This coming election day, with the proposition on the ballot to legalize the small-scale growth, distribution, and possession of marijuana, we in the golden state have the chance to repeal an outdated law that has done too much harm for too long. Unfortunately, the current debate surrounding the prospect of legalization obscures the simple heart of the issue at stake.
Please excuse the negligence this week. Daddy has a full plate and scant time to write a proper “Audio Files” column. He does have one special item for you though, and it involves country music legend Kris Kristofferson.
It is said that KK moonlights as a Vatican-Based Project Monarch Slave Runner. Project Monarch, you might recall, is the bastard love-child of Projects MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE. Somewhere in its rich, nougaty center lies Kris Kristofferson.
Can a single picture tell the story of an entire city? I don’t know. But if it could, this shot, of one of the new parking kiosks that have replaced parking meters in the University City section of Philadelphia, would be a good candidate. Gives you that warm, welcoming feeling, doesn’t it?
I recently had a family member pass and that night, when I was on edge but exhausted, I started flipping channels. I soon realized I couldn’t concentrate at all (even usual insomnia standby Sportscenter seemed confusing), so I was grateful to stumble upon a channel with naked women, as this was a concept my mind could wrap itself around. As it happened, it was a program called The Suicide Girls: Guide to Living. Having seen it, the world makes a bit more sense. [Read more →]
Remember when some people you didn’t know mapped out where you live and put it on the public domain, all without asking first? That’s because you weren’t looking, or at least you weren’t on the lookout for it. [Read more →]
Back in the late 1700′s-early 1800′s, Japan was closed to the world around them. It was illegal for a Japanese citizen to leave Japan. It was illegal for foreign citizens to enter Japan, except under the most strictly monitored conditions. But countries around the world understood that Japan would be a lucrative market and trading partner, if only they could break through those barriers. The Dutch East Indies Company (the VOC in Dutch) maintained a trading post in Deijma and fought hard to keep lines of communication open with Japan — and to keep their greedy European enemies away. In The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, a young Dutch clerk hopes to make his fortune — and return home to marry his beloved Anna — but his scruples get in the way. It is a lovely, poetic book full of tragedy and hardship and great honor. [Read more →]
In 1975, on the most magical day of my fourteenth year, my father took me to New York. First, we went to Tannen’s, the largest magic shop on the east coast, where I got the birthday present of a hippie puppet with long yellow hair and flowered clothing. After a turkey sandwich at Howard Johnson’s, we went to the Cort Theater and saw a matinee performance of The Magic Show, a musical comedy starring the amazing Doug Henning.
According to their website,
The Library of America was founded in 1979 to undertake a historic endeavor: to help preserve the nation’s cultural heritage by publishing America’s best and most significant writing in durable and authoritative editions.
To that end, they have been publishing volumes featuring the works of people like John Steinbeck, Dashiell Hammett, Herman Melville, Robert Frost, William Faulkner, etc. But what about future editions?
100 years from now, what will the Library of America deem to be worth preserving?
I’m pretty sure I know.
Here is a look at the covers of some future Library of America editions:
It is hard to believe a film about teenage suicidal depression would have the word “funny” in its title. But It’s Kind of a Funny Story is light and somewhat funny. It is rather forgettable, but it is also enjoyable.
Craig (Keir Gilchrist) seems to have a nice enough life. His parents love him, even if Mom (an underused Lauren Graham) seems a little clueless and Dad (Jim Gaffigan) pushes him to excel in school. Craig has a crush on his best friend’s girl and his prestigious New York public school is very competitive, but is that really why he is depressed? A neurotic and medicated teenager is not always cause for alarm, but when Craig stops taking his medication, he feels suicidal. [Read more →]
I was pleased to meet author Matthew Quick today. Quick is the author of The Silver Linings Playbook
Quick also runs a blog with his wife, writer Alicia Bessette, called Quest for Kindness. It’s an antidote to the snark-dominated Internet (we must admit that some of us at When Falls the Coliseum have contributed to that snark quotient from time to time) and features stories by many writers about people being kind. It seems that there isn’t a lot of kindness on these here intertubes and we can all use a reminder that the world isn’t only full of people yelling at each other in all caps in comment forums, so I hope Quick’s site thrives.
Here are some things that are not art forms: pitching, cooking, teaching, engineering, fishing, farming, parenting, managing, coaching, conversation, seduction, karate, carpentry, nursing, disk-jockeying, editing, belching, annoying people, grooming dogs, bar-tending, Scrabble, boxing, cobbling and surgery. Have I offended anyone? If so, why? [Read more →]
“You speak English.”
“Yes, do you?”
Sarcasm is unreassuring generally and from a chrome-masked grim reaper type figure that has woken you from a coma to ask after your health, especially so. [Read more →]
When Falls the Coliseum is fortunate to have a loyal following of spammers, who try to make thoughtful and relevant comments on our posts. Sadly, such comments are usually filtered by anti-spam software. This is unfair to the dedicated spammers who clearly value our site and read it regularly, so I am responding to a few of today’s comments: [Read more →]
I am digging Baltimore. In fact, I’ve dug Baltimore since my dad took us on a (not so very extravagant but very memorable) family vacation there in November of 1984. That began a lifelong love affair between me and the town known as Charm City. The streets are dusted with Old Bay Seasoning and crabs roam carefree in the streets. (From both the prostitutes and the Chesapeake Bay.) I went to college in Maryland, so the love increased tenfold after all the great times I had during those years.
I love the Inner Harbor, I love the neighborhoods, and I love the bars and restaurants. But I love the people the most. [Read more →]
Is it just me, or is sports officiating just getting worse? I am pretty sure I have not watched a game this year, regardless of sport, that did not include at least one atrociously bad call. Sure, it’s easy for fans to complain about referees. I will admit that I have yelled and screamed about bad calls that probably weren’t actually bad calls. In the heat of the game, bias is hard to avoid. Sometimes, though, a call is so bad and so obvious that everyone seems to know it except the official making the call. On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers won a game against the Miami Dolphins on a call so bad that the officials themselves did not seem to understand what they were calling. [Read more →]
10. Night of the Living Bed
9. The Invisible Pants
8. Close Encounters of the Kinky Kind
7. The Sexth Sense
6. The Martians Are Cumming! The Martians Are Cumming!
5. Last Whorehouse on the Left
4. Hello, Weenie!
3. The ‘O’ Man
2. The Bare Bitch Project
1. The Triple-Ex-orcist
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
I like to think about media effects and generally find those effects to be more positive than negative. Case in point: Today’s college students “… are as likely to say that they are citizens of the planet Earth as they are to say they are citizens of the United States,” according to Zogby International president and CEO, John Zogby, in this Chronicle of Higher Education piece. He says that the current generation of college students is the most globally aware group of students in history, referring to them as “America’s first global citizens.”
Why is this a “media effect?” Because it’s largely attributable, I think, to the rise of social media and the World Wide Web. I think it suggests that the current generation of 18-30 year-olds – having spent a great deal of time during their formative years navigating an environment, albeit virtual, that is borderless, anarchic, and free of national, racial, or ethnic requirements for membership has developed its own culture — one not suffering the xenophobia of past generations — a junior-Army of global Davids defeating hate and prejudice without the help of the culture police.
The credit for this development, I think, goes to free-market capitalism, not multiculturalism. It was capitalism that spurred the growth of the World Wide Web and the evolution of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter that have connected the world’s youth, not Al Gore or Maya Angelou. It’s an excellent example of the beauty of spontaneous orders and what happens when people are free to act in voluntary cooperation.
First, a note of thanks and recognition to my ghost writer. Oh, she does not like that but I do not like deceptions. Or not much. Besides which she is as well known as I am and she was there but I will tell it all as it happened to me and maybe if we put in some steamy parts she will consent to author those from her side. [Read more →]
In the movie Inception, inception is the implanting of an idea in someone’s mind through dreams. I wonder if this generation of parents will be remembered for exercising a kind of large-scale inception: Sports-crazed adults forcing a dream of sporting greatness and glory into their children’s heads. [Read more →]
I know. I really blew it. The thing is, I’ve just been really busy.
It all started last Monday when I was tying my boot. Everything was going to plan, when BOOM… the darn shoelace ripped right in half. [Read more →]
I’ve stumbled upon some interesting covers lately. The Flaming Lips, for instance, have a great version of “(Just Like) Starting Over” by John Lennon. Another solid adaptation I’ve chanced upon is “Drive,” the Cars‘ teary gem, as rendered by Echodrone. But then, I’m a “cover guy.” One of my all-time favorite albums, after all, is Van Halen‘s Diver Down, which is loaded with other peoples’ songs.
I recently saw the documentary Inside Job and it taught me a valuable lesson: films dealing with Wall Street should not include Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s song “Taking Care of Business.” It’s not clever and ironic; it’s lazy and annoying. Activist filmmakers everywhere: you can do better. The film also offers some non-musical insights:
1. The compensation a CEO receives is determined by a corporation’s board of directors. CEOs usually exert significant control over who sits on a board of directors, meaning in some cases a CEO essentially hires the people who determine how much he’s paid. The result? Stanley O’Neal “leading” Merril Lynch to a $2.3 billion quarterly loss (plus $8.4 million in fines from the government), then leaving with $161 million for his troubles. [Read more →]
TMZ is reporting that GQ magazine’s recent “racy” photographs of some of the performers from the television show “Glee” has drawn the ire of a group called the Parents Television Council. They have made the provocative claim that the images border on pedophilia:
The Parents Television Council has released a statement thrashing producers for allowing Dianna Agron, Cory Monteith and Lea Michele to participate in a “hyper-sexualized” photo shoot for the November issue of GQ — despite the fact that both actresses are 24 years old and Corey is 28.
The PTC declares, “It is disturbing that GQ, which is explicitly written for adult men, is sexualizing the actresses who play high school-aged characters on ‘Glee’ in this way. It borders on pedophilia.”
Here is one of the images:
I define my Broadway adolescence as my fifth through fifteenth shows*. During this period I remember feeling an exhilaration similar to that of my first boy/girl parties at which I learned that girls’ waists felt tingly when you danced with them, that hearts could literally ache, and that the words “I love you” could be uttered with perfect sincerity to a girl in your class whom you wouldn’t have even noticed the year before. Am I smearing it on too thick? Well, imagine this:
I thought it would be difficult for The Social Network to live up to all that hype. I was wrong. Excellent writing, directing and performances, along with a compelling story, make The Social Network an almost perfect movie.
Based on Ben Mezrich’s book (“The Accidental Billionaires”), Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay tells a version of the birth of Facebook at Harvard University, its staggering growth and ensuing legal battles. [Read more →]
Mark SaFranko has led a writer’s life. Dan Fante once said of SaFranko that the man would rather “write than breathe,” and Mark has stayed restless but productive throughout his working years. This means he has held too many shit jobs and too many of his manuscripts have been left to rot unpublished and unread, but this fall, a breakthrough is on the horizon. In November, his cult classic Hating Olivia will be his first novel published by a major press in America although the book was published five years ago in England. Indeed, SaFranko follows a long line of American novelists who found a home in Europe before they managed to crack the conservative culture of American publishing. As you’ll read below, Mark has fought battles as a writer, a husband, a father, and a human being. But even when the future was most bleak for SaFranko, it knew better than to fuck with him when he was on a writing kick. Keep reading to check out his excellent responses to my questions about Hating Olivia, parenting, the future of books, and more. [Read more →]
The circus came to New York last night, and I do not mean Barnum and Bailey. Last night was the first and likely only gubernatorial debate and it was, if I may be blunt, a shit show. I knew the debate would be a bit crazy when I heard that all seven candidates would be allowed to debate (if I may quote Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music: “SEVEN???!!!”), but no one could anticipate just how glorious this figurative rape of our political system would be. The debate was more entertaining than the season finale of “Mad Men.” The front runners of the race, Andrew “Nepotism” Cuomo and Carl “Get off my lawn!” Paladino, offered nothing substantive or entertaining, but that left plenty of room for the remaining five candidates to get their freak on. And what will become of these candidates, now that their fifteen minutes are up? I have a few helpful suggestions… [Read more →]
Recently, I got an email that I thought my “Artistic Unknowns” readers might want to see. The writer identified himself only as “None of Your Business”. Anyway, here it is:
Dear Chris,
You are one of those music guys, so I thought you might be interested in my problem: A while ago, I found out that Elton John is gay. Now this might not be a big deal to you artsy types, but it had a profound effect on me. [Read more →]
I have begun writing this just after midnight on Thursday, October 14. At 8:30 this morning I will turn 69, which means that I will enter upon my 70th year, at the end of which I will arrive at the so-called Biblical age of three score and ten. [Read more →]
