schooling have come to an end, and Depeche Mode in specializing in 4-6 minute, medium traffic tracks.  There are no "great" rides here, but Waiting for the Night, Blue Dress, Clean, and Enjoy the Silence (in that order) are good for practice when you're new to Pointman Elite.

1. World in My Eyes -- Time 4:26 -- Traffic 233
   The only song that cracks 200 traffic on the album, it starts off herky-jerky on that initial uphill run, then suddenly the blocks seem to come out of nowhere and you're fighting the track rather than riding it, and there are little fits and starts throughout.  Mildly exhausting and unsatisfying for a song that is otherwise fun outside Audiosurf.
   
   
   
   
2. Sweetest Perfection -- Time 4:43 -- Traffic 190
   Not as interesting a song, but it's a better ride than World in My Eyes.  It's smoother; there's still enough traffic to keep you on your toes, but not a lot of traffic on the final downhill run so you're not overwhelmed.
   
   
   
   
3. Personal Jesus -- Time 4:56 -- Traffic 162
   Very surprised at first that is an uphill track; I'd always thought of it as having a driving beat, and it does, but it's very deliberate and not fast.  There's almost too much time at the end; I kept thinking the song was about to come to a close, but no, we're reaching out to touch faith again.
   
   
   
   
4. Halo -- Time 4:30 -- Traffic 155
   I ran through this track 5 times and still don't have a good read on it.  Twice I didn't clean finish because the uphill part at the end came before I expected it and had leftover yellow and red blocks because that uphill bit is too short to have any yellows or reds.  Twice I finished clean but didn't score very many points along the way.  I don't remember enjoying the song along the way on any run -- I was too focused on the track, which is weird, because it's not high traffic or downhill.
   
   
   
   
5. Waiting for the Night -- Time 6:07 -- Traffic 75
   Slow, uphill, and sparse, this is an exercise in patience and planning, and perfect for practicing, especially when you first try out Pointman, and especially on Elite.  There's time to place blocks just how you like, and you can practice getting chain bonuses and 21-block matches.  Fun for "cerebral" players.
   
   
   
   
6. Enjoy the Silence -- Time 6:12 -- Traffic 171
   A good downhill practice track because it has has uphill runs at the beginning, allowing you to get set up before the downhill run, and at the end, allowing you to correct any mistakes and finish clean.  Good luck getting into the top 10, because it's popular.  Worse, most people in the top 10 seem to be playing some version other than the album track, and I can't tell whether that's just because that's the version most people get off iTunes or that version is advantaged over the album track in some way.
   
   
   
   
7. Policy of Truth -- Time 4:55 -- Traffic 199
   A bit too herky-jerky to be really fun.
   
   
   
   
8. Blue Dress -- Time 5:42 -- Traffic 119
   Another good practice song like Waiting for the Night.  It's nice and slow and low traffic and there's absolutely acres of time at the end.
   
   
   
   
9. Clean -- Time 5:28 -- Traffic 147
   I tend not to look at the overall map and just go by the song, and always think this one is closer to ending than it really is -- I'd start to wrap up blocks for a clean finish, and suddenly a whole 'nother set is coming my way.
   
   
   
   

Solar-Powered Microhouse

We've seen this at the Farmer's Market (which is also in City Hall Park).  It's really too bad they don't actually have someone living in the house for the duration of the exhibition.  That would make for a more convincing demonstration, though getting the permits might have been dicey.


Part of me thinks this would be a neat solution for graduate student housing, especially at places like Stanford, where the housing is really expensive.  Part of me thinks that it's one thing to have a building to live in that costs less than a small car, and quite another to have a safe and secure place to put it.

2009 MLB Awards : NL Cy Young

A couple weeks ago, I thought this was going to come down to two pairs of teammates: Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright, and Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.  However, Cain pitched himself out of contention by giving up at least 4ER in three consecutive starts (all Giants losses while the team was fighting to stay with Colorado), while Javier Vazquez sneaked into the conversation down the stretch.

Why wouldn't I just give it to Carpenter?  Well, he's not going to reach 200IP because he missed several starts, and his ratio of strikeouts to innings pitched is less than impressive.  If he won, he would be the first starting pitcher to win the Cy Young with fewer than 150 strikeouts since Drabek and Welch in 1990**.  Not good precedents.  As for the others:

• Lincecum is still the alpha dog (if I could choose one pitcher for game 7 of the WS, I'd choose him), and was arguably better this year than last, except in wins and losses.  Giving him a second consecutive Cy Young would be perfectly reasonable.
  
  
• Vazquez was #2 in strikeouts and has a much better SO/BB ratio.  Vazquez's candidacy actually weakens Lincecum's in my mind because he, like Lincecum, pitched really well to help drive a team into playoff contention, even if they fell short.  (yes, his teammate Jurrjens has a lower ERA than Vazquez, but his strikeout to walk ratio and average game score are atrocious; Jurrjens' ERA feels more like a probabilistic anomaly than real improvement as a pitcher)
  
  
• Wainwright has a shot at 20 wins, led the league in IP, hit 200 SO, is top-5 in ERA, and was the ace and workhorse for the Cardinals while Carpenter was out.  

I'd be happy with any of them winning.  Can we give it to Carpenter and Wainwright as a tandem?


** I'm ignoring Cone's strikeout total of 132 in the shortened 1994 season.  Pro-rate that to a full season and he reaches 150.  Interestingly, that same year Maddux (the NL Cy Young winner) had 156 strikeouts because he reached 200IP in just 25 starts !!!

2009 MLB Awards : AL MVP

This really boils down to Mauer vs. Teixeira, right?  Mauer has the superior averages and Teixeira the superior totals.  My initial feeling is that it should go to Mauer, though he admittedly is coming up a little short for the Twins during the stretch run.

1. First look their situational hitting: Teixeira vs. Mauer (scroll to bottom); Mauer has superior averages in all situations (except, interestingly, when leading off the inning, and Teixeira comes close to Mauer's numbers when no one is on base) and simply doesn't get as high a percentage of at-bats with runners on to drive in as many runs as Teixeira.
   
   
2. Also look at the pre/post All-star splits.  Teixeira was merely human in the first half, and had a great second half -- so great, in fact, that his second half numbers are almost as good as the numbers Mauer averaged all season.
   
   
3. Finally, Yankee fan Phil gives his blessing to Mauer getting the MVP.  So there you have it.

The Groves of Academe (McCarthy, Mary) 1952

This reads like the Jungle for mid-20th century American liberal arts colleges.  This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.  I needed to quit about halfway through because there's an awful lot of telling rather than showing, and the plot was inching forward too slowly for me.

[DNF 9/28/9]  

2009 MLB Awards : AL Cy Young

This should go to Greinke, but I'm afraid it'll go to Sabathia if he gets to 20 wins.  Unfortunately, the difference in their win totals is an artifact of run support (second to last column).  Sabathia gets 7.84, which is 10th most in the AL among pitchers with at least 140IP, as of this morning. Greinke gets a measly 4.71, which is 36th, or worst, in the AL among pitchers with at least 140IP.


I tried to come up with reasons to resign myself to Sabathia winning the award, and thought "hey, he's pitched great since the All-Star break, and while Greinke was amazing in April/May, he hasn't been as hot since."  Well... actually, Greinke's stats before and after the break are each at least as good as Sabathia's post all-star stats.


Sabathia's numbers:





ERA
W
L
G
GS
CG
IP
H
R
ER
HR
BB
SO
AVG




Pre All-Star
3.86
8
6
19
19
2
128.1
110
58
55
11
38
95
0.232




Post All-Star
2.36
11
1
14
14
0
99
79
29
26
7
24
99
0.22






Greinke's numbers:





ERA
W
L
G
GS
CG
IP
H
R
ER
HR
BB
SO
AVG




Pre All-Star
2.12
10
5
18
18
5
127.1
116
38
30
4
21
129
0.245




Post All-Star
2.02
5
3
13
13
1
89
66
21
20
7
26
100
0.202






Let's hope the voters get this one right.

2009 MLB Awards : NL MVP

Would you like a first baseman with Gold Glove-caliber defense, BA/OBP/SLG at .300/.400/.600, and more walks than strikeouts?  That describes Albert Pujols, who should win his third MVP award this year, but it could also be Adrian Gonzalez, if he didn't play half his games in the worst hitter's park in the league.


Look at his home/away splits (as of the morning of 7/22); it's ridiculous.  He could use significant improvement against lefties, but for $3M/year, he's an MLB bargain.

By Breakdown	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	HBP	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
vs. Left	204	23	46	9	2	10	35	27	3	50	1	0	.225	.323	.436	.759
vs. Right	313	59	95	17	0	29	57	78	2	52	0	1	.304	.442	.636	1.078
Home	246	30	59	12	2	12	35	64	2	53	0	0	.240	.399	.451	.850
Away	271	52	82	14	0	27	57	41	3	49	1	1	.303	.396	.653	1.049

All The Pretty Horses (McCarthy, Cormac) 1992

I didn't care much for the overall plot, but it's not so much the story as how McCarthy tells it.  He generally does a wonderful job of showing us what we need in order to get to know John Grady Cole through his words and actions, rather than spilling the beans and telling us.  All in all there are three brilliant passages.  I was reading the Vintage International paperback edition from June 1993:

1. The part beginning "The hacendado had bought the horse through an agent...", which tells the story of how Antonio traveled to America to bring the stallion back to Mexico.  When Antonio turns out his pockets to deliver over the horse's papers, I laughed out at the full list of objects he hands to the hacendado.  This reads like a writer's workshop assignment to tell a story in a single paragraph that turned out outstandingly well. (pages 125-126)
   
   
2. The billiards game with the hacendado, particularly near the end where the hacendado misses a shot and then complains that "the French [meaning here the thinking that comes of obtaining a modern continental education] have come into my house to mutilate my billiard game.  No evil is beyond them." The use of "mutilate" to describe the defects in his billiard game also made me laugh out loud.  (pages 143-144)
   
   
3. Just about everything after John Grady Cole returns to Texas, but most especially the courtroom scene (pages 286-298).

My favorite parts were all comic (though the scene following the courtroom at the judge's house is both touching and sums up the character of John Grady Cole and his experiences in the book), and I'm not sure if I'm simply biased towards the comic scenes or McCarthy is simply gifted at writing them.  I think it's a happy confluence of McCarthy's minimal writing style and the level of understatement necessary to make these particular scenes "work" and be really, really funny.


[finished reading 9/21/09]

The Vampire Tapestry (Charnas, Suzy McKee) 1980

This has the best disclaimer I can remember reading: "All characters in this book are fictitious.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, is purely coincidental -- barring a brief appearance by the author's mother-in-law, with the gracious permission of the same."  The novel itself is structured as a stitching together of five related stories to make the whole "Vampire Tapestry", with Charnas's Nebula-winning novella "the Unicorn Tapestry" as the center story, and Professor Weyland starring throughout.  "The Unicorn Tapestry" is the strongest story in the book, but I have to admit that my favorite character (after Weyland) is Katje de Groot, who is introduced in the first story and then never seen again.  I was first sad and then very sad (because the second story is the weakest of all) and then finally resigned (once I began to enjoy "the Unicorn Tapestry" and then "A Musical Interlude") that Katje wasn't going to reappear, because Charnas is too good a storyteller to bring her back when it doesn't make sense to do so.  The ending leaves wide open the possibility for more stories about Weyland, and fast-forwarding to today would be perfect; dare we hope for a sequel?

[reading completed  9/13/9]

Trash on the Lawn Day

Right around the same time I was working on my reducing landfill project, the Burlington Sustainability Action Team (BSAT) was sorting through the trash at City Hall to see how much trash that currently goes into the landfill could be diverted elsewhere.  The Burlington Free Press also reported on the project, and it's rather shocking how this article manages to miss any mention of the BSAT.


I do have a beef with the 7days blog entry, which writes: "Since Burlington City Hall doesn't have a composting program, it would have been impossible for employees to have separated out their compost."  There is nothing stopping employees from bringing a compost bucket, collecting the day's compostables, and setting up a rotation for whose turn it is to take the bucket to the compost project at the end of the day.  At the very least, collect the coffee grounds and any gardeners among the employees should be happy to have them.

Reducing Landfill

Connor now has a bed for his mattress and the box spring was superfluous.  We listed it on freecycle, but got no bites.  It looked like the box spring was headed for the trash dump (we haul our trash to the city drop-off because the drop is about a mile from Finn's school, and it costs about $10-15 less per month than contracting to have it hauled.  more on that another day), and because the trash drop-off charges $0.13 per pound, I was a little grumbly at the thought of paying $4 to dispose of our box spring (I'm wild-assed guessing that the box spring weighs ~30lbs). 

But then I realized, hey, most of the weight in here is untreated wood and metal!  The metal can be dumped for free at the city drop-off in the scrap metal bin, and the untreated wood can be dumped for free at the McNeil generating plant (and I'll be driving by McNeil in order to dump off yard waste at the city compost project soon, anyways).  Woo-hee!  Well... it took almost 20 minutes to disassemble it, which means I "paid myself" roughly $12/hour to do the job.  Not exactly my going rate, but sometimes you just gotta do the "right thing".

Here it is in its component parts.  The random stuff that I had to pay to dump appeared to be <2lbs at the city drop-off:

Velomobile Envy

Last week was the Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) Bikefest in Burlington, and because it was in City Hall Park next to the farmer's market, we managed to get to the Bike Expo on Saturday and see some velomobiles up close, and they are coooool, especially the Go-One.

Unfortunately, while a velomobile might have made a lot of sense for me 10 years ago, especially while I was living in Evanston and commuting in to Chicago, it's a harder sell now that I have two kids and am telecommuting.  Most of my biking is to take Finn to school, and so what I really need is a "family" velomobile, and the multiperson velomobiles I've seen are not really ready for family use in VT.   Oh, I could probably hook up the trailer to the velomobile, but doesn't that defeat the cool factor?  :-)  And... it doesn't help when the Go-One costs $8000+.  They have a lot of great ideas for how to ameliorate that cost, but they don't really apply to our situation.

So... the kids will be out of college when I'm 57, so maybe I can look forward to settling my veloenvy then... but actually, maybe Connor would be interested in a velomobile as a car** alternative when he's 15 -- neither he nor his friends will have driver's licenses, and a velomobile will be almost as fast around town.  And maybe in 10 years the cost of a good all-weather velomobile will have come down to $2000.

** A Vespa might be another acceptable around-town car alternative.  We'll see.

Project Icarus

I've been trying to think of something intelligent to say about this project, but am failing.  Project Icarus and the resulting video is just too cool for words. 

Take that, Camden, NJ!

Burlington, VT was named the best place to raise a family in the U.S. by "Children's Health Magazine", thus reaffirming Sarah's research back in 2001... though one can help think that the list is suspect if Fargo is #3.  Maybe they've destroyed all the wood chippers.




My favorite part is how the Free Press says the magazine was looking for "the kind of place where a child can slip on her rubber boots, grab her colorful umbrella, and play on the quiet, tree-lined street outside her home without worry."  This is, in fact, precisely how we like to spend rainy days (colorful umbrella not pictured).

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

Everybody knows that Strathairn's performance as Edward R. Murrow is the number one reason to see this movie.  Yup, he's great, but it also helps that he has a compelling character and great lines.  This performance is (almost) as much a testament to Clooney (who co-wrote, co-starred with Strathairn in many scenes, and directed) as it is to Strathairn himself.  So props to George Clooney, who proved he can direct and act in the same movie and not let his acting get in the way of his directing, or vice versa.


Also, Frank Langella!  He is the number two reason to see this movie, and stands toe-to-toe with Strathairn and they come away as equals.  Everyone else feels like a submissive member of the pack of which Murrow is the alpha dog.  


By contrast, just what is the purpose of the Robert Downey / Patricia Clarkson subplot?  Are we supposed to see how CBS is guilty of oppression by not allowing employees to be married?  Are we supposed to see how CBS might have a stupid policy but the people who work there are enlightened enough to ignore the stupid policy?  Are we supposed to simply be happy that "troubled but talented" Downey is getting work?  It adds very little beyond enough time to the movie so that it cracks 90 minutes.  

Veronica Mars (2004-2007)

We finished all three seasons.  The show is definitely worth having a look at, though the series doesn't really "end" in the sense that they laid a lot of groundwork for season 4 during season 3 and decided not to try to finish all the story arcs when it seemed like season 3 might be the last.  Seasons 2 and 3 are decidedly weaker than season 1, if only because it's "more of the same", though Veronica's romantic life becomes stale in seasons 2 and 3 (see spoilers below).  Still, I'm a little sad there wasn't a season 4.  A lot of plot goes by per show because the scenes are so short and the pacing is fast.  Bang, bang, bang.


== spoilers ==

My biggest concern about seasons 2 and 3 is the spoiling of Logan and Veronica's relationship.  They built up a lot of credit on how well this played out in season 1, then squandered it all in season 2, and by and during season 3 I didn't really care any more.  This is not good.  

I'm also really disappointed that the Aaron Echolls murder never seems to be investigated.  That's a serious problem.

Also of concern, Wallace gets the shaft a bit in seasons 2 and 3, screen-time-wise, as they develop other characters.  In season 2, they essentially remove him from the series to Chicago for a few episodes, and Mac gets a little more development (this is not entirely a bad thing, since she's an interesting character).  The real problem is Piznarski in season 3, who steals "good guy" time from Wallace and "potential boyfriend" time from Logan.  

Veronica does several brain-dead things:

• Every so often, she jumps to early (erroneous) conclusions in order to create drama.  It's forgivable for the writers to do this, but annoying.
• Less forgivable of the writers, at the end of season 1, Veronica doesn't stay in a public place with the tapes, but instead drives home alone in her car.  At the very least, Aaron shouldn't be hiding in the back seat of her freakin' car!
• Least forgivable is that at the end of season 2, Veronica doesn't seem to realize that Mac is perfectly safe as long as Cassidy thinks he's in the clear.  Mac and Veronica were only in danger because she *texts* that Cassidy is a killer, like that's a secure way to communicate!  We know that Veronica knows better, and shouldn't overreact like this.

Random fun stuff:

• Logan, meet Logan.  Matt Czuchry, who plays "no-good rich boyfriend" Logan Huntzberger to Rory on Gilmore Girls, has a guest spot in "Charlie Don't Surf" in season 3 and spends a fair amount of screen time with Logan Echolls, the "no-good rich boyfriend" on Veronica Mars.  Personally, I think Lorelei should be happy with the Logan her daughter was dating.
• A great Rocky Horror reference comes in "Ahoy, Mateys!" in season 2, when Veronica and Mac are looking for the pirate radio station, and find it in Vice-Principal Clemmons' basement (being run by his son, Vincent).  In general, the cultural references are very good; unfortunately, they seem aimed at people in their 30's, which may not be the age demographic the station was hoping to hit with this show.

Lavinia (Le Guin, Ursula) 2008

In Lavinia, Le Guin does for a minor character in Vergil's Aeneid what Jean Rhys does for a minor character in Bronte's Jane Eyre: give her a life beyond the quick sketch written by the original author, while also providing an alternative viewpoint on the "main" story.


Very roughly, the first third of the novel describes Lavinia's life prior to her entrance in the Aeneid, the middle third recounts events of the Aeneid from her point of view (though this is really more like a fourth or fifth of the book rather than a full third), and the latter third shows her life after the Aeneid.  Most of the novel is a perfectly fine if unexceptional semi-historical fiction, and I was put in mind of Renault's books on Alexander the Great, though Le Guin is a far more accomplished author.  The novel really shines during Lavinia's encounters with a shadow of Vergil: these are beautifully written musings on the connections between the living and the (not-quite) dead, reality and fiction and vision, and across boundaries of time and place.

[reading completed 9/7/9]

Audiosurf album "review" : The Queen is Dead

You don't need me to tell you that this is a great album; see the links to the reviews from the Wikipedia page for The Queen is Dead.  It's also tons of fun to ride on Audiosurf; "Never Had No One Ever" was the only unsatisfying ride.

1. The Queen Is Dead -- Time 6:24 -- Traffic 144
   It's all downhill after that short climb at the beginning, but the ride is fairly smooth, the traffic isn't too bad, and there are several mini-slowdowns, so it's not too harsh a run for those of us who were alive when the album was originally released.
   
   
   
   
2. Frankly, Mr. Shankly -- Time 2:19 -- Traffic 176
   Uphill followed by a bumpy stretch that goes slightly downhill. I have to admit that I didn't notice the bumps as much as in other songs, perhaps because Morrissey's voice smooths the bumps a bit, and none of them are sharp stops that can trip you up (we'll get to plenty of those with Prince and They Might Be Giants).  I played this one a few times because it's short, and I didn't finish clean at first... I wasn't paying attention to the end of the song coming up and was left with a couple reds.
   
   
   
   
3. I Know It's Over -- Time 5:49 -- Traffic 130.
   Gradual uphill (with mini-downhill run) to a sharp peak followed by downhill run.  There's little enough traffic that you still have the reaction time to pick up blocks while your soul is gently torn into little strips and tossed in the air like so much confetti.
   
   
   
   
4. Never Had No One Ever -- Time 3:37 -- Traffic 133.
   Weeeeird.  When I first played this, it was a bumpy downhill ride for the first 2/3, then bumpy and roughly level.  When I re-ripped the album because tracks 9 and 10 weren't playing correctly, the pattern changed.  That's file corruption for you!  This is the only song on the album that I don't really like.  The lyrics are comparatively boring and repetitive, and it serves only the purpose of being a cracker to clear the palate before you're hit with Cemetry Gates.
   
   
   
   
5. Cemetry Gates -- Time 2:41 -- Traffic 242.
   A downhill run that's tough to play Pointman on.  I've read that as traffic goes > 200, Pusher beats Pointman, and my very limited experience seems to bear that out; however, I enjoy playing Pointman much more than Pusher, so I'm sticking with the Point.  I love this song.
   
   
   
   
6. Bigmouth Strikes Again -- Time 3:14 -- Traffic 318
   Downhill, super-high traffic, this run is absolutely terrifying on Pointman.  I spent a lot more time than usual riding in the shoulder, waiting for little breaks in the blocks to swoop in and drop blocks.  I think I see how the Pusher player works on runs like this: you sit in the middle and simply move blocks to one side or the other, or let them fall in the center.
   
   
   
   
7. The Boy with the Thorn in His Side -- Time 3:17 -- Traffic 252
   Another downhill run, but after "Bigmouth", this one doesn't feel too scary.
   
   
   
   
8. Vicar in a Tutu -- Time 2:22 -- Traffic 256
   Ack.  Another downhill run, and for some reason this one feels more brutal than the Boy with the Thorn in His Side. Part of it is that the end is still a steep downhill, rather than a slight uphill as in the previous three songs, so there's little time to catch an extra block and finish clean as you hit the end.
   
   
   
   
9. There is a Light that Never Goes Out -- Time 4:03 -- Traffic 216
   Another downhill run, but not as directly downhill, with a little less traffic overall and petering out nicely at the end so you can recover from any blockages you might have incurred earlier in the run.  Unfortunately, no chance at the high score, or even the top three.  Those are really impressive rides.
   
   
   
   
10. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others -- Time 3:14 -- Traffic 244
    The album finishes with one last mostly downhill run.  It's less steep than The Queen is Dead, with most of the elevation change occurring before you're halfway through the song, but there's a lot more traffic.