One Sentence Movie Reviews: "Dogma" (1999):

Dogma (1999): "When will someone make the Jewish Dogma?"

Stand Down:

I don't have it in me for yet another article and the resultant debate over what the hell is the matter with publishing. I think we should begin a self-delusional holiday like Carvinal called "Everything is OK Day" where, for a single 24 hour, period, everyone who works in publishing must act like times are golden and there's nothing to whine about.

Gleanings: Action Scenes, Film Noir and Web 2.0 Hotties:

• Vogue film critic John Powers does the best summary of the hypnotic appeal of Film Noir I've ever heard on this Fresh Air segment.
• Any thoughts on the 50 Greatest Action Sequences ever? I've already submitted mine.
• The Player, one of my favorite movies ever, was based on a novel by Michael Tolkin. Guess what? Tolkein's written a sequel (via The Elegant Variation).
• Web 2.0 Hotties. What, no Jory JD (via New Media Musings)?

She Who Can Wail...

Kelly Clarkson sings Sweet Child o' Mine. She's not only hits it but is a pretty good sport about Metal Skool's skeezorific behavior (via Pitchfork).

Mico-Anal:

Ever feel like you need to have one stupid anal thing you do everyday just to feel a little centered. Mine lately has been cleaning up the archives of this blog, 5 years of babble three software platforms and several dozen life changes.

Starting from the back, I clean up one post a day, fixing formatting, adding categories and decent titles. I don't fix broken links because that's what I meant to link to back then and it seems like iconoclasm to change them.

It's oddly soothing.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: "War of the Worlds" (2005):

War of the Worlds (2005): "This is a movie about how it's better to die in the first act than survive until the end of the movie." --My buddy Keely

Notes: Seen at my friend Keely's house. Suuuuuuucked.

Showing Up:

I saw this on a bumper sticker affixed to the wall at Coffee to the People, where I write most days.

"Get Involved: The World is Run by Those Who Show Up."

I love that.

What I've Been Reading...

So I realize the other day I've been totally slacking off on both my reading habbits and reporting in when I finish a book. To catch up then.

What I've Read Recently:

Public Radio: Behind the Voices by Lisa Philips

A collection of profiles of NPR's biggest personalities. A treasure for the public radio geek and a shrug for just about anyone else. I fall into the former so finding out that Steve Inkseep and Renee Montagne don't sit in the same room when recording Morning Edition Scott Simon is very handsome was just divine.

Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate

A wonderful novel about three generations of women whose story overlaps with the blaxploitation period of Hollywood. Fun, sassy, sad and touching. Highly recommended.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl.

My favorite of the lesser known Roald Dahl books that I hadn't read in about 20 years. Glad I went back. "The Swan" and "The Fingersmith" are still two of my favorite short stories ever.

Reading Now:

Talking Right by Geoffrey Nunberg

Just started this one. More complicated than Going Nuclear so I have to read slowly. I'm already learning a bunch about how Republicans have, say, turned "liberal" into an insult and seem have a monopoly on the term "values."

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Every now and then, I grab an older book by either a favorite writer or one whom I've always been curious about. I've known about Ishiguro for several years but have never tried him out. Enjoying it a lot.

Notes of a Native Son by
James Baldwin

For my two-person book club. Just getting started with this one.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: "Jerry Meguire" (1996):

Jerry Maguire (1996): "Saying what you feel is the best idea but it takes awhile to seem like it"

Notes: Seen via Netflix as part of an ongoing effort to revisit movies I once dismissed. This one grows on you.

TV Will Whip Your Sanctimonious Ass...

I was pretty angry after suffering through this episode of Forum, our local yap show. Ostensibly a look at the new television series debuting in the fall, it ended up a gang of television critics complaining for the 5 millionth time that there's nothing good on TV and the host, the normally commendable Michael Krasney, beginning the epsiode with the "Television is a vast wasteland" rag, a sentiment about as contemporary as I Like Ike.

Here's my deal. Premising a conversation on television being a sludge bucket is like beginning a conversation about pop music with a take-down of Britney Spears. It's a cheap, easy target that lets you smug-coast right past the glaring evidence to the contrary. It plays the snob gallery by letting you ignore that you are not only mypoic but wrong.

I'm sure you can find some television programming that feels like wet mashed potatoes. With 18+ hours, 7 days a week from now until the end of time to fill, much of it will be junk. But but for the first time in recent memory, much of it is much better than that. Thanks to cable, HBO, DVD and TiVo which means you don't have to wade through chaff to get to wheat, good television programming grows thick and tall. Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Criminal Minds, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Veronica Mars, are all regular viewing for me. You may not care for one or many of them but to call them wastes of time and talent is nonsense. To use them as evidence that there is "nothing on TV" means a) you need more than a half dozen shows a week to be satisfied and are a glutton and b) you're not looking hard enough for them.

Maybe TV isn't your bag? No shame in that. But television is a platform not a state of mind. What matters is what's in the box, not the box itself. The box doesn't invade our lives like a cancer unless we let it. Worried that you watch too much or that it's easy to fall back on it like an unhealthy ex-lover? Throw a tablecloth over your set. You'll be amazed how soon you forget.

Salon's Heather Havrilesky says it well in this feature and this roundup of the new fall series. I'm excited for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Six Degrees" already. The rest I'll test out without guilt.