7" of Separation

Allow me to have a nerd moment. I’ve been reading comic books lately, a phase I seem to go through every few years. I think it’s connected to all the heavy theory I’m reading. I need some escape.

I’m working through Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men right now, and I’d recommend most anything Morrison wites to anyone who wants to get into comics. He’s a character writer, and he’s got a great accent:

Not a man to answer a question directly, here’s Derrida on ghosts from the 1983 film Ghost Dance.

Not sure that I’m 100 percent tracking with him on this one. Derrida’s answering a fundamentally spiritual question with a literal, yet metaphoric, theory of human memory. And then somehow, he ties that to the physical world, not to mention the American on the phone. I understand when he ties an evoked memory — or even the girl’s sexuality — to phantasmal auras. But, that’s metaphor. Sorry JD, not there yet. Maybe I need to watch some more of the movie.

This is quickly turning into a video blog. Sorry gang, I’ll have some other content later. I really hope you took the 15 minutes it takes to watch the previously posted Billy Bob Thornton interview, as it’s pretty spectacular.

Anyway, I’m in the video lab, working on what’s turning out to be a pretty standard vacation slideshow. It’s for my production class, and the point is learning how to use Final Cut Pro, which is going just fine. (Like second nature to any apple user.)

As part of the class, we’ve been talking about overused effects. You know, things that after effects and final cut have built in. Mostly, we’ve been talking about dissolves and star wipes and the such. But a more advanced overused effect is the lightsaber rotoscope.

I grew up in the late ’80s. It was always a boyhood dream to fight with a lightsaber, and like the rest of Star Wars, it’s been completely overdone to the point of digust. Any nerd with a computer and stolen software can make it happen.

For instance, this little battle that sullies both the lightsaber and Princess Bride. Leave it be people, leave it be.

I used to interview bands for college radio, and even on a small scale, it’s a hard job. Here’s two reasons why.

This is Billy Bob Thornton — and his band — in the worst interview ever:

I think Thornton is being overly difficult, but not totally without reason. “I grew up as pretty much a music historian. So, yeah.”

Seeing that crazy interview reminded me of this older NPR interview by one of my all-time favorite bands, Sigur Ros:

As awkward as this interview is, it makes me love the band even more.

“Do you think you will ever start to use more standard words?”

“Uh. I don’t know.”

Which leads me to the obligatory Sigur Ros video, here live with Bjork:

It’s a shame their country’s economy crashed like Sully into the Hudson.

Oh, and I wanted to post a video for Billy Bob’s Boxmasters, but they only have poorly shot live videos. And the band is overall pretty terrible, too.

Tom Petty is the man Billy Bob instantly compares himself to?

I loved Disney’s Robin Hood and Jungle book growing up. I always thought it was because they were pretty much the same movie. Turns out I was right about that:

The Library of Congress launched a Youtube channel last summer and recently got around to loading a number of old Edison video recordings.

A few choice cuts include these boxing kitties:

And this guy, doing what he’s doing:

And this, what appears to be fight choreography for the Matrix:

A friend from school turned me on to Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls at the Party, a short comedy series available at OnNetworks. Each episode features an in-depth interview with some of today’s most talented women. Check it out:

I really recommend these videos, and the whole series, for their subtle laughs. And then also sometimes GOB shows up to dance.

The three ladies in charge of Smart Girls are really on the cusp of intellectual, dry comedy these days. I’d lump Tina Fey and Kristen Schaal in with them to say that there are some pretty amazing female comics on top of the comedy game. There’s probably a feminist point to be made here, but it’s late and my Judith Butler collection is back in Oregon. So, it’s an argument for another time.

I’m going to go make ellyn a sandwich now.