Chris Gaffney, dead at 57. Only saw him perform once, at the Belly Up, opening for Dave Alvin with the Hacienda Brothers, and later playing with Dave.

Hazel Court, dead at 82. I watched her in The Raven just the other night.

The Nazi origins of the Olympic torch relay. Leni Riefenstahl staged the first torch relay, to "create the myth the Greeks never got around to telling." Sad, that in all the coverage of the torch protests, I first learned of this history not from the real news, but from The Daily Show (which led Jon Stewart do boast, at the end of his show, of his ability to open on a dreidel joke and close on a Hitler joke):

Ollie Jonston, Disney animator, dead at 95.

Padres lose in 22-inning overtime. After the 18th inning, sprinklers came on in the Park at the Park.

I saw a high school production of Urinetown: The Musical last weekend. Once I got over the awkwardness of being the only person in the audience not enrolled at or employed by the school, or related to someone who was, I had a grand old time watching one of my favorite musicals. Now I see that my college has a production of the selfsame musical this weekend, so I figure I might as well see it two weeks in a row. Perhaps Urinetown can be my Friday night thing, or if that's too difficult, just urine in general.

Slate looks back at the photograph "The Soiling of Old Glory," from Boston's 1976 busing crisis. The slide show also includes a chilling photograph of a woman and child falling from a fire escape; it reminded me of a segment on This American Life's television program about the photographs mentioned here, which I can't find reproduced online. Of course, the only possible moral ambiguity in the falling women photograph would be voyeurism (at the forefront of my mind, as I watched Peeping Tom last night), as it is more obvious that there was no action the photographer should take (and he did avert his gaze before impact).

The Monty Hall problem hits research into cognitive dissonance. That article had a link to a vintage New York Times article from around the time of the Marilyn vos Savant controversy, where Monty Hall himself tried to settle the matter. Really emphasizes Hall's role on "Let's Make a Deal" as a skillful huckster. There's a documentary, Deal, with a behind-the-scenes look at "Let's Make a Deal." Not all that great a documentary, overall, but seeing all that Monty Hall had to juggle during a taping was impressive. And, as a part-owner of the show, every penny he avoided giving to a contestant was money in his pocket.

People like people with the same name. We like things that remind us of ourselves. So why does the new Mike Myers movie look to me like a piece of shit?

So, I finally got around to returning to the library the VHS cassette trapped in my VCR. Returning it still entombed, of course. I hoped maybe it came up enough that the librarians might have some pointers as to how to remove it, but no such luck. Some patrons actually had some useful information as to how the mechanism holding the cassette works, but the gears they indicated we should turn weren't going to budge. The librarian seemed concerned with not damaging my VCR, which as this point I didn't care about. But even handling it a bit rougher, he didn't have any more luck than I at removing it. So he renewed the video for me, sent me home with my VCR, and suggested I try a little more to remove it on my own. So when I got home, I took out a hammer, and tried to pry off the metal cover of the cage holding the cassette, and it popped of with almost no effort. I'd failed in previous attempts, so apparently the combined stress of various attempts finally loosened it enough that it came off without a fight. Continuing to use the claw of a hammer, I then tried to break off the plastic pieces holding the cassette in place, without damaging the cassette itself. I couldn't break the plastic bits off, but I did manage to stretch it just enough that I could work the cassette out of the VCR and to freedom. So a half-hour later, I headed back to the library, returned the cassette (no visible damage, though I wouldn't recommend watching it), and at last my library record was unencumbered.

It did occur to me, driving home, that I should have waited until today to return the cassette. I came in with the cassette stuck in my VCR, no idea what to do; they tinkered with it for awhile and sent me on my way. A half-hour later, the tape is free. That sounds suspicious, as though I had some sort of electronic Munchausen by Proxy, getting things stuck in my VCR only so I can remove them and be hailed a hero. So hopefully my library record has not been flagged for deviancy. In any event, I don't think I'll be checking out any more VHS cassettes, no point tempting fate.

Colbert announced the other day that he won a Peabody this year (he thanked the Peabodys and their boy Sherman); now I see Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me also won a Peabody. Apparently, I am on the Peabody Award committee, and didn't realize it. If it turns out the Sirloin Steak and Egg Burrito at Jack in the Box also won a Peabody, that'll be all the proof I need.

Grand Prix head assures the public his orgy did not have Nazi undertones. No, sir, it was your typical, mom-and-pop, meat-and-potatoes orgy.

A look at the film D.O.A.. Included is a promotional piece suggesting theaters host an essay contest, with the theme of when a man is justified in hitting a woman. I remember being disappointed in the film when I saw it years ago, but amused by the doctor with about the worst bedside manner I've seen on film. "Geez, tell a guy he's got 24 hours to live, and he gets all worked up or something."

Greenbriar Picture Shows is also where I found this post about pre-code marketing, including an interesting ad for Freaks: "Tonight and Thursday with shame our screen unfolds the worst picture ever made! Don't See It! And be assured you missed nothing!"

Seuss sez: Stop making movies of my books.

Charlton Heston, dead at 84. People thought that the Supreme Court's upcoming hearing on the D.C. handgun ban would be an important milestone in the history of the Second Amendment, but now, with Heston's hands cold and dead, the issue seems to be moot.

In all respect, I should say that Touch of Evil is one of my favorite movies, and Heston deserves thanks for managing to play a Mexican in a manner as inoffensive as possible, considering he was Charlton Heston playing a Mexican.

This American Life being simulcast live to theaters nationwide. Good idea, but $20 seems a bit steep for what is apparently a commercial for season two of their television show. I like the idea of these live events being broadcast to movie theaters, but the pricing seems out of whack. People are accustomed to paying $10 at the most for a movie, and they (or I, at least) won't pay much over that for a live event. At $12, I might, $15, I'd consider, but any higher than that and I feel like I'm being taken for a chump. I'd rather just donate $20 to public radio.

Wayne "Frosty Freeze" Frost, dead at 44.

Jules Dassin, dead at 96.

Today's theme is hypocrisy on parade:

Sony BMG, scourge of music pirates, is found to have tons of pirated software on their servers.

University of Texas San Antonio plagiarizes plagiarism policy.

So, I've been filling in some gaps in my cultural education, watching Vincent Price horror movies. Some, like House of Wax, are on DVD, but for some films, I've had to go back to the old standby of VHS cassettes from the local library. And tonight, I tried to watch one, The Comedy of Terrors. But the cassette wouldn't go into the VCR. It would go half-way in, and then the VCR would spit it out. My VCR is, of course, old, so I wasn't sure if it was the tape or the unit, so I went into the back bedroom to give that one a try. The cassette went in fine, but then nothing happened, and it wouldn't eject the tape. I tried to force it out, but I could feel the film wrapped around the tape head or whatever inside the VCR. I tried disassembling the VCR, and got the case off of it, but couldn't get the cassette-holding portion open to remove the tape. So tomorrow, I'm taking my VCR to the library to see what they suggest. I figure this must happen from time to time, maybe they have some tips. I think the tape was defective, but if I have to pay for it, I'll live. As long as they aren't dicks about it (I got the tape from the city library, not the county library where I volunteer, so I don't have any special connections to rely on here).

Anyway, in light of this setback, I decided to watch The Tomb of Ligeia instead. But it appeared that whoever last checked it out was far from kind, so I would have to rewind. But every time I tried to rewind it, I heard the VCR's motor revving for a moment, but then the unit shut down. If I pressed play, I could rewind while the feature played, but then it rewound at an extremely slow pace. I had a feeling this cassette was defective, too (which would explain why the previous viewer didn't rewind), and didn't want to risk another incident like Comedy of Terrors, so I removed the cassette from my VCR unwatched.

Cursing the antiquated technology, I decided the safe bet was to watch a film in the ultra-high-tech HD DVD format. I've had Talk to Me at home from Netflix for like two months, and decided I should finally watch it. I even chuckled to myself, thinking that, given my luck this evening, I'd probably end up getting the Red Ring of Death watching it on my XBox 360 HD DVD add-on (I actually had Talk to Me out from Netflix when my XBox red-ringed, and returned it unwatched while my unit was repaired). But I never got to that point. When I removed the disc from its Netflix envelope, it came out in two pieces. Talk to Me was released in a hybrid format, with an HD DVD on one side and a standard DVD on the other. Apparently they're just glued together or something, because they came right apart on me. I thought maybe I could still play just half a disc, but given my track record for the evening, I decided not to experiment.

So three films, three strikes. The good news is, eventually, I was able to watch My Kid Could Paint That without incident. Okay documentary, and if you're interested in my opinion, the kid didn't paint the paintings, certainly not in the manner the parents claim. To say that a four-year-old painted every painting, from the first one on, with no assistance, implies that the parents are awful people. "No, sweetheart, you have to do that alone. You're four years old, we can't coddle you forever!" Of course they helped. As one curator, who rejected a Marla work submitted to her art show before Marla's rise to fame, noted in an outtake included on the DVD, who picked the canvases? Are we to believe a four year old decided on her own she wanted to paint a triptych? Also included with the special features, which I watched with judicious use of the fast-forward button, was a Q&A session, in which one supporter of Marla basically explained to a questioner that, since he never himself was a painter, his opinion didn't matter. Of course, since he was once four years old, and no doubt dabbled in finger-painting, his claim as an artist is as absolute as Marla's. For some reason, that lady's comment really pissed me off, and angried up the blood. So, fuck you, old lady. But I digress. Interesting film, but I don't know what the take-away from it is. The filmmaker intended, before the question of authenticity was raised by "60 Minutes," to make a statement about modern art, but the unanticipated shift in the narrative muddies things a bit too much. And ultimately, I was surprised just how little I cared. It's hard to get worked up about parents exploiting their child, when she's having a fine time and now has a six-figure college fund. Perhaps there's a message to be derived from the owner of the gallery promoting Marla's work. When she has her fall, and her work stops selling for awhile, he seems glad that, at last, he can openly gloat in his big "fuck you" to the modern art community (his own work is in the photorealism genre). But when her work starts selling again, it's like that conversation never happened. So what does that mean? The business of art is driven by both spite and pragmatism? Some people are tools? Photorealism ain't where the money's at? Food for thought, I suppose.