Good Actors in Bad Movies

GQ Interview Bill Murray...

How about Garfield? Can you explain that to me? Did you just do it for the dough?

No! I didn't make that for the dough! Well, not completely. I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I'd never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that.

[...] So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the fuck was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.

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According to GQ this is only the fourth or fifth time that Bill has been interviewed in the past decade, starting off on the right foot...

Bill Murray: How long do these things last? [picks up recorder] How much time is on these things?

GQ: A lot. They're digital.

Digital? I was thinking of recording myself sleeping. Would this work?

Well, assuming you don't make more than an hour and a half of noise each night, you'll be okay.

I donno. That's why I need the recorder. Sometimes I snore, like when I get really tired. Smoke a cigar or something, you know. I have a brother with sleep apnea. That's terrifying.

Tricking Alzheimers Patients

In Germany...

There's a fake bus stop in front of a German nursing home; its purpose is to "trap" Alzheimers patients who wander off from the home in search of home.

"Their short-term memory hardly works at all, but the long-term memory is still active. They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home." The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.

Give the Germans credit for there unconventional methods.

Mad Men

A new season embarks...

Most of you are not fans of Mad Men, either because you have never seen it, or because you have seen it once and deemed it to serious or slow moving. As season four of Mad Men begins this Sunday evening at 10pm, my recommendation would be to tune back in and give it a chance. There are few, if any shows I have ever seen that create the depth of an era, complexity of character, and intelligence in dialogue that Mad Men does. It assesses the culture of the early 60's, the changing tides of social thought as post World War II thought expires, and the baby boomer generation begins to come to fruition-- the American dream was cynically packaged for mass consumption creating a society perpetually distracted and dissatisfied.

The plot follows Sterling Cooper, an ad agency on Madison Avenue, as it navigates a changing American landscape. The storyline, though centered specifically around Don Draper-- the cool and commanding creative director at Sterling Cooper, bounces back and forth between the lives of various Sterling Cooper ad men. The ambition and conflicted desires of these characters in their pursuit of happiness is what makes "Mad Men" such a singular and resonant reflection of a particularly American puzzle. Its dramatic reenactment of the disconnect between the dream of dashing heroes and their beautiful wives, living in style among adorable, adoring children, and the much messier reality of struggling to play a predetermined role without an organic relationship to your surroundings or to yourself is what spurs you to ask 'What's missing from this pretty picture?'.

Watching the show, its almost surreal how it transports you to a 1960's atmosphere, its detail, the props, plot, and script—is precise, spare, correct. Character development is not spoon fed, angst is rarely resolved, and cultural innuendo not always explained. Vanity Fair likens it to a Paradise Lost, a precipice of smoking, drinking, loving, and lies. Mad Men's depiction of taboo behavior is not crass, nor is it upsetting, but it does provide an understanding of how much things have changed (or improved) in the past 50 years.With male chauvinism, homophobia, anti-semitism, workplace harassment, and housewives’ depression commonplace-- the interaction with the issues and a sense of something new on the horizon looms.

Your 24 or Lost-esque need for immediate plot twist gratification will not be fulfilled in Mad Men, but count on a fascination for details to develop. Mad Men scripts don’t waste words. Intricately crafted and intelligently written, despite a lack of action, Mad Men will leave you anticipating the next episode all week.

On Memorization

And a 60,000 word poem...

John Basinger, a standard, run-of-the-mill 58 year old man, decided one day that he wanted memorize all 12 books of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Nine years later he performed the poem from memory in a three-day period and continues to do so in public performances whenever the opportunity avails itself. Mr. Basinger was tested by psychologists in a research setting and was gauged to have average day-to-day memory and intelligence, this demonstrates that cognitive expertise in memorization remains possible even in later adulthood, a time period in which cognitive researchers have typically focused on decline. The accomplishment wasn't tackled without rigor however:

Just how did JB manage to pull off this incredible feat? He studied for about one hour per day, reciting verses in seven-line chunks, consistent with Miller's magic number seven - the capacity of short-term, working memory. Added together, JB estimates that he devoted between 3000 to 4000 hours to learning the poem. Seamon's team interpret this commitment in terms of Ericsson's 'deliberate practice theory', in which thousands of hours of perfectionist, self-critical practice are required to achieve true expertise.

True, Mr. Basinger had a determination and commitment that many of us don't possess, though he demonstrates that memorization isn't about being a genius or autistic. I fret over a line I want to memorize three or four times, then confident with my intellectual prowess move on in life, only to realize I have forgotten the phrase an hour later. It is somewhat inspiring, however, that we all have the wherewithal to commit anything to memory given enough motivation. Maybe I'll get started on Finnigans Wake.

Interesting Swedish Sub-Cultures

And the influence of America...

Fashion and sub-cultures have an intersting way of spreading. One countries trash is another's treasure-- or in this sense, shunned trends of America have the ability to be picked up by the rebellious youth of a traditionally liberal minded nation like Sweden:

For the weekend, the small city of Västerås, Sweden gets overrun with drunken packs of a very specific Swedish subculture called raggares, riding through the streets in a parade ‘57 Chevys and Ford Mustangs.

“Raggare” is a delightful mix of the style of a’50s greaser, the corpulence and bad hygiene of a biker, the love of the Confederate flag of a southern redneck, and the enthusiasm for drinking of a British soccer hooligan. Basically, every stereotype about poor white trash spanning both time and globe, rolled into one.

By all accounts, an unusual stock of people to crop up in the north European Scandinavia. All these photos are from Sweden, of Swedish people.

It seems that a nostalgic lust for mid-twentieth century Americana has been somehow crossbred with a fascination for the Southern redneck. Perhaps the true nature of what they're representing in stateside culture has been lost in the trip over the Atlantic-- either way, I wouldn't deny that America's youth is equally susceptible to fuse foreign cultural inclinations together in a hipster effort.

Facts of the Day

From Harpers Index...

On Japan...

Chance that a Japanese grade-school student reports never having seen a sunrise or sunset: 1 in 2

Number of days a Japanese arrestee can be interrogated without a lawyer: 23

--Percentage of Japanese arrestees who confess to crimes: 92

--Percentage brought to trial who are convicted: 99.9

College...

Chance that a student at Indiana University reports having used a tanning lamp in the past year: 1 in 2

Estimated percentage of women’s college sports teams that were coached by women when Title IX was enacted in 1972: 90

--Percentage today: 42

Percentage of U.S. college students who believe the “next Bill Gates” is among today’s generation of college students: 50

--Percentage who say they are the next Bill Gates: 24

Vodka...

Annual amount that Americans spend on vodka, expressed as a portion of the value of Russia’s publicly traded companies: 1/3

Liters of vodka drunk in the Soviet Union in 1984: 2,577,000,000

Length, in miles, of a rubber hose used in 2005 to smuggle vodka from Belarus to Lithuania: 2

Quick Notes

Volume IX

1. Anyalze your writing style | I write like David Foster Wallace when blogging, and like Issac Assmov in my occasionally private forays into fiction. Via LRB.

2. Interviews with a window cleaner | From the article --"For safety reasons, music and cellphones are not allowed up in the scaffolding, but some of us listen to our own music in our heads."

3. How supermodels are like toxic assets | An interesting read on the speculative nature of the fashion industry.

4. Living with a computer | An article from The Atlantic circa 1982.To quote the author, "The process works this way. When I sit down to write a letter or start the first draft of an article, I simply type on the keyboard and the words appear on the screen". The piece is as intriguing as it is funny.

Visualizing a Billion Dollars

And how its spent...

(Click to enlarge)

Some interesting points: the African debt is about the same as Apple's market value, the Global Pharmaceutical market is almost equal to Medicare and Medicaid year expenditures, and the amount of interest per year on the US Government deficit is almost enough to lift one billion people out of extreme poverty.

All the data and more billion dollar amounts.

Interesting Blog of the Day

On science...

Sam Kean at Slate blogs on the periodic table of elements. A post each day for each element, surprisingly interesting and entertaining. For example:

Nine out of every 10 atoms in the universe are hydrogen; the other 10 percent are helium. The rest of the universe is a rounding error

Don't take me as a science nerd, but your lying if your not somewhat interested in why the future of toilet design hangs in the balance of nitrogen and phosphorus.

Picky Eating as a Disorder?

Support group included...

The Wall Street Journal does a report on picky eaters.

Picky eaters tend to gravitate to certain foods, including blander products that are often white or pale colored, like plain pasta or cheese pizza. For reasons that aren't clear, almost all adult picky eaters like French fries and often chicken fingers, health experts say.

Many are now considering picky eating as a sort of medical disorder, in the same category as anorexia, bulimia, and certain binge eating conditions. Initially thought to just be a state solely stricken to the mind of head strong child, something that eventually was to be grown out of, researchers are now seeing adult eating habits running in the same vein.

In fact, Internet support groups and organizations are now cropping up all over the web.. Picky Eating Adult Support, for example, is piloted by picky eater Bob Krause who claims he has a rule that he will not go to someone's house before 7:30 pm in order to avoid any chance of being invited to eat dinner. From the WSJ, a sample of Mr. Krauses daily menu:

This type of obsessive compulsion is not uncommon for picky eaters. Amber Scott, a writer and picky eater, reveals that she is "terrified" of having to sit through networking dinners as many of her friends and associates don't know about her tendencies. Avoiding social situations involving eating, she says, has become a part of her life.

If your a picky eater, let this be a word of caution-- change your selective ways before your situation becomes to chronic.

To conclude on a more rational note-- as interesting as picky eating is, I would gather that it is far from being a diagnosable disorder, rather being more of a manifestation of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Quick Notes

Volume VIII

1. San Francisco's crusade to ban the sale of all pets | Dubbed the "Hamster Crusade", the city seeks to deprive all children of living play things.

2. Season four of Mad Men starts July 25th | Best show on television, those of you weened on action will hate it. For some background, here is the Mad Men blog.

3. Are blogs dying out? | An interesting trend in wake of gorwing social media sites. Also the original Economist article.

4. Approved haristyles for Iran | Failure to conform is now a breach of Islamic principals, similar to veiling among women. Haircut models here.

5. Hacking the Price is Right | Terry Kniess, a former weatherman with a knack for numbers and seeing patterns, went on The Price is Right and won more than $50,000 in prizes because of an exact bid on his Showcase. His secret? He watched hundreds of hours of the show and discovered its secrets and weaknesses.

Harrowing Drug Trends In Africa

Heroin addiction...

Depseration that will chill you to the bone. Via the MR blog

Desperate heroin users in a few African cities have begun engaging in a practice that is so dangerous it is almost unthinkable: they deliberately inject themselves with another addict’s blood, researchers say, in an effort to share the high or stave off the pangs of withdrawal.

The practice, called flashblood or sometimes flushblood, is not common, but has been reported in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the island of Zanzibar and in Mombasa, Kenya

It puts users at the highest possible risk of contracting AIDS and hepatitis.

It sounds almost to extreme to even be possible, given the small amount of the drug that would even be concentrated in a blood transfusion. Despite my skepticism, first hand confrimation emerged via the comments:

to all of the sceptical commenters here, this really does happen. I am currently interning in Mombasa through an organization called the Foundation for Sustainable Development. They have helped place me with a host family, local NGO to work with, and orient me to the city. There are many other interns in this program working with various NGOs. Through one of these interns, I have met the leader of a community based organization (CBO) that works in Changamwe (district that is right next to Mombasa Island) on HIV-related issues.

This man has informed me about the practice of flashblood. It is done by youth who do not have enough money to buy the drugs for themselves, so they pool money together for one person to inject themselves. Then, they inject that person's blood into the rest of the members of the group.

The practice is extremely dangerous. It also highlights once again how poverty causes people to take on riskier activities than they otherwise would. Drugs are plenty dangerous in their own right, but when people are desperate for them and lack money, they expose themselves to extreme danger.

All a result of little or no education, extreme poverty, and a cycle of hopelessness that many in Africa struggle to break.