ARS BVSHNELLICA

I finally shaved on Thursday because I was going to the theater

2009-04-24T08:07:00.004-04:00

My facial hair got out of control this week.

On Tuesday I was a lovable, scruffy scamp.

On Wednesday I was a sea urchin fresh out of the sea.

This image works if you've ever handled a sea urchin fresh out of the sea. It's 8 am on a Friday; I'm amazed I can write anything at all.

So did I shave on Wednesday?

Pssh. Does a sea urchin shave?

Seriously, enough with the sea urchins.

No, I watched the sometimes good, mostly amateurish, always interminable 4-hour epic Gettysburg. If you ever want to feel good about your own facial hair, watch a movie about the Civil War. The beards on those dudes were out of control. I wondered if the producers searched far and wide for costumers who had secret beard fetishes and whispered to them, "It's OK. This is a safe place. Now go make your wildest beard fantasies a reality."

Watching the interminable 4-hour epic Gettysburg (I'm pretty sure that was the full name on the posters) one is struck by the realization that the war went on so long because it was fought by proud, stubborn men who would not, could not listen to reason. The beards were their visual shorthand for getting that idea across, sort of like me wearing a tuxedo is visual shorthand for "I am lonely and crave human contact."

Seriously, I want to slip Tom Berenger a roofie and take a razor to his face. And then apply Nair over the shaved parts. He looks like an upside-down Don King.

Fig. 1: If the South won the war, slavery would be legal and everyone would have to have stupid beards. It said that on Confederate money.

No subject

2009-04-11T15:26:00.001-04:00

Really Confusing TV Intro - watch more funny videos

2009-04-06T00:35:00.002-04:00

I'm slapping myself across the face left and right.
You were right, every moment.
Hey, sorry for not listening to you. You could have spoken louder, cleared your throat conspicuously and pointed at the offending element, but it may not have made a difference, what with me doing my independent thing and not caring what you, the person who cares about me, cared about me.

We've got non-nutritive mango mix, though, so we'll be consuming non-nutritive mango mix with whatever we've got and we'll hope for the best for tomorrow.

Work talk? Sign you up!

2009-02-09T16:53:00.001-05:00

In IMAX you can see Batman's larynx get inflamed

2009-01-30T14:26:00.002-05:00

This was not a gondola accident

2008-12-15T17:10:00.002-05:00

My extended family is pretty hot, all things considered

2008-12-11T15:22:00.002-05:00

This one's for Tyler Balone

2008-12-10T16:16:00.002-05:00

You were all thinking it, it's ok

2008-11-23T22:44:00.003-05:00

A late contender for the "Hey, Thanks" award for 2008:

"Dave, if they could somehow combine your brain with this guy's body, that would be my wet dream."

– Maura, talking about a date she had on Friday

This Remembrance Day goes to 11

2008-11-11T07:55:00.002-05:00

'Round these here parts, we call Remembrance Day "Veterans Day." It' a convenient catch-all term that ends up meaning nothing. Maybe if the US had been in World War I longer the day would have as much significance here as it does in England or Canada, but no; America's involvement was the equivalent of a semester abroad, and how significant are those? And hey, that's a really flippant remark that denigrates the sacrifice of the 116,708 Americans who lost their lives making sure Europe wasn't overrun by a pointy-helmeted fashion craze. And hey, that's a really flippant remark, too.

The BBC had a great headline today:

Million poppies dropped over QE2

For a split second I did think the story was about a million poppies being dumped on that old bag's head but the story was in fact about the boat QE2, not the monarch QE2. Alas, alas.

The video on that page -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/7720966.stm -- is notable for a few reasons:

In a true tribute to Spinal Tap, the volume goes up to 11
In a truer tribute to Spinal Tap, there is no compelling sound worth going up to 11; someone left the mic on and you can sort of hear some people having a conversation in the background
In a so-true-it-blows-your-mind tribute to Spinal Tap, I'm not sure that's the right video for that story. It's 14 seconds long and there is nary (indeed, nary) a poppy to be seen. The caption reads "The QE2 docks in Southampton ahead of its final voyage on Tuesday evening," which is, you know, fascinating in a not-fascinating, I-came-here-to-see-poppies way.

Thanks for your sacrifice, BBC Employee Who's Now Getting Made Fun Of By His Co-Workers. And soldiers: Thanks for your sacrifice, too. Don't blame all young people for the internet.

It's like watching a bunny try to do calculus

2008-11-02T07:33:00.000-05:00

Greatest movie ever?

2008-10-27T11:20:00.004-04:00

For your consideration, the back-of-dvd text for "Shark in Venice," a direct-to-dvd movie starring Stephen Baldwin (the born-again Christian Republican Baldwin brother) and a pan-European cast of pan-European nobodies:

The seemingly tranquil waterways of Venice are terrorized by the perfect killing machine. In search of his father who has mysteriously disappeared diving in the city, David stumbles across the cryptic trail leading to the long-lost fortune of the Medici. As the unwitting pawn in a Mafia plot to recover the treasure, David’s girlfriend is kidnapped at gunpoint, plunging him into a desperate race against time. If he has any hope of saving her he must enter the deadly waters. Can David out-gun the Mafia assassins and survive the voracious sharks laying in wait beneath the surface, or will he succumb to the same fate as his father?

Yeah ... what? Sharks and the Mafia and the Medicis and it takes place in Venice. The first sentence, "The seemingly tranquil waterways of Venice are terrorized by the perfect killing machine": that's your movie right there. Sharks in Venice? OK. If you say so. But then to add in all that crazy shit about treasure and the Mafia and kidnapping and scuba diving? It'd be like "The Earth's core has stopped rotating, so Aaron Eckhart has to pay off his gambling debts, get custody of his children, and solve his brother's murder while getting the Earth's core to resume rotating."

The Amazon description is pretty grand, too, despite the movie being re-titled to "Sharks in Venice" for maximum terror plurality:

Traveling to Venice to investigate the mysterious death of his father, David (Stephen Baldwin), a famous archaeologist and diver, unearths a killer secret that lies beneath the Venetian waters. When a ruthless mob boss discovers his findings and kidnaps his girlfriend, David must brave the dangerous, shark-infested waters once again to recover the treasure and rescue his girlfriend. A dark and mysterious chase ensues and secrets are revealed in this sci-fi thriller.

Is "secrets are revealed" really a selling point for a movie? "Ya know, I liked that 'Godfather' movie ok, but it was really lacking in the 'revealing secrets' department."

Blah, whatever. I don't know.

To be honest, I'm finding it hard to get enthused about anything these days. I think it's because Blossom Goodchild's prediction that a UFO piloted by the Federation of Light would materialize over Alabama on October 14 was wrong. Yeah, holy shit, right? That's an amazingly detailed prediction, especially coming from someone named "Blossom Goodchild" (ie, someone who is perpetually high). All the same, my hopes were pinned on it coming true. I mean, it could have forced Disclosure! But no. Nothing. I was crushed. I am crushed. Music is joyless. Food is bland. The Happening wasn't very good (really, I couldn't watch more than twenty minutes of it). Thanks, Federation of Light, for being massive UFO-teases!

Blossom Goodchild has apologized in one of the most poignant vlogs I've ever seen:

She answers the questions we all have, except one: When will I be able to love again?

Dear John McCain ...

2008-10-24T10:15:00.002-04:00

You deserve to lose because your supporters are incompetent assholes, especially when they have blatant conflicts of interest and end up getting me in trouble at work because they don't give me back the proof pages in a timely manner. Seriously, fuck you and your supporters, with a extra special fuck you to whoever sent us a fax telling us that "Ukrainians have a moral obligation to never vote for a ... Marxist Nigerian chimp."

I suck at current events

2008-10-16T10:39:00.002-04:00

When I saw the headline

Peter Cook Sex Tape Surfaces

I thought

Fig. 1: Eww.

I read the story and saw that it was not about that Peter Cook, who it ends up has been dead for 13 years. No, the sex tape Peter Cook is the one who has divorced / is divorcing Christie Brinkley. Uncool name, sex tape Peter Cook. It's a lot like "Kevin Smith Dies in On-Set Accident," but they were talking about the actor from Xena: Warrior Princess and not the director of such films as Jay and Silent Bob Waste Their Time and Yours.

Say what you will about people – ok, celebrities – naming their children whatever they see in their bowl of Alpha-Bits that morning; at least the interestingly-named won't confuse me when they appear in a sex tape or die suddenly, or preferably appear in a sex tape and die at the same time. Remember the Gene Simmons sex tape from a few months ago? (I do, because the shame lingers.) How awesome would that sex tape have been if, at the end of the sex part, the roof caved in on Gene Simmons? "This awesome," Dave said as he held his hands two meters apart. "Though I wish my arms were longer."

You know how to hold a grudge

2008-10-08T16:37:00.002-04:00

Is it because I introduced myself to you at the WFMU marathon in March? I'm really sorry, Ted Leo. I've never done that before in my life, but you were on a list of two people I'd introduce myself to, given the opportunity. Now that I've got you off the list, it's down to one: Amy Sedaris. And maybe also the guy from "The Fall" because that movie was awesome, but I don't know, I'll have to think about it.

And they live in Detroit, not NY or Brooklyn or wherever

2008-10-08T15:54:00.003-04:00

You know who doesn't have a problem with me seeing their shows, Ted Leo? The Dirtbombs. They're playing Maxwell's on October 15 and I'll be going, which will mark their fourth consecutive show at Maxwell's that I've attended.

An open letter to Teddy Rockstar

2008-10-08T15:26:00.002-04:00

Dear Ted Leo,

Your performance at Webster Hall this Saturday will be your fourth consecutive NYC-area concert which I am unable to attend. I am starting to become annoyed. I am tempted to drive down to Washington DC on December 13 to see you perform at the Black Cat because I have nothing planned that day, but Washington DC is scary and according to the Supreme Court they can have all the guns they want so I think I'll give you one more chance to do a NY show before I get really annoyed again and give you a few more chances after that.

Rock'n'roll dreams'll come through,
Dave Bushnell

Salivating towards Bethlehem

2008-10-01T11:12:00.000-04:00

Wednesday is order-in lunch day. I kinda hate it because we need to reach a consensus on which local eatery will be our lunch provider, and that means way more talking with co-workers than I find tolerable.

Beep beep ... beep

2008-09-24T14:55:00.004-04:00

OH MY GOD this is killing me. Two more hours of sitting here until I can go home. I just watched the Rifftrax of Halloween, and boy was it ever not funny. Also not funny? Sitting here for two more hours until I can go home.

I could edit photos, but then how will I kill time tomorrow? No; Wednesday is make corrections day, Thursday is edit photos day. Wednesday is also lunch day. This Wednesday? Turkish. Great or not great? Not great. Gassy now? A bit. Sleepy? Always.

Additionally, this Wednesday is couldn't see My Bloody Valentine at the Hammerstein Ballroom last night day. Based on everything I've read about their recent shows, I would now be deaf if I had been able to go. I really gotta find out if Ben had been able to sell my ticket, or if I owe him. Of course I owe him. I owe everyone in one way or another. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you.

If Wednesday were a toe, it would have roast beef. I was always perturbed by the insufficient details in that piggy-toe thing. I always thought the five little piggies lived together, in some sort of little piggy house; they are high-functioning swine, what with going to market and all, so it stands to reason that they'd share accomodations to cut costs. It's kind of a dick move, then, for one little piggy to have roast beef while another little piggy has none. Maybe the little piggy is having roast beef is the same little piggy who went to market. This little piggy went to market and had roast beef, while this little piggy stayed home and had none. We will overlook the fact that four separate toes are cast in those two roles, as the entire premise is absurd and not worth closer inspection; toes are not pigs, after all. But the question remains: the little piggy that went wee-wee-wee all the way home -- was that the market little piggy or the home little piggy? (I'm not sure what sound was made by the last little piggy, so I'm using "wee-wee-wee" because I have goat-footed balloonmen on my mind.)

Oh sweet Jesus, 1 hour and 24 minutes to go. Oh sweet Jesus, I'm tempted to see that new Kirk Cameron movie where he plays a firefighter whose addiction to internet porn destroys his marriage and then makes him smash up his computer. But I don't want to pay money to see it. Or waste time seeing it. I wish I could get all the laughs from seeing it without seeing it, bascially. There's apparently a scene where porn addict/firefighter kisses his wife, but Kirk Cameron believes his lusty smooches are reserved for his wife because marriage and god and the bible, so they had Kirk Cameron's real wife put on a wig and she stood in for the actress playing Kirk Cameron's character's wife. MSNBC calls this plan "movie magic" but I call it "who gives a shit" and "why is Kirk Cameron still making movies?"

Come on come on, 1 hour and 23 minutes to go. Come on, daddy needs a new haircut. I'm getting a haircut this evening from Oscar at the hair salon at the mall. Oscar always advises me to get some hair stiffener to stiffen my hair, or maybe it's hair volumizer to volumize my hair; I can't remember because I never buy it. Or do I never buy it because I can't remember? Now there, THERE, is a philosophical question that I can spend hours considering. Hours, but I only need 1 hour and 20 minutes. That's not nearly enough time to come to a conclusion, but just enough to get me out of here.

Aw, nicest "you're a Nazi" compliment ever!

2008-09-19T10:34:00.003-04:00

A couple of years ago I was the layout guy at a weekly paper. Tuesday was our main production day. The person who sent me this email was the news editor when I was there, and has recently become editor-in-chief:

Bronwyn came in yesterday and upon asking me how it was going, I said I understood why you were crabby on Tuesdays. But really, I had no idea what the fuck your job was. Now I wish you were back. Not that [the current layout person]'s not great, cuz she is, but you were a nazi, and we would have worked well together. Oh well.

I've never been called a Nazi before, so I'm not sure how this works. I feel really flattered, and I think that's wrong emotion to feel. I might be the first person in over 60 years to feel flattered upon being called a Nazi. I imagine that was a big compliment in ... oh, I don't know, maybe Germany ... around the early 1940's:

"You're such a Nazi!"
"Aw shucks, just doin' my part for the Reich!"

For folks scoring at home, this is the second post this week where I've humanized Nazis. I might have to change my blog's name to "The Lighter Side of Genocide." Or maybe "I'm So Very Very Sorry, World."

We shall never ever never never ever never surrender

2008-09-17T14:43:00.003-04:00

My unintended hiatus from blogging (if you must know, it was caused by ennui; I hope to write an inspirational book about the ordeal titled "Ennui: The Silent Killer") has prevented me from writing about The Times of London and its online archive of issues going back to 1785. This archive had been free for the last few months, but today it is going behind the paid-subscription-only curtain so I have to write this post ... fast!

Truthfully, the archive was great in theory but boring in practice. The classified ads from the 1890s looking for nannies all start to look the same after a while. Worse, the paper had no idea how to up-sell the historic value of what it was writing. Fr'instance:

Fig. 1: Issue dated June 5, 1940

First of all, way to go, Churchill. I credit this speech with delaying the Nazi invasion of England because I bet Hitler was all like, "Shit, they're gonna fight us in the fields and in the streets? That was like 90% of our secret strategy! Everybody back to the drawing board, and somebody hang a dude from my inner circle because I'm totally bummed about my fields-n-streets plan getting leaked," and by the time the Nazis had another plan it was too late and the Allies were giving Jerry a capital what-for.

The story appeared on page 3, column 6. It was above the fold, but it still seems like this speech could have been given more prominence. I don't know, maybe Churchill was pumping out wicked-ass speeches on a daily basis and by this point The Times had become tired of him, but more likely the press didn't feel any particular need to up the excitement levels because there was no competition from tv or the internet to sate the public's hunger for news. There was radio, but I don't know if they had all-news radio stations then. And when did the first "News, Traffic, and Weather" radio station start broadcasting? I have to imagine it was sometime after the war, because the traffic updates alone would give an immeasurable tactical advantage to the Nazis.

"Herr Kommandant! Traffic is backed up all along the Ratcliffe Highway, with delays up to 45 minutes! We must plan an alternate route for our invasion!"

"Forget about it, dummkopf; I just heard that the English will fight us in the streets, so our plan is fucked. Let's go back to the lodge and sing songs about the Alps while Hitler thinks of another plan."

Historically inaccurate laffs aside, the best part about the article is the last paragraph:

A great ovation was given to Mr. Churchill when he sat down. The House showed a dislike of any speeches following his, and passed to its apponted business.

This is known in journalism as "being a massive cocktease." What were the speeches following Churchill's? I have to know!

My guess is the speeches were mostly gloryhounds trying to ride the coattails of Churchill's speech. (Can hounds even ride coattails? Yes, if the coattails are long enough, duh.) I imagine the first one was something like this:

To add to what the Prime Minister was saying, I would like to make it clear that we shall fight in the alleys; we shall fight in the underpasses and on the overpasses; we shall fight in the causeways and the canals. We shall never surrender.

And there was much agreement and "pip pip" and "cheerio," and then the second one was something like:

We shall fight in the cheese shops; we shall fight in the haberdashers and the barber shops; we shall fight in the antiquarian book stores. We shall never surrender.

And there were still a "pip-pip" and a "cheerio" to be heard, but there wasn't as much enthusiasm. The grumbling really picked up when one guy chimed in with:

We shall fight in the front yards and in the back yards; we shall fight in the neighbors' yards, even that guy we don't like because he doesn't trim his hedges –

And that guy was shouted down and beaten about the face and neck because really, we have appointed business to get to. Stop wasting everyone's time!

Distilling the problem

2008-09-16T12:28:00.004-04:00

From today's Vulture, an excerpt from an interview with cultural critic Chuck Klosterman, who has just had his first novel published:

We obviously have to ask you, why fiction?
Well, you know, everybody keeps asking me that question. I've been asked that question twenty times now. I keep coming up with different answers. I don't know what the correct one is. Have you ever written a novel?

No.
Why not?

Uh … We don't know. We guess we haven't had an idea that could be as big as a novel. We haven't had the time. We don't have the fortitude.
Yeah, I guess my answer is the complete opposite of those.

Not a mad-lib, just an ad-lib

2008-09-15T16:46:00.002-04:00

Want ... to ... post ... but ... so ... lazy ... and ... would ... rather ... check ... Google ... Reader ... every ... five ... minutes ... to ... see ... if ... friends ... have ... updated ... their ... blogs ... in ... unfair ... and ... possibly ... hypocritical ... example ... of ... my ... own ... feelings ... of ... give ... and ... take ... in ... interpersonal ... relationships ... but ... there ... comes ... a ... point ... where ... a ... man ... must ... accept ... his ... own ... complicity ... in ... the ... failure ... of ... relationships ... ( ... and ... I ... am ... too ... a ... man ... which ... all ... the ... ladies ... who ... have ... denied ... getting ... pregnant ... by ... me ... can ... attest ... to ... ) ... ( ... apologies ... for ... the ... dangling ... preposition ... ) ... oh ... crap ... it's ... 5 ... p ... m ...

Quittin' time!

I watched it for a little while (I like to watch things on tv)

2008-08-13T09:10:00.004-04:00

I am now three chapters into Patricia Highsmith's "The Price of Salt" and it's pretty great. It has all the period details of "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and more, and it doesn't bother explaining them. In that way it's like jumping into a pool without knowing how deep it is. (I don't know, maybe they didn't paint the depths on the side of the pool.)

Maddeningly, though, maddeningly, Patricia Highsmith named her protagonist Therese Belivet. I'm not a fan of the name "Therese." I don't have a problem with the name being an iamb; some of my favorite friend's names are iambic. But wow, "Therese" is iambic to the point of absurdity. It's because it seems truncated, almost like the speaker was murdered before getting to the A which rightfully belongs at the end of the name. "Let's name her 'Theres-'" STRANGULATION DEATH

(Clearly the speaker would have to be strangled because stabbing could result in an "AHH!" which would still finish the name: TheresAHH. Oh, comical!)

There is a WFMU volunteer named "Thérèse," which is pronounced teh-REZZ. But the protaganist of our novel has neither aigus nor graves in her name. (Italicizing foreign words, Edgar Allen Poe-style!) Sometimes our protagonist is called "Terry," which is arguably worse than "Therese."

Sweet Jesus, I've got another 220 pages of dealing with this woman's name. On the plus side, the dj on WFMU played "Satellite of Love" while I was driving to work and that made me completely giddy. Recapture the giddiness, reject the Therese. That's today's advice.

ker-razy

2008-07-20T23:52:00.004-04:00

Having finally finished Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (approximately one billion times better than the movie), and beginning to question the artistic validity of Ulrich Haarburste's Roy Orbison Wrapped in Clingfilm, the next book in my queue, I went back to Patricia Highsmith's Wikipedia entry to get suggestions for other novels to read.

Meh ...

Enh ...

WHAT?!

Highsmith included homosexual overtones in many of her novels and addressed the theme directly in The Price of Salt and the posthumously published Small g: a Summer Idyll. The former novel is known for its happy ending, the first of its kind in homosexual/lesbian fiction. Published in 1953 under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, it sold almost a million copies. The inspiration for the book's main character, Carol, was a woman Highsmith saw in Bloomingdales, where she worked at the time. Highsmith found out her address from the credit card details, and on two occasions after the book was written (in June 1950 and January 1951) spied on the woman without the latter's knowledge.

Price of Salt it is, then.