Monday, November 27, 2006

I should be reviewed

Apparently it's been said in some quarters that this website "isn't as good as it used to be". I actually take that as a compliment because it indicates that there was at one point some sort of standard of quality which I'm capable of falling from. This is encouraging.

Saturday night I had my annual "Thank Me" party following Thanksgiving. It was a beautiful event, that involved both songs from Les Mis, and pizza from JB's. And I totally kissed a girl. It was pretty perfect. Except the next morning I woke up with beer instead of blood, which is not generally considered medically sound.

Also over the holiday weekend, I saw Casino Royale, which was, in the words of my Myspace friend Nathan Fillion, "Casino Royawesome".

No one will replace Brosnan in my Generation Y heart, but this new guy's pretty damn good, helps that the movie was better written than most of the last few, totally character driven rather than a bunch of setpieces.

Besides, as my friend Marc said today, there's no shortage of movies in which Brosnan is not technically James Bond but is still totally James Bond.

Posted by Rory @ 11:13 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

critiquein'

I have a new review up at Centerstage, of Adam Rapp's Trueblinka. It's not pretty and neither was the show. I was delighted that the editors let me get away with being that bitchy, although they changed my original title "A Series of Interminible Events" to something far less bitchy and accurate. Can't have everything.

Posted by Rory @ 01:32 PM CST [Link]

Monday, November 20, 2006

if

Just read that Mr. Big cancelled and personally apologized for the whole OJ book and TV special thing.

Oh Rupert Murdoch, could you be any classier?

Posted by Rory @ 05:07 PM CST [Link]

Friday, November 17, 2006

I wasn't looking for a fight.

Always do seem to find one though...

Posted by Rory @ 03:00 PM CST [Link]

Thursday, November 16, 2006

I want to say something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll let you know when I know what it is.

Posted by Rory @ 11:14 PM CST [Link]

Monday, November 13, 2006

movie trailers and things

I keep seeing this ad for the movie Bobby about the RFK assasination in which Anthony Hopkins says "Senator Kennedy, welcome to the Ambassador Hotel." I keep wanting to add the line "And your DOOM!"

I think Anthony Hopkins would do that pretty well.

Posted by Rory @ 11:06 PM CST [Link]

without any responsibility though

I want a dog.

Posted by Rory @ 12:16 AM CST [Link]

Sunday, November 12, 2006

someone should call me

Because I don't know what my new ringtone sounds like. My cell phone was hopelessly water damaged in a rainstorm on Friday night so I had to get a new one today. I don't like change. I brought in my less than two year old phone to the T-Mobile store, I asked if that model was available, they said "Oh no, they don't make those anymore." So I got a much less user friendly new model that has all the bells and whistles and takes pictures and can check your email and all that but it took me about twenty five minutes to figure out how to make a phone call. My memory chip from the old phone was so badly damaged, it erased all the fun text messages I used to have, like those from my most recent lost love, Miss Gorgeouspants. But I suppose I need to break sentimentality's chains.

We fear change.

Posted by Rory @ 05:05 PM CST [Link]

Saturday, November 11, 2006

the thing itself

I took a wrong turn down a dark path last night. A dark, wet path. It may have destroyed my cell phone. It was like the dark ages.

Posted by Rory @ 12:42 PM CST [Link]

Friday, November 10, 2006

one more important comment on the news of the day

Yesterday I read about Donald Rumsfeld's last press conference in which he took one last opportunity to compare himself to Winston Churchill and noted that the current conflict overseas was too complicated for most Americans to understand. (Thank God he's not an elitist snob like those arrogant liberals on the coasts though)

In the words of Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm gonna miss him! I'm gonna send him a nice fruit basket.

Posted by Rory @ 02:09 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

I come not to praise Gingrich, but to bury him...

The Republican Revolution

1994-2006

R.I.P.

Posted by Rory @ 09:02 PM CST [Link]

nobody does it better

Rik speaks, you listen.

Posted by Rory @ 03:22 PM CST [Link]

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

democracy doesn't work

I don't know if I'm going to vote today, it would require going to my dad's neighborhood, where I'm registered. I have no particular interest in the election really. Our Democratic governor's fiscal policies are indistinguishable from George W Bush's, and while Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's a hell of a lady I don't think she particularly needs my help. I guess you can make a difference voting for judges if you bother to figure out who the hell they are. But that's just my little neck of the woods, nationally (in the important races I can't affect) I'm excited as all get out. I would have liked to have campaigned this year, for Melissa Bean (whom I did a bit of work for last time) and for Tammy Duckworth but I've been too busy writing and whatnot, so I've merely, you know, wished them well. All the predictions of a Democratic takeover of both houses strike me as absurdly optimistic. The other guys have the cash, and that's what matters. If I do get a chance to vote today, I plan to write in Fritz Wilson and Marc Heiden for some sort of important positions, because those guys deserve it.

I saw Snakes on a Plane for the second time last night. For all the backlash against "Internet hype" and so on, I truly believe that it is the one work of art from the first half of the twenty first century that people will remember a thousand years from now. It's a moving story, one of courage and of sacrifice, and what's really incredible and humbling about it is reflecting on how it all really happenned...It gives me chills.

Posted by Rory @ 10:57 AM CST [Link]

Saturday, November 4, 2006

how soon we forget the heroes

My friend Shawn pointed out that yesterday was Charles Bronson's birthday. Another Charles Bronson Day come and gone, and no one gives his memory the respect it deserves.

God bless that noble and violent man.

1921-2003

Posted by Rory @ 05:24 PM CST [Link]

Thursday, November 2, 2006

Ah, remember last week, when my side had the high ground in the news cycle?

Dear Girl Who Made This Youtube Video, Exposing The Soullessness Of Rush Limbaugh,

I like your work. I was thinking maybe you and I could get together and we could talk about the state of the nation and we could satirize things...An Italian restaurant, a bottle of wine, maybe we could flip through a book by Sean Hannity and find stuff to scream about...My email's on the lefthand side.

Posted by Rory @ 05:16 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

It's supposed to be about mystery and menace and magic. And candy.

Halloween has come and gone, as I mentioned earlier I was part of a Bill and Ted costume ensemble. I had a pretty good time over the weekend and then last night and yet...as someone in the group commented it all felt anti-climactic. I think I know why. It was because people were treating Halloween as a time to get drunk and laid, like any other time. Has the entire world grown so dull and old? Or is it just us who are over 18? Or these days, 12?

Neil Gaiman wrote an article for the New York Times about what Halloween is supposed to be about. The article is brilliant and beautiful, which I suspect might be directly attributed to the fact that it was written by Neil Gaiman. What I'm amused by is that on his blog, in his usual self deprecating, offhand way he said the New York Times said to him something like "Anytime, you want to write anything else, just let us know and we'll publish it.", and he said he thought that was nice of them. Standing offer from the New York Times, that's always nice.

Neil's mentor Alan Moore wrote the great graphic novel From Hell, about Jack the Ripper (made into a forgettable movie) There's a great scene in which Jack, portrayed as an insane, upper crust Victorian with all the twisted prejudices that go with that, has a vision of the future, ie our time, in which he wanders unseen in a contemporary, sterile office. He says something about how the white collar drones working there no doubt regard him as a scary figure out of the past, but their boring, plodding lives terrify him.

The ghosts and goblins don't want to scare us anymore because they don't think we're capable of feeling anything.

It all made me think about what real Halloweens are like, scary but whimsical. As a kid I pretended not to like scary things, but many years later I realized that I did. I remember Halloween, circa 1987 or so. I think that was the year I was Superboy and I put a cape on my cousin's (later mine) dog Ruby and declared her to be Krypto the Superdog. We had a good time. But late that night, from a nine year old persepctive anyway, after all the trick or treaters were back indoors, I wandered outside my house. One of the reasons Evanston is among the most perfect places on earth is that it's streets are lit by old fashioned gaslight lamps, making it the sort of atmosphere where Jack himself might have done his bloody work. My father felt the need to mention this to me when I was about five.

Anyway, this one particular night there was a mist gathering on the west side of my block, that still managed to look twilighty although it was probably past 9pm. I felt a strong compulsion to head in the direction of that mist and just keep on walking, to see what I would find. I didn't of course, but the compulsion has never gone away...

Posted by Rory @ 01:58 PM CST [Link]