Flying Wallendas

I was offline for about 36 hours and returned to discover Nik Wallenda was doing a tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon. I was surprised to find a fair amount of mockery about it on the internets. Not to mention, nitpicking over the actual location of the walk. Does it really matter if Wallenda crossed above the Grand Canyon on Navajo land?

I remember when it was a BFD for a high wire walker to perform in the Big Top w/o a safety net. But nobody goes to the circus anymore. And an ever more jaded public demands greater thrills from its professional daredevils. Apparently risking certain death by walking a quarter mile on a wire suspended over a incredibly deep chasm just isn't impressive enough for some people.

It is for me. Wallendas have been aerial artists for generations. All praise to Nik Wallenda for keeping the family's legacy alive with this epic walk. [photo: Henrietta Wallenda - 1942]

Annette Funicello died today

I'm very sad Annette Funicello is gone and so is just about everybody else on my interwebs. Lots of guys confessing she was their first crush. Of course for me, it was all about the Mouseketeers. She was one of my all time favorites on the show. Used to watch it every day. Loved her roles in the ongoing serial stories more than the musical numbers but those are too long to embed. So I'll post this as a tribute to her memory. I was probably too young to remember watching this when it first aired, yet somehow it seems hauntingly familiar.



I liked the beach blanket movies but didn't really follow her career after that. Actually didn't even know she had MS. But in reading the obits, apparently she was just as great a role model for civil society in real life as she was in her acting roles. The world is a poorer place for her loss. RIP.

Nerdgasm

If I was banished to a desert island and only allowed one author's collected works, it would be Tolkien. Sure, there's a lot of authors I love and collections of more intellectual heft but Tolkien defined my life in more ways than I could tell in a blog post. So I'm really excited The Hobbit movie released the first official trailer. Think that means the movie is almost ready to be released.



It appears they've added some dialogue. There are lines in this trailer I don't remember from the book. I was wondering how they would make it palatable for an older audience. The Hobbit, in comparison to Lord of the Rings, is just a kid's book. Giving it deeper context with added dialogue will only make it better I think. Can't wait to see the completed project.

Rick Perry heading for the bright lights

Everyone has been having fun with Rick Perry's brain freeze at the last GOP debate. In case you were stuck on a deserted island with no internet access, this will surely be remembered for as long as there is an internet:



In my world they call those "senior moments." I suppose from this day forward many of us will be calling them "Rick Perry moments" instead.

Lot of speculation pondering if this spells the end of Perry's candidacy. That of course, presumes he ever had a viable shot at the nomination. Far as I can tell, his candidacy ended weeks ago. Which could also be said for most of the field.

So why don't they drop out, you ask? Silly readers. Running for president is the new audition for show biz. Perry rocks the house on Letterman last night. Check out his presentation on the Top Ten Rick Perry Excuses.

Most candidates appear to be aspiring for a pundit gig on Fox News. Clearly Perry isn't equipped for the punditry biz, but it looks like he has a bright future as a stand up comic.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Finger monkeys and other wonders

Honestly, I find their tiny little human like hands somewhat creepy but they're so cute in other ways. Like those troll dolls that were so popular when I was a kid.

Original photo from the album here.

It easy to forget when we spend too much time in front of the computer, and especially if you follow politics, that we're surrounded by wonders. I've witnessed such a murmuration of starlings as this in the meadows just outside of lovely downtown Northampton. Intoxicating to witness in real time.

As is, to me at least, this sparkling globular cluster in space.though it's been light years since it looked like this.

And another miracle of nature. This image has been haunting me since I saw it two weeks ago. A young boy leans his bicycle against a tree as he leaves for war in 1914. He never comes home. The tree waits for him still.

Of course there are manmade wonders as well. Love these long exposure light paintings. And vintage airline ads from the New Yorker magazine. And also, beautiful paper lace street art.

Finally, I'm so excited to learn unseen Hobbit art drawn by Tolkien will be published soon. And thanks to the twitter machine, here's a blog from the set of The Hobbit. Blogger is embedded with the crew as they're filming the movie. And direct from the set, The Hobbit Production Video Diary. I didn't know that this one was going to be in 3D. Don't know if I like that or not, but really looking forward to the release.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Not funny

Everybody is talking about Reggie Brown, an Obama impersonator who appeared at the GOP's leadership convention in Louisiana yesterday. The media spin seems to be that he was hauled off the stage by the organizers because of the racist jokes he was making about Obama but if you watch the video, it wasn't until he started mocking the GOP candidates that he got the hook.

In any event, he's a terrible comedian. His jokes were mean spirited and not at all funny. Well, unless you hate Obama I guess. The audience did roar with appreciation when the target was our President. But you do have to give him some credit. His impersonation of Obama was actually very good. Especially the voice inflections.

Atlas Slugged

I haven't been that interested in seeing this movie, and now, after Roy Edroso reviewed Atlas Shrugged, I don't have to. Best movie review. Ever. This was my favorite part:

OK, it's ridiculous, but no more so than Rand's The Fountainhead, out of which King Vidor, Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal made a silly and operatic but perfectly entertaining film.

That was what I hoped for as I watched the thing last night, because as much fun as it is to slag rotten movies, it is much better to be surprised by a good one, especially when you've reached the stage in life where two hours in front of a stinker sets you dreaming of the warm couch and leftover sesame chicken that you left back home. But it is my great regret to inform you that Atlas Shrugged: Part I is neither good nor good-bad, but bad-bad-bad-bad. I dreamed, not of sesame chicken, but of my own swift and merciful death, and that of the director, not necessarily in that order. It is not a pleasurable surprise, not a hoot, nor an outrage; it is Rand's granite crushed, reconstituted, and spread across the screen with steamrollers.

If you're thinking of springing for the ticket price -- well -- read the whole review first. [via]

Time waits for no one

Too hot and the news is too stupid for blogging this afternoon so clearing out some of my saved links.

A picture gallery, Rock stars then and now. Quite a few look better as they aged. Others not so much.

One who never got the chance to get old. Watched this three times already. Jimi performing in 1967. The Wind Cries Mary.

Pix and short bios, the seductive Women of Film Noir. Still love a lot of the films from those days better than the contemporary stuff. I like plot and character development better than special effects.

At first glance this doesn't look that appealing, but once you start clicking the links, you could get lost for hours at this 50- year anniversary site of the 60s.

Older boomers that reverted to simpler living. I clicked on this for the details on the tiny little house but ended up watching the whole set of Second Chance videos.

These aren't old, but it's a interesting twist on the age old practice of graffitti. In London they're discovering mysterious doings at construction sites. I call it Sandalism.

And this photo is just beautiful and intriguing. Not sure what it is, but as hudsonette said in the tweet I got it from, "Looks like the Air Force has been up to something."

[photo]

Worst Dressed

It's my considered opinion that last night was the dullest Oscar awards show ever. The new format was flat and none of the jokes were funny. Apparently the expansion of the best movie category to ten made it necessary to eliminate the traditional live performance of the best music nominees and they did some uninspired interpretive dance number instead and the dresses weren't all that exciting. This is a good photo gallery that starts with the worst dressed.

Everybody was all agog about Charlize Theron blooming breasts dress. I missed it live both times, but seeing the photo, while I'll agree it was decidedly odd, it was hardly the worst. That honor should have been giving to J-Lo's bubble wrap disaster with an incomprehensible side train. It looked stupid and made her look dumpy. Sarah Jessica Parker's dress looks worse in the photo than it did live, but that another fashion mistake. And the best that can be said for poor Vera Farmiga is the color of that ruffled monstrosity was pretty nice.

Diane Kruger's weird dress inside a flowery tube with a tail was second worst in my estimation. It looked much worse in person. It looked like the tube part was devouring her as she walked and she had to keep flipping the tail out of the way. Miley Cyrus' street hooker thing only escaped complete disaster because she's so young, it's okay to look a little trampy. And breaking from the consensus, Sandra Bullock's silver sheath was widely panned but I thought she looked gorgeous in it. The cut suited her well and it was kind of old time movie star glam without being over-bearing about it.

The only other one that really struck me was Demi Moore. The dress was meh, but I think she chose it to prove that she really is skinny as a rail after the recent flap over whether some cover photo of her was photoshopped to make her look so emaciated. [graphic]

Oscar Night

I don't really care who wins the awards. I don't get to enough movies anymore to even have an opinion on whether they should, but I usually watch for a while to get a look at the dresses. I have an odd interest in fashion trends even though I'm not at all fashion forward myself.

Meanwhile I'm hearing that in NYC there's some kind of dispute between ABC and Comcast and ABC went black last night. If you're in NYC or if like me you don't have cable but like to see the red carpet stuff that doesn't air on the networks, I'm told AP will livestream starting at 3pm PST. I guess that's 6pm here in the East.

Also while you're waiting, you might want to take a look at this gorgeous gallery of rare Oscar photos from the 1950s.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

A YouTube worth $30 million

I'll be the first to admit that the production values on this YouTube produced by Fede Alvarez in Uruguay are really good. It's a hell of an amateur video and $300 is a lot to spend on a vanity project. Not surprising it went viral, but he got a $30 million contract out of Hollywood for it? Really? I don't see anything at all original about it. But decide for yourself.



Kind of looks about the same as the Avatar trailer, or any Godzilla movie, to me.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The Naked Truth about Carrie Prejean

I don't find this semi-nude photo of Carrie Prejean all that shocking and I couldn't care less about what the wannabe Miss California USA thinks about same-sex marriage. She has a right to her own opinions. But what I do find absolutely shocking is this news:

Although Prejean said the pictures were taken when she was 17, others have alleged that they seem to have been taken after she underwent breast-enhancement surgery six weeks prior to the Miss USA pageant. That surgery was paid for by the Miss California pageant.

Not only is she "surgically enhanced" but the pagent paid for bigger breasts? Maybe my memory has faded over the years, but I seem to recall that plastic surgery was a mortal sin and even a nose job would disqualify a contestant back when I was young enough to dream of being a beauty queen. The whole premise of these vaguely demeaning events was the woman had to a "perfect specimen" of wholly natural beauty. Standards sure have changed.

And another thing. If she really was 17 in this photo, then shouldn't she and the photographer be arrested for child pornography like all those non-beauty contestant kids who are routinely arrested for passing around "racy" photos on their cell phones these days?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Free booze

The economy may be tanking, but here's one website that's growing by promoting places to get tanked for free, myopenbar.com. The site is mainly focused on promotional events at Manhattan bars, but also has listings for five other major cities - LA, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago and Honolulu. It's quite a success story.

It started with Mr. Granik, then a broke musician living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who simply forwarded text messages to his friends about various open bars around town. Demand grew, so he launched a crude Web site that Mr. Fried, a Web designer he had met through a friend’s band, helped to fine-tune. Within six months, 3,000 people had signed up for weekly e-mail blasts. By mid-2006, there were 18,000 subscribers, and a lot more places offering open bar nights.

They now have 30,000 subscribers in New York alone, employ 30 people and the site is profitable between the advertising and the consulting fees they get for organizing promotions. I have a feeling they're going to keep growing as long as the economy remains trashed.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]

Waterboard Thrill Ride

By Libby

One can hardly imagine a more fitting venue than Coney Island for this new attraction meant to appall and inform.

It looks at first like any other shuttered storefront near the boardwalk: some garish lettering and a cartoonish invitation to a delight or a scam — in this case there’s SpongeBob SquarePants saying, “It don’t Gitmo better!”

If you climb up a few cinderblock steps to the small window, you can look through the bars at a scene meant to invoke a Guantánamo Bay interrogation. A lifesize figure in a dark sweatshirt, the hood drawn low over his face, leans over another figure in an orange jumpsuit, his face covered by a towel and his body strapped down on a tilted surface.

Feed a dollar into a slot, the lights go on, and Black Hood pours water up Orange Jumpsuit’s nose and mouth while Orange Jumpsuit convulses against his restraints for 15 seconds. O.K., kids, who wants more cotton candy!

Steve Powers saw the cinderblock room next door to the freak show and thought it would make the perfect torture chamber. He's right. Brilliant concept and the perfect location for the installation. If I lived in New York, I'd pay the buck to see it there rather than wait until it's moved to the big art show at the Park Avenue Armory. [hat tip Jules]

Um, is it just me or....

expatbrian

Is this just a little too creepy.

Six human feet, each wearing a sports shoe, have washed up on Canadian shores since last August.

The feet have all been found on islands in the Strait of Georgia, off Vancouver, near the mouth of the Fraser River. The first foot was found last August by a girl playing on a remote beach on Jedidah Island, who picked up the size 12 white training shoes and undid the laces to check inside.

Six days later, a woman hiking on nearby Gabriola Island came upon another size 12 training shoe — also a right foot. Two more right feet were found on February 8 on Valdes Island and on May 22 on Kirkland Island.

The first left foot was recovered on Monday on nearby Westham Island when two people out walking their dog pulled a shoe from the water.

The sixth foot was found on a beach in Vancouver Island inside a size 10 black Adidas shoe yesterday morning.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, seeking to allay fears of a serial killer, says there is no evidence the feet were cut off.

That begs the question, if they weren't cut off, what animal is eating everything else but the feet? And why does this animal seem to prefer the left feet? Except once, when it was...what...extra hungry? The answer to that is extra crispy...er...creepy.

Bodies come apart at the joints when submerged in water for some time, and flesh begins to change into adipocere tissue, a soap-like substance sometimes called “grave wax” that crabs and microbes will eat, experts say.

If I can stomach it, I will follow up and let you know who these well apparelled feet belong to. Yuck.

The Art of Bob Dylan

expatbrian

The talent of this man knows no bounds. H/t to 9 Pound Hammer for this gem.

After a successful art show in Germany last year, the songwriter has an art show opening at the Halcyon Gallery in London next week, featuring a collection of over 200 pictures, mostly color variations on the artwork published in "Drawn Blank."

Speaking to the London Times about America, Dylan had this to say.

“Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval,” he says. “Poverty is demoralizing. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor. But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up...Barack Obama. He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.” He offers a parting handshake. “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future,” he notes as the door closes between us."

John Rambo

expatbrian



I just watched Rambo IV. It was brutally graphic, nonstop action and I just loved it. As Rambo, albeit an older, well seasoned one, Stallone still has what it takes. As a younger man I would have called it kickass. 5 stars.

Memory Lane: Easy Rider

It's Sunday night and as usual, I'm surfing through YouTube looking for some nice music to end the week. Besides, it's only 8:30 am where Libby and Fogg are so I have to wait for them to drag their lazy butts out of bed and post something. Anyway, I ran across this and just couldn't resist.

I'm certainly no movie expert although I do watch my share of films. I just know what I like and what I don't. It's been amost 40 years since Easy Rider was released. I still enjoy the movie and its great soundtrack. Like Woodstock, Vietnam, Kent State, The Black Panthers, Mario Savio, The Beatles, and so many other people and events, I think Easy Rider helped define those times.

It was nominated for 10 awards including two Oscars and it won a few. It opens with the great Steppenwolf song, Born to be Wild. Here's a video I found with a few of the other great songs from this memorable movie.

At the movies

expatbrian

I watched several movies this week that were nothing more than big name actors in mediocre films. I'm not going to review them here other than to say that I was disappointed in Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford with Brad Pitt, Michael Clayton with George Clooney, No Country for Old Men with Tommy Lee Jones and Charlie Wilson's War with Tom Hanks. Sure, there is some good acting, even some exceptional acting, but I like to be entertained, not bored. And these bored me.

On the other hand, these are my gems of the week.

Cloverfield-4.5 stars. Very unusual scary thriller about a group of partiers in new york who get caught up in an invasion. Entirely filmed as if by a camcorder held by one of the group, this is my favorite scary movie so far this year.

Redacted-3.5 stars. Like Cloverfield, this is filmed as if from a camcorder held by a soldier filming the real life story of his squad in Iraq. The value of this movie is that it effectively shows the horror and brutality of the war and the horrendous impact it is having on our young soldiers. I'm bias but, if the media and the government won't let us see what is really happening in the war, then at least we should watch movies like this that make a strong attempt.

Across the Universe-4.5 stars. This nice boy meets girl story is told through beatles songs and is simply elegant and excellent. If you like the beatles and want a little romance blended in, you're gonna love this.

American Gangster-3.5 stars. Not half bad movie about a mob drug king and the cops trying to take him down. Denzel and Russell Crowe.

The Brave One- 4.5 stars. A keeper. Jodie Foster as a woman who seeks revenge for a brutal attack. Put this high on the list.

Hero Wanted-3.5 stars. Cuba Gooding Jr., one of my favorite actors as an apparent hero twice over. Not his best ever but a good story with an unusual ending.

The Great Debaters-4.0 stars. Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker team up in this cheer-the-underdog true story about a black debate team from a tiny college that goes for the big time. I was surprised at how much I liked it.

If you're not already using emule and http://www.sharethefiles.com/ to download movies, try it. If that's a little high tech for you (and it's not really very high tech) then http://www.surfthechannel.com/ has a great selection of streaming movies and TV shows that you can watch just by clicking on them. Enjoy

At the Movies

by expatbrian

I'm not a big fan of science fiction and I normally don't get too excited about fantasy movies unless they are exceptional like Lord of the Rings and King Kong. But I just watched two of that genre that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Water Horse tells the "real" story of the Loch Ness monster and the boy who raised him. If you liked Free Willie, you will like this one. I give it 4 stars.

The Golden Compass is even better. This movie, which will obviously have a sequel, follows the exploits of a young girl who possesses the last golden compass, a device that only she can read and which tells the reader only the truth. The special effects are great and Lorek the Ice Bear steals the show. 4 1/2 stars.

Also watched -

War with Jet Li was a typically violent drama with lots of action and a nice plot twist. No oscars here but entertaining if there's nothing better to do. 2 1/2 stars.

The Bucket List teams two of Hollywoods best - Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in a heartwarming story of two old men from totally different backgrounds who are dying and decide on a few last flings. The story is so-so but Nicholson is always worth a watch. 3 stars.

Gone Baby Gone was surprisingly good. Directed by Ben Affleck and starring Casey Affleck as a PI investigating the kidnapping of a 4 year old girl. Morgan Freeman is the police chief (jeez, he is in everything these days!) but Affleck is the show stealer here. 4 stars.