Visited stepbrother last night, and we watched Abre los Ojos (Open your Eyes) (1997). The surprise ending concerns a concept on which I have spent hours happily musing; I had no idea that the concept had gone so mainstream.

A job listing on Craigslist has a curious title: Weekend Domestic Violence Advocates

Mike Mayakis, longtime Libertarian activist in San Francisco, has died of leukemia. Eric Garris [link updated 2006] and Justin Raimondo (see bottom) remember him.

Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) (1952). Set in a declining oil-boom town somewhere in South America, full of unemployed foreigners who can’t afford to leave. The oil company hires four of the becalmed drifters to drive two trucks loaded with nitroglycerin through the mountains to put out a well fire. It is naturally predestined that only one of the four (played by Yves Montand) will make it alive. The first half of the picture, though slow, was rather interesting to me because most of the foreigners speak Spanish, French and English, as the mood takes them; I wonder how realistic that is. The drivers speak French throughout the drive: Mario and Jo because they are French, Luigi and Dutch apparently because they have French in common.

Kiss Me Kate (1953): some delightful moments such as Ann Miller’s dancing, and a gorgeous look, but overall ho-hum.

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953). I saw this before (probably in 1976-7) but remembered neither the few great sight gags nor the utter lack of plot. — Is there a film by Jacques Tati in which a few objects, such as a flag and a balloon, are hand-colored?

Shane (1953). Classic Western, utterly without surprises. The little boy calling “Shane!” all the time got on my nerves. Shane makes two curiously clashing speeches at the end: to the cattleman he says “your way of life is over, and so is mine [gunslinging], and the difference is I know it”; then to the boy he says “a man has got to be what he is, I thought I could quit my old ways but I can’t, and that’s why I gotta ride on” – to what?

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Cleverest bit is where Jane Russell bleaches her hair and impersonates Marilyn Monroe. This film is remembered mainly for “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” – which, incidentally, is on my list of works that I first encountered long after becoming familiar with a parody, in this case Madonna’s “Material Girl” video (1984). (Another is Doc Smith’s novel The Skylark of Space (1946), parodied by Harry Harrison in Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers (1973).) A brief bit of “Diamonds” is also parodied, I now perceive, in Julie Brown’s song “Brand New Girl” in the film Earth Girls Are Easy (1988).

The Campaign for Dark Skies collects evidence that brighter lights do not deter crime. (Cited by Bruce Schneier; link updated 2006.)

Crisis on Infantile Earths – or – If it’s Tuesday, it must be Ragnarok! — a long and rambling essay by John Holbo

Have I mentioned lately that I hate applying for jobs?

They ask you to send a résumé. Then once they have it, they call you back and ask, “So what kind of position are you looking for?” because somehow their eyes skipped over where it says at the top seeking employment as a framistan operator. (I suppose that’s natural, since everyone knows a well-brought-up résumé says only that which can safely be ignored, like seeking a challenging position in a fast-paced environment where I can apply my superior communication skills.) So you recite the gist of what’s under their nose, and make an appointment to spend half an hour copying the same data, by hand, onto another set of forms.

And then, if it’s an agency, they call you back to say you’re in luck, you have an interview . . . and be sure to arrive a little early, because there’s another set of forms to fill out.

Can anyone go through this a dozen times and remain sane?

You’d think the HR industry would settle on a standard form so you can copy the repetitive parts. But maybe the process is designed to spot those who’ll snap.