How does it feel?

Posted on May 10, 2007 by wellsdc

Proving once again that my city can kick your city’s ass, the lineup for the Austin City Limits 2007 Festival has been announced, headlined by the coolest human being to have ever lived, Bob Dylan.

I haven’t gone to the festival for the past couple of years. My experience in 2004 led me to conclude that I could have about as much fun if I spent the day inside an oven with an iPod and a large bag of cat dander (I’m allergic). Sweat and sneezing do not go well together.

However, with Bob at the helm, this year is going to kick ass. Suck on it, rest of America!

For the dreamer in all of us

Posted on May 6, 2007 by wellsdc

A bit more serious this time. This one is cute, touching, and a little troubling, but I liked it.

So long, Mr. Vonnegut

Posted on April 12, 2007 by wellsdc

As happens when someone I admire passes away, I am at a loss for words, but I emphatically second the thoughts expressed here and especially here:

With luck, Vonnegut’s ideas and words may live on to influence a new generation of young people who can follow his example of the artist who encapsulated the feeling of pessimism of the intellect with an optimism of the will. Vonnegut’s love for the human species, while hating the violence humans inflict upon each other, sets a high standard for all of us to follow.

I had the fortune of hearing Kurt Vonnegut speak at the 1998 Rice University commencement ceremony. I can say this much: the world is a lot less salty now, and a lot less bitter, and that’s too bad.

No they didn’t…

Posted on March 27, 2007 by wellsdc

Truth be told, I have never seen a single episode of America’s Next Top Model, and before reading about this today, I already would have said I never will. Now I’m too dumbfounded to even find the TV remote.

Ain’t nothin’ hotter than a dead girl. That’s the take-away message from this week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model, in which Tyra “I care so much about my girls” Banks & co. created the most brazen bit of ad-industry misogyny ever to grace the reality TV genre: an entire episode presenting a gaggle of underfed model wannabes as the mutilated, mangled and murdered epitome of beauty.

The story has a link to the pictures, along with comments from the show’s judges about how beautiful the girls look pretending to be dead and mutilated (several also have fake bruises–in the sense that the bruising probably caused the death.)

As I have stated before, I do not have a problem with people doing what they want, so long as there is informed consent all around and no one gets hurt. I will assume, for the sake of argument, that all models depicted herein consented to have fake blood and brain matter splashed on the wall behind them and so forth. I’m more troubled by the fact that this is considered “beautiful” or “entertaining” at all. I have my doubts that this little presentation is any more likely to lead to more violence against women than the average episode of CSI (dead showgirl of the week). This is more like a slightly-higher-concept Friday the 13th–array a bunch of hotties, provide little emotinal connection, then knock them off in a series of unoriginal and dramatically unsatisfying ways. How many people genuinely find this entertaining?

I am somewhat reminded of the Coliseum scenes in Gladiator (“Are you not entertained?”)–after the film I recall remarking to a friend that our culture is still in decent shape, at least compared to what Romans found entertaining. I’m less sure now.

Jenna Fischer

Posted on March 25, 2007 by wellsdc

The thinking man’s hottie. Enough said.

To rip off Dr. Freud, sometimes a crappy blockbuster is just a crappy blockbuster

Posted on March 15, 2007 by wellsdc

I went to see the new movie “300” last weekend, and pretty much decided I was going to put it out of my mind as quickly as possible. Then the inevitable conversations, analogies to current events, etc. ensued, so now I have to write something down to get it back out of my head.

My favorite review (for its not-quite-intentional hilarity), is this one from Ben Shapiro:

The Spartans of “300” are brutal. The opening scene of the movie depicts a Spartan soldier, standing on a cliff overlooking a valley of skulls, inspecting a baby to make sure it is hardy enough. If the baby is too weak, we are told, it will be left for dead. This isn’t exactly civilized conduct.

But the Persian hordes make the Spartans look like members of a British tea club. Xerxes is an androgynous giant of a man with more body piercings than Christina Aguilera. His camp is full of decadent bisexual promiscuity. He seeks worldwide dictatorship and threatens Sparta with mass murder of its male citizens, rape of its female citizens, and use of women and children as slaves if Sparta fails to submit to his rule.

The Spartans, by contrast, say they are fighting for “freedom.” In which case, “300” is an old-fashioned battle between the forces of freedom and the forces of oppression.

And the left doesn’t like it at all. Many reviewers have panned “300” not on artistic grounds, or even on grounds of inanity, but on the grounds that the Spartans in the film are a bunch of jackbooted thugs; that the tyranny they fight is less tyrannical than Sparta; that good vs. evil is too simplistic. “His troops are like al Qaeda in adult diapers,” writes Kyle Smith of the New York Post. “Keeping in mind Slate’s Mickey Kaus’ Hitler Rule — never compare anything to Hitler — it isn’t a stretch to imagine Adolf’s boys at a “300” screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again.” A.O. Scott makes the obligatory racial point: “It may be worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white.”

First off, the reviewer here states that “the Left” doesn’t like this movie “on the grounds that the Spartans in the film are a bunch of jackbooted thugs” and that “that good vs. evil is too simplistic.” He quotes two other reviewers (one from the N.Y. Post!), neither of whom say anything about these claims–one seems to be making the opposite, that the right would like this movie (Nazis were right-wing, after all), and a rather obvious racial comment. So how do we have any idea at all what the “Left” thinks, at least based on his selected quotes? What we do know, however (POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT), is that the Spartans kill newborn infants deemed to be “unfit,” that the Persians have threatened to kill or enslave all Spartans if they do not submit, and that the Spartans’ claims to be fighting in defense of “freedom” are not especially credible. In fact, the Spartans are ultimately betrayed by an “unfit” Spartan who would have been killed at birth had his parents not hidden him, and who grew up to resemble a Gollum and Quasimodo hybrid. He is shunned by the Spartans (although not at all rudely or unreasonably) and is wooed by the Persians’ kick-ass parties. Still, it begs the question of why he had to wait until adulthood to even ask for the right to exist from his own people. The Spartans of “300” are only the “good guys” if you seriously shut out and ignore most of their culture (then there’s the whole Council of Sparta subplot that makes no sense at all, but I’ll leave that aside.)

Calling this a classic “good vs. evil” story is really stretching it. Calling it a high-tech visual masterpiece with little or no substance is more accurate. Really, very few good stories perfectly state a good vs. evil dichotomy. “The Lord of the Rings” films were hailed a few years ago for their depiction of good vs. evil, but even those films presented the theme with a distinct lack of simplicity. (ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT, ALTHOUGH IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIES BY NOW I DOUBT YOU CARE) The little-discussed fact of that story is that the hero, Frodo, actually failed in his quest. At the critical moment, evil won out, and he refused to destroy the Ring. It was only destroyed because Gollum was (a) even more under the sway of its evil, and (b) clumsy. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the greater power of good, but a more believable story in many ways (if you accept the existence of trolls and such).

But going back to “300,” if I have to choose between a despotic city-state that was safeguarding the cradle of Western civilization and a despotic empire that had goat-headed lute players and the villains from Stargate SG-1, I guess I’d have to side with Sparta. But don’t ask me to feel all noble about it. After all, they practice eugenics and take their marching orders from pederastic lepers. Just enjoy the dang movie, to the extent possible, and save the politics for the blogs.

Not sure I should even go here…

Posted on March 13, 2007 by wellsdc

Fair warning, this post deals with some prurient stuff.

As I was perusing ABC’s tabloidesque “Primetime” earlier this evening (okay, fine, I Tivo’d it after seeing a promo last night), I couldn’t help but wonder if the show was being a bit unfair. See, they interviewed a woman by the name of Sunny Lane, who I will pretend to have never heard of before today, and discussed how her parents work as her business managers…for her career in adult entertainment. If you watch the whole episode (not available on ABC’s website, near as I can tell), the interviewer almost seems frustrated that he can’t get her to seem more tortured or ambivalent about the whole thing, thereby defying the axiom that adult entertainment deadens the soul. Maybe she just hasn’t been doing it long enough, but she comes across as too cute and bubbly to be all that depressing:

I’m somewhat fascinated by the psychology of the whole business–i.e. what gets people to do this sort of thing, are said people really as screwed up as their stereotypes, and so forth. The whole thing with the parents on the ABC show is a bit strange (or a whole hell of a lot strange, who knows). I do think porn should stay out of the spotlight, if for no other reason than because it might otherwise lose its cachet–I think the market will keep it around for a long time, even if no one can agree on how much money the industry makes. Anyway, it’s very late at night.

Worst pick-up line ever???

Posted on March 3, 2007 by wellsdc

I still don’t quite get the nature of the controversy–perhaps there’s just a limit to how much prurient exploitation our culture is willing to accept (dissing your singing is fine, but racy photos, no matter how private, maybe ain’t)–but it is a controvery nonetheless. Now Glenn Beck takes the opportunity to hit on a cute journalist (who has never posed for racy photos and is at least somewhat of a professional, I might add):

That may be the most uncomfortable silence I’ve seen in some time.

Apparently he’s done this before, too.

There has been some backlash, but I can only begin to imagine the chilling effect this will have on people’s ability to take racy pictures of themselves. What are digital cameras for, anyway?

Seriously, though, Glenn, if you want to take racy pictures of a girl, there are places you could find them. Just saying.

Don’t bother me with pesky "evidence"

Posted on February 28, 2007 by wellsdc

Courtesy of my daily e-mail from the Texas Freedom Network:

E-MAIL FROM THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
Text is taken directly from e-mails written by religious-right groups. The Texas Freedom Network does not edit the content for grammar or accuracy.

Date: February 28, 2007
From: American Family Association
By: Don Wildmon

The Discovery Channel documentary slams Christianity

The documentary claims that the tombs of Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene and a supposed son of Jesus —Judah— have been found, thus making the Bible and two thousand years of history a lie.

According to the Discovery Channel’s documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” airing Sunday, March 4, the bones of Jesus– buried with His family — have been found. In addition, the documentary says that Mary Magdalene and Jesus might have had a son named Judah.

Here is what The Discovery Channel says about the program and the Christian faith: “All leading epigraphers agree about the inscriptions. All archaeologists confirm the nature of the find. It comes down to a matter of statistics. A statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters (Discovery Channel/Vision Canada/C4 UK) concludes that the probability factor is 600 to 1 in favor of this tomb being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.”

Having watched how Hollywood portrays Christians and Christian values for the past 30 years, it is clear that Hollywood considers Christianity its greatest enemy. Because of our silence, Christianity is the only religion they feel free to attack!

It is time for Christians to send a message to The Discovery Channel and Hollywood that enough is enough! Don’t stay silent while The Discovery Channel and Hollywood continually attack our faith and our values.

The documentary was produced by James Cameron, whose claim to fame is directing the movie “The Titanic.” Saying that Cameron is qualified to make a documentary on Jesus is like saying Hugh Hefner is qualified to make a documentary on abstinence before marriage!

Having not seen the documentary yet (and I doubt Rev. Wildmon has either, unless he has a time machine), I can’t say much about its production values, attribution of claims, or the general quality of its historical research. I can say that there is not very much harm in presenting information about something that somebody found somewhere and letting people draw their own conclusions from it. The e-mail above does not challenge the veracity of any claims made by the documentary–it barely scratches the surface of identifying any claims made by the documentary. In fact, Rev. Wildmon does not challenge a single assertion made by the publicity for this documentary. He does say this, though: “The documentary claims that the tombs of Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene and a supposed son of Jesus —Judah— have been found, thus making the Bible and two thousand years of history a lie.”

I guess one man’s metaphor is another man’s lie. Rather than critically examine archaeological evidence that may or may not have any impact on his faith, he would stick his nose back into an old book and pretend it isn’t happening. And he would have everyone else do the same.

But it doesn’t stop there. See, presenting evidence that might contradict one man’s narrowly-drawn version of reality isn’t bad enough…there must be a bigger bogeyman behind the scenes. He identifies the documentary as a broadcast of a Canadian network, a British nework, and the Discovery Channel (whose umbrella corporation is headquartered in Maryland), and then makes the following statement: “Having watched how Hollywood portrays Christians and Christian values for the past 30 years, it is clear that Hollywood considers Christianity its greatest enemy. ”

Huh?

How did we get to Hollywood? And what happened 30 years ago?

Oh, right. Hollywood is run by liberals, liberals hate America, America is Christian to its core, and therefore Jesus is going to kick our asses…the argument goes something like that. Point being, it’s a docu-freakin’-mentary. At least try to formulate a coherent argument that addresses the evidence it presents.

Or is “Hollywood” a code word for something else???…

“Don’t stay silent while The Discovery Channel and Hollywood continually attack our faith and our values.” He isn’t so clear what he wants his peeps to say to the Discovery Channel and Hollywood (oh my!), but I’m not exactly his target audience. I guess something along the lines of “Your objective and corporeal evidence offends me. I object to your displaying it on a basic cable network most people do not watch on a Sunday night.” Come to think of it, that is easier than actually crafting a counter-argument.

I should note that I am not out to offend or denigrate anyone else’s religious beliefs. I should also note that I do not believe for a millisecond that people like Don Wildmon would ever extend to me the sort of courtesy I tried to extend in the previous sentence. So anyone with tender religious sensibilities should just skip the rest of this paragraph. Now then, it may seem easier to draw life lessons from an ancient book of fairytales that has not been edited since at least the 5th century AD (or CE). But really, in the face of a second-rate documentary by the guy who brought us The Abyss, I guess peddlers of a rather poorly-edited anthology of uncertain attribution and extensive internal inconsistencies should be worried about the staying power of their wares.

That said, there are many valid criticisms of the documentary’s facts (remember those?), such as the following:

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary…is even unsure that the name “Jesus” on
the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it’s more likely the name “Hanun.”

Archaeologists quickly discounted the theory that the boxes contained the bones of Jesus and his family because the names inscribed on the boxes were quite common in the region during the 1st Century.

So how’s about we quit the whinin’ and the bellyachin’ and let the documentary stand on its own (possible lack of) merits. I have no idea if the documentary is any good, or in the least bit convincing. If it shakes Christians’ faith to the core, that’s their problem, and it would only prove that Don Wildmon is not very good at his job. See, faith isn’t supposed to depend on facts or evidence anyway, remember?

I can’t finish this post without ridiculing one other part of the e-mail:

The documentary was produced by James Cameron, whose claim to fame is directing the movie “The Titanic.” Saying that Cameron is qualified to make a documentary on Jesus is like saying Hugh Hefner is qualified to make a documentary on abstinence before marriage!

Ah, the ad hominem attack, lynchpin of the man with no solid argument in the first place. But really, is a film director making a documentary on Jesus any worse than a glorified televangelist attempting to discuss archaeology?

Also, give Mr. Cameron a little credit for The Terminator, seriously.

In closing, now that I’ve read about all this controversy, I’m definitely going to watch the documentary (Sunday, March 4, 8 p.m. CST).

Fox-style humor