Poehler and Arnett Talk About The Baby

Two of the funniest people on the planet now have a baby son, Archie. Awesome news and a terrific name, but it looks like they expect him to be a brooding, "little baby Sean Penn":

(Footage cribbed from the Blades of Glory dvd, in which Amy Poehler and Will Arnett presumably play a hilarious ice-skating duo; presumably, because I fear the Will Ferrell and have not seen the movie.)

Bravo Paul Krugman

Pundits are decrying the Nobel committee's selection for economics this year as just another jab at the current US administration. They are selling short on Mr Krugman and one would think by now, in light of the current economic meltdown, that short-sellers would be silenced. While Mr Krugman is unapologetically harsh when it comes to Bush, he should be recognised for his true talent: making economics comprehensible to noodniks like myself. His weekly op-ed column has been of immeasurable help during these tumultuous times, and I wouldn't understand half of what's gone down were it not for his concise, plain-spoken breakdowns of US capitalism.

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio

From this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature:
My message will be very clear; it is that I think we have to continue to read novels. Because I think that the novel is a very good means to question the current world without having an answer that is too schematic, too automatic. The novelist, he's not a philosopher, he's not a technician of spoken language. He's someone who writes, above all, and through the novel asks questions.

Robert Redford on Paul Newman

REDFORD: There were a lot of times we played these gags on each other and they were great fun. And one of them was that he used to -- when he went into racing, he just drove me crazy talking about racing, because he was obsessed with it, and, obviously, great at it -- by the way, great at it.

And I said, "Geez, can't we talk about something else?" He said, "Well, I want to take you up to the track and we'll do this and we'll do that." So for his 50th birthday, I happened [to be], in Connecticut, to find a trashed Porsche and it was just totally demolished and I had them wrap it up and leave it on his kitchen back step, wrapped in paper with a ribbon around it, that said "Happy 50th."

And so a couple weeks went by and I didn't hear anything, and then I went up to my house a couple weeks later and walked in the living room and there was this gigantic box in the living room, and it was so heavy you couldn't lift it.

In fact, it was so heavy, it had created an imprint on the floor, and this was a rented house. Well, by the time I crobarred it out, there was just this block of metal that had been taken down.

The [towing service] came and took it away ,and they said, "This is great." I said, "OK, look, hang on." And I called a friend of mine who was a sculptor in Westport.

I said, "If I give you some material, can you create a sculpture." He said, "That's great, absolutely." So these guys come take the thing over to her, and she did a sculpture. I said, "Make it a garden sculpture."

So she did. Had the towing guys take it to Newman's garden and just plump it there. Now, to this day, neither of us had ever spoken about that, never even -- that was -- there were many other situations like that, but that was ...

QUESTION: No one ever says "gotcha?"

REDFORD: No, no. That would diminish it. No. The idea was you just never acknowledged it.

So Long Paul Newman

He was peerless, the best man in any crowd. It was my aunt who loved him and taught me to love him, taking me to matinees in my childhood to watch one great film after another: Cool Hand Luke, The Sting, The Verdict, Nobody's Fool, The Color of Money, and so many others. He was more than a talented actor: in philanthropy, he was generous to a fault; as entrepeneur, he gave us the gift of great sauces, popcorn and chocolate; and to the end he was a brave, outstanding individual with a heart like no other. The Paul Newman moment that lives forever for me is his "Plastic Jesus":

FRINGE

Tuesdays at 9 on Fox: FRINGE, besides the "cool word" factor, is a fantastic show in every respect. Excellent writing and direction is compounded by talented actors and coherent intrigue. Check it out.

Har Har

Book of the Week

My good friend Jeffrey Overstreet is getting warmed up with his latest novel, the second in a four-part series. Cyndere's Midnight, which hit booksellers this week, is a darker work than its predecessor, managing to be more satisfying and more confounding at the same stroke. Rich characterizations abound, and nothing unfolds quite as you would expect; yet there are so many questions by the end of the book, I wondered if my copy had been truncated. A minor complaint, considering the author has done his job and left me wanting more and not merely wanting.

The overall impression is that he is getting warmed up for his masterpiece. Whether that book will be in this series is yet to be seen. The quality of writing is superb, especially in scenes of dialogue. Some of my favorite passages are characters simply talking to each other. When it comes to plotting, my impression is of coy reserve. Hints of greater things abound, and when you think a key point will be revealed the author adds another layer of mystery. Consequently the book feels incomplete and overly dependent on others to come. This bodes well for the time we can read the entire series and appreciate its full breadth.

Obi-Wanna-Be?

Penny Arcade Expo 08

The intrepid Daniel, pondering his fate in the game arena, takes a moment to look at the camera when rightfully his attention should be on the dreadful and profound arrival of...

-the Penny Arcade mascot, the Fruit****er!

The Fruit****er descends

Like the airport, but fun!

The Fruit****er lurks and nearly encounters...

-the Rockstar mascot! If you can't tell, he's obnoxious

Castle Crasher celebrates another pyramid of dead pink bunnies

Big Bang 2

What you see here is called the Compact Muon Solenoid. It is a massive particle detector, part of the Large Hadron Collider that is set to go online September 10th. This will be a day long remembered in the history of our planet.

When the LHC is turned on, it will recreate conditions that existed only once before in the universe, one-trillionth of a second following the big bang. While running, the LHC will run at 7 times greater energy than any other machine on the planet.

Where will you be September 10th? Since the LHC is located in France, I will be far away when this major event goes down. Considering the magnitude of scale we're talking about, maybe that's a good thing. It will be available to view on the web -for the initial event and those to follow through the end of the year.

See TRON in Seattle this Friday, 8/29

"He fights for the users."

It has lately come to my notice that Tron is an obscure film. A bare minimum of my friends have seen this seminal film. Only last month did my sister -my own flesh and blood!- see it for the first time. This cannot stand.

This Friday we are screening Tron at Zoo Station and everybody is welcome to join us. If you have not seen it, here is a chance to see the movie that inspired Pixar and The Matrix.

If you are in Seattle and need directions, please let me know in comments.

A Newer, Better Bus Stop

From the desk of Bruno Taylor, New York bus stop reconceptualizer:

“71% of adults used to play on the streets when they were young. 21% of children do so now. Are we designing children and play out of the public realm?

This project is a study into different ways of bringing play back into public space. It focuses on ways of incorporating incidental play in the public realm by not so much as having separate play equipment that dictates the users but by using existing furniture and architectural elements that indicate playful behavior for all.

It asks us to question the current framework for public space and whether it is sufficient while also giving permission for young people to play in public.

Play as you go…”

Elinor Grace Proctor 1937 - 2008

ELINOR GRACE PROCTOR March 5, 1937 - July 4, 2008

Following a courageous battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, Elinor Grace Proctor passed into God's care early in the morning of July 4th this year. Ellie was born in Eugene, Oregon and grew up in Redwood City, California. Her great passion in life was playing the violin, piano and organ. Each Saturday for most of her life she could be found playing her favorite hymns on a keyboard.

Ellie loved to vacation each year at her beloved Silver Lake, enjoyed keeping busy the rest of the year, working well past her retirement with undeniable verve. A deep, active faith inspired all who encountered her, and she loved meeting new people. Her great affection for cats was no secret to anyone.

Ellie's children, Rachel Marie and Wayne Allen, live in Northern California and Washington State, respectively; her twin sister Carol lives on Lake Tahoe and her sister Jeanette resides in Bellingham, Washington; she was preceded in death by her parents, Mary and Thomas MacAdam.

An informal memorial gathering was held on August 2nd, a special time for friends, family and coworkers to share in memories of Ellie and to celebrate the joyful life of a beautiful soul.

TR2N

Though you can no longer find the pirated video on Youtube (yanked by Disney), it is true that test footage from the sequel to Tron was screened at San Diego Comic-Con this last weekend (thanks for the hot tip, Jeff!). I got a peek at it before the plug was pulled and what I saw was amazing.

The image above is from Tron 2.0, a videogame sequel that came out a couple years back. You can see Alan Bradley's son, Jet, leaning against a hot chopper with a hot cyberchick (Alan Bradley was the original Tron). Since there are no images available from TR2N, this will have to suffice... for now.

The test footage is startling for any fan of Tron. It was a long lighcycle chase being watched by a bearded Kevin Flynn. As you'll recall, Flynn was a hacker who designed videogames; he was translated into the computer world and saved the day (sound much like The Matrix?). This time around he is a Colonel Kurtz-type living at the heart of the machine. Why and what happens next is anybody's guess. Rumor has it that Alan's son Jet goes in to rescue him.

I am a big fan of Tron and I would love to see it get its due; along with my friend Rollergirl, we want to see TR2N now.

The Dark Knight

I went into Dark Knight with the wrong attitude: I let myself have high expectations. As a general rule I don't allow myself to do that, for the sake of being able to squeeze some enjoyment out of a movie if it is mediocre or worse. Fortunately The Dark Knight was much better than I could have ever anticipated and made for a viewing experience on par with seeing Die Hard for the first time.

When the first tv ads ran for Die Hard, it looked like a really stupid movie. Bruce Willis was known primarily as a television actor and the premise was lame. I remember mocking the movie's tagline with my friends: "40 stories of sheer adventure, oh wow!" We did see it opening weekend (we saw everything opening weekend in those days) and emerged from the theatre in a state of shock, as if we had seen our favorite football team just win the Super Bowl.

That's how it was coming away from The Dark Knight, all the more remarkable because we already knew it was going to be good; that it went so far beyond expectations is what really had us cheering. How often does that happen at the movies?

Actually, there's a scene in the film that's reminiscent of Die Hard, and others that remind me of Heat, as much for their style and setting as for the level of great entertainment they achieve; above all else, The Dark Knight is hugely entertaining. It's also quite smart. It might be the smartest movie about a man in tights we'll ever see.

Do not leave your thinking cap at the door for this one. The plot is complex, layers of reference thick, and the drama is presented in grand fashion that elevates The Dark Knight far beyond any other film I've seen this year so far.

When you go, pay special attention to Gary Oldman. As my friend Jeff Overstreet and I were discussing the film afterward, we shared a mutual admiration for the actor's performance as Jim Gordon, Batman's ally with the Gotham City police. It is noteworthy as a fine turn by a consummate actor: he represents the heart of the film. Heath Ledger's final performance as the Joker is a bravura piece of theater that deserves every bit of praise it garners, yet I find Oldman the more affective because of his subtlety and warmth. Check it out and see for yourself.

Movie of the Weekend

Nothing beats a great western. There's no doubt in my mind that Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is one of the finest westerns committed to film. Directed and edited by the brilliant Sam Peckinpah, it doesn't get any better than this, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly notwithstanding. Like Sergio Leone's classic, there is a great deal of pathos in the characters, more than you would automatically expect from a pop classic.

James Coburn and Kris Kristoffersen play the respective leads, and Bob Dylan shows up as a knife-wielding sidekick; you also have Slim Pickens in a memorable role along with many more familiar faces (like a young Harry Dean Stanton, fresh off Cool Hand Luke). One unforgettable sequence early on is Billy's escape from jail. After blasting his way out using a shotgun loaded with dimes (why not?), he proceeds to smash the gun and throw the pieces into the street. This is not the kind of action you usually expect from an Old West outlaw, and the film is full of little nuances like this. What's better, as the townspeople slowly gather around the corpse of Billy's jailer, he serenades them with a song; the fact that it is Kris Kristoffersen improvising on-camera makes this scene that much more mesmerizing.

Some weekend sit back with a few brewskies and sink into this classic film. You will not regret it!

Overheard Down at the Cube Farm

Down at the cube farm you hear no end of things, some that are funny, some that are strange, and sometimes even things that are unprintable. Though it is tempting to relate items from the third column, for the sake of peace I will refrain. Something strange I heard the other morning here at the cube farm was an upper management-type disrupting a confab with some body awkwardness.

Keep in mind that I did not see any of this. The soul of discretion, I cowered behind my cube partition and peeked not once. There was nothing, however, to prevent my ears from catching every word and rustle of cloth; like me, your mind will have to provide the visuals.

The manager was holding an impromptu meeting with three associates, barreling along with a commanding baritone about this and that live issue. Others piped in on occasion but for the most part it was the manager's show. Then something happened and there was complete silence. I heard a rustle, like a pants leg being slid up a calf, and then the manager offering an apology. "Sorry," I heard him say, "I don't mean to gross you guys out."

No response from the others. What had happened? Had the manager revealed a festering wound on his ankle, or perhaps an exposed shard of bone? Was he boldy proclaiming a choice of socks in bad taste? I don't know. As I said, all I could do was listen. The manager went on to say,

"I knew it would callous over and the spine work its way out..." More rustling. "I think that's happening." He apologized again and resumed talking about whatever business it was they were talking about. Eventually the others began speaking and within minutes the meeting had dispersed.

But the peace of my day had been permanently shattered.

Had the manager encountered a porcupine some days or weeks back and gotten one of its spines lodged under the skin? I heard him say "splinter" as well as "spine", so it might have been a rude collision with a bench to blame. Whatever the source of the manager's ailment, it certainly was provocative without some visual backup to provide more details. And what a scenario for a television comedy: a senior employee exposing a callous within which is lodged or half-lodged a sliver of some kind. I could only imagine the suffering endured by the man while he waited out the callousing process (is there a proper verb for that?), feeling and sensing day after day the intruder in his leg or arm, feeling it shifting around and making its way toward the surface with such slowness that a callous was able to form: what a pain threshold the man must possess, not to mention a good dose of patience while he waited for the whole thing to play out. I didn't get the sense that the offending spine was entirely separated right there at the meeting and it is most likely that even as I type the manager is enduring the slow migration of an invader from his limb.

My biggest question: Where do they teach that the best way to deal with something lodged under your skin is to let it callous over?

Arte Y Pico Award

The fabulous Rollerblog has bestowed upon me the Arte Y Pico Award, an award shared among bloggers to recognize others who inspire with their art and creativity. Let me just say that Rollerblog is a definite source of inspiration for me and if there is anything like a "Right Back At You" award, she deserves it.

So, now that I have gotten up off the shag rug and dusted myself off, I can share with you some blogs that I believe are more than worthy of this prize. These are blogs I visit and take inspiration from daily:

PaperKraft.net

Comics Legends and Lore

Waterrose Handcrafted Obsessions

RetroBlog

Dead Rooster

Take a moment to check out these excellent blogs, and in the spirit of Arte y Pico, pass on the award to blogs that inspire you.

All Hail The 70's

I will always think of the 70's as the "brown decade" -brown polyester, brown mustaches, brown air, brown shag... there was a lot of brown in those days. It is a time I remember with fondness. As a kid I used to buy comics at a Bait and Tackle shop in downtown Redwood City, or at the local Alpha Beta. Sadly, comics from that time get a bad rap from just about everybody, as if they belong in a big pile of brown. It isn't entirely just: some great books were created, and artists and writers famous today were cutting their teeth lo those nearly forty years ago.

I want to pay these artists due respect and will conduct a survey. In a post to come, I will publish the top ten comics of the 70's. Let me know if you're like me, if you think some great comics came out of that decade; results will be published at the end of the month.