Posts from August 2008

(Is it real life? Or is it fantasy?)

Not since Julie Taymor’s brilliant Titus way back in 1999 have I seen a film so overflowing with such rich, imaginative imagery. Titus tied for my favorite film of 1999 (with Jim Jarmusch’s stunning Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai). It’s going to take a miracle of a film to top The Fall in 2008. [Read my full review here]

Do not forget to come and see FPRL this Saturday at the Midnight Sun in downtown Olympia! Also, the FPRL site has been conveniently re-designed and has info about all of the many, many new characters that we’re planning on debuting.

Forgetful though you are, do not forget.

I cannot believe how funny this is. Someone took a bunch of Garfield strips and then edited Garfield out of them so that Jon is talking completely to himself.

It makes the Garfield comic into this fascinating & hilarious portrait of a lonely, disturbed, horrifically sad man. I couldn’t stop laughing for a long, long time after I started reading it. Just keep clicking “Previous Comic” because the effect is cumulative; the more you read, the funnier and more disturbing it gets.

I ♥ it. So very, very much.

Link of the Month:
Pink Tentacle
A nice little blog site that updates with interesting news and strange tidbits of information about those exotic lands across the Pacific Ocean. No, farther north. I mean Asia, idiot.

Book of the Month:
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
David Sedaris (Amy’s brother) is a really great essayist, and this is his latest collection. Funny, funny, funny collection.

Album of the Month:
Ballzack: Yeah Indeed
Ballzack, an hilarious bounce rapper from N’Orleans. This album is one of his bounciest to date with lots of great call-and-response, commands (especially in "Wine Candy," which is basically just a series of commands to do a bunch of different, made-up, food-related dance styles), and full as usual with Ballzack’s special brand of humor. Where most rappers write songs about (A) how good they are with the ladies and (B) how much prowess they have at rapping, Ballzack generally writes songs about (A) how horrible he is with the ladies (there’s a great bit in one song where he tries to do a call and response with an audience and they play along until he tries to get them to say good things about him), and (B) how he can’t really rap worth a damn. The songs are also full of references to specific New Orleans institutions, so they’re a big hit with my Katrina evacuee friends. Yeah, indeed.