Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.
Coming in 2005 — a new film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Directed by Tim Burton.
Starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.
Hmmmmmmm…
It’s hard for me to see anyone surpassing the inspired lunacy of Gene Wilder as Wonka, but I do tend to like Burton/Depp collaborations. Reserving judgement for now, but it could be worth keeping an eye on.
(via Ryan)
iTunes: “Peter Bazooka” by Dead Milkmen, The from the album Death Rides a Pale Cow (1995, 3:07).
You are a complete literary geek, from knowing the classics (even the not-so-well-known classics and tidbits about them) to knowing devices used in writing, when someone has a question about literature, they can bring it to you and rest assured; you know the answers.
[How much of a literary geek are you?
Brought to you by][] Quizilla.
[How much of a literary geek are you?
Brought to you by]: http://quizilla.com/users/Sedruce/quizzes/How%20much%20of%20a%20literary%20geek%20are%20you%3F/ “How much of a literary geek are you?”
Admittedly, I’d be a bit more impressed by this particular quiz if there weren’t so many spelling errors in the quiz itself. Still, it was cute. :)
(via Alicia)
iTunes: “Marathon” by Aubrey from the album Twisted Secrets Vol. 3 (1997, 6:51).
Mom and dad sent me a wonderful present for my birthday that just arrived in the mail a couple of days ago. It’s a book called We Interrupt This Broadcast, a collection of news events that shocked the world. In addition to essays for each event looking at the events of the time that influenced what happened and the details of each event, from the Hindenburg explosion to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001, the book comes with two audio CDs with the actual radio and television broadcasts that went out over the airwaves. Wonderful, fascinating stuff.
Reading through the introduction by Walter Cronkite, I was struck by his description of his on-air announcement of the death of President John F. Kennedy…
As is the nature of many events which warrant interrupting broadcasts, I also was there to report on the terrible tragedies.
Our flash reporting the shots fired at President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade was heard over the “CBS News Bulletin” slide and interrupted the soap opera As the World Turns.
For the first hour, I reported sketchy details to a nation in shock. Then came the report from Eddie Barker, news chief of our Dallas affiliate, and Bob Pierpoint, our White House correspondent. They had learned the President was dead. We were still debating in New York whether we should put such a portentous but unofficial bulletin on the air when, within minutes, the hospital issued a bulletin confirming the news. It fell to me to make the announcement.
My emotions were doing fine until it was necessary to pronounce the words: “From Dallas, Texas, the flash — apparently official. President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. central standard time — a half hour ago…”
The words stuck in my throat. A sob wanted to replace them. A gulp or two quashed the sob, which metamorphosed into tears forming in the corners of my eyes. I fought back the emotion and regained my professionalism, but it would be a few seconds before I could continue: “Vice President Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly, and become the thirty-sixth President of the United States.”
Reading that, and remembering other accounts of how the nation reacted to the news of his death, it hit me that I can’t think of a single President since JFK who would inspire such loyalty and love in the nation. I wonder how long it’s going to be before we as a nation are able to respect our leaders, our nation, and ourselves like that again. For the curious, here’s a complete list of events covered in the third revision of the book:
Also possibly of interest: Where Were You?, a post where I look back on what I remember of historical events that have occurred in my lifetime, and encourage readers to do the same.
iTunes: “Sad and Damned” by Nymphs from the album Earphoria (1991, 2:59).
Stephen Donaldson’s website has a blurb up you might be interested in.
Coming Fall 2004!
The Runes of the Earth
the first of four books in …
The Last Chronicles of
Thomas Covenant
There’s also a .pdf of “chapter one of the prologue” up for download.
I still need to read the first Thomas Covenant novels. Yes, the ones you’ve been telling me to read since we met in 4th grade (or whenever you read them, I suppose). I’ll get around to it one of these days, I swear…
iTunes: “Desire” by Yello from the album Essential (1985, 3:43).
First off, a quick explanation for things being so quiet around here lately: I’m working on a redesign of the site. In some ways, nothing major, as I’ll be keeping the same basic visual style, and I’m “just” transforming it from a single-column back to a two-column layout. However, that’s caused me to re-code from the bottom up in order to get everything working the way I want it, which has been keeping me busy over the past few nights.
The new design probably won’t go up until sometime next week at the earliest (this being birthday weekend and all, spending hours in front of the computer is fairly low priority), but it’ll go up as soon as I can manage it.
Today, though, is Poem In Your Pocket day. Originally started by the New York Times and the City of New York, someone on Orkut’s blogger community suggested turning this into a meme.
“The City of New York and The New York Times invite you to join us on April 30, 2004 for Poem in Your Pocket Day… New Yorkers are encouraged to carry a poem in their pocket and share it with friends, family, coworkers and classmates.”
I thought it would be a great idea if bloggers did something similar on April 30th:
To commemorate the end of National Poetry Month, blog about your favorite poem and provide at least one link to other poems and/or a bio of the poet.
Now, admittedly, I’ve never been much of one for poetry. For one reason or another, it’s an art form that has consistently failed to capture my interest much at all. However, there is one poet that I absolutely love, and have quite a few books of poetry (including one wonderful collection of his complete poems): e. e. cummings. Something about his style has always grabbed me, and he’s been the only poet ever to peak my interest.
While it’s difficult for me to narrow down one particular favorite, there are two that consistently pop into my mind when I’m trying to pick a favorite.
This first one I love because it’s so wonderfully un-subtle. Just my style. ;)
she being Brand
-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(havingthoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her
up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried andagain slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my
lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightening)just as we turned the corner of Divinityavenue i touched the accelerator and give
her the juice,good
(it
was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed onthe
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce andbrought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.stand-
;Still)
This second one that always sticks in my head is much sweeter, and it’s primarily the last nine lines (starting with “what’s wholly”) that really get to me.
because it’s
Spring
thingSdare to do people
(& not
the other wayround)because it
‘s A
prilLives lead their own
persons(in
steadof everybodyelse’s)but
what’s wholly
marvellous myDarling
is that you &
i are more than you& i(be
ca
use It’s we)
(Incidentally, trying to translate e. e. cummings’ poetic formatting into workable valid HTML/CSS is not easy to do. Hopefully I managed to pull it off…)
(via Phil)
iTunes: “Lust for Life” by Pop, Iggy from the album Trainspotting (1977, 5:13).
I so need to get to the bookstore soon — Confusion, the second book in Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle (which began with Quicksilver) is out. Salon has an interview with Stephenson and a review of Confusion up which both look good, though I don’t have time to read them right now. Argh! :)
(via Boing Boing and /.)
iTunes: “.^.^.^%^%\^%” by The User from the album Symphony #2 for Dot Matrix Printers (2002, 6:38).
Another book I need to add to my collection: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.
“Eats, Shoots & Leaves” takes its title from a mispunctuated phrase about a panda. In Britain, where this rib-tickling little book has been a huge success and its panda joke apparently recited in the House of Lords, Ms. Truss has proved to be anything but a lone voice. Despite her assertion that “being burned as a witch is not safely enough off the agenda” for the punctuation-minded stickler, Ms. Truss obviously hit a raw nerve. For those who are tired of seeing signs like “Bobs’ Motors” and think an “Eight Items or Less” checkout sign should read “Eight Items or Fewer,” boy, is this book for you.
Ms. Truss has not succeeded solely on the basis of her punctuation acumen (though that is considerable — and by the way, she finds dashes and parentheses annoying). Her mission to “engage in some direct-action argy-bargy” has helped the book, too.
Dashes and parentheses annoy her? Ah, such a shame — given that I’m quite prone to using dashes (as I did earlier in this sentence) and parentheses (like this, for the second time in a single sentence — and another dash, too, just for good measure), I suppose she won’t be much of a fan of my writing style. ;)
(via Mickey)
iTunes: “Mile End” by Pulp from the album Trainspotting (1995, 4:31).
Paul Allen’s new addition to the EMP, the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, is due to open in approximately two months, according to the Seattle P-I.
About 13,000 square feet of the Frank Gehry-designed EMP will be dedicated to the new Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (which was initially dubbed SFX, for Science Fiction Experience). This new sci-fi wing will have three levels of exhibit space and add more than 1,000 square feet of performance space to EMP.
Exhibits and artifacts celebrating such movies and television programs as “Star Trek,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Dr. Strangelove” will be complemented by objects or exhibits aimed at demonstrating how the literary genre sometimes leads to real scientific developments or technological achievements.
I’ll be very interested in checking it out, of course — my only worry is that I found the EMP to be fairly ridiculously overpriced, and I wasn’t a large fan of how the displays were set up (very little textual information, as there were PDA-ish handheld audio devices to guide you through, which were too heavy and kind of a pain to use). Hopefully the SFX doesn’t have these same issues, though as they are part of the same complex, who knows.
Guess I’ll find out in June, huh?
About three weeks ago, a reader of my site surprised me with the gift of a new biography of Alfred Hitchcock. I didn’t start it immediately, as I was in the middle of another book, but when I lost that book along with my bookbag I started reading the Hitchcock biography.
So far, it’s fascinating, and I’m only about a third of the way through (up to Hitch moving to America and working on Rebecca, his first American-made film). I did, however, realize that while I’ve certainly enjoyed what I’ve seen of Hitchcock’s films, I’ve actually seen very few: Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds are the only ones!
So, in an attempt to rectify that situation, I’ve gone through and added every single Hitchcock DVD available to my NetFlix queue. In chronological order, no less.
Admittedly, I added them to the end of my queue, so I won’t actually start going through them unless I take the time to rearrange my queue, but still, they’re there, so at some point in the future, I’ll be able to drastically increase my Hitchcock knowledge.
iTunes: “Wandering Minstrel, The/Jackson’s Morning Brush” by Ennis, Séamus from the album Wandering Minstrel, The (1974, 5:34).
There’s a new trailer for the movie I, Robot, based on Isaac Asimov‘s writing. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, but, as with all movie properties based on works that I’m a fan of, there was some definite trepidation.
On the one hand, not only were they adapting the stories of one of my favorite authors, but they also tapped one of my favorite directors, Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City). On the other hand…Will Smith stars. Nothing against Will Smith personally, as I generally enjoy the films I see him in, but I’ve never seen him do much serious work — his strengths seem to have been in comedic and action vehicles. Asimov, on the other hand, while often extremely funny, has more of a cerebral, often punnish sense of humor to his writing, and his works are generally far stronger on dialog and concepts than they are on action.
Now that I’ve seen the new trailer, I have to say, I’m more than a little worried. I was hoping for more strong, “thinking-person’s” science fiction along the lines of A.I., Contact, Gattaca, or Dark City (four of the best sci-fi films in recent years, in my opinion). Instead, what I got was…well, a Will Smith action-comedy, from the looks of it.
Admittedly, I’m basing this solely on a two-minute trailer, but I don’t think I’m entirely unjustified in being worried. Opening with shots of Smith’s Detective Spooner riding his motorcycle through the city streets of Chicago, we follow him into the offices of “the richest man in the world” as a murder investigation starts. The businessman offers Spooner coffee, then asks if there’s anything he can to do help.
“Sugar.”
“Sugar?”
“For the coffee.”
“Oh…”
“Oh, you thought I was calling you ‘Sugar’? Hey, you’re not that rich.”
From there, we move to quick shots of the investigation, as Spooner interviews the robot suspected of killing a human. Interspersed with the clips are Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics — kind of.
Asimov himself often said that his Three Laws were probably the most famous lines he had ever written, out of his entire body of work, and have served as inspiration for many of today’s top robotics theorizers and designers as our technology progresses to the point where humanoid robotic creations are becoming more and more possible. The laws, as Asimov originally wrote them, are:
The laws as given to us in the I, Robot trailer, are now:
Okay, the essence is still there, and it’s entirely possible (and I’m hoping that) the original laws are quoted and expounded on in the film, and that these are merely the two-second screentime trailer versions. It was still enough to make me cringe.
From there, we move to quick action clips interspersed with dialog. In one, a robot jumps out of a window, flips over a couple times, and falls to the pavement, landing with a pavement-cracking jolt in a pose that could have been lifted straight from either of the trailers for the recent two Matrix movies or from the trailer for Underworld. Okay, it’s a cool shot and a good pose, but do we need to see it in every action movie trailer to hit the screen?
A few more clips later, we’re treated to an apparent robot mob in full attack mode, complete with smashing through doors, Aliens-style scuttling across walls and ceilings, robots backhanding and attacking people, and general mayhem, with all the robots suddenly sporting glowing red eyes and torsos (which gave them an amusingly ET-like look to me).
I will freely admit that the trailer looks good visually, and the effects look like they’ll be quite good. I just wish I wasn’t as worried about what had been done to the work of one of my favorite science-fiction authors.
I guess I’ll be able to form my final opinion July 16th, when the film opens. Until then, I’ll just be keeping my fingers crossed.
iTunes: “Darkness III” by In Absentia from the album Blood and Computers II (1994, 3:25).