Parabasis

Things I Agree WIth

Ian David Moss edition.

Now That's Change I Can Believe In

Jindal Not Ready For Prime TIme Part II

Hey, gang, remember that story Bobby Jindal told about the sherrif and hurricane katrina and all of that? Remember the one that had him heroically standing by Sheriff Bobby Lee while Lee was trying to cut through the bureaucratic red tape &c?

Well...  Jindal wasn't there.  He made his participation in the story up:

...a Jindal spokeswoman has admitted to Politico that in reality, Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone "days later." The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.

This is no minor difference. Jindal's presence in Lee's office during the crisis itself was a key element of the story's intended appeal, putting him at the center of the action during the maelstrom. Just as important, Jindal implied that his support for the sheriff helped ensure the rescue went ahead. But it turns out Jindal wasn't there at the key moment, and played no role in making the rescue happen...

When I said that Jindal's speech sounded like a Right Wing E-mail Forward, I was talking about tone, not accuracy! Turns out I shot a double bullseye...

Oddly Topical Typos

I got a Canadian Pharmacy Spam in my e-mail inbox today.  To get past spam filters they now use words that look like words but aren't the words they're supposed to be.

The word for "meds" they used was "media".  So the e-mail was offering to fulfill my "media needs" from a pharmacy in Canada, "no PRES necessary."

In Which We Try To Help The Google

I keep getting google searches looking for "most influential play of the last century".  The latest one of these was looking for the "9 most influential plays of this century".  But I'm pretty sure they meant the 20th, not the 21st.

And because 9 is such a random number, let's help our poor googling friend.  

What are the 9 most influential plays of the 20th Century?

I'm going to start us off, Wheel of Fortune style and say the obvious ones (I'm not saying these have to go on the list, I'm just saying their the semi-obvious choices):

The Cherry Orchard

Waiting for Godot

Angels in America

Glenngarry Glen Ross

What say you?

UPDATE: BTW in case it wasn't clear, the plays listed above aren't like my favorite plays or the ones that I want to be the most influential or anything, just four plays whose influence I see all over the play (99 for example, mentions "Fifth of July" in the comments, which stylistically is so heavily influenced by "The Cherry Orchard" as to be its like child or something; and much as I wish it weren't the case, I see a lot of plays/hear a lot of readings/ talk to lit managers who bitch about the influence of Mamet on everything).

Now *this* I Might Anticipate

But in all seriousness... how does this idea strike you?

Letting Marketing Dictate Our Responses

The Times today calls the forthcoming Bono/Edge/Taymor Spider-Man musical "widely anticipated".  Which begs the question... by whom?  I'm a comic book and theater nerd, and I'm not anticipating it. The only people I know who are anticipating it are people who can't wait for the schadenfreude when it crashes and burns.  Of course, if press people and marketing folk keep getting the press to call it "widely anticipated" than I'm sure it will be. 

Post SOTU React

Jindal is not ready for prime time. This opening bit about how we're all post-racial now sounds totally inauthentic. He sounds like a docent at the Natural History Museum, not a potential Presidential candidate.  Seriously his speech is like the Right Wing E-mail Forwards featured at My Right Wing Dad.

I didn't get to see all of Obama's speech, but he seemed to knock it out of the park. What did you guys think?

Reach Out And Touch Someone

Did you ever notice how physical our language for interaction is? Make a connection. Make contact. Finding something touching.

Is this language obsolete in the digital age?  Two of the more profound conversations I’ve had over the last week were done over G-chat.  Is it possible to find something touching when there is no chance the person you’re interacting with can actually touch you?  To be clear, I’m not slagging G-Chat or Twitter or any of it, I actually find that’s enabled me to… oh what’s the word… keep in touch with people much easier.

In Infinite Jest’s speculative (and somewhat satirical) future, over 95% of all entertainment is consumed in the home, beamed into our television sets. No one goes to movie theaters and there is no network television (Everything’s a la carte pay per view). As a result, random live events—muggings, the draining of a duck pond, five alarm fires—are huge gatherings of people.  They’re called SpecOps (Spectator Opportunities). We’re so alienated in his future, so used to private consumption of the staged, that we crave live experience of the spontaneous.

There is no hiding in theatre.  Over Gchat, you can fake an emotion you’re not having (or- even worse- pretend not to feel when you in fact do).  When you watch a film as an audience member, you are protected from the performer (and they by you).  Furthermore, editing allows film actors to hide constantly. When your scene partner is doing “coverage” you don’t have to be “there” in any real sense.

This is one of the many reasons that theatre is a hard thing for actors to do. And why it’s hard for audiences as well.  Your collective energy can’t be hid from the performers, and you can never stop touching and being touched when you’re on stage.  I wonder if, as our connections to people get more and more virtual, our craving for live experience will get greater or diminish.

Wedding Crashers, Politics, Milk

So i had never seen TWC, and Anne has a coworker who demanded that we see it. 

All I can say is I'm really quite shocked that a movie that deeply homophobic can still be made in this day and age without anyone going "er... this whole gay son who is an insane rapist and a painter might be a little problematic".  And that's not even getting started with the bizarrely shoe-horned in reaction right wing politics of the film in general.  The repartee between Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan is pretty funny, but I really am kind of gobsmacked at the film's politics.

All the more reason why the acceptance speech from Milk's screenwriter Dustin Lance Blackwas by far the best part of the night last night.  Another backlash I don't understand is the anti-Milk backlash. It actually makes a fairly by-the-numbers biopic work really well, and it's deeply felt and well crafted and well acted (with the embarrassing exception of Diego Luna) throughout.