Battles with Integrity

One of the things I like best about Carroll's writing is that he seems to capture a whimsy and delight in small moments that appeals to me in a special way.

I like his political columns and his travel stuff, but sometimes it's the family pieces that I really dig most of all.

Here's an excerpt from today's column

I also came upon a piece of prose. I think I wrote it when Rachel was 6. I read it again, and it made me smile. So, now, here, for the first time ever in print, a rediscovered manuscript by a popular newspaper columnist, absolutely complete and unedited:

My daughter peered around the end of the sofa. She waved two fingers at me. "Put your hands up," she said.

I put my hands up.

"Shoot," she said, indicating the accomplishment of the act. No one had taught her to say "bang bang" yet.

"No, honey," I said, "you don't shoot people with their hands up. You make a deal with people" - my daughter knows all about making deals - "that if they'll put their hands up you'll promise not to shoot them."

"Why?"

"Because people with their hands up can't reach their guns in their holsters, and that means they can't hurt you. So you can't shoot them. See?"

She was silent. Finally: "You can't shoot people with their hands up?"

"That's right."

"Put your hands down."

I put my hands down.

"Shoot," she said.

Just beautiful.

This morning's Darths and Droids is particularly funny.

Overheard Tuesday in the mall bathroom at the SF Centre: Anyway, it's like Joss Whedon said, "After a while, it stops being CPR, and starts being necrophilia."

[Posted on Brick's50-ver2, out in the world.]
[x-posted at overheardinsf]

So, the boy scout who was missing in North Carolina this week? They sent out SAR teams for the kid and all, big news. He was found on Wednesday, by a bloodhound named Gandalf. Now that's kinda cool.

rmjwell posted a brilliant idea on his journal, about what if X person had written Y book? For example, what if Miss Manners' Guide to Excrutiatingly Correct Behavior were written by Dorothy Parker? or what if The Handmaid's Tale had been written by Harlan Ellison?

Much madness ensued. It got me to thinking, what about movies? What if had Y directed Z? For starters, I'll provide a few, but I really want y'all to chime in with your own twisted ideas:

A Clockwork Orange, as directed by Rob Reiner
Cocoon, as directed by Clive Barker
My Dinner With Andre, as directed by Kevin Smith
Fiddler on the Roof, as directed by Mel Gibson
Schindler's List, as directed by Mel Brooks
V for Vendetta, as directed by Ron Howard
Amelie, as directed by the Wachowski Brothers

Ok, I've done enough damage. Now it's your turn.

(p.s. finally, a post worthy of the Dr. Tran icon!)

When I was a child I used to pray to God every day for a new bicycle. But one day I realized that God doesn't work that way. So I stole one, and prayed for forgiveness afterward. - Emo Philips

Makes me chuckle every time.

Tonight, nach Chico! Tomorrow, sunburn!

I imagine that, in real life, Hamlet was decisive and a bit of a cutup, and Macbeth was a gentle ruler who tenderly cared for his fragile wife. ...oh and Richard III, was just a regular guy with an unlucky family.

Oh... and, Johanna.

In the US, the standard business-size envelope is big enough to fit several sheets of 8.5" x 11" paper, with room to spare. It's called a Number 10 envelope. There also exists a Number 9 envelope, whose sole purpose it seems, is to be small enough to fit inside a Number 10 envelope, and yet still be big enough to hold an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper (or a check!). And the Number 11? It is intended to be big enough that you can fit your Number 10s inside.

I don't know why this amuses me, but it does.

Most studios have a spotty track record. For every Dreamworks film like Madagascar, Amistad, Gladiator, American Beauty, or Chicken Run there are two movies like Road Trip, A.I, The Mexican, Biker Boyz, Chris Rock's political thriller Head of State, Father of the Pride (with an animated Siegfried & Roy!), and the Chumscrubber.

Others have equally uneven film libraries Miramax can put out films like Kinsey, The Virgin Suicides and Don Juan DeMarco while also producing movies like Buddy (the one about the gorilla), Jeepers Creepers and it's estimable sequal.

For all of you who wonder about how Pixar Animation can consistently come up with amazing films, the folks at Shortpacked! may have some theories.