Toil and Trouble

This is interesting and very, very cool sounding. Teller (of Penn and Teller fame) does Shakespeare.

"I thought it might be a very interesting idea to do a production in which all the magic stuff fooled audiences so that they'd be in the exact same position as Macbeth. I know it's a pretty cerebral idea, the idea that we're trying to see what it's like to be Macbeth. But," he added with palpable delight, "where it leads you is some very weird places."

"Macbeth," as envisioned by Teller, is not, as in many versions, a downer with a glum title character. "I just think that pushes things in the wrong direction," he said. The right direction? "It's a thrill ride," he said. "The play was written essentially to make James I happy, and he was a paranoid schizophrenic who believed in witchcraft. So 'Macbeth' is a wonderful paranoid schizophrenic fantasy and everyone is having a jolly good fiendish time. If there's one thing we'll try not to miss is how much fun this play is."

More from Teller here; start with the 12/24/06 post, "Macbeth."

Those RIAA Jackasses......

...are at it again.

Read this.

Without getting into this subject too deeply, years of precedent establishes that what the RIAA is arguing here about personal copies is simply not a winning argument. Those folks need to get more serious about finding a new business model, and they need to stop harassing people who are still buying CDs. I'm not in favor of piracy, but fair use has a long history in this country, and frankly, the RIAA guys are outnumbered by generation iPod.

Just Watch This

http://www.scorsesefilmfreixenet.com/video_eng.htm

Amazing.

Salt

So, there's this:


FDA considers salt warning labels

Now, what annoys me about this is the very last sentence: "The question tonight is whether the government should be limiting your salt intake for you."

The idea that the government should have the right to tell me, directly or indirectly, how much salt I consume is anathema. I understand the science of it and the risks, but this just isn't one of those things the government should be concerned with. If I want to eat nothing but salt until I keel over and die, that's my problem.

I'm aware that there's a public health crisis in this country, that we're overweight and that we eat too much, and on and on and on. I'm aware that those things contribute to rising health care costs.

But, having taken the consumer out of the health care equation via what's effectively insurance company price fixing and customer insensitivity to prices, there's no reason to then replace that consumer with Big Brother, who tells me what I can and can't eat, in what quantities, and how often.

Blog Tag

All right, so "tag" as a note to my previous post wasn't just taunting me, I've been tagged.

Here are the rules:

• Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
  
• Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
  
• Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
  
• Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.
  

My tagger? Am.

Five facts about myself, some random, some weird?

• I learned to read at a very young age. I got caught cheating while reading to my uncle from my copy of The Little Engine That Could. While turning pages, I skipped one. My reading didn't. I'd memorized it. I was probably about three years old.


• My family says that I started talking in complete sentences. The first words I'm alleged to have said are, "There ain't no train on them there tracks. There sure ain't."


• I'm a foodie, but I don't care for most beans and peas.


• I haven't been to Europe yet.


• I don't like going to movies alone.

I'll tag Charlie Girl and Valerie.

The rest of the folks I'd have tagged have, well, already been tagged.

The Return of Movie Night

Movie Night has returned, and it even has its own blog.

http://nutbushmovienight.blogspot.com/

Re: tag, marco, etc. I know, I know, I've been neglectful.

Expect more in this space shortly, as soon as I figure out what it is I want to say.

Old Jobs, New Jobs, etc.

So I've left the job I had since 2003. It's time for me to learn the family business.

Before all that, though, taking a brief break. Making a movie, my first movie. Trying to watch a few movies, too, and reviving an old tradition a friend and I have, Movie Night.

The Netflix movies sit, unwatched, on my shelf for the time being.

So my Queue is static. That's depressing.

Bonditis

So, the world waits in anticipation of Bonds's breaking Hank's record.

It's like time's stopped. Everyone's wondering when it will happen and where they'll be; women are crying in the streets, so overcome are they by the emotion and the anticipation. As at a parade, children want to be lifted up onto their dad's shoulders so that they can see, and everywhere he goes, there's a low solemn chant, as though the rocks and trees themselves are rooting for him. Barry, Barry, Barry!. He's truly a force of nature.

No, wait. I was thinking of Barry Manilow.

Because about Bonds, nobody seems to care. And that's as it should be, really.

I have a malevolent fantasy that Bonds will get hit by a bus, fall into a crevasse, or decide to saw off his own arm, before he makes his next home run and never be heard from again.

I don't often follow sports, and I bear the man no real ill will. I've heard he's a bastard. But he's not been to me.

It's just that, if he never hits that next home run (and especially if he'd never hit that last one), then all will still be right with the world. Hank is still Hank.

In any case, I suppose, Hank is still Hank.

And Bonds is still Bonds, no matter how many steroid-enhanced home runs he hits.

People call Hank by his first name. That's a sign of affection and respect for the man and his accomplishment.

And that'll never be the case with Bonds. Because he's a poser and a pretender. This would be a sad time to care about baseball.