Month: July 2010

Wednesday various

  • I know Terry Gilliam’s been having trouble getting films made, but has it come to this: he’s directing webcasts?

    But I kid. It looks like an interesting if unusual idea for a concert series, pairing directors and bands, and I might just check next Thursday’s webcast out if I have a chance.

  • E-books article drinking game. [via]
  • It’s actually been months since I’ve played Plants vs. Zombies, but I thought this was interesting: Michael Jackson Estate Forces ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ Update. Yeah, I can see how an undead Jackson might not sit so well with them. [via]
  • Speaking of zombies, Night of the Living Wonks [via]

    Looking at the state of international relations theory, one quickly realizes the absence of consensus about the best way to think about global politics. There are multiple paradigms that attempt to explain international relations, and each has a different take on how political actors can be expected to respond to the living dead.

  • And finally, baby moose in a sprinkler. Honestly, too cute for words. [via]

That was my Tuesday

I spent a good part of the day working on these Word documents that…oh man, I just had to walk away from my computer on more than one occasion, I was getting genuinely angry that I was liable to break something. The material in the documents itself is fine, but it’s so confusingly ordered, both redundant and missing information, with elements mislabeled or labeled the same as other elements, that it’s tough just trying to figure out where to begin with my questions. I’m also trying to be vague here, because I’m not at all trying to badmouth the author (or the author’s grad student), but… There was a section where I suddenly seemed to be missing pages, despite the numbering still being consistent, and it turned out that a block of about fifteen pages from later in the document had been duplicated and tossed backwards in the middle of the earlier section.

But anyway, I digress.

I neglected yesterday to mention yesterday that our dog, Tucker, seems to be doing fine, and his trip to the vet didn’t raise any new concerns. He has a cut on his paw, which is probably why he’s been limping, and the limp itself has all but passed. He’s still got his allergies and chronic ear infections, but he’s on new antibiotics, and he hasn’t thrown up recently, which is always good. And he seems in no less good spirits than usual.

And that was my…Tuesday, right?

Tuesday various

  • “Scientists scouring the area around Stonehenge said Thursday they have uncovered a circular structure only a few hundred meters (yards) from the world famous monument.”

    Is it wrong that my first thought was to wonder if it was the Pandorica? [via]

  • Oh, good, because the one thing Torchwood hasn’t been is dark.

    But I kid. A warning, by the way: that link contains a pretty huge spoiler for (the pretty terrific) Children of Earth.

  • Tasha Robinson wonders: Should artists’ lives or opinions affect how people perceive their art?
  • Along somewhat similar lines — that is, of appreciating art on a level perhaps different than what the artist intended — separating the poem from the novel in Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Spoiler warnings here, too, I guess. Mostly, it just makes me want to re-read Nabokov’s book.
  • And finally, Inside the City’s Last Silent Place

    “I wish there were more drama,” said Alexander Rose, “but it’s convivial and collegiate. There’s no Norman Mailer trying to kill his wife in here. No tension, no melodrama.” Mr. Rose, author of American Rifle: A Biography, was taking a break from his work to tell the Transom about the Allen Room, a hush-hush space on the second floor of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (formerly the New York Public Library “main branch”) on Fifth Avenue. Founded in 1958 as a tribute to Frederick Lewis Allen, the historian and editor of Harper’s Magazine, the room serves as a workspace to a rotating group of authors. Rubberneckers take note: The door is locked at all times, and access is restricted to those who have book contracts, a photocopy of which must accompany requests for a key card. “It’s like Aladdin’s cave,” Mr. Rose said of the room, which he heard about through the literary grapevine. “I looked it up, and it actually did exist.”

    I work just a block from the Library. Now I guess I just need to write a book. [via]