- On WNYC, the Leonard Lopate Show has recently started posting picks and suggestions from any given week’s guests, asking them questions about what books they’re reading, what music they’re listening to, etc. They also ask, “What’s one thing you’re a fan of that people might not expect?” Teller, the silent half of Penn and Teller, answered, “Novel forms of pancakes and waffles.” I love that I have almost no idea what he means.
- All this time, I had been avoiding the Huffington Post mostly just because it’s a time-sink. Like io9, Metafilter, or Boing Boing, I was only visiting occasionally, and even then only when another blog redirected me there. But, it turns out, there’s a whole bevy of other reasons to avoid it, namely that, although it earns millions of dollars — and even more in its recent merger with AOL — it still doesn’t pay its writers, nor did it even pay for the blogging platform that runs it. Plus, it seems less like an interesting time-sink and more one that just re-purposes what other news blogs have written, with occasional liberal celebrity cameos, for the purpose of aggrandizing the Huffington Post. Maybe that’s unfair. As I said, I don’t spend much time with it, except when others occasionally direct it there. But it would be nice if some of that AOL money went to the people who day by day create the product AOL bought.
- A teenage burglar killed three goldfish because he didn’t want to leave any witnesses behind. In his defense, he may just have been reading The Cat in the Hat one too many times. Then again, reading might not be too high on this brainiac’s agenda. [via]
- I don’t think it will surprise anyone that Donald Rumsfeld is full of shit. This is what I think he himself would call “a known known.”
- And finally, Wolverine or two Bat Men? [via]
books
All the President’s Days
It snowed sometime overnight, which I have to say, I find wholly unacceptable, having only just become accustomed to having things like grass and roads and such back. But there wasn’t too much, and there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. Our dog certainly seemed to love it.
In other news, I spent the day reading again, interspersed with a little television here and there. Since Friday, I’ve read about seven different graphic novels, of varying quality and subject matter, culminating today with Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis 2 and Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds. I think the former was a lot better, and having read it means I can now safely watch the movie version of Persepolis without threat of spoiler.
Last night, I watched The Town, the Ben Affleck-directed (and starring) crime thriller. It was very good. Stars Affleck and Jeremy Renner turn in good performances; Jon Hamm is really quite good; and Blake Lively, though she’s not in the film a whole lot, steals the show whenever she is. (I’m never seen an episode of Gossip Girl, so I wasn’t familiar with her before this.) It’s not a great movie, though it occasionally reaches towards greatness, and it’s quite an entertaining picture. And, if nothing else, it’s a better showcase for the late Pete Postlethwaite than the dreck that was Clash of the Titans.
Today was a holiday, but it’s back to work with me tomorrow.
Satursomething
I spent most of the day reading, albeit mostly graphic novels, and now I think I’m going to settle in and watch a movie…if these endless previews ever, you know, end.
Meanwhile, it’s my mom’s birthday. She’s still not 100%, but she’s feeling much better, and has been up and about for the past couple of days. She wasn’t able to enjoy a lot of her birthday cake, but family have been calling to wish her well all day, and my father and I gave her presents after dinner.
Oh, and would you look at that? I think those previews (which I couldn’t skip) have finally ended.
Spark plugs
I’m writing this on the train home, having stayed a little late in Manhattan after work to attend a discussion and signing of the new Studio 360 book on creativity. The event, held at a bookstore downtown in Tribeca, was an hour with Julie Burstein, former executive producer of the radio show, and Kurt Andersen, then and current host. They talked about the contents of the book, drawn from years of on-air interviews, played a few clips of those interviews, took a small handful of questions, and then signed copies of the book. All together, it wasn’t much more than an hour; I spent more time (combined, back and forth) on the subway. More time waiting around the bookstore, at whose cafe I grabbed a sandwich for dinner, and more time at Penn Station after, waiting on my train home.
Still, it was a lot of fun. I think this is the third event in the past year (or so) where I’ve seen Andersen, first at a reading for the Neil Gaiman-edited anthology Stories, then at a live recording of Studio 360 (which I think was edited into at least a couple of shows; I’m behind on my listening), and now this. I don’t take advantage of even a small percentage of the things that happen in New York City, but I do love that I can just take a (relatively quick) subway across town and attend free events like this.
I don’t necessarily love the time it adds to my commute, or how late it gets me home. But, with the move of my office coming in April, I am thinking of moving myself, possibly to Queens.
That, though, is another story.
Such a Saturday as this
Not a particularly exciting day. First thing, I drove my father over to our local mechanic to get his car inspected. And then I spent the day doing not much else. I watched last night’s episode of Fringe. I thought it was really good, a step back up from the past two maybe less than terrific weeks. And I read a little. Mostly, I just finished the first volume of Art Spiegelman’s Maus. And this evening, almost at random, I watched Crimes and Misdemeanors. It’s an interesting Woody Allen film, more like two films that brush up against each other in the end. I don’t know that it was brilliant, but it was thoughtful, sometimes funny, well acted, and I liked it.
And that’s really it for my Saturday.