Culture

In Filmspotting’s most recent episode, the hosts went through their top five directors whose movies you’d want on a desert island (original). In other words, if you were stuck on a desert island with a TV and a DVD player, which five directors’ complete works would you want? This is a fun game and an interesting twist so I played along. On the whole I was closer to David Gordon Green’s choices than to those of the hosts. He’s not listed at the link above, but he chose John Landis, Alan Parker, Robert Altman, John Ford, and Stanley Kubrick. I think Alan Parker in particular is a brilliant choice. ...

This probably isn’t the result of his recent exposure on HBO, but he’s directing another teen comedy! I am irrationally excited and will remain so regardless of further news.

Well, nah, but this does give me a pleasing frisson down the spine. For those of us who are not obsessive fans of Sorkin’s early (or even his later) work, Josh Charles played Dan Rydell on Sports Night as inspired by Keith Olbermann. Thus, putting them together on Olbermann’s current show is funny. Or it was funny before I explained it. Maybe I should have skipped that bit. “You think?” ...

Not that I’m saying Billy Joel is one of the best artists of all time, but he’s a guy who can write songs and sing them and he cares about his work. Also important: Jimmy Fallon is completely sincere about the things he loves, which turns out to be what I wanted out of late night talk shows on the rare occasion that I watch them.

Many of us 80s children have fond memories of the first two Savage Steve Holland opuses, Better Off Dead… and One Crazy Summer. John Cusack’s amiable everyman teen demeanor was the perfect foil for Holland’s insane vision. His third movie, How I Got Into College had no John Cusack and generated few fond memories. But it’s on HBO Go until May 1st. Corey Parker, Lara Flynn Boyle, and a pretty crappy script. Savage Steve didn’t write this one. Philip Baker Hall in a bit part? Nora Dunn and Phil Hartman cameo? ...

Yo, Unknown USA people! Were you aware of Anais Mitchell’s folk opera, [Hadestown](http://web.archive.org/web/20160915135516/http://web.archive.org/web/20160915135516/http://hadestown.anaismitchell.com:80/ (original):80/) (original)? It’s just a folk opera retelling of the Orpheus myth set in a post-apocalyptic version of the Great Depression, no big deal. Justin Vernon and Ani DiFranco are part of the cast. I may be the last person to know about this.

Quick notes from the 1 PM Novels You Should Have Read Since Chicon 7 panel. Any errors are wholly mine. Panelists: Elizabeth Bear (moderator), Willie Siros, and Jess Nevins. Any really outstanding books? Siros: Sea Change, S. M. Wheeler fairy tale fable, internal logic, compared to The Last Unicorn Nevins: Brian Catling’s The Vorrh fantasy that avoids the usual fantasy tropes Bear: Cassandra Rose Clark, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter SF, robot civil rights, riff on “Bicentennial Man” issues of climate change, peak oil, global cultural change as background elements Siros: Iain Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata ...

Susan and I will be hitting LoneStarCon 3 (original), aka Worldcon 2013. It’s in San Antonio, so we can take the whole week and spend a few days in Austin first. Mmm, barbecue. Mmm, breakfast tacos. Mmm. I have now poked my nose back into Worldcon site selection politics and am delighted to note that it’s still Worldcon site selection politics. By which I mean I’m relieved that I moved to California just when I would have gotten sucked into convention organizing in Boston. I dunno, Orlando looks good to me for 2015. ...

The first two issues of High Society showed up on Comixology this week. The first one was free, so I bought it. It’s really gorgeous: high-def, quality scans for the most part. There are one or two pages where the white on black text fills in a bit much, but given the unfortunate house fire which destroyed a bunch of the negatives recently, I am not unhappy about that. It’s gorgeous and funny and an amazing achievement and this is even before Gerhard came on board. Plus there are 30 or so pages of notebooks and historical stuff at the end. Issue two is only 99 cents, which is a bargain – at the rate of a couple of issues a week, I would have no financial qualms about buying all the Cerebus this way. ...

I like fiction delivered to a convenient and elegant place to read! So: Go to ifttt, log in/register/whatever Create a new task. Choose the Feed trigger. Choose New Feed Item. Use the Feed URL https://hilobrow.com/tag/world-shook/feed/, on the assumption that you want to read HiLoBrow’s H. Rider Haggard serialization. Feed it into Instapaper (or Readability if you like that). You can leave the default field values alone. If this is your first time using ifttt, you’ll need to register the channel first. Give it a description. Or just go ahead and use the recipe I made.