"i can say with certainty that i was in the senate debating as rome burned"

* * *

pop song of 2007?
http://hypem.com/search/black%20kids/1/

"Among Chuang-tzu's many skills, he was an expert draftsman. The king asked
him to draw a crab. Chuang-tzu replied that he needed five years, a country
house, and twelve servants. Five years later the drawing was still not begun.
"I need another five years," said Chuang-tzu. The king granted them. At the
end of these ten years, Chuang-tzu took up his brush and, in an instant, with
a single stroke, he drew a crab, the most perfect crab ever seen."

after inland empire

Quoth Lynch: “I’m through with film as a medium. For me, film is dead.”

soap box -- the wire

been watching the wire which my friends effing love.......i don't get it, i think it's good, not great, could any tv drama be really great? the characters have nuance, the acting is pretty good, the street-level stuff has never been on tv before, along with allowing the street to speak somewhat like the street......but the whole pull of the serial form gets to me, the never-ending-story-ness of it. also, i fear that the show has no soul, in fact i know it doesn't; there are plenty of nihilistic shows on tv, where there are no good guys and no bad guys because everyone is trying to eff everyone else (my religious friends could talk about the bane of moral relativism).........in the first season, mcnulty sort of plays that hero eff the politics of the situation i'm gonna do what i have to do character, but even he is flawed and he knows it; i don't buy his earnestness to do the right thing because for him, vanity is king. look at that recap....why would you want to watch after that? but i will admit, there are some moments (see 2nd video).

daniel day-lewis

i'm sorry but everything daniel day-lewis has the feel of a put-on, school of look-at-me now what i can do, the fury and the sensitivity that ultimately renders it monodimensional and feels mentally over-rehearsed. maybe he is the most beautiful skin-deep actor working. from the article, you get the sense that he takes his own personal philosophy very seriously, which is comic for an actor spouting common sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/magazine/11daylewis-t2.html?ex=1352523600&en=f980f1016d4d112b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

watership down

name a better film critic than phillyweekly's sean burns

The underlying material is so sharp, Charlie Wilson’s War easily could’ve rivaled Three Kings for sickly comic realpolitik shock. So sad then that Mike Nichols has directed it more like a sequel to Ishtar, softening the script’s poli-sci body blows with cartoonishly broad sight gags, loud costumes, silly wigs and a puzzlingly jaunty tone. Even more disastrous is his casting of Julia Roberts as a hawkish Southern man-eating millionaire. She’s too young, sexless and brittle for a role Susan Sarandon was obviously born to play.
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/16069

not that he's usually this good, but in 200 words, it confirms everything i already suspected.

dear mia

dear m.i.a.: nobody cares about your precious gunshots being deleted from that song. it's poppy and the lyrics are bad. diplo made you a catchy tune and you sang it. yay! go back to being an airhead virtuoso who's dun too many drugs to not be scatterbrained. have you seen yourself in that vice tv bit (with spike jonze?)? it's kind of vapid.


http://blogs.villagevoice.com/statusainthood/archives/2007/12/mia_and_the_dou.php#more

everything's so serious now, but speaking of independent film, why not take that camera of yours and point it at the street and see what happens (as you were saying)? i was watching pulp fiction again the other day and it struck me how much of that movie tarantino shot in shallow focus. to see the ridges and pimples on samuel l. jackson's face caught by sunlight is a wonderful thing. style wars. culture wars. have you seen the graffitied style wars on a cow? can find a pic of it but it's by banksy. you would think the cable movie channels would blow up the spot now that there is no sitcom programming, but no, same old tripe, X-men 3; although i did catch l'eclisse the other day....monica vitti is pretty stunning,,,, it is as if she is standing atop the celluloid speaking to you, all mixed up in her desires;;; kind of adrift in an age before take-home pharmaceuticals, and such big hair! and a racist african jungle bit in the middle, blackface and holding a menacing spear. antonini....have you seen "the passenger".....so boring, and jack nicholson hadn't taken up his over-the-top self all the time, only in moments.

mountains over mountains -- stopping.

"i knew a man who loved food but could not cook a bed of rice, so sad was he."

barrington levy - shaolin temple - dope song

http://www.sendspace.com/file/y8lp4y

thanks to harvard metaperson

Big Sur, Jack Kerouac's best book?

i hate helping out a car company, any car company, but this radio-mix is worth it:

http://www.scion.com/broadband/index.html?ch=1&sh=11

dj premier and dj monk one

DEVOLUTION

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole_rat

FRIENDS SHOULDN'T LET FRIENDS HAVE FRIENDS

overheard at starbucks, 77th and 2nd Ave.

NO ONE
GIVES A SHIT
ABOUT
YOU AND
YOUR BAND!

WHY DO I
DESERVE
TO DIE?

I NEVER
THOUGHT
IT
WOULD FEEL
SO GOOD
TO CUT MY OWN FACE.

good soul mix -- FLEA MARKET!

http://souledonmusic.blogspot.com/2007/08/somethin-that-means-somethin.html