Mouse Farts in a Wind Tunnel

September 1, 2003

More random linkage:

Don't they understand all publicity is good?

I still can't believe they hired me

I'm really feeling the excitement today

Intelligent, thoughtful people? Drat!

They make me look funny, but I know the truth ...

Throughout the month of August, the journals of four creative Canadians working in the arts have been excerpted in this section. This week, Samantha Bee, an actor and sketch comedian from Toronto, details her life as the newest correspondent on the critically acclaimed comedy news program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Enzymes Found to Delay Aging Process: Discovery Could Lead to Drugs to Extend Life Span

Scientists have found for the first time a way to rev up a potent "anti-aging" enzyme in living cells, an advance they said could speed the development of drugs to extend human life span and prevent a wide range of geriatric diseases.

The novel approach has significantly increased the life spans of yeast and human cells in laboratory dishes and extended the lives of flies and worms -- organisms that, on the level of molecular biology, age much as humans do. Indeed, the researchers said, the compounds seem to have the same anti-aging effect as a drastic reduction in calories, the only strategy ever proven to extend life in mammals but one that most people find difficult to stick to.

via infojunkies

When You Wish Upon a Scar: Goths invade Disneyland! Disneyland?

"Disney has such a weird dark side, and people in our scene have always gravitated toward the darker, villainous characters—the Wicked Queen, the Cheshire Cat, Cruella De Vil. Now with the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, I think that success is going to open up a whole new side of Disney, to where they’ll do more creepy things."

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

An oldie but goodie.

posted by el goose on 9/1/2003 01:25:19 PM | link

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August 31, 2003

Links to some pretty random reading that I've been doing recently:

You won't be missed: The saccharine tributes that now follow every old warhorse's death prove one thing - they were overrated, says John Patterson

I've noticed the oddest phenomenon: America seems to be rather ghoulishly prolonging, and even luxuriating in, the grief attendant upon the recent spate of top-table Hollywood demises, particularly those of Gregory Peck, Katharine Hepburn and Bob Hope.
...
For a dead man I can really get behind, I have to leave Hollywood and travel to Memphis. Sam Phillips didn't get nearly the coverage that the Tinseltown stiffs did, but his achievements really did change postwar America for the better.

Emergence of a TV Director: New 'ER' and 'Wiseguy' DVDs explore the impact of Rod Holcomb

Here's one unexpected discovery of the burgeoning TV- DVD universe: the auteur theory. It's borrowed from the movies, where cineastes have long observed that a director such as Alfred Hitchcock could always put his personal stamp on a film, no matter who wrote or produced it.

Now we can see how certain television directors bring a distinctive style, rhythm or robustness to their work even in the series arena, where the producer has long been hailed as king.

Here's a director's name to remember: Rod Holcomb. He's the force behind the camera that captured two of the classic series seeing their first DVD release today.

via TVTattle

The auteur theory in television has been applied endlessly to directors of sitcoms, like James Burrows, who also serves as writer and producer on many classic sitcoms. But it is always amusing when it is trotted out for any reason.

Lights Out for 'Late Show'? As David Letterman celebrates his 10th year on CBS, he might be thinking of moving on

A few weeks before David Letterman went on an extended vacation (the one he returns from Monday night, as a matter of fact), he conducted an interview on "Late Show" with a young man by the name of Aron Ralston.

Ralston is an extreme mountaineer (unlike Dave) and Indiana native (like Dave), who - with the aid of a pocketknife - severed his lower right arm, which had been pinned beneath an 800-pound boulder in a remote Utah canyon for five days. After rappelling down, he walked three hours, was spotted by a helicopter and three months later was on national TV explaining all of this to a profoundly moved TV host.

With the interview wrapping up, Letterman wondered, "Could everybody have done this?" Ralston, 27, replied, "If you had a choice to go through an hour of pain to live another 60 years, you'd do the same thing."

Letterman didn't even bother to respond with a quip, the usual antidote to an interview that's suddenly veered into uncertain terrain. He instead leaned on his elbow, settled himself into his chair, peered at Ralston through those primly professorial spectacles and asked, sotto voce: "Is that what you know about life that I don't know necessarily?"

also via TVTattle

Lights, Camera, Exploitation

In the end 9-11 turned out to be a made-for-TV movie, or rather, the basis for one—a shameless propaganda vehicle for our superstar president George W. Bush.

The upcoming Showtime feature DC 9/11: Time of Crisis is a signal advance in the instant, ongoing fictionalization of American history, complete with the president fulminating most presidentially against "tinhorn terrorists," decisively employing the word problematic in a complete sentence, selling a rationale for preemptive war, and presciently laying out American foreign policy for the next 18 months. "We start with bin Laden," Bush (played by Timothy Bottoms) tells his cabinet. "That's what the American people expect. . . . So let's build a coalition for that job. Later, we can shape different coalitions for different tasks."
...
Rumsfeld (impersonated with frightening veracity by Broadway vet John Cunningham) emerges as the Soviet-style positive hero, embodying the logic of history. In the very first scene, he is seen hosting a congressional breakfast, invoking the 1993 attack on the WTC, and warning the dim-witted legislators that that was only the beginning. Rumsfeld is the first to utter the name "Saddam Hussein" and, over the pooh-poohs of Colin Powell (David Fonteno) goes on to detail Iraq's awesome stockpile of WMDs. But there can be only one maximum leader. Increasingly tough and folksy, prone to strategically consulting his Bible, it is Bush who directs Rummy and Ashcroft to think in "unconventional ways." This new Bush is continually educating his staff, instructing Rice in the significance of "modernity, pluralism, and freedom." (As played by Penny Johnson Jerald, the president's ex-wife on the Fox series 24, Condi is a sort of super-intelligent poodle— dogging her master's steps, gazing into his eyes with rapt adoration.)

also via TVTattle

Connie Reeves, a Cowgirl Until the End, Dies at 101

Connie Reeves, who was very likely America's oldest cowgirl, died in San Antonio on Aug. 17, 12 days after she was thrown from her horse, Dr Pepper. She was 101.

"Always saddle your own horse."

posted by el goose on 8/31/2003 01:44:43 PM | link

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