Ken MacLeod‘s recent novel Newton’s Wake (whose title I’m not sure I understand) has a character say:
What we do is you tell us some more about Eurydice and its beautiful people, and then you get tired and emotional, and then we take you home.
tired and emotional is wink-wink euphemism for drunk, popularized (I gather) by Private Eye. How many Americans, I thought, will be baffled?
My new favorite ice cream is Ben & Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. It’s hard to find; I found some yesterday at, of all places, a Chinese supermarket.
Tom Knapp on the land problem (inter alia) (cited by Mutualist). (2006: that site has been reorganized; I think this is the same piece, and as a bonus here are two followups.)
a Martian dust-devil, close up
Maritza Campos, author of the most excellent strip College Roomies From Hell, has a daughter on the way.
天国と地獄 High and Low. Kurosawa does not disappoint in this policier, from a novel by Ed McBain (King’s Ransom). As in 野良犬 Stray Dog, it’s weird to see Mifune with a modern haircut and mustache; I could not be sure it was him until a close-up. Three other actors from 7 Samurai and Tsubaki Sanjuro were easier to spot.
新・座頭市物語 New Tale of Zatôichi (#3, dir. Tanaka). Now in color. We learn more of Ichi’s past.
The Birds (dir. Hitchcock). Every bit as pointless as I feared it might be.
The Mind Benders (dir. Basil Dearden).
Hud (dir. Martin Ritt). I was curious about this for a silly reason. Soon after I first heard of it (I guess in advertisements for a television showing), there was a radio PSA saying “call HUD” if you’ve been treated unfairly. At the time I didn’t know that HUD was an acronym, so I thought, is this a subtle ad for the movie or what? So it stuck like a burr in a corner of my mind.
Irma la Douce (dir. Billy Wilder). For once, a comedy set in Paris where no one tries to put on a frog-eating accent — despite the opening narration by Louis Jourdan.
座頭市兇状旅 Zatôichi the Fugitive (#4; dir. Tanaka). Subtitles of Japanese movies seem always to be more or less compressed; here, I think some important background was omitted.
The Haunting (dir. Robert Wise).
Tom Jones (dir. Tony Richardson). Damned fine sport, as some of the characters might say. — In the book, I believe, Squire Western illustrates his name by speaking with a pronounzed Zomerzet dialect, voizing all his vricatives; zadly there’s none of that in Hugh Griffith’s portrayal.
Le Mépris (Contempt) (dir. Godard). Abandoned for boredom.
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (dir. Stanley Kramer). At least half an hour could be cut as repetitive, and it would still be unusually long for a comedy; yet the plot is quite simple.
Doctor Who. I’m enough of a fan to watch as much of the canon as is available. The disc Lost in Time: the William Hartnell years collects surviving early episodes (most were wiped so the BBC could reuse the tape). I wonder whether “The Crusade”, in which the Doctor’s party get entangled with Cœur de Lion and Saladin, would have the same plot if written fifteen years later!
Zatôichi’s Fighting Journey (#5; dir. Yasuda). Good use of color; good script; good fight-scenes.
In The War of the Worlds, the Martians’ principal weapon is a heat-ray. In Robinson’s RGB Mars, at one point the badguys use a heat-ray against Martians.
anti-government extremists attack peacekeeping force
April 19 is the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, the “shot heard ’round the world”. It has been remarked that the political establishment takes little notice of the occasion. This, I suggest, is as it should be. How sad if a momentous uprising against established authority should become yet another occasion for the politicians to glorify themselves!
