I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every word, all of it. — Joan Didion, “Goodbye to All That” Read more →
September 2010
EppsNet at the Movies
Thanks to Netflix, I’m catching up on movies that I never got around to seeing. It’s a long list because I don’t see a lot of movies. Almost Famous With the exception of the boy’s mom, there aren’t any interesting characters in this movie. It’s like spending two hours with uninteresting people. The Lester Bangs character doesn’t count because Lester Bangs was an actual person who was interesting in real life. You don’t get credit as a writer/filmmaker for creating an interesting Lester Bangs character. Cameron Crowe seems to have learned his directorial style from an Olive Garden commercial. Great soundtrack. Rating: Blah. The Big Lebowski Look at the scene and ask yourself “Is it dramatic? Is it essential? Does it advance the plot? Answer truthfully. If the answer is “No” write it again or throw it out. — David Mamet This movie has interesting characters and snappy dialogue. I… Read more →
Lester Bangs, 1948-1982
My responsibility as I see it as a critic is not to help a lot of new bands sell their records. It’s to help people who are buying the records to keep from making a purchase that they’re going to get home and hate my guts and the band’s too because it’s a piece of shit. And these critics, most of them, it’s much easier to help the bands, because you get more work that way and every magazine wants to print reviews that say, “This is wonderful, this is great, go out and buy it.” A lot of magazines won’t even print negative reviews. A friend of mine does a record review column in Esquire, and it’s like five positive reviews every time. They don’t want you to say anything that’s bad because they don’t get advertising bucks that way. So it becomes like a facet of your groovy… Read more →
Bird Sings USC Fight Song
Twitter: 2010-09-04
NINR requests applicants for research fellowship http://bit.ly/clfSpo #nursing #nurses #AACNchat # Read more →
Conditions
What actions you take, you believe in. What commitments you make, you keep. What resources you have, you use. What words you say, you believe to be true. What you create, you intend to be great. — Jim and Michele McCarthy Read more →
Overheard at Souplantation
“The lemon chicken soup is good.” “I don’t like soup. And I don’t like lemon-flavored soup. I like chicken — but not when you dunk it in lemon-flavored soup.” Read more →
Fight On, Bozo!
I learned today that Larry Harmon, a.k.a. Bozo the Clown, was a USC grad, class of 1950. Read more →
Something Out of Nothing
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. — Stephen Hawking I still don’t get it. This is the one question that really gives me a headache: Why is there anything at all instead of absolutely nothing — no time, no matter, nothing? For the universe to create itself out of “nothing,” doesn’t there have to be something? Read more →
Nice Guys Finish Last
You can lead a nice life; you can be a nice guy or you can be a great scientist. But nice guys end last, is what Leo Durocher said. If you want to lead a nice happy life with a lot of recreation and everything else, you’ll lead a nice life. — Richard Hamming Read more →
Twitter: 2010-09-01
I hate to see my son cry when I drop him off for the first day of school. Fortunately he’s old enough to drive himself this year. # Read more →