In memorium

I am nothing if not sarcastic and derivative.

About once a week, we get an email on our school system saying that somebody has passed away.  Some former principal, the wife of a coworker, the third cousin of a former lunch lady at a school that doesn't exist anymore but with whom some people still around may have worked.

For most of these, I just glance to make sure it's not anybody I know - most of whom wouldn't tell the PR folks in the district anyway - and hit delete.  For one a couple of weeks ago, however, I was impressed with the sheer volume of things said about the departed, the husband of a woman who apparently works at our alternative school (an entirely computer-based school of last chance for our more challenging youths).

In the honor of this passing, I offer my own, entirely fabricated, thoroughly plagiarized version of his write-up in the Cincinnati Enquirer...

We have learned of the passing of Mr. Lonnie Dusch, husband of Karlen (redacted) (Heritage Elementary, but not the Heritage in the Princeton district).

The Cincinnati Enquirer write-up is shown below:

DUSCH Robert L, husband of Karlen (redacted) who wouldn’t take his last name because it’s Dusch. Owner of LeRoy, Harlan, and Aylah. Son of Robert (Little Bob) Dusch and (redacted) who actually took the name Dusch and then gave it back even though they didn’t get divorced or anything. Brother of Amellia Dusch. Grandson of Robert (Big Bob) Dusch – not Sr because the middle name changed from Frederick to Fred – and Gertie Dusch, Helen Goehe and Lorenz Henry Goehe (pronounced gay which isn’t really much better than Dusch). Also survived by additional family, friends, and brothers and sisters in Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Visitation will be held in room 519 at Princeton High School from 4-8pm on Thursday, November 19, where Lonnie will be arranged as though he were still teaching and you can rest in desks where thousands of his students slept. Nondenominational services will be held at Miami University on the first hole of the disc golf course on Saturday, November 21 at 8am so no one has to miss school but everyone has to get up early and get the day started. Discs will be available to all attendees for after the services.

Lonnie Dusch was anything but the usual teacher.

He loved to blow stuff up but actually tried to make sure his students knew what was happening and why. He commissioned the building of a big spinner wheel, a lazy susan tornado of fire, and other things that he didn’t have the skills to build himself. He really just hated to get his hands dirty.

“He was the best hire I ever made. His mere presence elevated the science department to a place where we could consistently almost meet state minimum competency,” said Rebecca Heckman. “Plus, he could be cuttingly sarcastic and immature, yet people would constantly look to him for guidance and trust his ideas and untitled leadership.”

Mr. Dusch, 44, became ill after leading a spelunking expedition through recently discovered caves below the future site of Princeton High School’s new campus. He contracted man-bird-cavepig-flu which developed into walking pneumonia, sitting pneumonia, lying down pneumonia, and eventually into curling on his side wheezing pneumonia. Mr. Dusch spent 43 days at school since the contraction of his illness, continuing to say that he “didn’t feel too bad” before succumbing to the disease during a staff meeting.

Mr. Dusch met his future bride, Karlen, when both were members of Mrs VanOsdol’s honors English class in seventh grade where she mocked him for his white tube socks pulled up to above his husky calves. Mr. Dusch enjoyed playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons at the time.

But it was his love of playing around on the internet his sister remembers.

“He was always on,” she said.

He founded a blog on Blogger, she said, and then got involved in posting the most inane observations and banal commentary.

“What people will remember Lonnie by is sarcasm…sarcasm and devastating good looks. The two things people will remember Lonnie by are sarcasm, devastating good looks, and a fanatical devotion to Princeton High School, always willing to go in on a Sunday to grade notebooks after putting them off for a week, attending soccer games and high school musicals so he could post thousands of almost in-focus, marginally framed photos on the school website,” she said.

“He was always wanting to put his touch on things.”

This included editing coworkers’ presentations – whether they asked or not, commenting on blog posts from former students and overseeing the redesign of the Princeton High School website, especially when he had students to do the actual work for him, his favorite method of working.

Mr. Dusch was not the senior chemistry instructor – having been beaten to Princeton by his long-time neighbor, Doug Studer. Before that, he was the chemistry instructor at Mount Healthy High School and at Terre Haute South Vigo High School in Indiana.

His sister, Amellia, saw the teacher potential in her brother when they were children.

“He just talked and talked. He wanted people to do things his way and to always tell them what he knew,” she said. “He was an absolute know-it-all.”

Mr. Dusch is survived by Karlen, his wife of 19 years, dogs Harlan and LeRoy, cat Aylah, and a rosemary bush that he was really proud of.

Visitation is 4-8pm Thursday in room 519 of Princeton High School, 11080 Chester Rd, Cincinnati. The scattering of his ashes is at 8am Saturday at Miami University disc golf course’s first tee.

Hope ya like the new me

This is it...today is my final day living a normal life.

Wednesday evening, I will be winning the (currently) $178 million Powerball jackpot.

That's right. The wife and I bought ten (clearly a ridiculous amount considering that I'm sure whatever single ticket we'd bought would've won) tickets on Sunday as we drove back to the Cincy area from our hometown, and - as we always do - we began chatting about the "what would we do with the money".

I figure - since I'm a narcissist - that you'll care, so I'm gonna go through some of the highlights:

• First off, the house gets paid off (along with the newer siding loan, the cars, the fridge, the computers, all of it - no debt). Easy call.
• Then it's a million bucks for each of us to spend frivolously. The rest goes into an investment account to make huge bank for us the rest of our lives.
• Karlen's promised to buy a scooter - either a Stella or a Vespa and a hot sports car.
• I don't know whether I'd quit my job or not, but there are a few things listed below that might require me to drop the job. I really dig my job, absolutely love it, but I wouldn't want to do the crappy job that might be lead to if I took as much time off as the following wish list would require.
• I'd buy all the stuff off of my Amazon.com wishlist. Well, maybe not the chemistry stuff since I might not be teaching any more.
• Karlen says she'd buy a house on the coast near Boston. I dunno about buying another house. Maybe one in Gatlinburg because we go down there with friends every Presidents Day. I could rent it out the rest of the year to make even more bank - 'cause you can never have enough bank, right?
• I'm thinking that there's gonna have to be a tour of the four tennis grand slam tourneys. This is the one that would likely lead to me quitting my job. It wouldn't be something I'd do all in one year, but I'd see 'em all.
• And I'd have full-tourney good seats for the Cincy Masters Series. Good seats.
• There's a niece and nephew whose college educations would be paid for.
• I'd have a much bigger hardrive on my totally new, freakin' fast laptop. That way I could download just about any song I want.
• Just about any graphic novel or book that I want to read would be bought. Likely then donated to PLCH if I didn't want to keep it (and I probably wouldn't keep many of them - too much stuff in the house already).
• I don't know whether I'd get cable or not. It's not just all about the cash.
• I'd see more movies in the theater.
• I'd see Ryan Adams live. And Wilco, too - a lot. I just might call up Riverbend or Bogarts or the Taft and see what it'd take to get those guys to play in my hometown. And I'd see what it'd take to get U2 to play an acoustic concert at Bogarts - but only if I could get a soundboard recording.
• Karlen has said that she'd pay John Mellencamp to play at the Bluebird - but only if he'd play "Jackie Brown", "Jack & Diane", and "Key West Intermezzo" and not play that medley of "Authority Song / Land of 1000 Dances".
• Maybe I'd buy a plot of land in the southwest and drop in a tiny house.
• There'd be lots of charitable donations: to Wabash, to the LLS, to PLCH, to the DNC, to alternative energy sources, to PHS, to MTHS, to NAHS.
• That new computer would have some kickbutt wireless speakers that I could tote around the house to wherever I wanted. And the wireless router would have a way larger range.
• The tree we're taking down in our back yard would be replaced by a much larger tree than the one we're likely to end up buying without the lotto loot.

Common courtesy dies at the altar of constant contact

We are not a nice people any more.

Friday night, the wife and I stopped at PF Chang's to grab some take-out fare. We placed our order, dropped a few bucks into the Chang coffers, and headed down the strip to browse while our dan dan noodles were fixed up, chop chop.

When we got back - after sampling Coldstone's pumpkin ice cream (a favorite flavor of mine but not the best pumpkin around, honestly) - we had to wait for another patron to pay for her take-out before we could grab our stuff and head home for a night of watching Deadwood on library-procured DVD.

Ah, and waiting for that woman was a true pleasure.

She was texting on her Razor phone the whole time, never once speaking to the Chang's employee, slapping her credit card down on the counter instead of handing it across or even sliding it close to the employee. The woman then continued to stand in the food waiting area texting on her phone, partially blocking the server door into the kitchen.

On the way out, I asked Karlen whether she thought that our generation is/would be viewed as rude by the generation that came before us, whether we have lost some of the social graces that older folks might've had. She pointed out that the woman in line before us wasn't of our generation - being probably ten to fifteen years older than we.

My question, however, was a more general one: are we less curtious than the generations before us?

For example, I was in PF Chang's wearing a sweatshirt and baseball cap because it's my typical weekend outfit. I certainly wasn't dressed for a sit-down dinner in the restaurant, but I was just dropping off an order and picking up food. I wouldn't even have considered sitting down in the restaurant wearing a ballcap nor in the sweatshirt that I was wearing (my oldest, trashiest Wabash one). Someone from my grandfather's generation, however, likely wouldn't have considered even stepping into the restaurant with a hat on head, but I kept it on while I ordered and picked up the food.

Are we less curtious? Have times changed?

Sure, both are true, and it gets to the heart of the matter, I guess, in that it's a difficult thing to attempt to judge other people. Each of them - whether they're someone as lke us as was the woman in PF Chang's with me or a Borneo native who has never seen a restaurant much less a Chang's. How am I to judge someone from another culture - be they from another nation or simply from another era or generation? Am I to give them a free pass with the disclaimer that they're not wrong, they're just from a different culture or do I have some ability to say that my culture is somehow better and that their actions are, in light of my cultural background, somehow wrong or bad or at least less correct?

If I don't have that ability - if cultural relativism truly is the rule of the day, then what rights do I have to tell the student in the hallway outside of my door to not tell his friend to shut the f*&^ up? How do I explain the distinction between an appropriate action within the school culture without somehow also saying that his action is not ok? without devaluing his culture?

And why didn't I say something to the woman on the cell phone if I do have the right to judge someone else?

Why did I, instead, simply discuss the issue with Karlen, not even doing as I had initially planned and apologizing to the PF Chang employee on the rude woman's behalf?

The last is the easiest to answer: because when she took our money and gave us our order, she immediately had to answer a call-in order on the phone right next to her.

If you do feel like juding, feel free to first check out these links about cell phone etiquette...from LetsTalk.com...from Microsoft's website...from Road & Travel Magazine

Ambassadoring

Somehow along the timeline, Karlen and I seem to have adopted a personal charity. This spring she ran the Flying Pig Marathon for Team in Training for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She's also in charge of her school's Pasta for Pennies campaign. And I've mentioned my co-chairship of Princeton's phenomenal Pasta for Pennies campaign before, and I think this fall will be my first honest run at their Light the Night walk.

It's sort of become our charity. It wasn't anything particularly intentional, and we haven't - thankfully - been personally touched by leukemia or anything, but it just sort of happened.

Today's post isn't about our choices, but I thought a little background was in order.

Today's post, rather, is about the film A Lion in the House. It's a documentary following five Cincinnati-area families whose children have been diagnosed with blood cancers (leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood cancers). The film follows them through six years of their journeys, documenting every up and down moment from the most hopeful to the most heart-wrenching.

On Wednesday night, Karlen and I (along with Becky - my PHS co-coordinator) were invited to see a seventy-five-minute version of the documentary down at the Aronoff Center. Wisely, the LLS put boxes of Kleenex in every row, because it is a hard watch. At the same time, it's an incredibly hopeful watch, too, and one that makes me want to work even harder toward the LLS's mission of curing, educating, and helping.

The full documentary will be shown on PBS on June 21st and 22nd (in two two-hour parts - check local listings for times). I would highly recommend it to anybody.

I'm also going to recommend the website MyLion.org as a way for people - particularly young people - to become more involved after seeing the documentary. It's a website set up by people associated with the filmmakers of the film. The site just went online today and is still getting some bugs worked out. Hopefully our Pasta for Pennies committee will be helping them test the site and get it fully operational.

If you would like to know more about A Lion in the House, please leave a comment and I'll email you back or check out any of the following websites:

• A Lion in the House official website
• Public Radio Echange's piece on the film (login to hear the stream)
• An excellent review of the film
• WCET's page on the film
• Independent Film's website on the film
• IndieWire's coverage of the film (mostly a review)
• Ordering info for the movie and associated book

Extreme houses...

As a dweller in the land of suburbia, I get to enjoy seeing the new developments popping up with bigger and bigger houses on smaller and smaller plots of land, complete with three-car garages, two-story foyers with giant chandeliers, and automatic sprinkler systems to grow back the sod that was peeled off in the first place. A term for these sorts of houses has come into being: McMansions, and there is a growing backlash against them.

Which is where the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company comes into the story.

Karlen found their site thanks to an NPR story about the houses being used as homes in the Katrina-devistated areas of the Gulf Coast.

The houses are from a designer who lives in one of his houses, all of which are between 100 and 500 square feet and - according to the company's website - can meet the fulltime living needs of anyone interested in providing a smaller environmental footprint. Or, as suggested, they could be artists studios, weekend retreats in the country or just about anything else that people could want from a smaller residence.

Karlen's talked a number of times about getting a retreat in the country with a little trailer on the land, something simple. In my mind, these would be much better than any trailer.

Honestly, I'm amazingly impressed and kind of tempted by the houses. It's probably an extreme that I won't be pursuing, but the mere presence of people working at these extremems remind the rest of us that we need to keep our footprint as small as we can manage.

Santa Fe is for weirdos...

Karlen and I spent our honeymoon in Santa Fe, and it's a gorgeous place - really beautiful. It's a really neat place - very much artistic and historic. The climate is beautiful as is the landscape around the city.

And it attracts its fair share of artistic weirdos like Adam Horowitz - not the Beastie Boy but rather the creater of Fridgehenge. It's the kind of thing that only a society that is truly comfortable can create.

Don't get me wrong, I've got a soft spot for the people of the world who create things of beauty - even things of weird beauty. Take, for example, the recreation of Stonehenge that Karlen and I made on another trip we took together. We called it Fruithenge.

Right...I'm off to dinner in Hamilton and a show of support at the HFS production of Cinderella. Wish me luck, folks...

Winter lovin'...

Everybody needs somebody to love, and there are always options of how to find that somebody. Thankfully, the internet has provided us with tons of new options.

Today's suggested love-finding engine is Love Monkey. It's a simple enough thing. You list people you're attracted to - including their email addresses. The Love Monkey site sends them an email saying somebody - not you, not a friend, not anybody except an anonymous somebody - is attracted to them and invites them to make the same kind of list. If they happen to list you, you both get an email. No muss, no fuss, no going out on a limb and actually talking to them or taking a risk.

Effectively it's how I started dating my now wife. (I know you care, so I'll relate the brief version.) I called into WNAS - our high school radio station - chatting up Jennifer who asked - innocently enough, I guess - who I liked. The answer was pretty simple: two girls, Karlen (my now wife) and Jennifer. Apparently the Jennifer comment wasn't reciprocated, but she took the other half and played Love Monkey with Karlen. Lucky me, things were reciprocated on that front.

And I'm not talking about the new show with Tom Cavanagh. That's a different Love Monkey.

The IHOP is dead to me...dead!

The wife and I woke up this morning nostalgic for a breakfast at the table of the multi-flavored syrup caddy of the International House of Pancakes (IHOP). We had some errands to run - Home Depot, Joanne Fabrics, and Jungle Jim's - and headed out toward the Cincinnati Mills area for a stack of flapjacks.

Here's the problem, however...apparently, you can never go home again. Instead of the slightly dingy blue roof that we remember from childhoods around the country (mine in Clarksville, IN - hers all over the country), we found a nice, new, spiffy IHOP - no A-frame, no syrup caddies on the tables. We might've well been sitting at a Bob Evans with blue awnings. The hostess offered us a trio of specials - funnel cakes, instead of pancakes - which the waitress began to go through again until she saw the disinterest on our faces. She paused, and we asked her whether the funnel cakes were actually any good. Instead of a quick reassurance, she gave us a report on her diabetes and her surprisingly high sugar level last night. I'm not so much good with the chatterbox waitress concepts.

Then the food came. The sausage was fine, as were the eggs. The hash browns were nicely done, too - just like a good Waffle House order. And my cinnamon-roll french toast was tasty. Karlen's food was pretty much the same - except that she went for the big, fluffy pancakes - nasty if you ask me. I'm clearly more in favor of thin, crisp pancakes instead of the big, doughy pancakes that most restaurants sell. For me, if the batter doesn't pour from the spoon, then it's way too thick.

But the place was like the moon - no atmosphere at all. Instead of a place that we both remembered fondly, this was a restaurant anywhere in the US with nothing special at all. Could've been a Bob Evans, a Denny's, a Perkin's or just about any of a dozen other chain restaurants. Blech...

We won't be going back.

Call me a Waffle House man any day of the week...and twice at three in the morning...

PS - an interesting aside, it turns out that the IHOP chain has been going through a major redesign, trying to tie back into the nostalgia that apparently Karlen and I aren't the only ones with. Here's an article discussing the fact that Cincy is supposed to have been a part of this new roll out. Our store this morning didn't have any sort of A-frame, however.

And it appears that the folks in Deerfield Township look to not be adding an IHOP to their breakfast options any time soon.

And not everybody disliked their IHOP experience. This couple in Oakley gave it a fair rave.

Ah, cats...

I think of myself as a dog person. My family always had a dog when I was growing up, and Karlen and I got a dog within a month or so of us moving into our first house. We're a two-dog family now, and they're beautiful boys.

But we're also a cat family. She came to me with a cat - the only one still with us to this day, Aylah. She's a loving cat who is social to a fault, coming back again and again to be petted no matter how much you mess with her. Many people comment that she's one of the friendliest cats they've met - almost always being around when strangers are here.

We've had as many as three cats at any one time - both the others came from friends or family whose situations changed and who couldn't take the cats with them.

It's probable that once Aylah leaves us, we'll stick to being a dog family, but I will admit to really digging the one cat that I've really come to know. She's a cutey...

Dig the randomness

What a cool idea. It's called a camera toss. You set your camera for a one-second exposure and chuck it to a sure-handed friend. Neat imagry abounds.

Also random is the random picture search using Google and some sort of random generator to grab pictures at, well, random from the interweb.

Or there's the random Homer Simpson quote generator.

And while we're speaking of random beauty, another random ten from the iTunes...

• "Rudie Can't Fail" by the Clash - great album The Clash...this isn't the best song on there, but it's quality birth of pop punk
• "Habit" by Pearl Jam - No Code is my favorite PJ album, and this one's okay...lil' more anger than I typically like from the boys, but it's a part of their personality that I'm okay with - just not the side I prefer
• "Over the Rainbow" by Harry Nilsson - so underappreciated by the modern music listener, Harry Nilsson was a master...an absolute master...his double CD Personal Best should be required listening by anybody who claims to like music in nearly any form...perfect pop with touches of nearly every genre - singer-songwriter, old standards, rock, angry young man, Beatles, Elton, Billy Joel...wonderful
• "A Change of Sex" by David Motion & Sally Potter - from the Orlando soundtrack - great movie, neat music - especially the song "Coming"...this one's an stmospheric track that works mostly because of the movie
• "Slow and Low" by the Beastie Boys - one of my absolute favorite bands...from the classic Licensed to Ill debut cd...very indicative of where they'd be heading from this one
• "Casey Jones" by Carl Sandberg - a shock from the Beastie Boys, but I love the old recordings that Carl Sandberg did and that have been collected on Songs for America, mostly because Mom played them for me growing up...she played many of them on the guitar as my lullabies
• "Only Son" by Liz Phair - love her first three albums...hate the last two more popish albums...her choice to change styles, and I recognize her choice, but it's just not one I'm willing to take with her
• "Towards the Within" by Dead Can Dance - I know almost nothing about this group or their music other than the one album that Karlen had from college...but I like that album - very atmospheric and moody...world music and new age-ish stuff with gorgeous, strange stuff thrown into the mix...great for a Halloween chill out...
• "7/29/04 The Day Of" by David Holmes - from the Ocean's Twelve soundtrack - much better as music than as movie...I keep quoting that the movie was no fun but at least the actors seemed to be having fun...I'll probably end up seeing the third movie because I dig the actors involved, but it'll hopefully be more the Eleven than Twelve
• "Something in the Way" by Nirvana - I didn't and still don't get Nirvana...too angry, too annoying, too offensive for me...but their MTv Unplugged is a classic..."In the Pines" is a perfect cover...and so many of their songs worked in this stripped down setting...

Throwing the shutters wide

Finishing up the George Perez (anybody know how to make the accent mark over the first e there in Perez?) run of Wonder Woman was Destiny Calling, the fourth volume of the trades. This is one that absolutely has to be read in order since so much of the volume continues storylines that were introduced in the first three volumes. As I've read through the run, I've become less and less enamored with Perez's storyline. He's willing to take risks in the traditional panel-panel-panel style of storytelling, particularly in the first issue here, letting a detective (in very dated, comedic clothing) tell the story through his type-written case report, but I find that the experiments are often more of a distraction than a revalation. The continuing capricious attitude of the Greek Gods - in spite of which, Diana continues to be faithful to them - also becomes more and more of a distraction rather than a boon to the series. All in all, this isn't a great finish to Perez's run, and it makes me more and more impressed with Greg Rukka's run on the series, also available in collections.

Okay, so I'm thinking we need a mini series to sell. Let's take a couple of popular anti-heroes, throw them together for a totally random reason, and let them kill a bunch of people. The fanboys'll love Wolverine/Punisher, right?

I dunno, but I didn't.

The plot's thin at best - but I tend to find most of the Punisher plots pretty thin (um, revenge on the whole world of bad guys, blah) - and the artwork's not nearly revelatory enough to carry things. And it all ends up being based on the most cliched of comic book bad guys behind the bad guy plot - Nazis.

And then there's Promethea Book Two from Alan Moore. I'll let a quote from Sequart.com stand for the opening:

Promethea's the kind of book that, every time you think you should drop it, that you can live without it, that it's so abstract that you'd be better off waiting for the next trade, you get to an undeniably brilliant, medium-bending passage in the issue at hand and realize that you'd be a fool not to read a 24-page continuing panel that loops back over itself, or see Hermes stare at the reader, recognizing that he's in a comic book, as soon as you f$@&ing could.

The second volume of Promethea continues the first's storyline of the former incarnations educating the current incarnation in the ways of magic and dreams as they connect to the "real world", and in typical comics fashion, the current incarnation steps up and shows a few hints that she just might be the greatest incarnation yet.

It's more of the same (which is pretty high level, experimental stuff that works) from Alan Moore until the final issue in this trade. And then it becomes revelatory.

Amazing...

Phenomenal...

Promethea consults the two snakes of her caduceus, each of whom tell her a slightly different but - of course - entertwining story about the origin of the universe. The slips back and forth between the two stories, all the time illustrated by anagrams of the title of the series makes a truly ground-breaking experience for a comic book reader.

This issue alone justifies the existence of the series, and I can only just barely wait to read the third volume.

Chew on This popped up on the "new at the library" emails that I get each week from PLCH and sounded interesting, so I gave it a go. Halfway through the very quick read, I commented to Karlen that I thought the book was written for kids because the sentence construction seemed a little on the simple side of things. Turns out I was right.

Eric Schlosser, the author of bestseller Fast Food Nation, has just released a version of the book that is aimed at sixth to eighth graders and co-written with Charles Wilson, a writer for numerous publications including The New York Times. Chew on This is a 258-page book that is subtitled "everything you don't want to know about fast food." Schlosser and Wilson explain, "The only real difference between [Chew on This and Fast Food Nation] is emphasis. For this book, we focused on how the industry affects the lives of young people ... Just about every teen in America has some connection to fast food, for better or worse."

So I was reading Fast Food Nation for kids. Simple enough.

The book is an excellent read, one I'd recommend even for adults who have some curiosity about the subject of how fast food has changed our culture over the past half dozen decades. Schlosser looks at how the job market for teens, the farming industry, city planning, school nutrition, and food ingredients have all changed because of the fast food industry. He makes very simple arguments and backs them all up with meticulously end-noted facts. The last part was one of the most impressive parts of the book to me, the end notes. Probably the last fifty pages of the book consists of a chapter by chapter, fact by fact citation of where Schlosser researched each of the facts in the book. He points out the sources that he used to get holistic pictures for each chapter as well as those that are quoted in the text. This allows readers who have a curiosity to learn more (or who might be assigned a paper to write) to find the full details easily, but it also doesn't clutter the prose with endless citations and footnotes on each page. For a book aimed at the teen market, this is a genius choice.

Schlosser's book should be on the shelves of every middle and high school health classroom and library.

If it's a Wilco project, I'll give it a try, particularly if it's got a cool video like this one. Born Again in the USA is the second album from Loose Fur, a side project of Jeff Tweedy (who really has become Wilco as the only permenent member, it seems). I gave their first a listen in the store a while back and wasn't impressed, but I caught a couple of these tunes on the radio and enjoyed them, so...

There are all sorts of pompous reviews of the album, but I'm gonna just throw out that some of it was fun. It seems more thrown off and light-hearted than a lot of the Wilco tunes of the last couple albums (which I love, but which seemed occasionally to have been labored over). The album is a little disjointed as it bounces back and forth between Tweedy and O'Rourke's songs, but it's a fun listen.

It's my second check out of Private Investigations a combined greatest hits from Dire Straits and their leader, Mark Knopfler. In many cases - Tom Petty comes to mind - it's tough to distinguish a band leader's solo and group efforts. In Knopfler's case, however, the work of the man is a fair bit different from that of the group, and this double disc does a nice job of blending the two similar but distinct threads.

The second disc lags a bit when things turn to Knopfler's movie music, works that subvert his musical stylings in favor of being music that actually fits the movie - a radical concept for many modern artists. The two instrumentals break the flow of the rest of the double disc, but the rest of the music is outstanding enough that the whole is an excellent summation of Dire Straits' years and Mark Knopfler's still-ongoing solo career.

Because I'm mental and forgot to bring any reading material to the time in Great Seal, I ended up picking up Julie & Julia when I got up way earlier than the girl. By the time she rolled out of the tent, I was like seventy pages in and hooked.

Crap.

It's the story of a neurotic, New York, crappy cooking woman who chooses to make her life better by making every recipe in Julia Childs's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I know, it makes ever so much sense. It's a stupid premise for a book, and it's the sort of thing that is probably better suited for a blog, the sort of inanity with a theme that is going to hook people in to reead a few paragraphs every day or two, the sort of thing that could get ya hooked and sucked in to check in every couple of days.

And if the titular Julie wasn't an entertaining writer, it'd be a waste of a book. As it is, she is thoroughly entertaining, and I'm totally sucked in. I'm about halway through now (it's a quick read), and I'll probably finish it up. D*#n that chick lit.

Courtney Cox was just about the only recognizable actor in November, but that didn't stop things from becoming incomprehensible very, very quickly.

By the end of the movie, I had some clue as to what had happened, but it took a whole, whole lot of confusion to get there. I don't know that it was worth the confusion to get to the clarity, but it certainly...well...there wasn't a whole lot fo certaintly in the flick.

The set up is a pretty simple one: Courtney Cox's character isn't sleeping and has headaches because her boyfriend has been shot in a Quicky-Mart when Cox sent him in to get "something chocolatey."

Or maybe he didn't die. Maybe she did. Or maybe he's not dead.

Things start to fall apart when one of Cox's photography students is showing her slides in class and the last slide shows the Quicky Mart at the moment of the shooting, Cox sitting in her car outside. Clearly - well, not so clearly, as I've mentioned - something sinister is afoot. Other things start to slip as well, and then the movie starts over.

Things slip again, and the movie begins again.

And then it ends.

Luckily, I took a return through Zoolander. If ever there's a more mindless reaction to a confused flick like November, then Zoolander is it. It's not a great film, but it's entertaining, and it successfully washed away all the blah.

Currently checked out, Superman: Red Sun, Daredevil: Decalogue, The Magnificant Seven, and some other movie that I can't think of at the moment.

I'll spare you the two graphic novels since they're reviewed somewhere over in ye olde media blog, but you'll get to hear my thoughts on the movies at some future point.

Lucky bastages...

The best song EVER!

"Build Me Up Buttercup" popped on the radio on the way home, and for some reason the thought of "Hey, I like that song" popped into my brain.

It's not my favorite song or anything, and I don't think it's close to the greatest song ever, but I think it's a song that most people like. Most people wouldn't say that they love the song, but I'd wager that most people like it, feel kinda happy when it comes on.

Which lead me to wonder if there's a song that literally everybody likes. If there was some song that you could get pretty much everybody agreeing that it's a song they like.

Karlen nominated "Ob la di" by the Beatles.

My current nomination - after like five minute thinking about it - is "My Girl" by the Temptations. The groups' not a polarizing one, having not taken on hugely controversial topics or doing anything that's so radical that I think it would turn people off. It's a black group, and from what I've seen in my classroom, that seems to bring in more folks than white oldies groups/artists. Plus it's a happy song. There's no angst there whatsoever, which I think would keep more people in.

So, what are your nominees for the song that would get the most people to say that they like the song?

PS - I think "MMBop" might qualify if you could get people to answer honestly, but I think it was so popular that it's got an overt backlash in spite of that fact that it just might be the perfect pop song.

Final cartoon today courtesy of Toothpaste for Dinner.

Be wary...

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

~Martin Niemoller

A number of major media outlets are NOT covering the story that Dick Cheney is angry at some media members for not staying quiet about a story that broke on June 23rd that our government has been monitoring an international banking database to check financial records (possibly yours and mine, included) in the "fight against terrorism".

Thankfully, a number of news sources have reported the story in various forms:

• USA Today's great summary
• Arizona Central's reprint of the Washington Post's story
• The Indy Fishwrap's reprint of the AP story
• the Washington Post's editorial - with great details of the program
• BBC's headline that got my attention
• NPR's story that got Karlen's attention
• ACLU's page about the Patriot Act
• US Government page about the Patriot Act
• Actual text of the Patriot Act

Well adapted...

Last night Karlen asked me if I wasnted to go see V for Vendetta, and I am loathe to pass up a chance to go see just about any movie in the theater, so off to the Rave this afternoon.

It's a pretty standard answer to any movie that's been adapted from a book that I want to say read the book - it's better, and I'll get that out of the way now.

It's a faithful adaptation. There are a few changes that were made from the book that do make for impressive on-screen moments, and the added moments don't detract from the story. I don't know that they add all that much to the story either, though, even if they do make the ultimate scene a little more visually impressive.

I don't know that the movie will be reviewed all that well because it's a political allegory (oddly enough, one written as a commentary on the Thatcher administration) that plays as a very damning critique of some of the things that are happening today (an impressive trait for a work of graphic fiction to be relevant and current a quarter century later). It's not the kind of thing that loads of people are going to go to as a popcorn flick and just come out of the theater raving and cheering. It's a thinker, this one is.

Alan Moore's work is phenomenal, and it retains almost all of its power on the big screen. Hugo Weaving does a great job of acting behind the mask, and Natalie Portman does a good job of putting on a British accent.

It's a rough film with a big message buried in there (not terribly deeply, either), and one that's worth seeing. I'd go matinee for it, but it's a big screen treat.

My Saturday Morning Ritual...

Every Saturday morning I get up and flop on the couch. Karlen heads to go for one of her weekly runs - today downtown for sixteen miles - and I surf the net, stopping at the various blogs and movie trailer sites that I enjoy. Usually, 'round 8:30 The Batman flips on, and I begin the day's real work - typically for my KSU classes - when that fades away.

Today's little nuggests from that surfing time are four movie trailers...

The Breakup

I've been very untempted to see this movie since the first couple of previews, but this one is changing my mind. The other trailers have suggested a very snarky, nasty movie showing the breakup between the two leads. This one suggests a chance of (and I assume a near-guarantee of) - reconcilliation.

La Mujer de Mi Hermano

I don't know what the title means - something about of my brother, I think. A bunch of foreign language films on Apple iMovies today. This one looks like a pretty standard formula - brother sleeps with sister-in-law, but it looks like a stylish take on the formula.

Trust the Man

I like pretty much all the actors involved here - especially Maggie Gyllenhaal - and like the feeling that the trailer produces here. The discussions of love and relationships is a subject that is always ripe for a good movie.

Drawing Restraint 9

This is clearly an artsy movie. Heck, anytime a movie description includes a phrase like "...symbolically tracks through the construction and transformation of a vast structure of liquid Vaseline..." it's an artsy movie. For some reason, though, this one intrigues me. Sort of the same intrigue that I get from The Fountain but, I'm guessing, with a lot less linear a storyline.

Prince is a madman...

Here's a little video of Prince showing up the entire remaining alive Wilburys. Check it out...

I was lucky enough to see Prince live at the 5/3 Arena/Cincinnati Colleseum/City Bank Arena a few years ago. Went down there with Karlen and Cindy just so I could say that I saw Prince (a true legend in American music). Sadly, the sound was horrible, and it was really hard to understand a bunch of the songs - particuarly the few acoustic numbers that he wanted the audience to sing along to. Tragically, pretty much nobody in the place could tell what song he was playing because the sound was so awful.

Luckily, this video has better sound.

Much Betta...

Let's see, it was a Friday night, and we were in need of a quick dinner option. Neither of us were in the mood to cook, and I wanted pizza. The easy and somewhat standard option was simply to head over to the local Papa John's, but Karlen was more in the mood for a pizza that she tried with a friend of hers, so down to Norwood we headed...to Betta's Italian Oven.

Betta's is new to me, but it's a great little place and one I'm sure we'll be frequenting more often now that we know it's around. It's takes up a couple of storefronts along Montgomery Rd. in Norwood - thankfully with parking around back - and has a great atmosphere of a family restaurant - decidely non-chain (which is a big bonus for us). There's a walk-up counter for take-out (and the eventual settling of the bill) where you can see the salads and antipasto items - like roasted red peppers and a couple of what look like wonderful pasta salads. Behind the counter then, is a large wood-fired pizza oven.

The menu, then, is centered around that oven with great, thin semi-gourmet (but not fancy and stupid) pizzas. We had the margherita pizza with a couple of side salads (I'd steer clear of the tangy garlic house dressing - a little too harsh with the white vinegar for me). Great flavor and crunch to the pizza - especially with the standard red pepper flakes thrown about. And, admittedly, we finished splitting a couple of great desserts - the NY-style cheesecake and a wonderful tiramisu. All for right at $20 for the two of us.

For those of you with a slightly more adult taste, I do warn that Betta's doesn't have a liquor license but does welcome you to bring your own adult refreshment - for a $5 corking fee.

Good stuff all in all - inexpensive cost, good atmosphere, family friendly, great food - five stars in my book. Check out their menu online through BearCash Coupons - though the coupons are expired.

Other quick shoutouts to my other favorite pizza places around the city: Dewey's, Papa John's, and Pomodori's.

Copping out...

Another random playlist from my iTunes at home...the first ten songs to come up when I hit play...

"Cult of Personality" by Living Colour

Sadly one of the forgotten bands of the late 80's...great hard rock with a social conscience froma primarily black band...an interesting combo that we haven't really seen much otherwise...great song...

"Idaho" by Yonder Mountain String Band

One of their better studio songs...closer to a tight song than their more typical extended jams...fun group with some local ties...

"Girl of the North County" by John Gorka

Nice cover from the Nod to Bob album...I love Dylan's original version, but Gorka's voice does a nice job here

"We are in Love" by Harry Connick, Jr.

Big swing band from a guy who's headed away from making music and more into being an actor...I liked his earlier stuff better than his latter...

"Prayer" by Miles Davis

From the Porgy & Bess album...not my favorite tune...one that sort of fades in with a lot of his others to me...I presfer the Sketches of Spain album...

"See Water" by Beck

Early, folky stuff from Beck...before the Mellow Gold album even...so weird that he flits back and forth between slow, downer folk and upbeat techno/remix pop...I love both versions of his stuff...

"Dreaming My Dreams with You" by Alison Krauss

Little too slow...like the album but not this song so much...

"Blackhawk" by Emmylou Harris

Wonderful voice...great production on the Wrecking Ball album by Daniel Lanois...worth hunting the album down, especially if you know her as a country singer...this isn't a country album

"Knowing Me, Knowing You" by ABBA

Remnants of Karlen's life on my iTunes before we got her a separate laptop...I've gotta go about and delete the ABBA stuff sometime soon...

"Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits" by Magnetic Fields

From the three-cd 69 Love Songs which was a great wedding gift from my college roommate...entertaining and melodic takes of so many versions of love...

Because I can...

The first ten songs to come up on my iTunes when switched to random order...with some commentary...

1. Love Bizarre by Michael Hedges - great cover of a great song
2. Pan American Boogie by Kate KacKenzie - from my train songs compilation
3. What is Hip by Tower of Power - nice funk, former theme to the Drew Carey Show
4. Dance All Night by Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - not his best, but I'm a fan of Ryan in general
5. Making a Noise by Robbie Robertson - great album mixing Native American rhythms with avante guard music
6. Bar Lights by Whiskeytown - Ryan Adam's first major band
7. Purple Rain by Prince - true classic, not quite When Doves Cry but still great
8. Bone Machine by the Pixies - Karlen's a fan of the band, this is one of the few I like
9. Light Up or Leave Me Alone by Traffic - so many songs by them that I like more
10. Traffic Jam by Yonder Mountain String Band - great jam from a bluegrass/jam band

The best recipe...hands down...

Got up this morning and took my semi-weekly turn at Sunday morning breakfast. Karlen's a wonderufl dinner cook, but for some reason any sort of pancake, waffle, french toast breakfast comes down to me. This morning, instead of simply cracking the couple of eggs and dropping in a modicum of milk, I turned to the most amazing cookbook out there to see what they had to say about things. Probably half an hour later, I was trying what has to be the best french toast I've ever had. Absolutely amazing stuff...perfect...as the cookbook says, "custardlike center surrounded by crisp, light egg wash fried to a perfect golden brown." No syrup necessary for this one, perfect as they were.

And I always like using the America's Test Kitchen staff's cookbook because I so love the style in which they develop their recipes. It's the most incredible application and explanation of the scientific method at work. First, they define what they want - a good roast has to be crunchy on the outside but favorful and moist inside and shouldn't take more than two hours to prepare, for example - so they can judge their attempts against perfection. Second, they research their prey, finding dozens of recipes from all sorts of sources - cookbooks, family histories, childhood memories - and find the commonalities and variables. Third, they make the recipe changing one variable at a time - in the french toast recipe, for example, they began with a standard cooking method and bread, first varrying the egg/milk ratio to get that perfect, then moving on to the flavorings, changing one at a time until they find the perfect procedure.

With each recipe comes a tale of how the recipe came about, retelling their process of searching for perfection - and there's always the bonus that the recipes are darn near perfect. I haven't yet found a recipe in thier cookbook that didn't work amazingly well, and they typically tell you what substitutions can be made and why each substitution works.

And they've got a bi-monthly magazine that it looks like we'll be getting (cheap second subscription for us after ordering a gift subscription for somebody else's birthday present.