Pop Culture
drorzel | May 11, 2006Via a LiveJournal post on the dorkiest thing ever, a link that isn't new, but new to me: The Lord of the Rings in quotes from The Princess Bride:
PETER JACKSON: Frodo and Sam don't get burned up by the lava.
AUDIENCE: What?
PETER JACKSON: Frodo and Sam don't get burned up by the lava. I'm explaining to you because you looked nervous.
stcynic | May 6, 2006This post is sure to bore the hell out of 95% of my readers. Feel free to go on to the next post, please. As my readers know, I am a huge fan of music. I'm also a fan of virtually every type of music, or at least a portion of it. I'm even learning to like country a little bit more. I drive people mad when riding in my car because I could go from James Taylor to Rage Against the Machine to Miles Davis in the course of a half hour. And yes, I even like heavy metal, or at least I like really good heavy metal. So when VH1 did a countdown of the 40 greatest metal songs, I tuned in.
For the most…
drorzel | April 18, 2006Reading this article reminds me that I forgot to talk about the poetry reading from a few weeks ago. In lieu of a regular colloquium talk one week this term, we co-hosted a poetry reading by George Drew, a local poet with a book of physics-themed poems.
There are some sample poems on that site, which give you an idea of the flavor of the thing (I don't think he read any of those specific poems, but they're fairly representative). They aren't so much poems about physics principles as they are poems about the history of physics-- lots of imaginary letters from one famous 20th Century physicist…
stcynic | April 18, 2006Totally by accident, I came across this report of a recent show by Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, one of my favorite bands in the world. I've seen this band several times and they're basically the ultimate bar band. Roger Clyne is a great troubadour songwriter in the tradition of Warren Zevon or Robert Earl Keen, spinning tales of tequila, senoritas and sunsets. Their shows are a celebration of the finest in unpretentious rock and roll and they've often been called the best live band in America. If you ever get a chance to see them live, I suggest you run, don't walk, to wherever they're…
stcynic | April 12, 2006I doubt I'm the only one who can't wait to see this movie. I may actually go to the theaters to see it, which I very rarely do. You gotta love a movie with lines like this:
Kid #3: My Mommy say smoking is bad for you
Nick Naylor: Oh, is your Mommy a doctor?
Kid #3: No.
Nick Naylor: A scientific researcher of some kind?
Kid #3: No.
Nick Naylor: Well then she's hardly a credible expert, is she?
drorzel | April 4, 2006With hoops season having wound down, we're slipping into that time of the year when I don't have anything to watch on tv. ESPN shows nothing but baseball, the NBA, and Mel Kiper, and there's very little on regular tv that's worth a damn. Happily, I have a pile of Netflix DVD's from back before basketball season started, and I watched a bunch of episodes of The Wire.
Well, most of a bunch of episodes, anyway. The third disc for Season One had a glitch, right at the very end of Episode Nine. Just as things were reaching a climax, the picture went all pixelated, and the sound disappeared, and…
drorzel | March 29, 2006Last Friday, before descending into fluff topics like a serious scholarly treatment of Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science, Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber posted about something really important: The Hugo Awards.
Weirdly, I find myself in the position of having read all of the Best Novel nominees, and this months before the awards themselves are announced. This is unprecedented-- even the year that I voted for the Hugos, I didn't read all the nominated works. (I've read basically none of the short fiction nominees-- of which there are many-- but this is nothing new.)
This obviously…
stcynic | March 22, 2006This is the third straight year I've reviewed the induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Music is extremely important to me and my tastes are diverse enough to encompass nominees as different as Miles Davis and Black Sabbath. This year's nominees included both, as well as Blondie, the Sex Pistols, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. And while this show wasn't quite up to the standards of the last couple years, it had some great moments.
Let me say first that while I was never really a Blondie fan, they sounded pretty good on stage. I was also never a fan of the Sex Pistols, and they didn't…
stcynic | March 17, 2006Most people know by now that Isaac Hayes has quit working on South Park (he was the voice of Chef) because they did an episode making fun of Scientology. Comedy Central decided to pull the episode, and their reason for doing so is so ridiculous that no one in their right mind would buy it:
A Comedy Central spokesman said Friday that the network pulled the controversial episode to make room for two shows featuring Hayes.
"In light of the events of earlier this week, we wanted to give Chef an appropriate tribute by airing two episodes he is most known for," the spokesman said.
Nonsense. Someone…
stcynic | March 10, 2006Warning: This post contains strong language and jokes that will likely be offensive to some people. If that will bother you, don't read it. If you do read it, don't complain about it.
One of the cool things about having a relatively popular blog is that I'm now occasionally being sent books and DVDs to review. This is doubly cool when it's something that I really enjoy, and I really love roasts. No, not the culinary variety, the "let's get together and insult someone for an hour" type. It's one of my favorite forms of comedy and always has been. And one of the best things that has happened in…
stcynic | March 1, 2006Here's the actual press release from the 9 "aggrieved fans" of Clay Aiken who are considering filing a class action suit because they found out he's gay and think it was false advertising to market him to women. And it's funny stuff:
"As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us" said a spokesman for the group. "We believe that this was absolutely fraudulent and that we may have actionable recourse against the record company".
Presently, the group continues to interview legal…
stcynic | February 28, 2006Just when you thought you'd seen it all, allow me to show you once again just how immensely ridiculous human beings can be. From the "truth is always way funnier than fiction" department:
Nine former fans of American Idol star Clay Aiken are forging ahead with threats to sue his record label bosses for false advertising. The one-time devotees have been shocked by recent tabloid claims the wholesome pop singer is gay and they've filed a Federal Trade Commission complain against executives at RCA and Sony/BMG, alleging they were duped in marketing and promotional campaigns.
The nine-strong…
stcynic | February 16, 2006I generally love Radley Balko's blogging, but this post leaves me with mixed feelings. He links to a Washington Post article about Lloyd Dobler, the John Cusack character in the movie Say Anything, a movie I really liked and recently watched again on TV. But then Balko writes:
Stuever looks at the continuing Lloyd Dobler phenomenon, or how Say Anything not only put John Cusack first in the heart of a many a Gen-X woman, but regretably cemented the dreadful "In Your Eyes" as a mix tape staple.
And here I have to disagree. "Dreadful"? In Your Eyes is, in my humble opinion, the finest love song…
stcynic | February 7, 2006Oh, how I wish I could have been in LA last night to see James Taylor honored by MusiCares. Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Sting, Paul Simon and many others told stories about him and sang his songs in a show that I hope will be televised at some point, or perhaps released on DVD. I am a huge James Taylor fan, to the point where I've often called myself a Jameshead. I have seen him many times in concert, all but once or twice with my best friend Rick and his wife, who are also big fans. It's a ritual for us, when he comes around on tour we simply have to go.
I took my brother to see JT a…
stcynic | February 3, 2006I watched part of the movie Punchline last night. I don't know if anyone remembers this movie. I'm guessing Tom Hanks wishes no one does, as it's one of the few really bad movies of his career. It's a movie about stand up comedy that doesn't have a single funny line in it. And it's intended to show the "real story" of comedy "behind the scenes", a task at which it fails miserably. Steve Iott, a fellow Michigan native and one of the funniest comics around, summed this movie up perfectly - "Punchline is to comedy what Flashdance was to welding."
stcynic | January 24, 2006If you haven't heard the little snippet of Keven Federline's attempt to rap that has leaked out on to the internet, you have to find it. It's brutally bad. Don Knotts would have more street cred as a rapper. Federline, better known as Mr. Britney Spears, is shaping up to be a major embarrassment and yet another has-been who never was. No one has yet detected any discernable talent in him other than his ability to woo a celebrity, making him the cultural bastard child of Tom Arnold and Yoko Ono. You just know this one is going to end in a nasty divorce, a multi-state coke binge and an episode…
stcynic | January 16, 2006Stephen Baldwin, who owns the apparent distinction of being the dumbest of the Baldwin brothers (and imagine the competition for that designation), has now become a born again Christian and is showing his faith by harrassing the crap out of people going in and out of an adult book store. Never mind that what they're doing is perfectly legal and has nothing whatsoever to do with him, he's standing out front on the sidewalk taking pictures of workers who are remodeling a building to make room for an adult establishment:
Baldwin, the youngest of the acting clan that includes older brothers Alec…
stcynic | January 10, 2006Okay, I finally got to see the movie The Aristocats, a documentary about perhaps the most famous - and filthiest - joke ever told. First of all, I picked the wrong day to watch it. I have a terrible cold today and it's not very pleasant to be laughing that hard while coughing up chunks of phlegm the size of hamsters. But if you haven't seen this movie and you have a strong stomach for dark humor (very important, this is definitely not for everyone), you should find it and watch it by any means necessary.
The lineup of comedians is staggering. Everyone from Shelley Berman to Robin Williams…
stcynic | December 30, 2005Several people have responded to my post about Mel Gibson by saying that they'll never see his movies again. I have to confess to being baffled by that. I don't get it when those on the right do it and I don't get it when the left does it either. When those on the right freaked out about the Dixie Chicks because they criticized the president ("on foreign soil", they always add, as though that is the least bit relevant - does the validity of a criticism change as it crosses a border?) and started burning their records and boycotting their concerts, I frankly thought they were acting like…