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THE QUOTE
“I learned to draw everything except glamorous women. No matter how much I tried to make them look sexy, they always ended up looking silly — or like somebody’s mother.” — Norman Rockwell
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FUNTIME
Idly surfing the interwebs last night I came across this publicity still from the film noir classic, “The Killers.”
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That’s Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster. Here’s a simple question — are they the two sexiest human beings ever brought together on film?
In fact, let’s make this official. Herewith is another in our irregular series of Pencil Polls:
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For my dough, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are mere romantic manqués. They can’t touch Ava and Burt for steaminess, passion, and delicious, forbidden love.
So, we’re presenting a list of hot screen couples. Pick your fave pairing. Results to follow in a couple of days.
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Anyone who writes in Julia Roberts & Richard Gere from “Pretty Woman” will be banned from this site permanently.
Oh, and remember, I’m a native Chicagoan so you can vote as often as you’d like. Additionally, I’ll accept unmarked envelopes stuffed with cash to influence the results. Hooray for democracy!
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SMART GUY
If your mind is open, you can acquire wisdom from the unlikeliest of sources. For instance, I read Cracked.com every day. I learned something about politics and Big Media from it this week.
When I was a kid, Cracked magazine was sort of a cut-rate Mad magazine. It wasn’t as incisive or insightful as Mad but it’d do in a pinch.
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Mad’s still out there as a hard copy magazine but Cracked is now only a web presence. Cracked seems to have superseded Mad in terms of overall popularity and name recognition among kids today (that includes anyone who’s a year and a half younger than I am). Cracked also has upped its game — its now as cutting-edge as Mad ever was.
Anyway, in an article entitled “5 Ways to Spot a B.S. Political Story in Under 10 Seconds,” Cracked offers as cogent an analysis of the role of corporate media and internet idiocy in the political arena as can be found in any collegiate media studies course.
Take my word for it and go there. You’ll thank me. Here’s the list — you do the reading.
- 5) The Headline Contains the Word “Gaffe”
- 4) The Headline Ends in a Question Mark
- 3) The Headline Contains the word “Blasts”
- 2) The Headline Is About a “Lawmaker” Saying Something Stupid
- 1) The Headline Includes the Phrase “Blow To”
Even I — the most reasonable man on the face of the Earth — have fallen prey to one or more of these Big Media manipulations. How about the time that knuckleheaded state representative from Ft. Wayne, Bob Morris, called the Girl Scouts “radicalized” and accused GSA leadership of pushing an abortion agenda down its young membership’s throats.
I went all righteously ballistic on Morris and stood on my head trying to prove that he was the voice of the Republicans.
Now don’t get me wrong, the Republican platform is as appealing to me as spending a weekend at a retreat with the Kardashians, but the truth is just because a person is a member of the GOP doesn’t mean s/he is psychopathic.
No, only Bob Morris is. And that’s David Wong’s point (Wong is the author of the Cracked piece.) Wong asserts that any large group of people will contain a few lunatics. Even a group as small as a dozen would probably claim a maniac or two among its members. To paint the entire group with the brush handed you by its most deranged member is a childish act.
Wong brings up the recent hoo-hah over a Ted Nugent comment about Barack Obama. At this year’s NRA Convention in St. Louis Nugent said, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” He then ranted about some “battlefield,” “chop[ping] their heads off,” and “clean[ing] house.”
Clearly it was just wacky, white noise (and I mean that on a couple of levels).
Ted Talking
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Big Media went gaga over it, though, wondering if the Motor City Madman was actually threatening to take out Obama with his bow and arrow. Reporters flocked to Mitt Romney to find out when precisely he’d disassociate himself from Nugent’s remark and if not, was it because Romney endorsed the assassination of the president?
It was pack journalism and media hysteria at its finest. And all because some old man rocker flapped his gums.
So, check out the piece. Perhaps it’ll make you a smarter voter.
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JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE MIND
I can take or leave Ted Nugent’s music — mostly I can leave it. But his first big hit with the band, the Amboy Dukes, was about as cool as anything released in the year 1968.
This vid is funny in that it shows the band as sort of stiff and contrived in a Republican-y way. I wonder if Nugent was a Republican even back then.
The song, though, is terrific.
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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
◗ Monroe County Public Library — Exhibit, “Muse Whisperings,” water color paintings done by residents of Sterling House; through May 31st, 9am-close
◗ Monroe County Public Library — Used books and media sale; 9am-4pm
◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibits, “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”; through July 1st — “Esse Quam Videri (To Be, Rather than To Be Seen): Muslim Self Portraits; through June 17th — “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”; through July 1st, 9am-4:30pm
◗ IU Grunwald (SOFA) Gallery — MFA & BFA Thesis 3 exhibitions; through May 5th, Noon
◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibit, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze”; through June 29th, 1:30-5pm
◗ Bear’s Place — Jazz Fables, IU Jazz Graduation Concert; 5:30pm
◗ IU Cinema — Short films from students in IU’s Department of Telecommunications; 6:30pm
◗ Farm Bloomington, The Root Cellar — Ryder Films, “The Fairy”; 6:30pm
◗ Monroe County Public Library, Auditorium — “We Don’t Know Where to Put You, Huck,” community panel discussion about Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”; 7-8:30pm
◗ Cafe Django — Tom Miller at the piano; 7:30-9:30pm
◗ The Bluebird — Son Volt; 8pm
Son Volt
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◗ Upland Brewing Company — Aaron Persinger; 8pm
◗ The Comedy Attic — TJ Miller; 8pm
◗ Max’s Place — New Old Cavalry; 9pm
◗ Bear’s Place — Karaoke; 9pm
◗ IU Cinema — Student film, “Student Seven”; 9:30pm
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