tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52270642011-04-21T15:26:35.359-04:00Miscellaneous culture and politics (but mostly culture) from a Gay, conservative ex-grad student and former writing teacher living between careers in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia.<br> <br> E-mail me: timhulsey (at) embarqmail (dot) com.Timnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-15502204841311175172009-01-20T16:54:00.012-05:002009-01-22T07:31:27.797-05:00

Inauguration Special: Je suis marxiste, comme Groucho ...The last guy nearly ruined this place, he didn't know what to do with it.If you think this country's bad off now, just wait till I get through with it. -- Groucho Marx, Duck SoupThe last film featuring all four Marx Brothers, Duck Soup, was exactly what most Americans didn't want to see in 1933. Reveling in the inauguration of a dynamic

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1643182900030198952009-01-19T13:39:00.004-05:002009-01-19T16:30:16.116-05:00

Mohandas and MeIn honor of this year's Martin Luther King Day, I'm posting a new link to an old essay, "Mohandas and Me," in which I confront the folly and shame of my left-wing past.

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-34901297026957614112009-01-13T21:53:00.005-05:002009-01-14T07:04:18.230-05:00

Been gone so longAfter effectively disappearing from cyberspace for more than a year, what should I say by way of re-introduction? Truth to tell, I haven't changed much. I'm still gay, still conservative and Republican, and still interested in the arts -- primarily film, theater and music. Between film and theater, I prefer theater. Although I have seldom written about music in the past, my

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-51549079096357324972009-01-08T16:36:00.003-05:002009-01-10T00:31:55.113-05:00

NoticeAfter an unannounced (and unplanned) hiatus of more than a year, I am pleased to announce that I'm resuming this blog. It's not so much that I miss the conversation (for most bloggers, the conversation is almost entirely one-sided), as that I miss having a personal forum to wrangle with concepts and ideas that may intrigue or inspire me. I realize, after such a long absence, that my

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-54474786833218004672007-12-18T16:53:00.000-05:002007-12-19T12:46:20.982-05:00

Give 'em the Dickens: A Christmas Carol at Synetic, Christmas Carol 1941 at Arena, Second Shepherds' Play at the Folger.'Tis the season for holiday cheer, whether we like it or not -- and God bless us everyone, Washington-area theaters are no exception to the rule. With at least three theatrical versions of A Christmas Carol playing simultaneously, theatergoers can give themselves the Dickens

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-20009765883805683622007-12-18T16:47:00.000-05:002007-12-18T23:39:49.716-05:00

Merry Christmas, Mike HuckabeeWhich is more distressing about Mike Huckabee's now-infamous Christmas ad -- that the bookshelf behind him looks suspiciously like a glowing white cross, or that it apparently contains not a single actual book?

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-15825955806817032662007-09-11T13:45:00.000-04:002007-09-14T03:30:13.301-04:00

A Visit to the Flight 93 MemorialLast month, on an impossibly sunny Saturday afternoon, I made a pilgrimage to the rural Pennsylvania field where forty passengers and crew of United Flight 93 met their heroic, horrific end.The temporary Flight 93 memorial -- a chain-link fence, roughly forty feet long by eleven feet tall -- lies a few hundred yards from the actual crash site, now set aside as

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-7919947149619798752007-06-16T01:42:00.000-04:002007-12-18T17:49:00.656-05:00

Smoke and Mirrors: Witches of Eastwick at Signature TheatreFor the first-act finale of Witches of Eastwick, a new musical receiving its American premiere at Signature Theatre near Washington, DC, the three title characters strap themselves into harnesses and soar over the heads of the audience. It's nifty but completely superfluous -- much like the show itself, I'm afraid.(Note: I never finished

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-42634185802287585652007-05-28T14:58:00.000-04:002007-05-28T17:45:26.339-04:00

Words and Music: Funny Business in the CinemaTerry Teachout ponders the question of film music, and why the "great" film scores seem to belong to dramas or thrillers, rather than to the classic screen comedies. He notes that other dramatic forms seem to have no trouble blending great music and high comedy: His favorite operas, Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Verdi's Falstaff, are both comic,

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-5841228123803092312007-05-04T18:43:00.000-04:002007-05-05T02:58:55.744-04:00

Terror is the new Sexy: The Washington Blade meets PETAI suppose it had to happen eventually: The Washington Blade, the gay newspaper of record in the DC metropolitan area, is now promoting terrorism -- indirectly, of course.This week's "Out in DC" supplement (which is best described as a style section within a style section) features a fawning puff piece on Dan Mathews, vice president of People

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-16528356081556054412007-05-01T16:09:00.000-04:002007-05-05T02:29:16.279-04:00

Overwhelming: The Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center TheaterTom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia, now playing through May 12 at New York’s Lincoln Center, is quite simply the best thing I have ever seen on a stage.But before I praise this play to the high rafters, let me offer a friendly word of caution: Coast is a dramatic trilogy with a total running time of nearly eight hours, not counting

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-31436630709267375162007-04-23T15:12:00.000-04:002007-05-03T04:19:14.183-04:00

God Awful: Saving Aimee at Signature TheatreNothing can save Saving Aimee, a musical about 1920s evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson currently receiving its world premiere at Washington D.C.'s Signature Theatre. To call it bad would be a gross understatement. This show is a howler from start to finish.McPherson's life certainly had the elements of great drama. After her conversion to

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-90220253495246803842007-04-18T21:24:00.000-04:002007-04-19T14:34:26.862-04:00

Guns don't kill people, but Walter Shapiro's good intentions might ....At the leftist e-zine Salon.com, Washington bureau chief Walter Shapiro advocates the complete repeal of the Second Amendment, even though he notes that "there is no way to guarantee that another Cho Seung-Hui would be deprived of access to a Glock ...." Which begs the question: If there's no way to ensure that such an

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-38026544682545007542007-04-18T02:18:00.000-04:002007-04-18T05:04:09.267-04:00

Tim Kaine just flew in from Tokyo, and boy are his arms tired ...Yesterday afternoon, Virginia Tech students gathered in mourning to commemorate the worst mass shooting in American history. President Bush offered a lovely, restrained token of remembrance and hope that moved his audience to tears. So how did Virginia's Democratic governor Tim Kaine, who preceded and introduced the President,

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-79091423982008315672007-04-17T04:02:00.000-04:002007-04-18T02:51:05.946-04:00

A Parable for Tax DayI've stated before that if our Founding Fathers had an inkling of what the American tax system would become, they'd have laid down their quill pens and taken their chances with old King George. Although I'm not usually one to quote Scripture, this year I couldn't resist:Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:Who, when he had found one

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-20030075241228552592007-04-06T14:53:00.000-04:002007-04-06T16:04:13.968-04:00

Al GoreA hypocrite by definition is always doing something right. The trick is figuring out what that something is.Take Al Gore. (Please.) Once lauded for the global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth -- now available on DVD in super-flimsy "eco-friendly" packaging all but guaranteed to leave your disc scratched and bruised -- Gore has been drawing fire for the past month over an

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-84488415596703746222007-04-06T14:07:00.000-04:002007-04-06T14:32:15.215-04:00

Take Back the Night 2007The annual "Take Back the Night" march against domestic violence occurs tonight. Here's something I wrote on the subject more than four years ago. I still agree with every word:Take Back the Night, Just Leave Me AloneUVA is having a "Take Back the Night" combination march-and-vigil tonight. The idea, such as it is, is to protest sexual assault. At some point, someone is

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-70205926650873077572007-03-21T23:59:00.000-04:002007-03-22T00:20:33.288-04:00

Blessed Incarnation: John Patrick Shanley's Doubt at the National TheatreThe portions are small but the fare is choice at the National Theatre, where the national tour of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Doubt is playing through March 25. Shanley is best known for his Oscar-winning screenplay for the movie Moonstruck, still one of the most delightful American comedies

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-20278872128191668952007-03-15T11:26:00.000-04:002007-03-18T13:33:05.877-04:00

Less Than August: King Hedley II (Signature Theatre Company, New York) and Gem of the Ocean (Arena Stage, DC)Why did August Wilson jump the shark?This question might be better suited to a biographer than a critic, but when Wilson, the most critically acclaimed African-American playwright in theatrical history, made his fateful leap and where he finally landed are somewhat easier to determine.

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-87685227021284679432007-03-04T12:16:00.000-05:002007-03-16T15:10:27.015-04:00

All This Useless Beauty: Carnival at Kennedy CenterWhen the musical Carnival opened on Broadway in 1961, it was an unapologetic throwback to old-fashioned operetta, with plenty of sentimental romance, an exotic European setting, and a glorious, glittering score by Bob Merrill that evoked the best of Rudolf Friml and Franz Lehar. The show marked the Broadway debut of the late Jerry Orbach (of Law

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-85896256364003361052007-02-28T23:31:00.000-05:002007-03-04T06:39:21.973-05:00

Conceits: Vigils at Woolly Mammoth and The Violet Hour at LiveArtsNoah Haidle's Vigils is about a woman who keeps her dead husband's soul in a box. Richard Greenberg's The Violet Hour is about an obscure publisher who receives a copy machine from the future. What do these plays have in common?Stay tuned, gentle reader.I was, until recently, something a fan of Noah Haidle: His play Mr. Marmalade

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-3779523236147507262007-02-22T02:17:00.000-05:002007-02-22T03:38:51.768-05:00

Yes, We Have No Directors: Hamlet and Pericles at the American Shakespeare CenterThe ongoing “Shakespeare in Washington” festival may entice Washington insiders with dozens of elaborate and not-so-elaborate stagings of the Bard of Avon’s most celebrated works. But true connoisseurs have known for some time that one of the best places in America to see a Shakespeare play is at the American

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-53483483192237131822007-02-07T23:59:00.000-05:002007-02-23T07:30:04.972-05:00

Looks Like Rain: The Tempest at Keegan TheatreWashington's Keegan Theatre specializes in Irish drama and well-known Americana, so Shakespeare's late-period romance The Tempest, now playing at the Church Street Theater, is a significant departure from its usual fare. D.C. audiences will have the chance to see four productions of The Tempest over the next five months, as part of the ongoing "

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-2588301373604674382007-02-03T11:40:00.000-05:002007-02-03T13:50:42.094-05:00

"Marygate" againAfter more than two years, America's most political lesbian (whether she likes it or not) is once again in the papers: Now that Mary Cheney and her partner have announced their decision to raise a child by themselves, all the unresolved accusations from the 2004 "Marygate" fracas have reared their ugly little heads. For James Dobson's evangelical crowd, Mary's very existence is

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-15794689558885451112007-02-02T01:46:00.000-05:002007-02-02T04:46:18.312-05:00

Amazing GracelessA few days ago on the Guardian's free website, David Boaz of the Cato Institute offered a preliminary review of Michael Apted's new film Amazing Grace. This story of William Wilberforce and the British antislavery movement is due to arrive in American cinemas by the end of the month, and I daresay you'll find it at your neighborhood video store sometime this May. Boaz is deeply

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-54283783377083554152007-02-02T01:28:00.000-05:002007-02-02T01:45:30.553-05:00

Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's TempleDocumentaries are the comfort food of intellectuals, and Stanley Nelson’s recent Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple fits the bill with its all-too-typical mix of talking-head interviews, still photos and archival footage. On the big screen, this account of Jim Jones’s spectacular rise as a charismatic California evangelist Jim Jones,

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-36738023202453867932007-01-31T23:28:00.000-05:002007-02-07T17:20:05.076-05:00

Harlem Renaissance: King Lear at the FolgerIt’s not often that you see a citywide festival as ambitious as the 2007 salute to “Shakespeare in Washington.” More than seventy arts-related groups -- theaters, museums, ballet companies and orchestras -- have banded together to create over one hundred Bard-related productions between now and July. The whole affair can seem a bit daunting to a casual

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-22521247666335334802007-01-29T17:01:00.000-05:002007-01-29T18:20:00.964-05:00

G.I. ZombieAccording to a recent BBC story, the US military has sent reenlistment letters to soldiers killed in Iraq. This gives "Plus Up" a whole new meaning.In related news: The February issue of Reason magazine would be worth reading just for Radley Balko's blistering attack on the Balkanization of the National Mall. But it has also resurrected a fairly notorious -- and frankly silly -- blog

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-57301780912035032962007-01-24T23:40:00.000-05:002007-02-01T09:40:51.224-05:00

Childhood's End: Into the Woods at Signature TheatreOnce upon a time, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., there was a tiny company named Signature Theatre that wowed local audiences with near-perfect, low-budget productions of unconventional dramatic fare. For thirteen years, Signature made its home in a converted garage in an industrial section of town, among the long-term storage sheds, office

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-47431976020135598072007-01-23T14:41:00.000-05:002007-02-25T03:03:32.190-05:00

My Stupid Oscar Column (or, "Cinema Purgatorio")As usual, this year's Oscar nominations are enough to drive any self-respecting cinephile to despair. Dave Weigel at Reason magazine (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan) suggests that this year's offerings weren't so bad, but Hollywood distributors didn't bother to get the good films out to consumers.Not so fast.Weigel cites as proof the Rotten Tomatoes list

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-66086592929492819292007-01-22T13:39:00.000-05:002007-01-23T14:53:00.733-05:00

Children of the Corn: Desire Under the Elms at The American Century Theater and Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) at LiveArtsOf all the indisputably great American playwrights, Eugene O’Neill may be the most uneven. For every bona fide masterpiece that has stood the test of time -- an Anna Christie or Long Day’s Journey Into Night -- there’s some preposterous dud that inspires nothing but unholy

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-60719734072978131872007-01-22T03:26:00.000-05:002007-02-21T08:32:26.109-05:00

Tim's Top Twelve Movies (2006):There are so many ties on this year's top-ten list that I ended up with twelve titles instead. Since two of the films I listed are more than thirty years old, I suspect the excess may be forgivable.1. United 93: Paul Greengrass, best known for helming the Matt Damon thriller The Bourne Supremacy, proved his artistic mettle with this gripping docudrama about the 9/

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-29231027935934300762007-01-21T22:06:00.000-05:002007-01-26T01:36:33.701-05:00

Notes on a Top Ten ListI've finally bought a new 2007 calendar, which must mean that the "awards season" has once again descended on us cinephiles. This year "awards season" feels like duck season -- or perhaps rabbit season -- and aside from watching various cartoon characters fight over who gets shot on the red carpet, I don't see much this year to hold my interest. Most of the movies that

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-72463470325483988562007-01-16T20:35:00.000-05:002007-01-19T01:20:00.088-05:00

Virginia Creeper: It Seemed like a Good Idea at the Time ...Here's a question for members of the Virginia General Assembly:If you had a bill before you that, if passed, would increase the number of high school dropouts, encourage students who remain to cut classes, and lower high-school grade point averages throughout the Commonwealth, would you vote for it?There's such a bill before the General

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-32788750884526222212007-01-15T03:04:00.000-05:002007-01-15T03:48:49.163-05:00

Vintage Dog: "Mohandas and Me"In honor of Martin Luther King Day, I'm serving up my annual link to "Mohandas and Me," a vintage My Stupid Dog essay in which I revisit the shame and folly of my left-liberal past. Because of a quirk in the new "Blogger" format, you'll have to scroll down the page until the title appears (it's near the bottom).At the time I posted "Mohandas and Me," I didn't know

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1166531442416397572006-12-19T07:03:00.000-05:002007-01-12T16:44:00.729-05:00

She Loves Me: Glad Tidings from Arena StageIn an eleventh-hour surprise, Arena Stage pulled its world-premiere epic musical A Civil War Christmas (by How I Learned to Drive playwright Paula Vogel) for another year of revisions, and replaced it with a lovely, intimate production of the 1963 holiday musical She Loves Me. It's quite possibly the best Broadway musical you've never seen, and for

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1166529772583966332006-12-19T06:14:00.000-05:002007-05-05T04:36:09.945-04:00

Get Your Scrooge On: A Christmas Carol and Santaland Diaries at the American Shakespeare CenterIf you’re the sort of person who can’t get through the holidays without seeing at least one version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the best place I could possibly imagine to get your annual fix is about two-and-a-half hours from D.C., at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia.

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1166155358145451522006-12-14T10:51:00.000-05:002006-12-15T01:44:38.133-05:00

The first episode of Jay Bakker's reality-television series One Punk Under God aired last night on the Sundance Channel. For those of you who didn't see it, it's a terrific (albeit inadvertent) expose of the ideology behind contemporary American religion, starting with the second episode. For those who did see the first episode, thought it okay but decided not to come back, I'd advise you to

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1166071713406853872006-12-12T23:45:00.000-05:002006-12-14T01:03:14.746-05:00

My Stupid Dog officially joins the War On ChristmasLike an oncoming freight train in a dark, narrow tunnel, Christmas time is a-coming -- which means that FoxNews anchor John Gibson and erstwhile libertarian talk-radio host Neal Boortz can resume their diatribes about the "War on Christmas," and social conservatives will threaten to boycott any store that dares to wish them "Happy Holidays."Well,

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1164181719104005402006-11-22T02:16:00.000-05:002006-12-07T01:27:02.673-05:00

Shut Up and Sing: LeftapaloozaThe new Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up and Sing comes with an impressive cinematic pedigree: Co-director Barbara Kopple researched and directed Harlan County, USA, one of roughly a half-dozen truly indispensible documentary features. But this glorified celebrity puff piece displays little of Kopple's trademark sensitivity or her talent for muckraking reportage:

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1163623903572354762006-11-15T14:23:00.001-05:002006-11-16T03:04:39.403-05:00

Natural History Museum reopens at college named for William Jennings BryanSomehow unnoticed by America's late-night comics was the "grand reopening" on November 3 of the Henning Museum.A "natural history" museum.At an evangelical college named for William Jennings Bryan.In Dayton, Tennessee, less than a mile from the site of the infamous "Scopes Monkey Trial."Yes, Dayton has a Bryan College,

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1163378410280460032006-11-12T19:38:00.000-05:002006-11-12T23:27:09.923-05:00

E-tailing the MoviesThe more I think about Chris Hansen's Proper Care and Feeding of an American Messiah, the more I think this is the sort of movie that film festivals were made to promote. If the Virginia Film Festival offered an audience award, or award of merit, I'd be rooting for this particular film. Last year, the festival tried to do somthing like that, by screening six undistributed

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1163016558465828222006-11-08T14:30:00.000-05:002006-11-08T15:09:18.596-05:00

Congratulations, Andrew!Thanks to two "squeaker" Senate races, it looks as though Democrats will have a slim majority in both houses of Congress. In Montana, Democratic challenger Jon Tester edged out Republican incumbent Conrad Burns by roughly three thousand votes, while in Virginia, Republican incumbent George Allen lost to his Democratic challenger, James Webb, by fewer than eight thousand

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1162991260644299252006-11-08T06:15:00.000-05:002006-11-08T14:01:18.026-05:00

Massive Resistance: What Virginia's new Marriage Amendment actually meansYesterday, the voters of Virginia faced an important test of character, and once again we failed it. As a result, the Virginia Constitution now sports an appalling new amendment, which prevents the Commonwealth from recognizing any "legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1162874273533674752006-11-07T00:01:00.000-05:002006-11-13T03:10:53.203-05:00

Unintended Consequences and Hypocrisy: Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling and Ted HaggardWhen it comes to Virginia's Ballot Question No. 1 (the so-called "marriage amendment"), the shameful exit of leading evangelical minister Ted Haggard, or the scandal surrounding closeted Congressman Mark Foley, I've managed to bite my tongue until it bled. Republicans are clearly not leading on the family-values

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1162874728433972692006-11-06T23:44:00.000-05:002006-11-07T03:53:44.190-05:00

Just Because I'm Holding My Nose Doesn't Mean It Won't StinkThe writing is finally on the wall: It's time for what George W. Bush would call "an accountability moment."Full disclosure: I voted for Bush in 2004, and I do not regret my choice. The alternative, lest we forget, was John "Ketchup King" Kerry, who recently distinguished himself with a supergaffe about America's armed forces. Kerry's

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1163378776637883822006-10-29T23:59:00.000-05:002006-12-18T23:56:20.506-05:00

Virginia Film Festival, Day 4: Oh, God ...Four "films" today -- two documentaries and two fiction films. Perhaps I shouldn't call them "films," though, since all but one of them will be screened on digital video. I understand the appeal of digital projection: Actual film stock is expensive to transport, and tends to do nasty things in the projector, like skip and break. Plus, most truly

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1164033231726697012006-10-29T02:32:00.000-05:002007-03-16T13:15:06.688-04:00

Virginia Film Festival, Day 3: The Cheapest Grace (part 2)Paul Wagner’s documentary God of a Second Chance is far and away the hottest ticket of this year’s festival. It’s showing in one of the smaller auditoriums -- not because the organizers didn’t expect high demand for the tickets, but because the other two events this evening (a screening of Everything Is Illuminated with director Liev

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1163378688598740502006-10-29T01:44:00.000-05:002006-12-05T01:50:52.913-05:00

Virginia Film Festival, Day 3: The Cheapest GraceThree screenings, a lecture and a panel to cover today: First, another presentation from Terry Lindvall, this one on the role of prayer in popular American cinema. Then Ten Canoes, an Aboriginal film from Australia. After that, a discussion on "Religion, Media and Politics: Reaching Beyond Preaching to the Converted" with Pat Aufderheide (with

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1163500570799860352006-10-28T01:14:00.000-04:002007-02-02T04:47:08.452-05:00

Virginia Film Festival, Day 2: Hollow Be Thy Name (part 2)The most intriguing film I won't get to see at this year's festival is Joey Vigour's documentary The Malewicki Equation. Joey is in the press room with his producer, Catherine Lineberger, and they're very excited about presenting a new rough cut of their film (which one of them tells me they just finished two days ago -- such is the

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1163385584308794362006-10-28T01:13:00.000-04:002006-11-14T04:25:34.240-05:00

Virginia Film Festival, Day 2: Hollow Be Thy NameOne lecture and four screenings today: Terry Lindvall's talk on "Spectacular Transcendence" and African-American Christianity, Bruce Beresford's Tender Mercies, Larry Grimaldi's television documentary Camp Out, Michael Apted's upcoming film Amazing Grace and a preview of the Sundance Channel series One Punk Under God with the son of Jim and Tammy

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1161925747848749362006-10-27T01:08:00.000-04:002006-11-12T19:46:59.116-05:00

Virginia Film Festival, Day 1: Your Own Local-Regional JesusIt's time once again for my favorite annual reporting gig: The Virginia Film Festival. For those of you who haven't read my play-by-plays of the festival before, the routine (for three of the four days,anyway) usually goes like this: Movie at 10 a.m., quick order of Chinese dumplings, movie at 1, movie at 4, quick slice of pizza, movie

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1161882717718322212006-10-26T13:08:00.000-04:002006-10-26T13:11:57.743-04:00

It's "Fun With Faith" Week at My Stupid Dog!To celebrate the opening of the Virginia Film Festival (today), I'm going to post a few long-delayed items on faith and film. Enjoy!

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1160287768295850692006-10-07T23:59:00.000-04:002006-10-11T01:44:01.496-04:00

The Departed: Going ... going ....(Possible spoilers ahead.)Martin Scorsese's latest film, The Departed, features recurring images of rats: rats attacking the Massachusetts State House, rats slinking through alleyways, even one rat scuttling along the balcony of a ritzy Boston apartment. I suspect it's all too appropriate, in a way, because this remake of the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1159870250548054912006-10-03T05:14:00.000-04:002006-10-03T06:46:18.710-04:00

Diary of a Film Buff: Funny Trailers and Thank You For SmokingThe two flat-out funniest film trailers I've seen this year are here and here, and each one kept me laughing well into the main feature. The trailer for the upcoming Borat is raunchy and politically incorrect, with one flawlessly staged sight gag after another. But the trailer for the upcoming CGI toon Happy Feet (a pretty blatant

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1159783229287312302006-10-02T02:34:00.000-04:002007-01-21T00:43:49.856-05:00

Lady in the Dark: My Fair Lady gets stripped at Signature TheatreI hope I may be forgiven for approaching Signature Theatre's production of My Fair Lady with trepidation. Signature, a mainstay of Washington-area drama, is best known for its stripped-down, contemporary productions of Stephen Sondheim musicals. Its last show was a Brechtian revival of Assassins, Sondheim's plotless revue devoted

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1159487631061367072006-09-28T19:28:00.000-04:002006-10-23T01:37:24.376-04:00

Virginia Film Festival 2006: Half DoneH.L. Mencken quipped, "The trouble with Baptists is they aren't held underwater long enough," but when I was dunked backwards for my own full immersion into the faith, I had water in my nose and ears for the better part of a week. If I had been a Methodist I would have received a light sprinkle on the scalp instead -- which is why we Baptists often joked

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1159422815008804102006-09-28T01:36:00.000-04:002006-09-28T13:37:57.790-04:00

Joke of the Day"Like most of [Robert] Greenwald's work, 'Iraq for Sale' results from dogged and impressive investigative reporting ..." -- Andrew O'Hehir at Salon.com.This is especially funny if you know that Robert Greenwald's "leftsploitation" documentaries are usually thrown together in about five months' time, from the concept stage to the final cut. More here.

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1158254868182115262006-09-18T23:59:00.000-04:002006-09-22T15:58:35.206-04:00

An Inconvenient Text: Shakespeare Theatre Company vs. An Enemy of the PeopleA dreary miasma hangs over the stage of the Lansburgh Theatre, home of Shakespeare Theatre Company's revival of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. It isn't just the omnipresent stage fog, Timin Alsaker's water pipe-infested sets, Charlie Morrison's grim, grey lighting, or the too-obvious dripping of Martin Desjardins

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1158267385548403892006-09-14T16:32:00.000-04:002006-09-14T18:10:23.790-04:00

Disney's America: George Washington rolls in his graveTime is running a story this week about America's new crop of history museums -- surreal, content-free multimedia extravaganzas designed to "make the past accessible" to today's family audience. But the photos in the article suggest something closer to mental illness than heritage: Spectral Abe Lincolns, immersive dioramas (with you-are-there

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1158007673481873082006-09-11T15:51:00.000-04:002006-09-14T02:36:42.016-04:00

Bad Taste and 9/11Let us now celebrate bad taste.Not the bad taste Oliver Stone displayed when he turned an atrocity into a celebration of America's decency that left one almost wishing to write the terrorists a thank-you note for showing us how good we really are. Not the sort of bad taste Michael Moore displayed when he placed the September 11 attacks at the end of a Bowling for Columbine

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1157677520814281772006-09-08T00:01:00.000-04:002006-09-15T15:13:24.723-04:00

Othello at the American Shakespeare Center: A Round, Unvarnished TaleI come not to bury the American Shakespeare Center, but to praise it -- and I mean to praise it to its gorgeous oaken rafters if I can. With the opening of Othello, the most domestic and provocative of Shakespeare's major tragedies, the four-play lineup for the center's "Summer/Fall Season" is finally complete. Although I have

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1157398109301638692006-09-04T13:53:00.000-04:002006-09-14T01:58:42.983-04:00

My Dinner with Terry"Did you know they have a pipe organ?" Terry Teachout asks me.It's Friday evening, and I'm meeting the Wall Street Journal theater critic in the lobby of the Stonewall Jackson Hotel and Conference Center in downtown Staunton, Virginia: He's arrived in town for a few days to review the opening night of Shenandoah Shakespeare's Othello, and to catch a few other Shenandoah

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1156853028454421152006-08-28T23:59:00.000-04:002006-08-30T04:11:28.446-04:00

Mutual Appreciation feels the loveAndrew Bujalski's black-and-white slacker comedy Mutual Appreciation made number two on my 2005 Top Ten List (just behind Brokeback Mountain), and still stands as the most accurate depiction of twenty-first century sexual mores I've seen. At long last, this much-acclaimed film will receive a limited theatrical release in select arthouses throughout the United

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1156587369142247142006-08-26T06:15:00.000-04:002006-09-05T10:30:00.050-04:00

Snakes on a Plane and IdlewildThis hasn't been a good summer, or a good year, for African-Americans at the movies. The Wayans brothers' Little Man was an insulting collection of booty-call jokes, with a premise stolen from "Baby Buggy Bunny" (itself not one of Bugs Bunny's best efforts). And yet, if you remove that film from the roster, what exactly do you have? Spike Lee is focusing his best

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1156349577331655832006-08-23T12:11:00.000-04:002006-08-25T00:03:11.160-04:00

Gay Nazi Pedophiles on the March!When you're part of a truly despised minority group, you tend to see the world through a jaundiced lens: It's not so much that you seek prejudice in the world as that prejudice seeks you, and always finds its target. And if some of your friends, colleagues or co-workers are not members of your particular despised group, you learn to steel yourself against some

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1155888748505779332006-08-16T23:59:00.000-04:002006-08-18T04:12:28.546-04:00

Finally, Spike Lee says something I agree withI suppose it had to happen eventually, but Spike Lee has said something I agree with.In an interview with USA Today about his upcoming documentary on Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke, Lee stated that the moral of Katrina was, "Don't expect the federal government to help you."As we used to say in the Baptist church where I grew up, can I hear

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1155888883626516212006-08-14T23:59:00.000-04:002006-08-18T04:14:43.626-04:00

Summer Theater Overview, Part 4: Off the Beaten Track(Belated reviews of Four County Players' All's Well That Ends Well and the Charlottesville Wunderkammer)(coming soon)

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1155279372075332392006-08-11T02:28:00.000-04:002006-09-20T03:04:45.596-04:00

Little Miss Sunshine: The Iceman FilmethThe kind of pity I feel now is after final results that will really save the poor guy, and make him contented with what he is, and quit battling himself, and find peace for the rest of his life. Oh, I know how you resent the way I have to show you up to yourself. I don't blame you. I know from my own experience it's bitter medicine, facing yourself in

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1155190635819301952006-08-10T02:16:00.000-04:002006-08-16T15:16:07.856-04:00

Oliver Stone's World Trade Center: Have a Nice ApocalypseWhen G.K. Chesterton first saw the glittering lights of Broadway, he reportedly exclaimed, "What a marvelous sight for those who cannot read!" Oliver Stone's World Trade Center would also be a marvelous sight -- admittedly of a very different sort -- for those who cannot speak English. If Stone were to take a cue from Mel Gibson and make

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1155190576394152502006-08-09T23:59:00.000-04:002006-08-11T18:04:56.953-04:00

Summer Theater Overview, Part 3: Disaster at Ash Lawn(coming soon)

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1155190480983921072006-08-08T23:59:00.000-04:002006-08-24T20:30:13.273-04:00

Summer Theater Overview, Part 2: LiveArts gets livelier(Belated reviews of All My Sons, Urinetown, Psychopathia Sexualis, Mr. Marmalade, Anna Karenina, short plays)If Heritage Rep, Four County Players, Ash Lawn Opera, and the various independent groups working in and around Charlottesville over the summer were suddenly to cease operations, we could still count ourselves blessed with a lively

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1155102823863840322006-08-07T23:59:00.000-04:002006-08-11T14:00:56.140-04:00

Summer Theater Overview, Part I: Heritage Rep keeps talking happy talk(Belated reviews of South Pacific, Nunsense, Enchanted April, Don't Hug Me and Sunday in the Park with George.)During the summer, especially the three-week period from mid-July onwards, the city of Charlottesville becomes something like a theater lover's paradise. So, gentle reader, if you were wondering where I was at over

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1152681027699164272006-07-11T23:59:00.000-04:002006-07-17T13:50:01.233-04:00

Theater Review: USA (American Century) and Assassins (Signature)Two dramas dealing with the basic questions of American identity, community and theatricality are approaching the end of their respective runs within a few miles of each other in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Signature Theatre’s thrilling new production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Assassins closes on July 30. American Century

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1151344601572152892006-06-26T13:48:00.000-04:002006-06-26T13:56:41.573-04:00

Posting has been spotty of late (to put it mildly), but I'll try to have some new stuff up here later this week. I thought I would have been able to write a few pieces last week, but I was too busy coping with various emergencies that I simply didn't have the time or energy to do it. I won't bore you with details because I don't write about my private life, but at the moment, I'm still pressed

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1150768711209843742006-06-19T21:21:00.000-04:002006-06-26T13:48:22.966-04:00

Cheap Shots: Uh-OhIt seems that uberblogger Andrew Sullivan grows less conservative every day, and of late he has become as fascinated by the prospect of torture as Harold Pinter. (Perhaps Sullivan is also gunning for a Nobel Prize.) I haven't commented on his torture thread so far, because I haven't found anything substantive to object to. Social convention requires us to say that torture is

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1150471684523704232006-06-16T10:29:00.000-04:002006-07-14T23:43:03.460-04:00

New blog meme!Terry Teachout has posted a brief and capricious list of "personal bests," such as best comeback, best P.G. Wodehouse novel, best first line, and so forth. Sounds like a good meme to me, though I'll scramble the categories a bit:Best Comeback: “Madam, if I were your husband I would drink it.” (Winston Churchill, of course.)Best Movie Score (tie): Virgil Thomson, Louisiana Story;

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1150258265105262352006-06-13T23:10:00.000-04:002006-06-14T21:14:02.076-04:00

Da Vinci Code surpasses Passion of the ChristIn today's National Review Online, Austin Ruse, president of the right-wing "Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute," gloats over the supposed box-office failure of Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code. The aptly named Ruse writes that "in the world’s largest film market — the United States — The Da Vinci Code still lags far behind The Passion of the

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1150041662181842562006-06-11T12:00:00.000-04:002006-06-11T12:01:02.196-04:00

A Prairie Home Companion: Death Wish(coming soon)

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1149971748580532122006-06-10T16:35:00.000-04:002006-06-16T13:12:28.646-04:00

Monty Python's Spamalot: Minstrel ShowAccording to the playbill, Monty Python’s Spamalot is “lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The film, now more than thirty years old, was an edgy, intelligent sendup of Arthurian lore and legend, with digressions into Marxist dialectics and sexual politics. Spamalot, which won last year’s Tony for Best Musical, is a

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1149971832444559672006-06-09T18:36:00.000-04:002006-06-14T21:55:22.910-04:00

Army of Shadows and Overlord: If You Haven't Seen Them, They're Still New(coming soon)

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1148284785994722992006-05-22T02:15:00.000-04:002006-05-23T13:28:06.913-04:00

The Da Vinci Code: Homophobic?(Inevitable spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen the movie or read the book.)I've just seen The Da Vinci Code, which is probably the most bizarre film I'll encounter this year, V for Vendetta possibly excepted. (Alas, I won't have a chance to watch the rabidly anti-Catholic "documentary" Rape of the Soul, which sounds as though it may explore similar themes,

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1146827062919117102006-05-05T05:47:00.000-04:002006-11-07T14:42:00.283-05:00

Mission: Impossible 3: Point, Shoot, Reload(Potential spoilers follow.)The Mission: Impossible films have been exercises in style from the start. For the "original" film -- ten years ago -- Brian De Palma cut the umbilical cord to the television series, kept only the central character of Ethan Hunt, and reveled in the Hitchcockian gamesmanship for which he's best known. The best-known action

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1145940312766564742006-04-24T23:43:00.000-04:002006-04-25T00:46:58.843-04:00

United 93: Are We Ready?The short answer is yes, of course we are. But I'll write a longer answer -- with a consideration of the rather strange objections to Paul Greengrass's latest film -- over the next day or two.

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1145074308054263662006-04-15T00:11:00.000-04:002006-04-25T15:19:14.690-04:00

Looking at American GothicFor the next three weeks or so, Washington DC's various art museums will offer a bewildering array of options for art lovers and connoisseurs alike. The National Gallery of Art, still free to visitors, offers a terrific Cezanne retrospective in the West Wing and an important exhibit on Dadaism in the East Wing. Until mid-May, the pay-for-play Phillips Collection will

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1145038122014376052006-04-14T13:13:00.000-04:002006-04-15T03:54:18.850-04:00

Good Friday, Bad FridayTo constrain the brute force of the people, they deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life." -- Thomas JeffersonFor hundreds of millions of Christians around the

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1142889835930114672006-03-27T16:22:00.000-05:002006-05-07T04:17:01.876-04:00

Down from the Mountain: Loggerheads, Gay Sex in the '70sLast September, film critic B. Ruby Rich wrote that Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain represented "a shift in scope and tenor so profound as to signal a new era" in Gay cinema. She discusses the film in the context of the "New Queer Cinema" movement, itself an offshoot (mostly) of the Midnight Cowboy school of urban drama, in which a certain

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1143304392964176572006-03-25T10:43:00.000-05:002006-03-25T14:11:40.463-05:00

Ben Domenech, part I: Why does this always happen at age 24?In cyberspace, plagiarism is almost as easy to detect as it is to commit. University of Virginia physics professor Lou Bloomfield has even developed anti-plagiarism software, available for free download at his website, and he uses it every semester to catch cribbers in the act. So there's no excuse, really, for the Washington Post not

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1142607237366504602006-03-17T09:27:00.000-05:002006-03-17T09:53:57.446-05:00

DC Filmmaker RetrospectivesResidents of Washington, DC, have the chance to catch two filmmaker retrospectives this weekend. First, the ongoing salute to Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse -- a contemporary of Mizoguchi and Ozu, and forerunner of Kurosawa -- continues this weekend at the National Gallery of Art (East building), the Freer Gallery, and the AFI Silver Theater. (It continues on

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1142328771151296672006-03-14T04:22:00.000-05:002006-03-14T10:03:15.896-05:00

Welcome to Cinema HellNow playing on 24 screens in the Eighth Circle of Hell, it's Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector!But just in case you thought that mainstream cinema couldn't sink any lower, the pro-terrorist movie V for Vendetta is coming to Middle America multiplexes this Friday -- with a wide national release, a loud chorus of critical acclaim, and a blockbuster publicity

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1141622810784121112006-03-06T00:26:00.000-05:002006-03-06T00:26:50.786-05:00

Walk the Line: Enter the Trojan Horse(coming soon)

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1141622711546102992006-03-05T23:25:00.000-05:002006-03-11T00:58:28.636-05:00

Oscar NightMy Oscar-night predictions ran ten out of fifteen -- a passing grade when I was in school, but just barely. I was right to suspect that Brokeback wouldn't win Best Picture, but wrong to think it would be shut out of the awards in general. Brokeback did as well as any film this year, though no better: Four films, including Ang Lee's gay Western, won three awards this year.Rob

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1141454890815033872006-03-04T01:18:00.000-05:002006-03-04T02:59:25.430-05:00

Talkin' Oscar Nominee BluesThe only major Oscar nominee I haven't written about (yet) is Walk the Line -- in part because I just saw the film in an old-fashioned movie palace. (If more theaters were like Richmond's Byrd Theatre, more people would go to the movies.) At any rate, I'll post something about the Johnny Cash biopic on Sunday. Bottom line: Conservatives who think Walk the Line is a

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1141458977628336872006-03-03T23:59:00.000-05:002006-03-04T02:58:03.696-05:00

Krauthammer and SyrianaHere's Charles Krauthammer's column on Stephen Gaghan's film Syriana, from today's Washington Post. And here's what I wrote about the film, nearly two months ago.By and large, I was more generous than Krauthammer. I don't believe, as Krauthammer does, that Syriana could have been scripted by Osama Bin Laden (not enough Qu'ranic verses, for one thing). I merely observed

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1141241969079656342006-03-01T14:34:00.000-05:002006-03-01T14:57:37.440-05:00

Ash WednesdayFor your post Mardi Gras delectation, gentle reader, here's an essay of mine from two years back. Looking back on the thing now, I find it much too squishy: In particular, my inability to discuss abstinence strikes me as a serious shortcoming. Without abstinence, Lent is just a time to eat soup. But I agree more often than not with what I wrote back then, especially those

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1141174831805986032006-02-28T19:59:00.000-05:002006-03-04T01:17:45.476-05:00

My Stupid Oscar ColumnIf you're like most Americans, gentle reader, you probably didn't see any of the films nominated for Best Picture this year -- or for Best Actor, Best Screenplay, or any category other than makeup and visual effects. Some conservatives have claimed that this year's crop of box-office underachievers indicates that the Hollywood establishment has finally lost touch with the

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1141174651849528812006-02-28T18:49:00.000-05:002006-03-05T19:53:31.563-05:00

2005 Academy AwardsAny self-respecting critic has to go through this particular mortification every year, if only because readers want to test just how connected to the zeitgeist one is. I suspect most of my own predictions will come out wrong. For the sake of length, I'll confine myself mostly to the "big" awards.Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman will win for Capote, even though it's not his

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1141109704233231992006-02-28T01:37:00.000-05:002006-02-28T01:55:04.273-05:00

Food PornWhile I'm recovering from a slight case of blogger burnout, enjoy this motivational video from America's original fast-food burger chain.

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1140852814163729422006-02-25T02:21:00.000-05:002006-02-25T02:36:00.710-05:00

The Last ProtestIn her performance piece "Demonstration," Canadian artist Kelly Mark shows us what democracy really looks like.Hat tip: The Stranger -- Slog.

Timnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227064.post-1140817956967942072006-02-24T16:38:00.000-05:002006-02-24T16:52:37.036-05:00

Salon finally stands up for the Jyllands-PostenAt long last, Salon has a column defending the Jyllands-Posten. Pulitzer Priize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette is no mealy-mouthed apologist for religious fanaticism, let alone hooliganism and street violence -- and when it comes to criticizing the lassitude and complacency of mainstream print media, he's as consistently on target as any e-pundit

Timnoreply@blogger.com