Tummy in my mummy

"Egyptian Mummies Diagnosed With Clogged Arteries"

Quick! Send Ramses II a dozen bran muffins.

As a piece of anthropological research, this is pretty interesting, on a level of plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. As far as doctors studying the subjects to learn more about heart disease and how to avoid it, I'll probably ignore their findings. I'm a believer in taking medical advice with a grain of salt. It's a quality of life thing.

Lumet

This is a neat reminiscence on working with the late Sidney Lumet. Henriksen (best known as Bishop from Aliens, probably) was an FBI agent in Dog Day Afternoon, a character who appears to be just above extra for most of the film, and turns out to have shattering significance in the last moments. I like the idea of him rehearsing the movie in sequence with all of the cast together. It might be a time-intensive way of making a movie, but it helps explain why DDA has so much cumulative power.

Speaking of cumulative power, this is an earlier exhibit of Lumet's craft, from 1957's 12 Angry Men

Friday Random Ten that makes sense in context

I spent some time this evening trying to buy a cup of coffee for an owl. I kept having to drink it myself, though.

Anyway, here's the Random Ten and an associated live-on-TV video

1. Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach--The Sweetest Punch
2. The Dresden Dolls--Good Day
3. Brian Eno--Fractal Zoom
4. R.E.M.--I Don't Sleep, I Dream
5. Nina Simone--Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
6. Steely Dan--Don't Take Me Alive
7. Grizzly Bear--Ready, Able
8. The XX--Infinity
9. Ladytron--They Gave You a Heart, They Gave You a Name
10. Kendra Shank--Gone

Party like it's 2000

Not to become a Johnny One-Note, but there's further wackiness brewing in Wisconsin. The legitimacy of a key election is thrown into doubt by an electoral worker clumsily putting her thumb on the scale. Ander her name is Kathy. Oddly familiar? So familiar it's kinda scary?

Fuck. If this leads to a Puddle of Mudd reunion tour, I will not be pleased.

Badger State showdown

Now that I have your attention...

Good news from Wisconsin! Well, qualified good news. It's closer than I would have liked, and could potentially be reversed. But Kloppenburg's victory shows that a real nerve has been touched. And that voters angry at Walker's anti-labor ambush aren't so easily distracted by wacky special-interest hijinx.

Break out the mac and cheese.

Doings

Went to Borders tonight to do some writing in the cafe area. This is sometimes productive and sometimes not. Tonight it sort of was.

I'm working on revisions of a story which has been through a couple of rounds of criticism at Critters. The readers there have given some good advice and insight. Ah, but how to apply it?

While I always have ideas a-plenty while I'm away from the work, there are a lot of times when I freeze up while I'm actually writing. This time what I did--and yesterday, too--is to disable the wi-fi on my laptop, kept the manuscript displayed in Word as a reference, and hunched over semi-free writing stuff in longhand. This is turning out to be a good way to work, both in producing material and having fun. Does that mean that longhand is a more natural way to write? That might just be me. Despite working with computers and being used to constant Internet access, I'm not really a techie at heart.

Quoteaholic Saturday Random Ten

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.—Mark Twain

That has nothing to do with anything, but I read it today and had to use it in something.

1. The Clash--Brand New Cadillac
2. The Fiery Furnaces--Drive to Dallas
3. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings--The Reason
4. Brian Eno--What Actually Happened
5. Patsy Cline--I Love You So Much It Hurts
6. XTC--Melt the Guns
7. They Might Be Giants--I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die
8. The Who--Mary Anne With the Shaky Hands
9. Miles Davis--Well You Needn't
10. Grizzly Bear--Two Weeks