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A blog by someone who doesn't like or understand blogs.
A major theme of this blog is the love affair between the blogger and the city of New York.
Email me at david @ danzig . com. Close up the spaces there, if you are a human being and not a spammer.
Bloggers with whom I am personally acquainted, in real life, in alphebetical order by first name:
Blake N.
Dav C.
Jessica D.
Lauren P.
Sean S.
Steph T.
If you know me in person, and I forgot to put you here, definitely, please email me, and also please accept my apology!
Take a look at some of my nearby neighbors by clicking this button: 
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Thursday, February 27, 2003
REFRESHING CANDOR FROM TYCO.
Normally, corporate annual reports are very upbeat, even when times are bad. The 162+ page annual report for the beleaguered Tyco International (NYSE:TYC), of which I am a stockholder, begins this way.
To Our Shareholders:
The past year was terrible for Tyco, its investors and its employees. The Company experienced a net loss of over $9.4 billion, and saw its market capitalization decline significantly. In addition to the tough economic conditions affecting most companies, Tyco faced the embarrassment and damage to its reputation resulting from disclosures about the conduct of former management.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90386841
"PENN & TELLER: BULLSHIT" JUST JUMPED THE SHARK.
I'd been really enjoying the new Showtime show "Penn & Teller: Bullshit", and, in fact, I only subscribed to Showtime in order to see this show. But they argued so poorly for their thesis that laws outlawing public smoking are "bullshit" that it casts doubt on everything else they've said. Their first three episodes impressively debunked psychics, space aliens, and end-of-the-world prophesies. But on this episode, they smugly claim that second-hand smoke kills, at most, 2.5 non-smokers per 100,000 in the population (which they say is statistically insignificant), and they allude, without explanation or justification, to a Constitutional right to smoke in bars and restaurants, though I can't begin to imagine which part of the Constitution they might have in mind.
First of all, here in New York City, we have 8 million people. That's 80 times a hundred thousand, or 200 dead non-smokers. And there are an additional 8 million people in the New York metro area, many of whom come to New York every day. Penn and Teller dispute whether the rate of death is even this high, but even if there's only a one in a million chance that second hand smoke can ever kill someone, that's still 8 dead New York non-smokers, and perhaps more in the metro area. So, government is powerless to help these people, because there are too few of them? Between 8 and 200 needless deaths is the "statically insignificant" price we should--no, must--pay to allow people to annoy others with their cigarette smoke? Pshaw.
And even if no study can show any conclusive link between second hand smoke and death, why should non-smokers have to take any risk at all? We know that "first-hand" smoking kills hundreds of millions of people world-wide. Nobody disputes that. It's just common sense that there may also be some slight risk associated with second-hand smoke, even if that risk is too small to measure. Should developing children and pregnant women and people who are already at high risk for cancer, not to mention the rest of us, have to take the risk that the right study just hasn't been published yet?
And what's the argument against banning smoking? Well, according to the people on the show, we non-smokers (and also the many smokers who support the ban) are inflicting our behaviors on others. I mean, can you even imagine? The law doesn't tell people not to step outside for a smoke, nor that they shouldn't smoke in their homes and cars. But when I have to breathe your second-hand cigarette smoke, then you're the one inflicting your behavior on me. Even if it doesn't cause one death, why can't we, as a society, say that we don't like to cough, and we don't like our eyes to sting, and we don't like to get smoke in our hair and clothes? I remember a few months ago, an exchange between a "smoking rights" advocate and a smoking ban advocate on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, in which the smoking rights advocate asked, "Why shouldn't I be allowed to smoke wherever I want to?", and the smoking ban advocate asked in reply, "Why shouldn't I be allowed to masturbate wherever I want to?" Surely, no one thinks they have any more of a right to smoke in public than they do to masturbate in public. Do you really think you have some "right" to blow smoke in my face when I'm trying to eat? As the saying goes, "Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose." Why do you think the Constitution gives you a right to strike me with your cigarette smoke, any more than it gives you the right to strike me with your fist or a knife or a bullet?
The bottom line is that whether or not to allow this obnoxious behavior in public is a matter of public policy, not Constitutional jurisprudence, and it is exactly the sort of thing that should be decided by popularly elected legislatures, democratically representing their constituents. Here in New York City, the smoking ban is overwhelmingly popular. Out in "Marlboro Country" somewhere, say in Texas or New Orleans, such a ban might be unpopular, and if so, then they should have a different rule. The Constitution doesn't give you a right to smoke, nor me a right to be free from smoke. But the Constitution does give me the right to vote for those public officials who support the laws that I believe in, such as this public smoking ban.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90385739
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
DAILY SHOW SCHIZOPHRENIA, PART III or HOW BIG IS THEIR GIANT DICK?
At the beginning of the month, I pointed out that Comedy Central's The Daily Show arbitrarily bleeped out the word "bush" when used by Rosie Perez to refer to her own genitalia, but not the word "pussy" when used by Lawrence Fishburne to refer to female genitalia, even though "Bush" is the name of the President of the United States. A couple weeks later, I pointed out that they bleeped out the word "Dick", in the phrase "you don't have to be a dick about it", not referring specifically to genitalia, used by host Jon Stewart, dispute the fact that that is a common first name, and the name of the Vice-President.
On February 19, they did not bleep out the word "dick" spoken by Jon Stewart in the phrase "Is it my imagination, or does it seem like every ruler of every country in the world right now is a giant dick?" So, I guess, you can't say "dick", but you can say "giant dick"? I wonder if you could say, "Suck my Dick Chaney" on TV. Would they bleep out the word "Dick" and leave the word "Cheney" so everyone knew what you had just said? I leave that question as an exercise for the reader.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90380881
DO ALL TIVO SUBSCRIBERS HAVE ME TO THANK?
I was one of the first Tivo customers, and early on, I answered their request for suggestions for improving their service. They never replied, but they implemented almost all of my suggestions.
Actually, even back in 1999, these ideas seemed pretty obvious, I thought. Then again, maybe, if it weren't for me, they'd never have happened. Who knows?
If you don't have a Tivo, you probably won't find this very interesting, and you might want to skip this very long blog entry.
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 01:35:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: David D.
To: help@tivo.com
Subject: Suggestions for improving the Tivo Software even more
I was very pleased to get your recent email announcing your welcome
improvements and inviting further suggestions. I have used Tivo for just
the last three weeks, and I already don't know how I ever got along
without it.
Having used and relied upon it, I do have the following suggestions for
improving Tivo's software:
1) Currently, when you change the channel with Tivo while watching live
T.V., the half-hour buffer is erased. This seems both annoying and
unnecessary. It is particularly frustrating when I'm watching a show
behind real time, and then Tivo needs to change the channel in order to
record another program. I must then chose between not seeing the end of
the show I was watching or not recording the program I had scheduled. I
don't understand why my Tivo must require me to make this choice.
2) When I look up a show by name, I really wish there were some way to see
not just the very next time that show will be on, but the times after
that. This would be great for helping to resolve conflicts. For example,
if I want to tape "Sex and the City" on HBO, but I have a conflict, I
could press a single button and find out when the identical episode will
be repeated, and record that broadcast instead.
3) Along the same line, currently, when a new season pass conflicts with
an old one, one of those season passes must be canceled. I would far
prefer it if both passes could be saved, but Tivo would ask me which
season pass should have a higher priority. That way I could have a season
pass to a cable show that's repeated several times a week, but have it
occasionally pre-empted by a show that's only on once a week.
4) Finally, I think Tivo should alert me when a season pass conflict
arises that was not apparent when the season pass was set. For example,
the WB show "Felicity", to which I have a season pass, has just moved from
Tuesday night to Sunday night, and is now opposite "the Simpsons" and
"Futurama", to which I also have season passes. Looking at "Tivo's To Do
List", I see that my Tivo has resolved the conflict by deciding to record
Felicity and not the other two shows. I think it should have recognized
the conflict, and alerted me to it, so that I could decide for myself how
to resolve the conflict.
I hope these suggestions don't sound too negative. I really do love
having my Tivo, and I think it's a great product!
Best regards,
David Danzig
---Tivo implemented the first three suggestions---
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 17:30:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: David D.
To: help@tivo.com
Subject: Suggestions for improving the Tivo software
I am a Tivo customer, and I recently wrote you with some suggestions on
how to improve the Tivo software. I didn't get a response, but I hope
you've found my suggestions useful, and that you'll consider implementing
them. I've included them below, along with a few new ones. Please let me
know whether you find them helpful, and if you plan on implementing any of
them.
5) One matter of great concern to me is the status bar at the bottom of
the screen which says how long the program is, and how much has been
recorded, and how much has been played. I am concerned about getting
"screen burn", because this item is so often on the screen. Screen burn
occurs when an image is displayed too long on a screen, and the reverse
image becomes permanently visible even when the image is gone. Large
screen rear projection TVs are particularly susceptible to this
phenomenon. The main reason I am concerned about this for the status bar,
is that it stays on the screen when a program is paused, which can be for
an unlimited period of time. Advancing the program a frame gets rid of
the status bar, but sometimes I forget to do that, and I'm sure it never
even occurs to many Tivo customers. An obvious solution to this problem
is for the status bar to be automatically removed from the screen after a
few moments when the program is paused. An even better, though more
complex, solution would be for the entire image, including the status bar,
to alternate between the regular image and its photonegative image. That
way, screen burn will be impossible, since all the pixels will be
displayed in equal amounts, over time.
6) This is a very minor problem, but it seems so easy to fix, that it
would be a real shame not to do so: When I set a manual recording of a
program which I had already scheduled, Tivo reports a conflict. For
example, suppose I had told Tivo to record Sunday's new episode of the
Simpsons, by choosing it from Fox's daily schedule. Then, I later decide
to set a manual recording of the Simpsons every Sunday. Tivo will tell me
that I have a conflict with my previous recording. In actuality, of
course, there is no conflict, since these are both commands to record the
same show.
7) Finally, I want to re-emphasize my suggestion number 2) below. I think
the single best thing you could do to improve Tivo is to show every
scheduled broadcast of a show when it is chosen by name, instead of just
the very next showing. As I wrote below, this would be great when the
first broadcast is in conflict with another show, and the same episode
will be on again, as with many cable series and movies. But it would also
be really great for talk shows and syndicated shows. For example, I have
most, but not all, episodes of the Simpsons, Newsradio, and Friends, three
of my favorite shows, each of which is on multiple times throughout the
day on a different channel from the other two. It is very tedious to go
through the schedules of the three different channels, looking at the
program descriptions of each episode, to see if it's one that I haven't
seen, and should tape again. I can't tape them all, since some of these
shows conflict with each other. It would also be very useful for taping
talk shows, which I might only want to watch if there's going to be a
particularly interesting guest on. Adding this feature would literally
save me hours every week. Please, consider adding this feature.
Very best regards,
David Danzig
[quote of original message snipped]
---Tivo implemented suggestions 5 and 7---
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90376448
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
SPAM KILLS.
Have you ever seen one of those spams that says that the deposed leader of Nigeria wants to pay you millions of dollars to help move some money out of the country? Well, some Czech person who got taken in by the scam just assassinated the Nigerian consul to the Czech Republic after being taken in by the scam, and not being able to get his money back via the Nigerian consulate.
While I, of course, abhor murder, I do hope this helps to show people both that you should never do business with a spammer, and also that spam is not a harmless nuisance. For my part, I get over one thousand different spam emails every single day, and that number is rising rapidly. I once tried unsubscribing myself, but that only made the problem much, much worse. I spend hours dealing with it each week, and I have to pay my employees hundreds of dollars to sit and delete their spam, too. It's outrageous! And I'm just one guy who never even answers these spams. People are losing their life savings to scams like these every day.
How many more people have to die before we address this global problem?
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90375279
I'M BACK!
I got back last night from San Francisco. Here's what I did while I was away.
Wednesday, I arrived and had dinner at my cousin Diana's apartment with her husband, Adam, and her brother, mother, and father, who are, respectively, my cousin, aunt, and uncle. Then I went to Sean S.'s and Dav C.'s place, where I was staying. We went out to a bar that was having lesbian night.
Thursday morning, I went to my cousin Neil B.'s twin sons' circumcision. I was very glad I could share that moment with my family, and I'm all for circumcision, in general. But watching it and celebrating it was very off-putting, and it really reminded me of why I don't really like being Jewish, and why I really don't want to raise my children Jewish. Then, I went to Neil's and his wife Beth's place and hung around with my extended family, and then went to Diana's again for dinner. Then, I went back to Sean's and Dav's and went out for drinks.
Friday, we had lunch at this great Sandwich place near Sean and Dav, and then Sean and I went to the Cable Car Museum and hung around Fisherman's Wharf. We had Sushi at a cool place on Mission Street, and then went to Manisha's place for drinks and fun times.
Saturday, Sean and I had lunch in Berkeley, and spent the afternoon there. Then we went to some kind of Robot Art Show with Dav and David D., who I've known since elementary school, and lives out near San Francisco now.
Sunday, Sean and Dav and I had lunch on Haight Street, and Sean and I hung around Haight, and then wandered around The Castro. We had Pizza in North Beach for dinner, and called it an early night.
Monday, I flew out first thing in the morning. I was changing planes in Philadelphia, and it was an hour and twenty minute layover, followed by a one hour flight, but the train from Philly to New York is only an hour and twelve minutes, and central Philly is a lot easier to get to from the Airport than New York is from its airport. So I threw away my connecting ticket, I went into Philly, and I had dinner with Joe F. and took the Acella to Manhattan.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90373340
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
AND I'M OFF.
I'm going tomorrow to San Francisco, because my cousin Neil B. and his wife Beth just had twins, Jonathan and David. David is named after my and Neil's grandfather, David R., for whom I was also named. I'll be back Wednesday night.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90342031
THE 100TH INTERNATIONAL TOY FAIR.
Jill Z. and I went to the 100th annual International Toy Fair yesterday. It was so fun. There were thousands of exhibitors showing toys ranging from old classics of years past to innovative new things. Some of my favorites were moldable scented soap with the consistency of play-dough, screened in butterfly houses, a Jesus action figure, a ball with a launcher that makes it bounce much, much higher than the height from which it was dropped. There were cute dolls and puppets and board games and ball games and puzzles and so many different things that when I closed my eyes to go to sleep, I kept seeing booths of toys, like when you play a video game all day, and then close your eyes and keep seeing the game you were playing when you try to sleep.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90342025
THE STORM OF THE CENTURY (SO FAR).
It's really bugging me how the media keeps calling this "the blizzard of 2003". Like, if they just said, "the blizzard", I'd be all like "What blizzard? Do you mean the blizzard of '69?" I appreciate that they're trying to make it seem historic, and I'm sure that history will come to call it that next year. But to start calling it that now is the exact opposite of journalism. And, you know, there really could be another, even bigger blizzard before the year is out, in late February, early March, or November or December. This reminds me very much of the storm of late 1995, which the media dubbed "the storm of the century," only to see it dwarfed by a larger storm, just a few weeks later in early 1996.
Jill Z. and I hiked through for miles and miles all day yesterday. Sometime it was up to our knees or deeper, and the piles made by snow plows were as high as 20 feet, I reckon, near Rockefeller Center. The city and its inhabitants did a really good job of clearing the roads, but no matter how much they cleared, more snow just kept getting dumped on top of their efforts. But as soon as the snow stopped, it only took everybody a couple of hours to clear everything. Good job, NYC!
Jill's flight got snowed in, so I got to stay with her an extra day. Yay!
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90341998
TV IS TOTALLY PHONEY.
I recently saw tapings of both Chapelle's Show and The Ricki Lake show. There's a lot of pretending to cheer for no reason and even pretending to laugh at jokes you already heard in an earlier take.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90341977
THEATER REVIEW: SCATTERGOOD * * * 1/2 (3 and a half stars out of 4).
This great play is smart, funny, and ultimately very dark.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90341904
THEATER REVIEW: IMAGINARY FRIENDS * * * (3 stars out of 4).
This soon-to-close musical about the real-life literary feud between Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman was quite entertaining. It was funny and smart and witty and sometimes powerful. I don't think it should have been a musical, though. The play is somewhat surreal, and the music lends to that surrealism, yet it also distracts from the flow of the story, I think. Plus, the music didn't blow me away at all, except for one haunting song about the McCarthy hearings.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90341869
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY.
My girlfriend, Jill Z. came to visit for Valentine's Day weekend! We had a really wonderful weekend exploring the city. She hadn't been to New York in many, many years, and I was showing her around. She also had seen snow only twice before, and got to be snowed in here for the biggest blizzard in decades. In her too-brief visit here, we saw a taping of the Ricky Lake show, the plays "Imaginary Friends" and Scattergood, the show Tinkle, hosted by David Cross, and a comedy show at the Comedy Cellar. We ate a culinary swath through all neighborhoods of the city, and we took in the 100th annual International Toy Fair.
More to follow.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90341825
Thursday, February 13, 2003
DAILY SHOW SCHIZOPHRENIA, PART II or MORE FUN WITH BUSH AND DICK.
A couple weeks ago, I pointed out that Comedy Central's the Daily Show with Jon Stewart bleeped out the word "bush" used to refer to female genitalia, but not the word "pussy" used to refer to female genitalia, which seemed pretty arbitrary to me, particularly considering that "Bush" is the name of the unelected President of the United States. On Tuesday night's episode, they bleeped out the word "dick", in the phrase "you don't have to be a dick about it" (i.e., not specifically or necessarily referring to male genitalia). This, despite the fact that "Dick" is a common first name, as well as the name of the unelected Vice-President of the United States.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90316728
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
MOVIE REVIEW: GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002) * 1/2 (1 and a half stars out of 4).
I finally saw Gangs of New York, with Rob K. First of all, at 2 hours and 45 minutes, this movie is very self-indulgently over-long. Are you seriously telling me that they couldn't have cut, say, five minutes out of this movie? In fact they could have cut out the whole last half hour and had a much better film, because the ending is ridiculous. One of the main selling points in the movie seemed to be that it offered a view of the way New York looked 150 years ago. But the movie doesn't even offer much of that, as practically all the outdoor action takes place at a single intersection. There are some clever lines of dialogue here and there, though none so memorable that it comes to mind as I write this. And there's a whole lot of violence, if you like that sort of thing. But the story makes little sense, and the feelings and motivations of the characters are difficult to fathom.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90311652
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHOW?
The new show, "Clone High" on MTV is very amusing. The premise is that, in the 1980s, scientists dug up a bunch of famous people from history and cloned them, and now the clones are teenagers in high school, going through the every-day problems that teens go through. They all know that they are clones, yet, for the most part, they don't seem to be up to the challenge of living up to the achievements of their famous progenitors. The main characters are Abraham Lincoln, his pal Ghandi, Joan of Arc (who has a crush on Abe), Cleopatra (who Abe has a crush on), and JFK (who likes Cleopatra and all the other female students at Clone High). It's pretty funny some times, but it's more interesting and smart than it is funny. You should check it out.
Clone High is on MTV at the following times, according to my Tivo:
Friday, 2/14: 1 AM, 1:30 AM.
Saturday, 2/15: 12 AM, 12:30 AM, 6 PM.
Sunday, 2/16: 1:30 PM, 2 PM.
Monday, 2/17: 12 AM, 12:30 AM, 10:30 PM.
Thursday, 2/20: 5:30 PM.
Friday, 2/21: 6:30 PM.
Saturday, 2/22: 9:30 PM.
All of these are on MTV. Here in Manhattan, that's Time Warner Cable Channel 20. Note that AM times indicate the very early morning. So, for example, the episode on Friday, 2/14, at 1 AM is very early Friday morning, or, you might say, late Thursday night.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90311638
Monday, February 10, 2003
THEATER REVIEW: TINKLE * * * (3 stars out of 4).
This new comedy show, which plays at Pianos at 158 Ludlow Street on Sunday nights at 8, is alternately hosted by David Cross (of Mr. Show with Bob and David), Todd Barry, and Jon Benjamin (Dr. Katz's good-for-nothing son on Dr. Katz). It's great, as far as stand-up comedy shows go, and some of the acts I saw there were great. But a couple were rather mundane. Does New York need another stand-up comedy show? That's a rhetorical question to which the answer is no. A lot of the acts challenged the conventional stand-up format, and there are musical acts and videos and some parodies of the genre of stand-up, and a lot of it was great. But even so, I guess from these great hosts I expected something a little more unconventional. As good a show as this is, I think I'd always rather go to the Upright Citizen Brigade'sA.S.S.S.S.C.A.T., which is also once a week at the same time.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90300745
NYC RESTAURANT REVIEW: L'IMPERO * * * * (4 stars out of 4).
L'impero at 45 Tudor City Place, way on the east side between 42nd and 43rd, is phenomenal. The food is incredible, the wait-staff is attentive and friendly, and the $49 four-course prix fixe dinner tasting menu is actually an incredible bargain for the delicious feast that it gets you. As our appetizer, Andy M. and I both had the chestnut and celery root soup with rabbit, which I highly recommend. For our pasta dish, I had the gnocchi which was absolutely perfect, while Andy had the duck ravioli and Sophie W. had the sea-food linguini. All of them were excellent. For the main course, Andy had the Venison, which I'm not a huge fan of, in general. This was as good as any I've had, but, true to form, it was a little gamey. I had the goat, which was very good. For dessert, Sophie had the Chocolate Cake, which was definitely my favorite, and it was truly excellent. I had the chocolate soup which was delicious, but a little busy. Andy had the fried dough (I forget the Italian word for it they used) which was good, but fried dough is pretty hard to screw up. This is one of the best restaurants I've ever been to, and I recommend it highly.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90300662
Saturday, February 08, 2003
BLOGGER BASH.
I just got back from the 14th Annual Big Apple Blogger Bash. There were a bunch of other bloggers there, and all of them had very interesting stories to tell. Here are the blog addresses I got from people:
The Daily Dose,
Curious Lee,
blue red orange,
The Beautiful Days,
Rough Days,
EricRosenfield.com,
brokentype,
Randomness Personified,
Objectionable Content, and
Asymmetrical Information.
That last one is my favorite so far of the bunch. It's really smart and interesting. I can see myself getting a little sucked into it. It's very political and very personal at the same time. But Megan (who goes by "Jane Galt") is so prolific that I don't know how I'll be able to keep up with it, much less catch up.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90294588
Friday, February 07, 2003
MOVIE REVIEW: HUMAN NATURE (2001) * * 1/2 (2 and a half stars out of 4).
I watched Human Nature because it was written by Charlie Kaufman, who wrote Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, as well as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. I was also attracted to the fact that it stars Tim Robbins, who I love, and who, it turns out, is great in the movie. This movie was relatively trite and "Hollywood" compared with Kaufman's other scripts, but there is still that quirky, surreal quality that he brings to his work. There are some funny moments, but I think the movie fails as a comedy, and I also think it fails as a morality play. An interesting theme of the movie was where the source of morality comes from. As the movie opens, Tim Robbins is already dead, telling his story, unsure of whether he gets to go to Heaven or Hell. He was ruthlessly trained by his parents to be "proper", particularly in his table manners. He trains a feral human to be civilized, using an electric-shock collar. He captures this human being and keeps him in a cage while he is civilizing him. In every case, it seems as if the dispenser of morality lacks the moral authority necessary for her actions, and it gets one to thinking about where morality comes from, particularly when it comes to the trivialities associated with civilization.
I've always felt resentful toward the requirements of table manners. It seems like every rule is designed to mike life more difficult and unpleasant. Why can't it be a rule that it's super-extra-polite to pick your teeth at the table? Wouldn't that make life easier and better and more pleasant? Why can't it be a rule that it's a compliment to your host to clear your plate and also a compliment to your host not to clear your plate? You know, in America and much of Europe it's rude not to finish your meal, but in Thailand, it's rude to finish it. Here, we think it's a compliment to show that your food was too delicious not to finish, but they think it's a better compliment to show that our food was too plentiful to finish. The idea that two cultures could come to completely opposite conclusions about the exact same thing, and both be offended if you disagree, illustrates perfectly the absurdity of the very notion of table manners. I think that when you're eating, which is such hedonistic and animalistic thing to do, the very highest law ought to be "do as you please." I love the image of mediaeval feasts, where all the people eat with their hands and throws their bones on the floor. I vote for that.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90290100
BOOK REVIEW: THE ORCHID THIEF (2000) * * * (3 stars out of 4).
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean is the book that the movie Adaptation is an adaptation of. I found that movie so intriguing and confusing that I had to read the book. It turns out that the book, more than anything else, is about the history of South Florida, which is where I grew up, so that was a very pleasant and interesting surprise. It seems that South Florida was built upon one real-estate scam after another. I think Charlie Kaufman's criticisms of the book are true. It is very interesting, but there isn't really a story, and none of the characters ever really learn anything or change in a meaningful way. But, then again, that's what life is really like.
There's nothing in the book that sheds any light on the mysteries of the movie. Nothing about using orchids as a drug, nothing about killing anybody, nothing about Donald Kaufman. The book is the same mundane book that serves as a prop in Adaptation.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90290027
Thursday, February 06, 2003
WATCH THIS SPACE.
I just opened a fortune cookie, and it said, "Your future has not yet been determined."
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90288201
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
ACTUALLY, SOME OF THEM ARE TRUE.
Snopes.com is an amazingly comprehensive collection of urban legends distributed over the Internet. It's one of those sites you could easily spend hours at, following one lead after another. It's been a while since I lost myself in a site like that.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90278119
EXACTLY WHAT'S WRONG WITH TELEVISION.
I just started watching the episode of "TV Out of the Box" that documents the show "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" on the Trio cable channel, and they said this throwaway line in the introduction: "TV Out of the Box tracks the last two months of production on Andy Richter, as the cast and crew make the most of their last chance to establish themselves in a medium that values commercial success above originality and critical acclaim." And it was though I was hit by a bolt of lightning. That's exactly, exactly what's wrong with television. Sure, all media are influenced by commercial success. But for television, commercial success means mass appeal. Something that draws an intense reaction from only a few people may be great art, but it will never succeed on TV. Maybe that's why there's so much great original programming on HBO: at $10 a subscriber, they can afford to make a program that appeals only to, say, a few hundred thousand people. But broadcast television, which sells eyeballs to advertisers for thirty seconds at a time for about a nickel a pair, must appeal to tens of millions of people in order to succeed. And, in the world of commercial television, the only kind of success there is is commercial success. And that's why television sucks so much of the time, and that's why great shows always get cancelled. People say that the proliferation of digital cable and satellite television, with their thousands of channels will change this. Now, there will be a home for most every show, as channels settle for audiences in the tens of thousands. But as long as the only kind of success there is is ratings success, nothing will ever really change. I actually love the ethic of Trio, which often broadcasts (or rebroadcasts) brilliant television that challenges the definition of the medium, such as their "Brilliant but Cancelled" month in December, and their rebroadcasts of the old NBC episodes of Late Night with David Letterman. But in the end, they're the same as everyone else, just banking that their intellectual approach will attract enough viewers for them to make a profit.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90274150
OH, ME BROTHERS.
A pretty neat bar in New York City's East Village is the Korova Milk Bar at 13th and A. It's (loosely) modeled after the bar of the same name in the movie "A Clockwork Orange." They have "Moloku" drinks, which contain ice-cream (instead of milk with "cutters" in it). Much of the decor is modeled from the movie as well. I went there Saturday with Dara E. and Ricky on Saturday, and had a drink with Stoli Orange and ice-cream.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_02_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90273842
Saturday, February 01, 2003
HEY, WAIT A SECOND!
Why does this bag say "Gourmet Microwave Popcorn"? There's no such thing as gourmet microwave popcorn! Gourmets don't eat microwave popcorn. What's going on here? I smell a mystery. I'm going to go look for clues.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_01_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90262641
DAILY SHOW SCHIZOPHRENIA.
On Wednesday night, on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the censors repeatedly bleeped out the word "bush", as used by Rosie Perez to refer to her own genitalia-- even though that's the name of the President of the United States, and even though Comedy Central has a program on that network called, "That's my Bush". But then Thursday night, they let Laurence Fishburne use the word "pussy" repeatedly without bleeping it. Seriously, what's the principle that guides the decision to bleep out one whimsical euphemism, but not, in my opinion, a more graphic and course one? And, really, what did they think the name of the show "That's my Bush" was supposed to mean?
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_01_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90262617
REVIEW OF REVIEW OF REVIEWS.
Here's the breakdown of how many items have been awarded each possible number of stars by me.
* * * * (4 stars) has been awarded 6 times: 3 restaurants, 2 theater shows, 1 movie, and 0 books.
* * * 1/2 (3 and a half stars) has been awarded 16 times: 10 restaurants, 1 theater show, 2 movies, and 3 books.
* * * (3 stars) has been awarded 18 times: 6 restaurants, 2 theater shows, 4 movies, and 6 books.
* * 1/2 (2 and a half stars) has been awarded 7 times: 2 restaurants, 1 theater show, 2 movies, and 2 books.
* * (2 stars) has been awarded 7 times: 0 restaurants, 0 theater shows, 0 movies, and 7 books.
* 1/2 (1 and a half stars) has been awarded 8 times: 0 restaurants, 1 theater shows, 5 movies, and 2 books.
* (1 star) has been awarded 3 times: 0 restaurants, 1 theater show, 2 movies, and 0 books.
1/2 (half a star) has been awarded once, for a movie.
no stars (0 stars) has been awarded once, for a book.
One of the striking patterns that emerges here is that no restaurant has been awarded fewer than two and a half stars, and only two have been awarded less than three stars. This is not because I am easy on restaurants. Rather, it is because I don't generally review restaurants unless I think they're particularly memorable. I don't review some hole-in-the-wall diner, to say that it's a hole-in-the-wall diner. By contrast, I review almost every single movie, or theater show I see, and almost every single book I read, so those have a more natural distribution.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003_01_01_daviddanzig_archive.html#90261729
