The People's Pasta

The People's Pasta

Erika Ostergaard and Kraft

This delightfully flavorful dish is both easy to make and bright as the sun as seen while on acid. Conceived by a homesick lady with little to no flavor in her daily food, the only difficult to find ingredient on the list is Kraft cheeze flava.

1 pack Kraft cheeze flava

1 plate left over macaroni (plain as intended)

1 Tbs sour cream

1 Tbs mustard

the left over half of sausage

Take plain mac and sausage from fridge.

Sprinkle with contents of flava pack

Microwave 1 minute

Remove and stir; the juices of the half of sausage should be enough to get the first bits of cheeze sticking

Microwave another minute

Remove, stir in sour cream and mustard

Enjoy!

Taste Tester 1: Excellent. The excess of cheeze on so few noodles really kicks up the flavor.

Taste Tester 2: I don't like the clumps of cheeze, but they blend in with the clumps of sausage.

Taste Tester 3: I would never eat anything that wasn't organic, but, because this sour cream is straight from the cow, I'll make an exception for the cheeze.

And there you have it folks! Having scarce supplies and a Proletariat attitude will get you everything.

Time Magazine Vol. 175, No. 18

Time Magazine, Vol. 175, No. 8 | 2010

Richard Stengel, Managing Editor

I'm a recent recruit to the crowd of serious magazine readers. Usual fare for me is Juxtapoz or Giant Robot, personal favorite High Fructose. Magazines that follow art culture of graffitti fiends and guys in Japan who make sculptures of giraffes out of Celophane and then position them around cities to look like they're eating telephone wires. I bust out the $7 an issue for these guys because you just can't capture that shit online. You have to be able to hold these images, and, lets face it, for $7, frame my favorite whole pages and call the layout “art” itself. Especially HF. I rub the paper they print on across my cheeks it's so plush. Long story short, the most serious magazine I read on a regular basis is Zoetrope, France Ford Coppola's venus fly trap of short story fodder for his movies/films/whatever.

So, here I am, coaching Moldovan boys how to play American football. Already completely out of character, I pick up a spare issue of Time to peruse. Lady Gaga and Bill Clinton are posed side by side on the front cover, how serious can it be?

Turns out, not very. I have inadvertently started my readership on the “Special Double Issue” with “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” Yes, that is the gamut. Lady Gaga → Bill Clinton. As, thank the gods, columnist Joel Stein points out “Putting together the most influential list is easy,” if you wanna rub shoulders with the right sponsors and advertisers and subscribers to your magazine. Radhika Jones, assistant managing editor, describes the list building as “really fun” especially when they pair the worshiped with the worshipful writer. More on that later.

So, the issue is split four ways: Leaders, Artists, Thinkers, Heroes, and each gets 25 guys/gals. This is impressive. I'd have expected them just to outright schmooz Halliburton heads or Presidents of politically friendly countries, but this way Time points out that not every one is equally influenced just by art or just by politics. It encompasses all facets of life. All facets of our—dare such a frivolous person as me use a German word—zeitgeist, as the title of this magazine boasts. Sweet.

Better yet, upon checking with Matt and Martin, my fellow coaches who are way more in tune with the world than me, a lot of these names are not widely known by most people. I was going to learn! I live in a village where electricity works 60% of the time and internet 40%. so have little contact with the real world. Lady Gaga and Bill Clinton I've heard of (my Moldovan students LOVE Gaga) but Admiral Mike Mullen, Annise Parker, Robert Pattinson, Didier Drogba, or Glenn Beck... Nada.

The downfall started with some of the choices I did recognize. Sandra Bullock? They justify this with how much money she made last year. Even though she made 4 movies in one year (hard work to be sure) and they were each big popcorn flicks and seen by apparently tons of people, is it Ms. Bullock doing the influencing? Do the movies cause their viewers to change their mindsets? I'll give you Gaga. The woman is not only makin' the big bucks and being listened to by everyone from my basically illiterate Moldovan 5^th graders to people I term “uber intellectuals” in big name universities. And she has, as leader of her own haute couture art/music factory Haus of Gaga, revolutionized the concept of a music video from regular slut-fest with glitter to fine performance art. Not to mention acceptance of homosexuality.

Turns out the choosing is quite like a popularity contest. People are chosen based on a poll taken on Time's website. Editor Jones also points out that they narrow this contest by looking for “who had a good year,” making the zeitgeist captured significantly more narrow. Not bad.

But, really, Ashton Kutcher?

And then it got worse. Guess who wrote Mr. Kutcher's profile. None other than Mr. Sean “Diddy” Combs, a man who is so effective at changing people's hearts and minds he's influenced his own name into 5 or 6 incarnations. Allow me to clear my throat: “we are yin and yang: I am in your face, but he is understated, cool, sauve.” A) this is not a comparison to you, sir. B) maybe “what he and Demi do with Twitter” is influential, but what do they do? I didn't even know he still did anything except shoot camera commercials where Demi is conspicuously not present while he flirts with a dozen scantily clad chicks who apparently get off on candy pink hand held digi-cams. Advertising cameras and tweeting with “positive messages” does not a mogul make. Sorry Did, Diddy, Sean, Sir Combs, Puffy.

But, let me explain. I didn't originally think Time was letting cool people write these. I was just expecting Time freelancers and columnists to pull names from an Editor-chosen hat. I opened at random and was reading happily through the Leaders section til I got to Sarah Palin's blurb. Let me preface: I have nothing against Sarah Palin. She's done damn well for a lady with 5 kids. Has a killer bod, friends in high places, a good shot, damn good taste in shoes—she's on my shortlist of people to invite for my ideal dinner party. Sarah Palin's blurb however, and here's where I have to admit I was being a sloppy reader, did not strike me as well written. It was nothing short of—earmuff the children—ass kissing on the part of whoever this chump masquerading as a writer was. What the hell?!

Exhibit A : “The independent, patriotic spirit, attitude and soul of our forefathers are alive and well in Sarah.”

Exhibit B : “Her rugged individualism, self-reliance and a herculean work ethic resonate now more than ever in a country spinning away from these basics that made the USA the last best place.”

Exhibit C : “We are driven to be assets to our families, communities and our beloved country connect with the principles that Sarah Palin embodies.”

uh... Righteously angered I checked the byline. Who the f*** is Ted Nugent and why is he allowed to write in a public place? I was informed by my fellow football coaches that he is a former rock guitarist who likes guns. I see the connection, but is anyone else in the world a little freaked out by people vehemently agreeing with each other?

I mean even General Petraeus manages to keep it in the foxhole when talking about General McChrystal.

Anyway, between this Nugent/Palin fiasco, and other has-been music kids (P-Diddy, Cyndi Lauper, Stevie Nicks) trying to reinvigorate their own influence over ears by sucking up to currently influential music kids I was pretty much done with the whole issue.

But all that fury dissipated when I encountered others. Fusion chefs (David Chang) and leaders of far off countries (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) and doctors (Namperumalsamy) and prisoners (Nay Phone Latt) and lawyers (Elizabeth Warren) are extremely influential in the world whether most Americans know who they are or not. And their writers, even if not pros were well structured and actually answered the question: “Why is this person influential in the world of 2010?”

I rescinded. The contrast allowed me not only to learn about both cool people and shite people, but also the difference, at point blank range, between good reporting and propaganda. Time also did a pretty bang up job on letting opposite ends of party crazies praise each other. If Second Amendment nut jobs like Nugent get to do Palin, and Palin gets to do Beck, then it's only fair for the hippy liberal fruits that Hil-Dawg Clinton does Nancy Pelosi and Bono does Bill (Clinton, of course!). They even go so far as to go for Posh Spice doing Marc Jacobs and Robert DeNiro, Ben Stiller. It's one big, happy nepotisim!

Thank Thor people like Yukio Hatoyama, Ron Bloom and Steve Jobs were included and people like Joe Stein and Salman Rushdie get to write some. I would definitely cry if they'd left off Steve Jobs. Oh, and Banksy. A name I finally recognized! At last, mainstream America recognizes graffiti as a mogul-esque something or other that, even when they don't know it's you, they are influenced by what you're spraying. Time gets it overall. Phew for my time ghost.

Expansion

In the spirit of progress I am opening up this blog.

Not that you care anyway, this is one of the most unlooked at blogs ever, but! should my computer and hardrive both get blitzed by Moldovan sockets, I'll have my little rants and overtures of worship safe here in the gauze of our New Frontier.

(the next line of Star Trek should take place all in a Lain-like universe. The Delta quadrant can wait)

From now on my reviews will not just be about movies and they will not be confined to 500 words.

That's all.

Thank you minions.

Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera
(Mike Newell, 2007)

Being a two hour film covering 50 years of complex relationships, it amazes me I had any feeling for it at all, besides maybe breathless. The writers were ambitious to say the least.

The set up is as follows: One rich, old man dies. We see the wife as visibly heartbroken. Our sympathy is all about her. We love this man who's dead—one attendant of the wake says “your husband was a saint.” We want to know his life. He is our hero.

Hitch in film making that can't be helped: The actress playing the wife is obviously NOT 72, like her makeup and wig want us to believe. No amount of newfangled, wrinkle-making, skinish makeup is going to hide that Giovanna Mezzogiorno is a gorgeous 20 something. The job on Benjamin Bratt, our dead hero, is more convincing. Whether this is because he has facial hair or because Hollywood clings to making their women as glamorous as possible despite how old and wrinkly they are supposed to be, I don't know, I don't really care either, but it's interesting.

Anway, it is here, suddenly that a very different old man sits upright in a luscious red hammock out of the arms of a ridiculously gorgeous young woman (naked) to rush to the window. He tells her to go back to college, there is something he must do.

Next cut, this new old man (could he, Florentino Ariza, played by Jarvier Bardem, be our actual hero? This shifty man with curled mustachios?) asks for the distraught old lady's hand in marriage for he has loved her for “50 years, 9 months and 4 days”. She, in no uncertain terms, tells him to drop dead, and we have a plot worth caring about.

The expected flash back happens, and we've a couple archetypes to suddenly deal with. IE. Bored again... Upstart young poor boy (Florentino), gorgeous/shy young rich girl (Fermina), forbidding father... Romeo and Juliet set in Colombia.

The best thing that has happened has to do with the supporting cast. John Leguizamo and Lieve Schieber need to do more things. I love them. Here Leguizamo is the father, resplendent in mullet and power trips. He is genuinely scary. Schieber is the telegraph master who tries to get Florentino laid at a brothel. Because of their intervention our leads start to show some spunk.

Fermina threatens to kill herself with a knife, not by saying anything, but by actually starting to do so at the dinner table. Florentino politely refuses advances of whores, not so dramatic, but that's what his character is all about. Tiny moments, crucial to the rest of their development, return interest to the viewer. The whole thing is storyboarded into these tiny moments.

So, yes, it gets better from here, she chooses to marry some other guy—a dandy doctor—after telling Florentino she never really loved him, get over it. Florentino starts a diary of 622 women he fucks over the aforementioned 50 years.

My personal favorite moment is the meeting of doctor (played by Benjamin Bratt) and Fermina meet. She might have cholera (oh gods, this theme is so well tied into everything without being too much a character itself, very well handled) so, as he has no stethoscope, he rips open her shirt and listens to her chest, back, chest again. He is very matter of fact, but Mezzogiorno's acting conveys all the emotions a virgin in this situation would garble and not quite express. Mezzogiorno's acting is first rate throughout. Full range of expression, nuanced, consistent and has excellent chemistry with both Bratt and Bardem. Who should by no means be underestimated either.

In fact, all the acting in this film is ridiculously good. It's probably the best thing about the film. The characters, and their various quirks and motivations would be completely lost without these actors, and the movie would have failed. Similarly, gods bless directors and writers who stick to the good literature they rip off. Every shot, down to the 2 second helicopter shot over a caravan, is fully cast, propped , colored and agonized over to present the feeling of opulence that Marquez spends so many words creating.

So many words that, even with this attention to detail, the book is obviously too involved to fully express on screen. Some details, in the film, make little sense, or are left loose. The conflict between with Catholicism, for example. There are many heavy handed shots of catholic masses and funerals, and the lady the Doctor has the affair with is Protestant... either this is a symbol of his character which never gets developed or it's a cultural conflict which never gets developed. In either case its left alone because movies have some serious time constraints, but that's something you gotta take into account. The sumptuous shots of transubstantiation are gorgeous, but ultimately distracting from the plot.

And after all this, the ending is actually a bit weak. With goal achieved, Florentino gives his last words on the subject “After 53 years, seven months and 11 days and night, my heart was at last fulfilled. And I discovered, to my joy, that it is life and not death that has no limits.” But, we haven't heard his thoughts on this before... See? Adapting books to movies is so slippery that even when you perfectly capture the writer's tone, and manage to squeeze the epic to two hours, it just won't have the same round impact.

At least all those characters and years are sufficiently understood. And most of it is damned pretty.

A note on the movies.

I need to feel comfortable with writing quality things on a regular basis for an audience. I watch a lot of movies. You guys are my audience--even though Stef seems to be the only one aware I’m here (no, I didn’t advertise; yes, it’s my own fault - most things are)

In my reviews I am aiming for several things.

Word limit: 500

Develop a voice.

Convey the meaning (if any) of the film

Explain how that is apparent

Dispel other reviews if they have clearly missed the point

Pass personal judgment

Write as often as possible

In the future (fog, hole) it would be the bees knees to communicate with other reviewers and have actual debates.

Also, I will review things like books/plays/advertising schemes and what have you… The restraint I’m putting on this is Media (yes, with a capital m).

Cabaret

Cabaret

(1972, Bob Fosse)

**

The manic pixie dream girl’s manifesto/what Bob Fosse thought about Nazis.

We follow the befuddled Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) as parallel to the rise of Hitler. Sex and booze are pretty well enjoyed in Berlin, 1931 and Nazis are, thus far, a joke of organization spouting “tripe” to be ignored.

Fosse seems at first to be only focused on the melodrama of an annoying foursome. A first date is in front of anti-communist posters. Second dance number interlaced with a Jew being beat up. First fight between secondary couple and two Nazi youth members drops a dead dog on their doorstep. Each personal drama is surmounted by a gain in society by the Nazi party.

Sally herself is nothing short of a 20 year old version of the crazy old bat Miss Minnelli we have all come to know and in sitcoms the last decade over. But here she is “an underage femme fatale,” complete with a shapeless body and Josephine Baker haircut. Her lover Brian Roberts (Michael York, you know him as the old mentor of Austin Powers) is stuffy and British, born only to succumb to this crazy dame. Secondary characters include the bi-curious Maximillian, worrisome rapist Fritz and naïve darling Natalia. Yes folks, if ever you’ve wondered “will rape win me the girl?” you now have your answer: “of course! But only if it’s Fay Dunaway being a vulnerable German Jew.”

There’s some bad over dubbing in a little boat scene which I can only imagine makes Fosse roll in his grave with aggravation to this day. Luckily, for my devout love of Fosse, everything else is characteristically perfect: shot composition, editing, color pallet are all polished. Themes are tightly controlled in the sets, writing and music. It really is unfortunate that three of the four main characters are so heinously annoying.

Easily the best thing about the film, though, is the cabaret host. He is our narrator, and bookends. He lets us know what’s going on behind Minnelli’s uber annoying presence. His androgynous and mime-ish expression is delightful as he sings the narration of the film in a super fake German accent. He lets in Fosse’s signature surreal conduit to his true message: the Nazis were bad for hurting Jews, sure, but REALLY they were bad for shutting down the clubs and doing away with drag queens and everything that is fun.

I'd rewatch this the same way I rewatch Star Wars Episode 1: fast forwarding through the parts where the main character is talking.

PS. Liza Minnelli won Best Actress for this shit. Just because she’s Judy Garland’s awkward daughter doesn’t mean she should go around getting credit for exemplifying infuriation.

M.

M.
(1931)
*****

Fritz Lang’s actually lesser known masterpiece is bedrock for film and society and societal observation/interaction in a post world wars world.

After Metropolis’ flop at the box office (though massively loved in later years thanks to Superman cartoons and Herr Goebbels) Lang turned to much more naturalistic fare and turned from the overly stylized world of German Expressionism.

Though some overt lighting, exaggerated camera angles and a fresh-from-silent-acting Peter Lorre may stage-ify M, its illustration of paranoia in civilization is still cutting edge. M follows the capture of a pedophiliac serial killer; sure it’s a cliché to today’s CSI and Nancy Grace-drenched audience, but in 1931 it was still pretty chilling.

What sets M apart from other psychological thrillers (either then or now) is the focus on fear due to physical violence rather than the violence itself. That is, the only evidence that a small girl is abducted is a symbolic balloon tangling in some electrical wires.

Instead, Lang follows an interlaced plot of Berlin’s police force and Berlin’s criminal force. Due to this especially hateful crime, both sides of the law are out for Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre). This is where the only dating of the film occurs: Fingerprinting seems to be a new fangled invention.

This leads us to the idea, and conclusion of the film, that primitive passion is way more effective than coolly cornering a criminal. The mob boss has the bright idea to hire the homeless to track for suspicious characters. Lang interlaces this with coppers rounding up the usual suspects and filling their cells with obviously innocent run-of-the-mill criminals in a giddy blaze of self righteousness.

Yep, we never see that little girl again, and the police pretty quickly forget about the mother; the mob boss never cared that there was a mother in the first place. What they don’t lose sight of is Peter Lorre and his creepy cum cute chub.

A beggar chances on the killer and chases him down. Only here does the title become apparent. The beggar draws a giant “M” in chalk and nonchalantly slaps Beckert’s shoulder so all the mob scouts can join in the chase.

What ensues is a chase scene shot from above to emphasize a rat maze claustrophobia. The only comic relief in the film comes at this point where the petty criminals act as we would expect a swat team to do. Eventually they ferret him out of a dark and sodden wood hole in the attic and take him down to their world—a cement walled basement! There, they continue their sham of justice (lest we forget that earlier in the film they were being strong armed by the law because they were the only people worth suspecting) with a fair trial. Despite a riveting plea for mercy on Beckert’s part (a performance worthy of Charlize Theron’s MONSTER or Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal) the “jury” quickly devolves to a mob again, complete with pitchforks.

Beckert, coming so close to being sympathetic in the face of this mob, is saved only by the law who breaks in at the last second. Their only ability, the whole movie, is to track normal criminals, and track them they do, just in time to claim credit for the arrest.

Statements made by Lang: Pedophiles and murderers suck, but mass paranoia is scarier. Also, Johnny Law is next to useless unless you are committing a crime committed by these five guys over here first.