June 25, 2003
Title Fit - I Felt It
The first CD we listened to on our trip was Weird Al Yankovic's new release, Poodle Hat. All good Weird stuff (I particularly like Hardware Store and A Complicated Song), until we got to Bob:
I, man, am regal - a German am IWhat?
Never odd or even
If I had a hi-fi
Madam, I'm AdamOK, I should have caught it by now, but it's a lot easier seeing the words in print than hearing them sung for the first time. Anyway:
Too hot to hoot
No lemons, no melon
Too bad I hid a boot
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Warsaw was raw
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Rise to vote, sirI quite like that one, but:
Do geese see God?
"Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod
Rats live on no evil starThe light dawned, and it was blinding.
As for those readers (or rather Googlers) who were looking to download Poodle Hat: Just buy the darn thing, willya? The CD contains a bonus Quicktime movie with all the songs, extra mixes, the lyrics (yes, he did say automatic circumcisers) and Weird Al's very own home movies.
If you're a nut for a jar of tuna, you need Poodle Hat.
June 24, 2003
Harry Who?
It would seem that I have been labouring under a misapprehension and Harry Potter is not in fact the colonel who commanded the 4077th in later episodes of M*A*S*H. He is, it would appear, the hero of an absurdly popular series of books by one J. K. Rowling.
I dropped in today on a friend of mine who runs a bookstore here in Sydney. Not a small bookstore, but not a huge one either. He ordered in 600 copies of the hardcover edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - and sold them all in three days.
Now, I don't begrudge Ms. Rowling her squillions... Alright, I do begrudge her her squillions, but not to the extent that I begrudge Microsoft theirs. But I'm at a loss to explain the popularity of these books. They're not bad, but -
I have a collection of Fritz Leiber's short stories; I bought it because it contained some stories that I'd never seen collected elsewhere. Total world-wide print run of this book was 80 copies. Why? There's no question, none at all, that Fritz Leiber was a better writer than J. K. Rowling. Why wasn't he a squillionaire too?
Leiber's work isn't for children, but a large proportion of Harry Potter readers are adults. I don't mind at all that adults read and enjoy Harry Potter, but why aren't they also reading Dunsany? Or in a similar vein, Neil Gaiman's Stardust, a beautiful and wondrous tale almost flawless in its tribute to Dunsany's style. It's good to see that Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books are being kept in print, but where oh where is The Silver Eggheads?
Why, if adults find they enjoy fantasy, are they not reading masters of the weird and wonderful like Tim Powers and Michael Shea? Why not Lois Bujold, who can create characters who sometimes seem more real than my own family, or C. J. Cherryh, who writes so well that a hundred pages can pass with no action and you barely notice and care not at all? When will we see a movie version of The Anubis Gates or Nifft the Lean or The Curse of Chalion or Gate of Ivrel?
Why are they not reading Ursula Le Guin? Why not T.H. White? Why not - well, actually, Terry Pratchett is doing pretty well. And Stephen Donaldson - his novels may not appeal to all, but do try his short stories in Daughter of Regals and Reave the Just.
As for me? Well, since I couldn't buy the latest Harry Potter epic, it may be time for me to finish my own novel and maybe, just maybe, make some squillions of my own.
June 19, 2003
Creepy Susie
Book of the Day is Creepy Susie and 13 other tragic tales for troubled children by Angus Oblong.
Now, normally in recommending a book I'd include a carefully selected quote of some of the author's finest prose. In this case, however, this amounts to:
This is Helga.Take a look at the sample pages on Amazon's site. Then buy the book.
These are the Debbies. The Debbies all tried very hard to be the same.
Helga was an endless source of amusement for the Debbies...
Even though Helga was different, she had somehow convinced herself that there was a place in society for her.
The Debbies sought to destroy Helga's glimmer of hope to one day fit in.
You can also read The Cutie Bunch Friendly Pal Pack.
There are a bunch more books here too. So if you know a child with a birthday coming up...
(via the cheese stands alone via Tiger)
June 18, 2003
Strange and Unusual
Web Site of the Day is Strange and Unusual Dictionaries. Though it mostly consists of links to books and other web sites, it provides three valuable resources: The White Queen's Dictionary of One Letter Words (with over 700 entries!), The Dictionary of All-Consonant Words (I got rhythm, I got music... What? They don't count rhythm? Foobie bletch!), and of course the indispensible Dictionary of All-Vowel Words (running from a'u to Yu).
From there, adoxographers might choose to study The Grandiloquent Dictionary, though aabarists might prefer The Pseudodictionary. For the rest of us, there's always The Foolish Dictionary, presented by Aaaugh!
Confound your friends and amaze your enemies with your new-found Scrabble-power!
June 17, 2003
Retromingent
Word of the day is retromingent. [If it is, it can bloody well clean it up itself. &mdash Ed.]
(from The Wall Street Journal via Instapundit.)
June 14, 2003
Knick Knacks
Over at misinformer.com, Marcus is asking the important questions: Knick Knack's Breast Spheres: Where Are They Now?
"The girl!" I gasped, "She's got no boobies!"These people have to be stopped! Remake or no Remake, movie revisionism is evil - especially when it involves boobies.
The guy sitting next to me cuffed me in the back of the head.
"Shhh! Of course she's got no boobies. It's a kid's cartoon."
"No," I explained, "I mean... she used to have boobies! They're gone!"
"Shut up you pervert. There were never any boobies."
(Thanks to Segnosaur on JREF Forums for the link.)
June 12, 2003
Planarian
Word of the day is planarian. (Yes, but it wouldn't be if — hang on, that's a noun! You cheated! — Ed.)
June 10, 2003
June 08, 2003
Theatre of the Absurd
Tonight in Pixy Misa's Theatre of the Absurd we have a very special double feature: Big Trouble (Barry Sonnenfeld, 2002) and Big Trouble in Little China (John Carpenter, 1986).
Big Trouble takes its story from the book of the same name by Dave Barry. Tim Allen stars as Eliot Arnold, formerly a Pulitzer prize-winning humour columnist for the Miami Herald (I wonder where they got that idea from), now divorced and trying to make a living in advertising. He also narrates the film, a necessary conceit given the complex and curious nature of the story. Oh, and there's also an opening narration by Puggy (Jason Lee), who lives in a tree and wins the love of Nina the maid (Sofia Vergara), the lucky bastard.
By the end of the film, Eliot has saved the world, remarried, and won the respect of his teenage son (in order of increasing difficulty). In between, things happen. These things involve guns, goats, bufo marinus, and the worlds most valuable garbage disposal unit.
Basically, this film is a farce, a screwball comedy, with elements of action thrown in. And the one thing you can't do with either a farce or an action flick is slow down. Never ever slow down, never give your audience a chance to stop laughing or let the adrenalin go cold. Unfortunately, Big Trouble doesn't manage this; there are many fine scenes, some wonderful ones, even, but the pacing is inconsistent. Perhaps this is because they were trying to shove the whole book into an 85-minute movie (and it is a faithful translation; I don't recall anything significant that was missing or changed from the novel). Perhaps its just hard to translate this sort of insanity onto the screen; Striptease, the movie of Carl Hiaasen's marvellous book, certainly suffered when it was turned into cellulite. [That's celluloid. — Ed. Says you. Have you seen the film?]
Which is not to say that Big Trouble is a bad film. One reviewer on IMDB called it "the worst comedy of the year", apparently because he couldn't follow the story. What's so hard? There's this guy (Tim Allen), you see, and his son (Ben Foster) is trying to kill this girl (Zooey Deschanel) [What sort of a name is "Zooey"? — Ed.], only not like kill her, it's just this game they're playing, Killer, which if I recall correctly was released by Steve Jackson Games, and there's this toad (Rick Lazzarini) which has taken over the dog's (Martha Stewart. No, really, Martha Stewart.) food dish and these Russians and this annoying guy that makes Fishhook Beer and then the world gets saved.
Well, maybe it helps to read the book first. Or maybe not. I did read the book first, and the movie being the faithful adaptation that it is, I knew what was coming. This works fine with, say, The Princess Bride, where it doesn't matter if you read the book or watch the film first, because then you can go right ahead and watch the film or read the book, and it adds to the experience rather than taking away. So, I wasn't confused at all watching Big Trouble, but I wasn't surprised either. Except for the goat; I laughed out loud at the goat.
Which is just my way of saying, no, it's not a bad film, much less the worst comedy of the year. Didn't The Animal come out in 2002? No, apparently 2001. Anyway, Big Trouble is a fun film, enjoyable and amusing, a bit cheesy, perhaps, but well worth the hour-and-a-half. Pixy Misa gives it a 7.
Big Trouble in Little China most certainly does not have the pacing problems of Big Trouble. It starts off nice and easy, setting the scene, establishing the characters... And then it hits full throttle and never lets up. This is Hollywood's take on the Wuxia film, and it's a good one. If you're not familiar with this school of film, or the stories and legends it draws upon, then you can't expect it to make much sense, and you'll just have to hang on and enjoy the ride. If you are familiar with the genre, you should enjoy the Western reaction to the various mythic elements, which can be summed up as What is this shit?
Our guide to this exploration of Chinese legend is Jack Burton (Kurt Russell), a truck driver with friends in San Francisco's Chinatown. When Wang Chi's (Dennis Dun) newly arrived fiancee Miao Yin (Suzee Pai) is abducted from the airport by Chinese thugs, Jack and Wang go to rescue her. Their encounters move swiftly from rival gangs to flying men in bamboo hats (Thunder, Rain and Lightning, played by Carter Wong, Peter Kwong and James Pax) and a two-thousand year old Chinese sorceror who shoots beams of light from his eyes and mouth (Lo Pan, played by James Hong).
It's comic book stuff, but it's good comic book stuff. There are love interests for all our heroes (Kim Cattrall as Gracie Law, the aforementioned Miao Yin (Miao Miao), and Kate Burton as Margo the reporter), there are fights, monsters, dark sorcery, bright magic (Victor Wong as Egg Shen), temples, weddings, guns, knives, good men, bad men, ninja girls (can't go wrong with ninja girls)... It doesn't have a car chase, not really, but apart from that the movie is complete.
Will Jack win through despite the odds, defeat the evil sorceror and save the girl? Well, duh, of course he will. It's not so important how it ends, because you know that going in; what's important is that it's done with style, with humour, with panache. And indeed it is. Pixy Misa gives it an 8.
Meanwhile, Blogger is down again. I'm not stupid, not totally; I can learn from painful experience; I did the Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Post&Publish dance, and I didn't lose my article. It's still down, and I still can't post; what do you expect from Microsoft SQL Server? Pixy Misa gives Blogger a 4. Catch it on TV.
June 07, 2003
I'm in Big Trouble
Nina, the maid in Big Trouble, is played by Sofia Vergara. I think I'm in love.
And you know those security seals they put on DVDs? I hate those things! Particularly when they put them on all three sides. Not naming any particular companies (Viz Video).
Oh, and in case anyone was still planning to invade Australia, we have lots of cane toads. Lots and lots of cane toads
June 01, 2003
Trashing With Style
James Lileks was not impressed with The Matrix Reloaded:
“Um - it’s all underground? The steel mill is entirely underground?”Nor was Mark Steyn overly enthused with X-Men 2:“That’s right. Tall as a 50-story building, when completed. It will be the world’s biggest underground steel mill.”
“It’ll be the world’s only underground steel mill.”
Nobody who genuinely loved superheroes would do that to them. The exception is Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who plays the shape-shifter Mystique. I can’t say Miss Romijn-Stamos’ shape is in much need of shifting, particularly as she spends most of the movie dressed in a kind of skin-tight slime that makes it look as if she’s just emerged from the pit on Lesbian Mud-Wrestling Night at the local sports bar.Are there any good movies on the horizon, now that Return of the King has been pushed back to 2004? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
May 29, 2003
Little, Big
Tuesday, the day that will go down in history as having been eaten by mice, I went out and bought another two DVDs. After all, I only have 41 already in my to-watch pile.
These two are special. These two came recommended. First up, Big Trouble, the film of the book Big Trouble by Dave "I am not making this up" Barry, as recommended by reader Susie. (Yes! We have readers!)
Second, Big Trouble in Little China, as recommended on the Bad Astronomer's Good Movie page. Reviews will follow, as sure as droppings follow day-eating mice.
Logically, they'd go on the shelf next to Ranma ½: Chûgoku Nekonron daikessen! Okite yaburi no gekitô hen, but I like to keep my anime separate from other stuff. In case of cross-pollination or something. I don't know.
May 22, 2003
Wee Book of the Day
Book of the Day is The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. It appears to be another Discworld-for-kids book, like The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (which was excellent). If you've read any of Pratchett's other children's books, you'll know that they're also great for grownups.
I can't review it yet, because I haven't, um, actually read it. I only bought it today, and I'm still reading Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet which I bought yesterday. (I hope the current run of reprints covers the complete series, because I haven't read most of the later ones.)
Web Site of the Day, then, is lspace.org, which is the centre for information about Pratchett's writings, particularly the Discworld books.
May 19, 2003
Pertinacious
Word of the Day is pertinacious. (Which probably means it will end up being the word of the week. — Ed)
May 18, 2003
When I Held Your Brain In My Arms
Song of the Day is When I Held Your Brain In My Arms from MST3K (the Terror from the Year 5000 episode):
There was a time, so bright and gay,Ahh. They don't write them like that anymore. (They never did. — Ed.)
It seems like only yesterday,
When I held your brain in my arms.
Your adrenaline was like wine,
Sweet perfume was your endocrine,
When I held your brain in my arms.
Quotidian
Word of the Day is quotidian. (Well, of course the word of the day is quotidian. If it wasn't quotidian, it wouldn't be the word of the day. — Ed)
May 17, 2003
First and Second Law
Song of the Day is First and Second Law off the At the Drop of Another Hat album by Flanders and Swann:
The First law of Thermodynamics:
Heat is work and work is heat
Very Good.
The Second law of Thermodynamics:
Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body
Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter
You can try it if you like but you'd far better not-a
'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-a
'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler
Deathstalker vs. Harry Potter
Dire as it was, Deathstalker and the Complete Lack of Plot was only slightly more boring than Harry Potter and the Extremely Slow-Moving Story, which somehow managed to score a 7.3 on IMDB. Now there's a movie that could do with a MiSTing. If you should feel the urge to watch either one, a few minutes of The Princess Bride is the recommended treatment.
May cause excessive quotations. Do not operate machinery if effected.
May 16, 2003
Deathstalker And The Movie From Hell
Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell is one bad movie. Even with Mike and the robots it was barely watchable. Deathstalker 2 wasn't nearly as bad, though that was at least partly due to having Monique Gabrielle wandering around wearing not very much at all. A quick glance at IMDB shows Deathstalker 2 with a rating of 4.1 against Deathstalker and the Script from Hell at 2.0. Looks like 2 was the best of the bunch, in fact.
Godzilla vs. Megalon doesn't seem to be a whole lot better. Maybe I need to buy some popcorn to enjoy MST3K properly. Mmm, popcorn...
May 15, 2003
Obligatory Marx Brothers Reference File
Entry 1:
Hello, I must be going,Hooray for Captain Zoidberg! [Spaulding! — Ed] Whatever! Hooray!
I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be going.
I'm glad I came, but just the same I must be going.
Near Enough...
Rain, rain,
Rain, rain won't you help me
You know this day, isn't going to last for long;
Rain, rain,
Rain, rain won't you guide me
These arms, these legs, propel them to another day.
Everything You Know Is Wrong
Song of the Day is Everything You Know Is Wrong by Weird Al Yankovic:
Everything you know is wrongWeird Al's new album, Poodle Hat, is out on May 20th.
Black is white, up is down and short is long
And everything you thought was just so
Important doesn't matterEverything you know is wrong
Just forget the words and sing along
All you need to understand is
Everything you know is wrong
May 12, 2003
As If!
Web Comic of the Day has to be As If! The link takes you to a lovely pink-and-blue portal page, from which you can jump straight to the latest strip or go to the archives to see older stuff.
All of the strips from day one are online, or you can download them as zip files to read at your leisure.
What's it like? It's like, well, cool. And stuff. Just read it, willya?
May 05, 2003
Pibgorn
Which reminds me: Pibgorn by Brooke McEldowney. Read it. It's good. Though sometimes slow-moving. Right now it's in the middle of a long and complicated sub-story, so it may not immediately make sense. Stick with it.