LONELYPOND PRESENTS

Finally caught The Brave and the Bold, nice to see fun Batman. Loved the Plastic Man-Elongated Man debate over who Batman liked better (and the Bat’s response). Might make it a Friday night habit.

For punk rock and Diane Lane fans at 2:30 am(Eastern) tonight, ladies and gentlemen on TCM there will be Ladies and Gentlemen…The Fabulous Stains(yes, I finally figured out the proper title). Watch it; tell ‘em lonelypond sent you.

Ice only melts in
Previous footsteps so step
Slide but dare to walk

Happy 12th birthday DreamWrights Youth and Family Theatre…we rock.

It’s just no fun anymore.

(a more detailed review when I have the heart. First I might have to pull out one of the previous seasons on DVD, find a favorite episode and remember why I liked it so much.)

I am downloading the 12th and final episode of The Middleman which I have not watched since it ran on TV (stubbornness and sadness both) so I’m going to see if it’s better than I remember. And I did the search for MiddleNews and thanks to an update on the ACTUAL Middleblog, I can tell you the DVD is coming out in the summer of 2009. There are also links to all the TV critics who rated “The Middleman” as one of the top shows/episodes of last year.

Almost time to start planning the legendary Art Crawl party.

Thinking about virtue after Obama’s inclusion of an uncredited Thomas Paine quote in his Inaugral Address. I remember Machiavelli being big on virtu in The Prince. The Barking Carrot is studying Nietzche in class and blogging about virtue and how it is preventing her from blowing up corporate America(to quote the Carrot): “Nietzsche points out that if you don’t have any desire to commit said bad deeds, that not doing them doesn’t make you virtuous. (Duh.) Virtue is having the desire to commit various sins and the will to not act on that desire.”

Machiavelli’s virtu — a spousebuzz blogpost explains that it means not moral virtue but “strength, power, prowess, control…”

The I Ching also references virtue but I am not familiar enough with its cultural bases to parse its meaning.

So what virtue did Thomas Paine mean, did Barack Obama mean and what does it mean as a modern value. More thoughts later after much reading.

And Peter Aspden discusses how the modern tendency to delve across/through rather than deeply is affecting culture and talks about philosophybites.com and their interview with “radical theologian Don Cupitt.” Good interview; I will be trolling the site later to see if anyone’s mentioned virtue recently.

And for music to mull to: Review of Hjaltalín, musicians of Iceland, land of storms and muses.

Wishing you health, happiness and prosperity in the Year of the Ox.

Ox.jpg

Well, I was looking for some poetry to cheer me up and then I remembered poetry is often either about love or death and though love can occasionally be cheering, it is only for occasions. So then I realized the search needed to be for Wodehouse. I’d really like to be Bertie Wooster for a fortnight or so, even if it meant being visited with aunts and Fink-Nottles. Perhaps there could also be an Anatole and a Jeeves.

Here’s an excerpt from “Extricating Young Gussie” (not Fink-Nottle) courtesy of literaturepage.com. Laugh and don’t stop by before breakfast:

“She sprang it on me before breakfast. There in seven words you have a complete character sketch of my Aunt Agatha. I could go on indefinitely about brutality and lack of consideration. I merely say that she routed me out of bed to listen to her painful story somewhere in the small hours. It can’t have been half past eleven when Jeeves, my man, woke me out of the dreamless and broke the news:
‘Mrs Gregson to see you, sir.’
I thought she must be walking in her sleep, but I crawled out of bed and got into a dressing-gown. I knew Aunt Agatha well enough to know that, if she had come to see me, she was going to see me. That’s the sort of woman she is.
She was sitting bolt upright in a chair, staring into space. When I came in she looked at me in that darn critical way that always makes me feel as if I had gelatine where my spine ought to be. Aunt Agatha is one of those strong-minded women. I should think Queen Elizabeth must have been something like her. She bosses her husband, Spencer Gregson, a battered little chappie on the Stock Exchange. She bosses my cousin, Gussie Mannering-Phipps. She bosses her sister-in-law, Gussie’s mother. And, worst of all, she bosses me. She has an eye like a man-eating fish, and she has got moral suasion down to a fine point.
I dare say there are fellows in the world–men of blood and iron, don’t you know, and all that sort of thing–whom she couldn’t intimidate; but if you’re a chappie like me, fond of a quiet life, you simply curl into a ball when you see her coming, and hope for the best. My experience is that when Aunt Agatha wants you to do a thing you do it, or else you find yourself wondering why those fellows in the olden days made such a fuss when they had trouble with the Spanish Inquisition.
‘Halloa, Aunt Agatha!’ I said
‘Bertie,’ she said, ‘you look a sight. You look perfectly dissipated.’

I was feeling like a badly wrapped brown-paper parcel. I’m never at my best in the early morning. I said so.
‘Early morning! I had breakfast three hours ago, and have been walking in the park ever since, trying to compose my thoughts.’
If I ever breakfasted at half past eight I should walk on the Embankment, trying to end it all in a watery grave.
‘I am extremely worried, Bertie. That is why I have come to you.’
And then I saw she was going to start something, and I bleated weakly to Jeeves to bring me tea. But she had begun before I could get it.
‘What are your immediate plans, Bertie?’
‘Well, I rather thought of tottering out for a bite of lunch later on, and then possibly staggering round to the club, and after that, if I felt strong enough, I might trickle off to Walton Heath for a round of golf.’
I am not interested in your totterings and tricklings. I mean, have you any important engagements in the next week or so?’
I scented danger.
‘Rather,’ I said. ‘Heaps! Millions! Booked solid!’”

And I’m booked to pull one of Bertie’s adventures off my shelves tonight.

Well this has not been the week I expected. Had planned for a quiet contemplative week preparing for the Chinese New Year, sketching oxen, cleaning house(kittens encourage already existing disarray to rise to an alarming level), etc…

Instead, I’ve been stressing about scheduling the voiceover session for Jabberwocky and that my week has been more hectic than I hoped. Which is self defeating. But the stress cycle always is.

There’s a new Blink Kitty Love so that’s good — and I had a blast doing it so that’s excellent. I haven’t worked on “The M” at all, but I have an idea steeping. And it would be so great to get Jabberwocky done. I’m debating what to do about this year’s Animation Magazine pitch party contest. It was on my list of goals and I do have a really inspired new project that’s exciting me to pitch but the same size banner ad could run over the AWN(Animation World Network) sites thanks to the lonelypond presence on animationblogspot and would cost nothing. I have some decisions to make before I start Moliere and Shakespeare prep.

To continue the Cake or Jake: I forgot Radio Free Roscoe; I’m listening to the Trews on last.fm right now — one of this afternoon’s episodes was Parker and Travis waiting in line for Trews tickets and the RFR all nighter with the rest of them. Parker is such a cool character that she even makes Travis fun — I know Travis is a cup of smoldering Buddhist kung fu philosophical we don’t kick ass but we can tea for some, but not me…possibly the character I sympathize most with is Robbie…I’m still really enjoying the music and Lily’s growth as an artist and musician. Yes, some of the typical issues you find in TV shows but I really like the radio/music/free speech packaging/underlying themes — and the characters.

And like everyone, I’m becoming fascinated by the is River Pierce cake or jake. He’s so very twisty and yet metal smooth — very slippy.

Seems warmer out today, which is nice. Due for a long walk and maybe finally contemplating what the Year of The Ox might bring…I think part of the problem is I miscalculated and spent some time thinking it was the Year of The Tiger, which inspired a cool Gullible and Twitchy animation idea which I can’t do yet. But the time slot for the G + T animation is being taken by Jabberwocky voiceover/sound editing stuff so if I do a New year animation it will be FlipBoom again, which might be fun. I did buy art supplies Wednesday — excellent water color paper and dual brush markers plus bonus fabric markers and some t-shirts. I’m hoping once I break them out some inspiration will happen. I’m going to try some more sketching first.

ESPN Winter X-Games coverage is heavy with clunky snowmobiles and making me not want to watch the X-Games. I liked it better when it was snowboard centric; coverage seems dragged out and too too slow.

Well, let’s start with Smallville — if not cake, at least cookie for the parts where Clark was doing the undercover bit and Tess and Lana were going head to head. But jake for the kissing. I am SO tired of the Clark and Lana duet. It’s just running in circles because of inertia but there’s not any fire. I do wonder who Lana’s working with…

Neville’s return to iCarly. Well, Saturday I grumped about it — hey, Spencer went to law school how’d they get roped into that, does no one on the show know about contracts — but webbiest Wednesday’s rewatch made me laugh with the cupcake slideoff (although I’m disappointed Sam didn’t dip hers) and laugh at the hallway scene between Neville and our trip of web heroes. So cupcake for that one.

True Jackson — cake, high school reunion cake. The woman playing Amanda went so far out on the high and dangerous limb of the edge of comedy that I’m going to look up her name: Danielle Bisutti (and I will henceforth probably remember it as Biscotti, tying in with our theme). Apparently, she, Ron Butler, Ashley Argota and Keke Palmer (and Matt Shively has appeared in musicals) can sing — so when do we get the Mad Style Musicale Funny Face 2.0? True Jackson getting stronger all the time.

The Big Bang Theory — nearly always cake, the kind of fairy cake that Douglas Adams uses to power engines of science and starships, but cake nonetheless. Sheldon + total lack of social skills always great and I’ve suddenly started whistling again. Nothing as funny as the killer robot or Penny decking Howard and I am starting to miss Leslie Winkel, but Sheldon’s faint on a rope reverse spider a good pose.

Can’t decide about InkHeart and saw commercial for Push, which looked active, fun and not too gory. I love Chris Evans — he was fantastic (yes, ha) as the Human Torch in the FF movies. Just read an interview with him in The Advocate; sounds like a cool guy.

Dadnapped looks like fun in the Disney Channel previews — long time since I’ve seen George Newbern(although he’s been busy being Superman and such) and Moises Arias is just rocking the movie gigs (and the comedy). Sonny With A Chance looks like fun. The one Jonas Brothers show clip they showed didn’t impress me, but I’d bet on the Burning Up 3-D movie (if I hadn’t signed that little piece of paper — long story, see other entry)

FT Weekend notes:

Good Peter Aspden column about Man On Wire, one of the best movies I’ve seen and possibly the best heist film ever because it ALL actually happened.

I still want to take the Sarah Hemming tour of London theatre. She has me convinced of David Tennant’s Hamlet chops; if the RSC release on video, I will plan a viewing party.

Lovely opening line in Hemming’s The Armature of the Absolute review: “I once saw Ubu Roi performed with a cast of vegetables, which brought a certain crunch to the violence.”

And apparently I’m due a Midsummer review when my 1/22 paper arrives in the mail(tomorrow, if delivery delays have been sorted out) so I shall look forward to that.

And Harry Eyres has been in fine form the past couple of weeks, urging companionship and flexibility (stretching is what he actually advocates).

And in my quest for new reading material I did begin Twilight and yes, put out good money for it I could have used for a pizza or Mexican takeout or something that would have sustained me. I was seduced by humor and friction — a bit overwritten but Bella has an intelligent and humorous narrative voice– and the fact that relationships where people realize they’re attracted but aren’t actually that thrilled by the fact work for me. But then it got mired in MASSIVE GOOPINESS and I do mean GOOPY. Still haven’t finished it, although I did skip read through the end. Sustaining mood is so difficult as is ending something well. But at least I had that absorbed in what I’m reading feeling for almost half a book.

I did come to an interesting conclusion. Fantasy and science fiction writers are better off — they get to describe things from scratch. I always complain about contemporary writers who give you minute details about the condensation sweating down the side of a Pepsi can, but JK Rowlings gets a pass because she’s making up all the candies in a shop up and they’re fascinating and new. But that does mean double standard. And I have a low tolerance for paragraphs of descriptive prose.

When my friend Cassandra read In The Bleak December (movie and other rights still available) she said she had to remind herself it wasn’t a play. I was careful to go back after the first draft and make sure I’d described things enough aka more than I was comfortable with. Having a costume and set designer + actors can be a bad habit for an author.