Happy 100th birthday, Herge!


A podcast about books, art & life — not necessarily in that order
In which the Virtual Memoirist provides links to miscellaneous sites and posts.
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: May 18, 2007”
In addition to being the Comics Reporter, a smart cultural critic, and official VM Bestest Pal, Tom Spurgeon also knows a little something about horse-racing. Here’s his guide to the Kentucky Derby (and the other Triple Crown races), which I guess is being run in a few minutes.
Imagine how much better this blog would be if I had time to write about all these stories!
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: May 4, 2007”
It’s a quiet Sunday here at Chez VM. Well, it was louder earlier in the day, when I was shredding bills and records as part of the process of rearranging my home office. The process started when I bought a new desk on Wednesday, replacing the two tables that occupied a wall of my room. The process continued yesterday, when I picked up a leaning bookcase from C&B, a desk organizer from Pottery Barn (they don’t list it on their site), and a couple of bulletin boards and paper drawers from the Container Store. Today involved figuring out where to put everything (hence the bill-shredding). If there’s good light tomorrow morning, I’ll take some pix and post them for those of you who are obsessed interested in such things.
Before buying up this stuff, Amy & I finally got to the local (within 30 miles) Imax to catch 300. It was
I enjoyed it a bunch, even if it did overplay the “we’re fighting to defend reason and logic” angle. Gerard Butler was fascinating to look at, and this hearkens back to my original post about this flick: I’m more interested in the stylization of the movie, and the filmmakers managed to get the lead to resemble classical Greek art. I’m not talking about the chiseled abs phenomenon, which are major contributors to the “gayest movie ever” trophy, but the angles of his face, his beard, and his hair somehow gestalted into this living representation of a Greek bust, to me.
We had a laugh later in the day, when we noted that Gerard Butler’s filmography includes Beowulf (where I thought he looked a little like Paul Rodgers) and Attila the Hun. Looks like he can’t get away from historic slaughter flicks. Still, he did a great job in this one, making the Spartan king a, um, raging Scot. It’s not a movie to be taken seriously as history, but it was a thrill ride. My biggest problem with it is that it’s success means that the director is going to get the greenlight to make a movie of The Watchmen, which will be a disaster.
This morning, I realized that I’ve had a pretty strange run of Easter-weekend trips to the movies. I don’t tend to go to the movies often, but I guess there’s something about Easter: Hellboy in 2004, Sin City in 2005 and 300 in 2007. Can’t remember if I saw anything last year, and I’m not finding any references in the blog, which as we know is a backup drive for my brain.
Anyway, I hope all my Christian readers have a good Easter today.
After the jump, a bunch of links I didn’t have time to expound upon this week!
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Apr. 6, 2007”
Intrepid Comics Reporter and VM pal Tom Spurgeon just posted a list of the Top 50 Comics from 2006. I’m nowhere near as devoted a comics reader as I used to be, but it’s pretty gratifying to see so many worthy projects out there.
If you haven’t read the comics of Jim Woodring, your consciousness has probably not been adjusted into a position that will enable you to appreciate the spring tour of Pupshaw & Pupshaw.
Please read The Frank Book or visit an oneiropractor as soon as possible.
Even though it’s been a hectic week, I’ve managed to farm up more interesting links that I just didn’t have time to write about!
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Mar. 23, 2007”
Sorry, dear readers: no Monday Morning Montaigne for you this week. I’m way too busy with the April ish, this afternoon’s DCAT event in NYC, and tonight’s anniversary-plus-1-week dinner at Cafe Matisse.
But my wife has a couple of weekend wrapup posts for you to check out: Harissa Explains It All, and It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Till, then, take some Insomnalin and get back to work!