Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Grill porn


I love good grill porn--my favorite kind of porn, if you must know--as much as the next guy, but this--from an article in the Sunday NY Times--is ridiculous. It can be yours for $35K.

Posted by jwb at 1:02 PM  · 0 Comments   

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Alan Furst


I case you missed it, there was an interview of sorts in the extra special Sunday New York Times travel magazine with our favorite author, Alan Furst. Furst seems a little too shy to truly give good interview (as they say), but there are some interesting bits.

Furst reveals he was a bit of a later bloomer, not really finding his stride as a novelist until after a trip to Europe in the mid-1980s. He happened to be in Moscow when the Russians shot down a Korean airliner: "The city was filled with a nervous tension. They were frightened and expectant. When I checked into the National Hotel, the person who took my passport was hidden behind a curtain. You couldn't see the face. Everything was murky, suspect, dangerous. I thought, These people are not like us. Not at all."

Furst, on the kinds of people who figure in his books: "People in the era, you had a very narrow choice. You could be a victim, you could be a hero, you could be a villain, or you could be a fugitive. But you could not just stand by. If you were in Europe between 1933 and 1945, you had to be something."

Furst, on Vacherin, unpasteurized French cheese: "It's a wonderful cheese. You peel off the top and eat it with a spoon. The really good Vacherin isn't pasteurized. Kills a couple of people a year." He shrugs; that's the price you pay for living life at a certain pitch."

According to Amazon, Furst's The Foreign Correspondent comes out in May.

UPDATE (6/1): It has arrived. I'll be reading it tout suite. Janet Maslin gives it a nice write-up in today's NY Times. Also, you may note that Andre Szara--who I always thought was a figment of Furst's imagination--thanks me in comments. Hmmm.

Posted by jwb at 7:23 AM  · 0 Comments   

Idol blogging


It's the last week of Idol. So what did ya think?

Speaking only for myself, I was rooting for Katherine, but I don't think she did what she needed to do. I'd be a bit suprised if Taylor wasn't annointed the new American Idol tonight.

I've thought for a while that one of Katherine's problems is song choice--she seems to pick a lot of songs that have too many lower-register parts that don't suit her and not enough soaring, operatic parts that would blow the roof off of the place. (Carrie, last year, was a master of picking those kinds of songs.) She seemed to stick with that pattern last night. Her first song was a little too subdued for the occasion. While everyone else seemed to love her rendition of "Under the Rainbow," I thought it was a little weak. And she got completely screwed (so to speak) by the AI people because her final song--her "first single"--was very disapointing. And I'm not sure I really agree with Randy that the song sucked but she was good. I don't think she was very good.

Anyway, you may recall that--some weeks ago--I posted the top 6 predictions, that Jenn, our friend Jen, and I put together while in New York for Shannon's show. I thought I was a shoe-in until Chris Daughtry got bounced. But I was mistaken. It looks like Jenn's crystal ball was the clearest. She was the only one of us who got two of the top three correct (Katherine and Taylor) and she predicts a win or Taylor (though we'll see about that). Jen is a clear runner-up with only one of the top three correct but with Taylor winning (though, again, we'll see). My predictions are a little too depressing to revisit, so I won't.

Seacrest out.

Posted by jwb at 6:55 AM  · 0 Comments   

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Han Solo bookends


I don't seem to have the energy to blog about anything serious this week*, but get yerself some Han Solo bookends. (Available in October.)

* That's a bit of a joke, since I haven't blogged about anything serious in weeks.

Posted by jwb at 6:49 AM  · 0 Comments   

Geek chic


Get yer philosophy t-shirts here.

Posted by jwb at 6:43 AM  · 2 Comments   

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Whit Stillman

In case you're wondering what Whit Stillman has been up to, here is an interesting essay by the master himself from the Guardian.

Posted by jwb at 12:22 PM  · 0 Comments   

Argh!

This is ridiculous! It started raining a week ago today, and hasn't let up-except for a few minutes here and there-since. Fortunately, we may see a little sun--finally--tomorrow.

Posted by jwb at 4:32 AM  · 0 Comments   

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Best novels of the last 25 years

I'm still a little too traumatized to have anything contructive to say about last night's Idol. But seriously. WTF? Morons!

Anyway, the NY TImes asked a bunch of literary and cultural eminentoes for the best "work of American fiction" from the last 25 years. The winer: Toni Morrison, "Beloved." "Here's the list:

1. Toni Morrison, "Beloved"
2. Don DeLillo, "Underworld"
3. Cormac McCarthy, "Blood Meridian"
4. John Updike, Rabbit Angstrom: The Novels
5. Philip Roth, "American Pastoral"

Other multiple vote-getters:
John Kennedy Toole, "A Conferderacy of Dunces"
Marilyne Robinson, "Housekeeping"
Mark Helprin, "Winter's Tale"
Don DeLillo, "White Noise"
Philip Roth, "The Counterlife"
Don DeLillo, "Libra"
Raymond Carver, "Where I'm Calling From"
Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried"
Norman Rush, "Mating"
Denis Johnson, "Jesus' Son"
Philip Roth, "Operation Shylock"
Richard Ford, "Independence Day"
Philip Roth, Sabbath's Theater"
Cormac McCarthy, The Border Trilogy
Philip Roth, "The Human Stain"
Edward P. Jones, "The Known World"
Philip Roth, "The Plot Against America"

A.O. Scott has an interesting essay that touches on the pitfalls of this kind of exercise as well as some of the big themes. Some brief, random thoughts of my own: Roth is pretty clearly the BSD of the period in question. Speaking of which, "Bonfire" must not have aged very well. (Will have to re-read it one of these days to be sure.) My signed copy of "Underworld" is going to be worth a lot of coin some day. Lastly, "A Confederacy of Dunces" must be the least funny allegedly funny book I've ever read.

I assume some of our readers will have some thoughts about this. Comment away.

Posted by jwb at 10:33 AM  · 1 Comments   

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Idol blogging

WTF!!!

Posted by jwb at 8:25 PM  · 0 Comments   

Postpunk and after


While we were on vacation some weeks ago, I brought along Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984, a fascinating book about the bands that sprung up in the wake of the flameout of punk (which Reynolds places in 1978, when the Sex Pistols fell apart), including PIL (John Lydon's first post-Pistols band), Devo, The Fall, Joy Division, Talking Heads, Wire, and Mission of Burma. I've always thought I knew a lot about this stuff, and was thus a little astonished by my ignorance of the vast majority of the bands that Reynolds writes about.

To some extent, this may result from the fact that I didn't really discover postpunk until, according to Reynolds, it was over. The first identifiably alternative album I can remember buying was REM's Life's Rich Pageant (in 1986, as a sophomore in high school, at the Harvard Coop, of all places). REM, along with bands like the Smiths and New Order, was part of the movement that came after postpunk, which Reynolds calls alt-rock. (He says that REM and the Smiths were the two most important alt-rock bands. Hard to argue with that.) It was through some of these bands, like New Order (though they're more alt than rock) that I discovered their precursors, like Joy Division (with a little help from Raphael).

Reynolds book is very good and I highly recommend it. To fill in some of the gaps of our musical knowledge, Reynolds now has a CD coming out with some of the big bands he writes about in his book. May be worth checking out.

P.S. Through Reynolds' own blog, which is worth checking out, I discovered my favorite new blog, Sit Down Man, You're a Bloody Tragedy.

Posted by jwb at 7:19 AM  · 0 Comments   

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Bond's new car


Things are a little slow on the internerds today. Courtesy of I Watch Stuff, a pic of Bond's new car, the Aston Martin DBS. More here (a very cool all-things-Bond-related site.)

Posted by jwb at 11:28 AM  · 0 Comments   

Friday, May 05, 2006

Alcohol industry profits from underage drinking


I know. You're shocked. Me too.

Sarcasm aside, in news (if that's the right word) not entirely unrelated to what we were discussing here, a new report from some nerds at Columbia University asserts that the alcohol industry rakes in $23 billion a year from underage drinking.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Underage drinking is worth nearly $23 billion a year to the alcohol industry, or 17.5 percent of all money spent on spirits in the US annually, researchers from New York’s Columbia University report.

And abusive drinking by both underage people and adults may account for nearly half of all money spent on alcohol each year.

“What we see here is that there is a large conflict of interest for the alcohol industry between profitability and public health,” Susan E. Foster of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia told Reuters Health.


Thanks to the indispensable Double Viking for the link.

Posted by jwb at 10:23 AM  · 0 Comments   

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Casina Royale trailer, now in English, and some other stuff

Here's the trailer, this time in English. And, yes, just as giddy.

This prompted some random super-secret-agent thoughts (based on my reading on the wee hours of the night):

1. I've been roaring through the first four of Daniel Silva's books about Mossad agent Gabriel Allon (there are five, with another one coming out in July). They are really quite amazing--highly recommended. However, they may be a little too political for Hollywood--lots of heavy stuff about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as well as the sordid history of the Catholic Church and the Nazis during and after World War II. Check 'em out.

2. The best of all the espionage books, of course, are by Alan Furst, featuring various protagonists, dealing with international intrigue and espionage during World War II. They are astonishingly good, superior in my mind to LeCarre (who seems to be the one that everyone gets compared to--for good or ill). Among the best are The Polish Officer, Night Soldiers, and Dark Star. His newest, The Foreign Correspondent, is due in May. Again, in the rights hands, these would make amazing movies, though Hollywood never seems to do justice to these kinds of things.

3. If you like the kind of stuff Furst does--lots of history, very dense, highly skilled description, great characters, harrowing plots--Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy (available in one volume, about a police detective in Berlin during World War II) and the J. Robert Janes series about St. Cyr and Kohler (about the unlikely pairing of an inspector from the Surete--like Clouseau, come to think of it--and a Gestapo detective) are also highly recommended.

That's all for now.

P.S. There's lots of good Bond geekery in the comments to the last several Bond posts--from Bram and Marty. Maybe Raphy will chime in. He's actually read all (or most of) the Fleming books, and thus has a black belt in Bond geekery.

Posted by jwb at 10:23 AM  · 0 Comments   

Tom Cruise knows a lot of big words


From Tom Cruise--yes, that Tom Cruise--in Time magazine--yes, that Time magazine:

A story this size isn't enough for this man. It's hard to convey with brevity the extraordinary experience of knowing and working with J.J. Abrams. First of all, is there anything in a name—J.J.? Look at the Jays we have now—Jay Leno, J. Lo, Jay-Z—but he's got two Js. He was born to impinge and invade pop culture. Any person who has been exposed to his TV creations Alias or Lost has felt the rapture of his storytelling. He is a story dealer. He delivers what could be called the Lay's of yarns: you can't watch just one. I watched all of Alias' first season in two days, pushing all aside to the near destruction of my personal and business life. I had to tear myself away. They harken back to the classic cliffhangers of early cinema serials, with the bravado of my favorite pulp-fiction novels—the adventure, the characters, all of it. I just couldn't get enough. And in spite of the trepidations of many and sundry movie executives, I knew it was a no-brainer to hire him to direct the third Mission: Impossible. I couldn't wait to work with the Double J. From the very beginning, there was an insouciance that promised anything was possible. He's a creative juggernaut and someone who recognizes the joy of creating. We had great fun laying waste to the specious barriers and the each-person-does-his-own-job structure of filmmaking. J.J., who is just 39, even did three Industrial Light & Magic special-effects shots in the movie personally. He is an actor, writer, director, closet cartoonist, a composer, puppeteer, puzzlemaker, humorist, modelmaker, loving husband to his beautiful wife (can you believe this coincidence?) Katie and father of three glorious children. Gotta give it up for that J2.


Tom, Tom, Tom: You're not really helping your cause with this kind of stuff. It's hard to know what to say. It makes you sound a little crazy, like a slightly unhinged homeless guy with a thesaurus--not a good combo. Please stop now. Thank you. That is all.

Posted by jwb at 6:52 AM  · 1 Comments   

Monday, May 01, 2006

A brief cancer bleg

Via the Krusser, please take a moment--it's quick, easy, and (unlike cancer) painless--to click though to this site and then click on the "fund free mammograms" button. This organization provides funds so that poor women are able to get free mammograms. DO IT!

Posted by jwb at 7:58 AM  · 1 Comments   

Casina Royale mini-trailer


I got a little giddy watching this. It's pretty cool. (Alas, it's in French.) (Via Golden Fiddle.)

Posted by jwb at 7:34 AM  · 2 Comments