Less Standard Christmas Movie Fare

Unlike the last post, I'm not going to bother with Youtube stuff. I just wanted to steer you to some pictures involving or set during Christmas that might interest you if you're burned out on Christmas Carol, A Christmas Story, or The Greatest Story Ever Told.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Over the yule tide holiday, James Bond tries to prevent Blofeld's deadly gifts from poisoning the world's food supply. He also meets the one and only woman he'd ever want to marry, and since she was played by Diana Rigg, everyone can understand why.

Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick's final film follows a naive doctor (Tom Cruise) on a strange, dreamlike journey set on a night before Christmas.

Lethal Weapon: Because nothing says the holiday season like Riggs and Murtaugh interrupting their plans for suicide and Christmas dinner to hunt down a gang of ex-CIA drug dealers.

The Godfather: No, it's not all set during the holidays, but the scenes from Don Corleone's first meeting with Sollozzo to Michael's first murder in the Italian restaurant take place over Christmas. Sure, Santa can bring you a bicycle, but if you've slept with the studio boss's favorite young starlet and still want work in the movies, there's only one guy who can deliver that Christmas present.

Wrong Star Wars Character

Dick Cheney's recent interviews have led people to compare him once again to Darth Vader. I hate to get geeky about it, but if you want to compare Cheney, a man who spent a lifetime scheming and plotting in hopes of one day acquiring absolute power, to any Star Wars character, there is only one appropriate analog:

My Way of Saying Thanks

Lindsay Erika Crain, or Anna, as she's known in Diary of A Superfluous Man was kind enough to talk up the play on her weblog. It would be wrong of me not to reciprocate in the only way a penniless sod like me can, by linking to her blog.

Buy some of her photographs. Now.

Movies For a Snowy Afternoon

I'll include a list for those who love to wallow in snow, as well as for those who want nothing more than to get away.

For Wallowers:

The Shining (1980): For the person who loves snow, what could be better than being snowbound at home, watching a movie about a snowbound family whose patriarch is going mad? There is no time of year when The Shining isn't a favorite film of mine, but today seems like an appropriate day to watch Jack Nicholson get cabin fever.



Misery (1990): Snow seems to agree with Stephen King, or at least with those who adapt his work. This picture, done before Rob Reiner foolishly decided to stop shooting William Goldman scripts, made a star of Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, the world's most psychopathic obsessed fan, (and that's up against some stiff competition).



On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1968): Yes, you'll have to endure some sun kissed beaches in the South of France, but don't worry. You'll soon be in the Alps, watching 007 perform some of his best ski moves as he tries to stop Blofeld's plan to unleash a biological weapon on the world.



Downhill Racer (1969): It's not my favorite of Robert Redford's films about competition--that would be The Candidate but if you like ski action, this is your film. (Sorry, no video)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980): The ice planet of Hoth. Need I say more.



For Would-be Escapees:

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): There is a brief sequence in snowy Nepal, but the rest of it is in the South American jungle, Egypt, and the Mediterranean. See? You're warmer already.



Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Vast stretches of desert, shot in 70mm splendor, serve as backdrop for one of the greatest movies ever made.



The Spy Who Loved Me (1977): This one could be thought of as a present for both sides. It opens with the most spectacular ski stunt ever performed in a Bond film before moving on to beautiful, balmy locations in Egypt and Sardinia.



Duel 1971: When you need to warm up, Steven Spielberg really is your pal. He loves desert landscapes, and this one is about as deserty as you can get. You will, however, learn to treat truck drivers with greater reverence and respect when this movie ends.



The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) Clint Eastwood's most deeply felt western--with the arguable exception of Unforgiven--takes place, for the most part, in the deserts of Texas and Mexico. Exciting and thoughtful, The Outlaw Josey Wales is a worthy way to warm yourself up when the weather outside trends frightful.

Diary of A Superfluous Man Enters the World

Diary of a A Superfluous Man is out. Some very fine actors put up with me for way too long to get this made, so download it today from here or here.

The Day the Earth Stood Still Beamed Into Space

When a huge starfleet of pissed off aliens comes to Earth to carry on cranky, we'll know it's because 20th Century Fox sent them the remake instead of the original.

Who could blame them, really?

Speaking Your Peace

One of the disadvantages of podcast theater is that it offers few places for listeners to chat amongst themselves about what they've just heard. While I'm afraid I can't announce that the MMIP has purchased an enormous room where listeners around the world can gather, drink and kibbitz, I can offer a few options that will do both you and the MMIP a service.

1. You can leave a comment at our website.

2. Those of you who plant to be "Diary of a Superfluous Man" listeners can hop on over to The Stranger, Seattle's only functional alternative weekly, and leave a review of our upcoming show (or pick fights with the pinheaded lunatics who demonstrated their bad taste and bad breath by disagreeing with you).

3. Or you can visit the MMIP's location at the iTunes Music Store by typing "McCroskey" into iTunes's search field while the browser is pointed at the store. (Needlessly pedantic? Good.) There you can do much the same thing that you would at the Stranger, but play to an international audience of people who, rest assured, are desperate to know what you think about an obscure audio play.

Because I want to beat as many possible drums for our upcoming show "Diary of A Superfluous Man", I want to urge you towards methods 2 and 3 of expressing your opinions. Your posts, if placed in those locations, could help drive traffic to us and will, regardless of what you say, guarantee you infinite supplies of chocolate and leather bondage equipment in the afterlife.* So, after you've heard "Diary of A Superfluous Man", stop by those locations to let the world know what you thought.

*Existence of afterlife not guaranteed. Offer void in Tennessee.

An Endorsement (Insert Fanfare Here)

I've spent much more time than I'm ordinarily comfortable with promoting my work, and while I'm afraid I'm going to have to do a good deal more of that between now and the 12th, I do want to pause for just a moment from hawking my wares and wearing my hawks to pass on my endorsement, for the spectacularly miniscule amount that it's worth, of The New Adventures of Mr. Stephen Fry. I've been an enormous fan of Mr. Fry's since I saw his work in Blackadder II, many thousands of years ago, and through the centuries since, my appreciation for his wit and verbal dexterity has never waned. Go to his website. Listen to his podgrams. Read his blessays. Hope in sweet vain that you can someday nestle securely between his thighs. Live him. Love him. Be him. Stephen Fry.

What? Not fulsome enough? Fuck off.

Brief Review: Quantum of Solace

I enjoyed the movie and thought Roger Ebert was too harsh in giving it the two stars of death. I do think that, for all of Casino Royale's flaws, it is the superior of Daniel Craig's two outings. QOS's action sequences are too messily edited, at times bordering on incoherent. Michael Bay's long and awful shadow falls over them. Aside from Judi Dench's M, I found the female characters in QOS to be too sketchily written. And I'm beginning to wonder whether it's advisable, in a series that's based primarily on wish fulfillment fantasies about the wild life of "00" agents, to turn James Bond into yet another moody adventurer bent on avenging himself upon an unfair world. It's not Daniel Craig's fault. His Bond clearly does want to have a good time and enjoy some luxury; it's just that QOS never takes time to allow the character to savor the more fun aspects of the 007 life.

That said, I did enjoy Craig's work as 007 and Judi Dench's work as M. I thought the dialog was frequently close to witty, and that the villain, while not in the first rank of Bondian adversaries, brought enough menace to the role to keep me interested. All in all I had a good time with Quantum of Solace. It's in the middle of the Bond pack, fun to watch but not outstanding. Think Thunderball or Octopussy.

Oh, two final quibbles. I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated the title sequence, which stands as the most pedestrian one since License To Kill, and loathed the meandering, pointless title song. I also question the decision to save the gun barrel sequence for end. I missed it at the beginning, and I really want them to put it back. It just doesn't feel like a Bond movie without it.

Atlas Shrugged II: Electric Boogaloo

I've never been able to take anyone who takes Atlas Shrugged seriously seriously, at least where politics, economics, or aesthetics are concerned. And no, I haven't read more than a few pages of this literary cement overshoe, mainly because, after ten pages or so, I kind of figured a) that the novel's odds of improvement were long and b) that the siren call of thousands of more interesting diversions, including doing the dishes and cleaning my computer screen, easily lured me from Ayn Rand's cardboard characters and turgid prose. Besides, I'm not a book reviewer by trade, so nobody's ever offered to pay me to endure 1,100 pages of Rand's nonsense, the gist of which I had already absorbed from a political science class in the form of Rand's equally silly but mercifully shorter essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness.

Still, it is gratifying to see that one of the charming someones at McSweeney's spent enough time with Atlas Shrugged to write this brilliant, timely parody.

Diary of A Superfluous Man

I just thought I'd mention, since it's been consuming my life for the last three months, that Diary of A Superfluous Man will premiere on the MMIP website and at the iTunes Music Store as a free podcast Dec. 12th. It's exciting to finally have the play realized, if only electronically. The production process improved the script markedly, and, as with Let Us Sit Upon the Ground, I was damned lucky in casting. I've seldom had trouble finding talented actors to devote vast swathes of time to my projects, in spite of inability to pay. (Hopefully the MMIP's move to nonprofit status, and the generous support of listeners...hint...hint...will deliver us from this penury.)

You can listen to a sample scene here.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Every year, the War on Christmas comes earlier and earlier.

Where does the time go? My meeting with the Northwestern Division Atheistical Sanhedrin (NORWESDAS, for short)--at which Julia Sweeney (looking quite fetching in a Prada-made black cape and cowl), me, Henry Rollins, and the Mythbusters set fire to a ceremonial Christmas Tree while singing the A side of the fifth Black Sabbath album and popping man-sized balloons inflated in the shape of TV Pundit William Bennett--seems like it happened just yesterday. I remember how we plotted all night to place ourselves, by means both insidious and foul, in key positions to rename the Christmas decorations slated to hang in the town square of Chitting Switch, Montana "holiday decorations". I remember cackling "WHERE WILL THEIR PRECIOUS GOD BE THEN! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

After the orgy (a bacchanalia of absinthe and Vietnamese spin-fuck chairs), we said goodbye to each other with the traditional NORWESDAS salute, and melted away in the night mist.

Now it's time to buy the onyx candles and heroin again. I swear, if it keeps up, we'll be starting the War on Christmas on Labor Day.

We Done Treated Him Bad

Because I am relieved that Barack Obama is now the President-Elect, I laugh a little louder at arguments like this one from the Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Scott Shapiro:

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Just a few weeks ago, I'd have used this argument as a chance to launch into another jeremiad about why people like Jeffrey Scott Shapiro make me ashamed of my connection to the human race. Now, I smile, as I did whenever Archie Bunker whined about the treatment of his beloved "Richard E. Nixon".

One argument deserves a response though. Shapiro says that one day people will recognize Bush's leadership in difficult times and accord him a higher degree of respect. Even though Bush's administration was a political, financial, and moral disaster of world-historical proportions, Shapiro may be on to something. Among Russians, Josef Stalin's reputation, which suffered greatly in the Khrushchev and Gorbachev eras, has rebounded. His approval rating among Russians (47%) is nearly double Bush's current rating with us. So, yes, Mr. Shapiro, Bush can take comfort. Any country sufficiently motivated to ignore the facts of its own history can rehabilitate even its most hideous leaders.

If this ever happens, then I'll have something to blame the people for.

The Unbearable Lightness of Palin

I've been consumed with both paying work and my labors on the next MMIP production. (Diary of A Superfluous Man coming to the internet in November). Consequently, and perhaps mercifully, I've been unable to follow the adventures of Sarah Palin all that closely. I did catch a segment of the debate last night, though, and I watched her interview with Couric on Youtube.

Palin is an ignoramus: a hustling, bullshitting featherhead completely out of her depth. But that's not the worst bit. Such creatures are legion in the world, and life is generally kind to them. What troubles me more is that a sizable percentage of the American public doesn't mind that she's running for Vice President as a hustling, bullshitting featherhead completely out of her depth. Indeed, they try to sell her glib ignorance and sad unwillingness to look facts in the face as evidence that she's a Real American, an authentic, two fisted, meat eating, faith holding exemplar of the Good, True, the Red-White-and-Blue. I would have thought that the farce of the last eight years would have sated all but the most stupidity-hungry voters, but no. Tens of millions of people actually look upon Sarah Palin, smile warm smiles, and say "She's so me!".

I remember, years ago, sitting in my friend Neil's apartment and watching evangelical TV. We did it for a laugh. Anyone who can tune in to Jack Van Impe or Paul Crouch and not laugh at the combination of piety, syrup, bombast, hairspray, eye shadow, and gold-painted particle board can never hope to laugh at anything. But even as we chuckled we knew that most of the people watching and giving money to these clowns weren't laughing. They believe in this gilded tripe. When Jack Van Impe claims that UFOs are the angels foretold in Revelations, or when Pat Robertson claims that feminists are witches, their congregations, millions strong, not only swallow their stories, but they also write checks to sponsor the spread of these important messages. Sarah Palin would have gotten nowhere in life if these same people weren't willing to stuff envelopes and knock on doors to spread the word for her.

Of course, every nation can boast its resident population of boobs, and they often wield substantial political power. But it's always been strange to me that the U.S., a country with magnificent cities, great universities, and more than its share of great thinkers in every field of human endeavor, would choose the benighted clodhopper as the symbol of its national identity, and judge politicians on the basis of how closely they match that image. You'd think that George W. Bush would have spoiled this symbol for good and all, but no. It lives and appears immortal. Hence, Sarah Palin.

The rest of the world might want to start interviewing for the next last best hope of humanity.

Irrationality Among Secular People

Yglesias picked this up from Douthat, who picked it up from the Wall Street Journal. Apparently Baylor University commissioned Gallup to conduct a poll that showed that secular people credit non-religious superstitions more readily than traditional Christians. Yglesias isn't surprised, and neither am I, I suppose, but I do have some questions and observations to toss out as well.

I wasn't able to see the poll's sub-data, but the article suggested that the big dividing line between secular and religious voters is the difference in frequency of religious observance. That's okay as far as it goes, but how far does it go? My father is a believer, but isn't a churchgoer. There are lots of people out there who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" who eschew services but believe in a everything from astrology to Zoroastrianism. And there are lots of people who are "Christmas/Easter" Christians. Are they lumped in with people like me, or does the poll separate the "secular" with the same rigor that it sifts the "traditionally religious"? The article doesn't say.

The reluctance of traditional Christians to go in for tarot cards or communication with the dead doesn't shock me either. Traditional Christianity frowns on such practices, not so much because they are irrational, but rather because they're ostensibly Satanic. That's why some of the more Ned Flandersey Christians become such pains in the ass about Harry Potter and Halloween. They think that depictions of magical practices or of ghouls and goblins, even when done in fun, will lead them and their children to hell. Christian superstitions proscribe other kinds of superstition. That's all.

And in the end it should be said that everyone is, to some degree or other, susceptible to irrational beliefs, particularly when the belief touches on an area where the victim either has limited expertise or feels certain the belief can grant their long-held wishes. Bill Maher's rejection of conventional medicine and Frank Tipler's Omega Point are examples of both impulses. We're all of us capable of being conned, or of conning ourselves. And we all look a little crazy to each other. Here's Mark Twain to explain:

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.
Those of us who are not in the asylum, and not demonstrably due there, are nevertheless, no doubt, insane in one or two particulars. I think we must admit this; but I think that we are otherwise healthy-minded. I think that when we all see one thing alike, it is evidence that, as regards that one thing, our minds are perfectly sound. Now there are really several things which we do all see alike; things which we all accept, and about which we do not dispute. For instance, we who are outside of the asylum all agree that water seeks its level; that the sun gives light and heat; that fire consumes; that fog is damp; that six times six are thirty-six, that two from ten leaves eight; that eight and seven are fifteen. These are, perhaps, the only things we are agreed about; but, although they are so few, they are of inestimable value, because they make an infallible standard of sanity. Whosoever accepts them him we know to be substantially sane; sufficiently sane; in the working essentials, sane. Whoever disputes a single one of them him we know to be wholly insane, and qualified for the asylum.

Very well, the man who disputes none of them we concede to be entitled to go at large. But that is concession enough. We cannot go any further than that; for we know that in all matters of mere opinion that same man is insane--just as insane as we are; just as insane as Shakespeare was. We know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours.

That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic--for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his. All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad. To mention only a few:
The Atheist, The Theosophists, The Infidel, The Swedenborgians, The Agnostic, The Shakers, The Baptist, The Millerites, The Methodist, The Mormons, The Christian Scientist, The Laurence Oliphant Harrisites, The Catholic, and the 115 Christian sects, the Presbyterian excepted, The Grand Lama's people, The Monarchists, The Imperialists, The 72 Mohammedan sects, The Democrats, The Republicans (but not the Mugwumps), The Buddhist, The Blavatsky-Buddhist, The Mind-Curists, The Faith-Curists, The Nationalist, The Mental Scientists, The Confucian, The Spiritualist, The Allopaths, The 2000 East Indian sects, The Homeopaths, The Electropaths, The Peculiar People, The----

But there's no end to the list; there are millions of them! And all insane; each in his own way; insane as to his pet fad or opinion, but otherwise sane and rational. This should move us to be charitable towards one another's lunacies. I recognize that in his special belief the Christian Scientist is insane, because he does not believe as I do; but I hail him as my mate and fellow, because I am as insane as he insane from his point of view, and his point of view is as authoritative as mine and worth as much. That is to say, worth a brass farthing. Upon a great religious or political question, the opinion of the dullest head in the world is worth the same as the opinion of the brightest head in the world--a brass farthing. How do we arrive at this? It is simple. The affirmative opinion of a stupid man is neutralized by the negative opinion of his stupid neighbor no decision is reached; the affirmative opinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by the negative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman--no decision is reached. Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value any but a dead person knows that much. This obliges us to admit the truth of the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above--that, in disputed matters political and religious, one man's opinion is worth no more than his peer's, and hence it followers that no man's opinion possesses any real value. It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get around it: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions.

It is a mere plain, simple fact--as clear and as certain as that eight and seven make fifteen. And by it we recognize that we are all insane, as concerns those matters. If we were sane, we should all see a political or religious doctrine alike; there would be no dispute: it would be a case of eight and seven--just as it is in heaven, where all are sane and none insane. There there is but one religion, one belief; the harmony is perfect; there is never a discordant note.

You can listen to this part of Twain's Christian Science, and more besides, here. Where I'm concerned, I try to hew close to what I take to be objective reality, cognizant of the limitations of my grey cells and my senses, and aware at all times that I could be wrong. It seems to me the safest, most civilized course, and it frees my Sundays for football.

The Seinfeld Microsoft Ad

I suppose I'm joining a general consensus here, which makes me itchy. But I just watched the first Jerry Seinfeld commercial for Microsoft, and I think I know what it demonstrates about Microsoft. It's abundantly clear that they still have enough money to hire top talent and put it in the service of mediocre material.



Jerry, I hope you took Bill for a bundle.

Palin's Speech

As I figured, Palin is effective on television. She delivers speeches well, and she knows how to serve the red meat to the crowd. Much of it was made of lies, but it worked in a Young Tory of the Year kind of way:



I did find something curious though. Palin delivered, toward the end of her spiel, a long hagiography about John McCain's military service, and how much we should honor it, and how it proves that his character is one vastly superior to that of his opponent. I'm not surprised McCain/Palin is making this argument. It's the best one they've got. But I think back to four years ago. That time the Democratic nominee was the Vietnam veteran, and many of the people who cheered Mrs. Palin's remarks tonight were there, wearing band aids to mock John Kerry's military service. Later in the campaign their side invested millions in scurrilous ads that purported to show that Kerry's military record was a fiction. I guess the Right's sentimentality about military service kind of comes and goes, doesn't it?

Sarah Palin

Bristol Palin's pregnancy appears to have thrown the political world into a rage. I'm not quite sure why. The only dimension of that situation that is political is that Bristol's pregnancy is yet another symptom of the bankruptcy of one of the right's pet causes: abstinence-only sex education. In the end, I don't think it'll amount to much by itself. The only people who get really upset at this sort of thing--social conservatives--will give it a pass because Sarah Palin's a social conservative. (Imagine if Chelsea Clinton had turned up pregnant at seventeen. James Dobson would have never let us hear the end of it.) Now, if Bristol had been caught with another girl...

That said, I have plenty of better reasons for disliking Sarah Palin. First, she's a Republican, and if the last eight years have taught us anything, it's that Republicans are by and large disreputable creatures. Next, as Wasilla's mayor, Palin tried to ban books she deemed naughty from the library. When the librarian resisted, Palin tried to have her fired. Next, there's the whole matter of her firing the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner because he refused to (improperly) fire her ex-brother-in-law. Then there's the whole issue of McCain's method of picking Palin, which seemed to boil down to right-wing+XX chromosomes=running mate. If that's the way McCain'll pick his potential successor, what about the rest of his cabinet, or his Supreme Court justices? Then there's the matter of her courtship of radical right wing groups like Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and the Alaska Independence Party. (Yeah, I thought the Civil War closed the question of secession, but I guess since George W. Bush took us back before the legal precedents of the Magna Carta, the question is open again.) Then there's her support of creationism in biology classes. (Another issue that was, for all rational people, closed in the mid-nineteenth century that she'd like to reopen.) Then there's her lying about her fight against the "bridge to nowhere". And there's her global warming denial, and her support for Pat Buchanan. (Has anyone asked her what she thinks about the Holocaust?)

All that's just in four days. I'm sure I'll see other things down the line. But those aren't reasons for her to be dumped from the ticket. The contemporary Republican party seems to like everything that I listed, and though I'm not watching cable news right now, I'm guessing an army of hacks has already fanned out to argue the virtues of book banning, creationism and abuse of power. After eight years, they've grown awfully good at it.

Sarah Palin's apparent failure to see that her children are properly educated about contraception strikes me as irresponsible and stupid, but that falls under the heading of her problem. (I do wish that her public policy choices wouldn't inflict this same problem on people far less able to bear the costs, but that's tantamount to wishing she weren't a Republican.) I dislike her because her policy interests and political goals would place cruel burdens on people I care about, starting with me. I dislike her because she's a symptom of this country's advancing decadence; she's another crackpot that too many people will take too seriously and defend too loudly.

But don't worry about her being dropped from the ticket. The Right will love her whatever she does, or did, for no other reason than that the Left hates her, and that's what counts.

Catching Up

Oh, the places I've been and the things I've seen!

Auditions for Diary of A Superfluous Man: I love holding auditions. As an actor, I always loathed auditioning. Whenever the audition counted for a damn thing, nerves consumed me. Whenever I didn't want the role, I was always relaxed enough to get it. It made for an irony filled career, if nothing else. But I love being on the other side of the table, particularly this time around, when there were more talented actors than there were roles. (So many, in fact, that I changed a character's gender to bring in one actress who I thought was too special to let go.) Auditions are my first chance to see what people can do with my work. Their readings suggest possibilities I hadn't considered, and give me a chance to think anew. I have high hopes that this play will succeed, and help expand my nascent empire.

The convention: I haven't had a chance to watch as much as I'd like. Hillary Clinton delivered a good speech, and Biden surprised me with his performance. I don't fall in love with politicians, but I like his brashness and energy in asserting his ideas, which, mostly, line up with mine. (I'm to the left of Biden, but that's okay. I'm to the left of everybody.) The whole thing seems about as good as a four-day infomercial where everybody's trying desperately hard not to fuck up has a right to be.

The Dark Knight: Bitterspice and I saw it this weekend. We both liked it, though I was slightly more enthusiastic. Neither of us loved it. I admired Heath Ledger's performance, even though it wasn't as iconic as the hype had led me to believe. I thought the acting across the board was strong, and the Joker's antics posed some interesting moral tests for Batman and company (tests they ended up failing, in many ways). That said, I found the ending unsatisfying (maybe the sequel will clear it up, but I don't think it's too much to ask, after 150 minutes, to get a satisfactory conclusion now), and I thought that Two-Face came and went way too quickly--unless of course they're planning him to have a Michael Meyers-esque comeback. I always thought that Two-Face, along with Mr. Freeze, were the most compelling, tragic, Sweeney Toddish Batman villians; why kill him off so easily, or even kill him at all?
I thought the movie was a success, not a triumph. And those who consider it the best movie of all time need to grow up and, along the way, see some of the best movies of all time.

A Brief Encounter With a Con Man

On my way back from auditioning actors for Diary of A Superfluous Man (and a fine collection of actors they were), I pulled into the left turn lane and stopped at the light. As I watched cars rumble through the crowded intersection, I heard someone shouting to my right. It was the guy in a huge black SUV next to me, calling for me to roll my window down. I did, and he told me a tale about some extra speakers he had for an expensive home theater system that he wanted to give me cheap because he "couldn't take them back to the shop." I said no. He pressed on with his pitch, his voice rising with almost-convincing urgency. I said no again. The light turned green, and I was gone.

I figured he was a con man, and that whatever speakers I'd have gotten would have fallen apart upon contact with Earth's atmosphere. What I didn't know was that this con has a specific name: The White-Van Speakers con. Fat Tony was right. Crime boasts a rich lexicon.

There's only one part I think the grifters flubbed. The con calls for them to prowl a high-traffic area for someone who looks flush with cash. I don't know what it was about me--the Costco clothing, the filthy ten-year old Nissan Sentra with a missing right turn signal--that screamed money to these guys, but I think they need to work out a better system for identifying their mark.