Bone Machine

Happy Halloween

photos from the White Mountains

11 Observations from under a haircut

So, cut off my long hair last August -- so looking decidedly un-hippy these days. (And in case you were going to ask, I cut it off because it was too hot in the summer time and annoying when doing anything in the great outdoors. Briars caught in it and woodland creatures nested in it...) Here's what I've noticed since losing my long, flowing locks:  

1) I get better seats in restaurants.  

2) People tell me I look younger.  

3) Random women no longer play with my hair in line at Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks. 4) I don't get friendly nods from other guys with beards and pony-tails these days. I think we were an informal club.  

5) People are less likely to shout "Sasquatch!" and take blurry photos of me as I pass. 6) No one asks me if I have any weed to sell any more.  

7) My students think I'm meaner than I used to be.  

8) My receding hairline is no longer receding. Conclusion: tying my hair back was making me lose hair.  

9) I have to trim my beard more often or I look like Crazy-Hillbilly-Guy.  

10) So far I'm out almost three hundred dollars in haircuts.

11) My Jesus-Pez-dispenser impression is much less funny than it once was.

Soon -- soon -- we will all have jetpacks

SWISS MAN SOARS ABOVE ALPS WITH HOMEMADE JET-POWERED WING 

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press Writer  

BEX, Switzerland (AP) -- A Swiss pilot strapped on a jet-powered wing and leaped from a plane Wednesday for the first public demonstration of the homemade device, turning figure eights and soaring high above the Alps. Yves Rossy's performance in front of the world press capped five years of training and many more years of dreaming. "This flight was absolutely excellent," the former fighter pilot and extreme sports enthusiast said after touching down on an airfield near the eastern shore of Lake Geneva. Story Here

More Wacky Vatican Antics

Vatican is obviously trying to lure in X-Files fans. 

From the AP  

VATICAN: IT'S OK TO BELIEVE IN ALIENS By ARIEL DAVID – 

6 hours ago VATICAN CITY (AP) — Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday. The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones. "How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation." In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said. Rest of the story.

Nostalgia for things I don't remember

I’ve been picking up CDs of music I had on LPs and have recently been buying some classic Rolling Stones.  

(For those of you who were conceived during the Reagan delusion or after, an LP is a long play record, a circular vinyl disc that stored music in analog form and played it when scratched by a precision needle while spinning at 33 rpm. Primitive, twentieth-century technology. Pity us, we were still knuckle-walking when tired. There were only three or four TV stations with no digitally blurred breasts. Phones had dials. Men had chest hair – women had pubic hair.)  

I was listening to Let it Bleed in the car, and was struck by two things. (And side note – I have to disagree with most rock critics and vote for Let It Bleed over Exile on Main St. as the best Stones album – for reasons that I won’t get into now. Listen to them both back to back and let me know what you think. Check out the acoustic version of Honky Tonk.) 

One, is that most of the great popular music that I enjoy is pre-eighties. From Duke Ellington through Spike Jones to Zappa, most of the great groups or artists started before the decade of corporate cokeheads, synth supergroups and big damned hair.  

The second, is that by still being in swaddling clothes when the Stones were recording Let it Bleed, and vibrating in my chair with boredom in grade school while the 70’s passed, I missed out on hearing an epiphany album when it was released.  

By epiphany albums, I mean the albums that change the way you look at the world. I’ve seen epiphany movies at first release: Gilliam’s Brazil is one example. I felt like I’d been hit between the eyes with a ball-peen hammer after that one – in a good way. 

I’ve even heard epiphany records but long after their release, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters for example. But there has to be something extraordinary about listening to a seminal work for the first time just as it has been released – when it’s new and actually different. 

Imagine – what it must have been like – hearing The Hot Fives and Sevens for the first time. (Yes, I know that some of those cuts were released as singles – but imagine just hearing one of those numbers for the first time.) 

I’ve had two occasions where it’s been close – not quite epiphanies, but slightly mind altering. 

One was listening to Tom Wait’s Bone Machine. What kept it from being absolutely startling is that I’d heard Tom building up to this one on the previous three CDs. But the mix of primitivism and sophisticated composition, with his raw and beautiful lyrics was a turning point for me in the way I thought about poetry.  

The other occasion was a friend playing the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York for me during college. I was not a fan of Punk, as music, though I was with them in spirit. Up to that point I would have argued that the only good thing to come out of the Punk era was a push to get back to bands rather than “recording artists.” I’d still argue that Shane McGowan’s Fairytale is: a) one of the great singles b) one of the great ballads c) the best Christmas Song ever d) the song that should have killed off love songs forevermore.  

So what happened? Can anyone transcend the noise in popular music these days? Is there anything new and amazing out there in the world or recording? Am I just a jaded old crank? (That last is rhetorical – I am a jaded old crank.)  

On the positive side -- there's still lots of goodies I'm sure I haven't heard -- better a late epiphany than none at all...

Spider uses UV rays to get it on -- From the BBC

Study sheds light on spider sex
By Rebecca Morelle
Spiders "talk" to potential mates using a type of light not visible to the human eye, scientists report.
A team found that male jumping spiders (Phintella vittata) are using ultraviolet B (UVB) rays to communicate with females.
While UVA rays are often used in animal communication, this is the first evidence that UVB light is also being used, the researchers said.
The study is published in the journal Current Biology.
BBC Story Here
The BBC must be having "naughty week" on their science page.

Headline of the Week -- From the BBC

GREAT TITS COPE WELL WITH WARMING

By Richard Black
At least one of Britain's birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.
Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.
BBC STORY Here

New Dark Knight Trailer

http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/

"Here's My Card"

Worried Cow

Route 7.

Today.

Jesusaurus

Biblically Correct Tours
Nice job by the superstitious loonies -- wreck dinosaurs for the kids.
This gives me such a creepy cult vibe -- "Chant along with me kids!"

glumbert - How to ruin a day at the museum

Hmmm, I guess this comes under, "don't pray in my museum, and I won't think in your church."

Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman

"Dreams With Sharp Teeth

Damn, Harlan is pissed off. Talented though...

Nichols and May

"... funny little half cut hams ..."

Out of their minds.

Bliss.

Sorry, it's a guy in a suit

... and not a very good suit. http://www.bigfootencounters.com/files/mk_davis_pgf.gif Notice the jazz hands when he looks at the camera.

Off of Gun Club Point

Hillary Clinton claims that snipers fired on her when she visited Bosnia, and videos clearly show that she was greeted by a little girl who read her a poem about peace.

It's an obvious mistake. There are few things worse than the poetry of little girls, especially about peace. 

Hillary, jet lagged and weak, might just have felt that she was subjected to sniper fire, or simply wish that she had been ...

Tom Waits, A Megaphone, & A Song

Chocolate Jesus

Yeah, but it's cool...

DOOMSDAY It's pretty much scene quotes from Escape from New York and The Road Warrior and bits and pieces of other 80's exploitation movies. But. It's stylish and tense and Neil Marshall (director of scariest movie in years -- despite being another quote festival -- The Descent) seems to know exactly where the camera should go. And then there's lead actor Rhona Mitri. You could make a movie that's 90 minutes of just having the camera filming her walking around. And she's stylin' in the Snake Pliskin Eyepatch. I'd say it's actually a better movie than EFNY (an overated movie that's mostly about Kurt Russell's sneer), but not quite up to the mythic brutal beauty of the Road Warrior. There's a clever fairy tale built into Doomsday -- a princess returns to reclaim her kingdom -- its' a badass princess and a kingdom of cannibals, but that's sort of cool too...

Waiting for the Magic (MACgic?)

My new Mac Mini arrived two days ago.

 

It's smaller than a cigar box, and looks like something you'd store plutonium slugs in.

It worked very nicely, right out of the box.   It runs Adobe Creative Suite 3 without a hitch.  It's nifty.

 

But nothing else seems to be happening.

 

My life has not changed.

 

There has been no dancing.  The view from my window is still the same.

I haven't had any epiphanies, breakthroughs or gnosis.  

My muse is still spending most of her time watching the Cartoon Network while eating Pirate's Booty.

I haven't made any new friends. 

 

I still have hopes.  It's a MAC after all.  Something magical will happen any time now…

Why Saki Rocks

"'What are we to do?' asked Constance.  

"'What a person you are for questions,' I said.  

"'Well, we can't stay here all night with a hyaena,' she retorted.  

"'I don't know what your ideas of comfort are,' I said; 'but I shouldn't think of staying here all night even without a hyaena. My home may be an unhappy one, but at least it has hot and cold water laid on, and domestic service, and other conveniences which we shouldn't find here.'"  

from "Esme"  

Arlington Stringham made a joke in the House of Commons. It was a thin House, and a very thin joke; something about the Anglo-Saxon race having a great many angles. It is possible that it was unintentional, but a fellow-member, who did not wish it to be supposed that he was asleep because his eyes were shut, laughed. One or two of the papers noted "a laugh" in brackets, and another, which was notorious for the carelessness of its political news, mentioned "laughter." Things often begin in that way.  

"Arlington made a joke in the House last night," said Eleanor Stringham to her mother; "in all the years we've been married neither of us has made jokes, and I don't like it now. I'm afraid it's the beginning of the rift in the lute."  

"What lute?" said her mother.  

"It's a quotation," said Eleanor. To say that anything was a quotation was an excellent method, in Eleanor's eyes, for withdrawing it from discussion, just as you could always defend indifferent lamb late in the season by saying "It's mutton." 

****** 

Lady Isobel was seen everywhere with a fawn coloured collie at a time when every one else kept nothing but Pekinese, and she had once eaten four green apples at an afternoon tea in the Botanical Gardens, so she was widely credited with a rather unpleasant wit. The censorious said she slept in a hammock and understood Yeats's poems, but her family denied both stories.  

****** 

Eleanor hated boys, and she would have liked to have whipped this one long and often. It was perhaps the yearning of a woman who had no children of her own.  

 

From "The Jesting of Arlington Stringham."  

"You are not really dying, are you?" asked Amanda.  

"I have the doctor's permission to live till Tuesday," said Laura.  

"But to-day is Saturday; this is serious!" gasped Amanda.  

"I don't know about it being serious; it is certainly Saturday," said Laura.  

From "Laura"  

"Do you mean to tell me that you are meditating violence against a man like Sir Leon Birberry," stammered Huddle; "he's one of the most respected men in the country."  

"He's down on our list," said Clovis carelessly; "after all, we've got men we can trust to do our job, so we shan't have to rely on local assistance. And we've got some Boy-scouts helping us as auxiliaries."  

"Boy-scouts!"  

"Yes; when they understood there was real killing to be done they were even keener than the men."  

From "The Unrest Cure"  

"I expect you don't know me with my moustache," said the new- comer; "I've only grown it during the last two months." 

"On the contrary," said Clovis, "the moustache is the only thing about you that seemed familiar to me. I felt certain that I had met it somewhere before."  

"My name is Tarrington," resumed the candidate for recognition. 

"A very useful kind of name," said Clovis; "with a name of that sort no one would blame you if you did nothing in particular heroic or remarkable, would they? And yet if you were to raise a troop of light horse in a moment of national emergency, 'Tarrington's Light Horse' would sound quite appropriate and pulse-quickening; whereas if you were called Spoopin, for instance, the thing would be out of the question. No one, even in a moment of national emergency, could possibly belong to Spoopin's Horse."  

The new-comer smiled weakly, as one who is not to be put off by mere flippancy, and began again with patient persistence: 

"I think you ought to remember my name--"  

"I shall," said Clovis, with an air of immense sincerity. "My aunt was asking me only this morning to suggest names for four young owls she's just had sent her as pets. I shall call them all Tarrington; then if one or two of them die or fly away, or leave us in any of the ways that pet owls are prone to, there will be always one or two left to carry on your name."  

From "The Talking-Out of Tarrington"

God and Monsters and The CGI Blues

I Am Legend has a moody, highly creepy beginning, and one wonderful avoid-monsters-in- the-dark scene.  And then it goes to hell, and not in the good way you'd expect from a horror movie.  There are two distinct reasons.  The CGI zombie/vampires look like, well, CGI zombie/vampires.  They're not remotely scary because they look like pixelated Play-Doh.  George Romero got more terror out of shambling actors in face-paint than this movie does out of sinewy digital demons.  

The other issue is, yet again, the screenplay.  I Am Legend the film is the third adaptation of I Am Legend the novella by Richard Matheson.  The first film was the Vincent Price vehicle, The Last Man On Earth, which would qualify as a good try; low budget and occasionally moody.  The second had Charleton Heston doing his low-key overacting thing in the interesting but unfocused The Omega Man.  The problem with all the adaptations is an unwillingness to trust Matheson, one of the great horror writers of the century, and an excellent screen writer in his own right.  (Look him up on IMDB -- quite a long list of screen work, including some classic Twilight Zones, as well as a bunch of adapted stories and novels.)  

The Matheson story has the last man alive trying to survive in a world that is infested with VAMPIRES (not mutants or zombies or whatever they make them in the film) who are infected with a virus that turns them into bloodsucking monsters.   The main character is immune.  He spends the day breaking into houses and staking the vampires, the nights playing classical music at 11 volume to drown out the cries of the creatures who used to be his neighbors, who want him to come outside ...  There is a twist at the end like a Möbius loop -- which deals with the idea of what exactly makes a monster.

There's not a writer of vampire stories since the fifties that doesn't owe a debt to Matheson, from King to Rice.  And somehow Hollywood just doesn't get it.  Part of this is an unwillingness to take the risk of having the leading man turn out to be an unsympathetic killer.  Part may be a director or screenwriter's need to try to top Matheson's cleverness.  Or maybe they shoot Matheson's ending and it just doesn't test well in previews...

There's another problem with I Am Legend as an adaptation, which is more worrisome, but not surprising.  Will Smith, doing his best to play the lead in this mess, asks another survivor how she is sure that there is a colony of uninfected humans in Vermont.  She replies, "God told me."  She turns out to be right.

Matheson's story is of a Godless universe.  His anti-hero is trying to survive and find a cure in a horrific landscape devoid of divine influence or help.  There's no God in the novella, and that's part of the point of the tale.  Keep God out of a classic vampire story hollywood twits -- he doesn't belong there.

Back to the CGI issue.  I've often thought that Hollywood is out of touch with TV.  If filmmakers actually saw how CGI was used so cheesily on TV, they'd find more creative ways to do things.  Every Saturday, the Sci-Fi channel runs a bad monster movie with computer SFX monsters.  So when I see something, like The Mist, or Cloverfield, the effects are often better, but there are moments that don't look any different than the Sci-Fi movie or a Discovery channel dinosaur special.  Spielberg showed in Jurassic Park that the best mix was puppetry, models, CGI, and shadows, as well as some creativity. 

As a final note -- notice the resemblance between the big monster in Cloverfield and the one that does a walk through cameo in The Mist?   And the spider things of the same species in both?  Maybe it's not CGI.  Maybe there's a Screen Monsters Guild we don't know about ...

 

Medieval superstition desperately tries to be relevant:

Vatican lists new sins, including pollution