Parker obits: NYT. LAT. LAT appreciation by Sarah Weinman. WP. Boston Globe. Boston Herald appreciation. WSJ appreciation. And Sarah Weinman has the best overall roundup at her site.
Also among the dead: Erich “Love Story” Segal.
Archive for January, 2010
Clippings: January 20, 2010.
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010Obit watch.
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010I have not been able to find a formal report of this elsewhere, but both Bill Crider and Sarah Weinman are reporting the death of Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser and Jesse Stone novels (among other works).
Edited to add: The LAT now has a short article up, and promises a full obit to come.
A lot of people who knew Parker better than I did are probably going to be commenting over the next few days. I’m at work right now, but when I get home tonight I’ll update this entry with some thoughts of my own.
Update: I’ll post links to the major papers obits tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I’m putting my thoughts after a jump, because they contain both possible spoilers (including one for Gone, Baby, Gone) and language…
Random notes: January 18, 2010.
Monday, January 18th, 2010The New Jersey Nets are on a pace to win a grand total of six games this season. The NBA record for futility is the 1972-1973 Philadelphia 76ers, who went 9-73. Could the Nets beat the record? The NYT speculates.
I note this only because it will fill Lawrence’s heart with delight: Frank Gehry has withdrawn from the project to design a Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem.
Saturday’s Statesman has a longish article recapping the Triton Financial story, highlighting the firm’s ties to the Mormon church.
Church members and others describe the concentration of Triton executives and investors from the Mormon church as a possible example of “affinity fraud,” in which people looking for money often go first to those they know, either personally or through social organizations.
A $1,000 iPhone app that’s not I Am Rich.
Non story of the day: U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret ‘Jesus’ Bible Codes.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, so; I’m back in school one night a week (and not even meeting every night on the schedule). So blogging is either going to be light or heavy as I avoid schoolwork.
Apropos of nothing in particular.
Monday, January 18th, 2010Events and discussions from this past weekend have led me to believe it would be worthwhile to remind everyone of Tim Cahill’s rules for travel. Particularly rule 6, corollary 1:
This can’t be stressed enough: No one wants to hear about your last bowel movement.
Pop quiz, hotshot.
Friday, January 15th, 2010Texas State University down in San Marcos has been running a hostage negotiation competition.
Now, I was not aware hostage negotiation was a competitive sport. My first question was, “How do you judge this? Number of ‘dead’ bodies at the end?”
During the competition, which continues today , each team works to resolve the same hostage scenario, and judges grade each team using the same criteria, which include composure while negotiating and ability to get terrorists talking during phone calls.
So this is like Olympic gymnastics without the Chinese judges. Good to know.
I’m waiting for next year’s event to show up on ESPN 8, “The Ocho”.
Elvis est mort.
Thursday, January 14th, 2010Not that I want to become the LAT clipping service, but:
You know that iconic photo of Elvis and Nixon shaking hands?
Yeah, that one.
Anyway, the LAT has an interesting article on how this photo came about.
Copies of that photo — the president in his charcoal suit, the king of rock ‘n’ roll in his purple velvet cape — are requested more than just about any of the archives’ treasures, including the Constitution.
You can request copies of the Constitution from the National Archives? Can I request copies and have them sent to other people?
There’s also a section devoted to this photo on the NARA website.
The Burmese beneath.
Thursday, January 14th, 2010In addition, state environmental officials worry that the rock python could breed with the Burmese python, which already has an established foothold in the Everglades. That could lead to a new “super snake,” said George Horne, the water district’s deputy executive director.
I have no joke here, I just like saying “super snake”. For some reason, that made me think of “Fer-de-Lance” (aka “Snakes on a Sub”). Which, apparently, is available on DVD
Random notes: January 11th, 2010.
Monday, January 11th, 2010Obit watch: French New Wave director Eric Rohmer. I’ll update this space with the NYT obit and anything Roger Ebert has to say, once those are posted.
Edited to add: NYT obit. Ebert appreciation.
Jayson Williams has apparently decided to plead out to an aggravated assault charge, instead of going through a retrial for killing Costas Christofi.
his personal life in shambles
I’ll have to contact some of my friends at IBM and see how that project to build a tiny violin out of xenon atoms is going.
Random notes: January 8, 2010.
Friday, January 8th, 2010Congrats, Warren St. John.
The Statesman has decided to share with us our local constabulary’s list of “most frequent bars for suspected drunken drivers“. I, personally, am a little bit shocked not to see my own favorite Austin bar on this list.
The Gilbert Arenas story is being well covered elsewhere, but I’d like to note that the NYT is all over this story like a hungry man on an all-you-can-eat buffet. Three stories today, in addition to yesterday’s coverage? For a non-New York team?
Firings: Jim Leavitt at the University of South Florida, who allegedly hit a player.
Breaking, by way of Lawrence Person, who provides the following:
When the GM says “Goodbye”
And everyone knows good and why
Edited to add: from the linked article, “Seattle was decimated by injuries and inconsistency and finished 5-11.” Really? The Seahawks lost one out of every ten players?
Random notes: January 5, 2010.
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010By way of Roger Ebert, we learn of Matthew Dessem, a man with a goal; to watch every single movie in the Criterion Collection, and write about them.
Understand that Dessem’s essays are advanced and ambitious. These aren’t three-paragraph plot summaries. He watches the extras, reads the literature, provides detailed analysis, find still photos and grabs individual shots from a computer screen.
I had a chance to read some of the essays on Dessem’s site, and I agree with Roger; these are serious essays, not hack work.
Best quote from the article:
“My absolute favorite commentary track on any Criterion title so far,” he said, “is the one with NASA consultant Dr. Joe Allen and asteroid consultant Ivan Bekey (as well as the cinematographer, Joe Schwartzman) talking about ‘Armageddon.’ It’s basically two-and-a-half hours of these guys saying, over and over again, ‘We told Michael Bay that this scene was completely scientifically inaccurate, but he went ahead and did it anyway’.”
If you’re going to read just one of Dessem’s reviews, I recommend the Armageddon one. The movie’s an easy target, but I think he does a good job of trying to engage with it, while at the same time not neglecting the movie’s many stupid moments.
Yesterday’s WP had a nice article about Betsey Apple, wife of the late NYT writer and bon vivant R.W. Apple. She’s preparing to auction off his wine collection:
And yes, Betsey says, they all belonged to her husband and not to his employer, an important distinction given that he was a legendary expense account artist who may or may not have buried a fur coat on one of his expense reports when he was posted in Moscow.
and also promoting his new book
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the legendary Mr. Apple, Calvin Trillin’s New Yorker profile is available online, and well worth reading.
And so it begins…
Monday, January 4th, 2010Not much more to say; everyone knew it was coming.
Lawrence is now arguing that retaining Kubiak is the right call. I’m not sure I agree with that. I agree more with Laurence Simon that the Texans are a mediocre team, and will remain so as long as the current coaching and management structure are in place.
Edited to add: It just gets better. Buffalo has purged their entire coaching staff. It’s like something out of Stalin’s Russia.
Edited to add 2: From the local Buffalo paper: “Drunken Bills fan passes out, leaving three children crying.” The jokes, they write themselves.
Edited to add 3: From the HouChron:
Edited to add 4: And the Bears take out a full-page newspaper ad apologizing to their fans. (Hattip: E&P in Exile.)
Edited to add 5: Jets Giants fire defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan.
Edited to add 6: Bears fire offensive coordinator Ron Turner, and five other offensive coaches.
The Elves of Dalton, GA (and other tales from Christmas).
Friday, January 1st, 2010Just be patient, it will all come together in the end.
A few weeks ago, one of my cow orkers sent around this photo, just for fun. It prompted a discussion among some of my other cow orkers about their first computers. I was sitting there listening to these guys talking about their 386 machines with 4 MB of memory, and thinking to myself, “You bunch of pikers. My first computer had 4K of memory. Not 4 MB, 4 KB. As in, 4,096 bytes total. And I used cassette tape for mass storage.” You tell that to kids nowdays, they just don’t believe you. (Well, except maybe the cow orker who sent around that photo; I suspect he actually got his start sometime in the System 360 days.)