Presented with very little comment

Mark it. This is the week in which Donald Trump went from "dull pop culture annoyance" to "guy who gives evil a bad name."

Awk-ward!

This is a welcome contemporary look at Mike Nichols classic film, The Graduate, but... I must disagree that it ushered in the comedy of "cringe-inducing moments and awkward conversations." Oh, Nichols certainly did his part to develop that kind of humor, but he started a year earlier, with the help of Edward Albee.

What's surprising about seeing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is both how far it goes into the abyss and how funny it remains while Going There. It could be likened to a pie fight where the pie tins keep knocking teeth out.

Also notable is how callow young Nick, the George Segal character, gradually degenerates into something worse than either George or Martha.

And how sexy Liz Taylor was even when she was supposed to be frumpy and embarassing.

Somehow, the Friday Random Ten

Easter's a funny holiday, in that it doesn't affect the flow of workdays at all. Most people not in retail/restaurant work or emergency services don't work it, but the weekend remains stubbornly at two days. Just an observation.

1. Simon & Garfunkel--Save the Life of My Child*
2. The Dresden Dolls--Truce
3. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross--Charleston Alley
4. The Clash--Wrong 'Em Boyo
5. R.E.M.--Crush With Eyeliner
6. Warren Zevon--Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
7. Johnny Mathis--Twelfth of Never
8. Feist & Ben Gibbard--Train Song
9. Steely Dan--Kid Charlemagne
10. The Kinks--All of My Friends Were There

*About which, interesting analysis here.

Random TV listing

Not Just Peachfuzz "Pilot", A flamboyant celebrity bartender and a no-nonsense cop share the same mustache. The facial hair undergoes a painful coming of age. Can these two men from different worlds learn to see eye-to-eye? Or will the follicles and their world be torn in two?

RIP, Sarah Jane

Sad and kind of strange that just a couple of months after the death of Nicholas "the Brigadier" Courtney dies, Lis Sladen should also pass on. Both worked with Jon Pertwee's doctor, and Tom Baker inherited relationships with both of them. So it must be kind of hard for him.

This is a fun bit of footage, at any rate.

Deadline-daring Saturday Random Ten

Did my taxes today. Two days before the later-than-usual deadline. That's plenty of time, right?

Federal taxes I've always found to be pretty easy, I guess because I've always filled out the EZ short form. There is no short form for state taxes, at least in my state, so that's caused some heartache. But e-filing through TurboTax makes both of them fairly easy. Once you've got an hour to spare, anyway.

1. Miles Davis--Dear Old Stockholm
2. Warren Zevon--Accidentally Like a Martyr
3. The Clash--Hateful
4. The Kinks--Do You Remember Walter?
5. Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross--Cloudburst
6. Brian Eno--Ali Click
7. Beck--Strange Apparition
8. The Who--Silas Stingy
9. Kendra Shank--Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair
10. Patsy Cline-- A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold)

How I've bin

Recently the trash bins outside my apartment building haven't been getting emptied. This struck me as a less-than-ideal situation, especially since as a first floor dweller, I'm closest to whatever vermin decide to show up. So I looked into it. The problem was apparently the fact that we weren't putting out recyclables. Because we had no bins, but that's apparently no excuse.

So I went to the Department of Public Works on Allens. It's the sort of quasi-industrial building I used to take for granted and which now seems like a time capsule. But anyway I got new recycling bins, blue and green. I'm taking ownership of them, since I paid for them and that plus the ground floor potential skunk problem gives me an incentive to make sure these aren't lost or "borrowed." Got the address written on them in Sharpie and everything.