March 8-th 2012

Usually I don't make a big deal out of international whatever's day, but today I feel inspired, so here are a few nice things about women:

From the intro to "God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian" by Kurt Vonnegut

Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.

I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves "Freethinkers," which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, "If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?"

I myself have written, "If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."

I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist, Dr. Isaac Asimov in that essentially functionless capacity. At an A.H.A. memorial service for my predecessor I said, "Isaac is up in Heaven now." That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles. Mirth! Several minutes had to pass before something resembling solemnity could be restored.

...

So when my own time comes to join the choir invisible or whatever, God forbid, I hope someone will say, "He's up in Heaven now." Who really knows? I could have dreamed all this.

My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.

Riots - from Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses"

This is so beautiful, I had to share it. The book was published over twenty years ago, which isn't that much really, but long enough to make us think "look how the same rituals still exist".

Just a little background to the story, not even to help you understand what's happening, but because it's funny to us Mediterranean types: one of the book's characters, Gibreel, wandering around London and being homesick for India, wishes for warmer weather. Because there are supernatural forces at play, the weather does become unusually hot, and so the city erupts into the usual hot-weather activities: riots, police brutality, minority protests, false arrests and so on.

So, the attached pages describe the police seizure of the night club where the protesters keep their headquarters, as seen on the TV news:

מצא את ההבלים

אומה יקרה,

אני מאמינה שחשוב לעודד אנשים כשהם עושים את הדבר הנכון. במיוחד אם מדובר באנשים שאצלם זה לא יוצא בקלות, ולא מה שמאפיין אותם ביומיום. כמו כן, כשאנשים מתנהגים בצורה עלובה, חשוב להצביע על כך בפניהם, ומהר. קיום שתי המצוות האלה הוא שמביא אותי היום לכתוב את הפוסט הזה.

גם אני מאד לא אוהבת את ראש הממשלה נתניהו, את מעשיו, את אביזריו, את המראה שלו, את הסובבים אותו, ואת הזווית של החיוך שלו שגורמת לו להיראות כמו איש עסקים מושחת שחושב שהצליח להערים על באטמן. לכן כששמעתי שהוא הצליח לחתום על עסקה להחזרתו של גלעד שליט - דבר ששימח אותי מאד - עשיתי מאמצים לפתח אליו כמות כלשהי של רגשות חיוביים. זה לא היה קל, זה היה מאבק פנימי קשה שנראה לעתים אבוד, אבל ביומיים האחרונים סוף סוף הצלחתי, וזה קרה בזכות מיזם "ביבי גאמפ" המטופש והעלוב שאתם כל כך מתלהבים לעסוק בו.



אובייקטיבית, מה בדיוק הבעיה עם התמונה הזאת? יש פה צילום של אירוע היסטורי, והדמויות המעורבות בו. זה שאנחנו אוהבים את משפחת שליט ולא אוהבים את ביבי זאת בעיה אישית שלנו. וזה לא שגלעד ואבא שלו דיגמנו לפורטרט משפחתי ופתאום הנדחף הזה הופיע - הם קבוצה של אנשים בתנועה, עם צלמים של דובר צה"ל מסביב, זה הפריים שיצא, וטבעי שהצלם ינסה לתפוס את ראש הממשלה יחד עם החיבוק.

ההשוואה לפורסט גאמפ - באמת? מה, הוא הושתל שם דיגיטלית כדי לנסות להוסיף לו חשיבות? הוא נדחף בכח לאירוע היסטורי שלא נוגע לו, כמו לימור לבנת באולימפיאדה? לא. הוא דמות חשובה באירוע ההיסטורי שהוא היה אחד מיוצריו, יש לו את כל הסיבות להיות שם, וזה שיש לו חיוך מגעיל זה מצער, אבל לא רלוונטי.

אבל אם כבר פתחתם פוטושופ, בואו תנסו תרגיל כזה: הפכו את התמונה לשחור לבן, ושימו את מנחם בגין או יצחק רבין ברקע. נראה פתאום הגיוני, נכון? ואם במקום ביבי היה שם שמעון פרס או אריק איינשטיין (ששניהם גם מגעילים מאד בעיניי), הייתם הרי מדפיסים מזה חולצות, נכון או לא? ואם זאת היתה שלי יחימוביץ, שגם החיוך שלה לא הכי פוטוגני? זה היה הופך לפוסטר שהיה מנצח לה את הבחירות בשנה הבאה.

לסיום, תזכורת: הסיסמא שכולנו היינו נורא מבסוטים ממנה "איפה השליט שיחזיר את שליט?", זוכרים? אז הנה.

Why I detest Lady Gaga

I know I've already written a lengthy rant about this, but I want to make it clear. I don't hate Lady Gaga because she is a bad singer. I hate her because she is an amazing singer. Because she has a Liza Minnelli voice and a Paris Hilton personality. Because she can do this:



... but chooses to do this instead:

We live in a world where good men are murdered and mediocre hacks thrive.

Jesus - murdered; Martin Luther King - murdered; Malcolm X - murdered; Gandhi - murdered; John Lennon - murdered; Reagan... wounded.


Thus spoke Bill Hicks (Him again? Oh alright then...) back in the 80-s. Well what about our hellish decade, in which Amy Winehouse is dead and Lady Gaga gets to perform with Brian May and be cheered by millions? How lucky is Bill not to have lived to see it, and how sad the world without him.

The most interesting thing I learned this year about sex and people.

I'm not sure how much "Game of Thrones" - the book or the TV series - has to teach us about life. Probably something about how winter is what happens while you're busy making other plans. Whatever.

The one thing I learned, not from the show but from looking up stuff about it on the internet, is that there's an unbelievable amount of people out there who think that if a sexual act is performed from behind, in necessarily means that it is anal sex. I wouldn't have believed it if someone told me about it, but the number of times I've read something like "...and how come they all only do it in the butt?!" is staggering. To me, all these people are repressed virgins and/or perverts.

I'm not sure why the citizens of Westeros choose to do it from the back 90% of the time - perhaps the rocks are cold and the ground dirty, or their seven gods don't approve of eye contact, or maybe that's the more practical way if you need to keep an eye out for dragons. Either way, if it was all anal, there wouldn't be so many bastards walking around, now would there?

The funniest comments are the ones accompanied by some deeply pseudo-intelligent analysis of the literary and/or cinematic qualities of the book/show.

Too literal, Amy baby...

Stuck in Boromir limbo

Something needs to be done for actor Sean Bean. He appears to be stuck in the worst case of typecasting I've ever seen. It's not that he keeps playing the same type of character, he seems not to have had a change of clothes since 2001.

This is him in "Fellowship of the Ring"

"Black Death"


...and now "Game of Thrones"




















As we say in the cyber circles, what the wtf?!

P.S. My libido is very much in favor of this look, and isn't concerned at all with the damage to Mr. Bean's carreer.

Where the passive-aggressive assholes shop!

This commercial is my current pet peeve. For those of you who don't speak Hebrew, the idea is that the husband wakes up in the middle of the night with a cold, so he wakes his wife up and sends her to "Super Pharm" to get him some medicine. While there, she spots the nail polish rack, buys two almost identical colors, and asks him which one looks better. Luckily for him, she got him headache pills.

Mmmm, where to begin, where to begin?

First of all, kudos for managing to degrade both men and women equally. Really, nice job.

Secondly, here's my definitive list of midnight medical conditions that would justify waking up the spouse: if you're bleeding in a way that might cause loss of consciousness. If you are choking. If you're experiencing heart or appendicitis symptoms. If you've soiled the bed in some way. If an internal organ has popped out. If your water broke. If a wild animal is eating your face. If you woke up and don't remember who you are. Anything else wrong - you wait until morning. If you wake up with a cold, put on a warmer shirt, a scarf maybe, make yourself a hot tea quietly! then try to go back to sleep.

Thirdly, and more importantly, is this: I know that I'm very old-fashioned and outdated, but I remember when commercials used to send the message of "buy this, it's what all the successful people are buying". All the cool kids eat these chips, all the rich businessmen have this car, all the modern women wear these shoes, etc. Lately, and I didn't notice exactly when this happened, the people in the commercials are bastards, swindlers, morons, they have bad marriages, dysfunctional relationships, they are bad parents - and still I'm supposed to want what they have! How'd you like to be stuck in line behind this passive-aggressive asshole? Not that this one would ever be caught shopping for himself - I'm sure that his wife buys everything for him, from underwear to birthday presents for his parents.

In conclusion, the next step that I recommend for the creators of this commercial, is what Bill Hicks used to recommend to all advertising and marketing people, i.e. this:

Something Positive

Stephen Fry has over two million followers on Twitter. Sarah Palin, whos every tweet is widely discussed in American media, has over three hundred thousand. To me , this means that people prefer nice and intelligent over mean and ignorant. And that helps me sleep better.

"Galapagos" read by Jonathan Davis

I'm listening to the "Galapagos" audiobook, read by someone named Jonathan Davis, who uses such a heart-breakingly melancholy voice that he makes me want to curl up under the covers in a fetal position and wail like a wounded baby seal. Very appropriate for the subject matter.

Jon Stewart's interview with Marion Jones

I saw this interview almost a month ago, and I'm still pretty broken-hearted about it. I'm not a big lover of sports, but I remember watching Marion Jones in the 2000 olympics and being completely won over by her. She was so amazing and so charming, and so far ahead of everyone else in every race, it was like watching a new species of human being revealing itself for the first time. Looking through 10 years' perspective and loss of innocence, it's pretty clear that she's on performance-enhancing drugs, but back then it was impossible to imagine anything dishonest behind that adorable face, that wonderful childish excitement. I may be a sucker for a pretty woman, but remembering that glowing victory I do believe her that she didn't know about the drugs.
Whatever happened, I'm appalled that they sent her to prison for it. Prison? For cheating in a sports event? People really do take sports way too seriously, I mean really!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Marion Jones
www.thedailyshow.com
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P.S.
It reminds me of something Kurt Vonnegut says in his introduction to "Bluebeard" (one of the best books I know) -
May I say, too, that much of what I put in this book was inspired by the grotesque prices paid for works of art during the past century. Tremendous concentrations of paper wealth have made it possible for a few persons or institutions to endow certain sorts of human playfulness with inappropriate and hence distressing seriousness. I think not only of the mudpies of art, but of children's games as well -- running, jumping, catching, throwing.
Or dancing.
Or singing songs.

Dinner for Schmucks

Well, I didn't want to see this movie, but now that I have I need to talk about it. If you watch it, which I don't recommend, notice this: it's a movie in which a lot of wonderful British comics take the back seat to a lot of mediocre American comics. There's Steve Carell, who is adorable, but I think everyone is as sick of him as I am at this point. There's Paul Rudd, the ultimate non-threatening "vegetarian" male lead, Zach Galifianakis, who belongs to the Tina Fey school of comedy (i.e. the belief that doing something annoying with a straight face and repeating it ad nauseum equals funny), and a female love interest - Stephanie Szostak - who, frankly, inspires even less passion than Paul Rudd. Then, in the smaller roles, you have a wonderful appearance by Lucy Punch - I've been fixating on her since Woody Allen's "Tall Dark Stranger", David Walliams from "Little Britain", and the hilarious and much loved in our house Chris O'Dowd from the cult "IT Crowd". It's a masterpiece of bad decisions, and mostly inspires wishful thinking. For example, my boyfriend (who made me watch it in the first place) said at the end how great this movie could've been if Wes Anderson had directed it. Could've, would've should've...

An interesting actress to keep an eye out for:

From Woody Allen's "You will meet a tall dark stranger", Lucy Punch.

random

I dreamed that I went on a date with Larry David. Not real life Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" Larry David. He took me to an expensive restaurant, but then he went out for a minute and got mistaken for a bellboy in the hotel next door, so he spent the rest of the evening carrying suitcases up and down the stairs and whining.

I like it when dreams are plausible :]

Caution, spoilers:

I never cease to be amazed at how many deep insights into the human condition can be found in the Battlestar Galactica series. I know that every time I rant about it I only get the result of looking like a total geek, because how can there be deep philosophical and social truths in a series so filled with space fights and evil (yet sexy) humanoid robots? A while ago I talked about what good art needs to be, i.e. allegorical, personal and immortal. In its highest form, for me, art deals with what it is to be human. Certainly a story about the battle between the "real" and "artificial" humans, and about the preservation of the human race in face of complete destruction, in the hands of some talented people, has the potential to be amazing. And that is exactly what the Battlestar Galactica series is. An amazing work of art. It looks at how humans relate to their political structure, their religion, their culture, in such a clear way, in such a deep and critical way, that you can see it mirrored in everyday life, and in historical events, and understand them more clearly because of it. It allows itself to be political, yes, but not in a petty, fashionable way which will lose its relevance in five to twenty years (Avatar), but in a way that will always be relevant.

Listen to this: In the end of the series' second season, the humans find themselves electing one Gaius Baltar as their president. This person is incompetent, vain, weak, untrustworthy and prone to playing into the hands of the enemy. He has been flattered into running for president by some malicious forces who aim to use his power as their own.

In 2006 the people of Israel found themselves electing as their prime minister one Ehud Olmert. He was not put in place by malicious forces as head of a puppet government. The conditions which brought him to power were stranger and more complicated, but he did share many of the qualities of the fictional Baltar.

After doing his bit of damage, Baltar is kicked out of power and replaced by the previous president, Laura Roslyn, who then spends a lot of time and energy to punish Baltar for all the mistakes he has made and all the lives he has cost. She never gives a moment's thought to the people who worked behind the scenes, or to her own mistakes, one of them huge, which brought Baltar to the presidency.

After doing his bit of damage, Olmert was also replaced, not by a beloved and able "benevolent dictator" like Roslyn (if only there was one available), but by some people who haven't exactly earned my respect either. Still, to this day, the nation's rage at this man for being a bad prime minister is tireless, and we can see him every day in the news being dragged to court for some old corruption scandal.

What has this bit of science fiction taught us about how people behave in real life? How about this: some people are weak, vain and corrupt. When we give them power, they will use it for vain and corrupt purposes. If there is danger about, their weakness will cost lives. This also: in a democracy, voters are easily fooled by demagogues, and easily made to act on impulse. And if they make a mistake, they don't like to blame themselves, and don't want to look at the people who deceived them. Suggest that the system is flawed? Never. They'd rather take it all out on the person who failed where no one in their right mind could've expected him to succeed.
And so it goes.

ונדטה עקובה מדם

בקיץ הזה יש לי כוחות לונדטה עקובה מדם אחת, אבל שני נושאים בוערים על הפרק. אחד: תסרוקות ה"הלוואה וחיסכון" שמזהמות את נופי הארץ. שתיים: השימוש הדבילי בקיצור "ת'-". שניהם מציקים לי כבר שנים, ובזמן האחרון הגיעו למאסה קריטית. התסרוקת הנ"ל מהווה מפגע סביבתי כל הזמן, אבל החשיפה המוגזמת של אבי בניהו בימים האחרונים הופכת את הבעיה לצורמת ורלוונטית מתמיד. מצד שני הקיצור של המילה "את" ל"ת'-" נפוץ בקרב שתי אוכלוסיות שאני שונאת במיוחד: אנשים בלתי מגניבים (פרסומאים) שמנסים לדבר לקהל הצעיר והמגניב, ומשוררים עצלנים שלא מסוגלים לחשוב על דרך מקורית יותר להרוויח הברה. אביב גפן, למשל, שייך לשתי הקבוצות האלה, ולכן משתמש בקיצור הזה אולי יותר מכל אדם דובר עברית אחר.י

אז אם, כמו שזה נראה, מלחמה חסרת מעצורים היא בלתי נמנעת, אני צריכה להחליט מי יהיה האויב.י

80-s hell

I haven't been to Europe in the past few years, but last night we had dinner in kind of a touristy place, and there were several people who were dressed hideously, who all spoke in different European languages (Spanish, Dutch). Therefore, I'm forced to conclude that Europe is drowning in a return of 80-s fashion that's much worse than what we're having around here.

Thoughts about "Inception"

First of all, I wish Christopher Nolan would watch his films on something larger than his laptop before he sends them out into the world. Then he would know that his action scenes are impossible to follow on a big screen.

Also, Michael Caine is not an exotic condiment that you add just a grain of to your film to give it an odor of sophistication. Either make a film with Michael Caine, or leave the man alone, I'm sure he has things to do.

The same can be said about Pete Postlethwaite, but I feel more strongly about Michael Caine because me love him long time.

Lesson number one in cinema - show, don't tell. This can be said about almost everything in Inception, but I'll give just two examples:

Instead of explaining to us that the hero's wife is a haunting presence, try to find an actress that actually has a haunting presence, instead of one that looks like the best friend in a romantic comedy.

And instead of telling us about how the hero is tortured, hire an actor that has even the minimal ability to look tortured. Ethan Hawke looks tortured. Leonardo Dicaprio looks like he's had a happy childhood, gets along perfectly with his parents, always got good grades in school, eats all his vegetables, works out in the clean mountain air, and dates lingerie models.

And finally, have the balls to commit to something at the end of the movie.