Monthly Archives: July 2007

Jul232007

Expelliarmus!

Even Vader needs to know who dies!

I think I must be the last person in the Northern Hemisphere to jump on the Harry Potter bandwagon. (Or should I say the Hogwart’s Express? Nah, that would be way too clever and precious, and may even induce vomiting in some of my more sensitive readers…) I simply haven’t had much interest in reading children’s books, nor have I been able to quite fathom all the grown-ups I’ve seen on the train who seem utterly engrossed by them.

However, I’m a sucker for a good pop-cultural groundswell, and with the final book and fifth movie in the series debuting in the last few days, and the constant buzz of excitement coming from practically everybody I meet, well, I’ve finally given in. I started reading the series for the first time a few weeks back (I just began Book 5 today), and yes, I did attend one of the midnight release events on Friday. I’ll be writing more about my experiences with Harry soon.

In the meantime, I was really amused to see that not even Sith Lords are immune from hype. No matter what one may think of J.K. Rowling’s writing style or the stories themselves — Harold Bloom, I’m thinking of you, you sour-pussed old killjoy snob — you cannot deny that this weekend was a remarkable, watershed event. Millions of copies of the same book were distributed all around the world in a single weekend, a good percentage of them in a single night, and a significant number of those books were read cover-to-cover before Monday morning. That’s almost unbelievable. Has there ever been any other mass entertainment that has come so close to being a ubiquitous experience, i.e., something that everyone was doing? Maybe the mini-series Roots back in the ’70s, or the initial surge of Star Wars‘s popularity (although both of those played out across longer timeframes than this single, three-day orgy of reading…), but I’m not sure even those things were so big. It’s truly mind-boggling, and I doubt it will ever be repeated.

(Credit where it’s due: the photo came from here — I also like the one of Vader in the shower — and there’s an explanation of that photo set here.)

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Jul232007

The Latest Book Meme

Scalzi is feeling testy today, as you can see in this book meme he’s cooked up:

1. Open the book you’re currently reading to page 133.
2. Read the fourth line on the page.
3. Put the book back where it had been resting.
4. Tell no one of what it was you just did.
5. Think of five friends to tag with this meme.
6. Do not actually tag them. They are busy and have lives.
7. Go about your life as if nothing has happened.
8. Carry the secret of this meme to your grave.

So did I perform this particular meme? No one will ever know…

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Jul212007

What’s in Your Faucet?

Well, here’s a small feather in my home town’s cap: a pair of wine tasters have declared that Salt Lake’s tap water tastes best out of the 12 cities whose water they tested for a recent segment on The Today Show. The other cities they considered include Portland (Oregon, I assume, since this list seems to work its way east), San Francisco, Dallas, St. Louis, Phoenix, Chicago, Cleveland, Memphis, Boston, Miami and Columbia, South Carolina.

While I’m not about to dispute any positive press that comes this way — we Utahns have to put up with a whole lot of jokes and snide remarks about our fair state and our, ahem, unique local culture — I would like to know specifically where in the Salt Lake area the sample came from. It certainly wasn’t from my neighborhood, where the water is so hard that you can watch the mineral deposits swirl in a freshly drawn glass. Mmmmm, tasty! And chewy!

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Jul182007

Something That Bugs Me: “Loose” vs. “Lose”

Here’s another of those trivial things that no one else seems to mind, but which drive me certifiably bats: people writing the word “loose” when they really mean “lose.”

I don’t know if this is just a Utah thing, or if people from other parts of the country do it, too, but it certainly seems to be endemic in these parts. I see it all over the place: in comments on the Salt Lake Tribune‘s web site (which is actually what inspired this post today), in e-mails from friends (no offense, kids), and in letters and diaries written years ago by dead relatives. I could understand it if folks were simply spelling the word the way it sounded when spoken, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Utahns pronounce “lose” with the proper “z” sound (i.e., “looz” ) in conversation, but when they write it down, they frequently use “loose” (i.e., “looce”), and I gotta tell you, as somebody who spends all day correcting written mistakes for a living, it’s maddening.

So, let’s have a little remedial lesson, shall we? “Lose” is a verb, as in “to lose,” as in “I hope the Utah Jazz don’t lose the big game.” (Don’t worry, they probably will.) “Loose,” on the other hand, is an adjective, a descriptor of something else, as in “That screw is loose,” or “She’s a loose woman.” Now, what’s so tough about that?

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Jul172007

Panhandler Tactic of the Week

Walking down Main this afternoon during my lunchtime constitutional, I was accosted by the usual crew of vagabonds hoping for a hand-out: the crazy, filthy guy who wears insulated ski pants year-round, regardless of the temperature (which is in the high 90s today; needless to say, it isn’t always your sense of sight that first detects Ski-Pants Dude); the pair of young buskers who manage to play their violins well enough to avoid giving passers-by the nails-on-chalkboard squirmies; and the overweight, greasy-haired woman who’s been claiming to be homeless and pregnant for about 18 months now.
But I also saw a new face along “panhandler’s row,” a youngish guy with no shirt, probably about college age, who looked fairly clean aside from a goatee that more closely resembled a shubbery than an actual beard. He sat on one of the large, decorative planters that line the street in this area, totally at ease in the shade of the tree overhead. Like so many others, he held a scrap of cardboard with an entreaty for cash scribbled on it in Magic Marker. But this guy, unlike so many others, went for humor instead of pathos. His sign read:

Running 4 Mayor. Campaign contributions welcome.

I had no change to give him, but I made eye contact and said, “That’s a good sign, at least.” He smiled back and nodded, like he was letting me in on some kind of secret…

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Jul162007

Profile of Melvin

If you, like me, are interested in the strange, sad tale of Melvin Dummar, Howard Hughes, and the so-called “Mormon Will,” check out this profile of Melvin in today’s Salt Lake Tribune. I think it provides a reasonably balanced overview of Melvin’s life and his claims about meeting Hughes, neither supporting nor denouncing him but simply presenting the evidence — which, at this point in time, is mostly hearsay — for both points of view. As I’ve said before, I personally think he’s on the level about giving Hughes a ride, and I also think it’s plausible that the Mormon Will was the real thing. That said, I highly doubt he’s going to see any of the money he’s now trying to so desperately to sue out of Howard’s surviving heirs. Even though Melvin’s experience with Howard sounds like something out of a movie, in real life the little guys almost never win the fight and earn their reward in the end. The odds are too much against them. But I do love them for trying…

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Jul152007

Cross-Blogination

Just finishing up a little business here with a couple of fellow bloggers.

First of all, it looks like Brian Greenberg actually took me up on my challenge to do the Meme of Five; his answers are here, and they are both revealing and amusing… A navy blue tuxedo with light blue ruffles indeed!

I’d also like to note that Brian wrote a few words about that fire at Este Pizza, and he pledged to send a little cash to Dave Heiblim, Este’s owner. I’m sure Dave much appreciates your help, Brian, and I’d like to say thanks myself. That’s a damn decent thing for you to do for someone you’ve never met and who lives three-quarters of a continent away.

Moving right along, Jaquandor recently did an interesting meme in which somebody emailed him five interview questions tailored specifically to him. Jaquador then offered to return the favor to anyone who was interested. I, of course, said sure, shoot me five. Just one thing, though: I think he actually had some other Jason in mind when he formulated his questions for me. Still, I’m always game to give these things a try. My efforts to respond to some oddly inappropriate questions follow the break:

Continue Reading…

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Jul132007

Jones and Son

Here’s something I’ve been meaning to put up for a few days, another snapshot from the set of Indiana Jones IV:

Dr. Jones and son.

I like this shot a lot. I think Indy looks much more “old mannish” here than he did in the one of him in his “work clothes” — in fact, I think his suit looks a lot like the one that Connery wore as Henry, Sr., in Last Crusade, perhaps deliberately so — but there’s a great period feel here, and it’s a neat bike. I still haven’t heard any confirmation that Shia LaBeouf is playing Indy’s son, but I see a look of both Harrison Ford and Karen Allen in his features, so I feel comfortable in assuming that’s who he’s supposed to be. I suppose it could be a case that Indy thinks this might be his son, only to learn otherwise at the end, but I have a feeling we’re looking at a Kirk-and-David-Marcus scenario here. And the rumor that John Hurt is playing Abner Ravenwood — Marion’s father, and possibly-Indy-Jr.’s-grandfather — only adds to my suspicions. We’ll see, I suppose. I hate to admit it because I was so opposed the idea of doing another Indy flick, but I’m really starting to get enthused about this…

Click the picture for the big view. More photos from the location shooting in New Haven, CT, can be found here and here.

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Jul132007

On a Happier Note…

…there’s a giant rubber duckie floating around the Loire Estuary in France:

I will admit that many modern art installations leave me utterly baffled and sometimes even offended at their inscrutability, but this thing is just… charming. And maybe that’s the best thing art can do sometimes, to simply bring a smile to one’s face. Especially at times when everything else in the world seems to be teetering on the edge of Eternal Suckiness.

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Jul132007

Dickheads for Christ

Jesus says

Sorry about the offensive title, but I myself find the behavior that provoked it about a thousand times more offensive than that common vulgarism. If you haven’t heard, a trio of Christian whack-jobs disrupted the opening prayer on the floor of the Senate yesterday because they thought having it delivered by a Hindu — a historical first, by the way — was an “abomination.” Now, leaving aside any personal beliefs or questions of theology or “truth,” this sort of thing is quite simply rude; shouting down a soft-spoken man who’s just trying to say a few nice words that he was invited to say is a rotten thing to do, and no amount of bone-headed posturing about “gross idolatry” can excuse that. If you watch the video of the incident, the poor Hindu guy looks absolutely mortified, not to mention a little bit scared. These moronic fundamentalist protesters — who strike me as the moral and would-be practical equivalent of the dreaded Taliban — are entitled to their opinions and beliefs, of course, but their actions are totally unacceptable under those circumstances, little different than walking up to some guy who’s minding his own business and poking him in the eye. Their actions are also, in my book, bigoted and un-American.

Continue Reading…

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