Miscellaneous: Links With Wordy Commentary

First, many thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on the previous anniversary post. I reached double digits, which has been a lifelong dream. Well, the life of this blog, at any rate. I intend to implement much of your advice, particularly my brother’s.

If you haven’t commented, why not skip down and do so? There’s plenty of room and I crave attention.

And now, on with the links ...

I can’t get behind Neal Pollack’s Alternadad stuff. I understand where he’s coming from; no sane parent actually wants to listen to the Wiggles, with the exception of horny moms. But don’t foist Bob Dylan onto your offspring just so you can riff on Blonde on Blonde while helping him with his fractions. Kids need to listen to their own crap.

That said, I love Pollack’s occasional pieces on being a baseball fan. In his latest, he gorges himself at Dodger Stadium.

Another Slate article explains why NBC’s Thank God You’re Here, which isn’t very good, is also not improv.

My hero David Mamet has sold his papers to the University of Texas at Austin. From his 1975 journal:

“David, you absolutely must complete a draft of Buffalo by 1 June. June. You want to be a pauper all your life?”

I’m glad to see he talks that way to himself.

Recently, Steve Lewis’s Mystery*File blog featured Bill Pronzini’s appreciation of novelist Elliott Chaze, prompting a follow-up by Ed Gorman. Comes now word that Chaze’s masterpiece Black Wings Has My Angel may be coming to the big screen courtesy of Mr. Frodo himself. Mssrs. Lewis and Pronzini then weigh in on this development, as does Mr. Gorman.

The next movie I’m dying to see is Hot Fuzz, opening Stateside this week. The AV Club has an interview with the crew responsible in which they discuss their research process:

Director/co-writer Edgar Wright: You watch something like Steven Seagal’s Out For Justice and think, “Hey, someone actually wrote this. There was a screenplay for this film. Somebody sat down and wrote the line, ‘Yo, fucknuts!’ on a page.”

Co-star Nick Frost: Then they must have taken the day off.

What’s more, unless ‘Yo, fucknuts!’ was a particularly inspired ad lib, the someone who wrote it is also the someone who wrote Road House. Proof that lightning can indeed strike twice.