Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 237
October 1, 2009
Who Ya Gonna Call?
It's the trailer for Ghostbusters (1954), starring Bob Hope, Fred MacMurray, and Dean Martin.[thanks to David Boop}
It's the trailer for Thostbusters (1954), starring Bob Ho...
It's the trailer for Thostbusters (1954), starring Bob Hope, Fred MacMurray, and Dean Martin.[thanks to David Boop}
Nero's Movable Feast
A few years back, when we were in Rome, we visited the Domus Aurea, the Golden House built by the Emperor Nero during the last years of his reign. This fabulous 300-room palace was the centerpiece of Nero's entertainment empire--- walls were plated with fabulous marbles, or ivory, or frescos. A large part of the palace was plated with gold. Sliding panels in the ceilings could open to shower
The Brew That is True
From Candas Jane Dorsey, it's Satchmo doing a duet with Danny Kaye (who holds up his end with remarkable verve).I detect the hand of Sylvia Fine in the lyrics.
September 29, 2009
Doomsday Now!
Doctor Strangelove would seem to be my favorite movie. I believe I've seen it more often than any other film--- I've watched Slim Pickens ride that H-Bomb to Laputa something like twenty times. It was Strangelove that popularized the notion of the Doomsday Device. (The Doomsday Bomb was actually conceived by Leo Szilard, who also conceived the idea of the nuclear chain reaction and later [
September 28, 2009
Trying Not to Blush
Christian Sauvé says some kind things about This Is Not a Game on his web site: But there's a bit more at stake than a look at games that bring together thousands of people in a global clue-hunt: As This Is Not a Game begins, our ARG-creating protagonist Dagmar Shaw sees her holidays in Indonesia become a catastrophe as the country is shut down and riots break around her hotel. Engineering her
September 26, 2009
Nyckelharpa
I've been off at Globalquerque, Albuquerque's weekend festival of global music. One way of describing this kind of festival is to describe the music I was listening to. (I'll probably get around to that later.)Another is to just make a list of the weird and/or unusual instruments encountered for the first time.The first was the hurdy gurdy, as played by Viva la Pepa!, a group that recreates
September 24, 2009
Bonnie Brings the Winter
The other night we checked out the BonTaj Roulet tour, featuring Bonnie Raitt and Taj Majal, in the relatively intimate settings of the Sandia Casino Amphitheater--- 2000 people in an open-air venue, with glorious views of the mountains. Whatever else you may say about Indian casinos, they have sure built a lot of concert venues, and I see a lot more spectacular live concerts than I used to. (
September 23, 2009
Origin of Stupidity
Brainless religious zealot-zombies, led by Former Somebody Kirk Cameron, are going to be distributing copies of Darwin's Origin of Species FREE just before this year's Darwin Day, November 22. The book will be altered to include a 50-page denunciation of the theory of evolution by some Darwin-denying whackjob.Cameron explains that this "very special" edition of the "Origin of Species" will
Turn the Apple Green
Murderous baby-killing Holocaust-denying whackjob Iranian President Ahmedinejad is in the Big Apple today, to give what will doubtless prove to be an inept, rambling, psychotic, Holocaust-denying speech to the UN General Assembly. (To avoid being Chavezed again, our own President Obama will be hiding in the men's room till Ahmedinejad is safely away.) Yesterday's chat by Muammar Gaddafi
