Watching this happen on PBS the other night I pretty much lost it.  The staging of this interview is so bizarre and then Charlie brings in Lawerence O'Donnell, creating a true Jodi Kantor (New York Times political writer) sandwich.  Kantor holds up beautifully considering the awkwardness.  I suggest forwarding to the 17:00 minute mark.

 
 

The New York Times blows up the scene.

 
 

Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana's speech at the DNC.  Is that Bernadette that the band plays on his intro?

 
Ice Cream Bagel 08/21/2008
 

Holy wow.  Via Rodbard; Wylie Dufresne's Ice Cream Bagel.  Well worth scrolling through the pics to read about this insanity.  The bagel in this picture is actually ice cream that's been airbrushed to look like a bagel.

 
White House 08 08/21/2008
 

If there was any question as to how Greengold votes...

 
Brian Wilson 08/14/2008
 

Brian Wilson will be in Oakland September 5th performing his new album, That Lucky Old Sun, and I'm looking for people to join me.  Let me know if you're interested.

 
Alfred Hitchcock 08/13/2008
 

Today would have been Hitchcock's 109th birthday (if he hadn't died in 1980).  In tribute, here's a clip of Stephen Frears analyzing a scene from Notorious, one of my favorite films.

 
 

The Chronicle reports on developments toward the construction of an invisibility cloak.  Here's the opening sentence of the article:

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.

If that doesn't hook you I don't know what will.

 
Eleanor Coppola 08/10/2008
 

Some fascinating excerpts from Eleanor Coppola's memoir about her filmmaking family are published in The Independent. 

From the Los Angeles Times review:  "Ranging episodically over several decades, Coppola offers a poignant self-portrait of middle age.... The author could have come off as an overprivileged whiner as she describes jaunts to Brazil, Thailand and Bali, a cruise of the Caribbean in George Lucas' chartered yacht, the Coppolas' apartment at the Sherry-Netherland in New York and their mansion in the Napa Valley. But her detailed evocations of such lavish scenes are coupled with an awareness of how rarefied they are."