Kathy the Carmelite reads DaVinci Code, and discovers, surprise, surprise, it’s all about the sex. Also addressed is the fallacy that a patriarchal Christianity replaced female-empowering goddess worship, and how modern culture’s new Eve temptation further exploits women. (Link via Josh S.)
John Kerry’s Flower
Wondering what I meant by “Flower Boy” last night? Take a close look at this photo of John Kerry, fresh from a romp in the snow. What’s up with that huge yellow daisy flower zipper pull attached to his vest? Is it some kind of secret sign? A gift from his wife? An anachronistically girlish symbol of support for homosexual unions? An apparel-based reference to his days among the flower children? Nothing about it on Google (update: well, there’s something now, eh?). The related AxMe thread offers some possibilities: it’s not a ski pass, but perhaps Kerry hired Bob the Angry Flower as policy advisor.
Update: Hinderaker notices the flower too, and Hugh Hewitt links it, saying, “Just the man to instill fear in the hearts of our enemies.”
Instapundit is on it and all over it.
Don’t look at me, I’m for Sharpton. All the way. Woo yeah.
Update: Those of you looking for Kerry’s football catch, here.
I, Democrat
Well, it came too late for the DC Caucuses, but my voter registration card has finally arrived. Good thing that my favored candidate has not formally withdrawn, despite having endorsed Flower Boy. It’s Al all the way for me, baby!
Sail Trek
What happens when Trekkie fandom meets avid sailor? You get Starship Enterprise, a sailing blog in Star Trek narrative format. He even has a Porthos-like dog named “Scotty.”
Museum of Bad Art
The Museum of Bad Art. It’s a real museum, up “Nawth” in Needham, MA. I’m quite amused to see that much of the “bad” art is impressionist in style: Lucy in the Field with Flowers, for example. (My own preference, of course, is for good, solid, representational art of the Old Master variety.)
(Found via Cloud King, which in turn was found via the Web Standards Awards. All worth checking out.)
Pau and Da Hua
PAU! Or Pao. It’s the snack that bears my name. Last Saturday, after reading Renee Kho’s extensive treatise on pao (found completely at random from here), I realized I had not eaten siopao for over two years, so Amy and I had an early Saturday brunch of dimsum, Yang Chow fried rice, and mini-siopao at China Doll Restaurant in tiny DC Chinatown.
Along the way, I was elated to find a Chinese grocery, Da Hua Market, in the Chinatown area. After months of having to take the subway to get to the nearest grocery (there are none in my immediate vicinity), the discovery of an Asian market just ten minutes’ walk from my apartment is a double bonus. The shelves were lined with all manner of Oriental foods, including some Filipino treats: rice crackers, ramen, banana ketchup, bagoong, soba noodles, edamame, sinigang mix, dried mangoes, and every possible kind of Chinese tea you could imagine. It was a happy, happy day for me, as Amy can attest.
Update: Sad news, I’ve just heard through the grapevine that Da Hua Market had to close down. :(
Red Soily Plain
After one failed attempt, the Mars rover Opportunity has defeated a literal slippery slope and left its home crater. Now it is 9 meters from the rim, well and truly out on the red soily plains. NASA is having a press briefing today to announce another significant scientific finding from the rover.
- Check out the Sol 057 Navcam photos for an idea of the rover’s new vista.
- I’ve started a discussion thread on the BadAstronomy.com message board about some strange features in the soil in this photo.
- Great mission sum-up from this informative BBC Q&A with Steve Squyres, lead scientist for the MER mission.
- New Mars wiggles! From Spirit at Bonneville Crater and Serpent Dune, and from Opportunity’s new position.
Update: Over at Mainly Martian, Oliver Morton expects that the announcement concerns geolocic evidence pointing to proof that Mars once had open water, in the form of lakes or seas.
Update, 2pm: “Opportunity is parked on what was once the shoreline of a salty sea on Mars.” More on Slashdot, Metafilter, Bad Astronomy, and Mainly Martian.
ESOTSM
Friday night, Amy came to DC, and we hopped over to E Street Theatre to watch Eternal Sunshine, Charlie Kaufman’s latest surrealist offering, directed by Michel Gondry.
(The original phrase “eternal sunshine of the spotless mind” is from Alexander Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard.)
Beautifully crafted film, with an absurd yet absurdly simple storyline. Classic Kaufman: the characters’ own deceptive ordinariness will inspire resonance rather than boredom.
In a nutshell, angsty yuppie Joel Barrish goes through the unusual procedure of having the memories of his wild ex-girlfriend Clementine erased from his brain, but begins to have second thoughts while in the midst of the procedure, and attempts to spirit her away into the deepest recesses of his mind. Much more happens, but I won’t spoil it.
The visualization of Joel’s jaunts through memory are haunting and dreamlike — literally dreamlike, as scenes from his recent and distant past are juxtaposed, intermingled, spotlighted, and demolished. Watch for the book covers at Barnes and Noble, the forced perspective of under-the-table childhood, the eternal crawl under the sheets, and the train ride through the mind.
This has to have been Jim Carrey’s most understated role yet; apparently he used no makeup for this film, and appears in all his stern, craggy, unshaven glory. Carrey barely reveals any of his trademark funny-faces except in two circumstances: as he delves into the Freudian recesses of childhood memory, and in a few cutesy-couple moments with Kate Winslet as his polar-opposite girlfriend. Other than that, most of his screen time is spent as quiet, reticent, brooding, average Joel, and he pulls off the portrayal perfectly.
[SPOILER] The only other Kaufman film I’ve seen is Being John Malkovich, and it’s my honest opinion that it was far exceeded by Eternal Sunshine for wit and meaning. One thing that bothered me about both movies, however, is that after developing a storyline along certain lines, Kaufman expands it unnecessarily with a sudden, peripheral, absurdly rationalistic twist — to the detriment of the original concept. In Malkovich it was the old man explaining to Cameron Diaz exactly how the tunnel into Malkovich worked, and in Sunshine I think it was Kirsten Dunst’s character sending the tapes to Lacuna patients. In both cases, the narrative stood alone well enough minus these added developments, without which the film could have progressed without even missing a beat. Malkovich could have stood even without the whole history of the tunnel being laid out point by scientific point, and an aura of mystery would have been preserved, thus decreasing distraction from the human conflict being played out. Sunshine could have skipped right over the entire segment of Joel and Clem listening to their respective tapes, cutting straight to the final scene of the couple together again at Montauk, and it might have still been a complete movie. Still, in Sunshine‘s case, when Joel and Clem are in the hall and they both realize that their rekindled relationship could be doomed as it was before, and Joel simply goes “Okay” and they begin to laugh, the nearly-doomed happy ending is preserved, with extra insight into the power of hopeful, sincere love. (That final shot of them in the snow at Montauk is a happy ending, right? Not just a flashback?)
Oh, and Elijah Wood, fresh out of Frodo, portrays an excellent jerk.
Fire Near the Rails
There’s a car on fire in Northeast DC, near the Red Line Metro rails between New York Ave. and Rhode Island Ave.
I had thought at first it was an electrical fire that had set the brush alight, when I first smelled smoke at Rhode Island Ave. NE Metro station, and saw the grass on fire about a hundred yards from the south end of the station. A large explosion in the midst of the flames changed my mind, however: it did not look electrical. After I had boarded the train and it had passed directly over the blaze, the burning frame of a car was clear (though not quite so clear in the photos I took, shown above).
I just got off the phone with DC Emergency Dispatch (i.e. 911), and they’ve received numerous tips. This should make for some minor headlines tomorrow, I suppose. (Monday now, no news about it.)
Bugs and TVs and Sushi and Spots and Um…
On today’s list of interesting things to look at, we have beautiful bugs, vintage television sets, Hello Kitty Bento Boxes, Yayoi Kusama’s Kusamatrix, and Digi Charat Cosplay. Enjoy.