I talk with Tim Noah about the Wisconsin protests and a few other things.

ADDED: Meade makes an accidental appearance a little after 41:00, and I cover him up with a sheet of paper.

Jane Russell...

... has died, at the age of 89. I love her in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," and I'm choosing, for this tribute, the courtroom scene — in which she's impersonating Marilyn Monroe (for some elaborate reason). Her testimony includes physical evidence:

Oscars, anyone?

I haven't seen any of the movies, but I'm DVR-ing the show and will dip in from time to time. You can talk about it here and I might say something now and then.

For example, Jennifer Hudson has a smashing dress.

UPDATE: Man, this show sucks so bad.

UPDATE2: I'm IM-ing with my son Chris. I write: "is any celebrity saying anything pro-union or in support of the wisconsin protesters?" And he's all:

haven't heard anything

oh gwyneth paltrow mentioned you

in the middle of the song

she stopped and said you know ann althouse

needs to stop criticizing those protestors

LOL.

Saturday night's all right for protesting...

... get a little activism in.

Enlarge to read more of the signs. Do you see the "Big Lebowski" reference? "Do you see what happens, Larry?" is a reference to — click for harsh language...



It's a violent reference. NSFW language after the jump:

"Do you see what happens, Larry? DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS? [proceeds to smash up what he wrongly believes is Larry's new Corvette] THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS! DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS? [proceeds to smash up what he wrongly believes is Larry's new Corvette] THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!"

But, of course, the children don't understand what it means.

So I watched the "Atlas Shrugged" movie trailer...

... over at Instapundit. And when I got to the end, I said "Part One"?! People are supposed to put up with more than one movie full of that stuff?! It was all I could do to look at 2 and a half minutes of that sloshy melodrama.

Is that opus really the rich repository of conservative values it purports to be? Quite aside from the flabby aesthetics, we're supposed to get all righteous about — of all things — building railroads?

And, no, I haven't read the book. I don't read long, badly written novels. A simple summary of the idea Rand strains to propound is quite enough for me. As a general rule, I stay away from novels that were written to make some big political or philosophical point. Writing that last sentence, I realized I needed to quote something Vladimir Nabokov said about art. Googling, I came to this old article by Allen Barra in Salon — "Reading 'Lolita' in Alabama" — and I'm delighted to see that Barra brings up Ayn Rand in the first paragraph:

I knew of only one other writer who inspired such an odd cult among high schoolers, Ayn Rand, who, like Nabokov, was a Russian émigré with an intense hatred of communism. Aside from that, the two could not have been more different. Rand's novels were the kind of transparent philosophical tracts that Nabokov loathed as much as he loathed Marxism. The similarities between the Nabokov and Rand cults was creepy; even more creepy was that I almost never came across anyone who read both of them.

Put me on the Nabokov side of that dichotomy. Anyway, here's what I was looking for from Nabokov:

"Why did I write any of my books, after all? For the sake of pleasure, for the sake of the difficulty. I have no social purpose, no moral message; I've no general ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions."... "I don't give a damn for the group... the community, the masses, and so forth ... there can be no question that what makes a work of fiction safe from larvae and rust is not its social importance but its art, only its art." And: "I have neither the intent nor the temperament to be a moralist or satirist." Mediocrity, he thought, "thrives on ideas"... "general ideas, the big, sincere ideas which permeate a so-called great novel, and which, in the inevitable long run, amount to bloated topicalities stranded like dead whales."

Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.

"I am trying to approach the role with as much zeal, fervour and attention to detail as the real Lady Thatcher possesses - I can only hope my stamina will begin to approach her own.”

Beautiful!

Movie watched last night: "Citizen Kane."

What was the motivation to pull the old reputedly-greatest-movie-ever-made down off the shelf? Some conversation about putting together a story by interviewing various people who knew a specific individual one had never met and wanted to try to understand. I said that's the famous, highly praised narrative structure of "Citizen Kane," you realize, but you didn't realize that because you'd never seen "Citizen Kane." How do you get through life without seeing "Citizen Kane"? People are always pushing "Citizen Kane," which you rightly pointed out is a reason to resist it. So thanks for not resisting it when I pushed it, which I did not because I'm shocked that you'd failed to take in the greatest movie blah blah blah — in fact, I admire resistance to that sort of pressure — but because it had to do with an idea we were already talking about that had nothing to do with the irritating pseudo-accomplishment of seeing all the things you're supposed to see.

"Citizen Kane" questions for discussion:

1. Why did you see "Citizen Kane," or how have you managed to avoid it? Have you been bullied into seeing it, or are you one of the bullies? Do you feel like there are movies you're supposed to see, and do you see them or avoid them?

2. If you've seen it, do you like it? What don't you like about it? Do you like that kind of extreme visual composition where one actor is right up against the edge of the frame and the other actor walks away into the set and looks about one tenth the size of the other guy? Do you like that stagey acting? Do those special achievements in makeup from 1941 drive you crazy or do you find them heart-rendingly touching evidence of striving after Art?

3. With all this snow we've been having, we could make a list of movies with important snow, and "Citizen Kane" belongs on that list. What else? "The Shining"...

"You know... some people get shocked about sex. I was shocked that everyone was so shocked."

What a fuss everyone made about "I Am Curious (Yellow)," back in the 1960s. The star, Lena Nyman, has died at the age of 66.

Just 2 days ago, we were talking about the death of Maria Schneider, another woman we knew through a movie that shocked us with sex long ago.

Where are all the other women, who shocked us with mere sexuality back then, when naked actors simulating sex got everyone's attention? They are all old now, almost 60 years or more. We notice their obituaries and we remember the olden days, when it was possible to shock people with nothing more than nudity and sexual intercourse.

The U.S. Supreme Court had to deal with the fuss over "I Am Curious (Yellow)."  There's an opinion by Justice Douglas where — it's hard now to understand why — he saw fit to quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

It is time to remember that the first thing we belong to is humanity. And humanity is separated from the animal world by thought and speech, and they should naturally be free. If they are fettered, we go back to being animals. Publicity and openness, honest and complete - that is the prime condition for the health of every society, and ours too.

Justice Douglas said: "If 'obscenity' can be carved out of the First Amendment, what other like exceptions can be created?"

There seemed be be a lot at stake back then. It seems so creakily irrelevant today, as the once-naked, once-beautiful bodies are buried in the earth, but free speech is on the line today too. Do you notice? Do you care?

Humanity is separated from the animal world by thought and speech, and they should naturally be free.

"I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol."

"I wanted to be recognized as an actress, and the whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown. Now, though, I can look at the film and like my work in it.... I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci... After the scene, Marlon didn’t console me or apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take."

Maria Schneider, dead at 58.

"'Frank Capra would have had a field day with the life of Gabrielle Giffords,' Robert B. Reich mused..."

"... as guests began to gather for the wedding on Nov. 10 of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and Cmdr. Mark E. Kelly."

The NYT calls attention to its 2007 wedding story.

... Mr. Reich continued his musings on the Capra-like scene. “Not ‘Capra corn’ exactly,” he said. “Mark and Gabby do embody American values. They thrive on doing the people’s work.”

Layers of sweet potatoes...

... and of references to "The Graduate."

The Academy Awards nominations.

Here's the live-stream of the announcement, beginning right now!

UPDATE: Man, they have so many nominees for Best Picture now that they're forced to include movies that aren't even good! I say that with confidence even though I've seen none of the nominated films.

UPDATE2: The list of nominees is at the link. Just scroll down. Now, if I were going to go see a few of these movies — partly so watching the Oscars might be fun and partly to actually see a good movie — what would I see? I'll make a list:

1. True Grit
2. The Social Network
3. The Fighter
4. The King's Speech
5. Black Swan

The chances of my getting even that far are very low. The chances of my getting even to #1 are only about 50%. I would find it an ordeal to go even to 2. If I have 3 free hours, I would rather sit at the computer and read assorted items on the internet. I have an active resistance to going to the movies. I don't want to go see "Black Swan." I feel so detached from the machinery of movie promotion that is designed to force me to see "Black Swan." I'm not going to do it.

100 cheesy movie quotes.

I'll let you decide if they're the "cheesiest... of all time." Nearly all are post-1980, so it seems unlikely.

Via Unreality Mag.

"What is government if words have no meaning?" — Jared Loughner's question to Gabrielle Giffords is " the stuff, not just of right-wing suspicion of government, or of radical left-wing suspicion of same, but of scores of Hollywood movies."

Writes Lee Siegel:

... from Taxi Driver and Three Days of the Condor, to Guilty by Suspicion and Mercury Rising, to The Sentinel and Syriana, and, well, I can't keep up. For at least half a century, our movies, from simple to complex, have been driven by the idea that official words have no meaning and that government is either criminal or a sham.

If you haven't seen the movies:

...you have probably read the standard texts of advanced American attitudes. Thus you have absorbed throughout college, like any number of Hollywood screenwriters and American tastemakers, the idea — from Nietzsche to Wittgenstein to Foucault to Derrida to Chomsky to Stanley Fish — that the words used by any type of official, political entity, like a government, are nonsense. "What is government if words have no meaning?" That could be the motto of The Daily Show.

If we're soaking in a culture of nihilism, why are most of us holding up so well?

Remember when Joe Biden said "Say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time"?

That was last June. What counted as "smartass" was a Kopp’s Frozen Custard stand owner saying — in response to Biden's asking what he owed for the ice cream cone — "Nothing, just lower our taxes." A reader — perhaps prompted by yesterday's  "bite me" post — reminded me of what I wrote at the time:

Bite me. When the powerful seek to work their will upon us and demand that we be nice about it, that's the right response: Bite me. Even if he were the one being nice about it, we shouldn't have to put up with it without complaint.

I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - "Bite me!" Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, "Bite me!" Then we'll figure out what to do about the recession and the taxes and the oil spill. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "Bite me."

The second paragraph, is, of course, a play on the famous scene from the 1976 movie "Network":



Did you watch the clip? How did it affect you today, after all the talk last week about the need for newly civil discourse in America? What is the role of angry speech? "First, you've got to get mad," we're told. "Mad as hell." You've got to yell. This is a dramatic speech that has resonated with Americans for 35 years. Why? And what does that tell you about the importance of maintaining civility?

"You and I have each befriended each other on Facebook. And you will note that I am not using 'friend' as a verb."

Defining geezerhood, it's George Johnson:



Speaking of Facebook, "'The Social Network' Dominates Golden Globes." So the big movie of the year, the one that they were celebrating last night on television, as about something on the internet. Sorry. I didn't go out to the movie, and I didn't watch the TV awards show, because I was spending time on the internet — and I kind of think that was true of an awful lot of people.

Golden Globes... are you watching?

I've set the DVR but I don't know if I'll look in.  I haven't seen any of the movies that are up for awards. (I've seen one or 2 of the TV things, but I've never cared about TV awards.)

I'm just not interested in sitting through movies these days. I find them boring and annoying. It's not the way I want to spend my time, and I don't believe the people of Hollywood have anything particularly interesting or useful to say to me. Yes, there is pure pleasure to be had... but in movies? Not so much.

Still, if you're watching, please feel free to hang out here. If something cool happens, I do have it recorded, and I'll go back and check it out.

ADDED: I'm not watching, but I did check out this slide show of the fashions. Angelina Jolie arrived as the Good Witch of Emerald City, Helena Bonham Carter came as an insane person, and most of the rest of them look like adults who, in the 1960s, looked like they belonged in the 50s.

"We've always said, you and I, that moral concepts of good and evil and right and wrong don't hold for the intellectually superior."

The teacher is confronted with the acting out of his philosophy in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope":

"What is government if words have no meaning?" — the question Jared Loughner asked Gabrielle Giffords at a "Congress in Your Corner" event in 2007.

Mother Jones reports what he said to his friend Bryce Tierney: "Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question." Tierney says, "Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her." (By the way, 2007 is a year before Sarah Palin emerged on the national scene.)

Loughner would occasionally mention Giffords, according to Tierney: "It wasn't a day-in, day-out thing, but maybe once in a while, if Giffords did something that was ridiculous or passed some stupid law or did something stupid, he related that to people. But the thing I remember most is just that question. I don't remember him stalking her or anything." Tierney notes that Loughner did not display any specific political or ideological bent: "It wasn't like he was in a certain party or went to rallies... It's not like he'd go on political rants." But Loughner did, according to Tierney, believe that government is "fucking us over." He never heard Loughner vent about about the perils of "currency," as Loughner did on one YouTube video he created....

As Loughner and Tierney grew closer, Tierney got used to spending the first ten minutes or so of every day together arguing with Loughner's "nihilist" view of the world. "By the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing—illusion," Tierney says. Once, Tierney recalls, Loughner told him, "I'm pretty sure I've come to the conclusion that words mean nothing."...

Tierney believes that Loughner was very interested in pushing people's buttons—and that may have been why he listed Hitler's Mein Kampf as one of his favorite books on his YouTube page. (Loughner's mom is Jewish, according to Tierney.)...

Loughner believed that dreams could be a sort of alternative, Matrix-style reality, and "that when you realize you're dreaming, you can do anything, you can create anything," Tierney says....

There's a dream journal, which I'm sure we'll get to read.

... Loughner seemed ticked off by what he believed to be a pervasive authoritarianism. "The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar," he wrote in one YouTube video.....

Since hearing of the rampage, Tierney has been trying to figure out why Loughner did what he allegedly did. "More chaos, maybe," he says. "I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what's happening. He wants all of that." Tierney thinks that Loughner's mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: "He fucks things up to fuck shit up, there's no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: 'Another Saturday, going to go get groceries'—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in."

It sounds as though the movies were more a source of inspiration for his craziness than politics.

"Boney M's Bobby Farrell dies on the same day and in the same town as Rasputin..."

"... the subject of one of the band's biggest hits."



Speaking of Boney M and death, I first heard of Boney M in the context of the near-death experience depicted in the movie "Touching the Void," where the memorable line is: "Bloody hell, I'm going to die to Boney M."