In that case, perhaps Gladwell’s intellectual compromises are neither commercial nor unintentional but rather a necessary outgrowth of his higher calling: to explore the secret workings of the world and impart the resulting data to its self-appointed stewards, the titans of industry. This conclusion, if true, may resolve many of the most puzzling incongruities riddling Gladwell’s articles: his continued defense of the pharmaceutical industry even as he advocates for single-payer healthcare; his refusal to indict the financial sector’s rigged “star system” as the engine of corruption that it is; the meticulous bleaching of his own prose so that he’s whitewashed out any real context, any framework in which wars and economic collapses can actually be understood as wars and economic collapses rather than simulations or malfunctions; his near total avoidance of academic thought that does not base its findings on things observed in labs (with the exception of Carl Jung, whose legacy he reduces to the popularization of personality tests); his coyness about politics; and most memorably, his irritating, unrelenting readability.

It’s a long and thorough piece that is certainly worth reading if you’ve ever given 15-minutes of your lifetime drunkenly debating the merits of Gladwell just before closing time at a seedy bar.

Jesus, I can’t believe I’ve never thought of this.  [via]

Normally, a premise as hackneyed as this one — two brothers go off to war and when one is suspected of being dead his widow falls for the living brother — has about as much chance of being a decent flick as it does a Lifetime Original.

But the talent behind this picture is too huge to ignore. Director Jim Sheridan is back to challenging, emotionally human interest drama (we’ll forgive him his paycheck cashing 50 Cent gangster flick) with the talents of Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobie Maguire in front on the camera.

I find Jon Stewart’s impression of Glen Beck pretty great, unnerving for sure, but still great. Gotta love those inane FOX news chalkboard moments.

I’m not sure why those responsible for erecting a statue to a beloved children’s television icon would design a scary, craggy monster looking statue; but then again, this is Pittsburgh (I have no factual basis to make that claim)?

The six-year project was unveiled on a drizzy day yesterday with the 11-foot bronze statue as a center piece to a children’s tribute area.  Still.  Did NO ONE look at the statue?!?  It is as frightening as the actual Fred Rogers was comforting and inviting.  It looks like the mythical Jewish rock Golem.

An awesome replica of the Fight Club soap featured in the Fight Club movie poster is now on sale at Etsy for just $8 and yes you really can use it as soap — though there is no indication it is made from the human lard of fat ladies.  If that particular link sells out, check the Dirty Ass Soaps shop for possible duplicates. [via]

She goes on to say on a scale of 1 to 10, the pain is about an eight or nine for a full 24-hours after intercourse.  I don’t know if she’s using my pain scale (10 being decapitation, one being napping in a field of daisies), but this allergy sounds pretty awful to have.

Still, when the early news broke yesterday, a conspiracy theorists co-worker of mine made the off-hand quip, “watch him turn out to be Muslim, possibly a sleeper terrorist that the right wing will use to their advantage.”  Odd, very odd.  Not that I believe that line of thinking. It’s just a tragedy all-around.

Nidal Malik Hasan’s religion says nothing more about Islam extremism than Timothy McVeigh’s and the Unabomber’s actions say about white men.

I might be alone in saying this, but Eric Johnson and the rest of The Fruit Bats have crafted one of the best albums of 2009.  They also performed the song for Craig Ferguson (quickly becoming the best late night host) last Friday and somehow I missed it.

Also: West Coast Tour in January! Dates here: www.fruitbatsmusic.com . Presale here: https://tix.concertmaps.com The band expects Seattle and Portland to be sellouts, so if you live there, ahem, it’s best to get tickets sooner rather than later.

I’m sure there’s a Christian Bale joke here somewhere, but honestly the premise here is so simple: a man dresses like a bat and then scares the beejesus out of people.  Sometimes it’s the bizarre-o little things in life.  [via]

November 9th will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  The short (six-songs) U2 concert that took place at the Brandenburg Gate yesterday ran into some trouble after — no lie — a huge wall was constructed to keep non-ticket holders from watching the free concert.

Controversy aside, Jay-Z does little but his presence adds a certain amount of swagger to this already swaggering song.  It’s easy to hate on U2 — the conventional argument is that the band hasn’t done anything worthwhile in nearly 1.5 decades.  But that’s bound to happen to any band that’s been together and still playing after 30 years.  It’s impossible, I say, to watch the above clip and not get goose-pimples, to not marvel at just how huge U2 and Jay-Z are as cultural ambassadors.

The film will reunite Boyle with Slumdog’s creative team (Simon Beaufoy is in talks to write the script, Christian Colson will produce) and may star Ryan Gosling, though nothing’s been made official.

I hope this project happens, not only because Ralston’s story deserves the big screen treatment, but also because Boyle’s at the top of his game and I’m sure has something interesting to offer this story of survival and determination. [via]

Still, it’s hard to have an sort of understanding about the country and the war.  Luckily, my good friend Zack served a tour of duty there, came home alive, and was able to shed some light on the complex nature of Afghanistan. 

However, if you don’t have a friend like Zack, then let me suggest you read this extensive analysis by Spencer Ackerman.  It’s really long, but at the end of it you’ll be much better informed about the whole situation regarding the strategies, the decision makers, and what the possible outcomes could be.

What’s better than one Slave Leia?  How about two catching some rays.  Kottke came across this photo of Carrie Fisher and her stunt double napping during the Tatooine shoot in Return of the Jedi. Enjoy!  But just know that I’m going to need a moment or two to catch my breath.  [via]

David D’Angelo flies from Denver to Singapore and back with stopovers in Chicago, Los Angeles and Tokyo. I could watch these types of moving photographic summaries all day. [via]

Good god, if there is anything more frightening than a bear, it’s the hairless variety.  Leipzig Zoo vets have been unable to determine what caused Dolores and all other female Spectacled Bears in captivity to suddenly go bald. “Some experts believe it could be due to a genetic defect though the animals do not seem to be suffering from any other affliction.  The bears, which originate from South America,  normally have fluffy dark brown fur and would now be growing a thicker fur coat to keep warm during the winter.”

Update: Yup, just as creepy when they are seen in motion.

Above is our Sun, “photographed using a special filter which matches the specific shade of red light emitted by hydrogen gas. The image was then inverted to enhance the visibility of the Sun’s chromosphere, giving it the ominus blue glow seen above.”

[via & via]

Let’s get this day started shall we?  Like Craig Ferguson said, Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears are from Austin, TX but in reality it’s like they’ve come to us from a distant time when James Brown was on the prowl.  A funky soul revival and we are all better off for it.

Which means that people with DVRs still sit through commercials because they’re too lazy to use a remote.  With 1/3 of US households watching television through their DVR, when factored into ratings, many shows are increasing their viewership in the  range of 7 to 12 percent, with some shows having increases of more than 20 percent.  The four networks together are averaging a 10 percent increase.

Shocking!  But there it is.  Only now have networks come to realize that just because people watch television shows on time delay or on the internet doesn’t mean that people aren’t watching shows.  Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, but I guess it does take a television executive about three years.

It seems like an excellent premise to be reimagined with better effects and acting and more weighty themes to explore.  Why then, did I feel ho-hum about the show after last night’s premiere?

You can read plenty of recaps elsewhere, but suffice it to say there’s a lot going on.  The FX look up to snuff, the acting is all pretty darn good (how could it not be with Elizabeth Mitchell, Alan Tudyk, Morris Chestnut, Joel Gretsch, Scott Wolff, and Monica Baccarin) for a network television show and the themes are not disimilar from the recent Battlestar Galactica remake (religion, terrorism, identity, etc.). 

There were huge problems with the pilot episodes’s story arc: 1) the humans just accept the aliens with open arms, 2) the exposition/backstory is clumsily handled, 3) two of the main characters easily figure out that the lizard aliens are up to no good, 4) it’s too clean and polished.

Still, none of those complaints are what I’m having difficulty wrapping my brain around this morning.  I’ve never watched a show so anti-progressive as I did the one last night. 

And I’m not alone.  Both Time’s excellent James Poniewozik and Chicago Tribune reviewer Glenn Garvin made note of this: a telegenic messiah from a foreign and alien place comes to the United States with the promise of hope and change offers our citizens science, technology and — gasp! – universal health care. 

Make no mistake, the Obama parallel/allegory here is downright unnerving.  It’s so blatent I really thought some combination of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh were show runners. 

Chew on this basic plot:  charismatic, attractive newcomers win the adulation of America’s youth with the promise of hope & change; they manipulate the braindead media and promise universal healthcare, but a group of real Americans are saavy to their evil (fascist?) hidden identity/agenda and will work to prevent the destruction of humanity. 

It would have been refreshing, or still can be, if the lizard aliens turn out to be the saviors of the human race.  But alas, I don’t think that will be the case.  And yet, and yet, I’m still going to tune in because there’s enough decent story threads that the show has my interest.

Google celebrates the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street and the 20th anniversary of Wallace and Gromit on both their American and British sites.  I much prefer the Wallace and Gromit omage.  But then again, I just love claymation and stinky cheese. 

In Columbia Pictures’ Salt, Angelina Jolie stars as Evelyn Salt, a CIA officer who swore an oath to duty, honor, and country. When she is accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy, Salt goes on the run to clear her name and ultimately prove she is a patriot. Using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative, she must elude capture and protect her husband or the world’s most powerful forces will erase any trace of her existence.

This movie was originally written with Tom Cruise starring as Evan Salt (or something like that) but when he dropped out it was rewritten for Jolie.

Salt hits theaters on July 23, 2010.

Thanks internets! From last week’s “Top Chef” where Padma Lakshmi and guest judge Natalie Portman drop their fair share of fellatio double entendres in 40-seconds. [via]

Excess and Lamborghini go hand and hand.  Though I still prefer the classic and sophisticated lines of the Ferrari, the other Italian automaker still creates an intimidating beast of a car.  There is something primal about a Lamborghini — it is a swirling mess of super-ego and id raging on two axels. 

The V-12 supercar looks like an attack vehicle from the future. ”The 6.5 liter, 12-cylinder mill puts out 662 horsepower. The car does 0 to 62 mph in 3.4 seconds. It tops out at 205 mph,” according to Wired Magazine.  “But the most important number is 20. As in that’s precisely how many Lamborghini will build.”   

Which means you probably have to know a few people and have $1.6 million dollars to shell out for it.

Pitchfork confirms this with their lambasting of Weezer’s new LP Raditude.  The album ”doesn’t have that stench of minimal calculation on it; if anything, it’s as earnest as the famously confessional Pinkerton, just written by someone whose age doesn’t match his POV. But the record’s teen-boy empowerment message doesn’t have much to offer anyone over 13 years old. Perhaps the proper fictional character to reference isn’t Peter Pan, but Matthew McConaughey’s Wooderson from Dazed and Confused– we all get older, Rivers Cuomo stays the same age.”  Ouch!

[via]

When was the last time you saw a monkey riding a goat as the goat walks along a tightrope?

Which is to say, the dude is broke.

“In a lawsuit filed Oct. 16 in Los Angeles, the National Treasure star, 45, claims that his longtime business manager, Samuel J. Levin, ‘lined his [own] pockets with several million dollars in business management fees while sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin.’”

Hold onto your seats because I have a feeling we’re going to experience a Nic Cage shit show the likes the world has never seen before.

“I think the band decided to take a break not because we wanted to stop making music, but because we thought the world needed to take a break from us. This greatest hits record — that’s the end of something, you know. It’s time to move on into this next chapter or another phase. Maybe it will be different in whatever way. I don’t know,” Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl to CNN. 

There’s really not much more the band could do and honestly, Grohl’s been going non-stop for the past 20-years, so I think he deserves a little down time.

Jesse Thorn of Put This On, a sophisticated online style guide, posted a video (hopefully one of many more) showcasing fine clothing designers and tips on how to dress well. The above episode see him visiting California’s Rising Sun & Co to talk about jeans and the unique character they develop as you wear them more and more.

He also has an excellent follow-up article regarding denim.

About 70% of tickets have been sold (preview night is already sold out) and at this rate, the event will sell out six-months ahead of time. 

That’s insane.

Also: Paste’s Top 50 Movies of the Decade is worth a gander just so you can argue with yourself over the inclusion/placement of certain movies.

Some enterprising It’s Always Sunny fan took every Charlie Kelly dance sequence from Seasons 1-5 and made this highly enjoyable supercut.

Remember there was a time when George Lucas didn’t screw up everything he touched?  It was so long ago.  Here is Kurt Russell’s not-so-good audition for Han Solo. Now imagine the original trilogy with Russell as Han instead of Harrison Ford. Wait for it, wait for it.  Okay. It’s strange and almost wrong, watching Russell’s take on a good-guy Han Solo.  It’s absent everything that became endearing about Han — the cockiness, the ego, the brashness. [via here/here]

First official trailer for Mike Newell’s big-screen adaptation of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The film, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, and Ben Kingsley, is due in theaters May 28, 2010.  And you know what?  I had my doubts but this looks to be another solid Jerry Bruckheimer summer blockbuster.  Sure, you’ll forget it 20-minutes after leaving the theater, but man those two-hours sure will be fun.

The latest xkcd comic features several insanely detailed Movie Narrative Charts showing the character interactions in various films. Here’s a larger version.

The charts graph time on a horizontal axis and then how each character interacts with another at any given time.  It’s a very cool way to visualize the plot of a movie — especially the convoluted Primer. 

I’ve been wanting to participate for a few years now, but just haven’t made the effort.  It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen this year either, even though it’s not too late to sign up. 

“Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap,” the website warns. “And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. … To build without tearing down.”

For most people, the hardest thing is just having the gumption to plow ahead without worrying about the quality.  It’s just about getting that first draft done.  Afterall, all great writing happens during re-writing.

There are parties afterwards and it always seems like there’s a great community of participants.  I’m thinking next year my first novel will make an excellent birthday present to myself.  It sounds daunting, writing a novel in one month’s time, but if you pace yourself 50,000 words is only about 125-150 pages.  Five pages a day — no problemo!  Right? Right?