Classic theater, great theater

The PBS Great Performances showing of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical Oklahoma! was aired tonight, though poorly served by being broken up with several KQED pledge breaks. Taped about four years ago, this production starred Hugh Jackman (yes, Wolverine) as Curly, Josefina Gabrielle as Laurey and Shuler Hensley completing the love triangle as Jud--Shuler won a Tony for the role in the 2002 Broadway version revival.

Although I know Jackman has racked up very, very positive reviews for his current Broadway run in the Peter Allen bio musical, I simply didn't realize that he was such a strong song and dance man. The show opens with him blasting Oh What a Beautiful Morning and The Surrey with the Fringe on Top and you know right away he will be a treat in this demanding role. Kind of surprising how many prominent actors these days are Australian, eh?

I really enjoyed Jimmy Johnston's Will Parker, he had just the right combination of naivete and earnest enthusiasm to pull off great songs like Kansas City and his duet with Ado Annie (Vicki Simon), All or Nothing. And a part of musicals I usually don't much care for, the dancing, is taken to another level in the lengthy mid-show ballet. Apparently, most productions of Oklahoma substitute real ballet dancers for Curly and Laurey but here Jackman and Gabrielle do their own work, and do it very well. And the big finishing number, the title tune, well who can forget that having ever heard it? Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the Plains..

Director Trevor Nunn's staging was generally interesting; I liked the way he handled the supper box social and wedding scenes. One thing I was glad of, for sure, is that Nunn didn't really attempt to modernize the show, or infuse an updated sensibility into it. Though I do wonder about the brief freezes when the wedding photos were 'taken'. Perhaps I haven't seen the '55 film version recently enough to make a good comparison.

Recommended if there's a repeat where you can find it

The WhumpMan puts Mandy Moore fans in their place. Word!

Really fat divs

This site's Firebird issue has been posted to the Mozillazine forums, hopefully I'll get a useful answer that will fix the problem. In case you're one of the three or four people reading it with that browser and saying WTF.

More on the spam rager

The Mercury News ran an article today, written locally and not just a wire service reprint, that I just had to respond to. Here's my Letter to the Editor, we'll see if it gets printed:

I'm really surprised at the portrayal of Charles Booher in your article "Spam sends local man into rage." This front page article quotes his alleged victim, Doug Mackay, as if Mackay was an innocent rather than a lying perpetrator (as this article works hard to avoid saying) of work that enrages so many Americans. In fact it enrages us to the extent that, as reported and editorialized elsewhere in today's edition, that laws are being passed against these messages.

While Booher did clearly lose his temper and needed a good talking to, the idea that he should be facing five years in prison and a huge fine for a few blowing off the steam emails is beyond absurd; only if there was evidence that Booher was planning to travel the three thousand miles or so to confront Mackay in person could justify an arrest. Some comment from the US Attorney's office explaining their reasoning would really have been useful but the article lacks even a reported no comment.

This act by our government is, in the final analysis, a truly sad use of prosecutorial powers. I only hope that wiser heads prevail in the near future and these pointless charges are dismissed.

American prosecutors keeping on top of things

What a load of crap: Man gets "spam rage" over penis ad. Prosecutors are charging a guy driven over the edge by illegal invasions of his computer while, I'm sure, doing nothing about the assholes who pushed him. But I'm thinking the official court papers or proceedings, should it come to that, will have to include identifying and contact information for the schmoes on the other end--they had to be the ones who contacted the US Attorneys, right?--at which point I think they'll find out from an outraged Net community that this was a poor decision on their part. But then I don't expect much in the way of brains from people who try to make money off messenger spam. And for sure if it wasn't after closing time Friday I would be putting in a call to San Francisco to give those lovely gentlemen in the Federal Office Building a not terribly polite word or two. [via MetaFilter]

J2EE huh?

Sun mulls plan to offer open source app server: isn't this already out and called the reference implementation?

Opus is coming back

"Berke always told me his goal was to figure out how to take an issue and make it funny. The more serious an issue, the bigger the challenge. And since he just finished a children’s book about animal shelters (“Flawed Dogs”), I think he feels ready for any challenge." From the Opus interview by fellow MeFite Wendell Wittler.

As a reader of many alternative history novels and stories, I found this version by historian Nigel Hamilton, speculating on a different track taken if JFK hadn't been assassinated, very interesting.

Things to come...soon

Extremely cool: Nano-transistor self-assembles using biology

Today's movie: The Good Girl

Range is not something you expect that much of from creative types. Actors, well, that's a little different but writers, directors, musicians, even painters generally stay within a certain zone and when you find someone capable of reaching beyond the normal boundaries, that's quite a pleasant surprise. Kind of like Wynton Marsalis, reaching out from his jazz exploits, where he was from a young age considered one of the greats, to produce some outstanding classical compositions as well.

Perhaps The Good Girl and School of Rock don't quite put scriptwriter Mike White at that level yet but throw in his Chuck & Buck and you've got a pretty good start for someone well shy of 35. The movies are so different that I didn't realize the connection until well in Good Girl, a drama that has nothing to do with music but in a certain light is the flipside of Jack Black's epiphany in Rock.

Jennifer Aniston(!) is Justine, a worn-down wife to John C. Reilly's Phil, working at a sad little discount store in a strip mall in nowhere Texas, 30 years old, no children, a stoner husband and no view to a future. Aniston plays Justine as if all the air had been squeezed out of her body, slumped, totally out of energy. She shows up at work just to get a paycheck, something her cosmetics counter supervisor (Deborah Rush) points out a couple of times. Then she notices a cute, younger new cashier, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who seems as weary as her and when he explains that he's taken the name Holden (as in Catcher of the Rye's Caulfield), she's interested.

Gyllenhaal's Holden is able to verbalize Justine's feelings, recognizing a kindred spirit, and he can't help noticing she's the hottest female in 30 miles. So he quickly falls for her and Justine falls for the bait. Admittedly, though no real nudity can be seen, the one sexual romp the two have in a cheap motel room is very hot. And with their passion, the pair attempt to burn away the ennui, to find a connection that might bring some light into their dreary lives. Director Miguel Arteta furthers this feeling by setting the movie in winter, with few blue skies but lots of rain and snow on the ground.

Hollywood allows dramas to not end happily, and we don't get to turn off the TV with Justine and Holden happily ensconced in a cozy apartment together in San Diego, even though the couple does consider running away as an option. Though The Good Girl is major studio-influenced enough to tie down all the loose ends, use up all the foreshadowings and leave the audience satisfied that the title is true rather than ironic.

Recommended

"Somebody told me to go to hell. So I came here."

Another haiku

Sleep, sweet slumber, rest
Tie one arm behind rough pillow
Day brings your return

Haiku

The bloody ticket
Hangs from a high pine tree branch
Dripping in the wind.

Personal integrity is a thing of the past

People who make money because they are smart but respect laws and civil limits are fine. But why are so many people so infected with greed that they ignore all boundaries and grab whatever they can reach?

BillLazar.com

...I can feel the spam oozing in over the doorstep already.

Bushinations: No fair play

I'm reminded of old black and white comedy films showing bureaucrats behind their desks, except without the funny: DARPA chisels little guy out of $1 million race

Didn't the Russsians learn their lesson under the decades of Soviet regime? Apparently not.

Out damn spot!

Swearing on the Bible is a carryover from English common law, and the oath-taking of Presidents is aped from the British coronation ritual.

When I read this letter (before seeing Garret's post) my reaction was perhaps this is something that should be changed. Just because we've done something one way up until now hardly means we need to keep doing it. Swearing on the Bible (or the religious text of the person's choosing, as is the case), the phrase 'under god' on currency, even the use of a chaplain to open Senate proceedings, all ought to go as part of a more complete (more perfect?) separation of church and state.

The NY Times is simply taunting me.

Elliot Spitzer: Looking good, baby

Spitzer, New York's crusading attorney general, has written an outstanding essay for today's NY Times OpEd page, Regulation Begins at Home, in which he tears a nice chunk out of the Bush Administration. Specifically he attacks the SEC's settlement with Putnam over their misadventures in mutual funds and the administration's decision to abandon pending enforcement actions and investigations of Clear Air Act violations. This guy is 44 years old, Princeton undergrad, Harvard Law (married to another Harvard Law grad), and clearly one of the brightest future stars of the Democratic Party if he can sustain the momentum--I absolutely look forward to seeing him take a bigger seat down the road and would recommend he be considered for Attorney General should (when) the Demos unseat Bush next year.

Today's movie: I Spy

In the '60s, I Spy was a fun TV show but like far too many films based on similar inspiration, I Spy the movie should never have been made. Eddie Murphy can usually be counted on for a laughs and he does deliver here and Owen Wilson is okay, but director Betty Thomas (yes, the former Hill Street Blues cop) makes everything easy and obvious. She has a track record of doing the same, so no big surprise.

Not recommended

Yesterday's movie: Love Actually

Richard Curtis gives us one of the sweetest movies of recent memory with his meditation on the many aspects of love in Love Actually. This is not a slick, made for Hollywood movie and if you were expecting a love story with Hugh Grant's Prime Minister falling for Martine McCutcheon's Natalie, as some of the advertising might lead one to believe, you would be wrong though hopefully not disappointed.

Curtis, who made his directorial debut with this effort, is a veteran screenwriter who has long effective in combining romance and comedy (Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral for romantic comedies, most of Rowan Atkinson's oevre for pure comedy) and I think he's really put it all together for Love Actually. The film is a melange of vignettes on different types of love, elegantly stitched together, and elevated to a lofty whole by an excellent cast. Grant is definitely a personal favorite, as is Emma Thompson playing his (younger?) sister--her Much Ado About Nothing is in my all-time Top 10--married to philandering Alan Rickman.

Love can be wonderful, sweet, endearing, unanticipated but also hard, painful, demanding, disappointing and unrequited, and Curtis covers them all. This is on my Top 5 for the year and I don't expect that to change.

Definitely recommended

Thank you Bank One

The nice people at the bank which holds the paper on my 4Runner's loan sent me a letter saying that to celebrate the coming holidays I can skip my December payment. $279 isn't a huge amount of money but in my situation it surely is helpful. The letter stated that I would be liable for additional interest at the end of my loan, so to be sure I wasn't getting into something more expensive than it would be worth I called and asked. But according to the rep, the only effect is to move the December 2003 payment to somewhere in early 2008. Seems to me like a four year and a few months interest-free loan and I'll be taking it. This is not the first time I've gotten a good break and good service from Bank One, I need to keep that in mind next time I need a loan or something similar.