Armistice Day

"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind"

-Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions

One of my favorite Vonnegut quotes. World War I is long over. I wonder if the veterans of World War II heard the voice of God at the end of the war. Or maybe just the scream of the atom echoed in their ears at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

November!

November must be my second favorite month, right after October. From my desk at work I can only see a window if the manager across the hall has his office door open. So when 5 o'clock rolled around and I happened to steal a glance of the world, I was shocked to see it was almost pitch black outside. WHY MUST WE SCREW AROUND WITH DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME?! But when I walked out the lobby door I was greeted with the slight smell of a wood fire and the cool dark night. It was then I realized I love November. As I drove home the full moon hung low over the small towns, lighting up the grey autumn clouds. The tangle of bare branches in the pale light. Most trees having yielded their leaves to the wind on the weekend. Straight out of an Andrew Wyeth painting.

The Night Orchard.

They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under them but among then and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.

-Cormac McCarthy
(All the Pretty Horses)

A couple of things.

Wes Anderson is one of my favorite directors so I’ve been waiting on this one for some time. With The Darjeeling Limited coming out only two years ago, I didn’t expect to see Fantastic Mr. Fox for at least four years due to the stop motion animation. Needless to say I was pretty surprised when this trailer showed up last week out of the blue. I could not ask for anything more from the animation. It’s perfect right down to the way the characters’ fur ruffles as they talk. Despite the fact that the film is animated it sill has that distinct Wes Andseron style, the overhead shot of the desk is perfect. This movie has moved to second on my must see list, right below Where the Wild Things Are which brings me to my second find.

OK. So this isn’t really a trailer, but its well worth watching. This featurette is basically about Maurice Sendak’s thoughts on the adaptation of his book Where the Wild Things Are. There’s some interesting behind the scenes footage and also some commentary from Spike Jonze. Another note of interest is that the song at the end sounds like it is one of the original songs featuring Karen O.

The trailer for the new Richard Kelly film has also appeared online. The Box is about a family who is struggling financially. One day a disfigured stranger appears with box holding a button. If they should push the button they will get one million dollars but someone will die. I love Donnie Darko. I enjoyed Southland Tales, eventhough I didn’t understand a second of it. But this just looks like a let down.

Finally, the trailer for A Serious Man, the new Cohen brothers’ film has made its debut. Looks interesting. The trailer is cool. But something seems missing. I’m sure this movie will melt my mind anyway.

I lied. This is really the last one. Big Fan. I had never heard of this movie. I just happened to be on the Apple trailers webpage, saw a poster with Patton Oswald with his face painted, and clicked on it expecting to see a comedy. I was way wrong. But it turned out to be the most interesting thing I’ve seen this week.

They're here.

After starting these guys a couple of weeks ago I finally got around to finishing them. At first they all came out as dark as the short one on the left. I thought it suited him (he looks like he grew out of the ground in this picture) so I left him the way he was, but repainted the other two. They're sitting beneath a pumpkin vine that sprouted this spring after I threw last Halloween's pumpkins in the garden to rot.

These were inspired by the incredibly talented Bean over at http://thepumpkinhollow.blogspot.com.

Adams Who?

Once again, pure genius. I love the "Adams and Franklin" header, as if it's a TV show or something. The colonial version of The Odd Couple. More of this brillance can be found here.

Fire!

Last night was filled plenty of flashes and sparks and pops and screams and the bitter smell of sulfur.

Here comes the sun.

This trailer for Rockband: The Beatles is genius. My favorite part is the elevator ride with the costume change to the Sergeant Pepper's uniforms. The only drawback is the actual game has full 3D animation instead of what they show in the trailer. On the other hand, new controllers are being released based on the band's classic instruments.

I should have gone to school for animation.

More The Beatles: Rock Band Info

Favorite Things for the Week of March 15, 2009

1. Kate Beaton

There is no doubt in my mind that this girl is a genius. Her clever wit takes often bland historical figures and transforms them into some of the best comics around. Not knowing some of the obscure historical references, a lot of the time I feel that the jokes go over my head. But there are also aspects to them that make them universally funny. Being a Canadian, the artist often pokes fun at the American Revolution and makes references to Canadian historical figures that I have never heard of. She has a brand new site here. Below is my favorite and maybe her most well known comic, Tesla the Celibate Scientist.

2. Watchmen

First off, trying to make a movie from the graphic novel, Watchmen, is nearly impossible. The novel is several books seamlessly intertwined into one, which is one of the many reasons that Watchmen is incredibly dense. That being said, a 3 hour movie cannot come close to telling every back story and every detail of this alternate 1985 universe. But the movie does have an incredible attention to detail and tries to live up to the book. The casting is perfect. The fact that there are no major stars helps to focus on the characters who deserve your attention. The music is amazing. At some points the songs fit the scene perfectly. In other scenes, the songs seem strangely out of place which makes them even better. The idea of fitting the movie into 1985 was also very well done. Scenes often felt like they were borrowed from a movie made twenty years ago. Although at times the historical aspect of the novel seemed overdone, i.e. Nixon’s nose and the ridiculous amount of celebrity look a likes. One of the things I was looking forward to the most was the ending, but it was altered. But I was strangely surprised as the new ending was just as good, becoming a commentary on the dangers of science. One thing that bothered me is that Alan Moore’s writing isn’t done justice. Some key lines from the book make it to the movie and the scenes often keep the same spirit as the novel. But a lot of the lines that I was looking forward to are missing. It might be not be the greatest movie ever made but I definitely enjoyed it.

3. I’M BRIAN FELLOW!

Tracy Morgan may be crazy, but these SNL skits prove how well he can act too. Brian Fellow is the host of the effeminate host of a talk show about animals. He often hallucinates that the animals on the show are schemeing against him. And his answer to most anything that confuses him is I’m Brian Fellow! Tracy reprised this role this past Saturday when he hosted SNL. His performance was missing something but was still worth seeing. Below is what may be the best Brian Fellow segment. The ‘fix this in editing’ part is priceless.



March 14:

5 Favorite Things of the Week of February 22nd

1. George Steinbrenner on Seinfeld

Larry David’s depiction of George Steinbrenner never fails to be hilarious. He’s a side character that sits behind a desk with his back to the camera 95% of the time, but ever line he has is “Gold, Jerry, Gold”. The ultimate Steinbrenner episode involves George sleeping under his desk at work and Jerry calling in bomb threats to the Yankees. But what might be even better are these deleted scenes where the real George Steinbrenner appears. Why this was cut I have no idea, the Elaine rant is perfect.

2. Wendy and Lucy

The first I heard of this movie was when I stumbled across this trailer. The film is about a girl traveling to Alaska to take a well paying job. Along the way she runs into obstacles that threaten her journey. The trailer is stark and at times almost scary.

3. The Great Gatsby

High society social groups aren’t something that I’m normally interested in but this book is the exception. Fitzgerald’s command of the English language is unbelievable. Every word is perfectly chosen to create phrases and sentences that are nearly impossible to duplicate.

“Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something-an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was incommunicable forever.”

4. Childe Hassam

Hassam was an American impressionist painter who worked in the late 19th. Early 20th century. His work speaks for itself. One of my favorite paintings, Avenue in the Rain, recently showed up in the oval office.

5. PumpkinRot









Pumpkinrot.blogspot.com is a blog by someone that loves Halloween and understands it perfectly. It’s updated all year with pictures of the author’s awesome creations and other finds. He does an awesome yard haunt every year in addition to scarecrows like Johnny Appleseed up above.

The Passing of Two Greats...

Within the past two weeks artist, Andrew Wyeth, and writer, John Updike, both died. Wyeth on January the 16th and Updike on January the 27th. Both were accomplished and brought a unique characteristic to each of their respective fields.

Wyeth was born in 1917, right in the midst of Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp, and the adolescence of modern art. But Wyeth looked to the past, using tempera as his medium (which dates back to before the Renaissance). His paintings are rendered in incredible detail. Each blade of grass is painted individually, lace curtains blowing in the breeze look perfectly light and airy. Most of his paintings have the somber, contemplative feel of fall and winter. His work, Christina's World, usually hangs in a claustophobic room next to the Surrealism section in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Hopefully he will get the recognition he truly deserves.

Updike was probably America's greatest living writer. He had a special gift for writing where every single work seems carefully chosen to create the perfect phrase. He was also very academic. He was incredibly knowledgable about the arts, writing several books worth of commentaries on American art. His novel, The Centaur, is somewhat autobiographical telling the story of a boy and his father living near Reading, Pennsylvania. He ingeniously intertwines this story with stories from Greek mythology, creating an amazing book. But that's just one of his many works.

With Wyeth hailing from the Philadelphia area and Updike growing up near Reading; Pennsylvania, let alone America and the world, has lost two its greatest figures in the arts.