Friday, May 30, 2008

You are about to embark on a great crusade to stamp out runaway decency in the west

One of the peculiarities of Boston is that it's actually somewhat difficult to find fresh seafood around town (though it's somewhat easier than it used to be, thanks to Holy Foods, and, to a lesser degree, Roche Bros.). You'd think there would be little seafood shops in every village, between Starbucks and the local haberdasher, but you would be wrong. Sadly, James Hook, our favorite place to get fresh lobsters, burned in the early hours of the this morning. Pretty sad. We got a 20 lber from them last summer and had enough lobster rolls to feed the Red Army.

Is it possible that none of our readers saw IJATKOTCS over the weekend? Raphy, can this be true?

A package from Amazon.com arrived yesterday afternoon. Thinking I had perhaps gone too far in yesterday's post, I ripped it open. Blast--it was the new James Bond book, which I don't recall ordering. Alas, apparently it sucks. (Bram has links to a couple of reviews in yesterday's comments.)

RIP, Harvey Korman. Here's a clip from Blazing Saddles, the funniest movie ever made:

Posted by jwb at 8:18 AM  · 2 Comments   

Thursday, May 29, 2008

So, an adventure on a train?


I hope everyone--all three of you--had a pleasant Memorial Day weekend. We were in The D, for a baby shower and a wedding. The parts of the weekend that did not involve Northwest Airlines were a pleasure. We will, apparently, be needing about 30 baby blankets, though I am not entirely clear about why.

Long-time readers will know that we think that Alan Furst is the cat's meow. Furst's new novel, The Spies of Warsaw seems to be out--though those rat bastards at Amazon.com have yet to send me my copy. Janet Maslin gives it what, I think, can only be termed a rave in today's Times. There's also a nice profile of the author by David Samuels in the current Men's Vogue--my current favorite airport reading--though it does not seem to be available on the interwebs. (Bad internet!)

Did anyone catch Indy over the weekend? What say you?

Posted by jwb at 8:46 AM  · 3 Comments   

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

This place is crawling with Ninjas


I was under the impression that little girls don't like Legos, but I was very excited to learn (from Katherine and Andy) that this is a particularly pernicious stereotype. Little girls in fact really like Legos. Awesome!

If you're into that kind of thing, there's a nice postmortem in this week's New Yorker by George Packer on what happened to movement conservatism. (Short answer: George Bush.) Sounds like we should be keeping sharp objects away from Davids Brooks and Frum. (Frum, as I'm sure Marty will remind us if I don't mention it, is Canadian. By the way, Canada, we don't want him anymore. You can have him back.)

As part of my growing disaffection with movie blogs, I've stopped reading the endless stream of crap from the set of the new Bond movie. However, Raphy pointed me to this interesting piece from the Times (by John F. Burns, one of the Times' heroic correspondents from Iraq) about all the recent interest in Ian Fleming, which has culminated in an apparently very cool show of Flemingiana at the Imperial War College in London.

There's an interesting interview here with Michael Chabon about, among other things, why he got mocked by his fellow students in grad school for being into genre fiction. I'm not really sure who the bigger dork in this story is.

I'd say something about the Idol finale tonight, but, to tell you the truth, I don't really care.

Lastly, we present you with a pretty funny interview between Ron Burgundy and Tom Brokaw:

Posted by jwb at 8:08 AM  · 0 Comments   

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Baby Barry


Marty asked for an update about the new addition to our family. We actually went to the doctor yesterday for our 18 week ultrasound and checkup. It appears that we are having a girl. She seems to be fine--she's right where she should be at this point in terms of development. (Her little head has a nice round shape, no?) We are, of course, very excited. I suppose I ought to start preparing myself now for the avalanche of all things pink.

Posted by jwb at 7:00 AM  · 0 Comments   

Monday, May 19, 2008

Nice try, Lao Che


I had partially composed a post in my head last week but never got around to actually writing it. The gist of it was something like this: With all the movie-related information available on the web these days--constant updates about the cast, crew, and, sometimes, the plot; photos from the set; advance commentary of (how shall we put this?) uneven quality--much of the fun and surprise has oozed out of the process of going to the movies. (If you are not a reader of movie blogs, check out Cinematical and I think you'll see what I mean.) Case in point: How many of you were really, genuinely surprised that Speed Racer sucks as bad as it does? We saw that one coming from a mile off, no? In the case of an abomination like Speed Racer, I'm sure most of us are glad to save the ten bucks. However, I'm a little worried that all this information (of, again, uneven quality) will end up causing many people to decide whether a movie is worth seeing or not before it even hits the theaters and not really give it a chance.

Anyway, I was beginning to think that something like this was happening with IJATKOTCS. There has been tons of stuff floating about on the web for months now, much of it pretty negative. I was therefore somewhat surprised, and excited, to hear that the audience at Cannes gave it a standing ovation when it was over. (Magnolia Darkness says that the applause over the opening credits was much louder, but that's about what I would expect from her.) Now that some of the details have floated out, the verdict seems much more mixed. But I should say that I am much more optimistic that it will be a satisfying experience than I was a few days ago.

In preparation for IJATKOTCS, yesterday afternoon we watched (for the umpteenth time) Temple of Doom (TOD) and Last Crusade. I do not think this is a particularly controversial idea, but TOD is easily--it's not even close--the worst of the movies. It does not have any--as in none--of the features that I think are fundamental to a successful Indiana Jones movie: a slightly cartoonish image of mid-century academia (tweed suit, gothic, ivy-covered buildings, cute co-eds in cardigans, etc.); Nazis (if memory serves, there wasn't a single--as in not one--Nazi in TOD), a little--but not too much--slapstick (there was entirely too much slapstick in TOD), and a slightly plausible historical mystery at the center of the plot (Raiders? Check. Last Crusade? Check. TOD? Not so much.). (That's all I could come up with of the top of my head. Have I missed anything?) Also, I'd be remiss in not mentioning that Last Crusade is a really entertaining movie, much better than I remembered--and manages to include all of the essential elements.

Now back to IJATKOTCS. I don't care whether the kids like it or whether it makes a lot of money at the box office. I'll be contented if the story is remotely interesting and makes at least a passing nod toward all four of the above elements. That is, I think, not too much to ask for.

BTW, did you see that show on the SciFi Channel last night about the crystal skulls? Wow! Those people are batshit insane. Really, genuinely, should-be-in-a-straightjacket crazy.

Posted by jwb at 8:00 AM  · 1 Comments   

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

We need pens

So I was in the barber shop yesterday waiting to get my hair chopped off and I picked up the most recent issue of Maxim--for the articles, I swear--and there was a nice little piece about Death Cab for Cutie, who have an album coming out any second now. Ben Gibbard makes the point in the article that people have been generally surprised by the difference between their albums (which are sort of twee, in a good way) and their live shows (which rock). This point was confirmed for me over the weekend. We saw Death Cab on Saturday night at the Bank of America Pavilion (the BAP, to its friends). Aside from the frostbite incurred, it was a generally awesome experience. I can now attest that Death Cab does indeed rock. I am also reminded that--in lieu of giving Andy some shit about this semi-backhanded compliment--I ought to recommend that he go see them when they get to Berkeley on June 21. (Alas, no San Fran dates.) Sadly, I missed Bob Mould, who played before we arrived--though perhaps I will watch his DVD (of a live show at the 9:30 Club in DC, from 2007), which Jenn gave me for Christmas.

So what do you think is going to happen tonight on Idol? My guess would be that Syesha goes home, though, if by some miracle David Archuleta somehow goes, I'll pledge to give up golf for the rest of the war. (If President Bush can sacrifice, so can I.) An hour and a half after the show ended, Jenn tried calling in for David Cook and still could not get through.

I don't have much to say about Top Chef. The episode itself was pretty exciting. It was no surprise that Nikki went. She was just a disaster. Like Susan, I suspect that Lisa will go soon, though, of course, she was the least damaged by being on the losing team. (Her cake looked like Fort Knox, but apparently it was delicious.) Dale, on the other hand, is more hated than ever.

Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm--alas, out of print--is one of the more brilliant books of political history I've read in quite a while. It's a story about the origins of movement conservatism told from the vantage point of the 1964 election--whence Barry Goldwater got his clock cleaned by Lyndon Johnson. (If the previous sentence has made Perlstein's book sound boring, I assure you that it is the opposite of boring.) If you can find a copy in a used book store, I highly recommend it. Anyway, Perlstein's follow-up, Nixonland, is now out and I've been hearing the term "masterpiece" in reference to it a lot. So who does the allegedly liberal New York Times assign it to? George Fucking Will. Of course, Will didn't really like it because Perlstein says some things about movement conservatism that are true but that make Will uncomfortable. If you want to make Will even more uncomfortable, go buy a copy of Nixonland.

Finally, Barack Obama is not a Muslim. Glad I could clear that up. Move along now.

Posted by jwb at 9:00 AM  · 1 Comments   

Friday, May 02, 2008

I can't talk now, I have to get my wallet out of the toaster.

This will be a Reality TV only entry. If you do not watch reality TV, I apologize. Perhaps we will have something more to your liking next time.

First, lets talk about Idol for a moment. Our boycott has ended. (Jenn wanted to watch it and I was too lazy to get up and go do something else.) Regarding Paula-gate, now lets be honest: we've known that Paula is batshit insane for a while, right? Also, if we're to go by what we witnessed on the show, it was essentially Ryan's fault, no? He changed the rules midway through. (At the beginning of the show, he made a big deal about how they were only going to get criticism after they sang twice. Then, midway through, he asks for commentary about the first song.) In any case, this mini-scandal helps merely to distract us from the grim reality that the remaining contestants are a pretty tepid bunch.

Now lets talk about Top Chef for a moment. It seems to me that it was only a matter of time before Mark went. It is hard to think of a single challenge in which his food won praise from anyone--judges, kids, partygoers, William "The Refrigerator" Perry (who, according to Nick, lives in a van down by the river), etc.

The story of the week, of course, was Antonia kicking ass/taking names in both challenges.

I predicted last time that Stephanie would be in the final four, but it has since become clear that she better get her act together. Peanut butter and tomato? Yuck! Also, it's nearly impossible to overcook couscous.

Susan (in comments) made a bunch of good points. Short of divine intervention, it seems clear that Lisa will be leaving soon. Susan agreed with me about Nikki's consistent mediocrity, though I'll note that she finished in the top 3 this week. I still think that when the really talented people have the time to show their stuff, Nikki can't keep up. Susan also points out that Padma seems to have gained a few pounds since last season. Too much amuse bouche?

Posted by jwb at 7:16 AM  · 0 Comments