On the dubious premise that Everything is Better with Latin!™…
| Dreidel Song | Cantus Turbinis |
|
I have a little dreidel,
I made it out of clay, and when it’s dry and ready then dreidel I shall play! Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, It has a lovely body Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, |
Est mihi turbo parvus
argilla feci, em! Cum siccus est paratus tunc ludam turbinem! o turbo, turbo, turbo! Amoenum habet corpus, o turbo, turbo, turbo! |
1. Nick is alive and well in Shanghai and my conniption-levels are dropping below the red line at last. Also, Skype is my new best friend.
2. “Everything is better with Latin!”™ Even the making of Iron Man as chronicled by the Dude himself.
3. Gnome Chomsky. It’s the visual that makes the joke.
1. On the Eve of St. Nick, my son Nick has set off for China where he’s going to present a paper at a professional conference. This freaks me out so much I’m not fully aware of how freaked out I am. But if I could put a number on it, the number would be very large.
2. I actually saw a copy of Blood of Ambrose on a shelf in a bookstore the other day. It would have totally freaked me out if I had not already been freaking out about Thing 1 (above).
3. Earlier this week, Nick and I attended a lecture by Larry Lessig, one of the founders of Creative Commons and of Change-Congress.org. It was less academic than I’d anticipated (in a good way) and much more entertaining. He made some great points about the way politics is done (and decent policy debate fails to get done) in this country, without falling into the left-vs-right culture-war stuff that stultifies our political discourse. Highly recommended, if the circus comes to a town near you. (Or to the interwebs: the talk was supposed to be released online under a CC license. But if it has been I haven’t been able to find it.)
I think what disappoints me about the Avatar aliens is that all this technology has been deployed to create an improved version of the same old man-in-a-rubber-suit effect. Why not make aliens which are impressive but distinctively nonhuman, like Anderson’s Ythrians? Or a beautiful environment which is nonetheless unsuitable for humans (e.g. Simak’s “Desertion” or Blish’s Seedling Stars). And those things were written generations ago. CGI is a pair of 7-league boots that filmmakers are using to take baby steps–even backward steps.
A happy Thanksgiving to my compatriots; a happy Thursday to all.
Our smallest and craziest cat (Cleo, a.k.a. Antisonja) is helping me write by smashing her face against mine repeatedly and drooling on my shirt. It’s not improving my word count, but it does have a certain entertainment value.
The headline for a TPM article today is “Things Get Messier Still at the Wash Times”. I wasted a few moments wondering what the metaphor meant–how things could “get Messier“–by being dimly luminous, fuzzy, distant? Then I realized: oh, yeah more messy.
Dimly luminous, fuzzy, distant: that’s my cat in a bad mood. Maybe I should nickname him Messier.
Re the new Prisoner: It’s a thankless task to recreate a role originated by one of television’s greatest, oddest actors in one of the greatest series of all time. So: no thanks to Jim Caviezel tonight. Ian McKellan was pleasantly sinister as Number 2, though.
As my son pointed out, the stuff that doesn’t echo the original is kind of interesting. When they fall into remake mode, it just reminds you how much better the original was.
Somnolent pacing and very poorly motivated action in tonight’s first two episodes. I might give it another look tomorrow, but unless it improves dramatically I doubt I’ll watch to the end.
Re tonight’s Glee: I was a little shocked by the glimpse into Sue’s backstory. It wouldn’t be surprising for any other character on TV, but then she isn’t. Some more somber narrative tones this episode, but a couple of great wheelchair numbers (including Artie’s solo version of “Dancing with Myself”). Looking forward to the return of the “doe-eyed little harlot” and co. next week.
