Rants, Rates, Slags, Slates.

Manic-depressive posts from Red Wright-Hand. Because there are thousands of worthless blogs out there and who am I not to add to their number?

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Total US troop deaths in Iraq to date (09/01/07) since 03/20/03: 3739

From 05/02/03 through 06/28/04: 718

From 06/29/04 through 01/30/05: 579

From 01/31/05 through 12/14/05: 715

From 12/15/05 through 01/31/07: 933

From 02/01/07: 653

(Sources: US Dept. of Defense, Iraq Coalition Casualty Count)

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Please link to Arts & Letters Daily, an intelligent clearinghouse of worthwhile articles online. This is what a blog (or a Web stationhouse, or what-have-you) should be. On the other end of the spectrum, or at least at some distance further along the band, we have The Best Page in the Universe, which I confess to finding extremely funny.
posted by Red at 7:03 AM

 
Phew. President Bush must have read my last post. Glad to see all the confusion straightened out.

Liz Phair, R.I.P. No thanks for your voice, ma'am. (Secretly she's [a] shy...ster.)
posted by Red at 3:20 PM

 
And maybe you thought Gulf War 2 was over. Seems I recall someone telling us that. Seems some folks in Iraq have other views. Anyone want to speculate on just how long this situation seems likely to continue? Anyone got an egg timer?
posted by Red at 4:22 PM

 
Why I am addicted to the Web. Here's the Japanese version: a completely different tune! (And not nearly as good.)
posted by Red at 5:22 PM

 
A sorry avalanche of farewells: Jimmy Knepper, Hume Cronyn and William Marshall. Cronyn's debut film performance in Shadow of a Doubt remains unforgettable and a personal favorite, and Marshall is remarkably classy in Blacula. Yeah, Blacula, and don't laugh; the movie's a hell of a lot better than the cheesy title (and the "undead interior decorator" gags) would lead you to expect. A friend once told me that when Marshall appeared on a local campus, student activists, black and otherwise, protested a screening of the film, on the grounds that it was undignified. I wonder if they ever actually watched the movie, or were aware of Marshall's resume.

As for trombonist Jimmy Knepper, he may always be best remembered for having been decked by Charles Mingus in mid-concert, but I submit this is practically a badge of honor.
posted by Red at 7:11 PM

 
Gregory Peck, R.I.P. Thanks for your voice, sir.
posted by Red at 8:45 AM

 
I finally purchased a copy of the Ellington at Newport 1956 (Complete) CD, which prompts several observations. So many, in fact, that I may have to post them separately for all you readers out there who don't like those big blocky paragraphs of mine. Two main and somewhat related thoughts: 1) the hairsplitting liner notes on this excellently produced reissue would make any OCD-disordered science fiction fan proud (it's an OCD CD, har har); 2) the whole issue of the "artificially generated concert" that made up the original release of this recording belongs in a Philip K. Dick novel. More science fiction! I wonder if PKD, who was a serious music fan, ever knew the story behind this.
posted by Red at 8:43 AM

 
I'm getting complaints about my "big blocky paragraphs" that are too hard to read on screen. So there's your blogosphere for you: people who don't like to read more than five lines at a time.

There. Are you happy now?

Are these paragraphs convenient enough?

Better news: Harvey Pekar finally has his own website, complete with blog. Check it out, and be sure to see the American Splendor movie when it's released later this year.
posted by Red at 7:18 AM

 
While I'm thinking of it, I want to mention The Hot Rock, newly released on DVD. This is a 1972 film adapted from the very first of the Dortmunder series of novels written by Donald E. Westlake. (Fans of comic-mystery books know exactly what I'm talking about, and the rest of you ought to.) The movie is directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt, Breaking Away...and nothing very much good since, I'm afraid) stars Robert Redford, George Segal, Zero Mostel and Ron Leibman, plus a very young Christopher Guest in a bit as a cop (in the raid-on-the-precinct-house scene), and a decent Miles-Davis-ripoff score from Quincy Jones. Why am I going on about this 30-year-old movie? First, it is based on one of my favorite narrative devices, in which a series of elaborate and extremely-thought-out and even-arguably-brilliant plans all go wrong in execution. (Unfaithfully Yours [1948, with Rex Harrison, remade {why?} in 1984 with Dudley Moore] and Bedazzled [1967, with Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, remade {why?} in 2000, with Brendan Fraser] are two other great movies that use this type of storyline well.) The Comedy of Frustration! The Agony of the Long-Deferred Wish! This is the very stuff of life, and it's always good to see it rendered in one or another of the Seven Arts. Now, another reason you should see The Hot Rock, and likely the main one, is that it features excellent location footage of the New York City metropolitan area as it existed at the time, not excluding the World Trade Center towers, which were being built during the film's production. That is correct. A long sequence involving a helicopter ride above and through the Manhattan skyline affords a very long look at the two towers while under construction, and a big shiver is likely to go all along your body as you realize what you're looking at. But more eerily still, The Hot Rock's climactic burglary hinges on use of the word "Afghanistan" in a hypnotic trigger. So we have the World Trade Center and "Afghanistan" featured in a 1972 film. Or am I making too much of this? The bottom line is that I'm a sucker for 1970s films shot on New York City locations, for personal reasons that are, currently, none of your business.

posted by Red at 8:31 PM

 
I confess: the case of Eric Robert Rudolph had slipped entirely out of my mind since the late 90s, and his capture last weekend was startling; I mean the realization that he had apparently been surviving in the same pocket of these United States for so many years, while so many law-enforcement officials, local and Federal, had clearly *not* forgotten him, their vigilance having finally been rewarded. But as many have commented, Rudolph's long fugitive status in the same region, and his apparent good health when finally arrested, indicate a level of community support for him, even beyond the sympathetic remarks and signs openly and seemingly proudly displayed to the media by residents of western North Carolina. Sometimes the wallpaper of popular culture makes this country look like one friendly homogenized mass, and sometimes real people break through, to remind us what elements really make up part of "our national heritage." The War Between the States continues.
posted by Red at 6:30 AM

 
For surgical cattiness and Manhattanite self-loathing, this article about writer Meghan Daum in today's New York Times is difficult to match.
posted by Red at 11:42 AM