I don’t usually do the “responding to local newspaper”-type posts, but I just wanted to pass this along to my non-Canadian friends, as a demonstration of the kind of serious criminal issues we’re dealing with in the largest city in our nation.
This wasn’t some sidebar article either, this is the lead for the Crime Section.
Now, if we could only convince Batman to stop assaulting rogue cyclists.
Uh oh, I, er – I’ll be right back, I need to replace a birthday cake.
You’ll have to excuse me if I go into weekend blogging mode a little early – I don’t mean to turn the site into some fourteen-year-olds tumblr full of animated Glee images, but check out this fantastic publicity still of Vincent Price and Peter Lorre’s wax head, from Tales Of Terror.
Last night Mac of BIOnighT was mentioning John Wayne’s dislike of Gene Hackman, which seemed, to me, to come out of that odd clash between classical and method actors that reached its peak in the ’60s and ’70s.
I have a lot of love for the personalities that arose out of the earlier style, and the realism that came with the later, but I have a theory that we’ve moved into a third phase – neo-classical.
Green screens, casting looks over talent, the tween market, and an aging Hollywood pantheon, have brought us back to where we began. At the risk of receiving a beating in my own home, let’s use Robert Pattinson as an example. He’s not a bad new-school actor, he’s a bad old-school actor: handsome, wooden, and without the charismatic personality to sell his roles.
(Yes, by this logic Vin Diesel is the new Errol Flynn. Dandy swashbucklers, sure, but let’s keep their dialogue to a minimum.)
Don’t fear, however, as this also means the new Orson Welles is somewhere in the wings, busily producing some under-appreciated bit of work we can all claim we discovered before anyone else.
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NMGsRmZTFQ]
Warning: NSFW language, if you can stand to watch the clip to its conclusion.
Asherah’s connection to Yahweh, according to Stavrakopoulou, is spelled out in both the Bible and an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in the Sinai desert at a site called Kuntillet Ajrud.
“The inscription is a petition for a blessing,” she shares. “Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from ‘Yahweh and his Asherah.’ Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife.” – Discovery News
It’s always interesting to see these odd bits of history rise up from the dust.
I sometimes feel like humanity has left itself an array of sticky notes, hidden in books and behind pictures, and then forgotten about them; or, with items like this, the glue has gone dry, and the thing has fallen down to lay beneath a La-Z-Boy that rarely gets moved while vacuuming.
Anyhow, I mention it because my guess is that these aren’t so much massive theological discoveries, as they are the remnants of early fanboys. This, to me, reeks of a situation you’ll find common in the depths of geek-havens: “Buffy/Asherah is so strong and beautiful, but Superman/Yahweh is wicked powerful. If only we could bring the two together somehow!”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjp0I_okX0w]
When a fanfic like that catches on, you might find entire (web/archeological) sites dedicated to it, and both the clergy, and the trufans, tend to have the same reaction – “Sacrilege!”
I just wanted to share this unfortunate bit of ad-symmetry, although the one-and-a-half star review may be a little high at this point.
Come with me for another stroll down Random Trivia Lane.
Are you familiar with the Hitchcock film Rear Window?
I bet you’re familiar with the man in this picture, or at least his son.
No, not the fellow with the ethereal glow, that’s the film’s director making his usual cameo – no, the other, the musician who spends the film composing a song entitled “Lisa”.
That composer is the original lead singer of one of the most commercially successful vocal groups of the last half century, and yet you likely wouldn’t recognize his voice if you heard it.
His name is Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., and I’ll let wikipedia dispense his legend:
According to his son, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., they were down to their last $200 when Bagdasarian spent $190 on a V-M tape recorder that would allow him to vary tape speeds.
This monstrously large hit was the result (there’s a bit of an intro, feel free to skip through the first 40 seconds or so):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBMEZvZSWFQ]
The first Chipmunk record, “The Chipmunk Song,” had Bagdasarian doing all the voices. (The spoken coda, when played slowly, reveals Bagdasarian enacting the roles of Theodore, Simon, and Alvin.) Thereafter, most of his Chipmunk records used female voice artists, recorded only about 1/4 slower than the normal playback speed. – wikipedia
– that is, until he died of a heart attack in 1972.
Like so many dynasties, the Chip-mantle was eventually taken up by his namesake, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., who, if you’re like me and know the Chipmunks best through the endlessly re-rerun 1980s cartoon, you may be most familiar with as the voice of Dave and the rodents – except for Theodore and The Chipettes, who were played by his wife, Janice Karman.
Before the show, however, Bagdasarian Jr. released a comeback album. His choice of platform for the beloved family property?
Chipmunk Punk.
I’ll let the boys play me out with a song about a drunk driver seducing a lady:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7zNNRpWCK0]
Sometimes CNN has questions, and, usually, I have answers.
Sure, why not give his brothers further reason to wish they were him.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_P7yWnAAd0]
I realize this isn’t a question, but it is a description of every single Nancy Grace news-piece ever produced.
Sure, that’s when you eat with someone else’s tongue in your mouth, right?
I’m certainly not encouraging drug use, and I realize this must be one of those locally targeted ads given the .ca domain, but while utilizing thesaurus.com I was confused by this stalled out video.
What are they trying to imply, that drugs are going to take me to bed and tell me a good joke?
The good news is that friend of the site, Ray, has posted up the first in his series of Walker Journals!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh2REBwxuvY]
Click through, subscribe, and give the man encouragement for his hard work.
The bad news is that FlashCast 02 is being delayed due to holiday-related commitments. Hopefully we’ll be able to record it after tomorrow’s Flash Pulp, but, if not, it may have to wait till Tuesday.
This is a quick screen-grab I took of the front page of a popular movie review site.
Did they simply run out of room to type professional? Is this a thing we are doing now*?
Wait, “He’s plays”?
Get a cup of coffee and try again, Rotten Tomatoes.
*No, no it is not.