zack greinke, wolverine

Just for fun, here's a pretty cool article on Zack Greinke, a baseball phenom who struggled early in his career, and it turns out he had social anxiety disorder. Now that's under control, and he's basically ridiculously amazing this year.

Also, the Wolverine movie comes out this Friday. One guess on whether or not I'm excited. Although I'll NEVER forgive...well, whomever for not making Fatal Attractions into an X-Men movie. It still remains the coolest trade paperback I've ever read, and yes, that includes Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns.

immediate thoughts on "vicky cristina barcelona"

reductionist, completely contrived, and eye-roll inducing. made by the typical elitist artist that compartmentalizes the world into the american troglodyte-as-businessman who knows nothing about actually living (and is a little bit racist to boot) and the artist-as-rennaisance man who is the only person who can truly understand and appreciate life - so much so that that he/she is in fact destructive, because oh my god they're exploding with vitality. vomit. i'll give props to woody allen for engineering a scene where scarlet johansson and penelope cruz make out with each other, but, dude. you're a movie director, you're not 13. i love how the only choices for the conflicted woman are the incredibly good looking artist who inexplicably can afford a highly affluent lifestyle (but would never be defined by money) and the bad haircut husband who says "oriental rugs", thinks art looks like "rorschach blots", plays bridge, golfs, and loves "japanese high definition setups." seriously. you can't make this stuff up. or, actually, you, and anyone with 8 functioning brain cells, can.

EDIT: To be fair, most of the actors (Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Rebecca Hall) are excellent (the incredibly wooden Scarlett Johansson, not so much), the dialouge is pretty witty, and the cinematography brings out the bohemian/free-spirited nature of Barcelona, but the one-dimentionality of the setup is just too much to overlook.

anvil!

According to Alex and Todd, I'm not capable of fully enjoying this movie because of my lack of "This is Spinal Tap" education. Nevertheless, this was a funny, interesting movie (if overdoing the heartstrings-tugging aspect). I loved the aspect where they went into Lips' and Robb's Jewish roots (especially from Lips' perspective, doing something clearly out of sync with both his parents and his siblings and yet ultimately getting their support). Also, it tells us once again that the Japanese are way cooler than us (our 13 year olds love Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, their 13 year olds love metal. You be the judge). Go to www.anvilmovie.com for more info.

dude.

...yeah.

Steve's Killer Links Plus Other Fun!

My buddy steve is always sending me all sorts of cool stuff, but I haven't given it its fair blog-due yet. Well, wait no longer, world.

1. Orangutans use tools! - Intelligent designers throw a hissy fit everywhere as the link between ourselves and our evolutionary forebears grows stronger and stronger. But in any case, the story is just cool.

2. Red Meat: No Good - Sorry carnivores, but it turns out that a little sialic acid called Neu5Gc will be the bane of your future existence. What's the problem with this molecule? Humans don't make it. We make a variant of it, Neu5Ac. Who does make alot of Neu5Gc? Plenty of other mammals. Neu5Gc appears foreign to our immune system, but is perfectly normal to immune systems of other mammals, such as chimpanzees. And, to quote:

Chimpanzees do not seem to suffer from heart disease, cancers, rheumatoid arthritis or bronchial asthma - common conditions in humans. Nor do they get sick from the human malaria parasite, which uses sialic acid to latch on to our blood cells.

NeuGc is also a common component of serum sickness, a complication of treatment with, you guessed it, animal serum (which has been used because its a way to flood the body with neutralizing antibodies and prevent immune over-reactions). So: cut down on that steak.

3. Waterboarding is Definitely Torture - Because some idiot at Vanity Fair tried it. No offense, but I was already convinced. It was a pretty interesting article, though. Are you listening, everyone who thought that FIMA was OK? This is the same line of thinking.

Now, some contributions of my own!

How did Wall-E get it wrong?
1. Obesity - Daniel Engber has some interesting thoughts on this. While he enjoyed the movie (didn't we all), he took issue with the tacit association of obesity with ecological destruction. While I think his assertion that the movie attempts to pin the planet's environmental collapse on the overweight (quote: "If only society could get off its big, fat ass and go on a diet!") is an overreaction (its far, far more an indictment of consumerism), I think the article is worth reading, first because it corrects a number of inappropriate assumptions about obesity, and second because it (correctly) criticizes Pixar's choice to depict the result of such consumerism primarily as a group of obese citizens. Read the article; pay particular attention to the closing paragraph.

2. Cockroaches - Also incorrect: the the cockroach as the last remnant of life on Earth. Are cockroaches so hardy that they would outlast every other living being? Not quite, although they apparently are sturdy enough to live without their head for weeks. Sweet.

Health Related Tidbits - Two fantastic articles on the value, and danger, of 2 senses

1. The Itch - Atul Gawande delivers another impeccable anecdote, but I find the article to be most interesting because of the qualification of "itchiness" as an entirely separate sense, quite distinct from pain. This was proved with an ingenious experiment discussed in the article, in which increasing amounts of painful stimuli had no impact on the itchiness of said stimuli. What follows is some amazing insight into the transmission of 'itch' signals via distinct neuronal pathways whose sensors have a molecular makeup that will amaze you in their design.

2. Anosmia - One of the most interesting aspects of this self-portrait of losing the sense of smell by Elizabeth Zierah was how undervalued smell is ("equivalent to losing a big toe," according to the article). Not true, it turns out; the devastating impact of losing one's sense of smell is yet more evidence of the imporance of synergy between your senses.

National Election Stuff

1. Barack's "OPod" - The New Republic gives us this very interesting piece on the content of Barack Obama's IPod. Aside from the quick disemboweling of John Kerry in the initial paragraph (who couldn't even muster a preference between the Stones and the Beatles), the piece tells us what we can learn from the Senator's playlist. Most importantly:

"...The fact that he responds to Wenner's question about hip-hop with the most straight-down-the-middle liberal platitudes imaginable (praising it as "rebel music" while expressing concern about its "misogyny and materialism") clearly matters less than the fact that there's a guy running for President who knows who Jay-Z is."

2. Making fun of Obama - This is a fascinating article from the Times on the struggles of late-night and other comedians to (successfully) make fun of Obama. What's a little less clear are the reasons behind this difficulty. Two have been offered: 1) He hasn't done something identifiably stupid to serve as a rallying point, and 2) making fun of him makes you feel a little guilty. I agree with both. This is part of his whole 'teflon' image (I realize that "teflon" carries a negative connotation, but I don't mean it that way) - he seems sqeaky clean, bizarelly so when you consider that nobody really thinks that he is. Of course, the race issue doesn't help either. What's more interesting is how we react to rare circumstances in which someone chooses to poke fun at him, as in the case of:

3. The Infamous New Yorker Cover (pictured, right). So here we have a perfect scenario. A progressive magazine publishes a cover image in obvious satire of the insane stereotypes levied against Obama, all in combination - that is is a Muslim in cahoots with Osama bin Laden, that he is a flag burner whose terrorist fist-jab clearly implies Middle Eastern allegiances. (His wife's Afro is a subtle touch). But obvious satire such has this has inspired uproar, and why? Because we all know and fear the misinterpretation of this joke. Calling McCain old isn't dangerous, but calling Obama a terrorist is, because 10% of America thinks this is true. And it doesn't matter whether the tone of the cover is obviously satirical or not. To quote Jake Tapper of ABC News:

Intent factors into these matters, of course, but no Upper East Side liberal—no matter how superior they feel their intellect is—should assume that just because they're mocking such ridiculousness, the illustration won't feed into the same beast in emails and other media. It's a recruitment poster for the right-wing.

It pains me, but he's right.

4. McCain fears computers - Does this include robots? Does he refuse to watch Wall-E? We should look into this. And if he does start using the internet, maybe he can respond to this New Republic piece threatening a return to Cold War-era politics under his aegis.

This was a long-ass post. Later: myanmar and sports.

cool stuff coming out this week!

Music:
Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III: This is a hugely hyped album from pretty much the mixtape king of hip-hop. I'm really interested in it because his flow is still evolving and also because his sound is a little grimier than either more commercial hiphop (kanye, ludacris) and less wholesome than socially responsible hiphop (kweli, common). i also love that he has beef with the clipse, my other current favorite hiphop artist.
Coldplay's Viva La Vida: Well, I loved Violet Hill, but that iTunes commercial song pretty much blows, so we'll see whether they want to make music that sounds urgent or music that belongs on Grey's Anatomy.

Movies:
The Incredible Hulk: It's a little weird to me that nobody seems at all excited about this. Is the Hulk not interesting because he's not personable or good looking? I guess, but Bruce Banner is so interesting for so many reasons! (described here). And most importantly - he's a SCIENTIST!
The Happening: I'm not really a big MNS fan. His stuff is too formulaic. And the Happening seems like a lame version of Zodiac. David Fincher could kick M. Night's ass.

Other thoughts:

Cool Weekend New York Times Magazine Focus on Architecture: particularly, an awesome article on this company called MVRDV that suggests novel architectural solutions for overpopulation, and another on the challenges facing the sudden construction of instant cities to support exploding economies.

The Machinery of Hope: I'll be the first to admit Rolling Stone's liberal homerism, but this is a great article on the success of grassroots efforts to drive voter turnout by the Obamachine.

Musicians like Obama: Bob Dylan and Nas both endorse him. Nas even raps about it in a track called "Black President" which is pretty cheesy. But, I'm just being biased because I'm a Lil Wayne fanboy at the moment.

China's SATs Basically Suck: Or do they? A huge national standardized test allows for economic mobility, but at the same time suppresses more creative intellectual pursuits.

Finally, Sufjan Stevens is awesome. Why? many reasons, but the most recent being his awesome takedown of Vampire Weekend, who (and I don't care that Mark Davis' daughter dates one of the band members) suck:

"Sometimes I worry that the ever-increasing trend toward excessive innovation has pushed the art and music world into a slapstick exhibition of dog breeding, generating increasingly newer, more contemporary fashions: gothic folk, for one. Or Afro-beat Ivy League pop."

Ha ha! Take that, stupid reggaeton-pop-rock fusion losers!

iron man, primaries, the slip

First, Iron Man. Sweet! I get to be a unabashed fanboy.

The movie focused much more on the construction of a superhero than how awesome Iron Man is once he fully takes shape. I think this is what was also heavily behind the success of the Batman franchise as well as The Incredibles. I think we are highly interested in the mental makeup that either a) creates a superhero (like Batman or Iron Man) or b) results from having to be a superhero (like Spiderman 2 or The Watchmen). I say this despite the fact that the big-time robot fight at the end of Iron Man is bad-ass. It's also fun to see superhero movies with liberal slants (like this or X-Men) rather than semi-conservative slants (like Transformers or Spiderman).

Speaking of movies, here's an amazing article about the dearth of female leads in summer movies. I'm not always a huge fan, but this time you killed it, Dargis.

Big-time primaries today! More NYTimes for you on economic policy. It was reassuring because I was starting to wonder how secure I was in my (not too well-informed) opinions. But now I'm back to being unreasonable! Clinton and McCain, you earn 4/5 condescending shakes of the head from me.

Finally, NIN released an album for FREE (http://theslip.nin.com). I like about half of the stuff and am ok with the other half. I wish they had stuck with the dance-punk stylings of the Discipline single, instead of spending 30% of the album doing vaguely halfhearted instrumental retreads. Still, the good tracks are a lot of fun, and I'm willing to bet they'll play well live.