The Aristocrats

Slate: The Aristocrats - What's funny about one joke told over and over. Probably not very much, but it depends if the listener is fond of shaggy dog stories.* In any case, this is one movie that I will wait, possibly a very long time, before seeing.

* From www.wikipedia.org : "...a shaggy dog story is an extremely long-winded tale featuring extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents that usually results in a pointless or absurd punchline."

Four Flies on Grey Velvet

I was watching the X-Files episode with Peter Boyle as the insurance agent of death, and there was a scene that reminded me of one of Dario Argento's first movies: 4 mosche di velluto grigio (1971) . Actually, the X-Files scene made a reference or, perhaps, paid homage to Dario Argento's plot device: essentially, a murdered person has the image of his murderer imprinted on his retinas.

"Four Flies on Grey Velvet" combined humor, horror, and mystery into an entertaining and fun package, much the same way that X-Files would years later. As a bonus Bud Spencer played Godfrey with the emphasis on the first syllable, God.

The Official Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia

It's a Pez museum! The Official Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia On-line Ordering Site

Ebert Recommends Two Zombie Movies!

Zombie movies have truly earned their rightful place as one of the greatest contributions America has made to the film arts: :: rogerebert.com :: reviews

FCC and Amateur Radio Enter the 20th Century

Guess it was bound to happpen: FCC Proposes to Drop Morse Code Requirement for All License Classes

The Toaster Museum Lives!

It was a sad day when the Toaster Museum departed Seattle, but the museum now has a home on the Internet: http://www.toaster.org/

Chirac Offers Explanation for Earlier Remark about the British

No doubt it sounds better in French, the diplomatic language: Telegraph News: We're better than the British, says Chirac

1 in 3 Americans Believe in Ghosts

It gets worse: 19% are unsure, so Americans who do not believe in ghosts are in a minority. Oddly enough, moderates and conservatives, on the whole do not believe in ghosts: Great Caesar's Ghost! Gallup finds 1 in 3 Americans Believe Houses Can Be Haunted

Orange Art

It's hideous and orange: another art museum's bad web site-- Orange County Museum of Art

L.A. Times on the Adult Readers of the Harry Potter Series

Editorial by Joel Stein, L.A. Times, 7/10/05, (reg. required) "Hogwarts fans, you're stupid, stupid, stupid"

"I read 50 pages of the first 'Harry Potter' book, and it seemed witty, imaginative and fast-paced. It also seemed like it was for children. It's about wizards and magic cats and evil stepparents, and has a reading-level that is only slightly above this column."

It gets better:

"I'm sorry you were born too late for J.K. Rowling, but you had your C.S. Lewis and E.B. White and J.R.R. Tolkien. Isn't it a clue that you should be ashamed of reading these books past puberty when the adults who write them are hiding their first names?"

French Diplomacy in Action

Telegraph | News | Chirac: 'The only thing the British have ever given European farming is mad cow'

First Trip to the Moon

I've been fond of Lucian of Samosata for a long time. He wrote delightful and funny satire that seem as funny now as they must have been 1,800 years ago. In addition, Lucian wrote the first science fiction story about going to the moon: Trips to the Moon .

I think what isn't stressed enough is we inherited perception of ancient Rome from the Romans themselves. The view that they were a decadent, weak, cruel,and corrupt society more concerned with spectacle and handouts than ideas and justice, derives from how the Romans saw themselves through their native literary form, the satire.

For me, trying to study the Roman satires was futile because once a classics professor gets hold of Juvenal or Marital the discussion rapidly departs from bread and circuses and who guards guardians and instead turns into a very long and one sided discussion on hexameter verses and how the Menippean form evolved during the Silver age. Snore. I mean these guys can take the fun out of Catullus. If one reads the satires for the same reason as one reads "Mad" magazine or the "National Lampoon," that is for humor going after society's jugular vein, then those old works start coming back to life.

The last time I looked, the academic consensus was that Lucian wasn't a native Roman and was an outsider looking in. If you think about it, isn't that where the best satire sometimes comes from? Think Mark Twain writing about the German language. Incidentally, Lucian ripped into the academics of his day, and his piece about fishing for philosophers off the Acropolis by dangling a coin on a line is still hilarious.

Adam Adamant Lives!

Loved this show as kid.

A proper and dashing Edwardian gentleman crime fighter was frozen and then revived decades later in the swinging 60s. Part of the fun was how Adam would whip out his sword cane at opportune moments and do battle with bad guys. He also was quite visibly uncomfortable being around modern brazen women. BBC - Cult - Classic TV - Adam Adamant Lives!

This show now goes against our modern conception of upper class Edwardians having been depraved and useless at anything except grandiose self involvement. Kind of like how the dot commers were.