Serenity wow.

Last night She Who Must Be Obeyed and I attended the local preview screening of Serenity; I will not discuss whether my eagerness to attend this screening was informed partly by a desire to cut short the time during which I could not discuss the movie with her by three days. Without getting into the spoilers I so diligently avoided spilling in the three months since I saw an advance screening, I have to say that it's a terrific movie, even without the frisson of "I can't believe I'm seeing these people again!" that I had the first time I saw it, and I don't think people who have not seen the series will be lost. There's a rather large infodump at the beginning of the movie -- it starts with a dream sequence that turns out to be within a flashback that leads to the introduction of the film's villain, which I think is some sort of record. (She Who Must Be Obeyed found this harder to take than I did.)

What else can I say without giving anything away? It's a shame that so much this cast of incredibly talented people don't seem to have turned up in very much since the series ended, and I hope that their careers flourish in projects worthy of their skills. I believe that Gina Torres is not a human being, but a goddess of beauty sent from a higher plane to enlighten us all. Damn Fox for killing this show through sheer incompetence, and thanks to Joss and Universal for making this return happen. And despite the thrill that this movie is, I can't help but lament the fact that we were denied the chance to see these characters and their universe unfold slowly, over dozens of episodes and multiple seasons. Unfinished epics always hurt, but this one now hurts just a little bit less.

Serenity soon?

This could be interesting. I followed a link on Whedonesque to submit my name to get into Tuesday's press screening of Serenity as part of a "Serenity Blogger Bonanza" and just got confirmation of that -- although confirmation does not equal a guaranteed seat, so this is apparently a different kind of confirmation than one would normally associate with that word. Still, its great to see Universal trying new ideas to build the buzz for the movie, and (if we get in) it will be great to see if there have been any changes since the preview screening She Who Must Be Obeyed, AKA The Best Wife Ever, made me attend without her.

I'll post some spoiler-free thoughts after the screening (should we get in); and if you're wondering what the hell this "Serenity" thing I'm talking about is, here's the studio synopsis:

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family – squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

And if you're intrigued, why not visit the movie's official site?

Left hand, right hand...

One of these guys did not get the right set of talking points.

Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla.:

"It is inexcusable for the White House and Congress to not even make the effort to find at least some offsets to this new spending...No one in America believes the federal government is operating at peak efficiency and can't tighten its belt."

Tom Delay:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) said that "Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an 'ongoing victory,' and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget," the Washington Times reports.

Autographic D'Onofrio

Vincent D'Onofrio on giving autographs:

You just have to know that when you go outside you have to sign autographs. You just have to be ready to go around the corner to buy some milk and sign an autograph or two on the way and on the way back. You just have to prepare yourself for it. And I do it. It's OK with me. I've never, ever turned one down. Gregory Hines taught me to be graceful about it, that it's really important. When you do theater, people get to stand up and clap at the end. But when you do film and TV, they don't get to do that. So people come up to you on the street. That's all they're doing, applauding you.

As I said, I've never thought of it that way before, but reading it makes it seem thunderingly obvious.

Stunt casting

This is the season when we'll finally see Tom Wopat guest-star on Smallville as an old friend of Jonathan's, an overdue bit of stunt casting no doubt prompted by the summer's Dukes of Hazzard movie. Will it take a Jeeves & Wooster remake to get Stephen Fry on an episode or three of House as House's rival from medical school?

Powerful posting

Dave of Dave's Long Box presents what he calls The Best Post Ever.

Super preview

Focused Totality provides a glimpse at Frank Quitely's artwork for the upcoming All-Star Superman book from DC. It's nice to have a Superman comic book to actually look forward to, one in which Superman might actually resemble the world's greatest superhero for a change of pace.

A comment on the post notes that some fanboys are denouncing the project on the grounds of the exceedingly minor tweaks Quitely has made to Superman's "S" emblem. I suspect that the tweaks are nothing more than someone at DC thinking, "Hey, if we have an All-Star specific 'S' we can use it on action figures and t-shirts and posters and..."

I'm just sayin', is all.

And we're back. Again.

Since my last entry, I've a) turned 31, which is practically 40, which is practically dead, and b) passed my oral prelim exam and am now ABD in political science. Just a dissertation to write and I'm officially learned. Of course, Dick Cheney is also ABD in political science, and, well, that's really a bad example, isn't it? On a more interesting hand, David Duchovny is ABD in English at Yale. Hollywood, here I come!

Spiked

It's nice to know I wasn't the only person who wondered what the hell was going on with Spike for most of the character's tenure on the latter seasons of Buffy. Turns out James Marsters himself was often at a loss:

"...That was the problem with Spike. In all honesty, that character had no objective 90 percent of the time. I would have to make it up ... To find your objective is like a gas pedal for acting. And if you can find that objective and play it honestly, it's like 'Wham!' And if you can't find it, you're mired."

Appetite for Destruction

Chris "Lefty" Brown gives praise to Guns & Roses' Appetite for Destruction:

...I love every song on this album. The weakest song that I still like is Anything Goes, and that's track 11. My favorite song is probably Sweet Child O'Mine, because of that legendary guitar intro that is forever burned into my head. It reminds me a little of the twin guitars during the Allman Brothers' Jessica only it's dripped in sex and booze of the Sunset Strip. It's hard-wired in my noggin and no amount of sugary pop songs, hip-hop, disco, or Robbie Williams will dislodge it. And I thank God for that every day.

Appetite was the CD we put on during late-night tech calls at the theatre in college when we were out of pizza and everyone's energy was starting to flag and we still had major work to do ahead of us. To this day, if I hear the opening to "Sweet Child O'Mine," I feel like I'm 19 again.

For about half an hour.

Then I get tired again.

Aging sucks.

4%

George W. Bush's unpopularity continues to grow; he's "now more unpopular than FDR, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Ford, and Clinton ever were, and has matched the highest disapproval rating of his idol, Ronald Reagan." This is not, actually, all that surprising; for all of the right wing's talk of mandates and pointing to maps where sparsely populated counties are colored red, Bush is a president who has only ever made it into office by the hair of his chinny chin chin. He lost the popular vote in 2000 and very nearly lost, as a wartime incumbent, to a less-than-charismatic candidate in 2004.

What does amuse me are the numbers reported: Bush's approval in the latest Gallup poll is an anemic 40 percent, and his disapproval is 56%. What I want to know is, what's wrong with the other 4 percent? Is there something they're waiting on? Have they not made up their mind yet?

I'm just sayin', is all, here.

Short people

This post at 2blowhards discusses some of the troubling implications of research that strongly suggests that many genetic predispositions are the key, neccessary-but-not-sufficient component of many great athletes' greatness. For instance:

One of the most remarkable physical specimens in the world is the great bicyclist Lance Armstrong. Armstrong's heart is 20% larger than a normal person's, and his body produces one-third less lactic acid than do the bodies of other top cyclists. It's thought that each one of these physical attributes exists in only a few hundred people on earth. Walker quotes one doctor, who says of Armstrong that, in terms of his physical capabilities, "He's probably one in a billion."

Of course, reading this made me think of Batman.

You see, at one point while I was watching Batman Begins I thought to myself, "One of the great things about being Bruce Wayne would be being able to afford masterfully tailored everything" (an insight I probably would not have had before I was a starving grad student; my Amazon wish list lives here, if my plight moves you). A second later, I thought, "It would sure help to have Christian Bale's build, of course."

Which got me thinking: Has anyone explored how much of Batman's success lies in his remarkable genetic luck? Sure, it was witnessing his parents' murder at the hands of a street thug that gave 8-year-old Bruce Wayne the impetus to become Batman. But he was very fortunate indeed that, as he embarked on his training, that he grew into an athletically-framed, six-foot-something guy with a lantern jaw instead of a five-foot-nothing guy with a weak chin and a tendency toward having a beer gut.

There was an Elseworlds Batman story a few years ago that took as its premise "What if Bruce Wayne was a poor immigrant in the 1930s?" Couldn't it be just as interesting a springboard to ask "What if Bruce Wayne was short and scrawny or in chronically poor health?" The closest thing I can think of to anything along these lines would be Rorshach wearing a full-face mask and lifts in his shoes in Watchmen, but that was really just an incidental detail to the main plot. The original Atom was 5'0", but had a wrestler's build and eventually got super-powers. But how would a Bruce Wayne, or similarly motivated would-be hero, whose genetic predispositions didn't help him wage a war on crime work around, or with, his limitations?

This is as it should be

I was amused to read this in a recent profile of Lynda Carter, aka TV's Wonder Woman:

...at the moment we're drawn to the display cabinet in the next room with the superhero accessories from the 1970s television series. There's that tiara, the two pairs of "bulletproof" bracelets and, yes, the golden lasso.

That's just so darn right it makes me all tingly.

Theme night!

You know it's going to be a weird evening when both the MI-5 and Farscape episodes you watch on DVD feature people getting their faces burned off.

Potter casting

Two thoughts on casting Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:

1. Scrimgeour, the new Minister of Magic, should be played by Bill Nighy. I'm surprised I have to point this out.
   
2. Since She Who Must Be Obeyed and I jst finished watching Yes, Minister and are gearing up for the sucessor series, Yes, Prime Minister, I couldn't help but imagine Paul Eddington's Jim Hacker in the chapter during which Scrimgeour briefs the PM on the war against Voldemort. Sadly, neither Eddington nor his foil, Sir Nigel Hawthorne, is with us any longer. But I would be greatly amused to see Derek Fowlds play a Prime Minister who may or may not be named Bernard Woolsey in the inevitable movie of Half-Blood Prince.
   

They're dropping like flies...

I've had what must be, by all accounts, remarkable luck getting my Justice League Unlimited action figures to stand up. But the same summer weather that has brought me terminal insomnia has brought many of these figures weak knees or ankles or something. As of now, Amazo, the Atom, Dove, Elongated Man, and Hawkgirl have given up the ghost and Batman's looking a little woozy himself. Maybe I'll get myself some action figure stands for my upcoming birthday...

Grant Morrison (Hearts) NY

Fanboy Rampage links to this terrific New York Times article about Grant Morrison's reimagining of New York City in the pages of his Seven Soldiers project -- which is the closest thing to a mainline DC comic I'm reading these days. A project where minor characters are dusted off and reinvented instead of slaughtered for shock value -- just imagine!

Snark aside, even if you don't know anything about comics this is worth your time.

Since I've been gone...

Apologies all around for the recent unplanned hiatus in blogging -- which will still be light for the forseeable future as I deal with a bulletproof case of insomnia (I can down more than the recommended dosage of Tylenol PM and keep going) and a home improvement project that seems to keep expanding every time I look at it. Stay tuned...

More on Scotty

Hank Steuver on the cultural impact of Jimmy Doohan's Scotty:

As Doohan and other cast members navigated that murky area between their own lives and the fictional lives that fans so desperately wanted to connect to, an even stranger thing happened: "Star Trek" improved, got deeper, taught philosophy and diversity. Even the movie versions got briefly better -- the screenplay for "The Wrath of Khan" (1982) has an almost Hemingway tautness.

Doohan showed up for "Khan" more visibly aged and heavier than the rest of the cast, but no less game. He broke our hearts three times in that adventure, on a voyage that really took it out of poor Scotty: He weeps when his cadets die in a torpedo attack from Khan; he begs Spock not to sacrifice himself to save the Enterprise from certain cataclysm; and he gets out the bagpipes for "Amazing Grace" at Spock's burial-at-space ceremony. (Ask your boyfriend what he wants at his funeral: "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes, please. Space-torpedo coffin optional.)

In spite of a generation of derision from those who never quite understood it (or its devoted fans), "Star Trek" took on an aura of class, and Doohan reveled in it. The cultural phenomenon would, in a way, bring him his third wife (who'd waited, groupie-like with a friend, to meet him backstage at a play he was doing in San Francisco), a marriage that lasted 30 years, until his death.

Doohan was Scotty; Scotty was Doohan, and an archetypal employee/colleague/friend was given a name: Scotty is the person in your office who swears that a project cannot possibly get done by deadline, then somehow pulls it out at the last minute. His favorite words: can't, won't, need more, impossible, losing power, can't, won't, overloaded, no way.

You have to let the Scottys blow off steam, and you have to remember what they always say in the end: Aye, aye, sir.

For those of you who plan to outlive me, at my funeral I want "Don't Fear the Reaper" and "One Particular Harbour" played. During the former, the assembled mourners will be given cowbells and asked to play along. And in the event that people aren't sad enough, She Who Must Be Obeyed has instructions to play "Don't Stop Me Now."

Beam him home

Looks like it's going to be one of those weeks:

James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died Wednesday. He was 85.
[...]
In a 1998 interview, Doohan was asked if he ever got tired of hearing the line "Beam me up, Scotty."

"I'm not tired of it at all," he replied. "Good gracious, it's been said to me for just about 31 years. It's been said to me at 70 miles an hour across four lanes on the freeway. I hear it from just about everybody. It's been fun."

Futuramarama

Good news from TVShowsOnDVD: A direct-to-DVD Futurama movie is in the works! Time to limbo!

Like something from Snow Crash, only less cool.

Last night She Who Must Be Obeyed was working late and, since she's the best wife ever, I was happy to drive downtown to pick her up when she was done. As I sat at a red light at close to 11:30 at night, a woman with short spiky hair, dressed in a sleeveless black top and black canvas shorts and with a mesh messenger back slung across her torso wheeled up alongside me on roller blades. By the time I decided to roll down the window and tell her she was the coolest thing I'd seen all day, she had decided to skate through the red light and continue on her way to wherever it was she was going. Weird.

RIP Jim Aparo

Via Fanboy Rampage comes news that longtime Batman artist Jim Aparo has died. Aparo's Batman is what I see when I think of the character, thanks to his lengthy run on The Brave & The Bold; I'd go so far as to say Aparo:Batman::Swan:Superman. There are some nicely done appreciations of his work here and here.

Terror and democracy

William Saletan's response to yesterday's terror attack on London is well worth your time. Here's an excerpt:

Now comes the message to "the British people" that "the British government" has brought more death on them. It's Blair's fault. It's Bush's fault. Turn against them, and the pain will stop. But it won't. As yesterday's message made clear, the bombers want us out of Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

Bin Laden's whole game plan is to turn the people of the democratic world against their governments. He thinks democracies are weak because their people, who are more easily frightened than their governments, can bring those governments down. He doesn't understand that this flexibility—and this trust—are why democracies will live, while he will die. Many of us didn't vote for Bush's government or Blair's. But we're loyal to them, in part because we were given a voice in choosing them. And if we don't like our governments, we can vote them out. We can't vote out terrorists. We can only kill them.

Commuting

Of all the images that came out of London yesterday, perhaps the most striking to me was a photo of a commuter who had been caught in the blast, tie askew, bandaged at the neck and forehead, covered in dust, with a blood-spattered newspaper still tucked under his right arm. It resonates partly because it seems a peculiarly British image, with the hardwiring for stiff upper lips called unexpectedly back into action. But it also reminds me of the guy She Who Must Be Obeyed and I talked to during the pedestrian exodus from D.C. to Northern Virginia on 9/11. He worked at the Pentagon, and was pretty certain his car had been caught in the crash, and didn't know anything more than what we'd seen on TV, except that if the crash was declared an act of terror his insurance would cover the car, but if it were an act of war it wouldn't. This struck us both as a grasping at something normal and pedestrian to make sense of the insane and extraordinary, similar to how a funeral focuses the mind on the most mundane details of life, like haircuts and dry cleaning and getting a ride to the airport.

I still wonder how that guy made out with his car...

Sartorial summer

Summer would be so much easier if everyone read this article:

Only in the summer do grown and usually well-dressed women don such juvenile and unflattering styles; only in the summer do professional and otherwise passably attired men dress as though preparing to clean out the garage. If you have left your home in the past few weeks, you have no doubt witnessed some of the season's more common missteps: exposed bra straps; bare, bulging midriffs; bad sandals. And you may have asked yourself why the first warm days of the year are like a Halloween costume party—a chance for people to wear whatever (or however little) they desire. After many such alarming sightings, I set out to catalog the worst summer fashion faux pas.

More than meets the eye

One of the joys of Netflix is that, since it's a flat monthly fee, you can add just about any damn thing you like to your rental queue and not feel like you're wasting money. Last night, for instance, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I watched Transformers: The Movie, which each of us were pretty sure we hadn't seen in about 20 years. I would be hard-pressed to describe the movie as "good" in any conventional way, quite honestly, and I'd completely forgotten about the incessant, often thematically-inappropriate 80s synth-pop background music, and the vocal performances were downright strange. There's really nothing resembling characterization in anything but the broadest strokes, and there's not a plot so much as an overlapping sequence of things that happen, and some of the characters happen to be standing in the places where those things happen, and so on.

But She and I both thought that in spite -- or perhaps because -- of all that, the movie is also some kind of deranged work of cinematic ADHD genius. Because when I was 12 and saw this movie, I loved it. Loved it. Who cares that the characterizations are paper thin? A bunch of Autobots on the run from Decepticons who have been upgraded by an evil robot planet that EATS PLANETS crashed on the Planet of Junk (yes, that was its name) and fought the Junkions (robots made of -- wait for it -- junk)! And when some other Autobots eventually arrive on the Planet of Junk to rescue the first group of Autobots everyone dances to Weird Al's "Dare to be Stupid" before both groups of Autobots and the Junkions fly off to defeat the giant evil planet-eating robot planet.

Plot? We don't need no steenking plot. Transformers: The Movie is wonderful and perfect just the way it is; if someone had tried to make it a proper movie with a three-act structure and character arcs the whole thing would have been ruined. This movie is the equivalent of eating an entire can of chocolate frosting, and I mean that in a good way.

Live and learn

Witchblade is still being published. Who knew? During the dark days of my tenure at Mania.com, I occasionally had to read -- and I use the term very, very loosely since the comic consisted entirely in splash pages and large-paneled pages of Michael Turner's anorexic, slow-eyed pseudofemales with words sort of squeezed in wherever they could be fit. I have to wonder if the audience that read (or rather, bought) the comic then will have any interest in a new direction that's not "about the lead character's clothes miraculously falling off."

I must own this.

The Adventures of Superman is coming out on DVD. And I must own at least this first set, which includes the less campy first season of the show as well as the Superman vs. the Mole Men movie. That's a lot of good stuff for under forty bucks.

On the use of the paper shredder as an instrument of political protest

Josh Marshall presents a reader's first-hand account of an anti-Social Security rally that would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Scratch that, it's funny AND pathetic.

The art of the deal

Rewatching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I'm struck by how fortunate it is that the Weasley twins were born into a wizarding family, since it means they deal harmless magical pranks to younger students, instead of drugs.

Best. Wife. Ever.

So I saw one of the sneak preview screenings of Serenity last night. And I saw it entirely through the good graces and benevolence of the woman known to readers of this blog as She Who Must Be Obeyed. You see, we were unable to get tickets online, so I had the brilliant, or possibly deeply, deeply geekish, idea of standing outside the theatre before the screening with a sign advertising our need for tickets. She Who Must Be Obeyed thought it was worth a try, and last night around an hour and a half before the screening we set out for the theatre, and I stood there with a sign and She Who Must Be Obeyed stood there with the guy with the sign.

About three minutes after we got there a guy in a Firefly T-shirt said he had one extra ticket. And while I was inclined to pass, since there were two of us, She Who Must Be Obeyed insisted that we buy it from him: one was better than none, and worst-case I could go see the movie and she could come pick me up when it was done. My arm thus twisted, we bought the ticket. And we continued to stand in front of the theatre with our sign altered to read that we now needed one, not two, tickets.

A second ticket never materialized, so She Who Must Be Obeyed sent me into the theatre to see the movie. This despite the fact that it was she who, way back in 1998 or so, introduced me to Joss Whedon's world of characters who get under your skin and stay there. So today I am compelled, as an insufficient gesture of thanks, to tell the Internets that She Who Must Be Obeyed is the Best Wife Ever, and that last night's display of generosity far, far above and beyond the call of matrimony is merely my latest reminder of why She Who Must Be Obeyed is also the Best Wife Ever.

Spoon!

If you're enjoying the nightly reruns of the long-gone-from-the-airwaves Tick cartoon on Toon Disney, check out these custom Tick action figures. Anyone remember when people were paying hundreds of dollars for a Man-Eating Cow action figure?

Newsworthiness

I've mentioned before that I grew up in Scranton, PA, and I was fascinated to read about a bizarre domestic incident involving the area's Congressman a few months ago. I didn't realize until talking to my father on Sunday, however, that the local newspaper is only now covering the story, and apparently had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing to. Nice district if you can get it.

I was also amused to read that the Congressman and the young woman in question met at a Young Republicans meeting. You can't make this stuff up. Or rather, you could, but then your editor would say something like "Leave that stuff to Carl Hiaasen" or something.

More Schmospotting

Another update on Joe Schmo actors: Steve Mallory, AKA Ernie the Heir on Joe Schmo 2, is a cast member on VH1's mildly diverting and amusing series BSTV. From the original JS, Kristen "Dr. Pat" Wiig can be seen in TV ads for Time Warner digital telephone service. Lance Krall, also of the original Schmo, has been headlining his own sketch comedy show on Spike TV. Of The Lance Krall Show I can only say two things: Apparently everyone will have their own TV show on Spike TV someday, and it's an interesting change of pace to see a Playmate of the Year doing sketch comedy.

Cruisin'

David Poland puts his finger on the sheer ick factor of the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes coupling:

Tom Cruise is acting like a guy who walked into the casino, won huge, and is on a losing streak. The smaller the stack gets, the more desperate he is to play bigger and bigger amounts to get back the winnings he has "lost."
[...]
A 40-year-old man marrying a 24-year-old less than two months after they met is desperate. There is no other appropriate word. It doesn't matter if you are Tom Cruise or if you have a movie coming or whatever else.

Listening to a report of their engagement, at a press conference a reporter floated the question of whether they got engaged at the Eiffel Tower and they confirmed. Fuck! There is no way that was not a set up. The reporter was told and given the opportunity to ask the question, rather than Team Cruise sending out a press release. Double fuck! The reason so many people think it's movie promotion is that it has all the hallmarks of something so obvious that it can only sustain for a few months, like a movie promotional scheme.

I'm generally not one to take much of an interest in the private lives of celebrities -- I think the Brad'n'Jennifer divorce is sad, and the emaciation of Lindsay Lohan downright tragic, and that seeing such happenings as anything other than real events happening to real people is kind of unhealthy -- but Cruise's recent antics are making me rather irritated with myself for enjoying so many of his recent movies and thinking he was maturing into a really interesting actor.

Nope...

Somehow Giant-Size Spider-Woman doesn't have the same ring to it as Giant-Size Man-Thing. It doesn't even have any extra oomph for the hyphenation fetishists who must be out there somewhere.

My visual dictionary

Someday, when I am a tenured nonagenarian professor rattling around an ivory tower somewhere, I will create a visual dictionary of the English language. And under the listing for "unintended consequences" I will put a picture of a man who, having spent twenty minutes trying to get silicone caulk to come out of a tube, steps on it, covering his favorite sneakers in said caulk, which he then spends over an hour trying to clean off of them, and in the process gets some of it on various household items and the refinished hardwood floors, which then must likewise be cleaned off.

Might take more than one picture, actually.

Once more for the record

Terry Schiavo was not abused:

An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.

And recovery was impossible:

"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he said. "This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

I look forward to apologies and retractions from the amateur neurologists who spent months baselessly accusing Michael Schiavo of abuse, murder, and worse.

Boosterrific!

The Comic Treadmill takes a look at some early issues of the fondly-remebered Booster Gold solo series. I note in the comments on the entry in question that the 25 issues of Booster Gold would just fit into one of DC's just-announced black-and-white DC Showcase collections, as would the Blue Beetle series of similar vintage...

Dewberry

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have decided, after watching the first three episodes of Gordon Ramsay's hilarious FOX reality show Hell's Kitchen, that the name "Dewberry," sported by the show's requisite obese, probably mentally deficient contestant*, should be turned into a general term of derision. For instance:

• "Sorry it took me so long to buy milk, dear; there was a real Dewberry in front of me in line at the store."
  
• "Police suspect a neighborhood Dewberry is responsible for the rash of garden hose violations."
  
• "Exit polls show that the president's re-election can be attributed to a high turnout among Dewberrys."
  

You know, that sort of thing. Feel free to leave additional uses of the term "Dewberry" in the comments.


*This phrasing, or something very close to it, is shamelessly stolen from someone or other on Best Week Ever.

(Incidentally, how on earth does Gordon Ramsay have the time to be the greatest chef in England? He's doing this series, and BBC America has run, I think, three Ramsay series and counting, and even if his books are all ghostwritten, when the hell does he have time to run multiple restaurants?)

Peter Falk reads STAR WARS to his ailing grandson

"And every time Darth Vader said 'As you wish' to Grand Moff Tarkin, what he was really saying was 'I love you.'"

Did anyone, ever, enjoy high school?

One reads about a story like this and wonders if high school administrators go to a special center to have their brains removed, or to have their heads inserted into their own asses. Perhaps the first, then the other:

Thomas Benya wore a braided bolo tie under his purple graduation gown this week as a subtle tribute to his Native American heritage.

Administrators at his Charles County school decided the string tie was too skinny. They denied him his diploma, at least temporarily, as punishment.

The bolo, common in contemporary American Indian culture, is not considered a tie by his public school in Pomfret. If Benya wants the diploma, he will have to schedule a conference with the administrators.
[...]

In March, Benya's high school sent a letter to parents and seniors explaining that "adherence to the dress code is mandatory," with the word mandatory in bold and underlined. For girls: white dresses or skirts with white blouses. For boys: dark dress pants with white dress shirts and ties.

That left Benya's classmates free to wear bright orange, red and striped ties under their gowns at the ceremony Wednesday at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro. One senior girl wore a headscarf and long pants for religious reasons.

I went to a Jesuit high school where the graduation attire consisted in tuxedos for the boys and white dresses for the girls. Which made the whole thing look like a Moonie wedding. There was a pro forma "vote" on whether to wear that or traditional caps and gowns each year, which vote was always rigged or otherwise disregarded by the administration; my senior year, we were told that if we did vote for caps and gowns, we wouldn't be able to wear caps because -- I kid you not -- they could put someone's eye out when they were tossed. Perhaps the most outrageous thing about the situation was that the guys' tuxes were provided free of charge by a local company hoping to scare up prom rentals, while the girls all had to buy the exact same dress. Dumbassery, I think, is endemic to those whose chosen path in life involves being a high school administrator.

Mythology, Schmythology...

...when Fox is done making DVD sets collecting all of the "mythology" episodes of The X-Files, can we get a few sets dedicated to the more off-kilter and light-hearted episodes of the series? You know the ones I mean: "Conundrum," "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," Duchovny's first two directorial efforts, that sort of thing? And end it where the series should have known enough to stop, with the second-last episode of Season 7, which would have been a perfectly good coda to a series that had been amiably coasting since the season's midpoint.

Things I have learned in the last ten minutes

You cannot say "wang" in a Saturday Night Live rerun on E! without having it bleeped out, even if the rerun is airing at a later hour than that at which the episode in question was initially aired. Every Ladies' Man sketch ever done is now 60% less funny.

An open letter

Right Honourable Tony Blair
10 Downing Street
London, England

Dear Mr. Blair:

Last night I watched the programme Green Wing on BBC America. It had been advertised as a hospital comedy, similar in tone to the superb American series Scrubs. However, this was a blatant lie, as Scrubs is funny and Green Wing is not. It is, in fact, like a humor Dementor, in that the show seems actively to suck whatever comedic instincts or abilities the actors and scripts may have initially possessed into a Lovecraftian nethervoid. I would go so far as to say that the show was so bad that it came off as an imitation of Scrubs made by someone who cannot tell why the Joe Don Baker film Mitchell is a bad movie and William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. is a good one, but instead thinks they're very similar in quality because they are both set in Los Angeles and have car chases in them. Similarly, both Scrubs and Green Wing take place in a hospital and involve set pieces, deliberately nonrealistic behavior, and absurd situations and characters. But on Scrubs such things are accomplished with charm and wit and panache and emotional truth, while on Green Wing they are done with shrieking and stupidity and clumsiness and every single word uttered by every single character on the show rings false, including "the" and "and."

As you are the democratic leader of the United Kingdom, I would like you to give me the hour of my life I wasted on this show back.

I remain, etc. etc.

Ditko!

Salon has a neat piece about Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, hands, and the sheer weird rightness (or right weirdness, or both) of his art. (Via Tony Isabella.)

Shatner? I hardly know 'er!

I suspect the upcoming DVD release of T.J. Hooker may signal that Shatnermania has jumping of the shark. Of course, I probably said the same thing about the release of the Encyclopedia Shatnerica, so what do I know?

Monochrome

Superhero costumes are often garish mixes of clashing colors -- just look at the Golden Age Green Lantern, with his bewildering combination of red, green, purple, and yellow, or Vibe's blindness-inducing original yellow, red, and black fighting togs. Some heroes get around this with sensible color combinations -- red and blue (Superman, Spider-Man, the Atom), green and black (the Green Lantern Corps), two shades of the same color blue (Green Arrow, the Blue Beetle).

Others, though, take a monochromatic approach: If a costume is all one color, it HAS to match!

We've got the original Ray, who dressed all in yellow; his son opted for a mix of yellow, white, and black, but was back in a variation of the original suit for Kingdom Come.

Also in Kingdom Come, we saw the Blue Beetle don metallic armor that was entirely one shade of blue.

For most of his career, Daredevil has worn a costume that's entirely red. Elektra has tended to wear either all red or all white, depending (I think) on whether she's alive or dead at the moment.

The Golden Age Robotman was entirely silver, and each of the Metal Men was all one color.

On the Justice League cartoon, Amazo started out as gray before turning golden.

I'm sure there are folks out there I'm missing. Anyone have anything to add?

Give my man a cappucino -- and make it a quadruple.

I've been enjoying Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo for years, and can't remember a time when I didn't check it out two or three times a day. So I'm really enjoying his newly-launched venture, TPM Cafe, which is a sort of group blog focusing on progressive issues and questions. The highlight of this first week of the site is a guest-blogging stint by former Senator John Edwards, focusing on poverty. I'm a big fan of Senator Edwards, and voted for him in our local precinct caucus last spring, so I'm thrilled to see him continuing to be active in public affairs and making use of the connective power of new media as part of that effort. This site looks like it will be tremendously useful and interesting, so check it out, won't you?

Ding-dong, the mural's dead

When we bought our home in January of 2004, we faced some rather unusual repainting issues. Granted, we were sick of living in white-walled apartments, as we'd done for the previous four or so years, but our inclination to paint our new home in bold colors -- an inclination borne largely from our addiction to watching DIY programs on BBC America -- became something of a necessity thanks to the preverse painting proclivities of the property's previous owners.

For instance, one might say that the front room of the house had something of an Egyptian theme going on, if one had no real knowledge of Egypt save having watched that episode of One Step Beyond with the reincarnated pharaoh on a UHF channel many years ago. The walls were a creamy yellow color, and there were what appeared to be pyramids sponge-painted in gold in two corners of the room, except that they looked like something that would have been painted before the discovery of two-point perspective. Where there weren't pyramids, there was more gold sponge-painting for what the people who did it no doubt thought was some sort of texturing effect.

It took a coat of primer and three coats of paint to get rid of the damn things.

Much of the rest of the house featured similarly awful painting -- bizarrely flat and lifeless colors combined with inartful attempts at effects, our job was not helped by the previous owners' apparent inability to spackle holes, remove nails and hooks from walls, or use painters' tape. There's no need to detail them all; suffice it to say that we covered most of them before we moved in, and are making slow but steady progress on what little is left.

Today, for instance, I painted over the Wizard of Oz mural in the basement.

You read that right: Wizard. Oz. Mural. Basement.

One corner of the basement -- the outside wall of the finished part of the basement, which houses our office and our exercise equipment (even that which is not overly vast can contain multitudes, you see) -- featured a strange painting of a nearly surreal tornado against a sloppy, scribbly blue-and-white background, with a street sign depicting the "corner" or Kansas and Oz, a painting of a farmhouse, and random cow stickers scattered around for good measure. I have a sneaking suspicion that the cow stickers came first, and the rest of the mural -- I really hate to use the word, as it implies some level of artistic skill and integrity -- was concocted as an excuse to put the cow stickers on the walls. The whole thing would have been less disturbing, I think, if it had depicted scenes from the HBO series Oz.

In a perfect world, we would have been able to get rid of the damn thing last year. But we had enough other work to do in and around the house that repainting one wall of the basement was bumped way down the priority list. A few weekends ago, however, we acquired some new storage shelving for the basement, and that gave me the excuse I needed to eradicate the bloody atrocity from our wall. I found a tan paint that the previous owners had left behind in the basement, which was a surprisingly pleasant color and, more importantly, nearly exactly matched the existing color of most of the rest of the basement, and one peeling away of the cow stickers and two coats of paint later every trace of the damn mural was gone.

Ding-dong, I say. Ding. Fucking. Dong.

Good Vibe-rations?

Scipio gives praise unto Vibe. God help me, I'm almost convinced.

Plotz

So, can anyone watch the season finale of Smallville explain to me exactly what the hell was the resolution of the Jane Seymour/reincarnated French witch subplot that's been rendering the whole show even more incoherent than usual all season long? I mean, seriously, what the hell was that thing? It's the kind of subplot that makes you wonder what the creators of the show were smoking, and why that substance isn't more heavily regulated by the DEA and FDA and Gruff the Crime Dog and those sorts of folks.

Contrast it to the Chi McBride evil hospital administrator subplot on House. I didn't much like it, and I didn't think it was executed especially well, but the idea was a perfectly sound one: Create a cantankerous, stubborn foil for our show's stubborn, cantankerous protagonist. It flowed completely logically from the show's premise and characters. If it didn't have the best execution in the world, well, these things happen and let's move on.

Whereas Smallville's Jane Seymour plot appeared to be about reincarnated French witches fighting over some mystical Kryptonian artifacts. Put aside the sheer cruelty on the part of the show's creators in coming up with a subplot that required Kristen Kreuk to attempt to act on a regular basis (I'm not sure if that was more cruel toward her or to us. No, wait, I am sure. It was much, much more cruel to us). Did someone in the conference room say, "Hey! You know what the young people are into today? Reincarnated French witches! There's a kiosk at at the mall about 'em, even!" Was this some stealth diplomacy initiative to repair relations with the French? I dunno, the show's produced in Canada, maybe a writer was trying to score points with a Quebecoix intern or something...

Faint praise

I think it says something about what a cesspool of butchery mainstream DC and Marvel superpeople comics have become that these pass for favorable notices of the new direction on Firestorm. I know, I know, lots and lots of people are buying books like Identity Crisis and Avengers Disassembled, but, well, lots and lots of people watch Bill O'Reilly, too.

Some more Star Wars links

This line from Roger Ebert's review sums up a lot of my feelings about Lucas and the Star Wars phenomenon:

George Lucas has achieved what few artists do; he has created and populated a world of his own. His "Star Wars" movies are among the most influential, both technically and commercially, ever made. And they are fun. If he got bogged down in solemnity and theory in "Episode II: Attack of the Clones," the Force is in a jollier mood this time, and "Revenge of the Sith" is a great entertainment.

David Edelstein of Slate makes a similar note:

It must be said that there's a touch of the term paper in how his characters' fates play out, and the actors still wear the glazed, helpless expression that comes from declaiming lines with no subtext in the direction of Creatures To Be Animated Later. But it's worth doffing our beanies to a man who wouldn't settle for Flash Gordon—who was driven to turn a Saturday-matinee space serial into something that needed the combined forces of Milton and Shakespeare to do it full justice. In the end, there's a breadth, a fullness to the Star Wars saga. It's so much more than the sum of its clunks.

I'm far from the world's biggest Star Wars fan, but I think it's important not to lost sight of the fact that these movies are the realization of an intensely personal artistic vision, and that the things on the screen are there because one guy wanted them to be. That's too often forgotten, sadly.

For something completely different, check out this old Salon article about Irvin Kershner, who of course directed The Empire Strikes Back all those years ago.

Lucas, you fool!

One of the more reliable forms of entertainment in these troubled times is watching conservatives freak out at any hint of apostasy in popular culture; very often the spectacle of one of these folks screaming "INFIDEL!" is as entertaining as (or moreso than) the original. You know what I mean: Like when an episode of 24 depicts a Muslim who isn't a terrorist, or when there's an issue of Green Lantern with the invidious message that Beating Up Gay People For Being Gay Is Wrong, and that sort of thing.

The wingnuts are out in full force over Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, of course, and Roy Edroso deserves combat pay for actually wading through all of this bilge to pick out the funniest bits and mocking them, cruelly. Another criticism I thought was hysterical came from the ever-amusing Monitor Duty, wherein it was alleged that "Lucas seems obsessed a touch too much in Eastern religions and philosophies to fully connect with a Judeo-Christian-influenced American audience."

And, really, I can see what this guy is talking about -- I mean, the Star Wars films have really been held back by this sort of thing. That's why American audiences have only paid $1,802,341,185 to see the first five Star Wars movies, after all, and it's kept the total merchandising sales to only a million bajillion dollars or so. If only the movies had been more Judeo-Christian friendly, and had less of those darn Eastern religions and philosophies in 'em, they could have made two million bajillion dollars, I'll bet!

(For the record, I enjoyed the hell out of the movie; it more than exceeded my expectations and justified the renewed excitement I felt about the movie in the wake of the wonderful Clone Wars cartoons. I want to see what Lucas does next; I'd love to see him take his CGI technology and apply it to a musical...)

Super Shorts

One more thought on an upcoming DC Comics cover: Adventures of Superman #643 depicts a Superman whose costume looks very much inspired by the recently-unveiled movie costume: Note the rather short shorts and the vaguely funky "S" shield on the comic (versus the more traditional rendition of the "S"). I wonder if this is an editorially-mandated thing, or just one artist's choice on one particular cover? Either way, I'm glad to see that the superfluous belt "S" on the movie costume hasn't made its way into the comic. Yet.

Patterns

One of the benefits of having an obsessively alphabetized DVD collection is that you notice weird, meaningless patterns when they emerge. For instance:

• We own two movies whose titles start with "L." Both movies star Bill Murray.
  
• We own two movies whose titles start with "O." Both movies star George Clooney.
  
• We own two movies whose titles start with "Z." Both movies feature Ben Stiller.
  

Like I said, weird, but meaningless, but weird nonetheless.

Mental floss

You know you've read too many comics in your life -- and probably need many, many years of therapy -- when your reaction to the cover of Hawkman #43, which depicts the long-forgotten character Golden Eagle slashing through a mock-up of a page from DC's old Who's Who series, is to think, "The real reason that's an entertaining cover is that the Golden Eagle never had a Who's Who entry!"

Leggo my logo!

I don't have much of a reaction, positive or negative, to the announcement of DC's new corporate logo, save that it's a little more unwieldly than the old one in that it's not contained in a nice, simple circle. My question is this: Will the logo change on DC's archival collections as well? Because that would really suck; I'd hate to have, say, 12 volumes of the Legion of Super-Heroes archives with the old logo and then the rest with the newer one. Or, worse, for the logo to change on subsequent printings of the archives volumes, so that if I ever get around to buying volumes 5 and 9 of the Legion series (one of the joys of only buying DC archives when they're on huge sales is that, with longer series, one catches as catch can), they'll have the new logo on their spines and stick out like sore thumbs amid the volumes with the old one.

Veronica Mars recaps

If you've been watching Veronica Mars this past TV season, don't miss this excellent wrap-up and exegesis on the series as a whole in Salon:

It's fitting that the first season of "Veronica Mars" ends with more questions than answers. The answer to "Who killed Lilly Kane?" has turned out to be relatively clear-cut. But the whodunit structure of "Veronica Mars" is something of a red herring, because what really entangles us, and keeps us on the hook, are the bigger questions -- they're the key to the show's momentum, its sly sense of fun, and its emotional resonance. Veronica is played by Bell with such eminently reasonable self-assurance that we're almost fooled into thinking we don't need to worry about her -- with her small frame, no-nonsense blond locks and dark, glittering eyes, she seems both sophisticated and mischievously elfin. Veronica can, and does, take care of everything: She tries hard to help out with the family finances, and she gives up her own hard-earned college savings to help her mother straighten out so she can come home. Each successive episode only confirms Veronica's perceived invincibility -- which is why it's so devastating when we see her confused or afraid, or when she's overcome with missing her mother.

And the indispensable Teevee.org has more:

During the course of the season, I twice thought that I’d sussed out the killer’s identity for certain. I was wrong both times.

Why was I so confused? Because on this show, no one’s quite who they seem. The thuggish biker’s got a sense of honor to balance his enthusiastically criminal nature. The snarky, sneering rich kid conceals genuine decency and compassion. That kind, inspiring teacher? He’s getting a little too close to his attractive young students. It would have been easy for Thomas and his team to make the victim herself a flawless little angel, but flashbacks revealed Lily as spoiled, callous and more than a little promiscuous. It’s difficult to feel sorry for anyone like that, no matter what their fate — difficult, but not impossible.

Mars wouldn’t let any character among its talented cast get away with being entirely “good” or “bad” — even Veronica herself. She was tough, smart and resourceful in pursuing Lily’s killer — but despite her reluctance, she was willing to use and manipulate the few friends she had, stretching their trust to the breaking point to further her investigation. Thomas allowed to see what, up until the season’s haunting final moments, Veronica couldn’t: Her search for Lily’s murderer was really an attempt to fix her own screwed-up life. And in that respect, it was doomed from the start.

I remain grateful and amazed that we'll be getting a second season of Veronica Mars; I was prepared to clear out shelf space on the DVD rack for it alongside Freaks and Geeks and Firefly. Now if the TV gods would just give us more Arrested Development and Eyes...

Harold?

Am I the only one who found it odd that John Cho, who played a twenthysomething guy named Harold who lived in New Jersey in last summer's Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, played a twentysomething guy named Harold who lived in New Jersey in this week's episode of House?

Zissou!

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou was one of the best movies I saw last year so I was thrilled to see the 2-disc Criterion Collection edition of it on sale this morning for slightly less than the price at Amazon. Plus there were added goodies: The cashier gave both me and She Who Must Be Obeyed official Team Zissou knit caps, a free issue of Entertianment Weekly, and signed us up for 16 free weeks of EW. Is that a great way to end finals week or what?

Meanwhile, I see that at Amazon the 1-disc Criterion Collection edition of the movie costs a whopping 60 cents less than the 2-disc version. So if you're thinking about it, and don't want to go to Suncoast and get free stuff with the movie, at least spend the extra 60 cents and get a disc full of extras.

Hiatus? You hardly know us!

As you might have noticed from the absymal lack of posting, I'm kinda busy right now with end-of-the-semester madness, so there probably won't be another update until after next week. Until then, enjoy this article about the possibly-familial friendship between Jimmy Buffett and Warren Buffett, Cookie Monster's Blog, and Western Democrat.

Pixellated

This is really a lot of fun: How many comic characters can you identify from a 12-pixel image of their torsos?

And speaking of familiar names...

I saw a poster for a History Department conference at which one of the speakers will be an historian named Gunter Bischof. I should attend just to have him sign my copy of Cryptonomicon...

No wonder the name sounds familiar...

For the last few weeks of Papal speculation, I kept getting a weird itching feeling in my brain whenever I heard a reference fo Cardinal Ratzinger (now, of course, Pope Benedict XVI...which still sounds strange to me, since John Paul II is the only Pope I remember).

Then I realized it was because Jason Robards' character in the criminally underrated movie Quick Change is named "Rotzinger." And since I've figured out the source of that weird itching feeling, it's gone away.

In related news, Quick Change is finally coming to DVD this fall.

Sign of the times

How can you tell things are going badly for the Republicans? When John Leo is calling for cooler heads to prevail. It's a fair point, but, gee, it took him this long to notice? And, boy, why is it that his article lead with anonymous nobodies making idiotic statements on the "unhinged left" before talking about the Congressional leadership and conservative activists who are making and encouraging threats against the judiciary?

Beetlemania

Two of the links in Mike Sterling's massive Blue Beetle linkblogging are to custom action figures I've made. There should be one or two more of those on my customs site once finals and my orals are done...

Terri Schaivo was not abused.

This news will come as no surprise to those who were paying attention to the merits of the case:

State investigators in Florida have found no clear evidence that Terri Schiavo was denied rehabilitation, neglected or otherwise abused, according to documents released yesterday by the state's Department of Children and Families.

The agency completed nine reports of abuse accusations made from 2001 to 2004, including neglect of hygiene, denial of dental care, poisoning and physical harm. The accusations, which have been widely reported, focus on Michael Schiavo, the husband of Terri. Ms. Schiavo died on March 31, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed.

Of course, this will almost certainly make no difference to the unholy legions of theocrats who sought do deny Terri Schaivo's wishes -- and even her marriage, for God's sake -- but one more time: Michael Schiavo did not abuse his wife. Will those who have defamed him for trying to carry out his wife's wishes about her own medical care apologize? I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.

Weed

Scalzi on legalizing marijuana:

...sure, why not. A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for the Willamette Weekly arguing that we should legalize pot because doing so would kill off the entirely asinine pothead culture, and that could only be seen as a good thing. The potheads were of course outraged, and thus I became perhaps the only person ever protested by the pro-legalization folks for arguing for making pot legal. As you might expect, I found this almost unbearably amusing.

The pursuit of trivia

Slate takes a look at what it sees as the decline of Trivial Pursuit, which I played far, far too much of in college:

Trivial Pursuit became a great repository of middlebrow culture. Flip through a stack of cards at random and you assemble a list middlebrow writers (James Thurber, Gore Vidal), movies (Mutiny on the Bounty, Love Story), and television shows (Gunsmoke). In 1983, a marketing consultant named Linda Pezzano shipped board games to actors featured in the entertainment questions. Pat Boone, Gregory Peck, and James Mason sent back adoring fan letters, which Selchow & Righter used in promotions. When Time reported that Trivial Pursuit had become popular with the cast of The Big Chill—the quintessential boomer flick—the game attained a newfound cachet. To win at Trivial Pursuit was to achieve something greater than mastering a board game. It was to achieve mastery of one's subculture: to have successfully determined which bits of information to retain (anything about Gunsmoke) and which to discard (anything about Rimbaud).

With nothing less than cultural identity on the line, Trivial Pursuit matches became pitched battles. "This game can make you feel incredibly brilliant or incredibly stupid," a player told the New York Times in 1984. The social stigma of losing necessitated strategy, even chicanery. In a 1983 volume called How To Win at Trivial Pursuit, author Robert J. Heller suggests that a player memorize all 6,000 answers before his opponents arrive and be prepared to contest the validity of any question in which his answer is deemed to be wrong. He continues, "If your opponents are people with whom you may expect to play again, you will be better served by suggesting that the correct answers not be read aloud." If that fails, a player may attempt to "throw his opponents into a tizzy by providing extra bits of information or alternative correct answers they will have to look up, only to grudgingly agree that he is right." And, finally: "The possibilities are limited only by the deviousness of your mind and the viciousness of your competitive drive. Have fun!"

[...]
Trivia lives; it's generalist trivia, the kind of fluency that Trivial Pursuit prized, that's ailing. Just as the Internet splintered trivia into thousands of niches, Trivial Pursuit has contented itself with turning out games like "90s Time Capsule" and "Book Lover's," and, more frighteningly, those devoted solely to the vagaries of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Gone is the proud generalist of the original Trivial Pursuit, who knew the most common Russian surname (Ivanov) and the international radio code word for the letter O (Oscar). In his place is the specialist, who knows every inch of Return of the Jedi. There are many of us have a nagging fear we belong to the latter group. "What jungle planet do Wookiees hail from?" a Star Wars card asks. Let's say, hypothetically and only for the sake of argument, that I know the answer. Who is supposed to be impressed by that?

Hey ho, I'm from Idaho!

Idaho is Napoleon Dynamtie country.

Breaking political news

This just in: Rick Santorum is sleazy. In other news, run, Bob, run!

Too something for comfort

TV Shows On DVD has the lowdown on whether the DVDs of the second season of Too Close For Comfort will include the network versions of the episodes or the shorter syndicated cuts. On other news, there are apparently people who care whether the DVDs of the second season of Too Close For Comfort will include the network versions of the episodes or the shorter syndicated cuts, and these people should really take their pills like the nice doctors told them to.

Belated fools

Teevee.org is not only one of the best television web sites on the Internets, it's also one of the only places to do funny April Fools Day gags. Last year's spit-take on Salon was hilarious, and they managed to top it this year with a send-up of vapid celebrity blogs. They're all worth reading, but far and away the funniest was NoahHathaway.org, a blog supposedly by the actor who played the annoying kid on the original Battlestar Galactica. Any resemblance to Wil Wheaton's bizarre cyber-celebrity is, I'm sure, purely coincidental.

Good news, bad news

There is an impressive number of TV series I've fallen for only to have them killed by idiotic TV networks and programming executives: Firefly, Freaks and Geeks, Andy Richter, Undeclared, and Wonderfalls are just the tip of the iceberg. So it's always nice to hear that a great show struggling in the ratings will be returning for a second season, like Veronica Mars will be in a triumph of hope and quality over low ratings:

For UPN, gambling on a sophomore year of "Veronica Mars" was an easy call, network president Dawn Ostroff said. The Tuesday 9 p.m. drama starring Kristen Bell generated significant affection from critics and pop culture chatter, especially for Bell.

"This is the type of smart, compelling show we want viewers to expect from UPN," Ostroff said.

Unfortunately, ABC is screwing around with Boston Legal:

Meanwhile, ABC has demonstrated its faith in its highly promising midseason entry "Grey's Anatomy" by confirming that the medical ensemble drama that has taken off behind "Desperate Housewives" on Sunday will remain in that slot for the rest of the season, displacing another freshman drama, "Boston Legal." "Legal," however is assured of returning in the fall by an early pickup ABC gave the drama last week.

Granted, the show's been picked up for another season, but it's hard not to look at this sort of network futzing around with a good show and see it as bad mojo on the wall.

DOOM!

And on Tuesday, there came custom Doom Patrol Mini-Mates, and they were adorable, and there was much rejoicing.

Books meme

Via Chris "Lefty" Brown:


- Bold those you have read
- Italicize those you started, but didn't finish
- Add three books after the last one

001. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
002. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
003. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
004. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
005. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
006. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
007. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
008. 1984, George Orwell
009. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
010. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
011. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
012. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
013. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
014. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
015. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
016. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
017. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
018. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
019. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
020. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
021. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
022. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling
023. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
024. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
025. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
026. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
027. Middlemarch, George Eliot
028. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
029. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
030. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
031. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
032. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
033. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
034. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
035. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
036. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
037. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
038. Persuasion, Jane Austen
039. Dune, Frank Herbert
040. Emma, Jane Austen
041. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
042. Watership Down, Richard Adams
043. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
044. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
045. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
046. Animal Farm, George Orwell
047. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
048. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
049. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
050. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
051. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
052. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
053. The Stand, Stephen King
054. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
055. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
056. The BFG, Roald Dahl
057. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
058. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
059. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
060. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
061. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
062. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
063. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
064. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
065. Mort, Terry Pratchett
066. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
067. The Magus, John Fowles
068. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
069. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
070. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
071. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
072. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
073. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
074. Matilda, Roald Dahl
075. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
076. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
077. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
078. Ulysses, James Joyce
079. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
080. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
081. The Twits, Roald Dahl
082. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
083. Holes, Louis Sachar
084. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
085. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
086. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
087. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
088. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
089. Magician, Raymond E Feist
090. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
091. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
092. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
093. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
094. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
095. Katherine, Anya Seton
096. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
097. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
098. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
099. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt Bleh.
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith's Brood), Octavia Butler (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Divine Comedy, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
374. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick
375. Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb
376. number9dream, David Mitchell
377. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
378. Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris
379. Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
380. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
381. Dance On My Grave, Aidan Chambers
382. Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Leguin
383. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
384. Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
385. Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett
386. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
387. A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin
388. The Egyptian, Mika Waltari
389. Moab Is My Washpot, Stephen Fry
390. Contact, Carl Sagan
391. Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
392. Feersum Endjinn, Iain M. Banks
393. The Golden, Lucius Shepard
394. Decamerone, Boccaccio
395. Birdy, William Wharton
396. The Red Tent, Anita Diaman
397. The Foundation, Isaac Asimov
398. Il Principe, Machiavelli
399. Post Office, Charles Bukowski
400. Macht und Rebel, Abu Rasul
401. Grass, Sheri S. Tepper
402. The Long Walk, Richard Bachman
403. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
404. The Joy Of Work, Scott Adams
405. Romeo, Elise Title
406. The Ninth Gate, Arturo Perez-Reverte
407. Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice
408. Dead Famous, Ben Elton
409. Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley
410. Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol
411. Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
412. The Colossus of Maroussi, Henry Miller
413. Branded, Alissa Quart
414. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
415. Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
416. White teeth, Zadie Smith
417. Under the bell jar, Sylvia Plath
418. The little prince of Belleville, Calixthe Beyala
419. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
420. A King Lear of the Steppes, Ivan Turgenev
421. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
422. Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Peter Kropotkin
423. Hija de la Fortuna, Isabel Allende
424. Retrato en Sepia, Isabel Allende
425. Villette, Charlotte Brontë
426. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
427. Ubik, Philip K. Dick
428. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
429. Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
430. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
431. Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre
432. The Island of the Day Before, Umberto Eco
433. The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq
434. The Angel Of The West Window, Gustav Meyrink
435. A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway
436. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
437. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
438. In the Eyes of Mr. Fury, Philip Ridley
439. Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks
440. Into the Forest, Jean Hegland
441. Middlesex -Jeffrey Eugenides
442. The Giving Tree -Shel Silverstein
443. Go Ask Alice -Anonymous
444. Waiting For Godot, Samuel Becket
445. Blankets, Craig Thompson
446. The Girls' Guide To Hunting And Fishing, Melissa Banks
447. Voice of the Fire, Alan Moore
448. The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler
449. Coraline, Neil Gaiman
450. Hip Hop America, Nelson George
451. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
452. Basquiat, Phoebe Hoban
453. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
454. Prelandria, C.S. Lewis
455. The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And my three:

456. Democracy In America, Alexis de Tocqueville
457. Nine Hundred Grandmothers, R.A. Lafferty
458. The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

Josh Marshall on Pope John Paul II

Josh Marshall has posted a remarkable entry on the life and likely-impending death of the Pope that's well worth your time.