Linkfeast - February 10, 2009

A very long linkfeast for gloomy winter days (which is when I put it together, though this week is nice).  I've been gathering links of varying sorts - serious, musical, filmish, snarky, bawdy... Read at your own risk.

I wish I could write like that:  

• The best opening line I've read in a while in Inaugural Address at If You Belonged Here:

Did anyone else take one look at all those people freezing their butts off out there on the mall and think of March of the Penguins?...

• After reading two memes at Huh? The Blonde Goddess is Confused, I may never write another meme.  Nothing I could write could ever match up.  For instance, in Flopping Boobieland... she answers the 50 questions meme: 

6. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone? The Menahmehna song(from the Muppets or Sesame Street, I can't remember which one it's from)...my second favorite is the vibrate mode...need I explain that?

If I had answered that meme, I would just boringly answer that I don't have a cell phone.  And, in The Alphabet Game, she mentions ten things she loves that begin with N (Not safe for work or around small children): 

3. Nudity..DUH! Do I really need to explain WHY I love to be naked? Or why I love for other people to be naked? I can't speak for others but I like letting it all hang out although sometimes it's hanging in places I'm not impressed with, but what can you do? (Remember the depressed boobies?)

The depressed boobies post is very funny too.

Lovely:

• Reservations Required, at Soliloquy, has wonderful bird photos. 

• One Year in 40 seconds at The Corner. 

• Validation.  Daughter showed me this one.  It's long, but watch all the way to the end.*

Theater/film/musicals:

• Saturday Night Live:  Save Broadway!

[Hat tip, Dancer Blog]

• Adventures in the Endless Pursuit of Entertainment has a post with photos of Saks Fifth Avenue's window display of Metropolitan Opera costumes. 

• For Audrey Hepburn fans:  Popdose reviews DVD's of "Funny Face" and "Breakfast at Tiffanys"

• Broadway, Baby has a video of Priscilla Lopez performing "Nothing" from "A Chorus Line."

• Popdose reviews the Broadway revival of "Pal Joey."  

• At Gratuitous Violins, You Mess With Patty at Your Peril - Don't interrupt a Patti LuPone concert! 

TV:

• At Wired:  Strong Women Steer Battlestar Galactica:  

In her autobiography Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher recalls her most memorable direction from George Lucas while playing Princess Leia in Star Wars: Forget about wearing a bra because "there's no underwear in outer space."

The women of sci-fi have come a long way since then, and for proof, look no further than Battlestar Galactica. Returning Friday night for the start of its final half-season, the Peabody Award-winning television series continues to blend current events and religion into its thoughtful story lines.  Along the way, BSG has also conjured a gender-blind universe filled with female characters of genuine substance...

Along with the engrossing storyline, this is one of the things I love about BSG.  

• The Most Welcoming of Suave Screen Icons, at the Washington Post, discusses Ricardo Montalban (here's the Star Trek part):

But then came Khan Noonien Singh. You can just call him Khan, as in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of . . ." Now Montalbán's death takes its place as yet another "Star Trek" obit, and these things are very important if your pop-culture Richter scale is hooked up to geekdom's fault line. He first played Khan in an episode of the original "Star Trek" in 1967, which should have meant no big deal, since Montalbán also had bit parts in episodes of everything then ("The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "Gunsmoke," "Marcus Welby, M.D." . . .).

For some wonderfully inane reason, the makers of "Star Trek" movies built the 1982 movie sequel around villainous, vengeful Khan, and Montalbán accepted the challenge of chewing more scenery than William Shatner. Wearing a silver mullet and what appears to be a prosthetic, muscled chest (Montalbán reportedly insisted those pecs were his), the actor memorably channeled a well-mannered rage. For Trekkies, "The Wrath of Khan" is pure Hemingway. They gave him the very best lines ever uttered in sci-fi, such as: "I've done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her; marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet. Buried alive. Buried alive . . . " (Shatner's apoplectic Kirk: "KHAAANNN!")

[Hat tip, Crunchy Con]

Serious:

• At Via Negativa:  Gone With the Windmills?  A Plea to President Obama to Save the National Forests of Appalachia.

• At Feministe:  Sexist Superbowl Ads.

• At Forbes:  The Great College Hoax.

• Sergei Larenkov at Fima_Psuchopadt puts together current and WWII Russian photographs.  [Hat tip, History News Network]

• Marginal Utility (at PopMatters) discusses the physicality of photos:

...With actual printed photos, there is a sense that something delicate and ineffable has managed to survive, a small miracle amidst the rampant image destruction we experience in our disposable culture. They seem to have an occult power, as pictures in lockets sometimes seem portentous, mystically imbued with significance. Digitization, though, puts photos in the same category with flickering TV images, meant to be consumed and forgotten after being experienced as entertainment. A physical archive seems to put them in a category with paintings, which invite us to take the time for contemplation. Digital photos are pushing prints further into the rarefied realm of fine art, the audience for them will most likely become reduced to those with the appropriate cultural capital—the aesthetic appreciation training and so on...

[Hat Tip, The Daily Dish]

• At Boston.com, How the city hurts your brain:  

...Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so...

I still like Boston, though.

Literary:

• Catholic Bibliophagist discusses the sequel to Niven and Pournelle's Inferno (which, if you haven't read it, is a retelling of Dante's Inferno in modern terms).

• On Poetry Friday, In Need of Chocolate posted Christina Rosetti's "Winter:  My Secret."

And a LOLCat:

more animals

* She's got a beautiful smile!

Comments

[Lisa]

I'm going to have to quit my job to keep up on all the fabulous blogs, including yours, which is always a delight.

[Tammie]

I am honored that you featured me on your Linkfeast.
As for writing like me...
Er...well...I am insane. You DO know that, right?

I LOVE your blog and the wide range of things you write about.
While I might have opinions about music and art and politics, I can't really put them into words as eloquently as you do.
I am strictly a crude humor kind of gal.

I admire your writing and the variety of things you write about.
You have such a diverse list of interests. Mine are pretty much limited to sex, nudity, farting and alcohol.
It's sad really...

Thank you for the wonderful compliment and believe me, coming from someone as talented as you are, it is a true compliment and one that I cherish.

[M Light]

Lisa: Thank you! Glad to help tokeep you busy! (Like you need any help (grin)!)

Tammie: Thank you also! You may feel your interests are limited, but you write about them so creatively (and I really enjoy your use of pictures. Where do you find them all!).