Vonnegut's headstone

Vonnegut's headstone
Originally uploaded by buriednexttoyou.

R.I.P. Vonnegut

I'm pretty sad today about the passing of Kurt Vonnegut, but it also gives good reason to revisit what a great thing his books have been, to me. I know that one of the highlights of my year in AmeriCorps was the fact that we were in such Rural and simple accomodations quite often that I read a lot in the course of the year (perhaps more than I have at any time since). My reading list that year included Cat's Cradle, Jailbird, Breakfast of Champions, and other great books that weren't Vonnegut's that I definitely should have read by then... but was happy to finally work my way through (Catch 22, the Alchemist, Me talk Pretty One Day...).

For a couple years now I've been wanting to go back and read Slaughterhouse 5, and I think this is probably my best excuse. I recently watched (and wrote about in a recent post) the movie Mother Night, based on one of his books, and its narrative quality reminded me of why I love his books so much. I feel a great affinity for the joyful, creative, imaginative way that Vonnegut weaves his way through a story, and I am looking forward to hopping in bed over the next few weeks and reading a few more.

So, with that, I say, wherever I might be this evening, I'll plan on raising a glass to an American original, and a great man. Rest in Peace, Mr. Vonnegut. We'll miss you.

A lovely and appropriate sketch: Vonnegut.com

Obits: Time, NYT, CNN, AP
More expansive bio: Wikipedia

A handful of good quotes:
"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. "

"Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John."

"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."

"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything. "

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. "

>>EDIT: "There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I dont know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."

"And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ''Kurt is up in Heaven now.'' That’s my favorite joke."~University of Wisconsin in Madison on the evening of September 22, 2003,~

Cacti (who doesn't love a little cacti)

Home Made Macros - Cacti
Originally uploaded by Chambo25.

Fun macro picture of a bunch of mini little cacti from my mom's kitchen in Philly... had a nice visit this past weekend, and I really like how this photo came out.

Things worth checking out

The I Crush Your Head group on Flickr. I only made it through the pool of pictures, viewing them on slideshow... but there is so much goodness... so many reasons to laugh. I am definitely going to take some crushing your head pictures soon. Watch out world! My fingers are coming for ya!

Home Made Macros - Rancor

Home Made Macros - Rancor
Originally uploaded by Chambo25.

One of our favorite childhood toys is just laying on his back looking pathetic these days... I took a bunch of pictures trying to get the right one, and I like this one... might try for even better next time I'm home.

Okay... maybe you're right, he doesn't look completely pathetic... he's still kinda fierce, but if you find the Rancor entry on Wikipedia, the photo there is crazy! Wow, it brought me back to how much that scene scared the crap out of my as a little kid.

Alright, random photoblogging... done.

Bush won't negotiate... with Democrats.

Here's yet another example of bipartisanship Bushie style:

From the AP:

"In essence, Bush invited the Democratic leaders of Congress to come hear the stance he has offered for weeks.

He again accused them of shirking their responsibilities."

... when substitute Whitehouse Spokesperson Dana Perino was questioned about the point of this meeting, reason why Democrats should attend a conversation that the administration has described explicitly as not a negotiation, she had the following to say:

"Perino said Democrats could benefit by accepting Bush's invitation. "Maybe they need to hear again from the president about why he thinks it is foolish to set arbitrary timetables for withdrawal," she said."

Hey, anybody seen sanity? Clearly it's lost on these folks. UGH!

WJLC Charts

Okay... so I've been wanting to do this for awhile. I'm indulging the metaphor that I've got my own radio station since I have started cramming tons of music into an ipod over the past few months. I'm up to over 2,000 songs at this point, and I like having a reason to talk about music, so periodically (maybe weekly if I can get my act together) I'm going to release something I used to compile for my college radio station, the charts. This week the charts are starting out with a pretty simple format... who's getting the most spins, and what are five relatively recent things added into rotation (either ripped from ye olde CD collection or newly discovered). Enjoy!

Top 10 (Heavy Rotation): listings show artist - album (single or singles)
1. The Shins Bluegrass Tribute - The Shins Bluegrass Tribute (New Slang, Know Your Onion!)
2. Ween - Shinola Vol. 1 (Gabrielle)
3. The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree (This Year, Dance Music)
4. Josh Ritter - The Animal Years (Good Man, Lillian Egypt)
5. A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder (On the Table)
6. Chris Mills - Wall to Wall Sessions (Escape from New York)
7. Spoon - Gimme Fiction (I Summon You, I Turn My Camera On)
8. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema (Sing me Spanish Techno)
9. Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison (Folsom Prison Blues, 25 Minutes to Go, Jackson)
10. Old Crow Medicine Show - OCMS, Big Iron World (Wagon Wheel, James River Blues)

New Adds:
1. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (Dashboard, Steam Engenius)
2. Withdrawal - The Perfectionist Blacklist (Decompression, Nova Breeze)
3. Iggy Pop - Lust for Life (The Passenger, Lust for Life, Neighborhood Threat)
4. Gillian Welch - Soul Journey (Wrecking Ball, No One Knows My Name)
5. Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose (Mrs. Leroy Brown, Portland Oregon)

Quick Sloppy Writing

So, I've looked a bit at my last post, and it was very poorly written. Everybody in the movies I was talking about did, "a great job" or was really neat or cool. Granted, I was trying to get out the door, writing the post was an afterthought, and I really mostly wanted to say, "hey world... I just saw these cool movies and you should check them out too."

That all said, I thought it was worth elaborating a bit. I think that Children of Men is remarkable in a visual sense, both because of the choices to make the movie with many long takes, and lots of beautifully captured moving, fluid scenes. The whole thing feels very well composed, and the performances of Clive Owen and others are part of that composition. They fill this bleak landscape with a weariness that is pierced with hope, and that quality is something I found very powerful throughout the movie. Some scenes and events are remarkably awful, but the whole thing doesn't feel overwhelmingly doom & gloom.

As for Mother Night, again, there's an interesting mix of the comic and the tragic. Alan Arkin and Nick Nolte are truly great throughout, and John Goodman's normal schtick works remarkably well. I've seen some pretty blah (breakfast of champions) translations of Vonnegut's work for screen, and I think this one is pretty remarkably well done in keeping his odd, but enjoyable, light but world-weary narrative quality.

OH! Almost forgot

Movies!

This week I've seen some amazing Movies. WOW! Really good week for movies:

I finally saw Babel... and it's very good. It's bleak in many ways, but extremely well done, and I highly recommend it (unless you're already feeling down because it's not a feel-good-happy-go-lucky breath of fresh air kinda movie... yes I got tired of hyphenating just now). So, Babel was a pretty good start, but even better is the next one!

Children of Men. Okay, seriously this is an incredibly good movie. Again, not super happy but I feel that it's far from a bleak (bleek?) film. It's so incredibly well done, and so visually striking, that I hope you check it out, if you haven't. Clive Owen turns in a great preformance, Julianne Moore is great, Chiwetel Ejiofor is also very good, and Michael Caine is pretty great too... very well done.

Finally, before I watched either of these, I celebrated Alan Arkin winning the oscar this year by adding a whole slew of his movies to my Netflix cue. Soon I'll have Catch 22, but earlier this week I saw Mother Night, and man was it good. I've never heard much about this film, but it's very well done, a truly well told story, and it's full of good preformances, including a great turn by Nick Nolte as the main character. He's an actor I can't say I've ever found incredibly remarkable, but he does a great job in this. Arkin is great too, as is John Goodman. I would recommend this almost as highly as I just recommended Children of Men... and with that, I'm going to jump off my movie soap box.

Have a great night! Oh, and if you like the band Modest Mouse, you should check out a band called Withdrawal... just found them this week, and they're great too! (I hope that link is good.... I'll have to check it later)

And a Maundy Thursday to you

So... in about five minutes I'm running out the door to meet up with Lyndsey and some folks but before I run out the door... I thought I would make a quick post about, let's face it, nothing really. I only realized in recent years that many folks have never heard the term Maundy Thursday, and today I added more people to that list. I guess lots of folks just call it either Holy Thursday or Thursday because it's no biggie. It was always a striking day to me growing up because it's a really bleary and sad church service.

Not sure where I'm going with this... ah yes, I'm going to find Lyndsey. Maundy Thursday to you all, and more soon!

By the way, if you watched the Cheney video and were disappointed, I was too when on the third or fourth time watching it I realized there is a secret service-looking suit to his right at the start of the long shot panning back. He's still creepy, right? Okay, good, I'm glad we agree on that.

Okay, I'm out.

Cheney Stands eerily 50 feet away during Bush press conference

Wow... CSPAN... great job here. Is this video not eerie? What is Dick Cheney doing over there, and is he as isolated in the rose garden as he seems? I saw this posted on Daily Kos and found it so bizarre and unusual that I had to re-post it myself. Anyway, it's completely random, but enjoy. Lots of video on the olde blog right now. Maybe more to come. If you haven't seen it, check out Alanis Morissette's "My Humps" video. It's the most viewed video on You Tube today, but it's worth your time mostly for the hilarious dancing. More soon, happy Tuesday!!!

An interview with Phil

Okay... so this is the interview with Phil. Great stuff. I find the whole situation pretty inspiring overall... and would welcome thoughts and reactions. Enjoy!