Monday, November 7, 2011
An Illustrated Look At Some Of Literature's Near Brushes With Death
Last week, JK Rowling announced that, midway through writing the Harry Potter series, she nearly killed off Ron Weasley "out of spite." Ron isn't the first supporting character to narrowly avoid death in an author's rough draft. Here we look at some other close calls—and how those deaths would have affected the culture at large.
Brett Ratner Under The Impression That He's A Storyteller
“I apologize for any offense my remarks caused. It was a dumb way of expressing myself. Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. But as a storyteller I should have been much more thoughtful about the power of language and my choice of words.”
—Director Brett Ratner is sorry he said that "rehearsal's for fags."
"In the industrialised world, roughly 1 person in every 25 has severe mental disorder, and nearly half of us will experience some kind of mental illness during our lives. Many conditions, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as well as developmental conditions like autism, are at least in part inherited from our parents. If they affect people's chance of survival you would expect natural selection to have eliminated them, but instead they persist at high levels. Some argue that these genes bring benefits – mental illness and genius have a long-standing link – but archaeologist Penny Spikins at the University of York, UK, goes further. She believes that mental illness and conditions such as autism persist at such high levels because in the past they were advantageous to humanity." | November 7, 2011
The Enduring Comedic Collaboration of David Lynch and Kyle MacLachlan
Blue Velvet celebrates its 25th anniversary tomorrow with a new Blu-Ray package including nearly an hour’s worth of unseen footage, but I can’t imagine any lines, even a quarter century later, matching the quotability and notoriety of these:
“What kind of beer do you like?” the thuggish character Frank (Dennis Hopper) asks outside a bar in Blue Velvet. “Heineken,” mutters young, innocent Jeffrey Beaumont (the soft-spoken Kyle MacLachlan), growing aware of the seediness hidden within his hometown of Lumberton. “Heineken!” gnarled, leather-clad Frank explodes as he grips the back of Beaumont’s head. “Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!”
Beaumont accepts the PBR assertion and joins Frank among the whimsical thug Ben and his harem of chubby women, among the haunting “Candy-Colored Clown They Call the Sandman” song, and the darkness and sexuality that cuts so sharply against his ironic and curious sensibility that grounds the film. Such a simple exchange but such a memorable one, like so many small moments in the classic David Lynch offering.
The scene, like much of the movie, borders on so outrageous as to be humorous. Two David Lynch projects have mastered this comedically macabre tone, and you can thank the lead in both. Filmmaker David Lynch and actor Kyle MacLachlan have collaborated with one another three times in cinematic history: in 1984’s MacLachlan debut Dune, a serious science fiction epic savaged by critics; 1986’s Blue Velvet, a quirky, offbeat exploration of Americana; and the Mark Frost-Lynch television series Twin Peaks of 1990 and 1991, which continues what Blue Velvet started in the murder investigation of a remote town’s homecoming queen Laura Palmer. Yet the first bombastic effort, costing tens of millions of dollars, bombed. The second two were genius and endure as cinematic landmarks. Why? READ MORE
Is this the end for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi? Having already asked that question approximately 7000 times in the last two-and-a-half years, I am not prepared to say anything definitive, but it's not looking good. For Silvio, I mean. | November 7, 2011
How Bad Are New York's Airports?
A column that compares different aspects of New York City to cities elsewhere. For this installment, we asked Alexander Basek and Paul Brady to weigh in. Alexander is a co-founder of the travel planning service Fortnighter. Paul is an editor at Huffington Post Travel. They both could point out the differences between an Airbus 320 and a Boeing 737, but they won’t because you don’t care that much.
Paul: Before we get into the whole New York v. The World debate, shouldn't we talk about which one of the airports that serve New York best represents the city? A lot of people gloss over the fact that we're very lucky to have three airports within easy reach, even if they're all really horrible. We have triple the ability to fly far, far away from the hell gates that are EWR, JFK and LGA.
Alexander: Each of those airports is miserable in its own way. And as with unhappy families, you learn to live with the one that you're stuck with, in this case depending on a combination of location, affinity for airline mileage programs and ability to tolerate the fact that the Delta terminal at Kennedy is infested with pigeons.
That said, the upside of the NYC airport trifecta is that I have multiple options for getting home when things go pear-shaped, weather-wise, out in the great wide world. Then I'm happy to hear those pigeons cooing as I walk through the wafting scent of Cinnabon. READ MORE
Wall to Wall
This is the "wall to wall" conversation that a new couple I happen to be friends with on Facebook with had over the span of a couple months. I thought it would be funny to make it continuous.
"A group of Pakistanis met in Islamabad late last month to discuss the impact of U.S. drone strikes in their communities. One of the attendees was a 16-year-old boy named Tariq Aziz who had volunteered to learn photography to begin documenting drone strikes near his home. Within 72 hours of the meeting Aziz was killed in a U.S. drone strike. His 12-year-old cousin was also killed in the Oct. 31 attack."
—U.S. drones have killed 175 children. (via) | November 7, 2011
T.I. Featuring Big K.R.I.T., "I'm Flexin"
Rapper and novelist T.I. seems to have come out of prison in top form. His newest song, "Here Ye, Here Ye" simmers over an excellent, vintage-sounding Neptunes beat, and he's made a good, back-to-Bankhead video for the one that Big K.R.I.T. helped him with a month or so ago. He says his forthcoming album will be called Kill the King or Trouble. That red car sure looks fast.
I've Become an Amazing Mom in the Six Hours I've Been Sober
From time to time we offer our space to normal, every-day people with opinions to share.
The bottles clinking in the bottom of the stroller, the shame of my own special sippy cups I'd sneak in the pumping booth at the office: it was all too much for me, so I stopped drinking six hours ago. Earlier today I was an alcoholic mom with a secret; now, I'm a proud mom in recovery, who's learned from her mistakes, with the help of my partner, Brechlin [not his real name], who threw me out of the house late last night but let me back in earlier this morning. I'm all better! And I have so much to share.
Oh wait. I'm at lunch and the waiter is asking me what I want to drink.... I was going to have an iced tea but I think I'll pound some shots! LET'S ROLL. HEY, YOU, GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY STROLLER. READ MORE
Bruce Springsteen, "Incident On 57th Street"
Bruce Springsteen geeks take note! This is a video of the first-ever (solo) performance of "Incident On 57th Street," from the 1973 album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. It happened Friday night, during a concert the Boss was playing his old friend, Joe Grusheky in Grusheky's hometown, Pittsburgh. God, it sounds great, doesn't it?
John McPhee: "Who Could Tell What Might Happen?"
Why write about anything? In the print edition of today's New Yorker, John McPhee discusses rambling and thrashing his way into profile-writing.
Jay-Z And Kanye West Take A Load Off
"Lasting about two hours, the show was an almost seamless blend of songs from 'Watch the Throne,' solo material from each rapper and songs they have shared in the past, often used as transitions. If there is any fat on hit-thick solo Jay-Z or Kanye West concerts at this point, it was excised here. They have become gifted at resisting maximalist urges. This show demonstrated how much can be accomplished with a few small decisions: as on the album, Jay-Z and Mr. West worked smart, not big. The heaviest lifting was done by cameras that seemed to encircle the stage, resulting in astonishing close-ups that captured every sweat cascade on Mr. West’s forehead and every scrunched expression on Jay-Z’s face."
—Man, you pay $150 for a ticket to see two multimillionaires rap, and they do it sitting down. Just kidding. I wish I was at the Izod Center in New Jersey Saturday night. (Or headed Madison Square Garden tonight or tomorrow.) Awl pal Jon Caramanica reports. Other Awl pal Miss Info takes video.
