March 4, 2006: Staple! The Independent Media Expo:
An event to promote independent creative media: comics, mini-comics, zines, art, and self-published literature. Building a community to encourage communication between creators and their audience. All the while having a damn good time in the Live Music Capital of the World – Austin, TX.
‘Brokeback’ named Hollywood word of the year:
The nonprofit group Global Language Monitor placed “Brokeback” — as in the film title “Brokeback Mountain” — at the top of its list of Hollywood words and phrases that captured attention this year.
Paul JJ Payack, the head of Global Language Monitor, said the movie became a cultural phenomenon that generated a million jokes, according to Google. Overall, a Google search shows more than 38 million references to the film, although only about 10 million people saw the movie.
…with hotpants. As far as I know, this is a real photo. Liberace had a huge following among middle aged women, which is completely inexplicable. Why do older women love flamboyant, closeted gay men? Clay Aiken probably has a similar following.
Jody and I went out for dinner and a movie last night after work. We stopped off at Campisi’s Egyptian, a good Italian restaurant here in Dallas with good food and great atmosphere. I just read on their website that Jack Ruby ate dinner at Campisi’s the night before he shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Campisi’s is the kind of place where you see nicely dressed old couples who look like they have been coming back for a while. My favorite feature: coatrack attached to every booth. I had spaghetti and meatballs, although in this case it was meatball. The plate came piled with a ball of spaghetti and the marinara sauce was sweet and fresh. I almost had to use the garlic toast to cancel out the sweetness.
After dinner, we crossed Mockingbird Lane to stop over at the Angelika to see Caché, a French film about a couple who are being secretly filmed and provoked with these mysterious recordings. It’s a movie where you have to pay close attention. Unlike what we’re accustomed to from Hollywood, it doesn’t pre-digest the ideas or plot for you. You really have to observe and think about it. After the movie, in fact, this older gentleman kept asking people as they were leaving if they “got it” in the hopes that they would give him “the answer”. I’m glad he didn’t ask me because it seems almost a violation to ruin that sense of mystery with an inarticulation of your own sense of meaning, even though I’m sure he could have come up with his own interpretation had he just thought about what he had seen. That’s not to say that the film tries to be incomprehensible because it doesn’t, however it’s very much an examplar of the “show don’t tell” school of film-making. It is worth seeing.
Sometimes I really need a break from reading about all the technology-related prognostication and navel-gazing. Here are a few antidotes to the usual fare:
WWTDD: What would Tyler Durden do:
I don’t know how much unicorn blood they pump into her [Terri Hatcher] on the set of ‘Desperate Housewives’ to make her look human for a few hours, but think about it, when was the last time you saw a unicorn? Exactly.
“I heard,” I say, “that you went cliff diving, but when you dove, your lat spread flared out so wide that you took flight, and glided out to sea, and they had to send a Mexican Coast Guard boat five miles offshore to pick you up.”
Jeff posted his video from the McRib challenge to Google video. He did a great job with it: added a soundtrack, edited it up real nice, and added a McRib progress bar as well as cool opening and closing animations. Be sure to watch it. I’m even in it for a few short seconds clowning around.
Coincidentally, my friend (who apparently doesn’t read this site) emailed me this weekend to tell me the McRib was back for a limited time and looked to be talking about another shot at eating ten McRibs. He is obviously non compos mentis since when he last polished off eight of them he suffered big time.
Related: The McRib has claimed another victim November 11, 2005
I got a chance to watch La Strada this weekend. It’s a sad, beautiful film. I’m not even sure how I would describe it, not that it’s indescribable just that I don’t think I could convey anything about it sufficiently except in my typical all-thumbs narrative style. I now want to watch every other Fellini film since this was my first, I am ashamed to say.
Lord. I have to wake up in a few hours to give a short speech at Toastmasters. I am completely unprepared so it should be either a train wreck or a miracle. I did finally decide on a topic on the drive back from Dallas, which I will attempt to talk about without notes or preparation of any type. I’m thinking something to do with all the bad advertising I have seen lately like the billboard for Amdecon (“We clean up suicides, so you don’t have to.”) I spotted on the way into Dallas. Is that really the best use of your marketing budget?
I found this article interesting, although not surprising. Any guesses at the reasons why men don’t read novels by females?
But a gender gap remains in what people choose to read, at least among the cultural elite. Four out of five men said the last novel they read was by a man, whereas women were almost as likely to have read a book by a male author as a female. When asked what novel by a woman they had read most recently, a majority of men found it hard to recall or could not answer. Women, however, often gave several titles. The report said: ‘Men who read fiction tend to read fiction by men, while women read fiction by both women and men.
Out of the recent eighteen or so books I have mentioned here on my site (not even including audiobooks), only three have been by women, and two of the books were by the same woman, Margaret Atwood.
