B-Hub at Yucky Salad misses record stores:

I haven’t been in a record store in over three years now. There’s no point. Who’s going to spend 18 bucks on a cd with two or three good songs when you can just buy those songs for two bucks? I don’t miss buying records, but I do miss record stores– everything about them– the people, the vibe, even the smell. I miss going into The Electric Fetus and buying something cool like “Hang Time” and having the punk rock girl ringing me up giving me an approving glance as if to say, “hmmm, maybe I mis-judged you jock-boy” and I also miss buying something like Bon Jovi and having the same punk rock girl give me a dismissive look that screamed “go date-rape a cheerleader, jock-boy”– I loved both looks and I miss them.

Truth be told, I have never really liked digital music.  Oh, it’s convenient, and it’s brought back the single which is a wonderful thing – but the CD always sounded way to clinically-clean and teutonic to me.  And ever since all three stages of recorded music (recording, mastering and playback) have gone from analog to digital, it’s all felt cold and heartless to me. 

And record stores?  I used to love the feeling you’d get when you’d talk the totally-wasted stoner behind the counter into playing some sample on the house stereo; sliding the record out, dropping the needle, the anticipation as the record rolled toward the start…

And Katie sounds off:

Bill is trying to pretend he isn’t that character from High Fidelity, and he so it that character. He’s if that character and Nick Hornby had a baby. Also, I hate that sone from Hinder so much I wish it was a rabbit so I could kill it with a shotgun.

And the crowd goes wild!

Katie also settles a bet or two:

And no, I’m not dead, I’m just in hiding.- Katie

Sure, I was worried.

The Simpsons is running episode 400 tonight. 

Let the trivia geeks have their day in the sun!

 The part I think is the coolest:  the show has literally been around for a generation:

“We’ve got writers now who are so young that they grew up watching the show,” [creator Matt] Groening said. “They’re always reminding those of us who have been around longer that we’ve already done a joke that somebody is pitching.”

However…:

His sitcom, “The Simpsons,” presents its 400th episode tonight, capping 18 seasons with no finish line in sight.

And the characters may just be hitting their stride.

By “hitting their stride”, does the writer mean “the show doesn’t suck anymore”?

Because I think it’s been a couple of years since the show was actually funny.

Please advise.

I love the new Guthrie.  Oh, it’s disconcerting, and when you react to it – inside or out – you feel like you’re playing a part that’s been pretty well scripted out for you by some dweeby little metrosexual architect somewhere, as if you’re part of his artistic vision…

…but at the end of the day, it’s a great place to go to watch not just a play, but to see the world go by.

Inside the building. 

Outside?  A very different story.

The area around the New Guthrie is a dreary, arid place; cold and cement-y in the winter, dry and hot in the summer.  It’s long been one of the most depressing parts of Minneapolis.

The Strib’s architecture beat reporter (for now), Linda Mack, points the finger:

Stand in front of Spoonriver, the streetwise new restaurant facing the Guthrie Theater, and you’ll feel the problem. The cafe’s outdoor tables with their orange umbrellas are inviting, but what lines the street? Parking meters.

No trees are allowed on this part of S. 2nd Street because most of the buildings are historic ones. Trees weren’t part of the original industrial landscape that the St. Anthony Falls Historic District protects, preservationists argue, so trees aren’t allowed today.

That’s absurd. There weren’t sidewalks either when this area between the mills on 2nd Street and Washington Avenue was a giant rail yard. But there are sidewalks now, and people living in the mills and walking the streets. The city should foster neighborhoods that are as livable as possible, and there’s nothing that works better than trees.

But…:

In Minneapolis, the city’s Public Works Department holds more sway than the Planning Department. And despite Mayor Rybak’s push to turn Washington Avenue into a tree-lined boulevard, the nearby streets are wanting.

In Minneapolis, bureaucracy trumps the market. 

Which is a shame, because it’d be nice to walk out of just about the coolest theater in the business onto a street that looks like something other than a Bloomington car lot sans cars. 

Especially since,  y’know, that’s what the market is trying to do, without any tax money needed in the process.

Jeff Kouba notes something my daughter and I both caught during 24 last night, when Ricky “Doyle” “Silver Pistols” Schroeder ordered CTU to “set up a perimeter!” to stop the escaping Cheng:

*pause so audience can dissolve in fits of laughter* Do we have even one example of a perimeter ever working on this show?

Indeed, in six years, I think the only thing a perimeter has ever done on 24 is earn overtime pay for LAPD/CHP/CTU redshirt extras.

But it occurs to me – there’s a bit of pop culture fame to be seized here. “Set up a perimeter” is the ultimate sarcastic negator!

Think about it:

• “Patty Wetterling set a perimeter on the Sixth District Congressional seat”
• “Al Franken has set a perimeter around Coleman’s Senate seat!”
• “Minnesota Monitor has set a perimeter around journalistic credibility!”
• “Ryan Rhodes’s lower bowel is a perimeter against noxious emissions”

It works.

That is all.

I’ve gone back and forth with Syl Jones for years.

Oh, let’s be realistic; Syl Jones has written stuff with the complete blessing of the region’s largest media outlet; I’ve responded in my little basement blog.

As noted earlier, I disagree with Jones about 80% of the time; it’s not that I agree with 20% of his columns, but 20% of any given column (as an average) might be something I can get behind.

While today’s column (via Anti-Strib, whose mission would seem to be nearly accomplished) is probably going to push the curve up a bit, Jones remains…

…well, let’s just cut to the column:

Who’re those people traipsing around downtown Minneapolis after 11 p.m. every night? Who’s blocking the sidewalk daring you to cross the street? Who’s calling women “bitches” under their breath for the fun of it? Who’s running like banshees through the skyway? Look — it’s the New Slaves.

The New Slaves come in all colors, all races, both genders. Too many are African-American but that’s nothing new. The New Slaves are defined less by race and more by their failure to discern their own enslavement. They are shackled to a subculture of violence and yet their chains are invisible to them. We who have eyes to see, however, cannot fail to recognize the old signs of an ancient enemy.

Whoah.

The New Slaves chant lyrics to songs that glorify materialism. The New Slaves claim that obeying “the rules” means selling out. The New Slaves hang out on street corners selling drugs, harassing ordinary citizens, and shooting each other on buses. The New Slaves wear T-shirts saying “Stop Snitchin.” The New Slaves celebrate their own defilement.

It’s a right of passage, in fact.

Jones gets to something that’s bothered me for years:

But, let’s be real: The zombies who patrol our urban metroplex are not alone in their disrespect for others. Our entire society is steeped in rude and destructive behavior that is not only accepted but also televised. We glorify Donald Trump, Rosie O’Donnell, Britney Spears, Simon Cowell, Paris Hilton, even the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho — to name a few — by broadcasting their personal brand of disrespect around the world. The New Slaves may be untutored in the deeper significance of this culture’s foibles, but they’re not stupid. They are learning that it pays to be disrespectful, pays big time, and they are demanding a piece of the action.

For me, the great symbol of this was always…

…Dick Vitale.

Yep, the loud but dimwitted basketball sportscaster whose career peaked in the eighties by bringing a glorification of mindless agression to the coverage of pro basketball; it was around then that the NBA began looking less like a professional sports league and more like an evening at an R’nB club.  It was about that time (and I may be a tad hyperbolic when I “credit” the whole movement to Vitale, but it was with Vitale’s ascendance that I really noticed it) that trash talk became the lingua franca of pro basketball – with football not far behind.

And Jones is…

…right:

When the Masters in our society — the “wealthy curled darlings” as Shakespeare characterized the Venetian upper class — stoop to new behavioral lows and are rewarded by 24/7 coverage, the New Slaves get the message. They are ready to act out with increasingly deadly force to protect their fragile sense of self-esteem.

Feeding a culture of narcissism, self-indulgence and instant gratification to a generation of people addled by the replacement of “Self-Respect” with “Self-esteem” is like keeping a four-year-old on a diet of Captain Crunch.

Oh, Jones isn’t totally right (emphasis added):

The New Slaves, you see, have access to guns courtesy of the NRA and a disgruntled sense of entitlement, a deadly combination.

This is, of course, crap.  The NRA is behind most gun laws that work – the laws that punish gun criminals, as opposed to the worthless palliatives Jones’ fellow travellers shill, which attack only the law-abiding.  I’ll assume Jones doesn’t care enough about the issue to know the facts, as opposed to being a mindless disinformer.  (I’ll allow in advance – I’ve been wrong before).

It is time for a new civil rights movement — with an emphasis on the word “civil” — aimed at freeing our youth from a cultural imperative that preaches death, imprisonment and a profound failure of personal development.

Corporate America, youth leaders, the philanthrophic community — all need to rally around the idea of a) calling out the New Slaves and their Masters and b) setting them free. Mayors, police chiefs, university professors, athletes, pop stars and, yes, the slick Russell Simmons — rap mogul extraordinaire — need to stop hiding behind the mask of libertarian license and help set these young people free by, paradoxically, establishing limits for their behavior.

So far, so good.  In fact, there’s a major political movement that’s been saying exactly that for the past fifty years or so.

Although Jones either doesn’t know, or would rather the uninformed not hear it:

We don’t need the bitter personal invective of a ranting Bill Cosby or the partisan tongue clicking of self-identified conservatives selling a failed Republican agenda.

Syl Jones:  Take careful notes here.

What you propose IS the Republican agenda; getting show-biz to curb its behavior for society’s good; promote individual responsibility (as opposed to the group blame to which so many in what was once called the “civil rights movement” are handcuffed).

We don’t need Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, for that matter. What we do need is something W.E.B. Du Bois specified many years ago:

“It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.” Not only is this is how we become human, it is how, at long last, we become truly free.

Where have we heard this?

Syl Jones, right as he is in this case, might be mortified to hear it.

(Via Tracy at Anti-Strib, who has a very different take on the piece)

I nod to Lileks:

The season’s transition to “The Days of Our Lives” with geosynchronous satellites is now complete.

Mr. Surnow:  Next season, follow this simple formula:

Less post-West Wing canoodling about Washington, fewer Palmers that aren’t David (and don’t Dallas  him back to life, either), and less about relationship arcs.

More Jack biting through jugular veins.

That is all.

Yesterday, I took a swipe at the Butthead of American cinema, Quentin Tarantino.

My tastes in movies don’t run to Tarantino – I figure if I want to watch contrived homages to seventies grade-D movies, I’ll watch Mystery Science Theatre, see the real thing in its most appropriate context, and save eight bucks.
Tracy at Anti-Strib took his best shot at a Pauline Kael impression by way of voicing his umbrage:

[I go] on to underscore [my] thundering ignorance by disparaging Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill (no mention of 1 or 2. He probably only saw 1 and thought the ending sucked!) and, worst of all, Reservoir Dogs!

Now, let’s be perfectly straight here; I didn’t disparage any of these movies; merely said that they, Pulp and Dogs and the entire flock of Bills, and Tarantino’s entire oeuvre, bore me stiff.

I have long suspected that most people who are really into music have absolutley [sic] no taste, Berg proves it today. These guys that get wood over hearing some grungy, stoned garage band are obviously too damned dense, or just plain stoned, to get the complex elegance of a truely [sic] great movie.

I must assume the “wood” he’s referring to is the cello I’ve been playing for 34 years, presumably playing along with stoned garage bands (though I can’t remember, having apparently been sniffing glue the whole time).

I digress:

Events like this add to my understanding of how the other small, lonely, boring people live. They obviously are too emotionally and intellectually stunted to appreciate a thing like a fine movie, an aged cigar or an excellent wine. I’d feel a tiny bit sad for them if they weren’t so smug about seeing “the Mat’s” [sic] back for [sic] they never [sic] made it big.

Indeed, I have not recently wasted a weekend curled in a fetal position in front of a DVD player, guzzling cheap blends from the MGM discount rack and smoking all the oxygen out of my brain as I watch my umpteenth Tarentino Marathon. Guilty as charged.

If you do have to interact with a musicophile, be sure to use small words and keep your sentences simple.

Especially if you’re talking to us in Italian.

Grunting is probably the prefered [sic] mode of communication. They most liley [sic] can’t hear you anyway, as they have destroyed their hearing by climbing numberous [sic] Marshall stacks for assinine [sic] stage diving.

So let me get this straight? Tracy is pulling the culcha card – drawing his line in the sand to defend civilization and culture against the drooling barbarians – on behalf of Grindhouse?

Not choosing Hitchcock or Hawks or Ford or Godard as the bastion of culture against the rabble, but Quentin Tarentino, who is the film equivalent of The Doors – flashy, culty and utterly intellectually and emotionally barren and contrived?

Tracy must have gotten into some bad cigars. We’ll forgive him.

Tarantino gets spanked in a disastrous opening for Grindhouse:

…major players in the movie capital were talking about the utter collapse at the box office of Grindhouse, that double-feature from celebrated directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. (I had wondered here if the movie could live up to the Weinsteins’ hype.) Despite decent reviews, the hard “R”-rated pic filled with blood and violence took in just $12 million this weekend — nowhere near even the lowest $20 mil opening predicted (or the $25 mil debut anticipated after midnight sneaks were arranged in major cities). blades1.jpgThe weekend take was far, far below the openings for, say, Rodriguez’s Sin City ($29.1 mil) or Tarantino’s Kill Bill 1 ($22 mil) and 2 ($25.1 mil).

Be advised:  I detest Quentin Tarantino.  I didn’t like Reservoir Dogs.  I mildly disliked Pulp Fiction.   I hated Kill Bill with a cordial passion.  And everything I’ve ever read about Quentin Tarantino makes me hope his next movie is the new generation’s Ishtar.

Gack.

By way of reading Emily’s birthday post at TXP,  I noted that Saturday was the 39th anniversary of an obscure death that I remember almost as clearly as that of Martin Luther King, two days earlier…:

Motor racing world champion Jim Clark was killed in a car crash during a race.

Jimmy Clark was a “champion” in the same sense that Tiger Woods is a “Good Golfer”.

Perhaps the greatest Formula 1 driver ever, he passed the unbreakable records of Fangio and Nuvolare in only eight years of professional racing.   Ayrton Senna and Jackie Stewart both passed his win record – but both of them raced longer careers and busier schedules.

A natural talent, Clark’s record in F1 may be equalled, but there’s never be another.

And there’ll never be a car as cool as the 1.5l 1965 Lotus F1…

MLP at Casual Sundays with Mr. Curry:

Hustle and Flow

That Thing You Do, with whores and profanity

SCENE:  In CTU.  The heat is on.  Clicking, beeping, whirring all about; barely-controlled pandaemonium reigns. 

BAUER:  “Chloe, I need those grid maps overlaid with the week-old satellite photoes and the differentials called out, and I need ’em now…

CHLOE (irritably):  “Back off!  I’m running  a back-streamed IP subnetwork mask through the HTU turborouter with a full set of up-ticked cryo-semantic filter to crossmatch with Division, LAPD and Homeland Security databases!”

Noises off:  Stop.  Silence.  Everyone looks at O’Brien.

BAUER:  “What on earth are you talking about?”

Today’s meme – unmet expectations.

1. What, in your experience, was the most overrated movie of all time?

I may get shunned by my arty friends, but Eight 1/2 by Fellini left me totally cold.

2. What was the most overrated album?

That would have to be Sweet Baby James by James Taylor.  I never quite figured out what the attraction was supposed to be with Taylor.

3. What is the most overrated  book?

Catcher In The Rye.  Yeah, I know, Salinger, important, seminal, blah blah blah.  Left me very cold both times I read it.  Gank.

4. What is the most overrated blog?

Left-wing:  Why does anyone pay attention to Pandagon or Jesus General at all?

Right-wing:  Gotta say that the Rottweiler wore thin on me very, very fast.

5. What was the most overrated television show? 

Bet you thought I was going to say West Wing, right? 

Probably I Love Lucy.  “Gee – do you suppose Lucy will try to get a job with the band?  Five bucks Ricky doesn’t react with blustery machismo…DOH!  Lost again!”

6. What would you call the most overrated magazine?

“George” was desperately awful.

 7. Who was the most overrated classical composer?

Stravinsky.  Genius, yes, but everything he ever wrote gave me a headache.

8. Who is the most overrated pop songwriter?

John Lennon.  Without McCartney to round off the edges of his boundless cynicism and self-absorption, he was just unbearable. 

 My commenters were right.  I was wrong.  The Doors – Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore, singularly and as a group – have this coveted title all to themselves, in a league of their own.  I’m no Lennon fan, but let’s deny credit where no credit is truly due.

9. What is the most overrated genre in any form of art? 

Xtreem pantomime.

I don’t think it’s a separated at birth, per se – more like unknown illegitimate parents…

Beakman’s World star (from the nineties) Paul Zaloom, the father…:

…and Scrubs star Zach Braff, the son:

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of Red’s memes. This one’s about movies.

So I’d best get cranking, huh? 

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.

Not as many as I’d have liked.  Casablanca, of course, I’ve seen 44-46 times.  I’ve probably seen Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back,  Return of the King, Maltese Falcon, Das Boot, LA Confidential and The Usual Suspects somewhere close to ten times each, although who’s counting?

2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.

Very few!  Being all half-Norwegian and all, that kinda goes against my genetics. 

The only ones that jump to mind are Rocky Horror Picture Show (it’s not like you can watch that one on your VCR, right?), First Blood, probably Star Wars and Rocky, and that was about it.

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.

I’ve gone to a couple of movies strictly to see Marisa Tomei.  It’s led me into bummers (What Women Want) and stunners (Welcome to Sarajevo). 

Probably Kate Winslet and Paul Giamatti.

4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.

I can’t think of any. 

5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from.

Casablanca, This Is Spinal Tap, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian all jump to mind. 

6. Name a movie musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs

Probably not what they’re looking for, but the only two I can think of are Tommy and Quadrophenia. Which aren’t really “musicals”, but I’ve never really gotten into them.  I used to know all the drum parts to Cabaret…

UPDATE:  After reading Tommy’s entry, I need to add “every Disney movie that came out when my kids were little” – Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Little Mermaid…

7. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with

Quadrophenia!

“Bell Bo-ee! Carry the bloody baggage out!”

And probably “This Is Spinal Tap”

“Livin’ in a HELL HOLE!  Don’t wanna die in a HELL HOLE!”

8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.

An Inconvenient Truth.  Not.

I really loved Lost In Translation, although I don’t think a lot of people “get” it. 

The Big Red One is one of my favorite war movies – I tip it to war movie buffs all the time.

9. Name a movie that you own.

Not all that many!

10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.

Eminem was actually really good in Eight Mile.  And this might get me drummed out of the League of Irate Conservative Talk Hosts, but I thought Ludacris was excellent in Crash.

Oh – Dwight Yoakam was great in When Trumpets Fade and Sling Blade. I had no idea it was him, in either movie.  Impressive.

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?

We had a drive-in in Jamestown when I was little, and I remember going there with my parents.  I don’t remember any of the movies.  I do remember throwing up macaroni hot dish after we got home from one movie there, though.

12. Ever made out in a movie?

Um, yeah.  Most recently – well, the make-out was more memorable than the movie.  Can’t remember which movie it was.

It was not The English Patient or Leaving Las Vegas, if that helps.

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t yet gotten around to it.

So many.  Movies were not a huge part of my life growing up – we didn’t even have a theater in Jamestown for a couple of years.  Red’s got me jonesing to see a lot of things – old Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman films I’ve missed over the years, Hitchcock stuff, this and that and the other thing.

14. Ever walked out of a movie?

Very rarely.  I’m half Norwegian, remember?  If I think a movie’s going to stink, I don’t waste the money.  I’ve only walked out on two, ever.  I bailed on The Burbs, a movie Tom Hanks made during his fall from grace between Big and Philadelphia, where he kinda jumped the shark for a couple of years.  Awful, horrible movie.  And one time, the kids wheedled me into taking them to Little Nicky, the worst Adam Sandler movie ever.  I marched us outta there in about ten minutes.

I almost left Red Dawn after about twenty minutes, but stuck it out.  I still debate that decision; the movie remains the guiltiest of all guilty pleasures.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.

I don’t cry.  But Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was incredibly emotionally affecting.  And I’ll go along with Red – A Walk To Remember was very, very good (and would have been better had Nicholas Sparks been able to write a story that didn’t have such a schmaltzy, overblown, artificial ending).

16. Popcorn? 

Light butter.  The Riverview in Minneapolis makes the best popcorn ever – sorry, Uptown Theater, but it’s the truth.

17. How often do you go to the movies (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?

10-12 times a year.

18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?

Casino Royale at the Roseville (a second-run $2 house).

19. What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?

Noirs, good war movies, and just about anything with a really good story.

20. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?

Bambi.  At the Grand in Jamestown.  I think I was 4.

21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?

The Phantom Menace. That movie made me angry! 

22. What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?

Not sure how to answer that.  Nothing is really “weird” to me; I am a pretty nonsequential person.

23. What is the scariest movie you’ve seen?

I don’t really go to scary movies much.  I figure if I want to be scared, I’ll just lie in bed and contemplate my life for a while. 

I got wheedled into seeing The Ring once.  Hated hated hated it.

24. What is the funniest movie you’ve seen?

Too many to count.  Movies where I remember laughing so hard I thought I was going to be hurt:  Airplane, Naked Gun, A Fish Called Wanda (John Cleese’s Russian scene), and, much as it shames me to admit it, the “terrorist” scene in Jackass Number Two.

Gary Miller on the idea of Fred Thompson – former senator and, then, supporting actor on Law and Order – possibly running for President:

Thompson looks like a president straight out of — forgive me — central casting. His magnificent booming voice is rivaled only by his magnificent conservative voting record.

Hmmmm.

Somewhere or another, I have to find [regular commenter] Angryclown’s synopsis of every single Law and Order episode in history.

I don’t often take the City Pages’ arts reviews very seriously; most of the criticism is dragged through enough of each revewier’s personal agenda to the point where you can identify the writer just by the little tics in each piece.

I have no idea whether 300  – the screen version of Frank Miller’s comic book adaptation of Herodotus’ account of Spartan king Leonidas and his 300 warriors self-sacrificing stand against the Persians in 480BC –  is any good.  I may have to go see for myself, because Nathan Lee’s review tells us more about Lee than about the movie:

Long ago there reigned a clan of Speedo-wearing militaristic psychopaths called the Spartans. They lived beneath a copper-colored sky, on a copper-colored land, amidst copper-colored fields, in copper-colored homes made from copper-colored stone. Legend has it they would outline their copper-colored pecs and abs with ash to enhance their manly buffness, and yet these were men of action and honor, not “philosophers and boy lovers” like their namby-pamby rivals the Athenians….Yet aside from the fact that Spartans come across as pinched, pinheaded gym bunnies, it’s their flesh the movie worships. At once homophobic and homoerotic, 300 is finally, and hilariously, just hysterical.

Victor Davis Hanson might disagree:

Again, purists must remember that 300 seeks to bring a comic book, not Herodotus, to the screen. Yet, despite the need to adhere to the conventions of Frank Miller’s graphics and plot — every bit as formalized as the protocols of classical Athenian drama or Japanese Kabuki theater — the main story from our ancient Greek historians is still there: Leonidas, against domestic opposition, insists on sending an immediate advance party northward on a suicide mission to rouse the Greeks and allow them time to unite a defense…They are finally betrayed by Ephialtes, forcing Leonidas to dismiss his allies — and leaving his own 300 to the fate of dying under a sea of arrows.

But most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story. The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece. They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their feet than live on their knees.

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.

Arts criticism in the Twin Cities would seem to be a similar battle…

Previously On 24: I’m guessing that Logan’s newly-revealed Christianity will turn out to be a sick joke of some sort or another.

04: Son commandeers computer to do some homework.

…who listened to Melissa Etheridge’s dreary, tedious “best song”-winning tune (and preachy, sanctimonious acceptance) at the Oscars on Sunday…

…and found himself fondly, wistfully remembering the Three Six Mafia?

I’ll be at the Patriot’s Oscar broadcast tomorrow evening at the St. Paul Hotel.

And according to Nikki Finkke, we could be there mighty late:

Sunday nights Academy Awards telecast could end up the longest on record. Thats the prediction Ive been given by one VIP who helps oversee this 79th Oscars and is therefore in a position to know.

We’ll be there with  Michael Medved, talking about the event as it happens.

Which is just about the only way you can get me to watch the Oscars – at the St. Paul with a couple hundred of my closest friends!

…I have seen almost none of the Oscar nominees this year.  I don’t get out to all that many movies these days, for better or worse.

JACK VALENTI: “You should!  Movies are THE great American form of entertainment!”

MITCH: “Who let Jack Valenti into my dream?”

Anyway, even though I’ve seen almost none of the movies, and have almost no idea who any of them are, I’m going to have fun anyway.  I’m going to the Patriot’s Oscar night broadcast with  Michael Medved on Sunday at the St. Paul Hotel (and so can you!).  And I figure I might as well have some stake in the event, if only to have something to rub peoples’ faces in in the unlikely event I win (although, given the ’02 Senate and Gubernatorial, ’04 Presidential, and most of the ’06 Congressional races, not to mention my Super Bowl prediction, which was less than 20 points off in a game the Bears weren’t even supposed to be in, maybe not all that unlikely), it might be good to have some predix on the ground just in case.

And remember – it’s all in good fun.  Unless I win.

So without further ado:

Best Actor: I never saw any of the nominated movies, but I will go with Peter O’Toole, since I have never heard of Ryan Gosling, DiCaprio is too obvious and Will Smith and Forest Whitaker will split the “Oscars Are Too White” vote.

Best Supporting Actor: Djimon Hounsou.  Not sure why, except that I thought Alan Arkin (who is one of my favorite actors) was just OK in the immensely-overrated Little Miss Sunshine.  And Blood Diamond has great buzz.

Best Actress: Much as I’m dying to see either Penelope Cruz or Kate Winslet in an evening gown, my money’s on Helen Mirren.  And when I say “my money”, it’s a figure of speech.  Don’t get greedy, Learned Foot.

Best Supporting Actress:  Jennifer Hudson has all the buzz.  I’ll go with that this time.

Best Directing: The Departed will finally earn an Oscar, just out of pure guilt.

Best Picture:  The Departed, again.

Discuss.

We’re ten hours into this season’s 24, and it’s time to check out the predictions:

Who will Morris – Chloe’s sleazy squeeze – end up working for?  Whomever the real conspirators are.  See “4″, below.

Whoah – he’s working for AA!

Who will be the mole(s) in CTU?  I’m thinking Milo.

Could still be – and Morris isn’t technically a “mole”, just someone who broke.  More on this below.

Who will be the mole(s)/turncoat(s) in the Chris Rock Wayne Palmer administration? I’m going to guess the National Security Advisor, Mrs. Buchanan.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. 

How many levels above Fayed will the real conspiracy lie? There will be at least two cutoffs, that’ll lead CTU two levels above Fayed, and I’m guessing the path will run through Chechnya.

So far, so good.  Gradenko is one – there’s gotta be another.

Which CTU members are going to buy it?   I dunno (see below), but I’d pay money to make it Milo.

So close, but yet so far.

The only job more dangerous than a red-shirt on Star Trek is a member of the tactical team on 24 – and the  only job more dangerous than that is CTU/Los Angeles Leader.  So what’s going to happen to Nadia?  I think that O’Riley Firewall or wtf Chloe was talking about last night is going to come back to bite her, and maybe take a few other CTU operators out with her.

Nadia’s snug as a bug so far.  Morris, not so much.  Curtis, of course…well, y’know.

Maybe they’ll kill Kim off…

Bauer sort of raised the bar for taking out a perp in Episode 1 (I won’t spoil it).  Where can he go from there, carnage-wise?  I think it’ll involve a badger.  And Diederich Bader.

Well, Hour Four aside, we’re still waiting, right?

Discuss…

The latest New Yorker features a fascinating piece on 24 producer Joel Surnow.

Thorley Winston, in another thread, asks:

Mitch, could we get a “24″ thread?

Dammit, I’m in the middle of an issue containment problem, and I have to sync my content manager!  I’ll need at least two minutes.

Dammit!

You may comment on 24 when ready.

No kids reading?  Good. 

Your attention please:

1. There is no tooth fairy.
2. The Easter Bunny is only a metaphor.
3. Pro wrestling is fake.
4. “Reality TV” shows are carefully edited to maximize dramatic value, especially confrontation.  Don’t be surprised if a more-talented contestant gets booted from a “reality” competition to produce a catfight.  Call it “The Santino Syndrome”.
5. If an organization shares both goals and office space with a George Soros front organization, a reasonable person might infer there’s a connection. 

That is all.

With Scottish independence looming as a real possibility, it’s especially appropriate to note that it’s Robert Burns’ birthday today.  And nobody notes these things like Sheila:

He was born poor, in the middle of the 18th century. He had a lot of brothers and sisters, and his parents were farmers. Yet his father decided that Robert, his eldest, should have a bit of an education. A tutor was hired, and Robert, in between the farm chores and hard work, learned how to read and write. And a whole world opened up to him through language (as it is wont to do). Writing came naturally to him. He started writing poems and songs almost immediately, some of which are still famous today.

The thing about Burns, his time and his place that fascinates me is its commentary on education.  Burns came a bit before the “Edinburgh Renaissance”, but he was something of a model for that blossoming in technology, politics and art – mostly self-educated, a polymath, one of many brilliant people who leapt out of normal class distinctions through the sheer will to learn and intellectually conquer; men who didn’t distinguish between conquering technology and mastering art, since they went hand in hand; people who didn’t need academics to pronounce them fit to contribute, but who learned what they wanted and needed and proceeded to change the world. 

Happy Birthday!