- You meddlesome kids get off Richard Schickel‘s lawn!
- That, my friends, is one big bunny. [via]
- There was a lot of talk recently about a new law in South Carolina that would require “subversive” organizations to register with the state. This, of course, put me in mind of a line from Good Morning, Vietnam: “Well, we walk up to someone and say, ‘Are you the enemy?’ And, if they say yes, then we shoot them.” Turns out, it isn’t exactly true. Or, rather, the law’s been on the books for about sixty years. There’s actually a bill before the SC legislature to repeal it. So, you know, that’s good. [via
- Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times last month:
To millions of “Twilight†fans, the Quileute are Indians whose (fictional) ancient treaty transforms young males of the tribe into vampire-fighting wolves. To the nearly 700 remaining Quileute Indians, “Twilight†is the reason they are suddenly drawing extraordinary attention from the outside — while they themselves remain largely excluded from the vampire series’ vast commercial empire. [via]
- And fianlly, ever wonder what the Westminster dog show would look like from the opposite point-of-view? [via]
tv
“Shall I walk you through the history?” “I’m going to explicitly say no.”
It was back to work for me today after a three-day weekend, and I think it’s safe to say I prefer snow days to work days. Not that today was particularly bad or anything — far from it — but it’s always nice to have an excuse to sleep late in the morning.
Overall, it wasn’t a terribly exciting day. I did some work, wrote a little, and watched tonight’s episode of How I Met Your Mother. (It was a decent, if unremarkable episode, but that’s been pretty much the norm for this entire season.) I also finished reading China Miéville’s The City & the City, about which I think I’ll have more to say later. I’m not sure what to read next, although my signed copy of Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead did arrive in the mail today. I already read and really liked Heather‘s story in the collection, and the rest look really interesting. Though, after the Miéville, I’m thinking it might be nice to take a short break from genre fiction. We’ll see.
Right now, though, I think I’m just going to go to bed.
Giant inflatable beavers?
Not a whole lot to say about today, actually. It was the tail end of my unexpected three-day weekend, and I spent it mostly doing the same things I did for the past two days. I did finish a short-short story I’ve been working on recently, and I e-mailed it out to a small-press magazine for consideration. So, y’know, fingers crossed and all that. Regardless of what happens to the story, it’s nice to finish a piece and send it out. That’s not something I do often enough.
I spent the rest of the day reading through accumulated links in Google Reader and watching some stuff online and on DVD. There are scant few extras on the DVD for A Serious Man, but I was amused when one of the production crew discussed how, in re-creating the ’60s, they couldn’t use cars made later than 1960, since these look too distinctively flashy, too later-century, to our modern eyes and therefore don’t read as believable on the screen anymore. I remember this sort of thing coming up a few years back in my viewing of Lost and Deadwood, and how those shows had to diverge from reality in order to make things look more real.
What I didn’t watch today was the winter Olympics — though from all the talk on Twitter, I gather I missed one heck of a hockey game between Canada and the United States and I am, right now, missing one very interesting closing ceremony. I watched a lot more of this year’s Olympic games than I have in recent years, and from the little I saw I think Vancouver did a splendid job of hosting the events. It was nice to regain a little of the Olympic spirit I really haven’t felt too strongly since the early ’90s, but I’m afraid that didn’t translate to watching a parade of flags and Nickelback. Not when there were episodes of The Mighty Boosh and Being Human I could watch.
Though if someone had told me there would be giant inflatable beavers, I might have reconsidered.
Wednesday various
- John Scalzi’s Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Winter, I Learned From Science Fiction Movies column is nice, but it really just makes me want to watch The Thing again.
- “Let’s get the reformed alcoholic punk-rock 45-year-old drummer from another country with a broad accent — that’s the way to go in the late-night world.” I’m starting to think I really should be watching Craig Ferguson’s show more often. Apparently, he just aired an hour-long, audience-free conversation with Stephen Fry. He’s slowly morphing into an antic Tom Snyder with puppets, and that sounds very intriguing to me. [via]
- Ever wonder how to pronounce an author’s name? It’s an incomplete list, obviously, but it’s a terrific concept. [via]
- Inside the Antiques Roadshow [via]
- And finally, Stephen Merritt on the perverse art or love songs:
You know, most love songs are not cheesy and corny. Most love songs are complaints, I think. Or about unrequited love, coming at it from some oblique angle. Only the ones that say “I love you†over and over are the cheesy, corny ones that people complain about. At least half the songs people hear in the world are love songs. I feel like my love songs, probably none of which just say “I love you†over and over again, are in the mainstream of that tradition of being a little off.
I also like his thoughts on clichés and how he felt the need to clarify that by “Oprah” he was referring to “the TV show starring Oprah Winfrey.”
Bezonter!
Today is my mother’s 60th birthday, so we had cake and presents this evening, and then spent several hours watching the Olympics. First curling, which I’m starting to think could be a lot more fun if the games were at least only half as long, then men’s skeleton, and finally ice dancing. NBC is apparently getting a lot of complaints about how they’re airing the Olympics, but beyond Bob Costas’ hair, I didn’t notice anything too egregious. My mother, my sister, and her husband are still downstairs watching, but I used the dog finally getting out of my lap on the couch as an excuse to come up to bed.
Catherine and Brian (the aforementioned sister and brother-in-law) drove down from Maryland to surprise my mother, and we’re all going out to eat tomorrow. According to my Forgotten English desk calendar, today’s word is bezonter, “an expletive denoting surprise,” which seems entirely appropriate. My mother is a big fan of Mary Chapin Carpenter, so over the past few months I’ve been putting together a collection of six CDs featuring rarities and interviews and video clips I don’t think she’s ever seen before. I put together something similar for her last Mother’s Day, but I think this may finally be all the material that’s out there to unearth. (This website was particularly very helpful in finding rare tracks.) I also ordered her a copy of Chapin’s new album, due out in April.
Beyond that, my day was pretty uneventful, though a lot better than I expected when I got to work today. Never underestimate the power of actually accomplishing something to turn the day around. I’ve still got a lot of work on my plate — and today took on another small project — but I made some serious progress today, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for next week.
I am really glad the weekend’s here. Overall, it was a long four-day week.