Author: hugh

Anchors Aweigh On That Magazine Cover

Peking ship, South Street Seaport
Somehow the Peking appears to be sinking

After hmm, 3 days of fallout from the New Yorker cover, Dowd today uses the opportunity to yet again call Obama an elitist for not having the required sense of humor to “get it.” Sure they could’ve reacted with a lighter touch but I’m mostly on the “what’s the big deal?” side. Yes, it’s remarkable the campaign has hired a Carbon Advisor to document and reduce the campaign’s carbon footprint but I would also call it spectacular. It’s refreshing to have the potential leader of the “free world” setting principled examples for behavior and this also includes taking the high road on a satirical attempt that ultimately failed. (For instance, cleverly incorporating the cover’s actual title, “The Politics of Fear” into the piece might have conveyed the intent better.)

Also, if you really think the Obamas are more elitist than the McCains, see this Sadly, No! post.

A Blast from the Cabinets

The Brothers Quay remind me somehow: always be blogging.

the cabinet of jan svankmajor

I saw a series of BQ movies around the time they came out and they had a profound influence on me. I feel funny recommending them to people for fear they won’t get it. Their films felt out of place in the 80s and today I feel I would have to KNOW that someone was at least into puppet animation before I would recommend the BQ to them. I’m disappointed they haven’t been very active lately but then, in my eyes, they are completely self-fulfilled artists and who would blame them having already achieved artistic nirvana.

Drilling It All the Way In

Mirror dancing
Mirror dancing at Coney Island

Observed: faux pool sharks in the bar drilling their cues into the chalk cube for a full minute before each shot and circling the table like a vulture hawk. What a waste of chalk.

Naomi Klein has a follow-up on her book The Shock Doctrine up at The Nation and Alternet. It’s funny to me that both the far left and far right sometimes criticize her for raking it in off her book and “the system” she decries. That’s not it at all. Good ideas and sound thinking should be rewarded by any system. That’s it.

Turn Your TV and Your Computer Off

Bowling, Harlem Lanes
Bowling for basketball

Josh weighs in the Golly Ralphie Show. The media talking heads are becoming such an embarrassment. They have no problem either making shit up or regurgitating whatever pap the campaigns dish out. (Obama’s is not quite innocent either.) They’ll call a five-point lead in a poll a “statistical dead heat”.  Sigh.

Happy 4th of July! Do the patriotic thing and turn in any terrorists you may know to the authorities. Listen to some Louis Armstrong and throw a touchdown pass. Please don’t wave your hot dog in the face of your vegetarian sister and say “Meat is murder. Tasty murder.”

Dirt, Lights, Action, Noir

lightbulbs in a dirty cabinet
The lights are in but the cabinet is really dirty

I watched a great trashy noir movie from 1949 last night called Jigsaw. This was obviously made by a bunch of beatnik proto dirty fucking hippies. (Watch it for free.) That should be enough to get what it’s about without giving the plot away although even I gasped when 20 minutes into the film the special prosecutor started making out with the widow of an early murder victim.

In my googling, I also found this. Someone needs to make a movie called Jigsaw about an evil jigsaw. No, really.