Wednesday, April 25, 2007

I will repeatedly kick and punch your henchmen


Sorry for the lack of ... what do you call it?... Oh, yeah ... blogging in this space of late. Been busy and all that.

1. Twas an interesting essay from the Sunday Times mag about Amises pere et fils. I read Martin's memoir a few years ago, so there wasn't much new here to me, but it's an amusing read all the same. Martin comes off pretty well. By just about any standard, he had a pretty horrible childhood (with Kingsley always hammered and sleeping around) and it's astonishing that he not only didn't hate his father but in fact they got on pretty well (despite that fact, pointed out by Ian McEwan, that Kingsley thought Martin's books were crap.) In any case, the new Zachary Leader bio of Kingsley sounds like it might be worth adding to my already rather tall pile of reading.

2. Speaking of things to read, here's a list of the best 100 books of the last 25 years, according to bunch of British bookstore employees. I went through it about a week ago and counted 11 that I've read. Considering some of the crap on the list (DaVinci Code? Mitch Albom?), I don't feel very upset about this.

3. On the list but new to me until a few weeks ago was Glen David Gold's "Carter Beats the Devil", recommended here in a comment (to one of my posts about magic movies) by Monica. I finished it in the wee hours a few nights ago and it's really an amazingly good book. I read somewhere that Tom Cruise and his producing partners own the film rights--which I think is probably not a good sign, but who knows.

4. The trailer is out for the new Bourne movie. I love these movies. However, this is spot on: "I, Jason Bourne, will repeatedly kick and punch your henchmen. Then, as I've been known to in previous Bourne outings, I will give you a mocking phone call when I'm right outside your headquarters. You will respond with shock and dismay. If you do not, I will continue to call until you do."

5. Find our mob nickname here. Mine, embarrassingly, is "Cedar Teath." If I was a character on the Sopranos, I would have been killed after about 12 seconds.

6. Buzzy was six months old a few weeks ago. He's now a strapping 52 lbs., though still very cute and puppyish.

Posted by jwb at 10:23 AM  · 5 Comments   

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Squirrel--the thinking man's chicken?

1. So Keith Richards snorted his father. Though he has since recanted, I actually think he really did it.

2. Given my academic interests, I'm always delighted to find cases in which the government actually expresses interest in what normal people think. Alas, in this case it involves Star Wars postage stamps. You take what you can get, I guess. That said, I'm a little underwhelmed with the choices and will probably vote for Vader, though having Natalie Portman on a postage stamp would be kind of cool.

3. So, a coyote walks into a Quiznos ....

4. I'm a fairly adventurous eater, but this guy is fucked up. Brooklyn squirrel pot pie, no thanks. The Cod has more on how unhinged this guy really is.

5. Finally, anyone out there seen Babel? I intend to opine about it at length at some point, by am wondering if anyone else found it worth a damn.

UPDATE: This is kind of a bummer. Bob Clark, RIP. Most famous for directing the endlessly hilarious "A Christmas Story," as well as the T&A classics Porky's and Porky's II (and a bunch of aesthetic atrocities such as Turk 182), he was riding with his son in a car this morning in LA and both were killed by a drunk driver. Truly horrifying!

Posted by jwb at 1:10 PM  · 5 Comments