Quick Hits


To all who read this — whether observing the day as a holy one, based on cultural tradition, or merely with bemusement — I wish you a sweet year to come full of health and happiness.

slice of apple being dipped into honey

You can get the lowdown on Rosh Ha-Shanah at www.jewfaq.org, a.k.a. Judaism 101, via Tracey Rich. I like the site because it’s concise; it’s non-judgmental — written, as the home page says, “from a traditional perspective in conversational language you can understand”; and it’s possessed of a domain name that makes me giggle.

I’m closing out 5770 and ushering in 5771 with a couple of link / miscellany posts. My usual round of editing after publication to finesse errant text styles and whatnot may be put off for a few days, because they’re being scheduled in advance, so I hope you’ll bear with me if there are glitches that don’t get fixed, um, posthaste.

Phillies name over silhouette of liberty bell amid field of red stars

The Phillies are now, the day after Labor Day, in sole possession of first place
in the NL East for the first time since the day before Memorial Day — and the first team in the entire National League to reach 80 wins this year. So notes Larry Shenk on his blog. I haven’t written about baseball here in five months, but despite a rough, injury-plagued stretch it’s been an exciting season worthy of comment, full of truly
wild streaks.

Darth Vader in front of man at mixing console

You can apparently get specialized voices for a GPS service called TomTom. I only
know this because Mark Evanier linked to a faux recording session for Darth Vader at News from ME; Star Wars fans who don’t feel stuff like this cheapens the characters will enjoy the one for Yoda too. Evanier says that other voices in the works include Garfield and Looney Tunes favorites, although if Yoda was hard then Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, and Tweety will be impossible.

Mary Winstead as Ramona Flowers holding giant pixelated hammer

While the movie was fantastic, I agree with pretty much the entirety of “Five Reasons Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Failed to Find an Audience” on CinemaBlend. Josh Tyler writes that “what it all comes down to” is massive anticipation “from the handful of people who’d already seen it. But it was always a movie without a specific audience. It’s a broad movie built on a lot of different niche elements,” he observes. “The mistake was in thinking that all the different audiences Scott Pilgrim speaks to were the same audience, when they’re not.” You can call me an exception that proves the rule, as noted in my review, since I’m a comics reader pushing 40 who hadn’t read the source material and was leery of another Michael Cera role yet went into the theater pumped by advance word because I enjoy thrilling cinematic experiences. I suspect that SPVTW will become a cult classic at the very least on DVD, but it’s a shame that so few folks
got to enjoy it on the big screen.

More tomorrow if everything works!



Images © 2008 Elena’s Pantry, TM/® Philadelphia Phillies (within original Blam’s
Blog
design for variety), © 2010 Lucasfilm, and © 2010 Universal Pictures.

1 comment:

  1. Well said about Scott Pilgrim; I think I'm another exception that proves the rule, as I came to the film under almost the exact same circumstances as you, and thoroughly enjoyed it (my wife, even more disconnected from the source material, loved it even more than I did). Definitely one we'll be adding the collection.

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