Your Mission, If You Choose to Accept It

Okay, I've got this friend, see. And she's a Creative Compatriot from way back. We worked on this together. Plus we've just got a kind of platonic Cosmic Compatriation thing going. She's good peeps. And about six months ago we were like, you know, how can we go ahead and change the world or whatever? We hashed it out, thought about it. Made notes. Sent a lot of emails and stuff. Talked on the phone. Then we were, like, how about we're just accountable to each other for creative output? Okay. And then let's take it another gigantic step. What if we're accountable to the entire effing world for its creative output? Or, you know, just a very small pocket of the world? What if we take it upon ourselves to ask people to, you know, make things? Things they might not otherwise make on their own. Because it's so much better to be asked, you know?

So we said let's start with each other. That seems reasonable. And we did. And here's what she -- she, by the way, is Laura -- asked me to do:

Assignment: Imagine you are making of a movie of your life. Pinpoint a version of yourself--a past you or a future you--that is not you now. Photograph yourself (y'know how they do photo shoots on movie sets), playing this version of you in your movie, doing something only that version of you would be doing (wearing something only that version would be wearing, perhaps, or eating something you'd only have eaten then, whatever helps distinguish it...or maybe it looks just the same, and that's alright too). One photo, three, five, whatever works.

And I did it. And here is (part of) what I did:



It has something to do with books, words, idears. And reaching for them. Even if it's ugly. Even if I'm ugly. Or whatever.

But here's the main point. I'm now asking YOU. Yes, you. Do that very assignment. Right now. Send it to me. tjbeitelman at g mail dot com. I'll post it on this here blog. (Or not, if you don't want me to. Just do it and send it, regardless.)

The idea is not that it's good or artful or whatever. It's that you did it and that you were accountable to someone else for doing it. That you spent the time and the creative energy to step outside the everyday thing you call yourself and made yourself a Maker.

Do it. I'm effing expecting it of you. You know who you are. You went to college with me. And/or high school. Or grad school. You paid me money. You took a class I taught. You work(ed) with me, you're related to me. You dated me. You hated me. You've shared a meal or a beer or a turn lane with me.

Yes: YOU!

Do it.

Now.

Due date: Monday, November 30.

Quick Question: Chimp Attack

Um. Okay. This pisses me off, for some reason. (No, not the pic, which is equal parts adorable and gross.)

A) This lady that went on Oprah, the one who had her faced ripped off by a chimpanzee, has known suffering I hope to GOD I never know. It's safe to say that that much any of us can agree on.

B) But, I mean, isn't this yet another sign of the apocalypse? Jay-effing-sis. Seriously? We do this? We put people on the teevee who don't have faces anymore because this unconscionably random and horrible thing happened to them and we're supposed to...do what, exactly?

You know, I think some of this has to do with the fact that I have no teevee anymore. I realize that people with no teevee are bad to be all "Eww--you suck for watching teevee!" and stuff. That's annoying in its own right, for sure.

I just want to know, though: are we supposed to be afraid that chimps will rip our faces off? Because, I mean, I can see where that's where this is headed. And the effing chances of that happening are, like, a kajillion-to-...[fades off into defeated silence...]

Hello? The world is out there waiting. There is stuff happening. I'm sure of it. And don't take my word for it. I'm a recluse. Just, like, go out there and look. I'm sorry that the lady got her face ripped off by a chimp. Really I am. That's so, so awful. But. Like. There are coming up on SEVEN BILLION EFFING PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. There's a lot of shit happening, and a good portion of it is not so good. (Also, PS, some of it is so effing amazing you can't even see straight.) Just ask Al Gore.

So I guess all I'm asking is that we, yes, have some compassion for the lady who got her face ripped off, but can we also think about stuff that, you know, we maybe can kinda-sorta do something about?

I don't know. That's a boring post. But it's heartfelt. And that's pretty much what this here TJ Beitelman is all about. I'm boring as hell but I really mean it...

Beitel-blog: Glossary of Frequently Used Terms, Concepts, Curios, and Obscurities

Settings: Coordinates & their associated monikers.

The Magic City. Birmingham, Alabama. AKA, the Stomping Grounds.

The Heart of Dixie. Alabama, Alabama. AKA, Sweet Home.

The Federal City. Washington, DC. AKA, the Erstwhile Hometown.


Dramatis Personae: Influential spirits/corporeal bodies, on stage & off.

Nate Silver. Founding editor of the American political website http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/. Quite possibly the brainiest person in the whole entire Universe. American Hero #4.

Thomas Friedman. American op-ed columnist and bestselling author primarily concerned with geopolitics, sustainable energy, and making an awful lot of money.

David Brooks. Everybody’s favorite reasonable American conservative commentator whose massive mancrush on the 44th President of the United States is as adorably obvious as it is slightly unnerving.

Malcolm Gladwell. Canadian writer and cultural critic. What Nate Silver is to numbers, Gladwell is to words. Fourth All-time Favorite Foreigner.

Bill Simmons. American sports and popular culture writer. AKA, The Sportsguy. As it relates to literacy, the J.K. Rowling of bored suburban American males aged 18-thirtysomething. American Hero #3.

Glen Hansard. Irish rockstar. Poet. Prophet. All-time Favorite Foreigner.

Benazir Bhutto. Martyred former Pakistani head of state and all around dreamboat. Second All-time Favorite Foreigner.

44. Barack Obama, the forty-fourth American President. AKA, Son of Jor-el. American Hero #2.

My Anonymous Sister. A foil and font of wisdom/puzzlement. I’d say more, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy.

Scout-the-Dog. A faithful and wise companion. Virgil to my Lost Pilgrim. A dilettante of sorts, possessed of artistic, philosophical, and spiritual faculties heretofore unseen in an American canine. American Hero #1.

Pastor Jim. A real-life Baptist preacher in the southeastern quadrant of the so-called Heart of Dixie who also pens a syndicated column for the Anniston Star in Anniston, Alabama. Pastor Jim is unfailingly brave and smart and steadfast in his vision of the erstwhile Nazarene as a progressive revolutionary who rarely came upon an orthodoxy he didn’t want to shake up. American Hero #5.

The Erstwhile Nazarene. Jesus of Nazareth. Who was, you know, an interesting cat as far as I can tell. Fifth All-time Favorite Foreigner. Cautionary Tale #1 (i.e., be very careful who you get to handle the posthumous bios -- or better yet, write a memoir!).

DFW. American fiction writer and essayist David Foster Wallace. Cautionary Tale #2 (i.e., there is such a thing as being too smart).

Thich Nhat Hanh. Smiley little Vietnamese monk. Third All-time Favorite Foreigner.

Thomas Merton. American(ish) poet-monk who loved silence, oatmeal, and warm baths. Cautionary Tale #3 (i.e., Electric Fan + Warm Bath = Untimely Death -- even if you're Thomas Merton).


Terminologies: Unintelligible tics, tags, and coinages.

TJB-POV. Slapdash amateur photo essays shutterbugged by yours truly. Usually with an edifying quote attached. No extra charge.

Shutterbug. n. photographer / v. to take pictures.

The Royal We. When we (!) pretend Ye Olde Blogge is maintained by a multitudinous staff. Fun times!

Travelogues. When we (!) take this puppy on the road.

Cultural Writing. Writing about, you know, culture. Which is to say, Everything.

Thirty Things I Love Right Now. That would be, uh, you know...thirty things I love right now.

NYT. The New York Times.

WaPo. The Washington Post.

TED. Technology, Entertainment, Design. It's this, uh, thing for smart liberal people with a lot of money and a lot of guilt that they're all smart and liberal and rich and, in some cases, famous. So they meet up every year and hang out for a week in Monterrey (or somewheres) and go to lectures and be all smart and liberal and guilty (and well fed) together. Plus they have a website about it, with video! Fun times.

Sunday Links. A good many Sundays -- not all Sundays, but a sizable percentage -- I'll brew me up a coupla cups o' joe and scan the interwebs for cool stuff. Actually it's mostly a scan of the NYT and WaPo, with some TED thrown in for good measure. Sunday Links is your veritable one-stop shop for a little bit of inspiration coupled with some food for thought. Etc.

FYI/411. Extemporaneous links and accompanying gloss.

Quick Question. That's gonna be a quick question that seems maybe rhetorical but I answer it anyhow. Because somebody's got to.

Alabamiana. Paul Bowles had Tangiers; we’ve (!) got the Heart of Dixie. The BBQ’s better and they speak English. It’s a no-brainer.

Update Update. Kind of like an update but better. (Actually it's just an update, no better or worse, but I like how it sounds kind of meta- or whatever. Because a blog entry is like an update to begin with, so calling a blog entry an update is sorta...ah, forget it.)

Beitel-blog: FAQ

Who are you and why are you here?

I am a child of the Nineteen-Seventies, the Aquarian Age. I spent my unassuming formative years on the outskirts of the self-proclaimed Most Important City in the World, Washington, DC. Mine was the American boyhood: the endless pursuit of sporting contests, real or imagined. I was small but fast, and I could throw a football in a tight spiral. I disliked school. Etc. My father was an old man, a frustrated visual artist with a weak heart and abiding passions: the endless pursuit of sporting contests, real or imagined; Sunday morning political talkshows; atheism; a venomous hatred of Ronald Reagan and the so-called supply-side economics. These he passed on to me—or tried to. Some took root better than others. Even the ones that took have changed over time. My mother was different. She took risks. She loved and lost. Crashed Harleys. Examined the wreckage through the bifocal lenses of the New Age and Pop Psychology. Mash all that together—Art; God; America; Love; the accompanying wreckage, frustration, dreams, and visions associated therewith—and transplant it in the fertile cultural soil of the American South at the dawn of the 21st Century. A Beitelblogger sprouts up.

Are you a superhero sent here to save us from ourselves?

No. I’m an ordinary man of average means trying to make his way in the world.

That’s very nice, but what are your credentials?

Credentials for what?

Anything. Making your way in the world.

I don't know. Isn't that what Google's for?

Is it cool having a name that sounds like a bug? Seems like that could have its pros and cons.

Actually it’s not Beetle-man. It’s pronounced with a long i-sound. Like “bite.”

That’s not nearly as fun. Do you care if we still pronounce it like the bug?

Yes. I do care.

Is blogging your superpower?

Yes. I suppose it is.

Does it bother you to have such a lame superpower? You don’t get webshooters or cool gadgets, no superhuman strength, etc.

With great power comes great responsibility. With no power or responsibility comes total intellectual autonomy. It’s a tradeoff. Plus YouTube’s a cool gadget. In a way.

So it does bother you.

A little bit, yeah. But the world needs bloggers, right?

If you say so, man. If you say so.

Oh-Hi-Oh-Hi

Still alive. Making nice headway on Ye Olde Booke Projecktte. Also I'm fittin-a do some housecleaning around here. Add a few bells and whistles over there on the righthand portion of things. Updates. Raison d'etre [Plurals of that? Hmm.]. Whatnot. Stay tuned. Until then: carry on. Live long. Prosper. Etc.

30 Things I Love Right Now

1. Tom Waits (which is not new, of course, but Jay-sis he's the stuff, man: How can I be the him of literary arts? That's the question that I, if I'm worth my salt, will spend the rest o' me days figuring out) -- 2. People I've taught reaching for the brass ring (making demo CDs or accepting awards in swanky Manhattan eateries in front of the literati, getting text messages from agents, but also just sitting at the keyboard and grinding it out [which is still and always the real work], etc) -- 3. Abraham Lincoln (again: Jay-sis) -- 4. Projects: the aforementioned Self-Helpless then this one thing in the general vicinity of Mr. Lincoln, which I'm "reading on" now and which I've decided is my own personal "November Rain": which is an inside joke with myself re: Axl Rose, who once said that if he didn't get that particular song produced the way he wanted it, he'd quit the music bidness -- then, of course, he put it on one of the most self-indulgent and (at best) uneven double albums of all time: Use Your Allusion, which I like as a document of my particular culture but is, you know, uh, uneven -- 5. Eight hours on a Saturday of just plain, flat-out, writing -- 6. Typing standing up (courtesy my friend Ben G., by way of Thomas Wolfe, who was crazy) -- 7. Turmoil in Ashburn, Virginia! (As a dyed-in-the-wool 'Skins fan, I shouldn't admit that I'm fricking captivated by the trainwreck they've got going on now...but I am) -- 8. Jim Zorn (don't care if he's a bad head coach; dude's a good guy, period) -- 9. Shelby Foote -- 10. Weird dreams -- 11. Full Moon B-B-Q -- 12. the Digital Age, the mess that it is -- 13. the White Hot Core, for better or for worse -- 14. John Wilkes Booth -- 15. Boston Corbett -- 16. the Nineteenth Century -- 17. Pancakes -- 18. Butter -- 19. Syrup -- 20. Pie -- 21. Plans -- 22. No plans -- 23. ChapStick -- 24. Elizabeth Gilbert -- 25. Mia Hamm -- 26. Natalie Portman -- 27. Ana Marie Cox -- 28. Mainly a shifting stance toward the idea of 24 - 27 and what that means for who I am and what I am to become -- 29. Hiccups -- 30. Vanquishing the hiccups.

Update Update: Radio Silence

Hey there, hi there, ho there. It's me. your Humble Beitelblogger. Here's the deal: in the last week, I've traveled, which always necessitates a get-back-into-swing-o-things recalibration, plus!

Here's the other deal: all this bloggery has actually inspired me to push forward with a nonfiction book manuscript I've been rasslin' with for a few years now, on and off. (Working title: Self-Helpless: A Misfit's Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Click here for a sampling.) And I'm using the same, I don't know, nonfiction mojo or whatever for that thing as I usually do for this here blog. And there's only been so much of me to go around -- that's been the case in the last week, for sure, but it'll also hold true in the next few months as my goal is to have a completed draft of the MS by New Year's Eve.

So this is me forewarning you that the nonfiction thingy is gonna take precedence in the next bit of time here. I'll hold myself to a one post per week minimum -- how's that sound? I set a goal at the start of the year to have 500 posts in 2009, but I'm at 293 now (which is a lot) and 207 posts in two and a half months seems a little excessive to me. 207 posts is more posts than I made in all of 2008. So, you know, I'm gonna cut myself some slack.

Also! Today I was on a roof in Montevallo, pounding down shingles. Which was sorta cool, as such things go. It was kind of cold by Alabama standards, but otherwise there was the tangible sense of a job done well (well, actually, a job done fair-to-middlin' but nonetheless in earnest...)

So there's that. How are you, btw?

FYI/411: What the Nobel Peace Prize Means in 2009

This just in: we live in a world where folks who win the Nobel Peace Prize have to first consider how they're gonna spin it before they actually comment on winning the durned thing. As if it's a bad thing to win the Nobel Peace Prize. (Newsflash: in this case, it is, in fact, a bit of a headache for our guy in the Oval.) I guess you could also say we live in a world where the folks who award the Nobel Peace Prize weigh things like nine months of charming, feel-good PR just as heavily as they do, you know, actually waging peace and stuff. Now don't get me wrong: that's not a knock on the Nobel folks or on 44, really. Just an observation that, you know, more than ever, the medium is the message. Or something.

Update Update: Meeshigan

So, FYI, I'll be out of pocket here starting on Saturday. Headed up to Michigan to see some old friends. Well, you know, they're not old. They're younger than me, actually, by a little bit. But you know what I mean. Anyhoo, don't be sad if posting's sporadic (at best) for a few days. Be back late Tuesday night. Meantime, here's some fun facts you probably didn't know about the Wolverine State!

Quick Question: Anderson Cooper?

In a new segment on Beitel-Blog, we'll (Royal We!) ask a rhetorical question, kind of spitting into the cyberspatial wind, as it were. It'll be of some great import about how we work and live and breathe on Planet Earth in the contemporary age. Thus! Here's Quick Question #1?

Is Anderson Cooper bad for the Universe? Probably so, right? Or am I missing something?

Technically, yes, that's, like, three questions or whatever. But it is deserving of that level of befuddlement because, on the surface, Anderson Cooper seems to be working toward the Greater Good, right? I saw him do one show on blood diamonds. How that's, you know, bad and whatnot. There's blood involved, for crying out loud!

Then tonight I watched him with the sound down at a Mediterranean fastfood eatery and it seemed that he was talking about young people being shot in Chicago. Again. I'm certainly not for young people being shot in Chi-town (any more than I'm for the whole blood diamond situation, such as it is), and Anderson seems agin it as well. But. Don't you get the sense that -- and maybe you need to watch Anderson Cooper with the sound down to actually get this sense -- it's all some kind of scam? That blood diamonds and kids getting shot in Chicago is incidental to the care and feeding of the CNN/Anderson Cooper [and his ilk] machine?

FYI/411: Really Funny People + Stable Interpersonal Relationships = Oil + Water? Yeah, Pretty Much...

Because I'm too lazy to write anything about a certain talkshow host (folks in England call it a chatshow, which is kind of cool, right?) and his erstwhile gal Friday, here's what media critic Tom Shales has to say about it. Take it away, Tom! (PS, This is what I would've said if I wasn't lazy and/or cared a little more about it.)

FYI/411: Monty Python Turns 40

Here's a little spot from NPR's Marketplace: On this day forty years ago, Monty Python, kings of Ye Olde Wacky British Sketch Comedy, got things cranked up for the first time on the "telly," as it were. (And, as a special bonus [but not something completely different; only slightly different], here's something from The Independent on Terry Gilliam and how he's all just perfectly marvelously strange [but not really].) Cheerio, then.

Sunday Links: Watch This!

So we're all talking about art and asceticism and also D.I.Y. and also solitude and also cartoons, so let's see what the Digital Age patron saint of those things and more has to say about it all. Take it away, Cartoon Moby!

Sunday Links: Vanquished Political Consultants Share Their Wisdom!

Steve Schmidt and Bob Shrum, point men for the last two unsuccessful presidential campaigns, were on hand for The Atlantic's First Draft of History hullaballoo, which took place over the last two days, I'm assuming in Boston. (Not entirely sure what FDoH was, but they bill it as "Leading Journalists, Fascinating Newsmakers and America's Most Eminent Historians Write the First Draft of the History of Our Time." Whatever that means.) Anyhoo, as his prickly relationship with the erstwhile governor of the great state of Alaska is no secret, it's no surprise that Schmidt's less than bullish on the prospects of Palin 2012.

Of course, the real question is this: guys like Shrum and Schmidt, they're clearly not journalists and I'm pretty sure they're not eminent historians...so that means somebody at The Atlantic thinks they're "fascinating newsmakers." If running presidential campaigns that lose by handy margins counts as fascinating newsmaking, clearly there's a dirth of fascinating newsmakers in the world. Of course, it could be that all the fascinating newsmakers are out actually making fascinating news and were, therefore, unavailable this weekend. Kind of like the "stars" on Hollywood Squares. I mean, Brad Pitt's busy and Whoopi and Jm J Bullock got nothing better to do. Sorta like that.

Sunday Links: A New Millenium D.I.Y. Arts Empire

There is a movement afoot: art as pastiche, a mix-and-match of old and new, high and low, sacred and profane. It's Do-It-Yourself, anti-authority (sort of), and it's peopled by entrepreneurial folks like Molly Crabapple (formerly Jennifer Caban of Long Island, NY), an illustrator and sometime-model whose "Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School" has branches scattered across the globe. Crabapple's sort of a cross between Andy Warhol and Gypsy Rose Lee with a little bit of Johnny Rotten thrown in for good measure. She has this quote in today's NYT Art & Design section: “What you get in life isn’t about how much you cultivate your talent; it’s about how you cultivate your name.” Hmmmm. I'm trying to figure out something smart to say about cartoons/caricature and persona, and how, more and more, they represent the prevailing mood. But I don't know if A) that's true and B) who/what belongs to said prevailing mood: art? media? the collective soul? some Digital Age hodgepodge of all three? Safest bet: all of the above and then some.

Click here to read the article and decide for yourself whether it's sordid, sublime, or something else entirely...

Sunday Links: Pastor Jim on Thou Shalt Not Steal

Says Brother Jim: "I have written a few columns recently suggesting that health-care reform is not only needed, but is also a moral imperative. It is a gross national sin for us to have the medical resources we have and then only provide them to people who can pay for them. Jesus' insight about to whom much is given much is required applies to every resource on this planet — from corn to penicillin.

"Of course, if you don't think that God is the giver of all good things, if you are one who believes we have what we have and God had nothing to do with it, then Jesus' wisdom probably sounds more like socialism than biblical grace.

"As you might imagine, this position has prompted considerable response from readers. Some of it has been thoughtful and has caused me to re-think some things. But some of the responses have just been ludicrous, comical. My favorite so far is the letter I got suggesting that I was promoting the idea of government stealing our money for health care."

To read about all the other things the government buys with our stolen money, click here...

Blogger as Digital Age Ascetic: People Who Need People?

I'm now 141 pages into Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr. Two interesting pull quotes in particular, first from p. 81 (for those of you scoring at home), in the chapter titled "On the Significance of the Individual":

The literary genre of autobiography is now so popular that men and women of little interest and no distinction feel impelled to record their life-stories. It may be the case that, the less a person feels himself to be embedded in a family and social nexus, the more he feels that he has to make his mark in individual fashion. Originality implies being bold enough to go beyond accepted norms. Sometimes it involves being misunderstood or rejected by one's peers. Those who are not too dependent upon, or too closely involved with, others, find it easier to ignore convention.

And then from p. 98, in the chapter called "Solitude and Temperament":

It has sometimes been remarked that writers are disappointing to meet. This is often because their true personalities only emerge in their writings, and are concealed during the ordinary interchanges of social life.

Okay, check and check. Hate to break it to you (those of you, at any rate, who aren't already in the know): I'm way more fun on paper than I am in person. Like, by a factor of at least five. Likewise, I am certainly a person of "little interest and no distinction" and, as this blog clearly attests, I do indeed "feel impelled to record [my] life-[story]." So the question is, does that make me a narcissistic bore and where do I go to get help?

Storr suggests an answer I like. Or a couple of them. First, he harkens back to Augustine and his Confessions for a deeper consideration of the evolution of autobiographical writing and how it morphed from salve for the soul to salve for the psyche. "In other words," writes Storr, "the autobiographer became a writer who was attempting to make a coherent narrative out of his life, and, in the process of doing so, hoping perhaps to discover its meaning." Or pretty much what you pay a psychoanalyst $90/hour to help you do.

He also touches on the interrelated (and mostly solitary) activities of reading and extended study, how they too can help somebody make sense of the chaotic life he lives.

All of this suits me fine because I like to write (about myself) and I like to read and it sounds like Storr thinks that's, you know, not necessarily neurotic in and of itself. Anthony Storr says it's okay for me to admit I not only cherish my time alone, I need it. Or not admit it. Own it. It's not something to confess; it's something to be thankful for.

People do need people, of course. And maybe Babs (above) is right: people who need people may well be the luckiest people in the world. But to deny the fact that people -- some more than others -- also need time alone to contemplate and pick the lint out the proverbial navel, to read, to write, to blog, well, that's it's own kind of self-denial too.

FYI/411: Giant Snails Attack Alabama!

Word out of Mobile is they're dumping big-ole vats of poison into a coupla ponds down there so as to eradicate these crazy apple snails that are up from South America somewhere. (I mean, the pic isn't exactly a real snail or whatever. But! What if it was?! Eww!) So. Yeah. If these snails escape, it'll be like some kind of gross snail apocalypse or whatever. Slime trails the size of, uh, I mean...really big slime trails. And nobody wants that.

FYI/411: You Say It's Your Birthday?

On this very day in 1971 -- it was a Friday, btw -- there was a big hullabaloo in central Florida. Seems Disney World (not Land, don't let the fo-toe confuse you) had its grand opening or whatever. But! Something way more important to the Beitelblog faithful happened on that very same day, a little more than 800 miles to the north and east of there, in Fairfax, Virginia. At 11:38 in the a.m., to be precise. Yep. That was me, all pink and scrawny and toothless, making my first joyful noise unto the world and just biding my time until the blogosphere could, uh, congeal (?) or whatever so I could fulfill my destiny! (When you wish upon a star...) Yee. Haw!

THIRTY THINGS I LOVE RIGHT NOW

Indian summer in Alabama -- Turning off the A/C -- Roasting root vegetables -- Payday -- A dusted, fully rearranged set of bookcases -- Virginia Tech 31, Miami 7 -- Nine hours sleep -- Solitude, the book -- Solitude, the thing (not the movie) -- Green ink -- 155 hard-earned words of new writing before work -- Reading what I want to read -- Ritual -- Push-ups -- Simplicity --
Fish -- Green peas -- A clean, empty kitchen sink -- A closet full of clean clothes -- The idea of frybread -- The idea of Idaho -- Redskin potatoes -- Sunlight -- Songs stuck in the brain -- The way a brain is like an ant colony -- Taking it easy -- Cereal at night (to stave off anemia) -- Saturday mornings -- Sunday mornings -- Lists.

FYI/411: The Pierre Burton Show!

Here's part I of that Bruce Lee interview below. But! The most interesting thing is to learn (not in the vid above but via the interweb) that the fabulous be-bow-tied/combed-over interviewer is none other than Pierre Burton! The most famous person in Canada!! He's from THE YUKON TERRITORY, no less!!! (Though he's nothing like Yukon Cornelius at all really, which would be cool-but-weird in its own right.) Or he was from Canada/the Yukon. One time. He's dead now. And he was a pothead (so says the internebs). Or whatever. But! He was famous (in Canada) and a writer and he interviewed Bruce Lee one time in Hong Kong!! So there's, you know, that group of fun facts.

Quote of the Day: Like Water

Here's Bruce Lee being all sage or whatever. The famous-ish part about how he says, “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless -- like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend...” is long about the seven-minute mark, but there's some other cool stuff in there too. Especially the part about how the interviewer guy is...the way he is. Hard to say just what I mean there. Just have a gander and see for yourself. Let's just say they don't make interviewers like that anymore, for better and/or for worse.

Sunday Links: Watch This!

Ants are cool. Stanford bio prof Deborah Gordon shows you why!

Sunday Links: Nick Hornby's Latest

Nick Hornby's got him a new book out, Juliet, Naked, about -- you guessed it -- guys and girls and rock-and-roll music. WaPo's Ron Charles says it's good not great, full of all the familiar things a Nick Hornby lover loves about Nick Hornby (see: Fidelity, High), but when it's all said and done, why not just, you know, (see: Fidelity, High).

Click here to read the full review...

Sunday Links: My Country Tears of Thee

A pull quote from a NYT review of a retrospective of Robert Frank's 1959 book of photographs, The Americans, now running at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

And how does the “The Americans” come across today? In the nominally post-racial Obama era, its political urgencies feel less immediate than they once did, but also prophetic. Its mournful tenderness, without being sentimental, seems deeper than ever. The days and nights it records are more than a half-century gone. The preacher, the nurse, the woman hidden by the flag, the sharp-eyed woman and the tearful black man on the trolley are, you imagine, gone.

What’s left is a still-strange country and a book of pictures by a foreigner who came to America impulsively, traveled our roads restlessly, and by not fully knowing our language heard it correctly and told us, the way we could not, truths about ourselves.

Click here to read the full review and see a sampling of the pics...