Trivial Pursuits

Pouring A Little Out

For the two greatest of TP's homiez to have had the plug pulled in my lifetime: Calvin & Hobbes.  There's an interesting article from CNN on the intensely private creator, Mr. Bill Watterson, of the greatest comic strip ever.

I was fascinated to learn that the strip is modeled after Watterson's own life in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.  I'd always had the strong sense that C&H was set somewhere in the Midwest, though I never knew exactly where.  Maybe like Springfield, it's better not to know.

The article notes,

Watterson ended the strip on December 31, 1995, with a statement: "I believe I've done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises."

The last strip shows Calvin and Hobbes sledding off after a new fallen snow. "It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy ... let's go exploring!" Calvin says in the final two panels.

Calvin & Hobbes, simply the best ever.  We here at TP salute you, Mr. Watterson, and we salute you too, Spaceman Spiff, and above all, we salute you Mr. Hobbes, you whose misanthropy rivals that of your namesake.

To you we pay homage from the words of Pete Rock and CL Smooth: "Not an imitator but a crowd motivator/it's time to get wrecked with the Creator."

Friday

Yes, I'm in a blog rut.  And actually, it has nothing to do with lacking appropriate blog fodder.  I've got tons of stuff to write about.  I suppose I could chalk it up to adjusting to the student life, where one always has work one could be doing, but lots of students seem to have no trouble blogging.

Yesterday was a great day.  It was Yom Kippur, so TP was fasting like a mutha!@#$er.  Gots to purify myself you know, so I can obtain the license to ill for the remainder of the year. 

What? Is that not the idea?

Speaking of Yom Kippur, let me just for a moment say how reprehensible I think it is that synagogues charge upwards of $200 for a ticket for Kol Nidre services (the holiest night of the Jewish year) for non-members.

Yes, I know all the arguments.  It is expensive to put on Kol Nidre services -- aside from arranging facilities and parking, choirs and special cantors are often brought in, the flowers must be exquisite, etc.  And yes, I understand that I have my own karma for the situation, because membership has its privileges.  If I don't want to be part of the synagoguge community by joining the congregation, what right do I have to complain at being denied the rights of members?

All true.  However, none of the above changes the single, irreducible notion, that, IMO, when a Jew seeks to worship with a community on the holiest night of the year, it is completely antithetical to the spirit and spiritual heart of Judaism to require a substantial fee for entry.  I think that is reprehensible, and I say that with full acceptance of my own karma for the situation.  If they asked for a donation, and left the amount up to me, no problem at all.  I'd probably give them near what they charge, anyway.  It's not the money.  It's the heart.  With Judaism, it's always about the heart.

I Mean, Really

Headline seen on CNNSI.com this morning by TP:

"Nothing says football like Nick and Jessica."

I don't know about that.  I think the Care Bears, or perhaps Summer's Eve Female Hygiene "says" football a bit more.

Good lord.  Don't they have editors over there? Who decided that headline was fit for human consumption?

Ummm . . . yeah . . .

There's a picture of Lumbergh permanently residing on TP as a testament to the genius of the movie Office Space.  But what makes the movie one of the greatest comedies of the last 10 years is not just its hilarity, but the fact that it is both savage and savagely accurate.  The movie manages to capture, quite accurately, some of the absurdities of the modern corporate work experience.

It's a modern-day Bartleby the Scrivener, only funnier.

Consider this article, for example, in light of the accuracy of OS:

More than 10,000 respondents in the online survey admitted to wasting, on average, 2.09 hours per day.

[ . . .]

By "wasting time," all that's meant is time spent on the job not doing actual work, said Bill Coleman, senior vice president of Salary.com.

Come on, OS fans.  Say it with me.

"I'd say in a given week, I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work."

Happy Birthday

To the biggest of Big P's himself, Pops, Satchmo, Louis Armstrong, Big enough to have earned TWO birthday celebrations here at TP.

See, Satch himself celebrated his birthday on July 4, 1900, but historians posthumously discovered a baptismal certificate bearing his name and the date of August 4, 1901.  This is generally the recognized date nowadays, but Pops is big enough to get a celebration on BOTH days.  XM is playing nuthin' but Pops all day long today.

What can TP say about the father of jazz, the quintessential American musician, and, in all likelihood, the greatest American musician of the 20th century, and perhaps in the history of this nation?

Nothing that hasn't already been said.

A day of listening to commercial free, uninterrupted Satch, grilling, enjoying some tasty beverages, baking a pie (TP loves to bake), hanging out with my beloved dogs and my beloved Dr. Ms. TP . . . life is a cabaret.

Happy Birthday, Pops.  Happy Birthday, America.

UPDATE: Dr. Ms. TP, bless her heart, isn't quite the nerd regarding American music (though she loves oldies).  From a woman who didn't know, to even Pa-in-law-TP's amazement, who some dude named Bob Dylan is, comes this little nugget:

TP: See, he was called Satchmo because his mouth would blow up so wide when he played, he was nicknamed 'Satchelmouth.'

Dr. Ms. TP: When he played his saxophone? Trombone?

TP (bearing a pained expression): Trumpet, sweetie.  He played the trumpet.

Cool

Mainichi Shimbun, one of the leading newspapers on Japan (and according to Ma-TP-in-Law, the best on Japanese culture), ran a photo contest entitled Unseen Japan.

I particularly liked these:

Humorous

This review of the incoming Disney flick, Herbie: Fully Loaded, is one of the funnier movie reviews I have ever read.

Excerpt, to whet your appetite:

Anyone who would insist that movie reviewing is not a real job ("'Sup, Mom?") hasn't been forced to sit through screenings of Bewitched and Herbie: Fully Loaded in the span of five days -- and by forced, I mean either you see both movies, write 800 words about each, or else you don't collect your paycheck, which is a pretty fair definition of "forced." These stupefyingly awful offerings are, though, but par for the course this miserable year. After each screening, it seems, a few colleagues will huddle outside the theater to argue about whether this was, in fact, the worst Hollywood release of the year and not, oh, White Noise or Be Cool or Miss Congeniality 2 or The Longest Yard or Sahara or Jiminy Glick in Lalawood.

Heh.  It gets funnier.

Denver

Is Beautiful. Mountains, weather . . . good place. Had some great wine last night; will write it up later. Am headed off to a downtown bookstore, and then off to see Batman Begins.

It's 5:00 somewhere.

More later.

Verdict Is In

Coldplay's new album is astonishingly good.  An absolute must buy.

Happy Birthday

Miles Davis, born May 26, 1926.  I didn't realize he was a fellow Gemini.

Though I am a traditionalist when it comes to jazz, and do not particularly care for much of Miles's post 1965 (Columbia) recordings, I certainly recognize that Miles was both one of the greatest traditional jazz musicians of all time, as well as one of the greatest innovators.  He helped change jazz from bebop to cool, and also helped create jazz fusion in the mid to late 1960s.  William Ruhlmann observes,

To examine his career is to examine the history of jazz from the mid-'40s to the early '90s, since he was in the thick of almost every important innovation and stylistic development in the music during that period, and he often led the way in those changes, both with his own performances and recordings and by choosing sidemen and collaborators who forged new directions.

I think most of what there is to say about one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century is summed up in the following story:

In 1987 Davis attended a reception in honor of Ray Charles at Ronald Reagan's White House. A Washington society lady, seated next to him, asked him what he had done to be invited. "Well," Davis replied, "I've changed music four or five times. What have you done of any importance other than be white?"