The Idea’s The Important Thing

Sigh. My dad would have loved this (him being a big proponent of STEM.)

I find it amusing that the “no child left behind” crowd would be so up in arms about it but not surprising.

I have found that 3 years of lawn neglect has come to roost (if you will) as I spent the last 2 hours weeding and I’ve still got 3/4 of the lawn to go.

@ManchuCandidate: Flamethrower. It’s the only way to be sure.

@ManchuCandidate: replace it with a Japanese rock garden.

And I wonder who wrote this book for Beck …

@ManchuCandidate: My thoughts go out to you. Grubs are evil.

Glen Beck + edjamacation = happy.

Saw Annette Benning perform 4 of Ruth Draper’s monologues at the Geffen tonight. She is a fine actor.

Speaking of acting, to whom does the oscar go for private parts as seen in John Oliver’s HBO sketch on Kentucky political ads. Priceless!

The fact that we’ve yielded control over it to powerful unions and ideologically driven elitists is inexcusable. It is also not English.

@Dodgerblue: One can only throw up one’s astonished hands.

@BobCens: That’s me.

Now that’s Acting!

This just showed up in my Twitter feed: “Thanks @KimKardashian for moving your baby shower out of the #BeverlyHillsHotel #StoptheSultan #SellTheHotel”

@Dodgerblue: Made me look:

The Beverly Hills City Council on Tuesday night approved a resolution condemning new laws targeting gays and women in the Southeast Asian sultanate of Brunei and urged the government to divest itself of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

So, good for her. Until somebody comes up with a reason to hate on every other luxury hotel, which shouldn’t be too hard.

@Benedick: He could have thrown a hyphen in there somewhere at least.

Speaking of hotels…

Are you wheelchair accessible?

@JNOV: Heh. The jokes almost write themselves…

@JNOV: I think a treehouse wedding would be lovely.

@flypaper: Right?!?

@Tommmcatt Au Gros Sel: Yes! O_o It’s just a ruse for dude to sell his treehouses.

@nojo: Blurbs! I’m glad someone got the Companion Animal thing right. I’m tired of labs sniffing my crotch while I look for a seat on the bus.

@JNOV: read that as “lads”…::derp::

@nojo: Are the fires and smoke in North Sandy Eggo County affecting the Stinque World Domination Headquarters?

@SanFranLefty: Looks blue from here. All I know of it is yesterday’s headline in the local rag.

ADD: It is very toasty this week, and it was very toasty for a couple days last week. We’re getting August weather in May.

@nojo: The poppies are a week early.

Also: I have more friends on Facebook than I know.

@Benedick: I keep getting LinkedIn requests from people I’ve never heard of.

Also, I never visit LinkedIn.

Speaking of linkedin. Does anyone know a winemaker? I keep getting requests.

It’s better than getting an invite from the creepy guy from the NSA contractor Booz Allen.

Listen. I just read that A Christie’s masterwork And Then There Were None, or as it was first titled Ten Little Niggers, sold more than 100 million copies. I have to go and lie down.

@flypaper: That, too!

@Benedick: Er…

@SanFranLefty: Okay, now I’m seeing brown on yonder horizon. Or maybe it’s a marine layer at sunset.

For comparison, the Big One gave us red skies for a week.

@Benedick: it was “Ten Little Indians” as well for a while. If you think about it, it was an early version of the serial-killer thrillers we see today.

@ManchuCandidate: I’m married to a winemaker. Does the name of the winery start with X?

@Mistress Cynica:
Yes it does.

Ah. I see.

@Mistress Cynica: Not understanding but hoping this isn’t harming you. Oh wait. I think I got it.

@Tommmcatt Au Gros Sel: That was the first time the title was cleaned up. But the English nursery rhyme that nanny liked to repeat over hot crumpets before Bedfordshire was the one we don’t ever spell out any more. The racism of the novel is breathtaking in its scope and entirely typical of the Upper Middle Class of her day. When the hub as a poor defenseless boy attended Central (a ghastly drama school where students spend three years learning how to pick the right word to stress) the voice teacher exhorted his class when reading some poem to sound more Jewy. “Jewy, more Jewy, oily and unctuous and Jewy.” When I was in a revival of the ‘play’ in Cincinnati – because health insurance – I read the novel (it took about half an hour) and thought it kind of stylish. Till you put it against a real novel that does something similar like Laughter in the Dark. That has not sold 100 million copies.

Question: If you had a child of 6 would it be able to read Harry Potter?

@JNOV: Er indeed, comrade.

@Benedick: I don’t think the early Potter books are more difficult than Charlotte’s Web, which I first read at 6.

That said, Harry is 10 in the first book, so 8 might be a better starting point.

Meanwhile, check out Wikipedia for the Christie book. It has the original cover, plus a list of what needed changing for the American edition.

(Oh, and my Grandma sang “Ten Little Indians”.)

@nojo: Don’t expect me to back up outlandish claims with facts. That is oppression of a sexual minority. Why do you hate the gays?

@Benedick: Yes. Just so, girl. Preach.

@Tommmcatt Au Gros Sel: There used to be a chain of pancake houses in CA called “Little Black Sambo’s.”

@Dodgerblue: I forget whether that was related to “Sambo’s”. Separate chains, or redacted name?

@Benedick: I’ve read the entire series. It’s well beyond the reading abilities of all but your most extraordinary six-year-olds. That being said, if the parents are willing, it’s delightful when read aloud to children of that age.

@Dodgerblue: My dearest broheim, Little Black Sambo was an enormously popular children’s book. One read it while pouring Aunt Jemima on pancakes while the original movie of Imitation of Life played in the background. In England we had ‘Golliwogs’. One collected labels from the jars of marmalade (I don’t understand the connection either) made by that really good company… You know… On the tip of my tongue (as the actress said to the bishop)… damn… Well, I’ve had about 19 cocktails so I’m surprised I’m even able to sit upright in this chair so fuck you. Or as the pope said, Fuck Ella Fitzgerald.

I can’t resist – as the bishop said to the actress – As a tribute to Little Black Sambos everywhere may I represent this jewel from the most popular TV show in the UK round about the time we fled? It has everything: racism; sexism; classism; ghastly singing and ography; boy dancers in jazz pants and blackface: can we spell fey? It is a synecdoche of the England I grew up in.

The Black and White Minstrel Show. It really is all that. Creepy beyond belief. Next time you hunger for Downton Abbey remember that this is the reality. Brazilll. Thank you for your time. My glass seems to be empty. Or half full. Or is there a glass at all? Or only pugs snoring? Or even pugs?

And let’s just motherfucking let it go and be. That made sense in my head. Look at this, people, and contrast with above clip. Bring on the realness and make it shine. Oh no, this is wondrous; the music (I have no idea what the song is about but I’m guessing Jesus); the sensational choreography – look out for bounces and diagonals; the glorious vocal arrangement; the costumes… THE COSTUMES! watch how they work with the ography; and the voices – the voices, the voices! Je suis verklempt.

And plus the added bonus of camp: girlfriend owning her four inch heels under her choir robes. All together now: You go girl! (I added that for Catt. He’s still all ‘Where’s the beef?’ It’s sad, I know. Thing is he’s spread so much into the assless chaps – like yards – so it’ll need a surgical intervention to cut them off him to allow the blood to get flowing again and the catheter inserted. Our prayers are with him. Though he might have to return his toaster.

@mellbell: That’s what I thought.

@mellbell: I’ve tried reading the Harry Potter series, got through the first one with much effort and about 15 pages into the second one. Just didn’t do it with me. Same with the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit books. Just couldn’t do it. When I was a kid I loved reading Sherlock Holmes stories over and over. Still enjoy them.

@SanFranLefty: To my taste, the real fun begins at the end of the fourth book, and the fifth book is a delightful satire of politics and bureaucracy.

Also, Rowling becomes a much better writer as she goes. But you have to suffer through the early books to get there.

@nojo: Also, Rowling becomes a much better writer as she goes. But you have to suffer through the early books to get there.

Darling, are your Birks perhaps pinching? Might you want to try different footwear? Or is it the smoke in the air as God smites Sandy Eggo for all the buttsecks carried out by your sailors? Either way, kisses. I’m on to my second bottle. The hub is watching horse racing. That is sport though it doesn’t involve balls. Oh wait, I hear he’s got Good News on the oldster channel. We all love June Allyson. She’s so darn cute.

Potter was fine. Phillip Pullman’s trilogy was better and made rowlings smell of plagiarism.

Too bad they royally dicked up the movie, but not everyone has Jackson’s budget.

@Benedick: The smoke went north. You’re welcome, LA!

@JNOV: The only good Potter movie was Azkaban. After that, the books grew too large to film, the reductions weren’t inspired, and the result was lavish animated illustrations.

That said, Silent Creative Partner just brought me a Snape wand from Disney World.

@Benedick: It’s not a new criticism on my part. The second and third books have their moments, but she really opens up the world with the fourth book, and at the end of that you realize she’s playing for keeps.

By the end of the series, her stage is littered with more bodies than Shakespeare, and not just throwaway Star Trek redshirts. Game of Thrones pales in the bloodletting.

@nojo: Sorry – I was writing while on the bus and not making sense or not making sense.

They made a Golden Compass movie, but they tried to jam way too much into one movie. The world and parallel universes of His Dark Materials are more vivid than the Potter universe. The sucky movie ensured that no more in the series will be made.

I have no idea what Potter movies I saw. I went to see Quidditch (sp? pfft) and the whole train thing. And Snape. Fuck that sorting hat.

Aunt Jemima. I had to stop reading when I hit the part about N.C. Wyeth.

@Benedick: Naw – The Approved Sailor Buttsecks is in Pt. Loma. Bubbleheads have always been given a pass, and Pt. Loma has never suffered a wildfire. I find that hard to believe.

@JNOV: In terms of timing, the first Potter book was conceived in 1990 and submitted to publishers in 1995, the year the first Pullman book came out. So, thematic coincidence.

@nojo: She read his mind