Subverse Aphrodesia

“For surely the laugh-makers are blessed: they heal the heart of the world.”

I love the poetry of President Richard M. Nixon’s 1971 National Clown Week Proclamation. Be on the lookout for your favorite clown next week -- August 1-7.

Shake Your Stereotyping Bon-Bon

Ricky Martin traveled to the Middle East on Monday to tell Arab teenagers he will be their spokesperson, defending them against unjust ethnic stereotypes.

Per an Associated Press article today:
"I have been a victim of stereotypes. I come from Latin America and to some countries, we are considered `losers,' drug traffickers, and that is not fair because that is generalizing," said Martin, who was born in Puerto Rico.

OK. Struck me as random but then the article finally got around to stating that Martin is a United Nations Children's Fund goodwill ambassador and his organization, the Ricky Martin Foundation -- which fights international child pornography and prostitution -- recently built 225 homes in Thailand to house orphaned tsunami (Dec. 26) victims.

Who knew?

If he wasn't really in office, it might be funny.

Read Michael Blanding's "To Rick, With Love" now on AlterNet.
We, the depraved citizens of Boston, would like to thank Sen. Santorum for recognizing our city as the modern-day Gomorrah that it is, and pointing out all the ways that Boston has led to the moral decline of the nation.

Run that by me again

I read a great series of articles on Last Days -- the new Gus Van Sant film inspired by Kurt Cobain -- in The Village Voice yesterday.

Insightful. But three of the six "Kurtain Call" articles threw out the term musique concrète like we should all know what it meant. So I looked it up. Invented by Pierre Shaeffer in the '40s, this type of music is composed out of recordings of natural sounds -- as in those naturally occuring in the environement including man made industrial noises, etc. His first such work, Etude aux chemans de fer or Concert for Locomotives layered various sounds generated by steam locomotives. One later work was titled Étude aux casseroles or Study with Baking Pans.

Per Wikipedia:
"Musique concrète is the name given to a class of electronic music produced from editing together fragments of natural and industrial sounds. It is the opposite of traditional composing (known to some as Musique Abstraite, literally, Abstract Music) as the sounds are recorded first then built into a tune as opposed to a tune being written then given to players to turn into sound. "

Oh. OK.

Yeah, So I'm pretty stoked to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Roger Ebert's review was a waste of print space in newspapers around the country. Big stars like Depp do have input in their wardrobe, surely, but you can't blame the actor for the costume and makeup design.

Why the hat and cane? Gee, I don't know Gene Wilder had one too. Maybe it's in the book or something. Loser.

Ed Park's review in The Village Voice was slightly more informative but it still had to get that MJ reference in there right off the top. Come on people.

Thankfully, A.O. Scott more than made up for his peers with the thoughful piece he penned for The New York Times . His MJ comment --in the 11th paragraph (last 1/4 of the article) referred to the "debate about real life role models for Wonka" and acknowledged the characteristics that might lead one to think of Jackson. But he dug deeper (sigh!) and wrote the following:
"To me, the lilting, curiously accented voice sounded more like an unholy mash-up of Mr. Rogers and Truman Capote, but really, who knows? The best thing about this Wonka, who tip-toes on the narrow boundery between whimsy and creepiness, is that he defies assimilation or explanation."

Uh-Oh! Cooter's pissed.

His boycott of the new Dukes of Hazzard film is without a doubt going to damage at the box office!!! HAHAHAHAHA!.

I'm not sure why I find this story so amusing. Maybe it's quotes like this one:
"Basically, they trashed our show," (actor Ben "aka" Cooter) Jones told the Associated Press about the upcoming Warner Brothers movie, scheduled for release in August.
"It's one thing to do whatever movie they want to do, but to take a classic family show and do that is like taking I Love Lucy and making her a crackhead or something."

And who knew Cooter (well, Ben Jones anyway) was a Georgia congressman?

Don Quixote puppet, Bethlehem PA.

Masonic Proportions