Category Archives: Ryder Film Series

The Pencil Today:

HotAirLogoFinal Monday

THE QUOTE

“Who would have ever thought blacks would get out and support the first black president? Who would have ever thought women would shy away from the party of transvaginal probes? Who would have ever thought gays would work against a party that treated them as immoral and subhuman? Who would have ever thought young people would desert a party that ignored science and hectored on social issues? Who would have ever thought Latinos would scorn a party that expected them to finish up their chores and self-deport?” — Maureen Dowd

Dowd

YOU AND IRAQ

Comic and politico Aaron Freeman has put out a call for anyone who can honestly say she or he was not taken in by the Bush Administration’s rationalizations for the Iraq War in late 2002 and early 2003.

Freeman

Aaron Freeman

You remember, don’t you? Georgey-boy, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and even Colin Powell stood on their heads to implant the images of bloodthirsty brown people, mushroom clouds, and general panic in our imaginations in order to snow us into attacking the Saddam Hussein regime.

Perhaps the saddest moment of the buildup to war was Secretary of State Powell half-heartedly trying to sell the United Nations General Assembly on “evidence” that Hussein and his wild-eyed pals were thisclose to launching a big one against this holy land.

The funnyman — Freeman, not Bush — wonders why anyone would have doubted the word of the Bushies, considering the fact that most highly intelligent people he knew at the time bought the casus belli hook, line, and sinker.

9/11 Panic

So, take yourself back some ten years to those glory days of yore. Try to remember what you were thinking at the time. And don’t forget we were only a little more than a year past the 9/11 attacks. Be honest and tell us, in the poll below, if you bought the Bush line or you thought, even as we were gassing up our B-2 Stealth Bombers, that he and his gang were full of shit.

Oh, and leave a comment in the box labeled “Other” explaining why you thought one way or the other.

Thanks in advance.

POLL WATCHING

From phdcomic.com

THE SHORT OF IT

That’s all for today, kiddies. I been working my fingertips to the bone, trying to get the new Ryder magazine and film series website off the ground, along with publisher Peter LoPilato and developer Boice Tomlin. As a result, I feel lazy today.

Remember to stop in at The Book Corner. A few words of advice, though. Do not buy either of Bill O’Reilly’s bestsellers, “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy.” Do not buy “50 Shades of Chicken.” And do not buy any of those I-died-and-went-to-heaven books.

Book Cover

Don’t You Dare!

Reading should improve your mind, not shrink it.

Otherwise, buy anything you want.

CHAIN GANG

The Pencil Today:

HotAirLogoFinal Sunday II

THE QUOTE

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.” — Bertrand Russell

Russell

REALITY CHECK

Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: There is no Sasquatch. AKA “Bigfoot,” the creature does not exist.

There are people who call themselves scientists — but who’ve abdicated their privilege to the title — who’d love to get you to believe nonsense.

Ketchum

Dr. Melba Ketchum: She’s Wrong — Trust Me

Move on with your life. Ponder all the new exo-planets being discovered virtually every day. Stop running around and trying to do everything in the world by noon and listen to the birds in your neighborhood — all of whom are real. If you take a drive on SR 37, glance at the rock wall cutouts along the side of the road and, noting all the layers of sediment, consider that you’re actually looking at millions of years of history.

But, once again, push the notion of Bigfoot out of your mind.

Because if you do believe in Bigfoot, you are indeed out of your mind.

LOTTERY LOSERS

Here’s another piece of advice. The next time there’s a ginormous Powerball payout, you will not win it.

121130050650-01-mo-powerball-1130-story-top

Statistically Speaking, These People Do Not Exist

Recent calculations indicate that the odds of winning the average Powerball prize are 1 in 175,223.510. And because last week’s half-billion-buck purse attracted so many new players, those odds shot upward.

So save your dough. Or better yet, just send it to The Electron Pencil; we’ll put it to better use than you blowing it on a racket in which your chance of winning, in essence, doesn’t exist.

DOOM

Let’s stick with the bunk. Admit it, that whole 2012/End of the World thing rattles around in your braincase every once in a while.

Mayan Calendar

The Mayan Calendar

As we approach December 21st, the target date for all our lives to go kaputnik (don’t try to find a definition for this word, I just made it up), you can be sure our corporate media newsbeings will be covering this “story” with either a smug, knowing smirk or flat-out idiotic credulity.

I’m dying to see how Fox News covers the impending apocalypse.

To that end, NASA has issued an advisory explaining why our interpretation of the Mayan calendar is screwy. Here’s space scientist David Morrison explaining why you’re a loon if you give even an iota of credence to this end of the world scenario.

Not that this well-thought-out, expert, fact-based argument will make a molecule of difference for the credulous.

TRUST ME

Speaking of credibility, I have next to none left after announcing several baker’s dozen times the new Ryder website and the attendant marriage of this site with that one.

Swear to the god I don’t believe in we’re only days away from that long-awaited debut.

Ryder

Almost There

I know, I know — you don’t want to hear about the labor pains, you only want to see the baby, so I won’t tell you what an heroic ordeal it’s been to get this thing off the ground. My technical and diplomatic skills have been tested to the extreme, but winners never quit, or so said someone like Dick Nixon, who eventually quit anyway.

So stay tuned and we’ll be making our grand announcement before you know it.

ONLY TRUST YOUR HEART

Believe Astrud.

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“You worry too much.” — Big Mike

BIG DOINGS AT THE PENCIL’S WORLD HQ

I won’t be doing my usual thing here for the next four days or so. I’m gearing up for the long-awaited, many-times delayed marriage of this communications colossus with Bloomington’s venerable print and cultural institution, The Ryder magazine and film series.

That’s due to happen Wednesday, November 21st, when the Ryder’s new issue hits the streets. The Ryder’s redesigned website will debut that day as well. All I wanna say is, you’ll love it.

One of the main reasons you’ll swoon is that I’ll be Peter LoPilato’s online editor. I’ll be posting the Ryder’s stories, reviews, previews, and everything else that you normally get in the hard copy. I’ll also be shifting my GO! Events Listings to the Ryder site, only it’ll be called Event Horizon.

That’s Peter’s name for it and I’m cool with it. It inadvertently references an astrophysics phenomenon that science ultra-geeks might refer to as the Schwarzschild radius in some cases or as the Kerr or Kerr-Newman event horizon in others.

Basically, it’s a boundary around a stable black hole beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape. Again, don’t worry — you’ll never be near one so you won’t have to check your life insurance policy to see if you’re covered.

Anyway, my plan is to dash off my Daily Hot Airs in quick order for the next several days so I can work on the new site, all the while planning for a mass invasion of Glabs into Bloomington for the holiday. So if my posts seem a tad terse, you’ll know why.

In fact, I may even miss a day if my work backs up too much.

Don’t worry; you’ll live.

NO (STRONG) GIRLS ALLOWED

Here, I’m gonna let another guy do my work for me today.

Roger Ebert points out the sad demise of one of those great weekly alternative papers that many big and medium-sized cities have, the Niagara Falls Reporter in Buffalo, New York. Some new guy bought the paper from its founder and seems to have turned it into a weird right-wing vanity rag. The Reporter’s movie reviewer found himself being censored by the new publisher and asked why. After some digging and a lengthy trans-Atlantic phone call, the publisher sent the reviewer a Dear John email.

It is the template for the belief system of every man who was mortified by the reelection of Barack Obama. See, it wasn’t just racists, oligarchs, and plutocrats who wet their pants merely thinking about another four years of Obama. The president represents an entire sea-change in this holy land. The browns, the blacks, the Latinos, the homosexuals, and, perhaps most terrifying of all, the women are coming. The new demographics have delineated a terrifying event horizon and many men find themselves being sucked into the black hole of our future.

Don’t you just love how I tie things together?

So, just read the publisher’s email to his suddenly-former film reviewer, whose name is Michael Calleri. The email is reproduced exactly as written:

Michael; I know you are committed to writing your reviews, and put a lot of effort into them. it is important for you to have the right publisher. i may not be it. i have a deep moral objection to publishing reviews of films that offend me. snow white and the huntsman is such a film. when my boys were young i would never have allowed them to go to such a film for i believe it would injure their developing manhood. if i would not let my own sons see it, why would i want to publish anything about it?
snow white and the huntsman is trash. moral garbage. a lot of fuzzy feminist thinking and pandering to creepy hollywood mores produced by metrosexual imbeciles.

I don’t want to publish reviews of films where women are alpha and men are beta.
where women are heroes and villains and men are just lesser versions or shadows of females.

i believe in manliness.

not even on the web would i want to attach my name to snow white and the huntsman except to deconstruct its moral rot and its appeal to unmanly perfidious creeps.

i’m not sure what headhunter has to offer either but of what I read about it it sounds kind of creepy and morally repugnant.

with all the publications in the world who glorify what i find offensive, it should not be hard for you to publish your reviews with any number of these.

they seem to like critiques from an artistic standpoint without a word about the moral turpitude seeping into the consciousness of young people who go to watch such things as snow white and get indoctrinated to the hollywood agenda of glorifying degenerate power women and promoting as natural the weakling, hyena -like men, cum eunuchs.

the male as lesser in courage strength and power than the female.

it may be ok for some but it is not my kind of manliness.

If you care to write reviews where men act like good strong men and have a heroic inspiring influence on young people to build up their character (if there are such movies being made) i will be glad to publish these.

i am not interested in supporting the reversing of traditional gender roles.

i don’t want to associate the Niagara Falls Reporter with the trash of Hollywood and their ilk.

it is my opinion that hollywood has robbed america of its manliness and made us a nation of eunuchs who lacking all manliness welcome in the coming police state.

now i realize that you have a relationship with the studios etc. and i would have been glad to have discussed this in person with you to help you segue into another relationship with a publication but inasmuch as we spent 50 minutes on the phone from paris i did not want to take up more of your time.

In short i don’t care to publish reviews of films that offend me.

if you care to condemn the filmmakers as the pandering weasels that they are…. true hyenas.
i would be interested in that….
Frank

You think Frank’s the only guy in this nation who thinks this way? Think again.

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“My father was a statesman, I am a political woman. My father was a saint. I am not.” — Indira Gandhi

POL IN CHIEF

Natch, I’m heavy on liberals and progressives in my Facebook friends list. They were all abuzz over Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention last night. Here it is, in case you missed it:

Hindsight is 20/200 (yes, 20/200 — no typo there), of course, but even while it was happening I knew Al Gore was blowing the 2000 election by not having Clinton campaign for him. Damn you Al Gore — we could have avoided eight years of the Bush League!

HOW MANY WAYS CAN THEY SAY THEY HATE HIM?

Barack Obama has never been tempted to run and hide from Clinton simply because old Bill suffers from his peculiar form of priapism.

Guess What I Have Under This Desk

In fact, the Prez frustrates the bejesus out of the Right because he, apparently, has no sex skeletons in his closet. Oh, how the GOP and its mouthpieces would love to tear down Barry with some juicy sexual misconduct charges.

Can you imagine the barely-coded racial messages we’d be getting if Obama couldn’t keep Little B under wraps in his Fruit of the Looms?

You know how newspapers have obituaries pre-written for celebrities while they’re still alive? Guaranteed, the Fox News squealers and other pathological snarlers have headlines pre-written for the Obama sex scandal of their wet dreams.

Once you go Barack, you never go back.

or

Barack the Buck

Yeesh. And if his correspondent party or parties would be white, female? Heavens, pasty men would be roaming the streets carrying assault rifles.

Fear Of A Black Presidential Penis

Oh wait, they already do.

Anyway, nothing seems to satisfy the anti-Obama crowd. If Obama was a nail-biter, they’d figure a way to condemn him for it. As it is, that deep thinker Hank Williams, Jr. recently upped his topple-the-Nazi-dictator rhetoric by proclaiming his conviction that Obama hates cowboys and cowgirls.

This latest episode of Right Wing projectile verbal vomiting proves Jon Stewart’s point that “There is a President Obama that only Republicans can see.” It’s been many years, Hank, since any fraction of the population could write Cowboy or Cowgirl on the Occupation line of the their tax forms.

Perhaps Hank has inside info that Obama is not partial to secretaries and plumbers by day wearing cowboy drag at night. And isn’t even that a dated demographic? Urban Cowboy is now a +30-year-old meme.

I Thought This Movie Was Made Before The Invention Of Cameras

And line dancing went out soon after the Zoot Suit, didn’t it?

Even soldier boys can’t seem to resist getting a jab in on the CinC.

Among the spate of new Obama-is-the-antichrist books being released this late summer, is the tale of the Osama bin Laden raid writen by a Navy SEAL team member who participated in the operation. The book, “No Easy Day,” is bylined by someone named Mark Owens, who doesn’t exist. That’s the nom de plume of one Mark Bissonette, who swears he’s doing nothing wrong by blabbing the raid’s secrets even though he thought it wise to assume an alias.

Bissonette writes that neither he nor the rest of his SEAL confreres has ever liked Obama. Joe Biden, either. Which must be important to his narrative — just don’t ask me how.

How weird is that? I mean, can you imagine the boys in that famous Iwo Jima photo telling reporters, “Yeah, taking the island was a tough job but we did it. And by the way, none of us likes that FDR. He’s a socialist and a jerk. And Truman? He’s like someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner.”

Down With The President!

WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO?

If you’re having withdrawal pains for The Pencil’s GO! events listings, just keep your shirt on.

I’m told now that the rollout for the Ryder magazine’s new website — which will carry the EP’s events listings — may come as early as today. Which probably means sometime next week.

JAMBALAYA

The old man was 72 times better than the kid anyway.

Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.

I Love ChartsLife as seen through charts.

XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

SkepchickWomen scientists look at the world and the universe.

IndexedAll the answers in graph form, on index cards.

Science Is Awesome (formerly I Fucking Love Science)A Facebook community of science geeks.

Present/&/CorrectFun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

Flip Flop Fly BallBaseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

Mental FlossFacts.

SodaplayCreate your own models or play with other people’s models.

Eat Sleep DrawAn endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

Big ThinkTapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

The Daily PuppySo shoot me.

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“You want to know whether we’re better off? I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” — Vice President Joe Biden

UNION

The day after Labor Day.

Up in Chicago, the city’s Daley Center Plaza was chock full of people showing support for the Chicago Teachers Union yesterday.

Here’s one picture of the scene from radical attorney Jerry Boyle:

Chicago’s Daley Center Plaza, Labor Day, 2012

And I’ll bet you thought nobody cared about unions anymore.

THE RYDER AND US

Peter LoPilato’s Ryder Film Series and magazine get wrapped up in a spanking new website today.

And your fave Bloomington events listings move to that address.

What used to be known as The Electron Pencil’s “GO!” now is a daily blog on The Ryder’s shiny internet home.

So get your mouse-clicking, touchpad mashing finger limbered up: From now on you can get Bloomington’s finest hot air here and then click over to The Ryder to help you make the day’s plans. Oh, and you can read about the movies Peter will be showing this coming weekend and you can peruse current and past editions of The Ryder mag online.

What more do you need in life?

[At the time this post was published, the Runskip bosses had not put the new Ryder site up yet. So be patient. I’ll get a link to you as soon as it’s released to me.]

THERE IS NO MAGIC FOOD

Loved the NPR report this morning on organic foods.

A Stanford University study indicates that there is scant evidence organic foods have much added benefit. That is, if you’re an organic foodie, your health isn’t more likely to be better, you’re not getting more nutrients from what you eat, and your grub doesn’t necessarily taste better.

Worth It?

Don’t get me wrong, I like eating food that’s free of chemical pesticides. And keep in mind I used to be part of the Whole Foods Market education department. It was my job to explain the federal organic program and WFM’s efforts to operate within that law.

So I had intimate knowledge of organics.

Knowing what I knew, I decided very early on that I needn’t waste my dough buying only organic fruits and vegetables or even potato chips. And yes, you can get organic junk food.

That was one of the things that turned me off organics. They are costly. Organics are privileged white people’s way of telling themselves they’re eating better the the rest of the sweaty crowd.

That’s the kind of attitude Right Wingers love to focus on and exaggerate when they’re trying to convince the public that liberals and progressives rank below peeping toms on the social scale.

I’ve long felt that the whole organics thing is the Left’s vestige of Puritanism. My food is holy and clean, the foodies seem to be saying.

I’m Gonna Live Forever!

Me? I know the world is filthy and full of peril. I do my best to avoid risk, still keeping in mind that some microorganism, some parasite, some tornado or flood, or some wild eyed religious fundamentalist just might kick the crap out of me.

There is no guarantee of anything. And organics are no guarantee of better food.

BIDEN BITIN’

A couple of things about today’s quote.

Generally, I avoid quoting current politicians spouting their partisan bull. But with the 2012 presidential campaign racing into the homestretch, I’ll be wearing my colors until the first Tuesday in November. It’s bull season.

The Political Season

Now, about that pic of Joe Biden jamming a couple of ice cream cones down his throat: It comes from a Tumblr site entitled “500 Still Frames of Joe Biden Eating a Sandwich.”

Yup. No lie.

It’s one of the reasons I love the interwebs.

The site is dedicated to amassing pix of the Veep working as a trencherman.

Someone even sneaked in a shot of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attacking a submarine. Here it is:

Sure, it’s probably a campaign photo op but, still, ya gotta love a woman who’s not afraid to get her hands greasy.

I have a pal who’s been married for more than 30 years. He says he knew his future blushing bride was the one for him on their very first date: They went out to eat and she mopped up her plate in record time and then reached over to spear morsels from his dish.

“She was a champion eater,” he says proudly.

And the best part is, according to my pal, she’s as svelte now as she was when she was a callow 24-year-old.

PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCES?

THINK

Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.

I Love ChartsLife as seen through charts.

XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

SkepchickWomen scientists look at the world and the universe.

IndexedAll the answers in graph form, on index cards.

Science Is Awesome (formerly I Fucking Love Science)A Facebook community of science geeks.

Science Is Awesome

Present/&/CorrectFun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

Flip Flop Fly BallBaseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

Mental FlossFacts.

SodaplayCreate your own models or play with other people’s models.

Eat Sleep DrawAn endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

Big ThinkTapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

Click For Full Article

The Daily PuppySo shoot me.

 

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“Marriage is a wonderful invention; then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.” — Billy Connolly

A MARRIAGE MADE IN BLOOMINGTON

Good morning, babies.

I’ll be busy this Labor Day weekend making preparations for the move of The Electron Pencil’s GO! events listings to the spanking new Ryder website.

The Ryder’s long awaited foray into the interwebs is scheduled to go public Tuesday.

Sneak Peek

Now, technically it’s true Peter LoPilato’s Ryder magazine and the eponymous film series have had web presences for a while now. But those of us who were raised right know not to say anything if we have nothing good to say. Suffice it to say the new Ryder site, designed by the brains on legs that populate the Runskip website development empire, is a leap into the 21st Century.

You’ll be able to access an archive of The Ryder’s past issues, you’ll get tastes of the current issue, you’ll see the full upcoming sked for the Ryder Film Series along with interviews, think pieces, and other treats related to the movies on view all weekend long, every weekend, here in Bloomington.

And The Electron Pencil now will present the best events listings in town on The Ryder site.

Moving

So, I’ll be working today and maybe even tomorrow trying to work out the bugs and creating an attractive, useful guide for Pencillistas as well as sane, law-abiding Bloomingtonians to know what’s going on in the arts, music, cultural, sports, and education scenes here.

The Ryder and The Pencil will be the indispensable Bloomington resources for those in the know. Come to The Pencil every day for the best hot air on local, national, and world affairs, then click to The Ryder to plan your days and nights.

Simple. Effective. Easy. Helps improve brain function. The Ryder and The Pencil.

CHANGES

Time may change me/

But I can’t trace time.

Who else? Bowie.

Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.

I Love ChartsLife as seen through charts.

XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

SkepchickWomen scientists look at the world and the universe.

IndexedAll the answers in graph form, on index cards.

Indexed

I Fucking Love ScienceA Facebook community of science geeks.

Present/&/CorrectFun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

Flip Flop Fly BallBaseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

Mental FlossFacts.

Click For Full Article

SodaplayCreate your own models or play with other people’s models.

Eat Sleep DrawAn endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

Big ThinkTapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

The Daily PuppySo shoot me.

Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

◗ IU Art MuseumExhibit: “Workers of the World, Unite!” through Labor Day; 10am-5pm

◗ Fourth Street between Indiana and Lincoln avenues — Fourth Street Festival of the Arts & Crafts; 10am-5pm

  • Fourth at Dunn streets — Spoken Word Stage, presented by Writers Guild at Bloomington

Third Street ParkFirst annual Bloomington Garlic Festival; 10am-7pm

Dagom Gaden Tensungling MonasteryIntroductory course on Buddhist philosophy and meditation; 10-11am, every Sunday through November 18th

Bloomington Playwrights ProjectMusical: “Working”; 2pm

◗ IU Bill Armstrong StadiumHoosier men’s soccer vs. San Diego State; 2pm

The Player’s PubMusic: Tom Rosznowski; 6pm

Bear’s PlaceRyder Film Series: “The Queen of Versailles”; 9pm

The BishopMusic: TV Mike & the Scarecrows, The Dead Winter Carpenters, Whippoorwill; 10pm

Upland Brewing CompanyMusic: TV Mike & the Scarecrows, The Dead Winter Carpenters; 9pm

ONGOING

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron CenterExhibits:

  • “40 Years of Artists from Pygmalion’s”; through September 1st

◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th

  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th

  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th

  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th

  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st

  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012

  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st

  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald GalleryExhibits:

  • “Media Life,” drawings and animation by Miek von Dongen; through September 15th

  • “Axe of Vengeance: Ghanaian Film Posters and Film Viewing Culture”; through September 15th

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery“Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly LibraryExhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Reopens Tuesday, August 21st

Monroe County History CenterPhoto exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that in the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.” — Nelson Mandela

THE RYDER AND THE PENCIL — TOGETHER AT LAST

Things are getting exciting around Electron Pencil World Headquarters.

If all goes well, our friends at The Ryder go online with a new website Tuesday. Genius web developer Boice Tomlin and his crew of miracle imagineers have dragged publisher Peter LoPilato kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

And the big scoop from this vantage point is the new partnership between The Ryder and The Pencil.

A Sneak Peek At The Ryder’s New Look

Yup. Starting Tuesday (again, if all goes well), we’ll be doing our daily events listings on The Ryder site.

Don’t worry, all you’ll have to do is click The Ryder link on this page after you’re finished reading Big Mike’s gems and you’ll be magically transported to LoPilato-ville.

This is the perfect marriage between Bloomington’s indispensable communications colossi (neat word, no?) Anybody’s who’s anybody in this town knows that if you want the latest on Bloomington’s arts, cultural, and political scenes, you go to both The Ryder and The Electron Pencil.

A Worker Readies The New Ryder/EP Communications Satellite

Now, with one click on your touchpad, you’ll get the best of both worlds every single day. (Did I mention, if all goes well?)

LET’S GO EASY ON GOP GEEZERS

At risk of being branded a traitor — or, worse, a Republican — I don’t like the way my side treats the aged birds who sing for the GOP.

The latest example is teeth-bearing manner of critics describing the performance of Clint Eastwood at the Republican Convention. According to the most aghast of my liberal/progressive brethren and sisteren, Clintwood was guilty of being an old man

The no good rat.

How Dare He Grow Old?

It reminds me of the shabby treatment of Charlton Heston by Michael Moore in his doc, “Bowling for Columbine.” Remember that?

Moore exposed Heston as a doddering, addled old bat. The problem is, that’s precisely what Heston was. Through no fault of his own, Heston was approaching the unforgivable age of 80. Natch, Heston spoke like a dope.

What did Moore expect?

And why did my side roar with derision at the sight of Heston drooling his way through the ambush interview?

What nauseated me about the whole thing was the ignorance of Heston’s history as a courageous demonstrator for civil rights in the early and mid-60s. Heston marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. long before it became fashionable. In fact, Heston was warned to lay off the activism lest his career suffer.

You know what he said? Tough, I’m still gonna do it. Heston also opposed the Vietnam War and was, in fact, a gun control advocate.

August 1963: Heston, Baldwin, Brando, and Poitier

He deserved respect for those stances even after he had baffling changes of heart in subsequent years.

Not that Clintwood ever will be accused of harboring progressive tendencies at any time of his life, despite his hero turn in that Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler in February.

No matter. The Republicans should have thought twice before shoving him onstage to babble at an empty chair this week.

And the Left ought to lay off the tittering.

ON THE OTHER HAND

Eastwood’s performance far overshadowed Willard Romney’s coronation speech.

You have to look for the silver lining, no?

Oh Yeah, Romney Was There, Too

WE BELIEVE IN A TYRANNICAL DEMAGOGUE

Doncha love how the Republicans used the “We believe in America” slogan during their self-love fest this week?

Reminds me of the opening scene from “The Godfather” where the undertaker, Bonasera, begs Don Corleone to punish his daughters’ attackers. The first words of the movie, uttered over a fading-in black screen, are “I believe in America.”

Make Them Suffer

Vito Corleone would have been a Republican today. Back in his fictional day, he would have been a Dem, simply because he’d have been so tied into the labor unions. With unions now a shadow of what they were, Corleone would be a big contributor to the GOP mainly because the party embodies precisely what he would embrace: Iron leadership, intolerance for dissent or alternative lifestyle, keeping wealth and power safely in the hands of the aggressive and ferocious and those who already have them. Hell, Tom Hagen could have written this year’s Republican platform.

Take It From Me, Mr. Rove

And Republicans would have the greatest schoolgirl crush in human history on the self-made millionaire capo di tutti capi.

Their problem today is Willard Romney is too wooden and milquetoast-y and polished to be the tough son of a bitch the GOP would swoon for.

That’s one reason why my C-note on a Barack Obama re-election victory seems safe.

Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.

I Love ChartsLife as seen through charts.

XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

SkepchickWomen scientists look at the world and the universe.

IndexedAll the answers in graph form, on index cards.

I Fucking Love ScienceA Facebook community of science geeks.

Present/&/CorrectFun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

Flip Flop Fly BallBaseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

Mental FlossFacts.

SodaplayCreate your own models or play with other people’s models.

Eat Sleep DrawAn endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

Big ThinkTapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

The Daily PuppySo shoot me.

Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

City Hall, Showers Plaza — Farmers Market; 8am-1pm

◗ IU Art MuseumExhibit: “Workers of the World, Unite!” through Labor Day; 10am-5pm

◗ Fourth Street between Indiana and Lincoln avenues — Fourth Street Festival of the Arts & Crafts; 10am-5pm

  • Fourth at Dunn streets — Spoken Word Stage, presented by Writers Guild at Bloomington

Third Street ParkFirst annual Bloomington Garlic Festival; 10am-7pm

Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural CenterWorkshop Series: “Mind Training through Pain & Disability,” presented by Ani Choekye; 10:30am-noon

◗ IU University GymnasiumHoosier volleyball vs. Bowling Green; noon

◗ IU Art MuseumThematic Tour: “Lurking Reptiles in the Art Museum,” presented by docent Rich Wolfe; 2-3pm

◗ IU Memorial Stadium parking lots — Tailgating; 3pm-gametime

Bell Trace Senior Living CommunityGreat Courses Lecture Series: “Optimizing Brain Fitness”; 3-4pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “The Queen of Versailles”; 6:45pm

Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Music: Jeb Brester; 7-9pm

Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Music: Jim Ryser, Chuck Wills & Kara Bernard; 7:30pm

Bloomington Playwrights ProjectMusical: “Working”; 8pm

Cafe Django — Going-away party for Kati, hosted by Filiz Cicek, open mic for musicians, guest appearances by local performers, donations benefit Bloomington Katmandu Exhibit; 8pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Take This Waltz”; 8pm

The Player’s PubMusic: Richard Dugger Band; 8pm

The Comedy AtticBest of the Bloomington Comedy Fest; 8pm

◗ IU Memorial StadiumHoosier football vs. Indiana State; 8pm

◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Magic Mike”; 8pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “The Well Digger’s Daughter”; 8:45pm

Bear’s PlaceMusic: The Owen Sweeney Show, Scott-e B. Sound; 9pm

The BluebirdMusic: The Personnel; 9pm

The Root Cellar at Farm Bloomington — Punk/NewWave/Grunge dance party; 10pm

The BishopMusic: Memory Map, Sleeping Bag, Cooked Books; 10pm

◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Magic Mike”; 11pm

ONGOING

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron CenterExhibits:

  • “40 Years of Artists from Pygmalion’s”; through September 1st

◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th

  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th

  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th

  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th

  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st

  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012

  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st

  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald GalleryExhibits:

  • “Media Life,” drawings and animation by Miek von Dongen; through September 15th

  • “Axe of Vengeance: Ghanaian Film Posters and Film Viewing Culture”; through September 15th

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery“Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly LibraryExhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Reopens Tuesday, August 21st

Monroe County History CenterPhoto exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.” — James Randi

CELESTIAL BEAUTY

Just a reminder, the transit of Venus will be visible in these parts in the hours just prior to sunset Tuesday evening.

The phenomenon has only been seen by human eyes seven times.

Wear #14 welder’s glasses or get a pair of those neat eclipse glasses that look a bit like movie theater 3-D glasses. The transit also is visible through one of those pinhole projection boxes the geeky kids in seventh grade always knew how to make when there was a partial solar eclipse.

Eclipse Cheaters

Which leads me to my fave beat-the-dead-horse question: Why believe in magic and monsters when real life itself is so spectacular?

WE HAVE A MOVIE

Man, you blew it if you were unable to catch the Italian movie “We Have a Pope.”

I just caught the Ryder Film Series offering last night at the SoFA small theater and it was a delight.

A cardinal named Melville is elected Pope and just as he’s about to greet the crowd in St. Peter’s he suffers what can only be described as a nervous breakdown, brought on primarily by his long simmering lack of self-confidence.

The Moment Before The Breakdown

The assembled Cardinals, who by canonical law cannot leave the Vatican until the new Pope greets the crowd, panic and eventually bring in a shrink in an effort to get the new boss to the balcony window.

By and by, the new Pope escapes the Vatican and a certain madness ensues.

The beauty of a lot of non-Hollywood movies is they don’t have Hollywood endings. That’s all I’ll say about that.

The movie will run on cable’s Independent Film Channel and if Peter LoPilato can ever get it back here in Bloomington, don’t blow your chance to see it again.

GO! — NOW!

UNINTENDED PR CONSEQUENCES

WHaP reminds me of all the foofaraw over Martin Scorsese‘s “The Last Temptation of Christ,” based on the eponymous book by Nikos Kazantzakis.

Released in 1988, TLToC dealt with the fever dreams of Christ as he hung on the cross, baking in the sun, driven mad by pain. He imagines an alternative existence wherein he settles into a simple life, marrying Mary Magdalene and not carrying the burden of all humankind’s sins.

The Man Wants Out; The Deity Has A Responsibility

It’s one of the most pious, spiritual, and reverent movies ever made.

I mean, the whole idea of Christ’s death, as I understand it, was that he was tempted to avoid his fate, but his faith and obedience to his “father in heaven” overcame his human need. And therein, I always thought, lay the foundation for Christianity.

But when TLToC played at the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Catholics and other defenders of the one and only big daddy-o in the sky picketed and shouted and otherwise drew more attention to the film than it ever would have garnered otherwise.

Go figure.

CANDID

BuzzFeed the other day ran a list of the most powerful photos ever taken.

Which got me to thinking which pix I’d pick. Ergo, here they are (in no particular order):

The French guy crying as the Nazis march through Paris

Vietnam: The naked girl running, the self-immolating monk, the Saigon police chief executing the guy in the street

The JFK assassination: LBJ takes the oath, Ruby shoots Oswald, JFK Jr. salutes

Earthrise from Apollo 8

The Chinese student and the tanks

Martin Luther King lay dying

World War II: Marines reenact the flag raising at Iwo Jima, the sailor kisses the nurse on V-J Day

The National Geographic Afghani girl

Che

Protest: John Carlos and Tommie Smith give the Black Power salute, Kent State, the flowers in the gun barrels

(All photos copyrighted.)

There. How about you? Tell us what’s on your list via the comments.

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