Nothing For Now

Correction

From MSNBC:

Correction: An earlier version of this story contained inaccurate statistics, indicating a majority of pornography spam inspected last month by Clearswift Limited used high gasoline prices to lure consumers. Clearswift's initial analysis was incorrect because the firm's full-text search for the work "gas" also picked up instances of the word orgasm. Actual use of the gas price tactic in porn spam was minor, the firm now says. MSNBC.com regrets the error.

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BWAHAHAHA! *ahem* Sorry.

Nowadays

I watched The Stepford Wives last night with Arum and Kate. It was an okay movie- it had a few laughs and good performances out of Roger Bart and Nicole Kidman, who had to bear the burden of the movie's multiple personality disorder. The film couldn't seem to make up its mind- was it a suspense thriller? A satire? A black comedy? A touching romance? It looked like in the end the director and editors just threw up their hands in despair and stuck in everything together, hoping the blend would turn into something good. As it was, it turned into something weird. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I like weird. :)

But the really interesting part came after the movie, when Arum correctly pointed out that chauvinist pigs today don't want their women to dress like 50's housewives and go square dancing with them. No, what chauvinist pigs want today is a Playboy bunny. Preferably a hot lesbian Playboy bunny. Maybe in 1975, when the original Stepford Wives was released, men secretly wanted their women to cook and clean. But today? I think the preferred method of demeaning women is sex.

What I'm reading today: Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, by Mil Millington.

Wonder of Wonders

Miracle of miracles- Avenue Q won Best Musical. I can't believe it. The dazed look on Stephanie D'Abruzzo's face said it all- everyone, and I mean everyone, thought the flashy money machine Wicked would get the top prize, but the little show that could, did. And Q's performance was about ten times better, too. (My goodness, Idina Menzel was nervous!)

So what else about the Tonys was great? Anika Noni Rose and Menzel gave lovely, heartfelt speeches. Or maybe I just feel a kinship with girls who hyperventilate when they're nervous. Assassins put on a nice performance, and the opening number wasn't nearly as horrifying as it had the potential to be.

Tonya Pinkins didn't put in her best performance of "Lot's Wife." The song is spectacular, and Pinkins' acting was tremendous, but she was obviously weakening, vocally. Menzel, as I mentioned before, was just gasping for air both during her performance and her speech. I wasn't expecting much out of Wicked, and I was still disappointed. But the crowd seemed to eat it up, so what do I know?

Wonderful Town really didn't choose a good song, but Donna Murphy did a fine job with it. Fiddler on the Roof's performance looked pretty good at the time, but it really paled with hindsight.

Bernadette Peters was radiant and adorable. The sight of Carol Channing rapping with LL Cool J will stay with me for life, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. Phylicia Rashad somehow managed to be too regal. Jimmy Fallon is annoying at this point. Tony Bennett and Mary J. Blige's performances in no way justified CBS cutting Big River's performance. Boo.

Oh, and Hugh Jackman rocks my socks.

He improved tremendously as host, and the fact that he didn't have that awful Van Helsing haircut certainly helped. Anyway, he just did his thing- he sang, he danced, he got kissed by two puppets, and he was hit on by cast members of several shows, including Kristin Chenoweth in full Glinda regalia.

His performance was the best of the night- the camel and the gold pants were nice additions and- dear Lord, are those leopard print shoes?! The mind boggles. Jackman was one of the few performers to actually sing on key- the casts of Avenue Q and Fiddler on the Roof were the only other ones who also managed to do that, leading me to suspect that the sound at Radio City was off.

But anyway, after fiddling around with the piano for a while, he moved down to a mini-stage that had been set up in the front and did the infamous hip waggle. And the pelvic thrust. Several times. And there was much rejoicing in Radio City, which only grew greater when he insisted that he wanted some "sex in the city" and got Sarah Jessica Parker to come dance with him. Now, I know that the audience interaction in BFO is entirely improvised, but I heard that this wasn't. If that's true, kudos to Mrs. Parker for doing a fine job of acting totally flabbergasted and embarrased. Maybe Jackman took it further live than he did in rehearsals, but it was all very, very fun. And you know what? For a guy with a stress fracture in his foot, he can really move.

So then there were the big awards- Idina Menzel's win was a tremendous upset, but Jefferson Mays and the aforementioned Ms. Rashad were expected to win. And Jackman, of course, was the surest bet of the night. And absolutely no one was surprised the orchestra didn't cut off his speech.

Other observations: My goodess, Nicole Kidman looks positively skeletal when she ties her hair back like that. The only scarier-looking woman was Menzel, who looked cross-eyed during her performance. Though Scarlett Johansson looked pretty weird, too. I don't get it- how is it the big Hollywood stars are the ones to do awful things with their hair? Don't they have stylists who travel with them? Eh, whatever.

The ceremony was well-paced and fun, and the scripted banter was only rarely cringe-worthy, which in an awards show is a minor miracle. There were favorites winning (Audra McDonald, Mays, and Jackman, who got a standing ovation) and delightful upsets (Avenue Q! AAAAH!). The only slight dissappointment was the performances. Only Avenue Q and The Boy From- oh whatever, the Hugh Jackman Show- really wowed me. And people, you can't bring on Brian Stokes Mitchell and make him announce the Best Play nominees. He needs to sing, dammit! Sing!

*scuttles off to listen to Ragtime*

I'm in theater heaven tonight. The best show won and Michael Riedel owes Bernadette Peters lunch. How cool is that?

What Needs To Be Said

To anyone who thinks we should just leave Iraq to its own devices:

The point here is that in a democracy, all citizens bear collective responsibility for what their government does, regardless of how any given individual voted. Obviously, Michael Moore doesn't bear anywhere near as much responsibility for the torture at Abu Ghraib as Donald Rumsfeld. But Moore does bear some. All Americans do. Ideas like community and patriotism make no sense if they exclude those with whom you disagree. We all have to be in this together. If John Kerry becomes president, he won't inherit Clinton's America. That's in the past. He'll inherit Bush's America, which is badly in need of repair. It will be Kerry's job to fix it. It's a con to pretend that isn't so.

Thanks to Slate's Timothy Noah for this quote.

Lately, people of my age group and political persuasion have been hissing in righteous rage about the prospect of the return of the draft in the United States. Now, I don't see how a universal draft combining military and civil service could possibly be implemented by next year, but the concept is worth thinking about.

If we run low on people and the military really needs it, I think the draft should be re-instated. Yes, I hate the Iraq war, hated it from the very beginning as an unprovoked act of aggression that could only lead to the long, hard, expensive slog of democratizing a country that sometimes barely seems to want it. I wish we'd never gone in there.

But we did. All of us did- the Republicans and the Democrats, the soldiers and the peace protesters. Bush and his idiot cronies led the country into this, but we all have to face the consequences. That's what a democracy is about- everyone has to accept the results of what their elected government did, even if they didn't vote for it.

We committed ourselves to democratizing Iraq. Was that a stupid decision? Hell yes. Can we back out now? Hell no. If we leave Iraq like this- chaotic, with its infrastructure ruined and its new government with hardly any authority- we lose what little claim of moral authority we had in the first place. The U.S. has to finish what it started. I hate it, but it's true.

Yes, it stinks that regular citizens have to pay with their lives for the missteps of their leaders. It stinks that people who did everything in their power to prevent war still have to send their children to fight in it. I want to break something whenever I think about the fact that the worst punishment we can give Bush is a comfortable retirement in Crawford. But collective responsibility is still the rule.

And if I were drafted, I'd go.

Growing Up

I was absolutely thrilled when I found out that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban would be directed by the very cool Alfonso Cuaron rather than the competent-but-boring Christopher Columbus. So how did Cuaron do? According to Slate, pretty darn well:

The tactile power of Cuaron's filmmaking is clear from the first scene, in which Harry (once more Daniel Radcliffe) is discovered under his covers in the middle of the night in that awful Dursley house, doing something naughty. No, it's not what you're thinking: He's playing with his wand. I mean, he's testing out his new potency. I mean ...

Uh, here's the Dallas Observer:

It may come as little surprise that his (Cuaron's) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban begins with the teenage wizard-in-training hiding under the bed sheets, whacking his wand.

*snorfle* I have to see this movie. Now.

Silly

Kate, if you're going to ask people to call you, you can't be asleep at 9:45. Nope. Can't do that. Especially when I want to pester you about cheap shows and cheaper movies. :)