Monday, December 29, 2003
Just got a new computer and modem, so this could really be the big one, the point from which, henceforth, I post regularly and reliably. I'm not sure what happened to the Terri Schindler-Schiavo banner.
Sunday, December 14, 2003
I had some trouble posting this week, so a little backlog built up.
Ann Coulter has written another Hand Of Mungermust read column (I will link to it immediately, in the name of freedom!), but now that I think of it, they all are. While I'm on the subject, one way you can tell Coulter is great is that all criticisms of her are based on misrepresentations or ad hominem arguments. People conflate the titles of her books with their theses and label her with any synonym of "extreme" they can think of without making any case that her extreme statements are not "right". She's even been portrayed as someone who is at a loss for words when her positions are challenged, that is to say, mischaracterised. This does not seem accurate to me.
Illana Mercer has gone and written a Hand Of Mungermust read column herself. I'll just go ahead and link to that one too. She writes lots of good ones, too bad she's so unpleasant personally. I must remember to stop trying to have conversations with hot chicks, they can't seem to grasp the concept of a man existing for any other purpose than their entertainment. "You no longer amuse me, begone"
___ ASSORTED ASSERTIONS ___
Anthropology is the study of man by the least objective of all conceivable observers.
The morality of The Matrix is precisely the inverse of Christian morality. Neo is a Mansonesque anti-Christ, denying the reality and goodness of the normal world of limits and physical constants, preaching against boundaries and all authority superior to humanity. Agent Smith is the only proponent of normal decency in the movie, struggling to maintain boundaries and order. The ending of the first movie, in which Neo rapes and kills Smith, is exceptionally instructive.
They should make a Disney movie out of the Book of Esther.
The Roman Empire never fell, it just became so decadent that it is no
longer recognisable.
Rock and Roll changed a lot in it's history for something that wasn't
called something completly different every three years (quick, what's the difference between rap and hip hop?). The history of Rock and Roll is the history of keyboard players not getting laid. At it's conception it was virtually synonymous with "highly skilled piano playing". Natural selection and the fact that so many of the reasons for starting a band in the first place are essentially non-musical have favored the dominance of the guitar, a portable phallus that allows its players to prance around and show off their nipple rings.
It is so damn sad when the local news tries to be 60 Minutes! They keep
setting couches on fire and screaming about how flammable they are. "If
someone had been sleeping on that when I napalmed it, they could have
gotten hurt!"
The quality of the animation has very little to do with whether a cartoon is good or not. Many people attribute the dramatic inferiority of Hanna-Barbera cartoons to Looney-Toons to the cheapness of the animation. As far as I'm concerned, though, Bugs Bunny could have run past the same tree as many times as he wanted, and Yogi Bear could have been 100 fine oil paintings per second, Bugs would still have been entertaining and Yogi would still have been an insult. Cartoons have gotten a lot better lately, and it's not because of the quality of the animation. Compare Spongebob Squarepants to Brother Bear.
What is the deal with the web presence of Camille Paglia, the born blogger? Shouldn't there be a www.camillepaglia.com website out there someplace? Is everyone who finds her mildly intriguing on occasion supposed to pay to get into Salon, or Slate, or whatever? I can't be the only one who'd rather bite parts off of himself.
The trilogies have finally killed science fiction, the noble genre in which the short story made it's final stand. Now we're only allowed one trippy idea for every 90 minutes of film or 10 inches of book. The rest are hoarded for the sequels, and you can kiss the whole concept of "resolution" goodbye. One Twilight Zone episode would have been the perfect length for most recent SF movie trilogies.
Young women from the southern United States who have been to France are
hard to love. "Ats nawt how they do et en PA-riz FRAAAnce! Yer eeegirnunt!!"
I've got another problem with "The Simpsons". Punchlines seem to be getting cut out in syndication to make more room for commercials. In the halloween episode in which Homer accidentally goes back in time and alters history so that Flanders runs the world, I can remember that when the attack dogs chase Homer, he pulls a bunch of sausages out of his pocket and says "These sausages will give me the quick energy I need to outrun those dogs". In the reruns, he just runs. I've caught a few other missing punchlines, but I can't remember them now.
Hopefully, this new Cat In The Hat movie will establish that it's possible to have weird, trippy imagery in a movie without having it "directed" by Tim Burton, and he can be disposed of. He was always more of an art-director, like H.R. Giger, than an actual director, like Meathead, Spock, Opie, or Laverne. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was a masterpiece, but that probably had more to do with Pee-Wee than Burton.
(0) comments
Ann Coulter has written another Hand Of Munger
Illana Mercer has gone and written a Hand Of Munger
Anthropology is the study of man by the least objective of all conceivable observers.
The morality of The Matrix is precisely the inverse of Christian morality. Neo is a Mansonesque anti-Christ, denying the reality and goodness of the normal world of limits and physical constants, preaching against boundaries and all authority superior to humanity. Agent Smith is the only proponent of normal decency in the movie, struggling to maintain boundaries and order. The ending of the first movie, in which Neo rapes and kills Smith, is exceptionally instructive.
They should make a Disney movie out of the Book of Esther.
The Roman Empire never fell, it just became so decadent that it is no
longer recognisable.
Rock and Roll changed a lot in it's history for something that wasn't
called something completly different every three years (quick, what's the difference between rap and hip hop?). The history of Rock and Roll is the history of keyboard players not getting laid. At it's conception it was virtually synonymous with "highly skilled piano playing". Natural selection and the fact that so many of the reasons for starting a band in the first place are essentially non-musical have favored the dominance of the guitar, a portable phallus that allows its players to prance around and show off their nipple rings.
It is so damn sad when the local news tries to be 60 Minutes! They keep
setting couches on fire and screaming about how flammable they are. "If
someone had been sleeping on that when I napalmed it, they could have
gotten hurt!"
The quality of the animation has very little to do with whether a cartoon is good or not. Many people attribute the dramatic inferiority of Hanna-Barbera cartoons to Looney-Toons to the cheapness of the animation. As far as I'm concerned, though, Bugs Bunny could have run past the same tree as many times as he wanted, and Yogi Bear could have been 100 fine oil paintings per second, Bugs would still have been entertaining and Yogi would still have been an insult. Cartoons have gotten a lot better lately, and it's not because of the quality of the animation. Compare Spongebob Squarepants to Brother Bear.
What is the deal with the web presence of Camille Paglia, the born blogger? Shouldn't there be a www.camillepaglia.com website out there someplace? Is everyone who finds her mildly intriguing on occasion supposed to pay to get into Salon, or Slate, or whatever? I can't be the only one who'd rather bite parts off of himself.
The trilogies have finally killed science fiction, the noble genre in which the short story made it's final stand. Now we're only allowed one trippy idea for every 90 minutes of film or 10 inches of book. The rest are hoarded for the sequels, and you can kiss the whole concept of "resolution" goodbye. One Twilight Zone episode would have been the perfect length for most recent SF movie trilogies.
Young women from the southern United States who have been to France are
hard to love. "Ats nawt how they do et en PA-riz FRAAAnce! Yer eeegirnunt!!"
I've got another problem with "The Simpsons". Punchlines seem to be getting cut out in syndication to make more room for commercials. In the halloween episode in which Homer accidentally goes back in time and alters history so that Flanders runs the world, I can remember that when the attack dogs chase Homer, he pulls a bunch of sausages out of his pocket and says "These sausages will give me the quick energy I need to outrun those dogs". In the reruns, he just runs. I've caught a few other missing punchlines, but I can't remember them now.
Hopefully, this new Cat In The Hat movie will establish that it's possible to have weird, trippy imagery in a movie without having it "directed" by Tim Burton, and he can be disposed of. He was always more of an art-director, like H.R. Giger, than an actual director, like Meathead, Spock, Opie, or Laverne. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was a masterpiece, but that probably had more to do with Pee-Wee than Burton.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Just how improbable is this sort of thing when your alphabet is a damn Rorschach test?
Why are we still being beaten over the head with the redundant minutia of cases like those of Kobe Bryant and Lacy Peterson when something like this happens in Germany every week?
(0) comments
Why are we still being beaten over the head with the redundant minutia of cases like those of Kobe Bryant and Lacy Peterson when something like this happens in Germany every week?
