- It’s just a normal Monday here in New York, but it’s apparently Picnic Day in parts of Australia!
Picnic Day is a public holiday in the Northern Territory of Australia which takes place every year on the first Monday of August. It was originally declared a public holiday to enable Darwin’s railway workers to go to Adelaide River for a picnic.
I kind of love the specificity of that, the idea that an entire holiday sprung up just because that’s the day these workers had off from work. And come on, how can you not like a holiday called Picnic Day?
- Justin Bieber has written a memoir. This is just ridiculous on so many levels.
- Wait. Now Frank Miller worries about looking silly?
- If Titanic II was intended as a cheap direct-to-video sequel to the James Cameron movie, that would be weird and maybe worth talking about. But since it’s just about a ship called Titanic II — and is really just your run-of-the-mill crappy direct-to-video disaster movie — it’s really not.
- And finally…
For the past 20 years, scientists at the Farallones have been documenting more than just puffin nests and shark breeding around the windswept archipelago 27 miles west of the Golden Gate. They’ve been keeping a daily log of their dreams, which tend to be eerily similar.
Apparently, it’s called “day residue.” [via]
movies
“Start at the end. Can’t tell a story if you don’t know where it’s going.”
Not an especially exciting Saturday, but pleasant enough.
I thought maybe I would go give blood this morning, since it’s the first time since March that I’ve been able to, but either the drive at our local church was canceled or I’d been misinformed by the Red Cross and New York Blood Center. Their actual donor centers are not at all convenient, so I’ll have to wait for another drive. Even though none seem to be scheduled any time soon just yet.
Instead, after running a couple of quick errands, I went with my mother to look at eyeglasses this afternoon. I was there mostly to act as a second opinion, helping her pick out frames, but I did set up an appointment for myself with their optometrist in a couple of weeks. The last time I bought eyeglasses — the first time I’d done so in maybe ten years, as a matter of fact — both pairs snapped in a matter of months. And then one of the replacement pairs snapped, too. So I wasn’t exactly in the mood to pay a few more hundred dollars just to go through that again. But this is a discount outlet that came recommended by my mother’s boss. It seems like a reputable place, and the price is good enough that if the glasses do break I won’t be out of pocket too much.
I spent the rest of the day just doing Saturday type stuff — some reading, some writing, neither enough of either. I went for a short walk. And this evening, I watched The Lookout. It’s not a remarkable movie, and not even Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s best work*, but he is quite good in it, and it’s quite entertaining. Sometimes you can’t ask for much more than that.
Oh, and the photo above is a rabbit that’s been visiting our front lawn (and yesterday our back yard) recently. We don’t usually — in fact never — get them this close to the house. They’re usually either a block away, right around the train tracks, or in empty fields. Maybe their food source moved, or the profusion of weeds we’ve had this summer has drawn them out. This one maybe isn’t the cutest bunny I’ve ever seen, but it’s pretty darn cute.
* The best things I’ve seen him in are probably Brick and Mysterious Skin. He’s been turning in enough really good performances lately that I’m honestly tempted to rent GI Joe, of all things.
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]
“You’re some sort of big, fat, smart-bug, aren’t you?”
It was uncomfortably hot today, well into the high 90s and sweltering, and I spent most of it indoors. I felt especially bad for our dog when I had to take him outside for a walk. He hasn’t been feeling too well lately, continuing to throw up on occasion, and for the past day or two walking with a bit of a limp. We don’t know if it’s the heat, his weight, arthritis, something in one of his front paws, or some combination of those things. But my mother’s taking him to the vet on Monday, so hopefully he’ll feel better soon.
I spent most of this evening watching Starship Troopers, which I haven’t seen since it was in theaters in 1997. I didn’t much like the movie back then, but Scott Tobias’ recent in-depth review made me want to reconsider it:
Though Starship Troopers is a generalized critique of war, Verhoeven’s preoccupation with World War II dominates the look of the film, which is loaded with Nazi allusions and compositions on loan from Leni Riefenstahl, whose propaganda films lionized order and physical beauty. Only here, the fascists are our heroes in the Federation, the governing body that’s working to ensure that humans, not bugs, control the galaxy. And for some critics and viewers, that’s where the confusion sets in: Was Starship Troopers an endorsement of fascism? Or at the very least, a thoughtless, juvenile celebration of young people sacrificing themselves for the good of mankind? Audiences are naturally inclined to root for the gung-ho hero in space adventures like these, and certainly the bugs, whose motives are somewhere between inscrutable and nonexistent, seem like ghastly adversaries, worthy of extermination. What’s more, the Heinlein novel is considered a stirring defense of militarism and the necessity of war and civic duty, so an adaptation would surely honor those themes, right?
And you know, Tobias is probably right: the film is better than I remember it. But that doesn’t mean I liked it.
The film is an uncomfortable straddle between satire and summer blockbuster, an indictment of fascism that’s nevertheless couched in all of fascism’s trappings and the spectacle of a CGI-driven action movie. It’s hard not to see director Paul Verhoven’s intentions — they’re laid pretty bare in all of the ways that Tobias makes clear — but it’s also hard not to be a little exhausted by them by the movie’s end. I can admire and respect the subversive streak that casts our heroes as fascist warmongers, that simultaneously asks us to root their victory and question ourselves in the process. But it’s hard to enjoy a movie, much less a pulse-pounding, edge-of-your-seat sci-fi action movie, where you have to hate the characters a little, and hate yourself a little for liking them.
I may listen to Verhoven’s commentary track, but right now, I liked Tobias’ essay a lot more than the movie.
Wednesday various
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