Ted Rabinowitz's Blog, page 48
July 22, 2012
TV Boston
This isn't really nerdy, but...
What the hell is it with Boston and TV music? Apparently TV composers believe that every last resident of Boston is Irish. Case in point, Rizzoli & Isles. (It was three in the morning. I couldn't sleep.) Rizzoli? Italian. Isles? Brahmin. The cops? Black, Jewish, Polish.
The Music?
Irish.
What the hell is it with Boston and TV music? Apparently TV composers believe that every last resident of Boston is Irish. Case in point, Rizzoli & Isles. (It was three in the morning. I couldn't sleep.) Rizzoli? Italian. Isles? Brahmin. The cops? Black, Jewish, Polish.
The Music?
Irish.
July 20, 2012
Evil Wesley!
GoodCan I say how much I like Wil Wheaton these days? I mean yes, ur-blogger, gamer, teen nerd celeb, etc. But he's revived his TV career as a go-to actor for smarmy jerk roles - Evil Wesley lives! Check him out in Leverage and The Big Bang Theory.
At Last - Evil Wesley!
Can I say how much I like Wil Wheaton? I mean yes, blogger, gamer, teen nerd celeb, etc. But he's reviving his TV career as a go-to actor for smarmy jerk roles - Evil Wesley lives! Check him out in Leverage and The Big Bang Theory.
Go, Wil Wheaton, Go!
Good Wesley
Evil Wheaton
Go, Wil Wheaton, Go!
Good Wesley
Evil Wheaton
July 19, 2012
Granddaddy Nerd
Not the Nerd in QuestionAh, the Emmy nominations for 2012. Notice what's on there? Game of Thrones. The young folks may now shrug their shoulders. "So what?" they say. "It's a good show."Yeah, it is. But I'm not young folk. I'm a Granddaddy Nerd.
And that means I remember a time when a series like GoT could have been the love child of I Love Lucy, All in the Family, and Roots, and it STILL wouldn't have gotten an Emmy. Hell, it wouldn't even have been financed. And a bunch of Entourage types in Italian suits would have rolled their eyes if you'd dared to suggest it.
In the last thirty years, an amazing thing has happened - science fiction, fantasy and graphic novels have been mainstreamed. When I was in college, I would have bet heavy money that this was as likely as, well, as likely as a Columbia grad being elected president. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, Barry.)
There are a dozen different reasons and people responsible, from Star Wars to Frank Miller's reinvention of Batman as "the Dark Knight" to the way video games grew exponentially in power while adopting F/SF themes and tropes.The dam finally burst, I think, when Peter Jackson brought LOTR to the screen. Money is legitimacy in Hollywood, and F/SF had finally, finally made enough money. (Never mind the mega-millions it had been raking in, one way or another, for years.) I may be the only person in America who remembers Ralph Bakshi's brave, doomed early attempt with The Fellowship of the Ring.
There's a lot to talk about, positive and negative. We'll be coming back to this subject, oh yes - like the indieprods return to Comic-Con.
July 18, 2012
Provigil, the new "Limitless"?
I love science fiction. And I love it when science fiction becomes science fact - the Roomba (Heinlein), communications satellites (Clarke), Dick Tracy radio watches. But Provigil...it sounds way creepy. We need to keep an eye out for people with exploding heads, I think.What do you think? Speed, by prescription? Or a bold new frontier in five-hour energy?
Lastday, Capricorn 29s!
Yes, today is the last day to pick up some funny fantasy for less than a buck!
The Wrong Sword is available on Amazon.com for only $0.99. Buy it now, or kick yourself tomorrow morning, when the price goes back up to $4.99.
Buy it now!
The Wrong Sword is available on Amazon.com for only $0.99. Buy it now, or kick yourself tomorrow morning, when the price goes back up to $4.99.
Buy it now!
July 17, 2012
Marissa Mayer, Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher
So Marissa Mayer is now the CEO of Yahoo - excuse me, Yahoo! - and is out to make her mark. Only problem is, I think the job is cursed. That's right. I said it. CURSED. Just like the Defense Against the Dark Arts Chair at Hogwarts.Yahoo has had six CEOs in five years: Marissa, Ross Levinsohn, Scott Thompson, Tim Morse, Carol Bartz, and Jerry Yang. Obviously, somebody wants the CEO job for themselves, and has made sure that No One Else Can Have It Until They Return.
Who was the chief before that crazy run of revolving CEOs? Terry Semel. Who spent 24 years at Warner Bros, backed the first Batman flick and The Matrix trilogy, and was chairman and co-CEO before he left for...yeah...Yahoo. He spent six years at Yahoo, and then they booted him. Seems like there's a media wizard out there who wants a comeback.
So what's an incoming CEO to do? Marissa, I'm sorry - but I think you're going to have to find Terry Semel's horcruxes and destroy them. Start with Matrix: Reloaded.
July 16, 2012
TWS 99¢ Two Days Only on Kindle!
Yep, my publisher is doing a 99¢ sale on July 17 and July 18. That's tomorrow, you yahoos!
So if you've been hesitating about buying The Wrong Sword...on the fence about it...my goodness, you can't get more low-commitment than this.
BUY.
IT.
NOW.
So if you've been hesitating about buying The Wrong Sword...on the fence about it...my goodness, you can't get more low-commitment than this.
BUY.
IT.
NOW.
Mermaid Body Found. Again. And Again. And...
The Discovery Channel traveled a little farther down PT Barnum's "egress" by airing a fake mermaid documentary. Personally, I don't get the appeal of mermaids - for anything romantic beside posing on a rock, mermaids seem spectacularly ill-suited. Ahem.
And yet "mermaids" have been a flourishing industry for centuries:
1. The manatee. You'd have to be at sea a long time to confuse this
with this
but apparently sailors used to do it. Imaginative peg-legged bastards.
2. "Fiji mermaids" - that is, hoaxes. PT Barnum popularized the most famous, a piece of creative taxidermy that combined the head and torso of a monkey with the tail of a fish preserved in papier maché. No picture - the thing would give you nightmares.
3. Sirenomelia. I won't show you a picture of this one either. It's pretty sad: Sirenomelia is a birth defect in which a baby is born with legs that are fused together. The infants usually don't survive. But during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, the corpses were often preserved and exhibited in mini-museums called "cabinets of curiousities" - wunderkammer.
Considering that manatees are endangered, there isn't a single "real world" mermaid that isn't tinged with sorrow. Let's finish up the list with mermaids that are unashamedly fake. They're a lot more fun.
4. Weeki Wachi Springs - I love this one. The goof factor is off the charts.
5. And, finally, that folk festival in my hometown, The Coney Island Mermaid Parade. This, my friends, is what mermaids are all about.
And yet "mermaids" have been a flourishing industry for centuries:
1. The manatee. You'd have to be at sea a long time to confuse this
with this
but apparently sailors used to do it. Imaginative peg-legged bastards.
2. "Fiji mermaids" - that is, hoaxes. PT Barnum popularized the most famous, a piece of creative taxidermy that combined the head and torso of a monkey with the tail of a fish preserved in papier maché. No picture - the thing would give you nightmares.
3. Sirenomelia. I won't show you a picture of this one either. It's pretty sad: Sirenomelia is a birth defect in which a baby is born with legs that are fused together. The infants usually don't survive. But during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, the corpses were often preserved and exhibited in mini-museums called "cabinets of curiousities" - wunderkammer.
Considering that manatees are endangered, there isn't a single "real world" mermaid that isn't tinged with sorrow. Let's finish up the list with mermaids that are unashamedly fake. They're a lot more fun.
4. Weeki Wachi Springs - I love this one. The goof factor is off the charts.
5. And, finally, that folk festival in my hometown, The Coney Island Mermaid Parade. This, my friends, is what mermaids are all about.
