HAMLET (FACEBOOK NEWS FEED EDITION). Written by Sarah Schmelling.

HAMLET (FACEBOOK NEWS FEED EDITION). Written by Sarah Schmelling..

This is almost as good as the 10-hour Kenneth Branagh version.

Already shared it on Facebook — sharing it here for those who dislike such things. But you’ll still find it funny.

 

China beat: Handball, war, sanitation, etc.

In covering Iceland’s handball team today, I got this quote:

What we thought before this game is just to do what our forefathers did. They at most endured, like, two or three days at home in peace, and then they had to destroy something. They had to go and fight war somewhere. They went with their boats and stuff like that, and we were just on our boats, destroying something. That’s how we went to the game, just to enjoy those 60 minutes like our (unintelligible) in life. That’s what you do. That’s what you live for.

I didn’t use it because I had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe Monty Python’s Njorl’s Saga sketch?

Someone else suggested Bjork’s Earth Intruders video:

No, that didn’t help. And the goalkeeper isn’t a Bjork fan, anyway.

BBC readers are obsessed with the way the U.S. media order their medals table, insisting countries should be listed according to gold medals rather than totals.

Naturally, the assumption is not that this is simply a discrepancy in long-standing conventions, such as the differences between “cookie” and “biscuit” or the American stubbornness in resisting the metric system. The assumption is that we all used to list the medals sorted by golds, then changed when China surged to a commanding lead in that category.

Imagine my shock when someone dug up the USA TODAY medal count from Athens, from the stat feed whose specs I helped write, and we had it listed by gold medals. My guess is that we once gave readers the chance to sort it as they saw fit, and that functionality disappeared over one of the multitude of server migrations over the years.

Whatever the explanation, I’m sure it has no chance of being accepted by the folks who were hyping the 200 meters as a showdown between Usain Bolt and Christian Malcolm.

I love the BBC, but anyone from the UK who thinks Americans are the most provincial jerks in the world should take a look at the Beeb’s Olympics coverage. Yikes.

I also love Olympic News Service, which sends hordes of fresh-faced young folks to the venues to collect “flash quotes” from athletes.

You’re generally not going to get controversial material from these quotes, though. They have notepads and not tape recorders, and a 21-year-old generally isn’t going to trust his or her scribbled notes if anyone questions the quote’s accuracy. Also, the quote-taker might not be a native speaker of whatever language the athlete’s speaking.

So if you see someone in a mixed zone ranting as follows:

I was robbed. That ref was clearly watching beach volleyball instead of us. Yeah, my opponent played well, but he also took out a small knife and slashed my knee open right in front of the ref! I can’t believe this crap. I’m going back to the Olympic Village to count my blessings that he didn’t end my career, and you’d better believe I’m going to trash some rooms.

You’ll get this quote.

My opponent played well. I’m going back to the Olympic Village to count my blessings.

So I was surprised to see this from fourth-place high jumper Stefan Holm of Sweden:

I had a bit of luck four years ago in Athens, but shit happens.

ONS might be getting a little punchy near the end of the Games, as are many of us.

Speaking of sanitation, here’s a little sign to remind the media that plumbing in Beijing ain’t what they might be used to back home:

Off to catch the bus back to get a good night’s sleep, believe it or not.

 

Saturday clearout

In which I make up for lost time this week:

- Hey, black people play chess! So say The New York Times and The Washington Post in a neat fit of coincidence. The NYT piece on RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan is a fun read. The Post piece is a failed attempt at sociology. Wonder what’ll happen when both papers realize today’s chess players are pondering poker careers.

- Josh Waitzkin, the subject of the great film Searching for Bobby Fischer, has blossomed into a young adult with interesting thoughts on how we should live and learn. He seems to have moved successfully from one discipline to another – chess, then tai chi, then Brazilian jiu jitsu. (I will laugh myself silly if I see a guy known as a chess player pop up on an Elite XC mixed martial arts card.) He’s well-rounded, but he raises a persuasive argument here against multitasking. At least, I think that’s what he’s arguing — I’m also watching Spongebob with the little one at the moment.

- Speaking of the little ones, I felt a little guilty after a bad traffic day this week. I saw a truck blocking an intersection for an entire traffic-light cycle. I saw a policeman who didn’t feel any need to help out with that mess, but he was content to stop one of the few moving lanes to yell at a guy whose tires had gone on the curb as he went around a car trying to merge into the neighboring lane. Then I stopped at a green light to avoid blocking an intersection, only to see cars from the right-turn-only lane zip ahead of me.

And so I found myself trying to answer the question: “Daddy? What does asshole mean?”

- Now this is cool multimedia journalism: An NYT tribute to Mad magazine fold-ins.

- A pointy-headed journalism mailing list to which I subscribe has been pondering Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer’s comments that print would be dead in 10 years. Online Journalism Review cheekily refers to all the previous “print will be dead” comments with the headline “Writing print’s epitaph – v6.5.08 (service pack 3).” I’ve long been the semi-official list heretic, so I decided it’d be fun to note the coincidence of Ballmer making those comments the same week that Deadspin founder Will Leitch announced he was taking a magazine job. So far, the response has been, “Well, New York also has an aggressive online strategy.” OK, but it’s kept in business with tons of glossy ads for stylish condos way outside the typical journalist’s price range.

- Radio show to which I hope to listen: BBC Radio 2’s satirical comedy On the Blog, featuring at least one name I recognize from Whose Line Is It Anyway? I love the English.

 

Sounds like my high school band

The Onion has an audio report on the latest from the music scene.

 

And while you’re arranging the sodas, let me share a story from this time in Germany …

If you haven’t checked out The Smoking Gun’s collection of touring musicians’ requirements in a while, now is a good time.

Ladies and gentlemen, Iggy and the Stooges.

It’s a little long because they apparently don’t cart a lot of their own gear with them (I’m imagining the Rush rider is something like “a bunch of water and some oil for Neil’s motorcycle”), but the roadie writing it goes to great lengths to make it entertaining. I wish people did that with all official documents.

 

Tai-rony

Paraphrasing my Tai Chi teacher at our first class today:

“The goal of Tai Chi is to focus mind and body through slow movement, so that we concentrate and develop mental discipline and … um … sorry, lost my train of thought …”

 

MMM Jr. goes to church

It was an “Advent lessons and carols” service, which in retrospect was not the best place for an inquisitive 4-year-old who doesn’t go to such things that often.

Imagine the conversation taking place in a stage whisper …

Daddy?

What is it?

When are they going to turn the lights on?

Well, they’re going to light all these candles to make it brighter.

But when?

I don’t know.

(Skipping ahead — candles now lit)

Daddy?

Yes?

Who’s singing this?

See all those people up there? They’re singing.

But what are their names?

I don’t kn — I’ll tell you more later, can you be quiet for a while?

But why?

Because we’re all enjoying the music.

Why are we enjoying the music?

Because it’s nice — please? You’ll get a treat when we get home. Can you be quiet for five minutes unless you have to go potty?

OK. (Moves hand to cover mouth)

…

…

…

Daddy?

Yes, what is it?

I’m being quiet.

Good … well … actually, you’re not — but good. We’ll leave after one more song, OK?

OK.

…

…

…

Daddy?

(exasperated) What is it?

When are they going to turn the lights on?

Remember? They lit the candles.

Is the light — the candles — the light on the candles? Is that fire?

Yes, but it’s OK.

How do they make the fire?

We come in here and pray to Prometheus for a well-timed … look, can you wait one more song? Please?

OK, Daddy. (Plays with his “Bionicle” toy on the hymnal.)

…

…

Daddy?

Wh … What is it?

This is Bionicle’s Bible.

That’s sweet, son. Now can you be quiet for this last song before we go?

OK

…

…

…

Daddy?

#$%@! What?

I’m being quiet.

 

Amusing moments in Northern Virginia driving

I travel on the Beltway toward Tysons. Like everyone else, I get over to the right to take Leesburg Pike to Tysons, then remember that you need to get in the left-most of the two exit lanes.

No problem.

Then a minivan makes the same decision, just a lot later and in a lot more traffic.

Then the minivan hits its brakes hard.

I hit my brakes and pray … stopping … stopping …

Stopped. Maybe an inch or two short of the minivan’s rear bumper.

Relief turns quickly to anger. HONK! HONK! HONNNNNNKKKKK!!!!!

BAM!!

“Bam?” I think.

Hey, wait … that’s from behind.

Hey, I’ve been in an accident!

OK, let’s pull over …

Phew! The back of my car has just a scratch or two on the bumper.

The guy behind me … ick!

But he’s strangely calm. Even apologetic about my bumper, though he took the worst of it. He gives me his number and drives off.

OK, ready to merge back into traffic …

Son of a bitch — will someone please let me back in?

 

Albums that share this blog’s initials

Unfortunately, that would be Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, which doesn’t quite fall into the “so bad it’s good” category but rather the “so bad that decades of amusing conversation have not quite discerned what Reed was trying to do, but the theories are great.” I first heard of this album in the great book The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time, a must-have. This is #2. That’s an accomplishment.

They cheat a little with #1 — it’s an album of Elvis Presley’s between-song mutterings. I’d argue that’s a spoken-word album, which means Reed’s effort is #1. But maybe they’re cheating with this one, too. It’s basically guitar feedback minus the guitar playing. Like Elvis’ “work,” this is a byproduct of rock and roll packaged on its own, like having a big tub of MSG instead of the Chinese food it’s supposed to accompany.

This came up because the great music bloggers Jefito and Jason are doing one of their strange male-bonding things in which they send each other crappy stuff to read, hear and generally endure. I think Jason may have to concede now that Jefito has sent him MMM. (The album, not the blog. I hope no one finds my blog difficult to endure. Hee hee … pun on my last name. Anyway.)

But Jason makes the most of it. He took a bunch of pictures of himself listening to MMM, put it over the first 1:45 of the 64-minute epic and put the whole thing on YouTube. You can see Jason’s agony while experiencing only a small taste it. You could even experience none of it if you just mute your computer.

Enjoy (though it’s NSFW):

I’d say Jason’s as good an actor as he is a blogger, but he’s clearly not acting here.

So now I’ll offer a couple of attempted explanations what you just heard (or turned off).

The basic theories are: career suicide, a flip-off to Reed’s record label, a flip-off to music critics, a slow-motion drug overdose, an experiment in avant-garde classical music.

The latter isn’t that far-fetched. In case you wonder why classical music essentially died out as a creative force a couple of decades into the 20th century, it’s because the genre fell into the hands of people who were so busy trying to make grand artistic statements that they didn’t give a crap whether you listened to it.

This happened gradually. Everyone freaked out when Stravinsky unveiled Rite of Spring, but that piece stands up today as a viable piece of music. Then you have Carmina Burana, a very cool song cycle that pops up in ads and movies all the time (the blood-drinking scene in The Doors stands out). Then you have the WWII-era output of Aaron Copland. Anything after that, well, you’re not going to hear it on NPR anytime soon. You may have heard of Philip Glass, but can you hum anything by him?

I’ve met Philip Glass, oddly enough, through the professor who taught my composing class. And as proof that someone out there is still listening to classical music, that professor has his own Wikipedia entry, one that mentions the fine young composer Anthony Kelley.

So it’s not that the genre is dead — it’s just that the most famous guys created unlistenable music. In small doses, it’s amusing. You should’ve seen the sweet, innocent flute players in my music classes when the professor dropped some Stockhausen in the house. But I can assure my CD collection is Stockhausen-free.

And indeed, Stockhausen as an influence of this … um … work in the excellent Wikipedia entry, which refutes the Worst R&R Records notion that veteran mastering specialist Bob Ludwig deserves some special prize for withstanding this album. Ludwig apparently thought it compared favorably with the avant-garde classical people. That praise is fainter than that of a Class D star 50 billion light-years away.

Lester Bangs is credited with a great review seeking the bright side of MMM. But the Rolling Stone review is better because it calls bullshit: “Avant-garde artists (Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Andy Warhol) have been experimenting with ennui as a concept for so long that it’s no longer daring to tax the audience’s patience by being deliberately, intensely boring.”

In terms of avant-garde rebuttals, that’s right up there with Hobbes refusing to buy Calvin’s “found art,” despite its grand statements of the pointlessness of art itself, because it doesn’t match his furniture.

Wikipedia also has this: “The German new music ensemble Zeitkratzer have played Metal Machine Music in concert, with Lou Reed as soloist, using tradition classical concert instruments from a score transcribed from the original recording.”

Jason endured a listen, though he shared the experience with his cat. Bob Ludwig got throught it. Rock critics pride themselves on getting through it once. But the members of Zeitkratzer actually sat down and transcribed … something … out of this album.

To the members of Zeitkratzer — you are braver than all of us. Or perhaps you have powerful narcotics that should be studied as a possible cure for all human ailments. In any case, congratulations.

 

Post #350: A good Colbert-style joke

Yes, this is my 350th post. And to celebrate, I’m going to have a good laugh at the good and ugly — not bad — of the Internets.

Start here at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which published a hysterical letter to the editor. It’s a conspiracy theory — the liberal Congress wanted to perpetuate the global warming hoax, so it pushed back the beginning of Daylight Savings Time so that March would be warmer.

(Stop. Make sure you read that — if not the full letter, at least my synopsis, which doesn’t do it justice.)

How would the blogosphere react to this?

A few people figured it was a lost cause to explain that Congress didn’t actually gain control of time and space, so they explained that the DST law was passed before the Democrats gained control of Congress. Some were a little hostile, at least at first. Even Boing Boing.

But some people figured it must be a joke. And Snopes, bless their hearts, gets to the bottom of it. Snopes also shares some of the livid reactions in subsequent letters but is kind enough not to print their names.

The story has a good subplot — the headline. As you can see, it’s misspelled – “Daylight exacerbates warning.” (As a former copy editor, I feel the pain here, especially because changing the “n” to an “m” would mean the headline wouldn’t fit.)

Among the snarky reactions (you’ll have to go to that “misspelled” link and pop open the comments — it’s #2):

“And I guess one of the first caualties of the new ‘journalism’ take of todays media was the proofreader/spellchecker. Which since most Writing Programs on the computer have them built in – should be a given.”

Accept that eye don’t think a spellchecker wood have cot “warning.”