Zeus and Ares:
Video by Meade.
Oktubre 12, 2013
"And Mr. Chandor can verify to skeptics Mr. Redford’s claim that his hair remains naturally Hubbell strawberry blond."
"His locks survived the months of sun and chlorine, with no colorist in sight," writes Maureen Dowd in that NYT article that we're already talking about in that first post of the day.
Dowd doesn't say whether she believes him, but she quotes "No one believes me" without stating her view. She has the mysterious line "Mr. Chandor can verify," but did she ask Mr. Chandor, and who can believe that Mr. Chandor watched Mr. Redford at all times? Who thinks Ronald Reagan didn't dye his hair? But it's nice of Robert Redford to keep thinking about Ronald Reagan. These slow-aging Hollywood RRs need to stick together with their age-defying secrets.
What does Hubbell refer to in "naturally Hubbell strawberry blond"? The Hubbell telescope? "There are no 'natural color' cameras aboard the Hubble and never have been. The optical cameras on board have all been digital CCD cameras, which take images as grayscale pixels." It's Hubble, not Hubbell, so it can't be that — though I'm interested in the fakeness of all those colorful photographs of the universe that we've been looking at all these years.
Here's the atheist Christopher Hitchens burbling about "the color and depth and majesty" of the Hubble photographs as he urges us to see the revelations of science as more awe-inspiring than the old stories told by religions:
“No one believes me,” Mr. Redford said. “Even my kids didn’t believe me. I keep thinking of Reagan. It’s freaking me out.”Chandor is J. C. Chandor, the director of Redford's new movie, "All Is Lost," which is a seafaring tale, hence the "sun and chlorine."
Dowd doesn't say whether she believes him, but she quotes "No one believes me" without stating her view. She has the mysterious line "Mr. Chandor can verify," but did she ask Mr. Chandor, and who can believe that Mr. Chandor watched Mr. Redford at all times? Who thinks Ronald Reagan didn't dye his hair? But it's nice of Robert Redford to keep thinking about Ronald Reagan. These slow-aging Hollywood RRs need to stick together with their age-defying secrets.
What does Hubbell refer to in "naturally Hubbell strawberry blond"? The Hubbell telescope? "There are no 'natural color' cameras aboard the Hubble and never have been. The optical cameras on board have all been digital CCD cameras, which take images as grayscale pixels." It's Hubble, not Hubbell, so it can't be that — though I'm interested in the fakeness of all those colorful photographs of the universe that we've been looking at all these years.
Here's the atheist Christopher Hitchens burbling about "the color and depth and majesty" of the Hubble photographs as he urges us to see the revelations of science as more awe-inspiring than the old stories told by religions:
"Now the moon is almost hidden/The stars are beginning to hide/The fortune-telling lady/Has even taken all her things inside."
Just an old Bob Dylan lyric that crossed my mind writing the previous post.
And here's the Jefferson Airplane song that I linked to in the second paragraph of the first post today, on the words: "You're only pretty as you feel." That link goes to a nice "extended outtake" of "Pretty As You Feel," which should remind old Baby Boomers of the pleasant languors of psychedelic rock concerts circa 1970.
By the way, it always bothered me when an artist that I liked to think of as hip and cool built a song around some old adage or platitude, especially when the saying was sung over and over and with apparent sincerity. Think of some other examples. Here's the one that hardened my hatred for this half-assed lyric-writing: "It's nature's way of telling you something's wrong."
Did Bob Dylan ever do that? I can't think of any examples, and I ask Meade — whose head is a bigger storehouse of Dylan lyrics than mine — and he can't either.
And here's the Jefferson Airplane song that I linked to in the second paragraph of the first post today, on the words: "You're only pretty as you feel." That link goes to a nice "extended outtake" of "Pretty As You Feel," which should remind old Baby Boomers of the pleasant languors of psychedelic rock concerts circa 1970.
By the way, it always bothered me when an artist that I liked to think of as hip and cool built a song around some old adage or platitude, especially when the saying was sung over and over and with apparent sincerity. Think of some other examples. Here's the one that hardened my hatred for this half-assed lyric-writing: "It's nature's way of telling you something's wrong."
Did Bob Dylan ever do that? I can't think of any examples, and I ask Meade — whose head is a bigger storehouse of Dylan lyrics than mine — and he can't either.
When does someone who's selling services as a "psychic" deserve to be prosecuted for committing a crime?
In NYC, the government prosecuted a fortune teller — Sylvia Mitchell, 39 — who worked in some storefront in Greenwich Village. The jury convicted her and she could be sentenced to as much as 15 years in prison. The charges were larceny and a scheme to defraud.
During a weeklong trial, prosecutors portrayed Ms. Mitchell as a clever swindler who preyed on distraught people, promising them that she could alleviate their troubles through prayer and meditation to remove what she called “negative energy” and rectify problems that arose from their “past lives.”In my book, this is entertainment and unconventional psychological therapy. Let the buyer beware. Who's dumb enough to actually believe this? Should the government endeavor to protect everyone who succumbs to the temptation to blow a few bucks on a fortune teller? But this was a case where there were a couple victims who somehow had enough money to make their losses nontrivial. One woman gave Mitchell $27,000 in what was portrayed as an "exercise in letting go of money." Another put $18,000 in a jar as a way to relieve herself of "negative energy."
Both women admitted on the stand under cross-examination that they were deeply skeptical of Ms. Mitchell’s techniques, but paid her anyway, suggesting that they were never tricked into thinking the psychic had the power to better their lives, [Mitchell's lawyer] said.In Stupid World, no one can hear facts screaming.
But an assistant district attorney, James Bergamo, described Ms. Mitchell as an expert at discovering people’s vulnerabilities and scaring them into handing over their cash. It mattered little, he argued in his summation, if Ms. Mitchell’s clients believed what she said about their past lives or negative spirits: the important fact was that they believed she would return their money. “The facts scream scam,” he said.
"I don’t see myself as beautiful. I was a kid who was freckle-faced, and they used to call me 'hay head.'"
Said Robert Redford, who also reports that when he was 18, studying art in Italy and France, the women there did not find him attractive.
So — if we can believe that — even the prettiest pretty boy may still fall within the shadow of the old adage "You're only pretty as you feel."
Now, after years of recognition as incredibly good-looking — he's 77 — he says:
It must say something about us that we're being presented with tales of rugged individualists far adrift from any foundation. Did we ask for that? It's what Hollywood decided, back when this fall's movies were given the go, that we'd need in the Fall of 2013. There's no reason to give much credence to Hollywood's notion of who we are right now. Hollywood thought we were the Lone Ranger and Tonto last summer, and the people said no. Perhaps the Lone Ranger isn't lone enough for our alienated psyches. He had Tonto. Where's my sidekick? the public that shunned "The Lone Ranger" might have thought. How can we identify with his loneliness when he has Johnny Depp?
Robert Redford famously had a sidekick, Paul Newman, in the 2 movies that made him seem to be even more handsome than the already-impossibly-handsome Paul Newman — "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting." And Redford did have another movie in the works with Newman — a movie version of Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" (my second-most-listened-to audiobook). Newman died 5 years ago, but now the news is that it will be made with the not-always-completely-cute Nick Nolte. If you know the book, you may agree with me that Nolte seems more like Bryson's "Walk in the Woods" sidekick Stephen Katz than does Paul Newman.
You might think Newman was more like Katz because he was (half) Jewish. ("Newman had no religion as an adult, but described himself as a Jew, saying, 'it's more of a challenge.'") Nolte, on the other hand, is (apparently) a man disconnected from any particular religion. ("'Where’s God?' You’re gonna kill yourself with that. You’ll never be able to answer that.")
But Bryson's Katz — despite the distinctively Jewish name — is not Jewish, as Bryson reveals in his memoir of childhood, "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" (my most-listened-to audiobook):
So — if we can believe that — even the prettiest pretty boy may still fall within the shadow of the old adage "You're only pretty as you feel."
Now, after years of recognition as incredibly good-looking — he's 77 — he says:
"And I guess the nice thing about getting older is that you don’t have that [beauty] quite so much anymore. I never had a problem with my face on screen. I thought it is what it is, and I was turned off by actors and actresses that tried to keep themselves young."That face is the only face we get to see in his new movie — "All Is Lost" — in which he's (apparently) the only actor. I've seen the trailer. He's lost at sea. Tom Hanks is also having lonesome, though not that lonesome, trouble at sea in a big movie this fall, and Sandra Bullock is alone in a space suit, bereft even of gravity in a grave situation in "Gravity."
It must say something about us that we're being presented with tales of rugged individualists far adrift from any foundation. Did we ask for that? It's what Hollywood decided, back when this fall's movies were given the go, that we'd need in the Fall of 2013. There's no reason to give much credence to Hollywood's notion of who we are right now. Hollywood thought we were the Lone Ranger and Tonto last summer, and the people said no. Perhaps the Lone Ranger isn't lone enough for our alienated psyches. He had Tonto. Where's my sidekick? the public that shunned "The Lone Ranger" might have thought. How can we identify with his loneliness when he has Johnny Depp?
Robert Redford famously had a sidekick, Paul Newman, in the 2 movies that made him seem to be even more handsome than the already-impossibly-handsome Paul Newman — "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting." And Redford did have another movie in the works with Newman — a movie version of Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" (my second-most-listened-to audiobook). Newman died 5 years ago, but now the news is that it will be made with the not-always-completely-cute Nick Nolte. If you know the book, you may agree with me that Nolte seems more like Bryson's "Walk in the Woods" sidekick Stephen Katz than does Paul Newman.
You might think Newman was more like Katz because he was (half) Jewish. ("Newman had no religion as an adult, but described himself as a Jew, saying, 'it's more of a challenge.'") Nolte, on the other hand, is (apparently) a man disconnected from any particular religion. ("'Where’s God?' You’re gonna kill yourself with that. You’ll never be able to answer that.")
But Bryson's Katz — despite the distinctively Jewish name — is not Jewish, as Bryson reveals in his memoir of childhood, "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" (my most-listened-to audiobook):
Some years ago when I came to apply a pseudonym to one of my boyhood friends, I chose the name Stephen Katz partly in honor of a Des Moines drugstore called Katz’s, which was something of a local institution in my childhood, and partly because I wanted a short name that was easy to type. Never did it occur to me that the name was Semitic. I never thought of anybody in Des Moines as being Jewish. I don’t believe anyone did. Even when they had names like Wasserstein and Liebowitz, it was always a surprise to learn they were Jewish. Des Moines wasn’t a very ethnic place.You've come to the end of this longish first-post-of-the-day, and maybe you're wondering, What are we supposed to talk about now? The issues are: beauty, aging, loneliness, sidekicks, floating adrift without foundation, the extent to which Hollywood may know who we really are, and Where's God?
Anyway, Katz wasn’t Jewish. He was Catholic.
Oktubre 11, 2013
Nude descending a staircase.
Is this helping anyone?
This stairwell is gloomy and deserted, and a nude that's more studiously analytical might enliven the minds of the enlibraried souls, but this is so literal and depressing for everyone. It's a flappy slap in the face as you hit the landing:
In the same stairwell — stare well — you get this:
Closer, with alienating reflections from fluorescent lights:
This stairwell is gloomy and deserted, and a nude that's more studiously analytical might enliven the minds of the enlibraried souls, but this is so literal and depressing for everyone. It's a flappy slap in the face as you hit the landing:
In the same stairwell — stare well — you get this:
Closer, with alienating reflections from fluorescent lights:
"What’s the best book about the law ever written?"
A question asked of Scott Turow, who answers:
Also, I'm interested that Turow cites of "The Count of Monte Cristo" as the book that has had "the greatest impact" him, because that was my father's favorite book. Apparently, it's quite thrilling. I've never read it. I'm adding that to my Kindle. Why have I always resisted reading the one book my father encouraged me to read? How would my life had been different if I yielded to just that one suggestion (let alone all the other things my father would have encouraged)?
“A Theory of Justice,” by John Rawls. It’s not beach reading, but I don’t know of a more lucid articulation of the intuitions many of us share about what is just. Among works of fiction, Melville’s “Billy Budd” would be my first choice, especially in the present day, when the sexual undertones that once dared not speak their name are so apparent.Because if you want to do some great law writing, you're going to want those sexual undertones.
Also, I'm interested that Turow cites of "The Count of Monte Cristo" as the book that has had "the greatest impact" him, because that was my father's favorite book. Apparently, it's quite thrilling. I've never read it. I'm adding that to my Kindle. Why have I always resisted reading the one book my father encouraged me to read? How would my life had been different if I yielded to just that one suggestion (let alone all the other things my father would have encouraged)?
"[S]olemn words from the formerly boisterous figure, a bear of a man at 6 feet 4 inches who many believed would lead Detroit out of its long economic downturn."
"But on Thursday he stood slouched, wearing a tan prison uniform instead of the flashy suits he once favored. Court officers replaced the entourage of bodyguards that used to follow him around. The diamond that once studded his ear, an emblem of his reputation as the 'hip-hop mayor,' was gone."
The NYT evokes twinges of racial discomfort — am I too sensitive? — in its reporting on the sentencing of Kwame Kilpatrick. He got 28 years.
The NYT evokes twinges of racial discomfort — am I too sensitive? — in its reporting on the sentencing of Kwame Kilpatrick. He got 28 years.
At the Straight-and-Curly Café...
... you can promenade across the horizon or get right up in our face.
(Video by Meade.)
"The Screwtape Letters" is not an egg salad sandwich.
In yesterday's Boardwalk Café, Saint Croix said:
But I didn't want to eat an egg salad sandwich. Reading the "Screwtape Letters" is something I would like to do. I read it years ago — and I'm old so that "years ago" in the history of Althouse is almost half a century ago — but I'd like to read it again, especially with the ability to blog it and the context of Scalia's recent remarks about it.
So I added it to my Kindle. You can add it too: here. And if you use that link, you'll be sending me a little money (without paying more). If you like this blog, you can funnel money to me by entering Amazon through the Althouse portal and buying something, anything, at some point before clicking away. But to get me to blog on specific topics, you could attempt the Egg Salad Method. That might work for some things — bloggable, vloggable things, for the right price. You could also just ask, as Saint Croix did, and it might work, if I'm interested enough. This blog is all and only about what interests me.
So I bought "The Screwtape Letters" and read a few pages last night. Here's the first thing I highlighted, and I'll put it here out of context, because you know that I like isolating sentences from their context — so sue me — for the purposes of discussion. That's what we did last winter with The Gatsby Project, which actually has one post that got the "egg salad" tag. It was the post with the "salads of harlequin designs." Remember?
I'm not saying these "Screwtape Letters" posts will only be isolated sentences in the manner of The Gatsby Project. But I am getting us started with this sentence, as the devil Screwtape advises his nephew devil on how to screw with some human being, referred to as "the patient":
I should have said this in the Scalia post — the devil made me not do it — but one of the interesting things about The Screwtape Letters is the insight that a devil is simply an angel with free will.Pay money to get me to blog about something? That's been done... to get me to eat an egg salad sandwich. I'd written a post — back in 2005 — listing "10 things I've never done," and #2 was "Eaten egg salad, devilled eggs, or cold hard-boiled eggs" — hmm, interesting second appearance of the Devil in this post! — and somehow that led to my saying you'd have to pay me $200 to eat an egg salad sandwich, and some commenters got together and collected $200 and PayPal'd it to me, and I blogged — vlogged! — The Eating of the Egg Salad Sandwich.
Thus if you believe in an afterlife — and an overwhelming number of people believe in an afterlife — you should acknowledge devils. They are simply angels who are in rebellion with God. Which God allows, because God believes in free will for humanity.
What a fantastic book The Screwtape Letters is.
I would pay money for Althouse to blog that book!
But I didn't want to eat an egg salad sandwich. Reading the "Screwtape Letters" is something I would like to do. I read it years ago — and I'm old so that "years ago" in the history of Althouse is almost half a century ago — but I'd like to read it again, especially with the ability to blog it and the context of Scalia's recent remarks about it.
So I added it to my Kindle. You can add it too: here. And if you use that link, you'll be sending me a little money (without paying more). If you like this blog, you can funnel money to me by entering Amazon through the Althouse portal and buying something, anything, at some point before clicking away. But to get me to blog on specific topics, you could attempt the Egg Salad Method. That might work for some things — bloggable, vloggable things, for the right price. You could also just ask, as Saint Croix did, and it might work, if I'm interested enough. This blog is all and only about what interests me.
So I bought "The Screwtape Letters" and read a few pages last night. Here's the first thing I highlighted, and I'll put it here out of context, because you know that I like isolating sentences from their context — so sue me — for the purposes of discussion. That's what we did last winter with The Gatsby Project, which actually has one post that got the "egg salad" tag. It was the post with the "salads of harlequin designs." Remember?
I'm not saying these "Screwtape Letters" posts will only be isolated sentences in the manner of The Gatsby Project. But I am getting us started with this sentence, as the devil Screwtape advises his nephew devil on how to screw with some human being, referred to as "the patient":
"By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?"
The Morning Meade-dog.
The newest in the endless stream of photographs Meade took at the Capital Springs Dog Park.
I love the use of shadow... and tongue...
"Why is your logo a pair of Y Fronts?"
"I had never heard of Y-Fronts, so I wrote it off and scrolled right past. But they kept coming…"
I got there from here: "A data company turns an unusual branding issue into a case study: does its logo looks like a pair of men’s underpants?"
ADDED: What's worse making your logo accidentally look like men's underpants? Making it accidentally look like the contents of men's underpants. I first blogged that link back in 2005, when we laughed until we cried.
I got there from here: "A data company turns an unusual branding issue into a case study: does its logo looks like a pair of men’s underpants?"
ADDED: What's worse making your logo accidentally look like men's underpants? Making it accidentally look like the contents of men's underpants. I first blogged that link back in 2005, when we laughed until we cried.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons wins the Nobel Peace Prize, I say, and Meade says: "That's a slam on Obama."
"Why?" I ask, and he says, "Obama was going to go to war over chemical weapons. They're trying to say: Maybe we shouldn't have given you the Peace Prize." Hmm. I read the NYT article:
But look what we are doing! It's what everybody's been doing for the last 5 years: Making everything about Obama. The sun rises in the morning, and what does it mean for Obama? A bird twitters in a treetop, and what is he saying about Obama?
Urging the destruction of “an entire category” of unconventional weapons, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2013 Peace Prize on Friday to a relatively modest and little-known United Nations-backed body that has drawn sudden attention with a mission to destroy Syria’s stocks of chemical arms under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States."Don't we need to look at their explanation of why they gave the prize." I mean, it could be more of a statement about how bad chemical weapons are — which would align with what Obama's been saying. But it could be about how there are peaceful ways to go about eliminating chemical weapons, which might be phrased in a manner that disapproves of Obama.
But look what we are doing! It's what everybody's been doing for the last 5 years: Making everything about Obama. The sun rises in the morning, and what does it mean for Obama? A bird twitters in a treetop, and what is he saying about Obama?
The chemical attack outside Damascus initially drew an American threat of military reprisal before Moscow and Washington reached a compromise arrangement to seek the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stocks under international supervision.Nothing like denial to point the way to the truth?
Thorbjorn Jagland, the former Norwegian prime minister who is chairman of the panel, said chemical weapons had been used by Hitler’s armies in their campaign of mass extermination and on many other occasions by states and terrorists. He denied that the award to a body based in The Hague represented a Eurocentric shift after last year’s award to the European Union. “It’s global,” he said.
Oktubre 10, 2013
"Insane Tourists Blatantly Defying The U.S. Government’s Demands."
Can't they read!
I'm such a rule-follower!
ADDED: I show this post to Meade and he says — quoting me from an old story about something I said to the cops in the 1980s — "You can't close the park, man." Or, no, wait. I didn't say that to the cops. Fallible memory! I said that after the cops told us a park that had no walls or gates was closed. We meekly got in the car and left, but I did my imitation of a hippie backtalking to a cop, in the safety of the car: "You can't close the park, man." I'm normally duly submissive in a cop situation.
People. The Washington Monument is CLOSED. Quit posing with it!You know, last Sunday, I got out of the car to take this picture, and somehow it didn't occur to me until I got home that I should have walked around that thing just to be funny.
I'm such a rule-follower!
ADDED: I show this post to Meade and he says — quoting me from an old story about something I said to the cops in the 1980s — "You can't close the park, man." Or, no, wait. I didn't say that to the cops. Fallible memory! I said that after the cops told us a park that had no walls or gates was closed. We meekly got in the car and left, but I did my imitation of a hippie backtalking to a cop, in the safety of the car: "You can't close the park, man." I'm normally duly submissive in a cop situation.
"[T]he most distastefully bro-worshiping, wife-fearing season yet."
Linda Holmes at NPR with 10 elaborate reasons why "Sexism Is Silently Killing 'Survivor.'"
10. And finally, just as a general matter, this season has been almost entirely a story of men being unpleasant and dismissive of women.... You cannot sell, season after season after season, the idea that it is a coincidence that your show is morphing into a grody love letter not to men, but to bullies.Oh, but that's what's so fun, when they get their comeuppance.
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