Monday, August 11, 2003

"I feel like someone who's lived 10,000 years, has 17 senses, and is standing ankle high in the Atlantic."
-- Uncle Sweetheart (ne John Goodman)

It ain't for everyone, but "Masked and Anonymous" (I just typed "Anonymouse" -- the Disney remake) is one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in a whole long time. It's like one of Dylan's LP side-long ballads that create a small universe, make very little outward sense, but somehow make you feel purer for having heard it. I found myself trying to remember every line of dialogue. Most of the critics just didn't get it (Sony Pictures is just lucky Gigli came out around the same time...oh, Gigli came out of Sony also; heads are rolling), and Madame Cura and I were the only ones who laughed throughout (but this was in a dank metroplex in Westchester, and a lot of the audience was, apparently, made up of people who showed up too late to see "Dirty Pretty Things." But it was 1:52 of time better spent than watching the Yankees bullpen implode again.

"It's all about cellulose. Cows can digest it, but you can't. And neither can I."
-- Jack Fate

While I'm typing, the UN's permanent members are negotiating terms to send in UN help in Iraq. Will the Bushies swallow their pride?

Speaking of whom, Josh Marshall points to an interesting piece in Sunday's WaPost. How amazing is Dick Cheney? How can a guy be so wrong, so often, and still be the President unelected squared? Ford's chief of staff. Defense sect'y who pulled the plug on an Iraq invasion in '91. As CEO of Haliburton, he pushed through the purchase of a failing company with major asbestos liability. Iraq, the sequel. Phhtooyey. And what's going on under the naval observatory?

As we approach the third anniversary, here's a WaPost story on one of the real heroes of Sept. 11 2001, if a very large piece of reinforced concrete can be anthropomorphized like that. If you happened to catch the Langewiesche series [check the archives] that appeared in The Atlantic Monthly last year, you'll know how close the wall came to buckling. If it had, all of lower Manhattan and much of midtown -- because of the PATH train tunnels -- would have been flooded. The economic consequences are unknowable.

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