Selfish Crab

This one was a doozy.  Still, mostly inconsequential things.

• Playwriting rule of Chekhov’s gun, paraphrased: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.” [source: Party Down, season 1, episode 4]
• Drowning does not look like drowning on TV. No thrashing arms or splashing. Just the involuntary drowning reflex. [source]
• The most effective way to open a banana is how the monkeys do it. [video]
• You probably should not be pronouncing the L in ALMOND. [source]
• The Dalai Lama wears an amazing Patek Phillipe watch given to him by envoys of FDR in 1940s. [source]
• The movie Coyote Ugly was based on the author of Eat Pray Love’s time as a bartender in NYC. [source]
• The World Financial Center in lower Manhattan has its own zipcode (10281).  [source]
• 70% of premium eyeglasses (e.g., Prada, Burberry, Chanel) are made by one Italian company: Luxottica.  Their in-house brands include Oakley, Ray-Ban, and Persol. And they own Sunglasses Hut. [source]
• The web’s most well-respected film critic, James Berardinelli, is a former Telcordia engineer from New Brunswick. [source]
• This month’s Adventure in Wikipedia: List of common misconceptions.
• hysteresis – n. the lagging of an effect behind its cause, as when the change in magnetism of a body lags behind changes in the magnetic field. [source: Steve Jobs]

# 2010 Jul 31 • From the 'Links' dept • #

It’s that time of year again.   My site is hitting over 300 views this week.  Incoming search terms are hilarious:

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For those incoming:  If you did not attend the BarBri mini-review with Lakin, you will likely fail the NY Bar.  Put in other words, it is bad to miss the barbri new york mini review.  I’m sorry, someone had to tell you that.  So, go ahead and sign up for the 2011 February exam.

love,
Crab

# 2010 Jul 22 • From the 'Life' dept • 1

The heavy-weights (sans Ebert who appears to actually enjoy movies) are pushing back against the early critical and popular acclaim:

A.O. Scott, NY Times:  “The accomplishments of “Inception” are mainly technical, which is faint praise only if you insist on expecting something more from commercial entertainment. That audiences do — and should — expect more is partly, I suspect,  what has inspired some of the feverish early notices hailing “Inception” as a masterpiece, just as the desire for a certifiably great superhero movie led to the wild overrating of “The Dark Knight.” In both cases Mr. Nolan’s virtuosity as a conjurer of brilliant scenes and stunning set pieces, along with his ability to invest grandeur and novelty into conventional themes, have fostered the illusion that he is some kind of visionary.”

David Edelstein, NY Mag: “Inception is full of brontosaurean effects, like the city that folds over on top of itself, but the tone is so solemn I felt out of line even cracking a smile. It lacks the nimbleness of Spielberg’s Minority Report or the Jungian-carnival bravado of Joseph Ruben’s Dreamscape or the eerily clean lines and stylized black-suited baddies of The Matrix—or, for that matter, the off-kilter intensity of Nolan’s own Insomnia. The attackers in Inception are anonymous, the tone flat and impersonal. Nolan is too literal-minded, too caught up in ticktock logistics, to make a great, untethered dream movie.  … For the record, I wanted to surrender to this dream; I didn’t want to be out in the cold, alone. But I truly have no idea what so many people are raving about”

So Nolan has made another Dark Knight: a movie that everyone enjoyed, had great acting and cast, made truckloads of money, carries equal dollops of emotion and action, but apparently is still not considered a great movie.

# 2010 Jul 22 • From the 'Life' dept • 2

The new Green Hornet movie coming out has bewildered me.   Stop me when your mind is properly fucked:

1. The adventure hero lead is a paunch-less Seth Rogen.
2. Kato is played by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou .  JAY CHOU.  My last memory of Jay Chou is listening to his albums smolder quietly in the background while performing in a collegiate asian american club circle jerk.  Not an exact memory, but approximate.  ALSO, the tragedy of not having Bruce Lee ever play this role breaks my heart and makes me wish Hollywood would just forever retire the character like a sports jersey. ADDITIONALLY, equally mind blowing is that this role was going to be played by Stephen Chow (see, Shaolin Soccer). That would have been ammaaazzzzing.  I can imagine Rogen uttering buffoonlike comments while Stephen-Chow-as-Kato deadpans a dirty line in street Cantonese.  Oh, why don’t they make movies specifically for me?
3. LASTLY.  This movie is directed by Michel Gondry.  GONDRY.  Watch that trailer.  Where is the paper-mâché stop animation?   I don’t understand. Is everyone going to hallucinate and/or dream of paper horses or what?

See also, production history, indicating even more ridiculous names attached to past failed launches.

# 2010 Jul 11 • From the 'Life' dept • 3

OKAY, I avoid people as much as the next smiley misanthrope, but if there’s one area of human interaction I have been forced to learn, it is doorways. Or rather, the rules of the doorway. Those fucking bottlenecks of space, where you are forced to face other members of the human race, those putrid oily faced dandies. However, it appears this one facet of human civilization puzzles many people, such that every occasion where two people meet at a door at the same time, particularly from opposite sides, every such encounter becomes a stutter step, a hem-haw’ed excuse-me ridden clusterfuck. YOU people, it seems, are inefficient IDIOTS when it comes to crowd fluid dynamics, so goddamn PAY ATTENTION.

RULE ONE: People in the “pull” direction of the door yield to people in the “push” direction. BECAUSE it is far easier for someone to hold up in the pull-way; otherwise the door comes swinging back, like an awkward rake slapping you in the head, you fart face.

RULE TWO. People in areas of low density yield to people in areas of high density. BECAUSE my exit from here gives you space to walk in, you fuckwad. Where the fuck are you going to go? Let me out first.

MTA COROLLARY: Shithead, let me out of the subway car before you come in.

MTA COROLLARY 2: Also, do not crowd the door. A subway car door permits two TWO one TWO people shoulder to shoulder to enter or exit. Do not be an anxious gnatfuck and hover around the door, choking the flow like a human sphincter. There is no rule of conservation of flow wherein halving the outlet area doubles the flow rate, like a finger in a faucet.

RULE THREE: Yield to the elderly, the infirm, and the pregnant. If this rule is not batshit obvious to you already, I might question whether you even possess the civilized nature to even read, or use a computer. Is it difficult to navigate the World Wide Wide, you slouch foreheaded cro magnon, what with your only mode of user input being slamming your fists into the keyboard and grunting at the screen? Does the magic box with lights and noises scare you? Why am I even talking to you. You disgust me.

CRAB OVER AND OUT.

# 2010 Jul 9 • From the 'Life' dept • 4

THOUGHT: I wonder if the difference between the nonchalance at which the soccer world confronted the stream of shit officiating and the outrage American fans feel has something to do with our culture’s strong rule of law. Do other countries accept unjustifiable rulings on the pitch because they’re used to corruption in their home countries? And we, on our high horses, crave accountability with near-bloodthirst?

# 2010 Jul 7 • From the 'Life' dept • #

I attended my second wedding of the season (well, two and a half, if you half heartedly half count the one I skipped for a funeral). Am I growing callow and dark or are these events becoming more rote? Part of me wants to say: Look, few aspects of modern life adhere to structured protocol like weddings do. Like an old jazz standard, the customary provides framework for the unexpected. As the wedding party, the fun is in your choice of variations. Do you reject the hollow ribaldry of the garter toss? Skip the anxiety of the bouquet catch (which favors the tall and the fast– the exact population that needs no assist here)? Do you fashion your wedding cake into a 2 foot tall Optimus Prime figure wearing a Steelers jersey? Perhaps a surprise hip hop dance. No expects you to switch from Louis Armstrong to Young Jeezy! These are the nuances one must appreciate to cope with the wedding-sodden summers of a late twentysomething.

But on the other hand, WTF. Parts of the affair have grown downright irksome. After the first bride and groom’s dance, the MC usually requests couples to join them on the dance floor, right right? Normally, I consider this an opportunity to take stock of the single people conveniently stranded at their tables. Last night felt different. My entire table embarked for the dance floor (My other single friend conveniently went to the bathroom.) the other tables, likewise. Suddenly I felt like I was playing a game of musical chairs except there are 10 empty chairs and just me. No one else even wants to play. They’re off performing more adult activities, like slow dancing, or ordering cutlery, or discussing adult matters with their brokers. Not even my usual trick of staring intently at my mobile phone as if there was something very important coming down the wire that required my brow, furrowed and my manner, stern, worked. No, not this time. Nope.

Weddings used to be this buffet of well-dressed young people, and now it’s a font of what-if’s. I am very concerned this topic consumes me the way it has this year.

# 2010 Jul 5 • From the 'Life' dept • 5