The Whole Town's Talking

Wow! This movie is an undiscovered gem! Edward G. Robinson in 1935 -- people normally think of him as a kind of cartoon gangster, but this movie helps show his range, because he plays two roles -- a cartoon gangster, and a mild-mannered clerk who happens to look exactly like him. A comedy of errors ensues, with a lot of snarky Jean Arthur in the mix for nerd fantasy purposes. The movie is fun and funny with great directing and acting, and a lot of sharp turns and surprises, not to mention some very well crafted split screen shots with Robinson talking to himself -- quite remarkable for so early in film history.

The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics

When I was about nine years old, my father received this book as a Christmas gift. I was a big reader of newspaper comics, and spent endless hours poring over the collections of Peanuts comics, Feiffer, and Pogo my parents were thoughtful enough to put on a low shelf in our home library. So, when this massive hardcover book showed up, so big I could only read it by splaying it out on the living room floor, I was fascinated. I initially made a bold attempt to read it front to back, but the older comics (Yellow Kid, Buster Brown, etc.) were so baffling, I couldn't persevere. But this book gave me an exposure to things like Gasoline Alley, Little Nemo in Slumberland, Krazy Kat, Seegar's Popeye, the Mickey Mouse comics, the Katzenjammer Kids, the early days of Blondie, when all the gags were what an airhead she was, and much more. Today I'm a board member of the Pittsburgh Toonseum -- it's safe to say that never would have happened had I not found this book in 1979.

Robot and Frank

I haven't posted on this blog for ages, though I have finished a lot of things. I think it is partly because I feel pressure to say thoughtful things, and my head isn't always in a place where I'm ready to say anything thoughtful. So, I'll do some experimenting with more stream of consciousness writing, because the goal of this blog is more to be a record, and less to strive mightily for deep insights.

I enjoyed this movie, but not as much as I wanted to. It has, by far, what I think is the most realistic depiction I have ever seen of our likely interactions with AI in the year 2035. It was clever, and amusing, but at the same time the characters were mostly kind of flat and cardboard -- mostly like caricatures. Perhaps this was the intention? But as I stared down the movie, I wasn't at all sure how to fix this problem without turning the movie into something it didn't want to be.

I was most impressed with the actor who was inside the robot. That had to be a very uncomfortable job, requiring a lot of discipline. I started my Computer Science career very focused on AI. I must say this movie got me thinking about picking it up again.

Hi-Fi Harmonica

This album is pretty much sounds like the cover. Was it really so long ago when grown-ups ran the world? There are still people alive who remember what that was like. The world today must look pretty ridiculous to them.

My Girlfriend's Dead

Ah, the sounds of 1980. I really liked this -- how did I only find it now? It is a genre I will refer to as "Emo Devo." The song "Interview with a Vampire" is worth its weight in gold.

Sunshine

This was one of those suggestions from Netflix -- you know: "I see you like emo space movies. I recommend SUNSHINE." This was a mixed bag -- kind of like three movies in one... cool problem-solving space adventure like Apollo 13, dumb slasher movie like Friday the 13th, and a deep philosophical movie like, uh, well, I can't think of anything with a 13 in it... so, uh, I'll just say 13 Erotic Ghosts. Any movie with a ship named "Icarus 2" is alright by me, though.

I watched the deleted scenes... some of them were better than what they left in!

The most thoughtful thing in this film is the notion that, as humans, we can never merge with darkness -- we always hold ourselves separate from it -- but we easily merge with light. I'll be thinking about that for a long time.

This is the perfect movie to double feature with Moon.

PS -- This is the 500th Thing I've Finished!

Elephant Rocks

I liked topics in this book of poems by Kay Ryan, and the length and number of the poems, and typeface, and even the paper and binding. And I didn't dislike the poems-- most of them just, I don't know, didn't resonate with me, somehow. My favorite poems are ones that cover the surface a topic, leading you to believe that their goal is to encircle that topic, but then, to your surprise, they plunge down deep, into the heart of things, in a way that shocks and surprises. For me, these poems did the covering, but their plunge just didn't penetrate, somehow. Here's one of my favorites from the book, for example:

Wooden 

In the presence of supple
goodness, some people
grow less flexible,
experiencing a woodenness
they wouldn't have thought possible.
It is as strange and paradoxical
as the combined suffering
of Pinocchio and Gepetto
if Pinocchio had turned and said
I can't be human after all. 

You see what I mean? It's more like the end is an illustration of the beginning, as opposed to a paradigm shift built on the platform of what came before. Contrast that with a favorite Emily Dickinson poem of mine:

Fame is a bee
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing. 

Which has all the things I like best in a poem. See how it tricks you? "Fame lures you in, but it's dangerous..." and then everything flips! "And it allows you to fly!" It's startling, and perception shifting, and it leaves you wondering about how Emily Dickinson, of all people, really feels about fame. Sheesh, I feel like a bully, beating up Kay Ryan with Emily Dickinson. This isn't meant to be a criticism of Kay Ryan, but just me realizing what it is I like best in poetry. I often wonder what a person's taste in poetry says about them. I wonder what it says about me that this poem is my favorite one in Elephant Rocks:

Crib 

From the Greek for
woven or plaited,
which quickly translated
to basket. Whence the verb
crib, which meant "to filch"
under cover of wicker
anything—some liquor,
a cutlet.
For we want to make off
with things that are not
our own. There is a pleasure
theft brings, a vitality
to the home.
Cribbed objects or answers
keep their guilty shimmer
forever, have you noticed?
Yet religions downplay this.
Note for instance, in our
rehearsals of innocence,
the substitution of manger for crib—
as if we ever deserved that baby,
or thought we did.

You can see this does all the things I like! One interesting thing about the poems in this book -- some rhyme, some don't. It's very cool that she's not afraid to have really fun rhymes, sometimes (Time is rubbery. If you hide it in the shrubbery). I know one thing -- writing poems requires a special bravery.