beatles

Monday various

  • I think John Scalzi has it right about this health care bill that passed in the House yesterday:

    As such there was no real political or moral philosophy to the GOP’s action, it was all short-term tactics, i.e., take an idea a majority of people like (health care reform), lie about its particulars long enough and in a dramatic enough fashion to lower the popularity of the idea, and then bellow in angry tones about how the president and the Democrats are ignoring the will of the people. Then publicly align the party with the loudest and most ignorant segment of your supporters, who are in part loud because you’ve encouraged them to scream, and ignorant because you and your allies in the media have been feeding them bad information. Whip it all up until health care becomes the single most important issue for both political parties — an all-in, must win, absolutely cannot lose issue.

  • Meanwhile, Poppy Z. Brite has some harsh things to say about David Simon’s new HBO show Treme. The title of her post should tell you exactly how she feels about their filming in her hometown of New Orleans. It raises some interesting questions — namely, are some wounds too raw to be fictionalized, much less re-enacted for television in the same place? And what, if anything, is Treme‘s responsibility to the neighborhoods in which it films? Is it meeting that responsibility, just by bringing jobs and revenue to the city? (After all, you can’t please everyone, no more how sensitive your approach.) Can Simon, as an outsider to the city, even hope to do the tragedy that was Katrina justice? Frankly, you couldn’t stop me from watching this show, and I think if it’s handled with even half the depth and honesty as The Wire, it could terrific and emotional television.

  • Paul Di Filippo has the line-up for the ultimate Beatles-reunion band. This is either a terrfic or terrible idea, I’m not sure which.

  • Oh great, a book of inspirational quotes from Sarah Palin. I can’t fucking wait. [via]

  • And finally, I’ve mostly avoided all these Chatroulette videos (and the site itself), but Ben Folds’ live-show use of it was surprisingly awesome [via]:

Tuesday various

  • So Yoko Ono only okayed the Citroën car commercial to keep Lennon in the public conciousness? That’s good, because before this, I’m sure many people were thinking, “John Lennon? Who’s that?”
  • Another from the fine line between irony and hypocrisy department: Sarah Palin Crossed Border for Canadian Health Care. Why does she hate America? [via]
  • Having just recently rented or purchased some DVDs and Blu-Ray discs where this is a particular problem, I can totally get behind John Scalzi on this:

    …if someone were to introduce legislation requiring home entertainment companies to have a “just play the damn movie” button at the start of every DVD, Blu-Ray or any other future movie-playing technology, I would call my Senators and representative every fifteen minutes until they voted “yes” on that bill.

  • Charlie Stross on how books are made. [via]
  • And finally, A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever [via]

Tuesday various

  • Plagiarism Software Finds a New Shakespeare Play. Well, maybe. Unless we can dig up Zombie Shakespeare, I think it’s still just conjecture. [via]
  • Speaking of zombies, however, I’m not so sure I agree with The Guardian‘s contention that:

    No zombie is ever going to be a pinup on some young girl’s wall. Just as Pattinson and all the Darcy-alikes will never find space on any teenage boy’s bedroom walls – every inch will be plastered with revolting posters of zombies. There are no levels of Freudian undertone to zombies. Like boys, they’re not subtle. There’s nothing sexual about them, and nothing sexy either. It’s all about splatter and gore and entrails and our own fear and fascination with just how messy and vile and extraordinary our bodies are.

    Which seems to be making all sorts of gender-based assumptions on some pretty shaky and limited evidence. I’d also suggest that the so-called subtlety of broody vampires like Edward Cullen is actually a pretty thin veneer over a shallow pond. [via]

  • Dr. Scott’s Case Studies of Comic Book Medicine. More here. [via]

  • Two new ways of looking at things: the US highway system as a subway map [via] and the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” as a flowchart.

  • And finally, speaking of the Beatles, what if the band never broke up? [via]

Friday Night Video

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the new Beatles: Rock Band game. I don’t own any gaming platforms myself (aside from my computer), so I haven’t played it, but I still think its original trailer is simply stunning:

Irene Gallo describes it as “crass commercialism wrapped up in awesomeness,” and I don’t think that’s wrong.

I’m Happy Just to Tweet with You

So, a few months back, I spent an unhealthy number of hours coming up with fake Beatles facts on my Twitter account. It seemed like a fun idea at the time. Then this morning, I noticed that Bill Corbett was now doing it, too, this time using the more sensible — albeit longer — hashtag “fakebeatlesfacts.” And so I had to get back on that horse. Here are the “facts” I came up with:

Sgt. Pepper was tragically killed in a training exercise in Vietnam, later portrayed in the film Full Metal Jacket.

Lennon and McCartney wrote “I’ve Got a Feeling” when both of them, ironically, were suffering from Bell’s palsy.

Jai guru deva om is actually Sanskrit for “Klaatu barada nikto.”

Their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in ’64 led to Ringo’s scandalous on-again off-again romance with Topo Gigio.

The title of “Fifth Beatle” truly belongs to Ringo 2.0, successfully cloned from a skin cell in 1963.

The group was nicknamed the Fab Four after cosmic radiation transformed them into crime-fighting superheroes.

However, only Ringo was asked to join the Avengers, leading to animosity and Paul’s notorious fisticuffs with Thor.

Renewed interest in Julia Child has revealed her “glass onion” recipe, and that she introduced the Beatles to pot.

Originally titled “Revolution 9 from Outer Space,” the song was shortened when Paul was replaced by Ringo’s chiropractor.

Although the Beatles did not play at Woodstock, John Lennon sat in briefly, under his well known pseudonym Joan Baez.

The Maharishi Yogi soon tired of Ringo’s constant “pic-a-nic basket” jokes.

McCartney conducted extensive research for “The Long and Winding Road,” most of which would later be adopted by MapQuest.

Martha My Dear was written in tribute to Martha Reeves, with whom Ringo had toured with as one of the Vandellas.

Their stay in Hamburg was spent touring the city with a young David Hasselhoff, who even then was big in Germany.

Incidentally, I’m never sure if this makes Twitter seem more or less appealing to the uninitiated, to know that people — well, okay, people like me — use it much more for silliness like this than for telling others what we had for lunch. (A beet salad from ‘wichcraft — and you read it here first!)

I never quite know how to defend Twitter except to say — all those complaints raised about it? All that confusion about who could ever find a use for a such a thing? That used to be me, until I saw the day-to-day reality of how it’s used. Now, I just think Noel Murray sums it up pretty well:

This is a common critique of Twitter: “I don’t need to know what a bunch of strangers had for lunch.” And yet that’s so far removed from the way I use the service that I’m unsure where to begin refuting it. Personally, I only follow a small group of people on Twitter, and I have a limited circle of friends of Facebook. Most of these are people I know—or at least know of. We’re talking to each other about things we’re presumably all interested in; we’re sharing quick thoughts on movies, TV, kids, and the petty annoyances and subtle joys of a passing day. The other day one of my Twitter-followers—someone I don’t follow, I hasten to note—complained that he didn’t like me having a six-or-seven-Tweet exchange with a friend and thereby “cluttering up his feed.” And all I could think was, “Dude, following me is not compulsory.” I think that’s what critics of Twitter often fail to understand. Though some may use Twitter and Facebook as one big “look at me,” the majority are just trying to stay connected with friends, old and new.

As always, you can follow me — with or without a Twitter account of your own — here.