Monthly Archives: January 2006

Jan272006

Some Friday Reading

By the time my three loyal readers see this entry, The Girlfriend and I should be well on our way to West Yellowstone, Montana, where a quick weekend adventure awaits. It’s a long story, but basically, she had some business dealings with a place up there that offered to give her and a guest (that would be me) complimentary lodgings and a snowmobile tour of the park. Neither of us are exactly what you’d call outdoorsy types, but the lure of a virtually free weekend away from the wintertime smog of Salt Lake was too tempting to resist. We said yes about a month ago, we bought ourselves some long underwear a couple weeks ago, and by tomorrow we’ll be looking for moose in America’s first National Park.

However, I didn’t want to leave all you folks in InternetLand with nothing to look at on the dull final Friday of January, so in the spirit of last week’s post — that is, in an effort to clean out one of my bookmark folders — here are a few links you may find interesting. I know I did…

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Jan252006

My Stripping Song

If the proofreading gig doesn’t pan out, I’m thinking I can always fall back on the Full Monty scenario…


Your Stipper Song Is


Closer by Nine Inch Nails“You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you
You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you
Help me I broke apart my insides, help me I’ve got no
Soul to tell”

When you dance, it’s a little scary – and a lot sexy.

 

Curiously, I took the test twice, entering the same answers both times, but got two different results. The first time, my song was “Dirrrty” by Cristina Aguillera. I’ve never heard either of these tunes that I can remember. I’m so unhip…

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Jan242006

The Future of the Movie Usher

Lileks on modern movie-going:

I haven’t stood in line for a ticket in a long time – I get them from the kiosk in the lobby well in advance, because I hate lines of any sort. On the other hand, it moves us towards the depopulation of the theater staff; I still remember ticket booths, not counters – some poor soul locked in a capsule under the marquee, doling out tickets from a great spool. Then there’s the fellow who rips the ticket in half – not exactly a demanding job, but it always seemed to have authority. Only I can rip the ticket. Should you rip the ticket, it is useless. By destroying it, I fulfill its value. Hail me, for I am the Head Usher. These will be anachronisms soon enough, and one more human interaction, heretofore ubiquitous, will replaced with a beep and a green light.

 

Wow: from techno-glee to rueful nostalgic regret in one paragraph. That’s a record.

As a former movie-theater usher, and one who isn’t ashamed to admit that I quite enjoyed the job, I have to give props to ol’ Jimmy. He perfectly captures the banal self-importance of those who control public access to the cinematic inner sanctum. He also paints, for me, a grim view of a very-near future in which movie-goers shuffle efficiently and mirthlessly past automated ticketing kiosks and snack-dispensing cubicles and barcode-scanning gateways. Hell, that future is already here in some places. Personal anecdote: a few months back, I happened to be in Los Angeles, where I went to see a movie at a place called The Grove It’s a beautiful theater in many respects, but one which is suspiciously lacking in the human touch. I bought my tickets from an ATM-style dispenser, and then I ordered my concessions with a touch-screen panel and paid by swiping my debit card. When my number was called, a concessionaire handed me a sack of corn and an empty cup, which I filled myself at a self-service soda fountain. It was all very quick and efficient, no doubt a boon for the place’s managers, who only have to schedule a minimal staff and who don’t have to deal with queues of impatient people. But it just felt… cold. A little too much like something out of THX-1138.

I happen to like the personal interaction with other organic beings when I’m out in the world. And I worry about the kids of the future; I wonder what they’ll do for their first jobs if all those minimum-wage customer service positions we old-timers used to fill get automated. (I also wonder where today’s kids are going to go drink beer and make out when the time comes for them, because all the fields and canyons I used for those purposes now have houses sitting on them. But kids are clever, and I suppose they’ll find their own ways.)

We’ve got some degree of automation at the theaters around here, but I myself rarely use those automated ticket kiosks. Nope, not me. I’d rather have a couple seconds of face-time with the pretty teenaged girl at the counter. Call me crazy…

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Jan232006

Favorite TV Theme Songs

According to TV comedy writer Ken Levine, there is a meme going around that asks folks to name their ten favorite TV theme songs. Like Levine, who spins this meme into a fairly long rant about the demise of theme songs, I also miss the days when your favorite series was preceded by a memorable tune to help set the mood for whatever was to follow. The best theme songs always captured the tone of the show they represented and helped to hype you up and get you ready for your night’s viewing, whether it was a comedy, a cop show, or a family drama. When a good theme song was combined with a well-designed visual sequence, they could be as entertaining as the show itself. I can think of a number of theme songs that are so inextricably linked in my mind with their accompanying visual images that I can’t hear the music without imagining the picture, too — for instance, the staccato opening of Miami Vice immediately conjures flamingoes and rushing water, and the bombastic first notes of Magnum‘s theme is always accompanied in my head by TC’s little chopper dropping toward the surf in a vertiginous dive. And, as those two examples indicate, a good TV theme often turned up on the radio, too.

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Jan202006

Friday Linkage

Don’t mind me, kids — I’m just clearing out a folder marked “Weird/Amusing/Interesting Stuff I’d Like to Blog About But Probably Won’t Get Around To.” Perhaps you’ll find something here that will strike enough of your fancy to warrant a click-through:

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Jan192006

Gerrold on Takei, and Other Related Matters

I’ve run across something that I think makes for an interesting addendum to the Brokeback Mountain controversy, namely some comments from the author David Gerrold about last fall’s revelation that Star Trek‘s George Takei is gay.
Gerrold, in case the name doesn’t ring a bell, is an accomplished science-fiction author and television screenwriter with a number of novels to his name. Despite his lengthy career, however, he’s most likely always going to be known as the man who wrote “The Trouble with Tribbles,” the one episode of the original Star Trek series that non-Trekkies most frequently seem to be familiar with. Given the “Tribbles” connection, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that he’s been friends with Mr. Takei — and fully aware of George’s sexuality — for years. He also has strong feelings on the question of how visible homosexuals ought to be in our society (which is really what Larry Miller’s decision on Brokeback — as well as a certain political fight heating up in Utah’s legislature — is all about, the visibility of gay people and their relationships). Here’s Gerrold:

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Jan192006

I Need Crampons!

It snowed several inches last night and, as of commute time this morning, there was still a lot of slush on the roads and sidewalks. This, in turn, helped me to learn a Valuable Lesson: Doc Marten boots suck on slushy surfaces. At least my own personal pair does. Seriously, I don’t think I could’ve had any less traction if I’d been wearing glass slippers that had been slathered in bacon grease. (Don’t think too hard about that image; you might strain something. God knows I did while walking from my car to the train station.)

Anyone know where I can get some of those cleat-thingies the ice-climbers use?

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Jan182006

A Little Hollywood Rambling

So, I’ve just discovered that Leonard Maltin has a Web site. (Of course he does, everyone has a Web site these days. Andy Warhol was wrong about the fifteen-minutes-of-fame thing; he should’ve said,”in the future, everyone will have a Web site.”) I’m not terribly confident in Maltin’s powers as a film critic — he strikes me as a bit too much of an enthusiast to be really objective, and a bit too nice a guy to be really harsh in his judgments when necessary — but he definitely knows his stuff when it comes to film history and the workings of the business, and I enjoy his frequent contributions to DVDs of classic movies and animation. I haven’t had the time to really explore his site yet, but I did spot an interesting comment right on the front page, which I’d like to share:

[2005 has] been an eventful year for Hollywood, to put it mildly. Audiences stayed away from some of the most vaunted would-be summer blockbusters, then seemed to get into the habit of staying away even when better movies came along this fall. Top studio executives have admitted that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

 

How do you get people back into the habit of moviegoing when you’ve let them down again and again… when you charge an exorbitant ticket price in spite of the fact that people can see the same movie three or four months later for a fraction of that fee for a DVD rental or a video-on-demand download?

 

More importantly, how do you convince a younger generation that movies aren’t always about escape from reality… that you can have a memorable, meaningful experience watching a film that’s challenging or provocative?

 

I don’t pretend to have foolproof answers to these rhetorical questions. All I know is this: until Hollywood learns to respect its audience instead of insulting or pandering to it, the situation isn’t likely to change.

 

I know this, too: there’s an old saying, “There’s nothing wrong with the business that good movies can’t cure.” Technology and cultural shifts may have eroded some of the certainty in that maxim, but it’s still a good place to start.

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