and I quote

september 2010

click for permalink September 29, 2010

part of our new viewSo August was apparently a busy month... so much so that it's now the second to last day of September and I still haven't managed to post anything about our move — the only thing I will say is the moving company we used should try a little truth-in-advertising and see how much business they get.

  1. BR apartment
  2. ton truck (asked for a 5, offered a 3; end up with a 2. First thing the movers say? "You guys have a lot of stuff!" No shit, try telling your boss that.)
  3. trips (one overnight when the movers decided it was quittin' time, took off with half our stuff and locked it up for the night.)
  4. am by the time we got to bed (after raising hell with the movers on the phone, explaining to both sets of landlords why we were going to need an extra day, and calling our bank to authorize an exorbitant ransom).
  5. city blocks = total distance covered. Downhill at that (moving across the border was easier — not to mention cheaper).

So, here's a whole bunch of random stuff — a brain dump, as a friend of mine likes to say (actually he apologizes every time, but he keeps saying it anyway). If you haven't seen anything from the geniuses at "How it Should Have Ended," you haven't seen this (and it's high time you did).

My new favorite beat poet is Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker, artist, founder of The Webby Awards and daughter of the late, great philosopher, historian and author Leonard Shlain (of mentioned here back in July fame). Here is an excerpt, co-written by Shlain and her husband and narrated by Peter Coyote, from their soon-to-be released documentary, Connected. It's called "Yelp: With Apologies to Allen Ginsberg's Howl."

Another fabulous homage that illustrates a timeless truth of documentary filmmaking; you can make people watch anything with the right voiceover (I can't tell you some of the things I've watched for no other reason than Sam Waterston, Morgan Freeman or Martin Sheen was narrating it). This time, the voice belongs to Jeremy Irons, channeling David Attenborough (with apologies, perhaps, to Sam Mendes).

This is a short film (10 minutes) that was nominated for an Academy Award back in 1987. It's called The Lunch Date.

The Ten Commandments by Christopher Hitchens; atheist evangelist, journalist for Vanity Fair (&tc.) and one of our fair species' recent recruits into the war on (/with/against) Cancer.

A PSA from the real world: If Army Ads Had Health Warnings. Peppered with disclaimers that it's not the voice of the real Army, one of which says: "This has been a parody, making use of the freedoms the Army will tell you its victims hate us for." Nice.

And finally, the inimitable Margaret Cho articulates pretty much precisely my own feelings about the whole gay marriage "debate."

See you in October...