12.7.2001
12.6.2001
Chris writes:
Not to rehash the party line on 'Potter,' but I'll try to put my own spin on...
It's not like I expected the movie to look like Tim Burton or Quentin Tarantino, but if it weren't for the modern CGI, 'HPatSS' looks like it could have come out in 1985; it's as if the indie-film revolution of the '90s -- which forced even mainstream Hollywood product (even kiddie flicks) to exhibit a sense of style and a bit of wit -- never happened. I mean, imagine what a film like, say, 'Babe' would have looked like if it had come out in the mid-'80s. Or 'Spy Kids.' Or 'Chicken Run.' Or 'James and the Giant Peach.' They might still have been fine films (well, I dunno about 'Spy Kids') but they would have been too on-the-nose, too sub-Spielberg (like, say, 'Hook') to register as having any sense that kids want something more than gooey entertainment. Don't get me wrong, the Decade Of Irony did some awful things to children's entertainment -- 'Home Alone,' the remake of '101 Dalmatians' and the horror that was last year's live-action 'Grinch' leap to mind. But as I sat and watched a 'Harry Potter' that was so reverently faithful to the book I wanted to riot, I kept half-wishing that dubious auteur Chris Columbus would actually *try* to do what critics and we media elite had been afraid he'd do: put his sorry excuse for a style on the flick. At least then the movie would've HAD a style, rather than the airbrush-perfect, styleless adaptation we got. (By way of a confession, I should say that I didn't think Columbus's 'Mrs. Doubtfire' was that awful of a movie; it made me laugh, handled the divorce subplot quite sensitively, and is practically Oscar-worthy compared to the dreck that is his inexplicably revered 'Home Alone' series. Anyway, 'Doubtfire' and the first 'Gremlins' suggest to me that Columbus can produce something that's more than tolerable.)
Anyway, I had a fine time at 'Harry Potter' -- being there with my very enthusiastic Mom helped -- but I'd give the flick about two-and-a-half stars at best.
Not writing about Harry Potter at all, but this bit from an A.S. Byatt essay leapt out at me:
"In a way, an actor whose appearance is an almost perfect match for the imagined face is more uncanny and more disturbing than one who is no match and can be peeled away in the imagination. The closer the match, the harder it is to remember, to recreate in the mind, those aspects of the character's face and manners which don't coincide, or are deliberately written fluctuating and vague."
Hmmm. Maybe Emily will explain that for us later. Anyway, Harry Potter is one of the more interesting movies made from a book, because its primary audience (skewered here) doesn't want anything more than a straight retelling of the book. As we watched it, a girl behind us kept whispering explanations to her mother about what was going on and what was going to happen. The kids in the audience were rapt. As Debbie pointed out, the really good stuff from the books are the characters, and the movie spent much of its airtime on plot business. The movie, then, only has an impact if you know the characters so well that you can supply the missing details. (That's why we had such a good time predicting the casting -- trying to match the characters in our minds to the actors. Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart? No way -- Hugh Grant was born to play that role!) Colin said "you have to bring the books to the movie" (which is a shame, because they're quite heavy.)
The closest equivalent, I think, is a medieval passion play. The audience knows the stories and the characters by heart, through constant retelling. They don't want an original interpretation of Jesus -- that wouldn't be the point. They want to see the Book come to life.
But did we really have to lose Peeves?
James Orenstein, former deputy attorney general, outlines in today's NYT how relying on military tribunals is wrong on practical grounds, by making it harder for us to cooperate internationally, and harder to go after low-level operatives in search of the bigger fish. William Safire continues to rail against "Soviet-style secret military trials" with "no presumption of innocence; no independent juries; no right to choice of counsel; no appeal to civilian judges for aliens suspected of being in touch with terrorists." And at Spinsanity (a must-link!) Brendan Nyhan shows how Bush's supporters are confusing military tribunals with court-marital trials, which have much stricter standards of evidence and procedure.
Okay, we'll keep that one.
Normally I don't write letters to politicans -- my brief stint on the Hill convinced me that they are mostly useless -- but today's news got me so mad I had to write this:
Dear Mr. President:
While I don't agree with the prevailing view that we need to abandon our civil rights in order to secure our safety, I would ask that your Administration be at least consistent. Specifically, Attorney General Ashcroft has indicated that checking whether a suspected terrorist has ever bought a gun would violate their right to bear arms. Why does the 2nd Amendment prevail in cases of terrorism, while the 4th and 5th Amendment do not? If we are going to arrest people without charges, try them without juries, and search homes in secret, why can't we consult our own government database to determine if they own handguns or assault weapons? I think the public will demand that this information be available to law enforcement, just as they demanded that you look beyond ideology on the airport security issue. Perhaps this will force a debate on which parts of the Constitution we can ignore -- a debate that was noticably absent before the passage of the USA-PATRIOT act. I am eager to learn why our court system (which successfully tried the 1993 WTC terrorists and terrorist McVeigh) is now insufficient to try suspected terrorists, yet we must uphold the 2nd Amendment rights of these same suspects. I await the reply of one of your beleagured staffers.
Sincerely,
Michael Everett-Lane
Naunihal sent this in:
Conductor Boulez Arrested As A Terrorist
Police dragged composer-conductor Pierre Boulez, 76, from his bed in a top hotel in Basle, Switzerland and confiscated his passport last month while he was investigated on suspicion of links to terrorism, the BBC reported today (Wednesday). Boulez, the former conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, had reportedly been added to the government's list of terrorist suspects because of public comments he made in the 1960s that opera houses should be blown up. In the 1980s and early '90s, Boulez was the musical director for six lavish opera productions presented on German television.
[NB: No reports on whether his baton was seized as a potential weapon.]
12.5.2001
Sandra sent this one in:
Gannett's Art Appreciation Lesson
By Lloyd Grove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 5, 2001; Page C03
When Gannett Co. and USA Today moved into their palatial new $300 million corporate headquarters at Tysons Corner recently, some employees were strangely drawn to the "big blue ball." That's the Lita Albuquerque sculpture on display in the 11th-floor executive suite just outside the offices of Gannett Chairman and CEO Douglas H. McCorkindale and USA Today President and Publisher Tom Curley.
"It's hypnotic," said veteran USA Today sportswriter Karen Allen, 48, who last week paid a fateful visit to the sculpture, titled "Aperture," with two colleagues -- sports special projects editor Denise Tom, 49, anddatabase editor Cheryl Phillips, 39.
The women concede they were in a silly mood when they made their Tuesday afternoon pilgrimage to the specially commissioned installation, which cost Gannett nearly $100,000. "We were being stupid," Phillips told us yesterday. After noticing fingerprints and scrawls in what appeared to be blue dust covering the sphere, they touched the surface. Then Phillips and Allen playfully traced the words "Kilroy was here," as well as Denise Tom's name. Tom tried to blot out her name and nervously backed away. The "dust" was actually pigment that awaited a sealant. The whole thing was caught on videotape by security cameras.
Two days later, USA Today sports managing editor Monte Lorell summoned the women and demanded an explanation. The three also met with Gannett personnel and security officials, and apologized for whatever damage was inflicted and offered to pay for repairs. Phillips sent a remorseful letter to Curley.
But on Monday, the ax fell. In separate sessions, Lorell told all three they were fired effective immediately, apparently with no severance pay.
"There were three employees involved in an incident and an investigation was conducted and security tapes were reviewed," Curley told us yesterday, adding that criminal charges were considered. "People came to a conclusion and made recommendations to me, and after hearing them, the decision was made." Curley called the firings "irreversible."
The penalty was greeted with shock from the women's colleagues, some of whom threatened to boycott the company Christmas party. "Everyone is horrified," a USA Today staffer who asked not to be named told The Post's Howard Kurtz. "Everyone is thinking this is an insane, ego-related firing."
Sculptor Albuquerque was equally incredulous. "Oh my God! Are you kidding? This is crazy!" she told us yesterday. "I think it's a terrible thing, firing people from a lifetime job for what is essentially graffiti, and I'd be willing to write a letter to the president of the company." When told what the women scrawled, Albuquerque laughed, and added: "It's certainly reparable for not a lot of money."
Yesterday Phillips, a two-year employee of USA Today who last year was named one of the paper's "Enterprise All-Stars"; Allen, an original USA Today staffer with 25 years at Gannett; and Tom, a 26-year Gannett employee and the single mom of a 14-year-old boy, hired Washington lawyer Steve Hoffman.
While we're making corporations look ridiculous, this email exchange makes KPMG look pretty stupid, webwise.
"Our houses and even our bed chambers are exposed to be ransacked, our boxes, chests, and trunks broke open, ravaged, and plundered. . . . Flagrant instances of the wanton exercise of this power have frequently happened. . . . By this we are cut off from that domestic security which renders the lives of the most unhappy in some measure agreeable."
Life under the Taliban? Nope, it's from the Committee of Correspondence, in 1761, talking about the British government's search and seizure power. Fortunately, we have the 4th Amendment to protect us. Right?
Not now, according to Nat Hentoff in this week's Village Voice. Hentoff outlines how the new USA PATRIOT act empowers our government to break and enter into your house, download files from your computer, take whatever they want, and leave without leaving a receipt or flowers or anything. And you don't have to be a suspected terrorist, either. (Oh, and as an added bonus, this new goverment power does not expire in four years, like many of the other parts of the PATRIOT law. Have a nice day.)
Meanwhile, in Europe, the EU is arguing over a proposed definition of terrorism as "offenses intentionally committed by an individual or a group against one or more countries, their institutions or people, with the aim of intimidating them and seriously altering or destroying the political, economic, or social structures of a country." According to a Brussels lawyer who's filed an appeal, "the definition is so broad that it includes all kinds of lawful protest. Trade union activity, anti-globalization protest, all of it can be criminalized under the legislation." Read all about it here.
One of many amusing stories at this site:
I work for an ISP. One day a woman called, furious.
Customer: "I bought the Internet the other day, and it ain't workin'."
Tech Support: "Well, ma'am, can you explain what's happening?"
Customer: "Well, I called that number that you gave me, and it don't do nothing."
Tech Support: "What do you mean?"
Customer: "When I call it, all it does is squeal in my ear!"
Silence.
Tech Support: "Ma'am, do you have a computer?"
Customer: "Computer? Hell, I pay you twenty dollars a month! I don't need a computer!"
12.4.2001
A college student is accused of abusing his position at Yale University's rare books library to steal more than $1.5 million in one-of-a-kind historic signatures and other items - then selling them on the Internet.
Benjamin W. Johnson, 21, who faces 12 counts of first-degree larceny and 11 counts of criminal mischief, is charged with damaging unique items, including a letter sent by George Washington to French Gen. Rochambeau in 1780, a Yale University police affidavit shows. The letter from Washington was valued at $350,000, and two other letters in Washington's handwriting were valued at $110,000.
Those items, along with rare versions of some of the most famous novels in American history, were recovered last month when police raided Johnson's parents' home at 421 Ridge Road in Hamden. More than 50 items were found in Hamden and at Johnson's dormitory room at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
And what are we doing hiring University of Wisconsin students for summer jobs at Beinecke anyway? No Yale students available for cushy summer jobs?
Among the rules that the Taliban imposed on Afghanistan (as reported in the New York Times and Forbes), is the following dictum:
9. A person who wears his hair in the un- Islamic style � Beatle-y � will be arrested and his head will be shaved.
I think John and George would be pleased, don't you? (Not at the arrest-and-head-shaving part, but the Beatles-are-still-counter-cultural-icon part.)
* Driving down Route 87, passing a red Neon with this URL emblazoned on the back.
* On the back of a truck on 7th Avenue, a large machine is labelled "Putzmeister." Really.
* Walking down Garfield Place, I pass two black girls and a balding white guy in a suit Double Dutching. What's going on, I wonder, with various scenarios running through my head. Unfortunately, it turns out that it's for a photo shoot.
* Overheard outside Connecticut Muffin this morning, from the three old folks who take up residence on the bench outside:
She: "They treat those matadors like gods over there."
He: "You know, before ancient Greece, in the Minoan civilization, there were these guys who would grab the bull by the horns and somersault over them."
I decide that I definitely need coffee.
12.3.2001
"The polls show that African-Americans, those most vocal in complaining about racial profiling, are saying it's OK as long as those being profiled aren't us,'' says Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the National
Alliance for Positive Action and author of The Disappearance of Black Leadership."
http://www.miami.com/rc/news/docs/1690151l.htm
http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/local/dade/digdocs/061336.htm
Debbie sent in this article, pointing out that our tactics in the "good war" weren't any less brutal than our tactics in the present war. Excerpt below.
Hollywood and the American public have always loved the images of heroic young GIs battling German soldiers in Europe (witness the popularity of films such as "Saving Private Ryan" and the "Greatest Generation" books). However, as accurate as these images are, they are also somewhat "sanitized" because they don't tell the full story of how we won the war in Europe. What brought Germany to its knees was U.S. and British aerial bombing. This aspect of the war is rarely dramatized.
Obviously, dropping bombs from on high is less dramatic than going toe-to-toe with German soldiers on the ground, but I suspect there's another reason for Hollywood's reluctance to bring attention to the bombing campaign: In our bombing of Germany, heavily populated civilian districts were intentionally targeted. The idea was that by targeting the civilian population, we would disrupt Germany's economy, destroy the morale of its citizens and create chaos by rendering millions of people homeless.
It was a brutal way to win a war--and it worked like a charm . . . .
Why is this information relevant today? Because today's Americans have been led to believe that in a "good war," civilians aren't targeted. With every news release about Afghani civilians killed by stray American missiles, many Americans react with righteous indignation. "How can we kill innocent civilians? Why, we're as bad as the terrorists!" Hollywood helps foster the notion that we fought World War II in a strictly ethical way, but the truth is that the destruction of the brutal Nazi empire came about only through brutal methods.
By facing the non-sanitized reality of World War II, we can confront the assumptions and prejudices that color our views of the current war. If millions of civilian deaths were necessary to bring down Nazi Germany (a country that never attacked the United States), are not some civilian deaths to be expected--dare I say tolerated--in our war against Islamic fascists, who've already killed more Americans than died on D-day?
Most Germans voted against Hitler in the election of 1932. The German civilians who were burned alive in our bombing raids were no more likely to be Nazis than the Afghani civilians who've been hit by U.S. missiles are likely to be Taliban sympathizers. . . . .
Did the "greatest generation" lack our moral compass and restraint, or do we lack their resolve to do whatever's necessary to excise a cancerous growth from the body of nations?
Ok - who wants to join me in a trip to the local bookstores ? And how long before we get lynched ? For the record, I do get called "Sand-Nigger" from time to time and I've put Prof. Kennedy on notice that I'm calling him if I get attacked !
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/01/books/01BOOK.html
"I think it is pretty fun," Mr. McDonald said, imagining customers asking a bookstore clerk, "Can I have one `Nigger' please? Where are your `Niggers'?" He added, "I am not afraid of the word `nigger.' "
 | If I was a James Bond villain, I would be Dr Julius No. I enjoy fine dining, nuclear power, and initiating global war. I am played by Joseph Wiseman in Dr No. Who would you be? James Bond Villain Personality Test |
Naunihal takes some time out from civil-rights-watching to send us this article from the Washington Post on Battle Mountain, Nevada, a contender for the dubious title of Armpit of America. (Note that nearby Elko, where the story begins, is the home of a casino with a large statue of a polar bear out front. I won $120 playing the slots there, which paid for a wild night in Pocatello, Idaho.) A brief excerpt:
Shar Peterson is a slim, attractive, intense woman with striking hair that appears to have been styled by a Van de Graaff generator. The executive director of the Battle Mountain Chamber of Commerce is always smiling, and she was smiling at this very moment, but I knew she wasn't glad to see me. After our first phone conversation, Shar had talked to some of the town mothers and fathers, who apparently had not shared her vision about the terrific publicity potential of this armpit thing. As Shar put it, "Some people are taking it as a negative."
Shar had apparently been strongly encouraged to dissuade me from my mission, to argue the case against the armpit. Once enthusiastic collaborators, we were, at the moment, potential antagonists.
I sat down. Laid my cards on the table.
"Shar," I said, "this is not a handsome town."
"We understand that," she said, her smile defiantly unbroken.
Shar was doing her level best to show me the highlights of Battle Mountain. It was not easy. It was, in fact, a grim little exercise in desperation salesmanship. Shar is an excellent guide and spin artist, but being executive director of the Battle Mountain Chamber of Commerce is a little like being regional sales manager for Firestone tires.
Heading out on Route 305, Shar pointed out several distant hills in the Shoshone mountain range.
"That looked better before the fires."
And:
"Usually, in different weather, that's a nice view of the valley."
And:
"The people aren't exactly xenophobic. You just have to earn their trust."
We saw several distant peaks with bald smears caused by mining. "They'll look normal afterwards. They'll just be a little less high."
Shar wanted to show me some of the nicer houses, but they were scattered around, so to get to them we had to pass homes that looked like the sort of place Snuffy Smith's wife, Loweezy, is forever brooming out.
Shar came here many years ago, when her husband got a good job in a local mine. He still has it, and so she is still here. She loves it, she said. She said it three times.
I said nothing. We passed one of the more expensive homes. It features a rather startling facade of faux boulders that sort of look like stone, the way cardboard sort of looks like oak.
"I have two choices," Shar said at last. "To make myself miserable or to learn to love where I am. Do you know what I mean?"
I did.
"Okay, maybe we're an armpit," Shar said. "If so, we're shaven, and clean, and sweet-smelling because out here in the desert, we're arid, extra dry. "
The woman is very good.
