Thane Plambeck

jerry springer & opera

Photo caption at the NYT:

Harvey Keitel as the titular talk-show host in "Jerry Springer: The Opera." The show, Ben Brantley writes, uncovers something grand in the squalid lives it portrays...

nyt

Yes!—why don't more people realize how great these shows like Jerry Springer and COPS are?

Unconvinced? Please read this earlier blog entry.

Owen's dream

Owen's dream
Originally uploaded by thane

My dream for the world is that one day there be no more war and everyone will be treated with respect and thankfulness. I have a dream that nuclear weapons will be thrown away carefully and the oceans will be cleaned up. People need to know the difference between want they want and what they need. Soldiers will not have to die if there is no war. We will save the Rain Forests and pay attention to Global Warming. I have a dream that there will be no more dumping toxic waste in big holes. By: Owen

[Damn—maybe I'll write his name in for President.]

Three Disturbances

just dorky enough to blog this pun

pryor odds

HA HA HA ha-ha HA!

Connecticut town on the sea, probably Stonington (LOC)

Connecticut town on the sea, probably Stonington (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

November 1940—photographer: Jack Delano (1914-)

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Flickr has got a lot more cool photos from the Library of Congress up on their website.

Combinatorial games

I'm in Banff for a conference on combinatorial game theory.

I'm in the top row with Angela Siegel (and her son Dorian, in the red cap) and Noam Elkies on my right.

I almost missed coming out for the photo on time, so that's why I'm in the top row.

Chelsea campaigns at Farm

[stanford daily].

Back in 2000 or so, I went to the Starbucks at the intersection of El Camino Real & Stanford Ave in Palo Alto to get a Grande drip.

I went in the front door and saw that three people were in the line in front of me—some guy was first, and two college-age students were talking together in line behind him.

Off to my left was a fourth person, a woman who looked like a college student (she was dressed that way, at least). She was standing near enough to the coffee line for me to think that she might possibly be in the coffee line.

So I waited for a moment, judging the mysterious fourth person's intentions. Was she in line, or not? I stepped slightly back.

She stepped back slightly, too.

OK, I thought, she's not in the line. I'll step forward decisively to make sure.

She quickly stepped forward too. I decided to ask her what her intentions were.

"So, are you in the line, or not?"

"No, no," she said, "you go ahead."

I noticed an earbud in her ear. She looked a bit old for the clothes she was wearing. I stepped forward a bit, and she stepped closer to me, too, but not quite between me and the two college students just in front me.

I stepped forward again, and became aware that there was another person watching me on my right. He looked more menacing, and was wearing sunglasses. I hadn't noticed him at all, before.

Now I was standing sandwiched between the "I'm not in line" girl on my left and the 6'3" sunglasses dude on my right. WTF?

I looked outside the Starbucks. I saw another guy with an earbud. The door opened behind me, and I saw two uniformed Palo Alto police guys enter the store.

Then, I finally looked at the person just in front of me in the line.

It was Chelsea Clinton.

Juno

If not too clever by half, then perhaps by 1/4 or even 1/3. I still liked it quite a bit.

Romney on the brink

People seem to be counting out Mitt Romney if he doesn't win in Michigan today.

I don't care too much who wins the Republican nomination, but surely he'll go on through Super Tuesday, no matter what? That's when everything will be decided, or nearly so.

From Of Grammatology

Pleasure itself, without symbol or suppletory, that which would accord us (to) pure presence itself, if such a thing were possible, would be only another name for death. Rosseau says it:

Enjoyment! Is such a thing made for man? Ah! If I had ever in my life tasted the delights of love even once in their plenitude, I do not imagine that my frail existence would have been sufficient for them, I would have been dead in the act (Confessions, Book VII)

—Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (what a name!)

No Country for Old Men

1) Reminded me of Blood Simple. People don't seem to know that movie. It's the first one I think of when the Coen Bros come up, mostly because when I first saw it, long ago, I remember taking the trouble to figure out who made that movie.

2) The bad guy—I was thinking, OK—would somebody please bust a cap in that dude? Similar to the feeling I encounter reading various WWII histories.

3) Texas Tough Guy(s)—I like these stock characters, as presented here in their subtle varieties like so many orchids. Woody Harrelson as the fallen Texas Ranger, similar somewhat to the tall guys I remember in the elevators of the Hotel Driskill in Austin, ca 1998; Tommy Lee Jones as the Coke Stevenson variety, big hat, high morals—defeated in 1948 in a "furious and controversial Democratic Party primary runoff by Austin Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson" (quoth the Wikipedia). Like that 35th governor of Texas (Stevenson), Tommy Lee Jones is set aside (or at least, kept removed) from the action by the forces of a higher evil or lesser good, depending upon one's viewpoint. In any case, the Texas Tough Guy is inevitably shunted off the stage, Daniel Boone to a Santa Anna, although a Santa Anna we're not prone to remember. Finally, the simple Tough Texan, plenty tough himself, out hunting antelope, turning up a drug mess and $2 million instead. The movie invites a person to identify with that character. He's got inner strength ("he always takes care of himself,") says his wife—but when he succumbs to the evil dude I realized, OK—here we're taking a departure from the usual forms—this bad guy is truly the Devil Himself.

Can't win against that.

Here we shall reign secure [...] though in hell. (Milton)

Possible congruence

Benny Goodman's Sing, Sing, Sing = AC/DC's Given the Dog a Bone

[ It's hard to find a recording of Sing, Sing, Sing that has the drums at the right level of insistence. I've got a crummy CD version of a mono Sing, Sing, Sing recording made 6 July 1937 by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra. You can turn it up all you like, and it's still found wanting. AC/DC, by contrast, always responds well when played louder. The "Producer's Note" on the Goodman CD apologizes "We feel that these digital versions of mono recordings, many of them made 50 or more years ago, have been transferred as painstakingly and carefully as contemporary technology will allow." Well, maybe so, but I "feel" that sentences that start "We feel..." always wrap up with a disappointment of some kind, and that pathetic apology on the Goodman CD is no exception. I guess I should look for a modern recording of Sing, Sing, Sing. Any recommendations? ]

He'll see it coming

"Throw a brick around here, and you'll hit a psychic," said Mark Elliott, a British filmmaker and Buddhist who has lived in Crestone for two decades.

For many a follower, sacred ground (NYT).

cole-beach-jamaica

cole-beach-jamaica
Originally uploaded by thane

go obama!

After Bill Clinton beat Bush the First, way back in 1992, I threw a big party on Dover Road in Redwood City, inviting everyone I could think of.

Now it seems Obama is going to knock Hillary out, and

I FEEL A PARTY COMING ON

[ I would be fine with Hillary winning, and I'm actually a fan. But I've had lingering doubts whether she would beat even a weak Republican in the general election (although no one else seems to think that). She somehow seems scheming and/or insincere—is it just me? ]

* * *

THANE: Hmmm—this is just too good. But I'm afraid someone's going kill that guy. I hope he's got good Secret Service protection.

GLORIA: I was thinking the same thing.

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From today's (7 Jan 2008) NYT, "In New Hampshire, Bill Clinton Is Finding Less Spark," by Mark Leibovich:

Former President Bill Clinton has been drawing sleepy and sometimes smallish crowds at big venues in the state that revived his presidential campaign in 1992. He entered to polite applause and rows of empty seats at the University of New Hampshire on Friday. Several people filed out midspeech, and the room was largely quiet as he spoke, with few interruptions for laughter or applause. He talked about his administration, his foundation work and some about his wife.

"Hillary's got good plans," Mr. Clinton kept saying as he worked through a hoarse-voiced litany of why his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, is a "world-class change agent." He urged his audience to "caucus" on Tuesday for Mrs. Clinton, before correcting himself ("vote"). He took questions, quickly worked a rope line and left.

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Ho hum.

GO OBAMA!

Back from Jamaica

The first people we encountered on the road in Jamaica were a jeepfull of tired-looking guys in army fatigues, each carrying an M16. The two in the back looked like they might be about to fall asleep.

THANE: So, is that usual here, army guys driving around with assault weapons?

DRIVER: Not unusual at all.

THANE: What, Jamaican Army, I guess? [I strongly desired the answer to be "yes."]

DRIVER: Yeah—Soldier-Mon.