What Were They Thinking?: A comma, a comma, my kingdom for a comma!

There is a new “ride the bus” ad on Seattle city (and King County) buses, with alleged bus riders saying “I do make a difference by riding the bus.”  But it raises a question to me:

Who the heck was the copy writer on this?

There are four ways you could use this basic sentence:

I make a difference by riding the bus.

This is the answer you give to the question “How can you have an effect and promote a green lifestyle?”  The response is simple and factual.  Riding the bus is the important thing here.

I make a difference, by riding the bus.

This is the answer you give to the question “Can you have an effect and promote a green lifestyle?”  Yes, you can (hello Obama), and here’s how I do it.  It’s a little more forward.  It stresses that you can make a difference, with riding the bus being one person’s answer.

I do make a difference, by riding the bus.

Here, the response is to a question like “Can someone really have an effect and promote a green lifestyle?”  There’s a bit of disbelief in that, requiring the refutation word “do”, and then the clarification of how the person makes a difference.

I do make a difference by riding the bus.

And then there’s the one actually being used.  This is the response to “I don’t think one person can really have an effect and promote a green life.  Prove it.”   The response is refutational, and petulant, and ultimately inadequate.  There needs to be a little foot stomp and the follow-up line “I do, I do, I do!”  (And I don’t mean to reference an ABBA song here.)

In other words, they opted for the worst of the four options, the one that carries the least weight and the most whining.


But you know, maybe there are other values to the wording.  How about the meter of the line?

i DO make a DIFerence by RIDing the BUS.

Hmm, okay.  But as I said, a bit whining with the emphasis on “do”.

I make a DIFerence by RIDing the BUS.

The meter here has to fall on the first syllable instead, but then swoops into the same meter for the rest of the phrase.  And that’s not a bad thing, since it then stresses personal responsibility.

So meter is out as a reason to use this wording.  Anything else?


Oh lord, no.

“I do.”

Is this a subliminal gay marriage thing, maybe?   By putting those words — which hold a lot of symbolic power in our culture — in front of thousands of people every day, are we keeping the concept of marriage in the front of everyone’s subconscious?  And since marriage really only gets coverage in light of same-sex civil marriage these days, is reminding people that it exists a subtle way of pushing for tolerance?

Or am I a conspiracy theorist today?

[Thanks to the Seattle Transit Blog for the image.]

[Thanks to William Shakespeare for the entry title reference.]

Movie Review: Mamma Mia!

Please don’t make Pierce Brosnan sing in a movie ever again.  Ever.

Note: I have not seen the stage version of this, so I can’t comment on how well or poorly the screenplay meshes with the original.  But I have my suspicions that a few things got dropped in the movie.

Beyond that, make no mistake, Mamma Mia! is not a “serious” movie. It is camp.  And when it remembers that it’s okay to be campy, that’s where the film excels, and sells itself to the audience, making us smile, giggle and twitter, and even sing along.  (It’s ABBA music. You’re supposed to sing along!)

When the movie pushes in a bit of melodrama — Sophie and Sky’s tiny spat, for example — it stutters and stumbles.  (Or anytime Brosnan sings.)  But as soon as the next whoop-it-up chorus-boys-and-girls dance number comes along, all is well again.

The casting, or more the use of the casting, is spotty.  The two adult women sidekicks rip into the film with abandon, chewing the scenery and carrying the film forward.  Meryl Streep always feels reined in by uncertainty — should she just say “fuck it” and embrace the cheese, or should she hold back?  This is informed by the character she is playing, perhaps, but she never feels like she is inhabiting a movie built around ABBA songs.  The girl playing Sophie is a wide-eyed cipher; her motives and dreams are vaguely mentioned throughout the movie, but she never really projects them.  Sky is cute but otherwise empty.  All three adult male cast members seem more stunned by the film than anything else; again, while that’s part of the characters, it comes across to the viewer as mediocre acting (or poor directing).

Thank goodness for one of the men’s implied gay romance.  The confession exchange on the boat gave more depth to the two characters talking than the entire rest of the film, and a genuine clever crossed-signals dialogue bit.

Also annoying was the insistence on groups of three — three adult women, three adult men, Sophie and her two girlfriends.  Sophie’s gal pals are so prominent in the first 10 minutes that their near absence from the rest of the film stands out strongly.  And where was the threesome (ahem) with Sky as the pivot point, to keep that balance?  Oh, there, we saw Sky, the black bartender, and one other guy for about 3 seconds in one scene, so that must have been that triad.  (Story logic says that the unnamed third guy there should also be the gay fling attached to one of the adult men, but I don’t think it was the same actor.)

In the end, you have two choices with this film: sit outside it and analyze it and find it wanting, or inhabit the film’s world and burst out into song, dance, and sequins as needed.  The choice is easy, the hard part is dealing with Pierce Brosnan’s singing voice.

Movie Review: Kung Fu Panda

The nearest theater to my house is the Columbia City Cinema, only about 1/4 mile away.  Only a couple years old, they’ve just added a 100-seat second screen to their 200-seat upstairs offering.  I’ve rediscovered the pleasure of the weekend matinee — just $6 before 4:00 — and I’ve gone 3 of the past 4 weekends.  (Having two screens makes that easier: there’s always something new for me to see, since they typically seem to swap out one film each week.)

(They also have single-person bags of popcorn for the reasonable price of just $2!  Yay!  And coming soon are the new Mummy film, maybe the new animated Star Wars, and they are trying to get second-run shots of Iron Man and Mamma Mia!  Double yay!)

In the past few weeks, I saw WALL-E (mini-review: “Cute, but not all that inspiring.  Went downhill in the pleasure arena once they left Earth, although there wouldn’t have been much story otherwise.”) and The Dark Knight (mini-review: “Heath Ledger was fantastic, the bat-cowl still makes Christian Bale look like a doofus, and I miss the decor from the previous film, where Gotham had some character to it rather than being just another name for Chicago.   Too many ridiculous car explosion chase scenes, too.”), and this Sunday, I went to see the new Jack Black-voiced computer animated film, Kung Fu Panda.

This review is going to sound like a bit of a back-handed compliment.   My apology for that, but it cannot be helped, since I only have things to say about the places the film didn’t let me down…

About all I can really say about Kung Fu Panda is that it wasn’t as bad as I feared, on almost every level.   And when you expect systemic mediocrity but go above that, you end up with something that’s at least light and enjoyable.

There is nothing particularly deep and enlightening about this film (but I didn’t expect there to be). It is all set in a generic, pseudo-mystical valley in semi-ancient China — as these things often are — but not one with anything particularly recognizable as “true” legends, just the typical made-for-the-movies type.   (Compare to Mulan, which was based on real people and had more solidity and coherence to its setting.)   In particular, though, while they make abundant use of the Yangtze’s gorge rock formations, there’s no visit to either the Great Wall or the Imperial City, which are stock China references.

The movie trips lightly by most of the details of kung fu (and various other martial arts), making no mention of “chi” or “shaolin”, and it makes little use of stereotypical guttural “huuuuu-CHA” sound effects and only some tiny bits of “mystical energy” effects.   There’s lots of “wire work” effects, but little of it out of the realm of what gets seen in live-action Hong Kong films — and some parts of the rope bridge sequence are clever enough to forgive even those excesses.

I was worried that Jack Black comedy stylings would overwhelm the film or make his Po character stick out too much, but I was pleased to have that not be the case.   Likewise with several of the other “name” actors doing voice work; not having paid attention to who was whom going in, I didn’t get broken out of the film by Angelina Jolie or Jackie Chan or Lucy Liu.   I was also pleased to see several Asian actor names in the voice credits.

Sometimes animated fare decides that it has to push a message alongside and even on top of the story.   There’s a little bit of messaging here — everyone has his own strengths, and use your opponent’s biggest weakness against him — but they were pretty much stated once and then silently played on later.   (Okay, except for “There are no accidents.”   That one was hammered in a few times, and even the characters meta-commented on that.)

In the end, I smiled in a few places, and the kids in the audience (there were about a dozen, half the crowd) seemed tickled by parts of the film.  So, good enough for a matinee.

Phone Call of the Day

A few minutes ago, I was in the middle of a 2-person meeting at work, when the office phone rang, with no caller ID identified (which just means it came from an external location, I think).  Excusing myself, I answered the phone, to hear an automated voice.   (“Oy,” I thought.  “The telemarketers have tracked me to work!”)

No, it was a collect call from King County Jail!  They had a recording of the person’s name (someone male), garbled and unintelligible so I had no idea what the name was (although maybe if I knew the guy’s voice and name, I could have understood what was said), and then a request for me to accept the phone charges or not.

Two user experience issues with this:

• No idea what the cost of accepting the call was
  
• No way to replay the person’s name if I didn't catch it the first time around (and since I was a bit shocked to get a call from the Jail, I wasn’t listening all that closely)

So I looked at the phone for a couple minutes, and hung up.   Then quickly called about the only person I could think of outside of work who would have and would call my work number, just to be sure he wasn’t in Jail.   (He wasn’t.)

Hope it was (a) a wrong number rather than someone I know who was depending on me, and (b) the inmate isn’t limited to the stereotyped single attempt to call someone and I blew it for him.   There hasn’t been a second call, so who knows…?

Butch Fun Cars III?

Kymco People S 125.   2007.   Royal Blue.
Deposit this afternoon, balance and pick up next Saturday.

More later…

(Here’s the reference for the entry title.)

What Were They Thinking?: Dr. Laura Masturbates While Sitting on the End of a Car

On Monday morning, driving to work, I scanned past the conservative talk radio station KVI, which recently decided to pull off the morning talk show “The Commentators” in favor of Dr. Laura.

We love her.

The bumper (“end of a car”) music was this New Wave classic:

“I Touch Myself”, by the Divinyls

(Actually, it may have been a more recent cover, since the voice sounded higher than in this recording.   Same difference.)

Just wrap your head around that for a moment: Dr. Laura, and a song about jilling off.

Letter of Comment: “Trapped in the Closet”

This letter was sent to the Seattle Weekly, in response to this February 27, 2008 article (titled “Seattle, You Love Your Mainstream Country Music” inside the issue, but “Trapped in the Closet” on the cover).  It was published in the March 19, 2008 edition, but the online  version only carries a portion of the letters.  (Which makes no sense: online is where you can easily print them all.)  The letter was edited slightly (which is fine); original content removed is [blue in brackets].  Special thanks to Spencer for letting me know the letter was published.

Brian Barr and the Weekly’s editor must be wearing their Wranglers a size too tight.   How else do you cover feature a story with a blurb like “Trapped in the Closet” without making any mention of the gay and lesbian side of things?

GLBTQ country-western dancing and music is alive and kicking [(up its heels)] in the Seattle area.   The non-profit, volunteer-run Rain Country Dance Association currently produces dance nights at the Cuff Complex on Capitol Hill every Friday night and alternate Wednesdays, providing both dance instruction and all your favorite country-western dance music.   Rain Country is also in an expansion mode this month: we are adding a classic country music night at the Seattle Eagle, and Monday lessons and dancing at Swank in Kent.   (Kudos to the Weekly for your recent story on gay life in Kent!)   We also produce a monthly non-bar dance night at a Seattle church.

[Rain Country’s biggest news, of course, is the upcoming Emerald City Hoedown on April 25-27, with a whole weekend of dancing and dance workshops, including guest instructors from San Francisco.]

And [since someone will be thinking the question,] no, you don’t have to show your “gay card” at any of our dances.   Everyone is welcome.   [We don’t care who you sleep with, so long as you like to dance!   Check us out online at www.raincountrydance.org.]

-- Jim Drew
    [President, Rain Country]