goddess of clarity: a blog about politics, culture, and serenity
Archive: October 1 - October 15, 2005
October 13, 2005 — 15:46 EST
There are 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks that rise above 4,000 feet. The people who climb all 46 of these peaks are called, logically enough, "Forty-Sixers." After this weekend, Mr. Goddess and I can check two of those peaks off our list. Here's some photos from our first two conquests, Cascade and Porter.
—lori.
October 12, 2005 — 16:42 EST
Jon Stewart was awesome on Friday night. I had seen him once before at SUNY Brockport. It was right after September 11th, and the show was actually rescheduled since it took us all awhile before were allowed to find things funny again. He was a lot more political this time. He does that great Bush impression -- which basically involves screwing his face up into a sideways smirk and going "Heh, heh, heh" -- and it just never gets old.
The best part of the show though was the accidental humor derived from Stewart's interactions with the closed captioning system and the sign language interpreter. You see, RIT is home to the National Technical Institute of the Deaf, and there are a lot of deaf students on campus. So during the show, the text of everything he was saying would appear on a giant screen behind his head. And whenever there was a typo or spelling error, the audience would giggle at the wrong time and Stewart would quickly turn around to see what we were all laughing at. Eventually, he just started messing with the typist.
Stewart: Are you just going to type everything I say all night?
Typist: Are you just going to type everything I say all night?
Stewart: Stop that!
Typist: Stop that!
Stewart: Talk to me, screen! Why won't you talk to me! Why must you taunt me!
Typist: Talk to me, screen! Why won't you talk to me! Why must you taunt me!
Stewart: The typist is a poopie head.
Typist: The typist is a poopie head.
Stewart: Fuck.
Typist: (PAUSE)
Stewart: Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Typist: Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
(AUDIENCE GOES CRAZY)
Sometimes he would test the typist's spelling ability:
Stewart: All religions have some crazy shit in them. Like head coverings. A lot of religions make you wear a hat or some shit on your head. The Jews call ours a "yalmulke." (QUICKLY TURNS AROUND TO LOOK AT CLOSE CAPTION SCREEN.)
Typist: All religions have some crazy shit in them. Like head coverings. A lot of religions make you wear a hat or some shit on your head. The Jews call ours a
y ... a ... m ... u ... c ... k ... a
Stewart: I said, the Jews call ours a "yalmulke."
Typist: I said, the Jews call ours a
j ... a ... m ... a ... c ... a.
Stewart (head in his hands): Seriously, dude, you're killing me here.
Typist: Seriously, dude, you're killing me here.
Stewart: Forshiznit.
Typist: Forshiznit.
(AUDIENCE GOES CRAZY)
There were several of these closed-captioning inspired tangents throughout the night, prompting Stewart to remark, "Man, I hope they don't do this at rap shows."
There was also one dark moment in the show, and it came during that routine about world religions and how crazy they all are. Someone from the front right of the stage started yelling something, and the people around him started booing him, and then he threw something onto stage. It looked to me like several wads of paper. Stewart picked one up and uncrinkled it and said, "You see, this is what I mean. Is it worth this kind of crap?" He didn't say what was written on the paper and he promptly moved on to a story about his dog's explosive diarrhea. It was an annoying incident, but it really just served to prove his point about how ridiculous people can get over religion.
I'll be seeing Lewis Black in a couple weeks. No closed captioning, but it should be a good show. I've seen him before as well, and he was hilarious. Nobody does misdirected rage better than Lewis Black.
—lori.
October 7, 2005 — 8:59 EST
I've said before that I worship at the alter of Jon Stewart, and tomorrow night I'll be making my ritual sacrifice in person. Stewart is appearing at the homecoming weekend at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Mr. Goddess and I are going along with a couple friends from Canada who are likewise Daily Show disciples. (We originally tried to get tickets to his show tonight in Toronto, but they sold out in, like, two hours or something. Those Canadians—they loves them some Stewart.)
Time Warner Cable should be sending Stewart some sort of gratuity or finder's fee or something; everytime we've contemplated canceling cable altogether it's been the Daily Show that talked us down from the ledge. And next weekend, Lewis Black will be at *my* university's homecoming, so it's like a Daily Show two-fer!
—lori.
October 5, 2005 — 9:27 EST
I didn't see Firefly when it was first on TV. I didn't actively decide not to watch it. It was just one of those shows that if you blinked you missed it, and I blinked. I fell in love with the show on DVD (thanks Cara!), and it wasn't until I watched the commentary tracks that I realized that FOX had originally aired the episodes out of sequence. Now I'm almost glad I wasn't introduced to the show as it originally aired because, what the hell, FOX?! Why go to trouble and expense of hiring a guy like Joss Whedon to produce a TV series for you and then go and monkey with it yourself?! That's like hiring Frank Lloyd Wright to design your house and then rearranging the furniture.
I've tried to imagine what it would have been like watching the TV series in the order the episodes originally aired, and I've concluded that it would have been more difficult to get on board with these characters. Difficult, but not impossible. And I think the same is true for people watching the film Serenity without having first seen Firefly. The story is tight and tidy, there are lots of great action sequences peppered with wit and smarts, and the space effects are some of the best I've ever seen. (I love the shots of Serenity just taking off and landing. Awesome.) But the complexity of these characters, drawn so sharp and clear in just a half season of television, is all but lost (as it almost has to be) in the film. Fans of the show will take all these insights with them into the movie, and they will benefit from them. But newcomers will still see a fantastic science fiction film, and we don't get too many of those.
While the film is very good, it has been my great and probably misdirected hope that the success of the series DVD and the movie would lead not to a sequel but a series. While I loved the movie, my overbiding feeling upon leaving the theater was not one of satisfaction but of regret. There are just too many stories these characters could have told, and without a series we'll never have an answer to that all important question: "And what happens next?" Will Simon and Kaylee ever get together? What about Mal and Inara? Mal and Zoe?! Will Jayne eventually turn on the crew? What enemies haunt Shepard Book's past? And what the hell is up with those blue-gloved dudes? They could play the villian for at least two series, easy.
Sigh. I suppose there's always a little hope. You can't stop the signal. Unless your name is FOX.
—lori.
October 4, 2005 — 16:41 EST
President Bush Haiku
(An ocassional look at the daily musings of George W. Bush through the medium of 19th-century Japanese verse)
She is plenty bright.
She led a major law firm.
And I know her heart.
—President Bush defending his Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers at an October 4 news conference.
—lori.
October 2, 2005 — 17:02 EST
One game short. That's what it came down to for the Phillies on this the last day of baseball's regular season. One lousy game. The fucking Mets. How did we lose two out of three at home in our last series against the Mets?!
And as usual the national media couldn't care less about the Phillies' wild card chase. They were too busy creaming their pants over the annual Yankees-Red Sox soap opera. Nevermind that the Phillies -- along with the Pittsburgh Pirates -- have the longest postseason drought in the National League. We never seem to get any underdog love from the ESPNs of the world.
Oh well. There's always next year.
—lori.