Annoying and now frequent bug nagging me on my Mac: my Firefox browser window suddenly decides it always deserves to be in front, no matter what. The only way to get move it out of the way is to minimize it or close it. Does anyone have a fix for that?
Plugins like Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar make it the browser of choice for work, but shoving its way to the front at all times makes Firefox a rather rude houseguest.
Firefox 2.0.0.9, Mac OS X 10.5.1
Two Mondays ago Hazel took me as her guest to a BAFTA screening for No Country For Old Men . Hazel won a BAFTA scholarship last year, and one of the perks is that she's invited to all sorts of screenings and events. There seems to be one nearly every night.
No Country For Old Men is not my favorite Cormac McCarthy novel (I'm partial to Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, and The Road), but the Coen brothers have identified the spine of the thing and planted it in the dust of the West like a tombstone for a more comforting age in America's history, when the enemy wasn't as empty and unfeeling as the nihilistic killer Anton Chigurh, played with placid efficiency by Javier Bardem. When asked in Q&A how he found the character, he replied simply that it began with "the haircut" (Josh Brolin said that when Bardem walked out with that haircut for the first time, he complained, "I'm not going to get laid for three months").
McCarthy has written many beautiful elegies for the West; this one also ushers in something chilling in the form of Chigurh, whose weapon of choice, a percussion stun gun used on cattle, is the perfect symbol of a supposedly more civilized age but which seems clinical and soulless in its proficiency. Josh Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss, an ordinary man who finds a suitcase filled with $2 million in cash out in the Texas countryside, the remnants of a drug deal gone bad. Is there any cinematic symbol more pure than a suitcase of cash?
Moss decides to keep the money, and Chigurh, whom we've already met, comes after him like a bounty hunter from hell. Tommy Lee Jones, as a lawman following the trail of carnage behind Moss and Chigurh, has a face nearly as metaphoric as the cattle gun. Every crag and nook of Jones's face seems like a record of the history of the land. Jones knows that times have changed, that Chigurh represents a new sort of evil and darkness in the world, one he doesn't understand and one he fears he can't overcome.
From the opening shot, you know you are in the hands of craftsmen who control the tension in the film as easily as a violinist tightening a string on his instrument. It's a strong return to form for the Coen brothers whose Ladykillers was a big disappointment. There is at times a sense of stasis in the film; some of the characters are who they are, and they aren't about to change over the course of two hours (that's McCarthy's influence also). But it's a damned enjoyable two hours, and every time Javier Bardem appears on screen, you get a knot in your stomach that's tied together with one strand of suspense and another of glee.
The cast also includes Woody Harrelson and Kelly McDonald (great the first time I saw her in Trainspotting, she manages to extract a lot from playing Moss's wife; it's not easy being a woman in a McCarthy novel).
NOTE: One of my film school classmates Chris Carroll was an intern on the shoot and gets his own line in the credits under the camera crew. Look for him under "Intern."
Last night I caught The Swell Season at The Wiltern (Martha Wainwright opened) with Mira and Jill. The Swell Season is headlined by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, the co-stars of this year's indie film that could, Once.
The concert was, as my new roommate Hazel is fond of saying, lovely. I'd never seen The Frames in concert before (Hansard and a few others from The Swell Season play together in that band as well), but it's difficult to imagine the band drawing such an adoring following prior to the film's word-of-mouth success earlier this year.
Not that they don't deserve it. Hansard is a gifted songwriter and a winning stage presence, humble ("Tanks, tanks!" he said over and over again in response to adoring screams) but impassioned. Listening to him trade easy banter with the crowd, I imagine that if I ever visited Ireland I'd meet garrulous raconteurs like him in pubs everywhere, each of them spinning stories and songs on their guitars deep into the night while I nibbled on various preparations of potatoes.
Marketa is less comfortable on stage. She forgot the lyrics midway through her first song, and the rest of the time she said little when she wasn't singing. Hansard guarded her with an avuncular presence, the rumors of their romance leaping from screen to stage hovering over every one of their hugs, glances, and whispers.
During the show, a portly, disheveled, middle-aged man wearing an untucked white undershirt pushed his way past us and shoved an unmarked pair of CD-Rs in a white paper sleeve into Jill's hands. Great...another promo for some neighborhood hip-hop band.
But after the concert, Jill glanced at the CD and found a note scrawled in ballpoint pen. It turns out it was a bootleg of The Swell Season in Chicago. We popped it in the CD player on the way home. Damn if it wasn't one of the higher quality bootlegs I've heard. So thank you, portly disheveled middle-aged man in untucked white undershirt, for the digital memento.
During a break in the show, someone screamed "Oscar!" Best Original Song for Glen Hansard? There's a good chance, though Mira thinks he'll have to contend with Eddie Vedder for the Into the Wild soundtrack.
Akira-like electric motorcycle prototype from Japan. (official website in Japanese)
Moby offers some free music for film students, indie filmmakers, and others for their non-profit film projects.
A cool use of the Hulu.com embed player. Extends the water cooler discussion of great moments in your favorite TV shows to the web, allowing you to not just tell people about the scene but show it to them as well.
The U.S. dollar is now worth less than a Canadian dollar. I never thought I'd live to see this day. It's the most feeble and anemic dollar in my lifetime.
For years when I lived in Seattle we'd drive up to Vancouver to eat and Whistler to ski and snowboard whenever possible, happy to diminish all the prices we saw in our head and to accumulate an ever growing tally of the savings earned by simply spending our money a few hours north.
The next time I'm up there, I'll have to round prices up. Will that cause the Kokanee to taste better or worse?
After a long absence, finally a new Malcolm Gladwell article in this week's New Yorker. He takes on criminal profilers and bursts the bubble of mystique around their techniques.
Another interesting article in this issue is from James Surowiecki, where he ties high risk behavior from hedge fund managers and many corporate executives to their incentive schemes. Hedge Fund managers make a lot of money when they raise the value of their funds, but their downside risk is much more limited. At worst they make less in a down year, but one good year followed by an equally bad year still nets them a lot on the ride up. CEO's with lots of stock options with a fixed strike price also have an incentive to take huge risks because their options are worthless no matter how far below the strike price the company's stock is at. It's also one reason I think so many startups shoot for the fences and a quick payoff/sellout rather than trying to build a lasting business.
Via Eric and Christina: the latest branch of a unique restaurant opens in Beijing, China. These so-called dark restaurants put a twist on the dining experience: you eat in complete darkness, guided to your seat and through the meal by visually-impaired waitstaff wearing night-vision goggles.
The goal is two-fold. One is to increase employment opportunities for the visually-impaired and raise awareness of the challenges they have to overcome. A second is to enhance your appreciation of the taste of the food by shutting down one of your other primary senses.
Add that to the list of novelty dining experiences, like Ninja Restaurant. There are Dans Le Noir restaurants in several major cities around the world.
The bathrooms, wisely, are brightly lit. There are some affairs one should conduct without the help of a spotter, for the benefit of both parties.
The poster tagline for The Perfect Storm read:
In the fall of 1991, the Andrea Gail left Gloucester, Mass. and headed for the fishing grounds of the North Atlantic.Two weeks later, an event took place that had never occurred in recorded history.
You know how it ends, with the camera framing Mark Wahlberg bobbing up and down in massive, violent waves in the dark of night. The camera recedes, revealing the disparity in size between Wahlberg's head, all that remains above the surface of the water, and the sheer magnitude of the angry ocean around him. Inevitably, he disappears, swallowed by forces far greater than him.
Something analogous happened to me, just a crazy convergence of different life pressures, and right now I'm the Mark Wahlberg character, bobbing in the ocean. Anyone following my posting frequency here will know that I'm usually better about checking in here on a regular basis.
Cooking, exercise, reading, paying bills, laundry, keeping up with personal e-mail and friends and family...all have dropped off the list. You'll be glad to know I've drawn the line at personal hygiene and continue to shower on a daily basis, but I'm starting to think that might need only be a dotted line.
More on all the chaos once it's over. Laughably, amidst all this insanity I also have to move apartments this weekend and haven't packed more than a box so far.
If I had more energy, I'd try to keep up here, but even more than inspiration, writing requires sheer physical stamina and mental energy, both of which I have little of now.
But bear with me, I shall return, and sooner, I hope, than later.
Ed had tix to the Stanford-USC game and asked if I wanted to go today. I had too much work to catch up on, and besides, Stanford was a 41 point underdog. What would be the fun of driving all that way to see a drubbing? Stanford was starting a QB who had thrown 3 passes in college because their starter had a seizure earlier this week.
Oops.
Meanwhile, I had the Cubs game on MLB Gameday in the corner of my screen, which was like having an IV drip in your arm, except instead of useful fluids, the drip contained liquid depression, spreading through my body drop by drop. If you can't get hits off of Livan Hernandez, who's about 87 years old, it's probably not meant to be.
Via Daring Fireball is this post with some JPEGs of pics shot in available light at high ISO using the new Nikon D3.
It's a bit hard to tell for sure because the photos aren't blown up larger, but even so, compared to previous Nikon digital SLRs, the noise levels at these ISO's are unbelievably low. For photographing weddings, as this lucky photographer did, the D3's high ISO performance will be an unbelievable boon. Concert photography will really benefit, too. Goodness gracious.
Technorati Tags: camera, photo, photography, Nikon
My nephew Connor is learning to smile, a welcome feature to go along with his high decibel crying. Too cute. I wish I could be there for firsts like this, but until then, I must make do with the occasional photos from out East.
I wonder if I can make him smile through a video chat.
Technorati Tags: connor, photo
Work has been so busy...I'm really out of it. I just now realized that the Cubs made the playoffs. I didn't know the Cubs could even clinch today. Holy shmoley.
They spent a lot of money in the offseason, and I wasn't sure it was all spent well, but making the playoffs makes it all worth it. There isn't another team in sports that can get me as fired up with a postseason appearance.
That's my team! In the playoffs! It doesn't happen often, but even if it did, I'm not sure it would ever get old.
I didn't think they Cubs would be that good this year, and they'll go into the playoffs with the worst record of any of the postseason teams, but maybe it's good to be thought of as the underdog. I don't want to get my hopes up, but you score a ticket to the ball, lose a glass slipper, and next thing you know...
DirecTV launched 21 new HD channels yesterday:
More are coming in October and by year's end, including FX, NBA TV, The Food Network, Cartoon Network, Bravo, MTV, VH1, and Tennis Channel. Good times. I chose an apartment on the inside of my complex just so I could get a DirecTV satellite pointed the right way out my balcony.
Technorati Tags: HD, DirecTV, tv
Amazon unveiled it's MP3 store beta yesterday, and all the MP3's are DRM-Free. That's hot. Congrats to Bill and the team in Seattle for getting this out the door.
One of the issues with trying to buy music legally in the past was always that lack of parity with music you could rip off of CD's yourself or download illegally. Buying through iTunes Music Store meant living with its DRM.
There are sites like eMusic that allow you to download DRM-free songs (eMusic offers MP3's at 192K VBR), but you had to buy a monthly subscription. That's a limited market because consumers have a psychological hurdle when it comes to subscriptions, even if it works out better for them price-wise in the long run. Consumers want to be able to buy one song at a time. It's been pretty hard to do that up until now. Apple now has some DRM-free songs in their library, but they cost $1.29 each, and only a subset of their library was available that way due to lack of movement on the part of music labels.
Apple's DRM wouldn't be as objectionable to most consumers if Apple would just license it's DRM to other retailers so that they could also sell music that could play on iPods, by far the most popular portable music player. But that hasn't happened (I suspect Apple refused to license Fairplay to keep a moat around their iTunes Music Store), and so I rarely buy songs through the iTunes Music Store. DRM is a penalty to those who want to buy music legally (and hardly deterrent for those who don't), and that's a terrible message to send to the marketplace.
The end around is just what Amazon did--wait until the labels were ready to release lots of DRM-free music that can be played on iPods. It helps Amazon that many movie studios and music labels are not happy with Apple. Amazon, on the other hand, has never been anything but a massive sales partner for them.
The net result is this: now if you want to buy DRM-free music legally and support the artists who sell it, you can do it for a lot of music fairly easily. The type of person who refuses to buy music legally at all is a lost cause for the music industry. You can throw them in jail, but you're not going to make much money off of them anyhow. But there are still lots of people who want to support the artists they love and who want to be able to listen to their music anywhere, on any device.
I won't sit here and pretend I haven't downloaded my share of MP3's over the years off the Internet and MP3 blogs. It's easy to be seduced by the dark side when you feel like the music industry is colluding to keep CD prices high or to make it as hard as possible for you to download DRM-free music legally. But there's no excuse now. The labels let a lot of time go by, but hopefully they've acted in time to salvage the good guys among the music buyers.
Sidenote: I'm not entirely sure how the track pricing works yet. For example, for In Our Bedroom After the War by Stars, all tracks are $0.99 except track 3, which is $0.89. That's not the shortest track, so I'm not sure why it's $0.10 cheaper.
Last night, after a good meal at The Bowery in Hollywood, I saw Cat Power (aka Chan (pronounced Sean) Marshall) at the Avalon. She performed with the Dirty Delta Blues.
She's got a second Covers album taxiing on the runway for Jan 2008 liftoff, and many of the songs she performed seem destined for that release. Two highlights: a couple songs into her set, a cover of Patsy Cline's "She's Got You," and later, one of my favorites, "Dark End of the Street." I can't find an MP3 of Marshall covering either, but if anyone has one, I'd be greatly indebted if they could pass it along to tide me over until the CD hits next year. In the meantime, you can find the Patsy Cline at any number of places like Amazon or iTunes, and there are a gazillion covers of "Dark End of the Street."
I wish I could list off all the other songs she covered, but one of the things that makes her one of the best cover artists around is also the thing that makes her covers so difficult to identify: Chan makes the melody and tempo and cadence of the songs her own (though still preserving their emotional marrow). Making song identification even trickier last night was the inconsistent sound mix. At times, I had no idea what she was saying because her voice was drowned out by guitars, and a few times her mic just plain cut out. Someone with sharper hearing and an encyclopedic knowledge of musical lyrics may have her full set list. If I find it I'll link to it here.
But back to that Cat Power voice. That voice. It's a gift, and it works best with minimal dressing, simpler arrangements that let it carve aural contrails in the air. Maybe just a piano, a dollop of guitar, and a small serving of bass on the side.
The keyboardist, some guy named Greg who Cat Power introduced as "Mr. Beautiful," was another stage distraction. He looked like a cross between Tommy Lee and Criss Angel and played the keyboards with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. Every time Marshall threw attention his way, he preened. How could a keyboardist have so much attitude? I kept hoping he'd hiccup and swallow his smoke.
