Confirmed! It's an AU!

So, chances are if you ever glance at Apartment 3G, you've noticed that they live in a New York City that's not only inhabited by two kinds of men (sandy and dark) who look indistinguishable one from another. You may also have noticed that New York City is strangely, even sinisterly, devoid of any non-white people. At all.

Well, now it's confirmed. It's an Alternate Reality, one in which the governor of the state has his mansion in The Big City rather than Albany, the state's capital in our reality...

(Seriously. How can they write a story in which the governor is going to come "pick you up Friday night at 8" and expect people not to laugh?)

Glad I've seen the Grand Canyon already

I've got to say, I'm very glad I've already visited Arizona. Because I'm not ever going back.

Here are a couple of reasons why - and the one buried at the bottom of the story is probably bigger in my mind.

A second bill signed by Brewer on Monday bars cities, towns and counties from collecting or maintaining any identifying information about a person who owns or sells a firearm.

 Seriously? Any information? You can't even keep a list of registered weapons?

That's gonna work out well.

Holy Who?

Suleyman the Magnificent, leader of the ... Holy Roman Empire?

Really, Kathy?


(And I must confess that I have no idea what city the magazine "5280" is a guide to.

Denver? Well, that's cute. But I did not guess it.)

YOLO!

I don't live in California. Is it wrong that this headline made me laugh?

Boater who drowned identified by Yolo coroner

The Week in Entertainment

Film: Blancanieves, which was stunning. I loved the ending, too - very sad and very enigmatic, but if you think about the original story, very hopeful.

DVD: Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (राजू बन गया जेन्टलमैन, Raju Has Become a Gentleman), an early Shahrukh Khan movie with Juhi Chawla, and an outstanding Nana Patekar as Raju's street-performer mentor, Jai. The story is loosely based on A Place in the Sun, but it's not an Indian tragedy (hee hee), there's a happy ending after the angst. Also, Chalte Chalte ( चलते चलते, While Walking), with SRK and Rani Mukherji, a story of mismatched lovers who meet cute, marry after a whirlwind romance, and then bicker - until disaster befalls, and things get worse. And then the rom-com Mujhse Dosti Karoge! (मुझसे दोस्ती करोगे Will you be my friend?) which is a story about a boy named Raj (Hrithik Roshan), who moves to London when he's ten and who falls via email for his childhood friend, Tina (Kareena Kapoor), without knowing that it's actually Pooja (Rani Mukerji) who's been writing and that Tina hasn't given him a thought since he moved away. I thought it would be light and frothy, but its second act was quite angsty (not as angsty as Chalte Chalte, which was a tear-jerker, but still), so I watched Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (मेरे ब्रदर की दुल्हन My Brother's Bride), with Imran Khan and Katrina Kaif, which delivered on the light and frothy (funny: they felt the need to include a warning before the movie that they weren't promoting cigarettes, but there's a ton of drinking, including of bhang (cannabis) that wasn't worth a mention).

TV: Turned out the episode of The Mentalist I was wavering over wasn't even recorded (The Good Wife was instead), but this week's was pretty good. Glad to see Rigsby and van Pelt getting past their problems, though I suppose it will mean one of them has to go... if so, I hope it's her, 'cause I like the way Rigsby and Cho interact. I did go ahead and watch the other one on line, and it was good - the RJ level was down pretty low (see, I don't mind Jane hunting for him - what I mind is how he seems to have a million minions and a hand in every law enforcement agency up to and including Interpol. What I mind is how he can do stuff (like kidnap that FBI guy and get him killed by the other FBI guys) that makes him not a regular criminal but instead some kind of super-Napoleon-of-crime) and the actual murder was intriguing. And then the Doctor - and this is the kind of thing that annoys me: last week Clara had a conversation with the TARDIS, and this week she's calling it "an appliance". Is inconsistency part of her character? I'm trying to reserve judgement (new companions are always hard to adjust to unless of course they're replacing, say, Nyssa. Or Adric.) but she's a puzzle rather than a person, at least so far. Her jeopardy doesn't seem real. We've already see her die twice (and not like Rory) - she just gets replaced by one from a different time. The TARDIS's peril seemed much realer.

Read: Old Flames  was really ... boring, which is an odd thing to say about a book that was as all over the place as it, with Khrushchev and British spies, and murder and adultery, and police/Special Branch in-fighting among other elements of the plot. I got to chapter 71 and couldn't go on. So I started Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson, who's always reliable for a good read. We Can Fix It!, a funny, raunchy, ultimately poignant tale of using time travel to try and set your past self straight. Diary of a Dragon, a cute little story of a dragon and the princess he wants to eat.

For some values of 'wholesome'

In Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (My Brother's Bride), Kush (the 'me' of the title) tries to convince Dimple (the 'bride') that they can't run away together. "Why?" she demands, and he says, "Because I'm not Aamir Khan and you're not Juhi Chawla from Qayamat se Qayamat Tak. What were you thinking? We'd climb a mountain a make a house there? And I'll work in a factory and you'll bring lunch to me tied in a cloth?" (Her response? "Shut up!")

Well, I hadn't heard of that movie, and I like Aamir Khan and adore Juhi Chawla, so I looked it up. It's a smash hit, and one of the Top 25 Must See Films according to India Times. But surely you wouldn't cite them as an example of successful elopers! The reason they ran away in that movie? Their families are at war: Khan is the son of a man who murdered the man who got his sister pregnant and dumped her, while Chawla is the niece of said murdered man.  It ends in Chawla's being shot by her uncle's henchmen and Khan committing suicide and dying beside her.

What startled me? It won the Golden Lotus (National Film Award) the year it came out ... for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment.

Utterly true

Krugman, briefly, on why Bush was the worst president ever. 

And right there you have something that should block Bush from redemption of any kind, ever: he misled us into a war that probably killed hundreds of thousands of people, and he did it in part for political reasons.

There was a time when Americans expected their leaders to be more or less truthful. Nobody expected them to be saints, but we thought we could trust them not to lie about fundamental matters. That time is now behind us — and it was Bush who did it.

Puns depend on pronunciation

I suppose he had to read it that way, but boy it ruined the pun "In 2012 this big Mc won the PGA Championship by 8 shots, the same as his 2011 US Open triumph". Alex said "big MC, muc".

(Rory McIlroy, who's Irish if you didn't know - though it's mackle-roy, not mckillroy)

And a photo of the terra cotta warriors asking what country they were from was a $1000 Daily Double??? Sheesh.

Big Day

By the way, tomorrow is the day that Cornell Lab's Team Sapsucker tries to break the North American record for number of birds seen in a single day (this is their own record, which they set in 2011).

You can help Cornell's Research and Conservation efforts (which includes the great blue heron and red-tailed hawk nest cams, along with their other good works) by pledging a trifling (or not) amount for each species they spot.

In other news, water is wet and fire burns

Washington Times headline:

Republican report on Benghazi puts blame on Obama, Clinton / Says Pentagon, intelligence agencies were set up to fail

Happy Birthday, Will

Today (most likely) in 1654 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon was born the Swan of Avon, the Bard, William Shakespeare.

Does anything need to be added to that? How does one choose which poem, which quote? I did choose one, for National Poetry Month, but here I'll just urge you to go here to find your own.

ps - I definitely, whole-heartedly recommend to you Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro. (Spoiler: It was Shakespeare.)

pps - For a ... different take, check out the Savage Chickens! (Is this a lazy whiner I see before me?)

Happy Earth Day

As Neil deGrasse Tyson says, it was founded in 1970. "The year after we walked on Moon, looked back home, & discovered Earth for first time"



(top image from NOAA, bottom from Curiosity)

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: Rewatched Om Shanti Om, Billu, and Khabi Khushi, Kahbhie Gham - because I was in the mood for some SRK song and dance.

TV: The Doctor, of course, in an atmospheric 'ghost' story. (Maybe I'm getting old, but Palmer didn't look old enough to have been in WWII...) Still not much feel for Clara, but if she's going to call the TARDIS a cow, she might be in for some more bumpy rides. Psych - what a brilliant episode. I loved the double-track story line (and Shawn's Irish Swedish accent cracked me up!). Stared at the The Mentalist on the DVR list and balked (at least for now) at the line "Meanwhile, Kirkland tries to uncover the extent of Jane's knowledge about Red John." I am so beyond sick of Red John and his godlike powers. I think I may be losing another show... On the other hand, I thought I had three Grimm, but one was preempted to celebrate catching the Boston bomber. The ones I caught up on - very nice. I'm really liking Renard - he was a Big Damn Hero, in fact, very cool - and his brother has no idea how little his "I'll tell the Grimm!" moves him. And I enjoyed "One Angry Fuchsbau", it was nice to see the little rat-guy again.

Read: Brian Switek's brilliant and engaging My Beloved Brontosaurus, a romp through paleontology and our evolving understanding of dinosaurs. Began Old Flames, a Cold War thriller that got good reviews.

These are interesting times

Via the Josh Fruhlinger Experience, this summary of the week just gone by:

Just to make clear what kind of week this has been: an Elvis impersonator who wanted to blow the cover off of an organ-harvesting scheme tried to kill the president, and nobody cared.

Not till today

"I've not forgotten his words till today. Even you shouldn't." That's what Yash Raichand tells his son Rahul in Kabhi Kushi, Kabhie Gham.

Or at least that's how the subtitles put it.

A better translation would be "I've not forgotten his words since then. And you shouldn't either." Or "I remember his words still today. And you should, too."

I mentioned once before that bhi means both "even" and "also, too", and that the same problem occurs for translators from Russian - saying "even you" instead of "you, too". This "till" (तक tak) also has a parallel in Russian - пока (poka) - and my students are always giving me "not till now" when the Russian really means "up till now".

Russian uses пока не (poka ne, that is poka + not) to mean "while", too: "while something isn't happening" means "until it does happen". I only have a little bit of Hindi, so I don't know if there's a construction with tak that works the same, but I wouldn't be surprised - especially given the prevalence of subtitles like (from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai): "Till Mrs Malhotra was alive, I used to wear fancy dress for her sometimes" or these excellent examples (from Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman) "You have taken the right decision. Until you don't get a job as per your qualification, take up this job." and "You mean a bribe? That won't happen until I am here!"

Still Non-Resident!

The movie Om Kapoor, Shahrukh Khan's character - OK they call him, a typical Bollywood nickname and obviously a play on Khan's own SRK - wins the Filmfare award for Best Actor in the reincarnation romance and revenge film Om Shanti Om is called Phir Bhi Dil Hai NRI (Yet the Heart is Still Emigrant (Non-Resident Indian)), which plays on Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, a political drama about a reporter gaining ideals. I'm not sure what the "NRI" version would be like, but probably very funny.

His other nominated film (yes, OK has two nominations for the same year, it's that kind of over-the-top playful tribute to Bollywood on top of the plot) is Main Bhi Hoon Na (I'm Also Still Here) which plays off Main Hoon Na (I'm Still Here), director Farah Khan's first film and also the first film for SRK's production company, Red Chilies Entertainment, which produced Om Shanti Om. In another funny bit, both film clips have OK delivering the line "Rahul, naam to sona hoga? (I'm Rahul - have you heard that name?)" which is a line from Dil To Pagal Hai, one of SRK's earliest great movies (and funny because Rahul is the name of several of his characters (prominantly in the excellent Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, the equally excellent though very different Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, and the frothy rom-com Yes, Boss).

I do wonder, watching this movie again, what happens to OK's (the reincarnated Om Prakash Makhija) relationship to his father, Rajesh Kapoor, after he realizes who he was and goes back to Om's mother.

To Mirandize or not

Glenn Greenwald on the question of Mirandizing Dzhokar Tsarnaev, and why it matters, and yet why it's well past the time this decision was made. Once again: THIS is the worst thing about the Obama presidency. And about Dems who forget how much they hated this when Bush was doing it. It's not about what Tsarnaev deserves; it's about what we deserve. It's about preserving America rather than helping her enemies destroy her. It's about not becoming what we profess to hate.

Panorama - no wait no

Seriously, did anybody else - just for a moment - think there were two guys presenting awards and bantering with each other in A3G today? It looks like a 2-panel-panorama, with a bar down the middle. I know it's just because all the men look alike while somehow simultaneously not looking the same from moment to moment, but it's freaky. And the background really adds to the illusion.

Tax Day

I hope you get filed in time.

"Taxes are, after all, the dues that we pay for the privilege of membership in an organized society."- FDR

"Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society."- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Don’t start imagining"

Via The Josh Fruhlinger Experience, this wise and wonderful essay by Jesse Walker in response to Boston.

Read it. Believe it. Live it.

Lord Chekhov?

So, the clue was Salman Rushdie's in-hiding pseudonym that paid tribute to both Conrad and Chekhov.

Two of them picked "Lord Jim". Just how did they rationalize Chekhov?

It's Joseph Anton.

Goslings!

We have goslings. We also have a new pair of geese moving in where the old nest was - must be prime real estate - and honking up a veritable storm. I thought at first they were objecting to the older couple and the babies, who (the adults anyway) seemed a bit taken aback by the fuss, but they were still keeping it up this afternoon when the others were on the other side of the pond. Perhaps this is a new, young couple still courting?

And look: once again there's one that's wandering away from the others. (Of course, to be honest, one gosling looks much like another. For all I know, it wasn't always the same one last year.)

The Week in Entertainment

TV: The Middle was touching, and Modern Family was very funny, especially Phil vs. his nemesis, the hyterically named Gil Thorp. Psych - I like Gus & Rachel, they're growing on me. And Lassiter  and Marlow's wedding was priceless - I love that he was in white and she had a red bridal gown. (But seriously? This is the first time Juliet has suspected that Shawn is faking being a psychic?) And of course!! Three episodes of Doctor Who, a frenetic introduction to Clara Oswald. Clearly, who is this impossible girl is going to be the arc of the rest of this season. My first question: how come the TARDIS didn't make her understand all the people at the bazaar? "They call him the Mad Monk." "They shouldn't. He's most definitely not a monk." I like the new coat, by the way. Also the new theme. "Did you just lock us in?" "Yep." "With the soul-eating monster?" "Yep." "Is there actually a way to get out?" "What? Before it eats our souls?" "Ideally, yeah." "Possibly. Probably. There usually seems to be."

Read: The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen; I'm sure I read this back in college, if not high school - I remembered how the murdered man's hat was removed from the scene - but I did not remember the motive at all. Blackmailed for "a drop of Negro blood", which would have ruined him, of course. Yikes. Also read - devoured, actually - Hugh Howey's "Molly Fyde" tetrology. Wow, that man can write.

Not the same actor...

I enjoyed Roger Ebert's reviews and I own several of his books on movies. But every now and then he'd just make a really silly mistake in a review. In a post I made mentioning afew recent instances, a commenter asked if Ebert was getting careless, or old before his time. The answer to that is 'no' - he's always done it.

Back in 1994, he wrote a profile on Tom Hanks, available in Awake in the Dark, in which he said

Look at him instead in Big, where in the early scenes he plays a pint-sized adolescent. (If you think this is easy, see how Martin Short handled it in Clifford.) He is at just that age when all of the girls in his class shoot up into Amazonia, while the boys remain short and squeaky-voiced. At an amusement part, he is in line next to the girl of his dreams, and hopes to sit next to her on a thrill ride, but the ride operator won't let him on board because he's too short. Hanks's face is a study in tragedy here; he portrays his humiliation so completely that it sets up the rest of the film, as his thirteen-year-old mind is magically transported into a thirty-year-old body, and he finds his true calling -- working for a toy company. His secret is that he is the only one at the company who really loves to play with the toys, and Hanks finds a childlike body language for shots like the one where he hops, skips, and jumps through the company's lobby.

There's only one problem with this: Tom Hanks did not play Josh as a boy. That was David Moscow.
Earlier posts: quite a lot in Star Trek, the relationship between Hal and Georgia in Beginners, what the king knew in Stardust, and 'robotic dogs' in Up.

Guess Who's Coming to Howard

You may have heard that Rand Paul went to Howard University and tried to lecture the student body on the history of the Republican party, trying to understand how it is that the party that freed the slaves, gave blacks the vote, and elected the first black senator and representatives lost the black vote. Of course, since for Paul, this history sort of stopped in the 1950s, while the students at Howard are a bit more up-to-date, it didn't go all that well.

Jon Stewart recaps: “A Republican freed the slaves, gave black people the vote, yada yada yada, and now all blacks vote Democratic, I mean, what the hell?”

Watch it here (I'd embed it, but they don't give the "old" embed code like You Tube does...)

Buy Low Russia

Byelorussia. Pronounced BYE-lo-russia. And they let him have it.

Sigh. That "ye" means there's a y-glide. It's like "yell".

Okay, yes. I suppose you can argue it's like Naples vs Napoli, or Germany vs Deutschland. But we don't call it that any more. Byelorussia is a very outdated spelling of what's now Belarus.

RIP Jonathan

Jonathan Winters is gone. The man was, as someone remarked, a certifiable American treasure. And soooooo funny. He'll definitely be missed. But aren't we lucky to live when we don't have to depend on others telling us how great someone was, back in the day? Go to You Tube. See for yourself, if these aren't enough (and they wont' be):

I know everyone is showing this, but ... on the Jack Paar show, improvising with the barest of props, a simple stick.



And the airline pilot "A Man Under Pressure"

NCAAW. Bleargh.

I cannot tell you how much  I hate the fact that freakin' Geno Auriemma has as many titles as Pat Summitt. It's wrong in a cosmic sense.

WTF? Byron?

Sylvie and Bruno! I love that. Also Phantasmagoria ... and ...

Wait what. Jules Verne? Oscar Wilde (a slightly better guess, except algebra?)?

And Byron???? Algebraic Formulae? BYRON????

Ahem. It's Lewis Carroll.

The Week in Entertainment

I was on vacation so there's only 'Read' this week

Read: Tepper Isn't Going Out, an enigmatic but fascinating novel by Calvin Trillin, focusing on parking in NYC. Also the new Brunetti novel, The Golden Egg, about the death of a deaf-mute (or was he?) who's not on the books... anywhere.

More on Ebert

Over at Fred's place, some thoughts and links to more people thinking about Roger Ebert. Good stuff.

Goodbye, Roger

Roger Ebert has died.

I've poked at some of his reviews in the past, but I read them all the time. And his blog was a home to some really wonderful writing (like this about his father) and who can forget when he took on Bill O'Reilly? His books - the ones like I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length were funny, while Awake in the Dark was wonderful and Life Itself is on my virtual to-read stack.

He well deserved his Pulitzer, and his star on the Walk of Fame. He was a example of shining grace at the end of his life (a few days ago he wrote in Salon: "I do not fear death. I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear... I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state," he wrote. "I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting.") and he will most decidedly be missed.

Updated to add a link to his Sun-Times obituary, which has this wonderful quote, which comes from Life Itself:

“Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

Final Four, real

Gah. UConn, Notre Dame, Louisville ... Looks like I'm pulling for California.

Final Four (hope)

Well, UConn (boo hiss) trounced Kentucky, but Georgia and California went to OT before California squeaked it out. I'm 0 for 2... Hope tomorrow goes better!

Upset!

Well, I was predicting UT and Baylor would play in the round of eight, but while Tennessee did beat Oklahoma, Baylor lost to Louisville in a pretty stunning upset. Georgia also beat Stanford, and will meet California, but in the other brackets it's 1 vs 2: Notre Dame/Duke and UConn/Kentucky.

So, how about a Final Four of UT/Georgia and Kentucky/I don't care I hate them both? :-)