That Awards Show

I guess I feel obligated to say something about the Oscars (awards and show). It seemed to me to be as efficient a show as one that has to give out a lot of awards that nobody cares about (shorts, documentaries, tech stuff) can be. I liked the Cirque du Soleil routine more than I expected. The Wizard of Oz focus group was inspired. I'm glad we didn't have to sit through a lot of renditions of nominated songs. And it was nice to be surprised once: when Streep won.

On the other hand, Billy Crystal is turning into Bob Hope, and I mean that in the worst way possible: a comedian who has passed his sell-by date, and is coasting on a residuum of good will. It was a serious mistake to revive the old working-the-nominated-films-into-a-song routine and remind everyone of when it was fresh and funny. Crystal needs to stop dying his hair (if that's his hair) and grow older more gracefully.

But by now we are awards-showed out. The SAG awards, the BAFTAs, the Gilded Globes all told us what to expect, down to which stars will be turning up to present. The Oscars have nothing new to show us, no special revelations about what the movie industry is or wants to be. I don't think it was as bad a show as Tim Goodman does, though he seemed to like the Ben Stiller/Emma Stone presentation shtick a lot more than I did. (All I could think about was: Is he really that short, or is she really that tall?)

But as it happens, the only one of the nominated movies that I've seen is the one that was named best picture. I liked it -- how could you not? But the idea that The Artist now becomes a yardstick by which all future films are to be judged is obviously absurd. It's a one-of-a-kind jeu d'esprit, and nothing more. And I suspect in a few years people will be asking, Really, weren't there any better films that year?

Ask, and Tell

Marine Brandon Morgan welcomed home by his boyfriend

Further Notice

I'm back.

On Hiatus

When you go as long as I have without posting, you can pretty much guess that a blogger has other things to do. Which in my case is mostly blogging at my other place, Ten Pages (or More). So until further notice, you can look for me there.

But They Have Questionable Antecedents

From today's San Francisco Chronicle:

When Mike Wood's 3-year-old son was having trouble associating sounds with letters, he built from scratch an interactive "phonics desk." Then he created a company - called LeapFrog - to sell his invention.

Damn! These high-tech entrepreneurs are getting younger all the time.

Today's Shamelessness

Think Progress reports on the latest in blatant, unashamed bigotry:

Last month, several Tea Party activists formed a right-wing coalition to oust Rep. Joe Straus (R) as Texas House Speaker. They began circulating emails with anti-Semitic messages against Straus, who is Jewish. The groups ran robo-calls and sent out e-mails demanding a “true Christian leader,” and calling Straus’ opponent, Rep. Ken Paxton (R), “a Christian Conservative who decided not to be pushed around by the Joe Straus thugs.”

Thoughts While Showering

I considered giving the title of this post in French, which Google Translate tells me would be pensées sous la douche, but I thought better of it. Never mind why.

I am one of those people who are restless when they don't have something in front of them to read, so this morning I found myself fixating on the label of a bottle in the shower. It belongs to someone else in the household, and is a product called "therapy reconstructor." Since I could do with both therapy and reconstruction, I was intrigued until I realized it was just for hair.

What really caught my eye, though, were the words on it in French. For some reason grooming products always seem to have French on the label. The therapy reconstructor explains that it is pour revitaliser et renforcer les cheveux abîmés, gros ou cassants.

I like a challenge, so I summoned up my college French and read it as: "for revitalizing and reinforcing abysmal, fat or broken hair." I rather like the idea of abysmal hair. We've all had mornings like that. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone with fat hair, but it certainly sounds abysmal. And I guess if you use too much hairspray you could break your hair, though it also seems to me you might run the risk of breaking it if you reinforced it too much.

The English on the label assured me that my translation was faulty: "repairs and strengthens stressed, coarse, brittle hair," it says. I like my version better. I'm sure it would be abysmal to have stressed tresses. And though my French may not be up to the task, I found the translation experience to be both therapeutic and reconstructive.

JFK Without Tears

Forty-seven years ago today, I was walking into Harvard Yard on my way to Widener to work on some paper or other when two undergraduates ran past me and I heard one of them ask, "Is he dead?" An unsettling question to begin with, and I'm convinced that my mind went immediately to President Kennedy, although that may be only a memory tainted by hindsight.

At the entrance to the library, a guard was listening to a transistor radio, and I found out what had happened. But, being the dutiful graduate student that I thought I was, I kept going. At the entrance to the stacks I met two history grad students I knew, who were already talking about the assassination's implications in dry, clinical terms. I remember saying to them, feeling faintly disgusted at the intellectualization of the event, "Just write November 22, 1963, on a note card and file it."

But I couldn't concentrate on what I was supposed to be researching, and I turned and walked back to my dorm room where my roommate and I spent the weekend listening to the radio. (Believe it or not, nobody had a TV in their dorm rooms in those days.)


All of this came back to me only because I was listening to NPR on my way to the grocery store and some announcer was playing a snippet of the funeral march movement of Beethoven's "Eroica" and commenting on the anniversary. Then it was back to news about the North Korean nukes and the TSA patdowns.


I won't say it only feels like yesterday, but it hasn't been so long ago since November 22 was an occasion for memorials of one sort or another. Now it's just another day to mark off the calendar on the way to Thanksgiving and Christmas. And maybe that's the way it ought to be. But those of us who "remember where we were when" can recall November 22, 1963, as vividly as most people now remember September 11, 2001. Those beautiful autumn days when human life and death seemed so out of phase with the weather.

Do We Laugh or Cry?

Is Glenn Beck just a delusional fraud?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
George Soros Plans to Overthrow America
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Manchurian Lunatic
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Or is he a dangerous delusional fraud?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I don't want to keep harping on the "death of shame" meme, but honest to god, Beck's exploitation of American service people is well beyond shameless.

Thoughts While Shaving

We seem to be a country incapable of learning from its mistakes. Like never fight a land war in Asia and don't put Republicans in charge of the economy.