Skycraper Slideshow

At Flickr.

Spring Concert

Every day is a good day with a sombrero like that on your head.

List of Best Book-to-Film Adaptations

I scored 8 books and 24 movies out of 51 each.

1. 1984
2. [M] Alice in Wonderland
3. American Psycho
4. Breakfast at Tiffany's
5. Brighton Rock
6. [B] Catch 22
7. [BM] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
8. [M] A Clockwork Orange
9. [M] Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
10. The Day of the Triffids
11. Devil in a Blue Dress
12. [M] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
13. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
14. [M] Doctor Zhivago
15. Empire of the Sun
16. The English Patient
17. [M] Fight Club
18. The French Lieutenant's Woman
19. Get Shorty
20. [M] The Godfather
21. [M] Goldfinger
22. Goodfellas
23. [M] Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
24. [M] The Hound of the Baskervilles
25. [M] Jaws
26. [M] The Jungle Book
27. A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
28. [M] LA Confidential
29. [M] Les Liaisons Dangereuses
30. [BM] Lolita
31. [B] Lord of the Flies
32. [M] The Maltese Falcon
33. [M] Oliver Twist
34. [M] One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
35. Orlando
36. [BM] The Outsiders
37. [B] Pride and Prejudice
38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
39. The Railway Children
40. [M] Rebecca
41. The Remains of the Day
42. Schindler's Ark (aka Schindler's List)
43. Sin City
44. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
45. [M] The Talented Mr Ripley
46. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
47. Through a Glass Darkly
48. [BM] To Kill a Mockingbird
49. [M] Trainspotting
50. The Vanishing
51. [B] Watership Down

Via Kottke

Three Things

I'm not sure how long I've been in the dark about this but the online version of The Economist now uses the day-pass system which enables you to read everything on their site, much of which was previously behind a pretty expensive subscription wall.

Kevin today linked me to some Flintstones commercials for Winston cigarettes, which we first enjoyed a couple years ago in television class with Carol Donelan.

It looks like John Schott is finally organizing the best (and one of the most hectic) off-campus studies programs ever. When he mentioned it in class last year I was really sad it hadn't been in place back when I could have taken advantage of it.

Odds & Ends

As High School Girls seems to be more or less a catch-all for cultural commentary, perhaps it's time this space started to include more about things that actually happen rather than things I consume. Like the immigration protest I witnessed on Monday. It was fairly overwhelming to see Fourth Avenue thronged with the sort of people one assumes generally tend not to speak up or make much of themselves in public, considering their status as "untouchable" bottom-rung laborers to whom we tacitly grant quasi-citizenship as long as they work for nothing and don't make a fuss. Even though displays of the stars and stripes generally leave me cold, it was interesting to see them being waved by someone other than the usual suspects; that is, the flag as symbol of the land of opportunity rather than a symbol of the land of inherited freedoms and liberties to be protected and guarded violently against all foreigners.

Other than that we went to Vashon Island as a house a couple weeks ago. Sarah threw a log in the water. There are pictures of that as well as Safeco Field, and a couple other things at Flickr. I think I've watched a lot of movies, even since the film roundup below, and those are in the sidebar. My review of L'enfant will be up at Professor Yeti on Tuesday. I don't think I did anything else interesting.

Wall of Sound

I stopped in at Wall of Sound today to pick up the new Keith Fullerton Whitman CD (I also splurged on Optimo's How to Kill the DJ, Pt. II). I'd been to Easy Street earlier in the week, assuming they'd have it since in general it seems like they have EVERYTHING, but they were so nonchalant about not having it in stock that I didn't feel inclined to bus down to Queen Anne to buy it, so I stayed on Capitol Hill, within walking distance. Side note: I was trying to spend the rest of a gift card from Christmas, but that didn't work.

Part of the reason I chose not to head back to Easy Street is that I started to ponder the necessity of their store as opposed to Wall of Sound. Simply by virtue of even attempting to have everything, I feel like Easy Street negates its own existence in this the age of the internet, as no physical store can hope to compete with warehouse-based inventory. Although they have as broad a selection of, oh, "electronica" as Wall of Sound, any given employee I ask will probably have no idea who Keith Fullerton Whitman is, or perhaps even whether they have the new Kompakt compilation in. The person who selects the records they stock and who clips the little quotes and reviews to post by the records is probably not the person I will talk to in the store. It's not that they're impersonal, simply that by virtue of being much more than a one-man operation, they've eliminated some aspect of the relationship that keeps record shoppers in the store rather than online.

There's one guy who runs Wall of Sound. He knew they didn't have the KFW record when I stopped by on my walk home Wednesday, but could tell me that it'd be in with the next order on Thursday or Friday. He also stopped me on my way out to remind me that it was an EP. Were I perhaps less secure in my identity as the kind of guy who probably frequents boutique avant-electronic record stores such as Wall of Sound, I might have taken this as some sort of bizarre putdown, but it struck me that the dude was probably looking out for me and would rather I wasn't disappointed when I returned looking for a full-length.

Comparing prices, you'll spend notably less on new releases at Easy Street, but Wall of Sound offers imports and traditionally understocked items at what amounts to full new music prices at Sam Goody or wherever people go for Top 40 hits. If all I worried about was price, though, I'd probably stick to the internet. As long as you don't go buying one at a time, you can overcome shipping costs pretty much anywhere and perhaps even tax.

Today when I went in he plucked the CD off the shelf for me in seconds at my request after I'd missed it during my initial reconnaissance. He also praised that Optimo CD I bought (it's a double disc, actually) and I have to consider that he probably researched that thing or heard it somewhere, ordered it, stocked it, and glances at it every day since he can pretty easily see everything from behind the counter.

Not that I don't like going to Easy Street. They've got an unbelievable selection of magazines and they do have some pretty good free in-stores, as well as some real gems in the used section. But, do I care if there's an Easy Street (or a Sonic Boom) in my neighborhood? Not really. I am really happy, though, that some guy cares enough about more or less the same electronic/experimental/ambient stuff I do that he's in there every day, putting his sandwich-board out on the sidewalk and patiently keeping the doors open to what amounts to an ongoing, carefully curated, dynamic museum exhibit and gift shop rolled into one.

Films, First Quarter of 2006

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada [Tommy Lee Jones, 2005] ***
Slacker [Richard Linklater, 1991] ***
Jesus of Montreal [Denys Arcand, 1989, DVD] ***
The Long Goodbye [Robert Altman, 1973, DVD] ***
Band of Outsiders [Jean-Luc Godard, 1964] ***
La Jetée [Chris Marker, 1962] ***
The Lady Eve [Preston Sturges, 1941] ***
The Shop Around the Corner [Ernst Lubitsch, 1940] ***
Port of Shadows [Marcel Carné, 1938] ***
Holiday [George Cukor, 1938] ***

Match Point [Woody Allen, 2005] **
The New World [Terence Malick, 2005] **
Capote [Bennett Miller, 2005] **
The Five Obstructions [Lars von Trier, 2004] **
Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut [Richard Kelly, 2001] **
Histoire(s) du Cinema [Jean-Luc Godard, 1997] **
Dazed and Confused [Richard Linklater, 1993] **
The Thin Blue Line [Errol Morris, 1988] **
Blood Simple [Joel and Ethan Coen, 1984] **
Videodrome [David Cronenberg, 1982] **
Charleen [Ross McElwee, 1978] **
Picnic at Hanging Rock [Peter Weir, 1975] **
Duel [Steven Spielberg, 1971] **
Week-End [Jean-Luc Godard, 1967] **
Pierrot le fou [Jean-Luc Godard, 1965] **
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs [Mikio Naruse, 1960] **
Night and the City [Jules Dassin, 1950] **
The Awful Truth [Leo McCarey, 1937] **

Transamerica [Duncan Tucker, 2005] *
The 40 Year-Old Virgin [Judd Apatow, 2005] *
Wedding Crashers [David Dobkin, 2005] *
Crash [Paul Haggis, 2005] *
The Aristocrats [Penn Jillette & Paul Provenza, 2005] *
In Praise of Love [Jean-Luc Godard, 2001] *
Eyes Wide Shut [Stanley Kubrick, 1999] *
The Iron Giant [Brad Bird, 1998] *
The Ice Storm [Ang Lee, 1997] *
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me [David Lynch, 1992] *
It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books [Richard Linklater, 1988] *
Vernon, Florida [Errol Morris, 1981] *
Every Man for Himself [Jean-Luc Godard, 1979] *
Backyard [Ross McElwee, 1976] *
Killer's Kiss [Stanley Kubrick, 1955] *
Stella Dallas [King Vidor, 1937] *

One [Ward Powers, 2005]
The Ladykillers [The Coen Bros., 2004]
Mad Max [George Miller, 1979]