Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Hipster Ariel Meets Wil Wheaton (Totalitarian Vegetables)
For #phxcc this year, I decided to cosplay as Hipster Ariel, because I own this t-shirt and wanted to do something obscure.
Jennifer R.S. Gordon, M.D., and Joaquin C. Brieva, M.D.: 28 Years of a Truck Driver's Tan (New England Journal of Medicine)
Unilateral Dermatoheliosis.
Marc Dion: The Boss for President (Creators Syndicate)
On every bad job I ever had, I was saved only by the charity and loyalty of older employees - people who were, in the most exact sense of the word, trapped. … It used to amaze me that, if I told one of them I was in college or graduate school, he or she would invariably say: "Good. You stay in school. Don't end up like me." It nearly made me cry the first time someone said that to me. What point in your journey have you reached when you actively warn people away from your own life? It's the saddest thing anyone ever said to me, and it was said to me dozens of times.
John Cooper Clarke: 'It's diabolical how poor I am' (Guardian)
He was a seminal influence on punk, a ferociously funny performance poet. Over martinis, John Cooper Clarke tells Simon Hattenstone why he's back.
Caspar Llewellyn Smith: 'Joey Ramone sings these songs beautifully' (Guardian)
The late Ramones singer's brother, Mickey Leigh, talks about the 10-year struggle to release a posthumous collection of his work.
Brian Ashcraft: Before There Was 'The Hunger Games,' Japan Had This Brutal, Bloody Opus (io9)
Were you one of the oodles of theatergoers who packed into American cinemas to see 'The Hunger Games'? The movie is raking in the box office cash-and it's being hailed as a smash hit. But in Japan, people are referring to the flick as something else: "Hollywood's version of 'Battle Royale.'"
Roger Ebert: My Night at Maud's
"My Night at Maud's" was the hit of the 1969 New York Film Festival, and that is not surprising. It is so good to see a movie where the characters have beliefs, and articulate them, and talk to each other (instead of at each other). It is so good, in fact, that you realize how hungry you've been for this sort of thing.
Roger Ebert: French Cancan (1954; A Great Movie)
It is universally agreed that Jean Renoir was one of the greatest of all directors, and he was also one of the warmest and most entertaining. "Grand Illusion" and "Rules of the Game" are routinely included on lists of the greatest films, and deserve to be. But although "Rules" contains scenes of delightful humor, neither suggest the Renoir who made "Boulu Saved from Drowning" (1932), or "French Cancan" (1954), "French Cancan" a delicious musical comedy that deserves comparison with the golden age Hollywood musicals of the same period.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast morning, sunny afternoon.
Buys Minority Share Of Mets
Bill Maher
No joke: Bill Maher owns a stake in the New York Mets.
The stand-up comic and political satirist was at Citi Field on Sunday and revealed that he bought a minority share of the team months ago. Mets senior vice president of marketing and communications David Newman confirmed the deal is done and that Maher is a new limited partner.
Maher, who grew up nearby in New Jersey and said he has been a Mets fan his whole life, would not disclose how much he spent or how large a stake he owns.
Maher said he has early memories of New York being granted a National League expansion franchise, and the team's first season in 1962. He said he vividly remembers the Miracle Mets championship of 1969, and watching Game 6 of the 1986 World Series at The Improv in Los Angeles with fellow comedian Jerry Seinfeld and others.
Asked if he will try to persuade Seinfeld, a longtime Mets fan, to buy a share as well, Maher said: "Why he didn't, I have no idea. He's sure got more money than I do."
Bill Maher
Wedding News
Barrymore - Kopelman
Actress Drew Barrymore has tied the knot for the third time, marrying her art dealer fiance Will Kopelman this weekend in Southern California, media outlets reported on Sunday.
The "Charlie's Angels" actress, 37, wore a Chanel gown and wed Kopelman on Saturday in a Jewish ceremony at their estate in Montecito, California, outside Los Angeles, with guests including Reese Witherspoon, Cameron Diaz, Jimmy Fallon and Busy Philips, according to People Magazine.
The celebrity magazine also said Barrymore is pregnant with the couple's first child. Representatives for the actress did not immediately return calls for comment on Sunday.
This is the third wedding for Barrymore, who was previously married to bar owner Jeremy Thomas in March 1994, filing for divorce less than two months later, and comedian Tom Green in July 2001, with Green filing for divorce less than six months later.
Barrymore - Kopelman
Wedding News
Biden - Krein
Vice President Joe Biden's daughter, Ashley, was married in a private ceremony on Saturday evening in Delaware, he said in a statement.
Ashley Blazer Biden was married to Dr. Howard Krein in Wilmington, Biden and his wife, Jill, said in a joint statement released by the vice president's office.
Wilmington newspaper the News-Journal reported online that Ashley Biden and Howard Krein, a Philadelphia doctor, were married at a church in a mixed Catholic and Jewish ceremony. The Bidens are Catholic.
Biden - Krein
Tree Ring Mystery
Japan
In the late eighth century, Earth was hit by a mystery blast of cosmic rays, according to a Japanese study that found a relic of the powerful event in cedar trees.
Analysis of two ancient trees found a surge in carbon-14 -- a carbon isotope that derives from cosmic radiation -- which occurred just in AD 774 and AD 775, the team report in the journal Nature on Sunday.
A team led by Fusa Miyake of Nagoya University found that levels of carbon-14 in the two cedars were about 1.2 percent higher in 774 and 775 compared to other years.
This may not sound much, but in relation to background concentrations of carbon-14, the difference is huge.
Japan
Trial Opens For Suit Over BP Deal
Costner Vs. Baldwin
A New Orleans courtroom will be the setting for a real-life legal drama casting two Hollywood stars in adversarial roles.
Trial is scheduled to open Monday for Stephen Baldwin's federal lawsuit against fellow actor Kevin Costner over their investments in a device that BP used in trying to clean up the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The lawsuit claims Costner and a business partner duped Baldwin and a friend out of their shares of an $18 million deal for BP to buy oil-separating centrifuges after the April 2010 spill.
Baldwin and his friend, Spyridon Contogouris, said they didn't know about the deal when they agreed to sell their shares of Ocean Therapy Solutions, a company that marketed the centrifuges to BP, for $1.4 million and $500,000, respectively.
Costner Vs. Baldwin
Comcast Chief Admits It's A Bomb
"Battleship"
Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts publicly acknowledged Friday what has been largely ignored by the Hollywood media: "Battleship" is a big, bad, "John Carter"-sized flop.
Speaking at the Sanford Bernstein Strategic decisions conference in New York City, Roberts said that the poor performance of the alien invasion film, which he labeled "an unfortunate, large miss," coupled with the failure of the comedy "The Five Year Engagement," will drag down earnings at NBCUniversal.
In a summer where anything that is not "The Avengers" seems to be stumbling at the box office, "Battleship" has been the biggest turkey. Filmed for more than $200 million with untold millions more spent to market the picture around the world, the board game adaptation has eked out roughly $50 million domestically.
Yet, as Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times noted recently, its abysmal performance has not received the same frenzied coverage that "John Carter" did when it lost Disney some $200 million.
Instead, Universal was able to successfully turn attention away from the size of the box office turkey by touting "Battleship's" more robust foreign grosses of $232.7 million, despite the fact that is roughly what "John Carter" racked up abroad.
"Battleship"
The Godmother
Sophia Loren
Environmentalists on Saturday urged film diva Sophia Loren to help stop a big cruise ship named in her honor from ever entering the Venice lagoon because of potential damage to the city and the lagoon's delicate ecosystem.
The MSC Divina (Divine), which the actress christened last month in France, is a 139,500-tonne ship that can carry 3,500 passengers and nearly 1,000 crew.
"We can't believe that you want your name, which is a legend in Italy and the world, to be associated with a ship that contributes to the destruction of Venice, part of humanity's heritage," said an open letter from the group, called the No Big Ships Venice Committee.
"We are asking you to give up your role as godmother of the ship. Venice and the world would see that as a divine gesture. Venice belongs to the world. Help us save it," the group said in the letter to the Italian screen legend.
Sophia Loren
Apologizes For 'Gay' Remark
Jason Alexander
Actor Jason Alexander has apologized for joking during a TV talk show that he considers cricket to be a "gay" sport.
In a blog post, the former "Seinfeld" star explained Sunday what led to his remark on CBS's Late Late Show. He writes that he at first didn't grasp why some might object to the comment, but that subsequent conversations with his gay friends led him to realize his insensitivity.
Alexander's remarks came in Friday's show in which he tells host Craig Ferguson that aspects of cricket make it a "gay game" compared to other sports.
The actor's 1,000-word-plus "message of amends" said that the joking remark plays into "hurtful assumptions and diminishments" about people. Alexander also writes that as an actor with many gay friends, he "should know better."
Jason Alexander
Google Map
Zombies
First came Miami: the case of a naked man eating most of another man's face. Then Maryland, a college student telling police he killed a man, then ate his heart and part of his brain.
It was different in New Jersey, where a man stabbed himself 50 times and threw bits of his own intestines at police. They pepper-sprayed him, but he was not easily subdued.
He was, people started saying, acting like a zombie. And the whole discussion just kept growing, becoming a topic that the Internet couldn't seem to stop talking about.
Violence, we're used to. Cannibalism and people who should fall down but don't? That feels like something else entirely.
So many strange things have made headlines in recent days that The Daily Beast assembled a Google Map tracking "instances that may be the precursor to a zombie apocalypse." And the federal agency that tracks diseases weighed in as well, insisting it had no evidence that any zombie-linked health crisis was unfolding.
Zombies
Steamship Leaving W. Michigan For Canada
The Keewatin
The historic steamship Keewatin is leaving its West Michigan home of more than 40 years.
The Holland Sentinel and MLive.com report the ship was freed Thursday from the bottom of Kalamazoo Lake as preparations continued for its relocation to Canada. The 350-foot ship is expected to be towed to Port McNicoll, Ontario, where it will be part of a waterfront and tourist attraction.
The ship was built in 1907 in Scotland then brought to the Great Lakes, where it carried cargo and passengers. It was retired in 1965 and headed for the scrap yard.
It was brought to Douglas in 1967 where it has been a museum.
The Keewatin
Trace Tech Gender Gap To Childhood
Women Engineers
Silicon Valley companies portray themselves as inventors of the future, but they're afflicted by a longstanding problem.
From board rooms to "brogrammers," men still dominate many corners of the tech industry, where the pantheon of famous founders - from Hewlett and Packard to Jobs to Zuckerberg - is still a boys' bastion.
To Jocelyn Goldfein, a director of engineering at Facebook, the math is stark.
Less than 20 percent of the bachelor's degrees in computer science go to women, according to federal statistics. By comparison, nearly 60 percent of all bachelor's degrees are awarded to graduating females.
She blames the lack of role models both in popular culture and in day-to-day life as a key reason for the disparity.
Women Engineers
What Climate Change?
Stay Or Go?
Years of ferocious storms have threatened to gnaw away the western tip of a popular beachfront park two hours drive north of Los Angeles. Instead of building a 500-foot-long wooden defense next to the pier to tame the tide, the latest thinking is to flee.
Work is under way to gauge the toll of ripping up parking lots on the highly eroded west end of Goleta Beach County Park and moving a scenic bike path and buried utility lines inland away from lapping waves.
Up and down the California coast, some communities are deciding it's not worth trying to wall off the encroaching ocean. Until recently, the thought of bowing to nature was almost unheard of.
The issue of whether to stay or flee is being confronted around the globe. Places experimenting with retreat have adopted various strategies. In Britain, for example, several sites along the Essex coast have deliberately breached seawalls to create salt marshes, which act as a natural barrier to flooding.
In the U.S., the starkest example can be found in Alaska, where entire villages have been forced to move to higher ground or are thinking about it in the face of melting sea ice. Hawaii's famous beaches are slowly shrinking and some scientists think it's a matter of time before the state has to explore whether to move back development.
Around California, relocation of coastal infrastructure and development is being pushed by the Surfrider Foundation and other environmental groups. But the efforts also are being driven by increased awareness of climate change. Sea level has risen by 7 inches over the last century in California. By 2050, it's projected to rise between 12 to 18 inches.
Stay Or Go?
Weekend Box Office
"Snow White & the Huntsman"
"Snow White & the Huntsman" turned out to be a fairer box-office beauty than Hollywood anticipated.
According to studio estimates Sunday, Universal Pictures' action yarn inspired by the fairy-tale princess debuted strongly at No. 1 with $56.3 million domestically. That's about $20 million higher than industry expectations.
"Snow White" bumped Sony's "Men in Black 3" from the top spot and into second-place with $29.3 million. The Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones sequel raised its domestic total to $112.3 million after two weekends and added $78.6 million overseas for an international take of $274.6 million and a worldwide gross of $386.9 million.
Disney's superhero sensation "The Avengers" remained strong at No. 3 with $20.3 million, lifting its domestic total to $552.7 million. "The Avengers" climbed past "The Dark Knight" at $533.3 million to become No. 3 all-time on the domestic revenue chart, behind "Avatar" at $760.5 million and "Titanic" at $658.5 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Snow White & the Huntsman," $56.3 million ($39.3 million international).
2. "Men in Black 3," $29.3 million ($78.6 million international).
3. "The Avengers," $20.3 million ($12.4 million).
4. "Battleship," $4.8 million ($1.5 million international).
5. "The Dictator," $4.7 million ($6.5 million international).
6. "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," $4.6 million ($557,000 international).
7. "What to Expect When You're Expecting," $4.4 million ($3.7 million international).
8. "Dark Shadows," $3.9 million ($7.2 million international).
9. "Chernobyl Diaries," $3 million.
10. "For Greater Glory," $1.8 million.
"Snow White & the Huntsman"
In Memory
Richard Dawson
Richard Dawson, the wisecracking British entertainer who was among the schemers in the 1960s sitcom "Hogan's Heroes" and a decade later began kissing thousands of female contestants as host of the game show "Family Feud" has died. He was 79.
Dawson won a daytime Emmy Award in 1978 as best game show host. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him "the fastest, brightest and most beguilingly caustic interlocutor since the late great Groucho bantered and parried on 'You Bet Your Life.'" The show was so popular it was released as both daytime and syndicated evening versions.
His swaggering, randy style (and British accent) set him apart from other TV quizmasters. He was known for kissing each woman contestant, and at the time the show bowed out in 1985, executive producer Howard Felsher estimated that Dawson had kissed "somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000."
One of them he kissed was Gretchen Johnson, a young contestant who appeared with members of her family in 1981. After a decade together, she and Dawson wed in 1991. They had a daughter, Shannon.
Dawson reprised his game show character in a much darker mood in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film "The Running Man," playing the host of a deadly TV show set in a totalitarian future, where convicts try to escape as their executioners stalk them. "Saturday Night Live" mocked him in the 1970s, with Bill Murray portraying him as leering and nasty, even slapping one contestant (John Belushi) for getting too fresh.
The British-born actor already had gained fame as the fast-talking Newkirk in "Hogan's Heroes," the CBS comedy that starred Bob Crane and mined laughs from a Nazi POW camp whose prisoners hoodwink their captors and run the place themselves.
On Dawson's last "Family Feud" in 1985, the studio audience honored him with a standing ovation, and he responded: "Please sit down. I have to do at least 30 minutes of fun and laughter and you make me want to cry."
Producers brought out "The New Family Feud," starring comedian Ray Combs, in 1988. Six years later, Dawson replaced Combs at the helm, but that lasted only one season. Steve Harvey is the current host.
Dawson was born Colin Lionel Emm in 1932 in Gosport, England. When he was 14 he joined the Merchant Marines, serving three years.
He first got into show business as a stand-up comedian, playing clubs in London's West End including the legendary Stork Room. It was there, in the late 1950s, he met blond bombshell Diana Dors, the film star who became known as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe. They married in 1959 and divorced in the late 1960s.
Dawson landed roles in U.S. comedy and variety shows in the early 1960s, including "The Steve Allen Show" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Then his performance as a military prisoner in the 1965 film "King Rat" led to his being cast in "Hogan's Heroes," which truly made him a star to American audiences.
After that, he was a regular on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" and "The New Dick Van Dyke Show."
Meanwhile, he became a frequent celebrity contestant on game shows, including both daytime and prime-time versions of "The Match Game."
While still a panelist on "The Match Game," he began hosting "Family Feud," where his popularity grew to such levels that he was mentioned as a frontrunner to win the "Tonight Show" host chair to succeed Johnny Carson, who at the time was considering retirement. Though Carson stayed put, Dawson made appearances as a guest host.
Dawson is survived by his widow, Gretchen, their daughter Shannon, two sons, Mark and Gary, from his first marriage, and four grandchildren.
Richard Dawson
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