Bleeding Fiction

When actors are in party/crowd scenes, of the sort where they're chit-chatting with each other as the camera pans over them on its way somewhere else, towards something more important to the story, when they're not actually being scripted because no one can really hear what they're saying, do you figure they talk in-character or do you think they chat as, you know, themselves?

Just curious.

I just found out that Sarah Vowell does a weekly Op Ed piece in the New York Times on Sundays. Immediately subsequent to this discovery I discovered that I can only read the piece by subscribing to TimesSelect. Or by, you know, actually buying the print copy of the Times on Sundays.

I dunno. I don't really feel right paying money just to get 800 words a week.

Maybe they'll collect these columns into a book one day.

I would just like to say that Pandas are cute. Really goddamn cute.

That is all.

Had an email today from the folks at the Evans School of Public Affairs. "Dear Admitted Students," it read. "From the Student Services team, I offer my congratulations to each of you on your acceptance to the MPA program at the Evans School of Public Affairs!"

No corresponding letter in the mail yet, but it's probably fair to think that I got into the Public Affairs program. It could all be a horrible fluke of some kind, but I kind of doubt it. So, some very cool good news, there. Gives me a solid plan for my remaining time in school and gives me a fairly accurate sense of how long it'll be until I get out of here, none of which is something I can complain about.

Unfortunately, my immediate enthusiasm for the news is dampened by the fact that I haven't been able to hear out of my right ear for the past two days. Well, not at more than, say, 50% of normal at most. Disgusting waxy build up that I can't seem to get rid of. Very annoying, but nothing more I can think of to do about it. I'll just have to wait until it goes away.

Some days I consider shaving my head, just so I can dress as Spider Jerusalem.

Adding to the list of "movies that will never be shown in-flight," Samuel L. Jackson will star this summer in "Snakes On A Plane." If you haven't heard about this piece of genius yet, you clearly don't spend as much time on the internet as I do. I couldn't do the full range of madness associated with this justice, so just punch the title into your favorite search engine and see what comes up.

I don't know about you (for broad and non-specific values of "you"), but I must see this movie. It's going to be sublime. Today, I saw the trailer. Two things to to note:

1. The opening dialogue is edited; cut a bit, if you will. What Samuel L. Jackson really must have said is "I've had it with these mother-fuckin' snakes."

2. Samuel L. Jackson shoots a snake. In the face!

Saw V for Vendetta last night. Good stuff. Very pretty to look at, mostly for the sets and the colors; "crisp" is the only way I can think to say it. The cast did a good job, too. Agent Elrond was just rich as V and Natalie Portman didn't let her spotty accent get in the way of properly emoting. I was also a big fan of Stephen Rea (as Finch, the cop) and Stephen Fry as Gordon Deitrich.

One of my favorite bits was the way they used archival footage to represent the history of the world that had led them to their British totalitarianism. In a movie that's supposed to be a realistic representation of possible future facism, it was an interesting touch to ground it in the present like that. Or, you know, the footage was just cheaper than filming new stuff.

If you've read the comic the movie's based on, though, you should expect that a bunch of stuff got changed. I mean, stylistically it's spot on. The story was simplified and the details were greatly changed but the structure was, overall, the same. However, rather than being presented mostly from the points of view of a legion of vile government men and their wives, we're narrowed down a bit more onto just Finch and shifted a bit more onto V and Evey. I don't think that's anything to complain about - the diffuse perspectives would be awkward, I think, given the time a film has in which to present its subject. Probably the one thing that I really missed didn't actually occur to me as absent until a good three or four hours after the movie was done - none of the Vicious Cabaret song showed up in the movie.

So, that's V. Go and check it out.

As I've mentioned in the land of previously, Bishop Allen's releasing a four-song EP every month for the next twelve. I got my copy of the second EP, appropriately title "February," in the mail the other day, only it had a big old fractalated crack in it, thus rendering it unplayable. I fired an email off to the fine folks at Bishop Allen (1/2 of whom are named Christian) and, without question, complaint or comment, they sent me off a replacement, which arrived today.

The music on February (and the music on January, although I didn't stop to mention it earlier) is awesome. However I'm finding the whole thing tantalizingly frustrating, a sort of hot, musical strip-tease. The four songs are good, after all. Pretty damn good, actually. But just when you're getting into the groove -wham!- there ends the EP. The listening will be much easier when the next two or three months' EPs come out, I imagine; I'll put them all in the stereo at once and listen to them in as if they were but one album, with only the tiny whirring of the multi-disc changer spinning in a circular fashion every 15 minutes or so to give lie to the illusion.

I love New Jersey (I say as I listen to Bruce Springsteen on my stereo), but sometimes my natal state has... issues. Current issue is the state slogan. "Come See For Yourself." What the fuck? I'm glad I left before they changed over to that shit.

Only now I live in Washington, which has adopted a slogan even more stupid than New Jersey's: SayWA?

At this point I'd normally make a snarky comment wishing people dead, but I think it'd be in rather poor taste just now, considering.