Ok, this is pretty hilarious. Our beloved President has posted a fun little video ad on his campaign website. It’s a series of clips of a bunch of Democrats saying nasty things about Bush, ending with something about how we should be optimistic instead of getting all pissy. They even managed to get Hitler in there somehow. I think it was from that moveon thing from way back. But that wasn’t made by anyone in the Kerry camp, and they denounced that anyway. [more from Salon]
I can see where that message might appeal to some people, but is it really worth giving the Dems an opportunity to make their point right on the main page of georgebush.com? Are these guys being ballsy, desperate or just plain obtuse? I mean, Hitler? Honestly. The Kerry campaign doesn’t seem to find this as funny as I do. Check out this blog entry . Bush has a blog too. I have no plans to waste my time with either of them.
Speaking of entertaining politics, both the New York Times and The New Yorker have profiles of Governor Schwarzenegger this week. Both very well written, interesting and informative. They both portray him as quite charismatic and give a deeper, more nuanced impression of him than most media coverage he’s received so far. I still think he’s a schmuck.
Coincidentally or not, Terminator 3 was on tonight. As I’m staying home to do laundry, I watched it. All of it, actually. It’s surprisingly not awful. Two aspects that bother me about it are the handful of gaping holes in logic and the dumbed-down, exposition-heavy dialogue. Funny and maybe a bit ironic how these guys over-explain everything, giving too much information in movies and give way too little in politics. I would have thought it should be the other way around. However, there are some similarities. Like much politics today, Terminator 3 is basically a parody of the last one from a decade ago but dumber and with a lot more unnecessary destruction.
I’ve got a few goodies for those of you who are missing out on all the way cool stuff I do and see every day. Most of you, I know. But hey, that’s why I’m here!
The New York Times did a whole section on the history of Times Square, which just turned 100 in April. I know this one is way old, but it’s good. And like the Times, I like to come to the story way behind the curve but give it the full treatment. There’s a cool slideshow narrated by James Traub. A Day in the Life is surprisingly fascinating: “And what of the sights? ‘We did see the Eiffel Tower,’ says Julie Pasket. She meant the Statue of Liberty, but the confusion is understandable. All those French structures look alike.” Even better is a comment by Elaine Swann, 85, in Their Times Square who says, “The idiot tourists come in droves. I want to kill them when I’m trying to get across the street.” I know, Elaine. I know.
Next up, Monday was the premiere event for Meme, a new “music, art and mixed media” organization. Off to a bit of a rocky start with a 25 minute atonal clarinet/laptop duet, the evening turned out nicely, thanks in part to the handsome and funny host. The second piece, another atonal clarinet/laptop duet, was quite a bit better than the first, mostly because it was quite a bit shorter. This time, they played in front of a large, digital projection of a screensaver, which eventually dissolved to reveal soft-core porn. So that was pretty cool, I guess. Everything after that managed to be relatively innovative and engaging. A guy jamming on his electric cello, Kamala singing a Mozart opera thing into a webcam and a fun music video/sex documentary. there was plenty more after that, but I had to leave around 12:45 am to go somewhere even more fabulous. Not to go to sleep or anything like that.
Wednesday was more mainstream, but no less fun. Metropolitain Opera in the Park on the Great Lawn. One of my favorite summer events, almost up there with the (practically identical) Philharmonic in the Park. An unusually large crowd turned out for Madama Butterfly. I didn’t really follow the story, since it was in French or something. But the wine was good…or at least, there was a lot of it.
Keep an eye out for the Philharmonic as well as Bryant Park Movie Night every Monday this summer. See you out there.
Here’s one of those new toys I was talking about. Now you can get blog.chirls.com on your web phone. It’s a little klunky right now, but it’s live for those of you who can’t wait any longer.
Just point your WAP browser here:
wap.chirls.com
Welcome back to the new, improved, badder-ass blog.chirls.com! Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been away for a bit. Wondering why? Well, no excuses here. Just none of your damn business. But I’m not that blog-abandoning lame-o you faithless layabouts took me for. Like Famke Janssen, I’ve risen from the ashes of time…or something.
Much has happened since the last update, but none of it to me. But, we’re finally at the beginning of another Summer of Chirls. This is gonna be the good one, for sure. Oh, and keep an eye out for the waffle project. Good stuff.
In celebration of my triumphant return, the technical staff here at blog.chirls.com spent the last couple of weeks upgrading the system. The comment interface is a little different, so that spammers will now have an easier time posting their ads on my website. And there’s some calendar thingy over on the right that looks pretty neat. I wonder what that does. Looks cool, anyway. You may notice I’ve trimmed the links a bit. Turns out I’m not the only one who’s been on hiatus, and some people (ahem) haven’t been so good at linking back.
So let’s see if we can’t get this thing going again. I’ve got some fun new toys to play with, and hopefully you’ll see some of them up here. Thanks for reading.
