Buying the New Yorker - Back Cover

We end our adventure with a vodka ad. Finlandia Vodka, you will be amazed to learn, is from Finland. It is made from what they call "glacial spring water," which I thought was odd because, to my mind, it can only be from one or another.

Here's the scoop: The spring is under the glacier, so the glacier filters the spring water. In fact, it is so freaking pure that if you were try to filter it, you would actually make it less pure. They say.

The website offers tons of suggestions for things you can to with this frighteningly pure vodka: Make a vodka martini. Pour it on an ice sculpture. Show it to your pet elk.

Or just have a glass straight up and celebrate the end of this magnificent thought experiment.

Finlandia Vodka (750ml) - $48.00

Final total - $85,085.43

Buying the New Yorker - Interior Back Cover

The home stretch - and we reach a sort of quandary. This is one of those VISA ads where they show you something that you can buy with your credit card, and then follow it with something else that is "priceless." "Priceless" is sure going to muck the total, so I'll just go with the thing that they have listed. Much easier that way. Thus:

Laid back dinner on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo - $359.00

Taking the easy way out - priceless.

On the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo you will find the "New York Grill," which is indeed what is pictured in the ad.

One of the city's foremost see-and-be-seen venues, this is where Tokyoites gather for prime steaks, fresh buffalo burrata with Kochi tomatoes and grilled specialties from the sea, accompanied by vintages from a list composed entirely of American wines. Specialities include the Chef's daily Kobe beef selection and Wisconsin duck roasted to perfection from the rotisserie.

Not my idea of "laid back," but then dropping more than three and a half Franklins on a dinner for two isn't my idea of "laid back" either.

Running total - $85,037.43<

Buying the New Yorker - Page 86

You can get a personalized New Yorker desk diary from the Cartoon Bank. I'll bet it has some cartoons in it.

New Yorker desk diary - $19.95 (clearance)

I took a look ahead. This is the last Monk ad. Holy cow, I'll miss them.

Internet quiz - free

The ad offers "Undiscovered Italy." Of course it was discovered. It's full of Italians. Go rent a villa and see for yourself.

Lo Spumante Dolce, Cereseto Monferrato, Alessandria - $1,820.00

Once you have discovered Italy, you can go on a walking tour there. I love it when these ads fall together.

Amalfi Coast Walking Trip - $2,998.00 pp dbl. occ.

Running total - $84,678.43

Buying the New Yorker - Page 85

The Antigua ad. It's Pink this time.

Single Gauguin Cottage with Private Splash Pool - $675.00

The Monk ad. It's still blue.

Internet quiz - free

Apparently Ben Franklin once said "Ileltt tsorske lelf rgate kaso." But when he said it it wasn't an anagram or something. The ad wants you to go here to solve the puzzle, so I was thinking, "cool, a puzzle page." It's a trap. They just want you to go to Philadelphia. They got a lot, a lot of culture.

Printer's Pickle Martini from McGillin's Olde Ale House - $5.00

You can win a Wimco Villa vacation by going here. They don't even have to trick you with clever anagrams. An anagram for "Wimco Villa" is "Mall Cow VII."

Caribbean Villa, one week - $4,000.00

Running total - $79,840.48

Oh, Ben said "Little strokes fell great oaks."

The Comic Strip, Part 22 - It seemed the taste was not so sweet

"The Yob" - March 12, 1988

I love reading travel guidebooks. One of the thing that I enjoy is the little moments where in the middle of packs of dry information, you get a hint of what sort of trip the author had, and what sort of prism the book was written through. One travel guide for Britain offered advice that went roughly like this: "If, when you are in an Indian restaurant, a group of young men enter and order a large amount of food, particularly chicken vindaloo, it is best for you to pay your bill and leave as fast as you can." (The same book advised men to never wear striped ties, particularly to pubs, as doing so can lead to a fistfight. I've often worried about the gentleman who wrote the book and exactly what happened on his "getting beat up tour of the greater British Isles." I regret to mention that I have lost track of the book.)

A few years after I came across the guidebook, we were at an Indian restaurant somewhere in England and in walk three guys, drunk as all get out. The one who was most capable of speech starts ordering and must have racked up ten entrees plus all the appetizers and breads everything else he could think of. And lager. When the loads of food started showing up, some of it was eaten, some of it was sent back. And more lager was ordered. As we were gathering up our coats, I heard the one who did all the ordering say, "do you have any money? I don't have any money."

I felt like a birdwatcher. I had seen my first yob. One more for the life list.

So we come to another bit of yob-spotting. To sum up, this episode is a spoof of The Fly, the twist being that instead of being about a scientist getting his DNA blended with a fly, it's an artsy music video director getting his DNA blended with a "yob."


I believe that the term of art is "high concept."

UB40 pops up for an extended cameo. Pity there's no reason for it. I would suspect that in the hands of lesser talent, the concept driving this episode would amount to perhaps a half-decent two minute sketch, or more likely a tedious five minute one. The Yob manages to go for about 55 minutes, and only seems like about ten to fifteen minutes too long.

I believe that the term of art is "faint praise."

Buying the New Yorker - Page 83

Antigua must be the perfect vacation spot for detectives with OCD, as here is the same ad as the one on page 81. Of course the color of the beach blanket is different, and they are advertising a different hotel. So that's some hope.

One night at the Occidental Grand Pineapple Beach, (Single Standard room) - $380.00

Speak of the devil! It's Monk! Perhaps you might be interested in a trip to Antigua.

Internet quiz - free

What makes a Perfect Reading Lamp? It's in the swiveling. This lamp goes up and down and side to side. The bronze finish can't hurt either.

Ledger Floor Lamp - $129.00

Half of the ad for Hebrew College is in Hebrew. I can't read Hebrew. Luckily, they are offering Hebrew lessons. And not a moment too soon.

Hebrew Language Course - $945 (course not for credit - 20 percent discount for seniors 65 and older)

Running total - $75,160.48

The theme to your own hidden door

One of my habits when surfing around is to open separate windows when something interests me, and keep it open until I have to deal with it. Another thing that I tend to do is have the sound off, so not to interfere with the television. This leads to the occasional game of "Which website is that music coming out of?" whenever I want to listen to something coming out of my computer.

This is a site for a business that you can hire to install hidden passageways, compartments and so forth (there is even a chair that you can pull the seat cushion off of to reveal a circular slide into the basement.)


They also have haunting music playing in the background to their site. I really don't know why.

Brinks Truck

Buying the New Yorker - Page 82

The name in the ad is "THOS. MOSER." The web address in the ad is "www.thosmoser.com." When you go there, the web address resolves into "www.thomasmoser.com," but the web page says that the company is called "Thos. Moser." You know, this is the sort of silly rubbish that I could spend my life obsessing over from the comfort of my new rocking chair.

New Gloucester Rocker - $1,615.00

Alpine Travel Inc. has been run by a gentleman named Fred Jacobson since 1973. Mr. Jacobson seems like the sort of guy who is going to just go on these trips no matter what, and if you want to pay him to come along, well, that's just gravy. I love knowing that folks like him are walking the Earth.

Hiking trip to Soglio - $3,000.00

Get ready for the upcoming Olympics by snapping up some US Olympic Team Jewelry. I've been paying so little attention to the Olympics that I can't even say something snarky. Sorry.

Three Medal Necklace - $35.00

Yesterday, Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers stepped down. Want to find out more and/or vent your spleen about it? Get thee to Inside Higher Ed. You can apply for a teaching position as well.

Log in - it's free

Stone Soup is one of those magazines where all of the content is written by the children who subscribe to it. Sort of a pyramid scheme.

One year subscription - $34.00

Running total (hey look, no Monk ad) - $73,706.48

Buying the New Yorker - Page 81

When you go to investigate the ad for a vacation in Antigua, one of the features on the page is the current weather. For the record, as I write this the current weather in Antigua is: Mostly clear, Breeze: 14 MPH, 75 F/24 C, Humidity: 73%. Here where I am, it's 35 F and will probably have dropped below freezing round about the time I have to walk the dog. Thank you for rubbing my nose in it, Antigua.

One night's stay at the St. James Club, Antigua (single room, "European Plan") - $350.00

It's the Monk ad again. You know the drill.

Internet quiz - free

One of the great difficulties that the psychiatric profession faces is the slow process of removing the social stigma of mental illness from the general population. Personally, I might guess that a way to do this is not by advertising "the nation's top psychiatric hospital" like it was a spa vacation, and then juxtaposing the ad with one for Antigua and another for the TV show with the amusing obsessive-compulsive. But then what do I know?

The cost of a stay is not listed on the website, but you can give them a tax-deductible gift or perhaps name them in your will.

Charitable donation - $10.00

I haven't been able to find a site for a company called "Events around the World," but they are offering special "art cruises" on a river boat that travels around Europe looking at art.

I'll take a whack and presume that their prices are comparable to French Country Waterways, Ltd. If I'm way off, I'm sure I'll hear about it.

Art Cruise in Holland - $4,000.00

Running total - 69,022.48

but what of earth?

So what sort of fully-animated features are the Chinese working on?

One example is The Mousetronauts: an anime-styled cartoon based on the mice that will be sent into space as experiments into simulate Mars-style gravity.


Astonishingly, the actual experiments are being done by a US-Australian consortium. But the Chinese are doing the animated spin-off.

Go Mousetronauts! Go!

The other cartoon war

According to Variety, China has banned the import of films and television shows that feature a mixture of live action and animation, on the grounds that they are unfair competition for Chinese product, as Chinese film/tv programming is either one or the other. If I understand it right.

This will not affect famed semi-animated pig film Babe, as it was already banned in China for other reasons:

Chinese regulatory authorities are notoriously skittish regarding broadcast and film themes that include the supernatural or fantasy, including talking animals. "Babe" was banned on the basis that animals can't talk and some viewers would be confused.

Buying the New Yorker - Page 80

The Paul Taylor Dance Company is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. We learn this because Time Warner is sponsoring the inclusion of their premiere as a listing in "on the town." "on the town" is a special service from New Yorker advertisers to sponsor event listings in the way back pages of The New Yorker so that you, the New Yorker reader, can be "the first to hear" about them. I presume that the actual event listings in the front of the magazine is where hoi polloi would go to find out about something like this. It's A-list folks like me who pay attention to the clever exclusive listings hidden back here amongst the book reviews.

One ticket to the Paul Taylor Dance Company's Opening-Night Gala (City Center, February 28, 2006) - $650.00

To raise interest in Monk, a detective with OCD, you can go take a quiz to see if you have OCD as well. --- Do you see what they're up to? They are repeating the ad over and over, to get your attention. Of course, I'm the one who is totaling up all of the ads in a magazine, so who am I to crack wise?

Internet quiz - free

When this issue was coming out, Valentine's day was still a few weeks in the future. Pick up some monogrammed bling for your schmoopy at John Christian Designers & Craftsman

Valentine's Sculpted Heart - $450.00

Looking to rent a castle for a week? As You Like It Rentals claims to have them. I find lots of converted farmhouses in the countryside, apartments in London and Paris, and a spiffy looking manor house in Scotland.

Scottish manor house, one week's rental - $3,400 (approximate - "The cost of any individual property may vary based on time of year and currency exchange rates.")

Running total - $64,662.48

Buying the New Yorker - Page 79

Marilynne Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Gilead. The only SIP is "old sermons," which seems to sum the book up. One of the customer reviews says "I'm so surprised this puliser prize winner isn't recieving more attention." Always glad to help.

Gilead (paperback) - $11.20

Running total - $60,162.48

Buying the New Yorker - Page 78

To raise interest in Monk, a detective with OCD, you can go take a quiz to see if you have OCD as well. I took the test, and found... Hang on. This is getting a little familiar.

Internet quiz - free

French Country Waterways, Ltd. is a classy classy outfit. The ad is minimalist to the point of saying almost nothing. The ad text in its entirety reads "Irresistible... Luxury Barge Cruises" followed by an address (a PO box in Duxbury, MA) and two phone numbers (a local and a toll-free). This is set off by a little line-drawing of a pair of canoodling swans. So I expected that these folks were soooo old-school that they didn't even have a website. Wrong. It's a very nice website packed with pictures and floorplans and maps and menus.

Barge trip through the canals of France - $4,000.00 (median price for one person, based on double occupancy)

TheaterMania is a clearinghouse for theater tickets, as well as reviews, news and goofy quizzes (the one currently on the page asks to choose a hypothetical Friends star/stage role as your favorite - when the page loaded the first thing I saw was the phrase "Matt LeBlanc in Hamlet." They shouldn't tempt fate like that.)

One ticket to the Broadway production of Chicago - $59.75

Scott Jordan Furniture's website includes a page of "thoughts." Here's one:

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

You can do this in your comfy new sleigh bed.

Queen size high foot sleigh bed - $3,115.00

Oh no! We broke Grandma's favorite Hummel figurine! That's what happens when you play football in the house. Better go to Replacements, Ltd. for another one.

Hummel figurine, "Accordion Boy" - $229.95

Running total - $60,151.28

cat piano

Athanasius Kircher (1601?-1680) detailed his invention for a piano using cats whose cries are at different pitches in his Musurgia Universalis.

Buying the New Yorker - Page 75

I was starting to guess that the final total for this project would be somewhere in the low five figures. Hah. Swann Galleries is auctioning off a Rembrandt. Or was - the auction date was January 25th, but good news for you, internet visitor: It didn't sell! You still have a chance!

Rembrandt, "The Windmill" etching, 1641 - $40,000 (average auction estimate)

To raise interest in Monk, a detective with OCD, you can go take a quiz to see if you have OCD as well. I took the test, and found myself to be "a little Monk-ish." Good on me.

Internet quiz - free

Kiawah Island is off the coast of South Carolina. It is apparently "vibrant" and possesses "a Rousseau-like natural charm." When I went to the "calendar of events" I found a blank space (but there was a link to a calendar for nearby Charleston) so that's possibly not a good sign. But there's opportunity to play both golf and tennis. So really how can you lose?

One bedroom rental for one night (with lagoon views) - $429.28

Throwing Kiawah Island into sharp relief is this opportunity to canoe in the Canadian Arctic:

Explore the Thelon River and other pristine, wild, tundra rivers hundreds of miles from the nearest road or community. Teeming wildlife including muskoxen, white wolves (our specialty), moose, grizzlies and caribou herds that stretch to the horizons. Warm, dry, sun-drenched summers; gin-clear rivers; green tundra hills blanketed with tiny wildflowers; huge spruce-studded eskers; some of the best sand beaches on the planet; birds everywhere; virgin fishing.

I'll bet there's no golf or tennis.

11 day canoe trip not including airfare - $2,134.00

Running total - $52,746.58

Buying the New Yorker - Page 74

We now enter the home stretch - the back pages, where the little ads accumulate.

The Benjamin Hotel is offering a get away from your children deal. Know what I mean, know what I mean, say no more.

One night in the Benjamin - $249.00

To raise interest in Monk, a detective with OCD, you can go take a quiz to see if you have OCD as well. I took the test, and found myself to be "a little Monk-ish." Good on me.

Internet quiz - free

The Green Mountain at Fox Run looks like a lovely place. I'd go there, particularly if I were a woman looking to loose some weight, which is what it's for.

One weeks stay - $2,775.00

I am not an overweight woman or a detective with OCD. I am afflicted with particularly wide feet, and have used the services of Hitchcock Shoes. Generally, I just buy shoes that are too big for me. We all have our crosses to bear.

New Balance 925 SL-2, size 11, EEEE - $99.95

Running total $10,183.30

Buying the New Yorker - Page 43

The thesis of Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson lies in the connection between animal behavior and human autism. I can buy that. Lets go to the Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):

nonautistic people, predatory killing, black hat horse, predatory chasing, high sociality, prey chase drive, laser mouse, seizure alert dogs, rage circuits, locomotor play, curiously afraid, assertive aggression, subordinate dog, squeeze machine, extreme perception, inattentional blindness, savant talents, smell system, dominant dog, squeeze chute, killing bite, scared family, slow fear, intermale aggression, [and] your frontal lobes.

This book is like a big flaming hunk of punk rock.

Animals in Translation : Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (Paperback) - $10.20

Running total - $7,059.35

Buying the New Yorker - Page 39

Two more books from Random House. They have the "Reader's Circle" seal on the outside, which means "there's a great book club read on the inside." The first is Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, a novel about a teenager from South Bend, Indiana who is sent to a prestigious prep school in Boston. Amazon has a new feature that gives you "Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs)." The SIPs for Prep are "dorm head, surprise holiday, senior prefects, chapel talk, bank boys, and table wipes."

The second book is A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell. This seems to be a historical intrigue/adventure novel set during World War II. There are no SIPs for this book, but there is a "text stats" page that informs us that, among other things, this book contains 14,042 Words per Dollar. I like how Amazon has gone completely insane.

Two paperback books - $20.63

Running total - $7,049.15

Buying the New Yorker - Page 37

Another goodie from NPR. Apparently Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva are known in some corners of public radio as "The Kitchen Sisters," and this is their book, Hidden Kitchens. My guess is that they started broadcasting before they were married and kept the title for continuities sake. This book would then be about them traveling around looking for members of their extended family, who are obviously very shy and won't come out of the basement.

Not really, it's about cooking.

Hidden Kitchens : Stories, Recipes, and More from NPR's The Kitchen Sisters (Hardcover) - $18.15

Running total - $7,028.52

Buying the New Yorker - Page 36

I've already linked to The New Yorker's website, but I might as well do it again. "This week's web exclusive" is Roger Angell discussing "cemeteries and the art of personal history." Strangely, the article that begins on page 38 is also Roger Angell discussing "cemeteries and the art of personal history." Either it is some sort of elaboration, or The New Yorker's printed right hand and on-line left hand ought to get together for a little planning session. Perhaps start one of those big walls covered with 3x5 cards. I love those.

Issue of the New Yorker containing Roger Angell article: $3.99

I'm not adding it to the total, because we've already bought it.

Running total holding steady at - $7,010.37

Buying the New Yorker - Page 33

Ok. I've been aggravated with the headphones on my MP3CD player, and have been on the market for a new one. I've been looking to drop about $10 on a new pair, but I've been holding out for a pair that looks comfortable. So here's a nice pair of upholstered cans from Bose, with some sort of noise canceling system. The price isn't in the ad here on page 33, but in my mind I'm thinking "Oh, those'll be about $75."

"Har. Har." the internet says to me.

Noise canceling headphones - $299.00

Running total - $7,010.37

Buying the New Yorker - Page 30

Now you can be like Fortune 500 executives and US State Department diplomats by learning a language via your laptop through the Rosetta Stone language system. The process uses what they call "dynamic immersion" which is an interactive multimedia deal using "the voices of native speakers."

One of the languages offered is Latin.

Level 1 & 2 value set (Latin) - $296.10 (you get a 10% discount by using the New Yorker secret code.)

Running total - $6,711.37

Buying the New Yorker - Page 24

This one is sort of loaded.

The Roundabout Theatre Company in New York is putting on a production of The Threepenny Opera. The production is sponsored by Visa who is a sponsor of The Tony Awards. Unless the deal is that Visa sponsors The Tony Awards, who are presenting The Threepenny Opera in conjunction with The Roundabout Theatre Company in New York.

Or some such.

Anywho, it's a new translation by Wallace Shawn, which is quite cool. And the cast includes Alan Cumming, Cyndi Lauper and Nellie McKay. Which means, that at the very least, it must have been fun at the readthrough and dinner afterwards. It also stars Jim Dale, whose name was familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place why. He's the guy who reads the American editions of the Harry Potter audiobooks, and as such has become sort of the corporate voice of the Potter Empire.

One ticket to Threepenny (Orchestra seat including "a $1.25 Theatre Restoration charge.") - $111.25

Running total - $6,415.27

Buying the New Yorker - Page 21

Two ads on this page.

The first is for a New Orleans themed benefit album, to help raise money for Habitat for Humanity. You can buy it from Borders. Hurricane Katrina was a horrible tragedy, and I feel awful making light of it, but I can't help wondering if there would be the same number of tribute albums if New Orleans was famous for something like mediocre late-seventies prog-rock instead of jazz. "To aid the hurricane victims, Jon Anderson and a group of diverse celebrities will be recreating the "Olias Of Sunhillow" album live at Red Rocks."

Our New Orleans - $12.99

The second is for a package tour to India via Singapore Air. The ad copy claims that the Taj Mahal at dawn is more inspiring than a latte. Way to stick your neck out.

Package Tour - $1,890.00

Running total - $6,304.02

Buying the New Yorker - Page 13

Now a TV ad. The History Channel is showing Lincoln, and gives us two spiffy taglines:

1. He fought two wars. One was in his head.
2. The Real Abe. Honest.

In other words: "He was some combination of nuts and gay. Tune in and find out. It's three hours long."

As I am using a month-old magazine, the premiere was last month, but I see that it will be shown again in March, and you can buy the DVD.

Lincoln DVD - $24.95

Running total - $4,401.03

Buying the New Yorker - Page 10 and 11

A two page spread for the Citi Simplicity credit card. The theme of the ad is a boardgame filled with good or bad things about credit cards (the good things are things you get with your Citi Simplicity card, presumably). At the end of the game, you reach "Credit Card Nirvana," which is where 19.5% of you goes when you die.

Citi Simplicity credit card - It's free, I tell you Free! Trust me! I mean it. Until the terms change.

Running total - $4,376.08

Buying the New Yorker - Page 9

Another book, this time the paperback release of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. We are given a website for the publisher, or the publisher's main company. The book is being put out by Plume. Plume is a member of the Penguin Group which itself is a Pearson Company. The ad gives you the address for The Penguin Group, when you go there, you first specify your country and then search for this particular book. Simple, no?

When I was in college, a dorm mate and I had a long discussion about his ambition to become a "corporate ninja." His plan was to get a Business degree while also working on his fighting skill as ninjas were highly prized in the modern business world.

"So you're telling me that say, Coca-cola has a squad of ninjas that they send into combat against the Pepsi-co ninjas?" I asked.

"Yes." He replied.

I believe he was expelled after one too many attempts at scaling the side of a building. This book sounds right up his alley.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (paperback edition) - $15.00

Running total - $4,376.08

Buying the New Yorker - Page 8

This time, it's a book - The Sisters Mortland by Sally Beauman. If you click the link, you will go to her biographical page, on her husband's (actor Alan Howard) website. The first thing that I noticed is that there is no mention of a book called The Sisters Mortland. This is because its title was changed for American release from The Landscape of Love. I guess.

I've not read this, and from the description, am not entirely sure that I want to.

The Sisters Mortland by Sally Beauman - $16.47 (Hardcover via Amazon)

Running total - $4,361.08

Update: It seems that Beauman's website has been updated. No doubt about it - The Sisters Mortland and The Landscape of Love are the same book. And as a reward to the commenter who pointed this out to me and was kind enough to recommend the book (with admitted bias, no less - note where the link goes). I have just logged onto Amazon and bought it.

I shall read the book!

N.B. If the guy auctioning the Rembrandt comes calling, I probably won't be as accommodating.

Buying the New Yorker - Page 7

Well, here we go. Rolex. Pictured is the Cellini Danaos model.

Two interesting things about the site:

1. When it loads, the first thing that pops up is a little box that says that you cannot purchase a Rolex via the internet.
2. They are sponsoring an online exhibit called "Ashes and Snow." If you're into flash.
   

Rolex Cellini Danaos men's watch (over the internet, which is wrong. Terribly wrong.) - $4,000 average.

Running total - $4,344.61

Buying the New Yorker - Page 6

Online books (and CD's and occasionally videos and so forth) seller Daedalus, is selling CD's from the "I Heard it on NPR" series. I have one or two of these CD's. It's hard to be purposefully eclectic without looking like a snot, so it's good to have the randomness of "this was played in the background on some NPR show" as a sort of a fake crutch.

I heard it on NPR--One World Many Voices - $9.95 (not including shipping)

Running Total - $344.61

Buying the New Yorker - Page 4 and 5

It's not the old AT&T, it's the new one! AT&T is merging with SBC, which if memory serves split off of them a while ago. They are going to make the world (particularly yours, they specify). I've kept the link as the one printed in the ad. When I logged on it resolved to an att.com address, then bounced to an sbc.com address, and finally landed on a different att.com address. That's a sure sign that the merger is going without a hitch.

Deep down they just want to reassure stockholders.

One share of AT&T stock (T) as of closing yesterday - $28.28

Running total - $334.66

Buying the New Yorker - Page 2 and 3

Samsung wants us to know that they are not just making their business better, or the world better, but life itself. And they are supporting The Olympics.

And they sure have a cool looking cellphone that you can watch The Olympics on.

Samsung SGH-D500 (Black) - $300 on average

Running total - $306.38

Buying the New Yorker - IFC and page 1

A two page Chevron ad, specifically their Will You Join Us campaign, which seems to want to alert consumers to their over-consumption of gas.

When you open the site a little ticker starts up showing the amount of gasoline consumed during the span of your visit, and you have the opportunity to register and join in the discussion.

I haven't done this.

A gallon of gas in my area on average - $2.39

Running total - $6.38

Buying the New Yorker - Front Cover

In a moment of curiosity, I wondered what it might cost to purchase everything advertised in an issue of The New Yorker. I am using the issue dated Jan 16, 2006, should you want to follow along.

I suppose we should start with the cover, as it is can be construed as an advertisement for the magazine.

The price on the cover: $3.99

Running total: $3.99

and now we meet in an abandoned studio

A little while ago, Tom Baker recorded just about every word in the dictionary so he could be the voice of text messages.

I think everyone saw this coming..

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain

Jeremy Scott's new fall line is based on junk food imagery. Some of it is actually rather clever, but I am particularly struck by the look on the model's face in this shot:


Every teenager who ever had to dress up like a fast food mascot - this is for you.

Instant Democracy

Let us suppose that, in the interests of the security of your nation, you have decided that an effective strategy to encourage peaceful co-existence is to help gently shove along the spread of democracy across the world.

One of the difficulties that you will encounter is that it is hard to create democracy in areas lacking in infrastructure. But now, many of those difficulties can be overcome thanks to the Pneumatic Parliament.


A compact, inflatable parliament structure can be dropped into any area previously lacking in a representative government. After less than two hours assembly, your oppressed masses can now send up to 160 of their chosen compatriots to caucus the day (and night) away.

I'm sure this wasn't done on purpose

The Olsen Twins' new ad campaign:



Another pair of twins:

Behind the scenes at the Olympics

A broadcast engineer who is going by the handle HDEngineer is blogging from behind the scenes of the High Definition broadcast from the Winter Games in Italy.

He (like the Olympics) has only been going a couple of days, and I hope that this blog has a shelf-life that goes a bit beyond the end of the month. Fascinating stuff.

You give what you can then you take it away, save it for St. Valentine

The Dumpster is a piece of web-based art that uses blog entries written by teenagers who have just been dumped as statistical data points.

On a grey Monday morning, I have my internet memes to help me out

The London Underground Map has been mashed-up yet again, this time with anagrams:


The oddly fascinating photographs of Erwin Wurm:


The Post-It Madrid project, which is self-explanatory:

The Comic Strip, Part 21 - They say that anyone who makes the river run is good to know

"Mr Jolly Lives Next Door" - March 5, 1988

Hey look! It's Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson as comedy grotesques! They get into compromising situations that they are too naifish to comprehend! They mug theatrically! They inflict cartoon violence upon each other! How often do we get a chance to see this?!?!?

I shouldn't complain. I really shouldn't. They are masters of this sort of comedy, it is stuff that they enjoy making, and if the world has another hour of it in it, then the world is better for it. It's sort of like having the greatest chef in town opening a restaurant that only serves one dish - it's great to have it, but you know that they are capable of so much more.

This episode has the heaviest reliance so far on what has come to be known as the "stunt cast," particularly somebody named Nicholas Parsons. He appears as himself, and judging from his demeanor seems to be British equivalent of Regis Philbin. The only thing that I know about Nicholas Parsons is that he turned up in a Doctor Who episode once. His official website bestows him with the title of "King of the Quiz and Game Shows," which is something that I can't imagine too many people would want to wrestle him to the ground over. He also seems to be spending an awful lot of time "playing against type," which leads me to the question: If most of what you do is play against type, isn't that what your type has now become?

The other guest star in this episode is Peter Cook. His character spends most of the episode on the other side of a translucent glass wall. Which sort of bums me out.

As a side note, I am now officially halfway done, at least by my original estimation. This episode marks the midpoint of the 39 episodes in the box, as well as the end of the fourth of the eight DVDs. (The non-inclusion of Eat the Rich is balanced in the second half as well.) I notice as well that after the recent Christmas episode there are now rumors of more episodes on the horizon. Life goes on.

Just in time to help celebrate my six month anniversary

Look out! Here comes the Japanese Live-action Spiderman!


And as a bonus, a fascinating moment of subtitle zen:

It feels like it almost is spring

Ken and Barbie are back together.

In February 2004, as every 5-year-old knows, Ken and Barbie called it quits. According to Mattel, which says it relies on customer feedback on its Web site to shape the Barbie-Ken narrative, Barbie was wooed away by an Australian surfer named Blaine.

Ken, heartbroken, traveled the world in search of himself, making stops in Europe and the Middle East, dabbling in Buddhism and Catholicism, teaching himself to cook and slowly weaning himself off a beach bum life.

And right before Valentine's Day! What a coincidence!

Unlikely headline of the year

"Revenge of the Sith Oscar Controversy"

The Comic Strip, Part 20 - Who knows where we will go at the end of this rainbow.

"More Bad News" - February 27th 1988

One of the few concert bootleg recordings that I have been on the lookout for in the past few years is David Bowie's appearance at the 2004 Norwegian Wood Festival in Oslo. As I understand it, the performance was interrupted when a lollipop was thrown from the crowd, hitting Bowie in the eye. Bowie then (again, as I understand it) halted the music to give a lecture about how it is rude to throw lollipops at people, concluding with the demand that the lollipop thrower identify themselves and apologize.

We've come a long way from Altamont.

I'm reminded of this by the conclusion of this episode, which was filmed in the middle of the 1986 Monsters of Rock Festival at Castle Donnington. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Look who's back! It's Bad News!

Every once in a while, I'll be poking through my records/tapes/CDs and I'll find something that makes me say "I haven't thought of this band/artist in ages -- I wonder if they've done anything since this thing that I am now holding..." So I go to look them up in Allmusic and discover that they've put out 10 albums that I somehow never noticed. That's sort of how I feel here. MTV seemed to show the original Bad News episode every third week or so, but this never made it to broadcast so far as I know. Both episodes were slapped together into a videotape that was released in America for roughly 13 minutes.

And here they are - doing the same schtick. And as one is twice as long, we get a lovely heaping helping. Where before we get a few hints at Colin's (Rik Mayall) comfy upper-class home life, here we get to see him still living in his parents house, trying desperately to look anarchic. We get Jennifer Saunders' rock journalist trying to interview Nigel Planer's thick Den. We even get another gag about the film crew filming the tour bus driving down the highway.

Much of the new stuff seems cribbed from Spinal Tap: the absurdly tasteless music video, the management shenanigans (there's a great moment when the band discovers that the cost for the catering on their video shoot is being taken from their pay, so they all start eating as much food as they possibly can) and album release trouble. Finally, there is the concert-falls-apart sequence, which is where this episode blows Spinal Tap out of the water.

One of the things that has always amazed me about Spinal Tap is how much they have been embraced by the culture that they are mocking. I suspect one of the factors of this lie in the fact that Spinal Tap is supposed to be a successful band. (As a fun double feature some evening, sit down to a viewing of This is Spinal Tap followed by Legend of a Band - The Story of the Moody Blues. It's quite illuminating.) By being an unsuccessful band, Bad News are closer to the sorts of people that the average heavy metal fan "is," as opposed to "wants to be." Because of this, it can't be as much fun to watch.

When they hit the stage, many in the audience were probably delighted to see the fake comedy band that they saw a few years before on Channel 4 show up on stage to put on their foolery, but a sizeable portion seem to have been rather upset. They start throwing things. This is not footage of an audience throwing stuff at some other band spliced into the episode - it is real. In the image on the left, you can see a water bottle in mid-flight just over Ade Edmonson's (on the left) head. Nigel Planer is on the right walking towards the right. As the shot continues, the bottle will hit Planer on the arm. In the photo on the right, Edmonson is getting hit on the head with some sort of plastic box.

I have no idea what they were thinking was going to happen, but I don't think that they were anticipating the reaction that they received. You can see it on their faces - this strange mixture of "we're going to get killed" and "this is great." As I've mentioned before, I am purposely keeping away from the extras disk, but I hope more than anything that they have a segment on the shooting of this sequence.

This is a mighty fine bucket that we're all going to hell in.

Now in production: an animated series called "The Secret Millionaires Club." It's all about a group of kids in Omaha who come into major bling after liquidating their baseball collection and have adventures while learning how to use their money wisely.

They will be guided by their cartoon chum, and Radio Disney tween-bop favorite, Warren Buffett (voiced by himself).

Personally, I hope it turns out that Buffett turns out to be a Transformer that can change into a Brinks truck and fly. That would be soooo cool.

I have seen Mr. Apollo uproot trees with his bare hands

"I remember this knocking on the passenger window. There was this German voice saying, 'Just relax.' There's the air bag, I can't see and I'm saying, 'I'm fine. I am relaxed.' Finally, I rolled down the window and this head pops inside. And he said, 'No, you're not.' And suddenly I said to myself, 'That's Werner Herzog!' There's something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog's voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I climbed out."
--Joaquin Phoenix, on being rescued from the burning wreckage of his crashed car by Werner Herzog.

"Oh, someone is shooting at us. We must go."
--Werner Herzog, realizing that he was being shot at during a BBC interview.

"It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid."
--Werner Herzog, moments later after the BBC interviewer pointed out that Herzog's leg was bleeding from a bullet wound.

I wish I knew how to quit you, Dalek.

This week on BBC7 internet radio:

Dalek, I Love You

Sat 11 Feb, 18:00 - 18:30 30 mins

A young Dr Who obsessive gets more than he bargains for when he meets his very own Dr Who Girl. But is she real or imagined? [Rptd Sun 12.00am]

Stereo

There's a puppy in the parlor and a skillet on the stove

via the sublime PCL LinkDump, I bring you the first appearance of The Folksmen, on Saturday Night Live back in 1984. And yes, they're doing "Old Joe's Place."


Go here for the video

The Comic Strip, Part 19 - Hey, lay your burden down

"The Strike" - February 20, 1988

The history of Hollywood is strewn with tales of writers who are forced to watch as their stories are dismantled by the movie-making machine. As a response to this, there are also a fair number of memoirs and novels by former screenwriters about writers who are forced to watch as their stories are dismantled by the movie-making machine. Some of these have been turned into films, most of which have had their stories dismantled by the movie-making machine.

The miners' strike of 1984-5 was a major event in the UK that Americans have only a slight awareness of. Like the execution of Derek Bentley, the Mod/Rocker riots, and the Profumo affair, it's one of those things that we don't know the specifics about, but can see the reverberations of. Here is the Wikipedia article on the miners' strike. I've read up on the details enough to know that I will never get a sense of what it was like to be in the UK possessing an opinion-generating brain as it was going on. To make the point that this episode is making, they could have used any historical incident. They picked one that at the time of the filming was just two years out. There must have been open wounds, just as there are at the end of the episode.

The beauty of this episode lies in how far they are willing to push the theme to make their point. Not only do we get the concept of a Hollywood version of the life of Arthur Scargill, but we get Al Pacino. And where most versions would just refer to Al Pacino in the background, here we actually get Peter Richardson as Pacino on screen. (We also get a surprisingly excellent Jennifer Saunders as Meryl Streep. I was going to search out a copy of The French lieutenant's Woman, as it (as I recall) has the same juxtaposition of story being filmed and story on screen, and it might have had some bearing on what Saunders/Streep was doing with her character - I have no idea what the business with all the oranges is referring to, for example.) In any event, this is the real Arthur Scargill:


Here is Peter Richardson as Al Pacino as Arthur Scargill:


I've lived a number of places in my life, and it is always difficult looking at some film or television show that is supposed to take place somewhere that you can tell nobody in the whole process of making the thing has come within a hundred miles of. I can't imagine how exasperating it must be to live someplace where people actually travel to film the misconceptions, rather than staying put and getting them wrong in a soundstage or on a backlot. At the beginning of the film within a film we see heroic young Arthur Scargill in a "pub" surrounded by cackling Dickensian homonculi. All I could think of was Rik Mayall's cameo at the beginning of An American Werewolf in London.

Much of the episode was filmed on location in Wales. Early on, there is a scene where the idealistic scriptwriter is showing the art directors exactly where the events of his script happened.


The filmmakers are aghast - the location looks nothing the way they have visualized it. Everything has to be changed. The location in Wales that The Comic Strip used to film these scenes aren't (so far as I've been able to tell) where these events happened. Thus the art directors for The Comic Strip had to find a location that looked like the sort of place that these events would have taken place (while still looking interesting - note how the road curves out of the shot. It's a nice image.) the dissonance caused by filming a scene about filming a scene makes my head hurt - I keep writing these enormous paragraphs only to delete them because they no longer make sense.

So far as I know, this is the only episode to be honored with an award. In 1988 it took the Rose d'Or, which seems to honor entertainment in television. If you click on the link, you will find a list of the other winners, including Rich Little's Christmas Carol (1979) and Pop Idol (2002). I recall seeing Rich Little's Christmas Carol as a lad, mostly because I remember him doing Marley as Richard Nixon all wrapped up in audiotape rather than chains, and thought it was a good idea for a costume should I ever need one in a pinch (I was 12 and had been given my first tape splicing kit for my birthday). Anyway. This award looks completely nuts, and I intend to pay attention to it from now on.

The details.

The other night I rewatched the Monty Python episode "Light Entertainment War." This is one that I've seen quite a number of times in my life, but I noticed something new this time through.

At the beginning (and reprised halfway through) is an intro to a show called "Up Your Pavement" that uses a distinctive song underneath a voice over ("Taking life as it comes, sharing the good things and the bad things, finding laughter and fun wherever they go..."). All of the things I've seen have described the music as "a la Steptoe and Son." Never having heard the actual theme to Steptoe and Son, I had presumed that this was the real theme.

At the end of the episode there is a Neil Innes song called "When Does a Dream Begin." This is the same melody as the "Up Your Pavement" theme.

I love it when I notice things like that. I'd prefer it to not take 25 years or so, but still...

My collection shall grow in leaps and bounds

Fast on the heels of the Darth Tater and the Spud Trooper is the Artoo Potatoo.


It took a while to figure out what the little blue thing was - it's a Princess Leia (as a potato) hologram. It comes out in May.

I give in to peer pressure

I've seen a lot of mention on this exhibition of Ken Russell's Teddy Girl photos - go have a look.

Looking for a spectacle?

Not much from me lately - I've been having a busy week. I finally got a bit of lunchtime surfing in and somehow found my way to this:


It's a site devoted to the study of 16th to 18th century stagecraft, a subject that is cool enough to begin with, but these folks have computer animations of many of the different mechanisms in action - trapdoors, "flying" rigs, and sound effects (for thunder, roll a bunch of 30 pound iron balls down a special bouncy track installed in the top of the theater building.)

Pictured: halfway through the "Mnichovo Hradiste Scene Change"