Sounds of the community boards of Brooklyn

Part one in what I pray will be a short and maybe even already complete series. This was recorded approximately two hours into a three-hour meeting a couple of weeks ago. (Or longer; three hours is when I left.)

Press release of the day: Joey DeMaio (of Manowar) honors opera star José Carreras

... and for first time, DeMaio does not crotch-grab and spray beer all over onstage guest

As part of the official delegation of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem — Knights of Malta — Federation of Autonomous Priories, Grand Cross Knight Of Malta Joey DeMaio presented an Award of Merit to world famous Spanish tenor José Carreras hailing his artistic career achievements and lifetime philanthropic works.

Joey DeMaio, Minister Of Youth of the Knights Of Malta, presented the award in the city of Timişoara (Transylvania), Romania last Sunday, July 20th.

Did anyone know that Joey is a Grand Cross Knight of Malta? Or that he is a (the?) Minister of Youth? Or that he uses the prefix Doctor? Or that his activities in this arena all seem to take place in Romania, Hungary or “Graddoland”? And that in addition to guys that look like this ...

... he hangs out with guys that look like this?

Cuz I sure didn’t.

Watchin’ the Watchmen trailer

How I catch every production designer and costumer v-journal but miss the trailer, I don’t know. But thanks to a link from Jake, I now have seen it. In HD, too.

And ... I dunno. My initial reactions are all fanboy reflexes, which means they are uncritical and prejudicial and they emerge from deep within the mylar sleeves of my crocodile brain. Comedian is too handsome. Laurie/Silk Spectre is too sexy. Dan/Nite Owl isn’t fat enough. Veidt/Ozymandias is too young. Too this, too that. Not exactly like the comic. Worst episode ever.

Which is unfair. The V for Vendetta film may have been a dumbed-down hatchet job, but it was a pretty good dumbed-down hatchet job. With Watchmen I’m bracing for the worst in terms of storyline and acting, but it’s clear from the trailer that a great deal of attention has been paid to production detail. We basically already knew that, but this confirms it. Rope of Silicon has a frame-by-frame, movie-to-comic comparison of some key scenes, revealing that yes, they look like reasonably faithful translations of certain images:

The big question is whether that is all they are. A story is more than props and a rigid storyboard. If anything, too much concern about making a xerox from one medium to another suggests a slavish uncreativity on the part of a director, a failure of imagination. Too often, I think, that is where comic adaptations go wrong: they get stuck in the small picture and miss the big picture.

With Watchmen the stakes are especially high because the big picture is very, very big. It’s the best story ever told in comics and one of the best in 20th-century literature, an artfully complex summation of late-Cold War politics and popular culture. That’s not just me talking: as is well known, it placed on Time magazine’s list a few years ago of the 100 best novels since 1923.

(Even though we live in an age of war, I think the paranoia and pessimism of Watchmen are essentially rooted in the Cold War and are no longer a part of our culture, at least not in the same way. For some reason, though, that makes it more real to me. This is not a vague and formulaic complaint about war and death in general; it’s about a time and a place. That makes it real history, and paradoxically also makes it more universal.)

The 2 minute 20 second trailer is not enough to decide whether the film meets the challenge. But it reveals something that for other comic adaptations has been a tell-tale flaw: the little details have been obsessively accounted for, from Nite Owl’s ship to Ozymandias’ collar to Rorschach’s Veidt-brand hair spray weapon. All that is nice, but it’s not enough. Does Zack Snyder know that? Who watches him?

(One thing that’s kind of funny: Apple’s page for the HD version of the trailer seems to mix up the names of some actors and characters. Fanboys, you start your error-spotting engines:)

• “Zack Snyder (dir.)
• Malin Akerman
• Laurie Juspeczyk
• Billy Crudup
• Jon Osterman
• Matthew Goode”

From Pantera’s kitchen to yours

Vinnie Paul, drummer for Pantera and Hellyeah, is offering an unusual piece of metal memorabilia on eBay: his self-cleaning Whirlpool elecrtric oven. His father bought him a new one for Christmas, so he’s unloading this model, which he recommends for cooking or general fan-fetish purposes. “You can either get this just to look at, or you can get it and cook yourself — I don’t give a fuck,” he says in a YouTube video that accompanies the auction page (copied below). Auction ends next Sunday morning. Winner picks up the cargo in Arlington, Tex. So far it’s got 26 bids, up to $510.00. If you ever dreamt of a kitchen appliance once owned by a player on “Fucking Hostile,” this is your chance — don’t let it get away!

(Via Deciblog.)

Reminder: Not ALL women are stupid, though they all do smile a lot

This li’l nugget o’ sexism, which ran in the New Yorker on March 29, 1968, is taken from this person’s fantastic vintage magazines collection on Flickr, which reached me via Vintage Ads. I also like this one:

eBay regrets: Checker Patrol, Living Colour, Hear ’n Aid

• 1986 Panasonic tape with Checker Patrol demo on Side A and Mayhem demo (Pure Fucking Armageddon) on Side B: $510.00.
  
• CD long box of Living Colour’s Vivid: $1,025.00.
  
• Hear ’n Aid (metal version of USA for Africa) Japanese CD: $202.50.

(Via Deciblog, Idolator/Heavy Metal Addiction — check for more.)

Slash’s mother

Ola Hudson, mother of Saul Hudson, a.k.a. Slash. She designed clothes for rock stars, and dated David Bowie after breaking up with young Slash’s father.

(Via Vintage Ads.)

Murdoch = Bobby Brown?

Apparently Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of the Wall Street Journal is complete. The paper is now quoting Bobby Brown in photo captions to blog items about the psychology of Wall Street:

Is it significant that the first comment was posted by someone named “LOL”?

Radiohead’s 64-laser video

The video for Radiohead’s “House of Cards” was made with no cameras but rather a spinning device that contains 64 lasers:

There are articles about it in Creativity and the Guardian. (Which has probably the worst lede you could ever imagine in a Guardian article: “Cameras? Radiohead don’t need your stinkin’ cameras.”) Google Code, something I had never heard of, has an amazing feature that allows you to play with the 3-D data:

And here is a making-of-the-video video:

(Via TDS, BB.)

iPhone screens Flickr pool

Dave Gibbons on Watchmen film

He says that Zach Snyder, the director, “stuck as closely as he can to what we put in the original comic book.” We’ll see about that.

Punta e clicca for downloadable videos, including HD versions.