It's A Corker

    Any of you with television sets have probably seen the endless prattle about the nefarious attack ad unleashed against Democratic candidate Harold Ford.  (If you've been in a cave, you can see it here.)  As you probably expected, there's a parody of it making the rounds now, and it's actually funny.  Rather bitterly funny, I'd say.  Check it out.

Don't Mind If I Do....

    In honour of Hallowe'en, it's time to recall some of the best segments from The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror" episodes, for which you can read one article on the subject and glance through the chatter here.  I have to confess, my favourite is predictable, but you can enjoy it here anyway. 

    I should also add, "The Shinning" is the only way in which I can tolerate that story anymore, the Kubrick movie long ago able to annoy me with just a frame or two.  Seriously.  I'd rather have an ax drawn into me than ever watch another second of that godawful movie again. 

Oh, I'm So Conflicted....

    Is this is a good thing or a bad thing?  (Ladies, try not to laugh too loudly.)

Ya Gotta Love Thelma Ritter

    Just a few loose notes here as I down my morning coffee and brace myself for another exciting day:

• A friend recently suggested--- half-jesting, half-not--- that the NSG Doc should consider a career in film criticism.  This is a bit ironic, considering that it was in reviewing movies that I first started writing for (albeit very limited) public consumption, way, way, waaaaaaaay back when I was in high school and dinosaurs began turning into oil.  Having been as long as I can remember something of a film savant, it'd be a great gig if I could get it, but those gigs are few and far between.  It'd be a natural fit, save for two things: having to review gore-fests I can no longer stomach and my own capacity for becoming the Dennis Miller of flick-crit, casually tossing around names as familiar for me as they would be arcane for everyone else.  The other day the CBC was re-airing Hitchcock's Rear Window, and after watching a scene I caught myself saying, "Ya gotta love Thelma Ritter."  Oh, the perpetual danger of being, or merely seeming, too esoteric by half.  Then again, these days one can be chided for mentioning Shakespeare in an English class, so stupefyingly pricklish have some become to any sort of demonstration of knowledge.  (Invoking Massinger would probably be grounds for scouring and crucifixion.)  No wonder I'm cynical, as references beyond the purview of The Family Guy are stridently derided as obscure and ergo obscurantist. 

  So, note to self:  Don't mention Thelma Ritter.  Lindsay Lohan, okay-- but not, definitely not, Thelma Ritter.   
  

• There's much ado these days about the releases of Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0, and though I can't pretend to be any sort of expert on the browser debate, the NSG Doc had previously, and typically, gone a third way with Opera.  For my money, absolutely none of it, Opera's better than either, especially for the "Block Content" function which allows users to ban certain advertising from web pages.  Smooth, stable, and almost entirely forgotten in the fracas, Opera is worth checking out if you haven't already.  If, like me, you're trying to get away from Microsoft as much as possible, I'd also recommend OpenOffice, which is free and every bit as functional as Office. 
  
  
• I'm not sure how worthwhile it is to keep blogging anymore.  Can't say it offers me much anymore, or if this blog offers much to anyone else either.  I dunno.  Thoughts?  If I do keep this thing going, I'll almost certainly be chucking Enetation as my comment handler.  It gets less and less reliable by the week, today marking every comment I made as spam before it eventually published it as spam.  Oy vey.  The only question then becomes whether or not I can be bothered to do all the recoding with Blogger.  Same goes for ImageShack, BTW, which has inexplicably taken to revamping its image locations.  This is why the image of Alec Guinness won't load up anymore--- and why this blog won't seem to load completely when you visit it.  Arrrrgh. 

Alas, nothing exciting to report here, much less thoughtful or significant.  Meh.  Another mawkish Monday awaits. 

    Follow-Up:  And Blogger is screwing up today, too.  Again.  Once more, this time feeling:  Aaaaaargh!!!!

    Follow-Up Part Deux:  Playing around with Firefox, I'm impressed with the quality of some of the add-ons.  In fact, this addendum is done using the "Performancing" blog editor.  Not bad, not bad at all, and Firefox is brutal with advertisements, even removing Google text ads.  Impressive. 

Think Of The Children!

    Then again, maybe the kids should start thinking for the adults, more and more of whom are well and truly going mad with coddling.· This prissy Cult Of The Child nonsense has simply got to stop.  Hell, when I was a kid--- Gawd, did I just write that?--- I used to play lawn darts (now illegal in most places), ride vehicles and inner-tubes into rivers, and, yes, I played tag despite its legendary dangerousness.  I even got hit in the head with a horseshoe, and it didn't do me any effasdfwethioasdgasking damage.  (My damage was done the old-fashioned way, by whisky and wimmin.  In other words, as John Houseman used to say, I earrrrrrrned it.   )   What's next from these hyper-paranoid morons, banning Simon Says because it encourages conformity?

 

    Post-Script:  Oh, wait; "the encouragement of conformity" was one of the reasons a lot of school boards ceased teaching grammar and spelling.  And what a wonderful world of good that has done us....

Stoic In The Middle With You

    A slightly odd day in these quarters, evidenced most plainly by the picture below.  Sure, you're no doubt thinking, another effing picture of the Doctor's cats.  Well, yes; but more than that, because today Trouble was in one of his rare "I'm-a-big-suck-after-all" moods.  In addition to spending much of the afternoon on my lap, at my window or at my feet, Trouble spent some time lounging on my futon, something he never does, and has probably done only once or twice since Blake, another cat, died several years ago.  Why this is remains a mystery, but today Trouble broke entirely from his normal John Wayne-wannabe behaviour.  (He didn't even dart when the camera came out.)  Something else to note: in this pic, he's lying in Jenny's spot, and on Jenny's blanket, or the cheap piece of fabric one calls a blanket for lack of a better term.  Jenny, as you'll observe, is sleepily watching aloft, but certainly trying to indicate proprietorship by sitting nearest the Doc's right-hand, or where it would be if he hadn't gone to get the camera.  So, what you see below is a rather surprising anomaly, but one I find impossibly sweet.  It's also a beautiful testament to Jenny's temperament, acceding to let Captain Stoic act a little needy--- on Jenny's turf, no less!--- without even a little grumbling.  Awwww....

 

 

Of course, since this picture was taken, Trouble has returned to being his curmudgeonly self and Jenny has reclaimed the futon.  All things shall return to what they were.  There must be a Pauline or Ecclesiastical wisdom in there somewhere.

 

    BTW, check out Helen Mirren's impressively Wedgewood performance in The Queen when soonest you can.  Michael Sheen's Tony Blair is canny, but Mirren demonstrates again why she may be the best working actress in the business, even if she does too much material that's beneath her (Shadowboxer, anyone?).  Stephen Frears' film as a whole seems to miss something I can't yet articulate, but Mirren guinnesses the role brilliantly.  Can I hereby claim invention of the verb "to guinness?"  (Perhaps also a portmanteau of "to guile" and "to finesse"?)  Guinness was the master of eerie transformations of familiar figures--- see his Hitler in The Last Ten Days, or his movie-redeeming Freud in the Dudley Moore comedy Lovesick--- and I think here Mirren lays claim to be his heir(-ess) apparent.  There's no higher compliment I could give her.  It's point- and pitch-perfect acting, made even more astonishing given the level of difficulty--- and the potential for a single misstep to undermine her completely. 

 

    So, there we are: two notes, entirely unconnectable, and so utterly beyond unity.  But, we move on; as the lisping dead man said to Charon: Stoic, stoic, stoic....

Kitzschen Up

    The J-Bear looking rather bleary-eyed, as if recovering from a Bender From Hell.  But, then again, this J-Bear wouldn't know a thing about benders from Hell.  Nope.  Not.  At.  All. 

 

 

    Should add for those not in the know, despite what this pic may portray, Jenny is actually the affectionate one; the very, very affectionate one, in fact.  The resemblance to the Not-So-Good Doctor before his morning coffee is entirely coincidental.

 

So We'll Go No More....?, or The Volpone Express

    As most of you have probably heard and/or seen, there's developed quite the brouhaha regarding Michael J. Fox's endorsement of Democratic candidates and Rush Limbaugh's attack on him for doing so.  Rush, always the master of subjecting jaws to gravity, obviously crossed a line here, with almost no one in the babblocracy defending him (see here for a sample), and more prominent pundits like Timothy Noah chiding him openly.  It's no secret that the Republicans are, and have been, in big trouble as the mid-term elections near, but I'm thinking Limbaugh's cynical slam may prove to be the death-knell for the GOP's chances. 

    Why?  (A question you're only asking, if you're asking, with eyes rolling and because I've basically said knock-knock and you realize Who's there? is the only way to get things over with.)

    Because the attack reeks of desperation, of pathetic say-anything politics that demonstrates fundamental weakness at the core (just listen to Rush's voice as he soldiers pointlessly on); Foley-Gate, the Iraq fiasco and so forth, they may have been tipping against the GOP, but Limbaugh I suspect may have tipped the balance definitively.  When power-holders, or the spokespeople of those power-holders, indicate desperation so obviously, usually in the form of an attack almost entirely defensible, it all but inevitably precedes a repudiation of those power-holders.  There are oblivious attacks (c.f., "stay-the-course" vs "cut-and-run") and there are invidious attacks (the Swift-Boat commercials), but some attacks are so cheap and personal that they expose weakness on the part of the attacker; the bully is revealed for being just a bully, his insecurities suddenly plain for everyone to see, even those that once stood by him.

 

    We have a classic, and I think instructive, example of this in Canadian politics, when the Kim Campbell Tories issued the attack ads that mocked Jean Chretien's face because of his Bell's Palsy.  Campbell and the Tories, already in trouble, were reduced to a mere two seats in the House of Commons, with even the Prime Minister losing her seat.  People, in my experience, will tolerate many things, but blatant desperation is not one of them.  (Think about your own past relationships and do the math.)  I have a funny feeling that in years to come, Limbaugh's melee on Fox may shortly prove to be the gesture that ushered in a congressional change as it became the symbol of that blatancy.  Put another way, it may provide the new whiff that determines that what's in the fridge has, in fact, gone bad and needs to be thrown out.  But the stench now is harder and harder to deny, and Limbaugh's attack may just have proven the proving pong.

 

    We'll see if I'm right soon enough--- providing, that is, there isn't a November surprise coming from the Roving Diebold machines.  If I'm correct, though, Rushing le petit renard -- hounding him no less!-- may just have proven the fatal mistake.  Crazy like a Fox, indeed.

Holy Flurking Shnit!

    Just when you thought American politics couldn't get more ridiculous, it seems there's now worry of an outbreak of Yellow Fever. 

 

    And in related news, it seems the Shrubberies have abandoned the phrase "stay the course."  Why?  Because "[they've] never been stay the course...."  (Oh, okay....)  Then again, given the Dissembler-In-Chief's intellectual capacity, this blog knew he'd never be able stay a course.  That might require reading.

What's In A Name?

    Really, it's amazing this guy lasted as long as he did.  Some parents do tempt fate, don't they?

 

    (Gee, how long has it been since I did one of these silly, semi-pithy posts?  Those of you longing for such things are advised to go here.)

The Anxiety of Influence

    Three American writers have compiled their list of (get this) the 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived.  (See the complete, and often bizarre, list here.) Conspicuously absent, according to this blog: 

• Lolita, the prototype for pop culture's most prominent stereotype (these days, at least)
  
• Homer Simpson, Archie Bunker's heir and the great philosopher grunt of the 21st century
  
• William Shakespeare, if those infernal Oxonians and Baconians are to be believed
  
• Elizabeth Bennet, heroine of a novel whose name I absolutely will not mention here
  
• Sancho Panza, the archetype of the sidekick for centuries
  
• Stephen Dedalus, proof positive that Freud was right when he said that the Irish were the only people immune to psychoanalysis
  
• Tom Jones, Henry Fielding's galavanting pseudo-prodigal, still the classic male role model (and the basis for every part played by Hugh Grant and/or Colin Firth)
  
• The Wife Of Bath, whose descendants the NSG-Doctor keeps bumping into everywhere
  
• Alex Forrest, whose descendants the NSG-Doctor also keeps, Er, bumping into everywhere   
  
• Holden Caulfield, whom we've all resembled at one point or another
  
• Harry Lime from the film The Third Man, every bit the model of the modern CEO and the little ants down there
  
• Falstaff, Falstaff, Falstaff (for me and Harold Bloom, anyway)
  
• Mistah Kurtz (he dead, despite never living), whose final words are quoted daily by undergrads trying to sound cultured
  
• Satan-slash-Lucifer-slash-"The Adversary"-slash-Keyser-Soze, whose greatest trick he ever pulled was... well, you know the rest....

Feel free to add your own ideas on missed names, but, to my estimation, the most influential figure upon the hearts and minds of so many in this day and age, the prophet of their behaviour and thought (though not their ungentle spirit), the chap at the centre of this tale.  After all, some influences are so sublime they shape even those oblivious to them.  Welcome to Jerzy, everyone.

Iggy Flop and the Sweet and Lo-Down

    Oh, these updates do get farther and farther apart, don't they?  I'm trying to remember a time when blogging was less of a chore than it now is, but failing completely.  Oh well.  Those of you looking for other blogs to read should check out the Blogs of Note at left.  I've added a couple new ones, or at least ones new to this cyber-rag.  Give them a scan or two.

 

    Not too much to report here, save for my recent super-consumption of movies old and new.  Some late acquisitions, in digital form: Carol Reed's The Third Man, Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Throne of Blood, and the grand Vincent Price schlocker Theatre of Blood.  Have also been subjecting myself to junk like RV, Mission Impossible 3, Firewall and the remake of The Wicker Man, along with better fare like the brilliantly funny Thank You For Smoking, Good Luck and Good Night and Brokeback Mountain.  The worse movies always linger, though, like farts in a small room.  MI3 is stupid beyond stupid, shamelessly cannibalizing every Tom Cruise movie that came before it in a risible example of ego-stroking.  It's nothing but a painfully pretentious paean peppered with explosions to paper over its empty plot.  Same with Firewall, though it seems less an attempt to massage Harrison Ford's ego than to go to a dried-up well just one more time.  The Wicker Man makes me think Edward Woodward has a case for legal action, though surely not as good a case as Christopher Lee, whose part is played by Ellen Burstyn like Elaine Stritch on a helium high. RV is further proof Robin Williams can't do movie comedy anymore, though the film's focus seems instead to be filtering the sixteen year-old pseudo-starlet named JoJo, irresistably pictured aside to prove a point, through the eyes of Humbert Humbert.  Her manager should just rename her LoLo and be done with the prevaricating.  (Lolita's "eerie [and fictional] vulgarity" seems positively tame now, doesn't it?)  Occurs to me now, however, that Williams would make an interesting Quilty.  It'd let him mix his comedic antics with the darker dimensions he has come to do so much more effectively.  Hollywood take note.  Me, I prefer to tarry on the prospect of James Mason starring in any movie involving a motor-home. 

 

    Some other bits and pieces:

• Dylan's Modern Times is terrific.  Get it.  Now.  Don't worry, this blog will wait 'til you get back.
  
  
• I finally forced myself to re-include Van Morrison's Moondance in my musical library.  I haven't listened to it in its entirety in almost eight years for reasons I won't explain here.  It's such a glorious album, but it's still not easy to hear, too many memories of a former self still attached to it.  Odd how that happens.  No wonder I've politely refused the offers I've had over the years to replace my copy.  (Insert philosophical shrug here.) 
  
  
• The new game show 1 vs 100 is on as I write this, and it's unwatchable.  It drags like a damp cigarette (a menthol, no less).  Bet it's cancelled by month's end.  It has "flop" written all over it, though the presence of Bob Saget should have indicated that a priori.
  

    And, in a last matter, Michael Ignatieff, the Ighead Who Would Be King, has declared that he's willing to open up the constitutional debate in Canada.  Again.  (Insert stunned silence here, followed by the trepidatious chirping of a few nervous crickets.)  To which, Liberals all across the country are suddenly saying, in remarkable unison, "Okay, Rae it is--- so long as he keeps his damned pants on." 

 

    (Besides, with Dalton McSquinty in office in Ontario, wouldn't it cause a synaptic overload to have two Liberal leaders that so alarmingly resemble Anthony Perkins?  They must both assume they have faces you can't help believing.)

    I should, however, explain something for my non-Canuckistani readers about our particular national no-no. 

 

    There is only one truly offensive c-word in Canada, and it's not a colourful one, even if it rhymes with "prostitution" and deals with "country matters."  (How's that, RK, for cunning linguistic play?)  Consequently, Canadians caution their contending custodians to keep their caucuses from (er...) coming anywhere near The C-Word.  As tempting as it may be to make it expand and contract, you can't fiddle with it and you can't gentle its condition.  Ever.  Most Canucks have learned this and are adamant about it. 

   When it comes to The C-Word, just leave it alone and accept it as it is. Warts and all.

Eminem Domain

    ~~His job is (what?), his job is (what?)....~~  (Darwin forgive me; I never thought I'd make an Eminem reference, either.)

    It takes Stewart a bit to gather his momentum, but once he does he's an impish riot of ridicule.  You have to love the look on Stewart's face when he reaches yet another of those classic tautologies that suggest the President is, in fact, a Lewis Carroll character, or at least a Monty Python creation (is this what happens when we're asked for a Shrubbery?).  This piece demonstrates why some of us regard Mr Stewart as the President's most consistently effective critic; his subject is almost inevitably logic, and it's the one thing he can never find.  I wonder why.  BTW, check out, too, Stewart's interview with David Rakoff from the same episode. 

    Searching for the clip above, though, I came across the Google Video for Stewart's speech immediately following September 11th.  I think it's now safe to say that what he said was eminently more profound than anything the President ever said.  When satirists stoop to sincerity and manage still to outclass the lofty and the important, we're in sad, sad state indeed.

But Where's The External?

    Below, Jenny and Trouble looking very much like just about every committee I've ever faced:  stern but confused, with more than a hint of preliminary disapproval.   

 

 

Thought the image appropriate considering Someone Else Who Will Remain Nameless has just finished satiating, or at least appeasing, a committee.  Someone Else, however, is reminded not to start calling himself "Doctor J," even if he's technically entitled to do so.  That dishonourable honorific has been too well-worn to fit anyone.  (Besides, it has a musty smell now from weathering too much irony.)  Might this blog suggest "Doc M"?  Just imagine the puntabulous possibilities....