New rules for vampires

We were desperate for some dumb entertainment last night, and the Twilight movie hit the spot. No, it was not nearly as good as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, but who could expect it to be? For the remaining three or four people in the world who have not yet read the books or seen the movie, the plot is easily described: Hot human teenage girl and hot vampire boy fall in love at first sight; love cannot be physically consummated lest boy suck life out of girl; much heaving of bosoms and soulful longing eye-gazing ensue. Girl begs to be bitten so she may live eternally with boy; boy declines, perhaps fearing commitment that could last... like... FOREVERRRR! Bad vampires make things even more complicated than they already are.

Fans of the Buffy series should note the following important changes in vampire etiquette and behavior:
1. Apparently vampires may now enter your home uninvited. This eliminates one of the most sensible ways to avoid being bitten: Don't go out at night!
2. The slaying of vampires has become considerably more difficult. The simple plunge of a wooden stake into the heart, followed by implosion of vampire into a cloud of sooty dust, seems no longer to suffice. Vanquishing now requires that the vampire in question be subdued by other vampires and then set ablaze. With all due respect to Buffy's amazing abilities, this would have made her life a lot more challenging.
3. Exposure to sunlight no longer causes vampires to blister and writhe in pain. Rather, they merely glisten most appealingly. The only reason they avoid the sunlight is to avoid detection by humans... as if they blend right in as it is...
4. Vampire business is serious business: No humor allowed!

Muhal Richard Abrams

Two of my favorite jazz albums are The Hearinga Suite and Blu Blu Blu by Abrams and his big band, both dating back to around 1990. A founder of AACM, he is one of the most important American musicians of the past half century. So it was nice to see him recognized with a Jazz Masters Award by the NEA. Co-recipients Cedar Walton and Kenny Barron highly deserving as well.

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is a big, old-fashioned historical novel full of wonderful characters and grand ideas, from religious intolerance, to the uses of political power, to the bourgeois virtues. Speaking of the last of these, our hero Thomas Cromwell is a merchant and self-made man, a man of action who cuts moral corners because the alternative is surely worse. His relationship with Thomas More, a sympathetic monster, is the novel's centerpiece, with Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Cromwell's retinue of surrogate sons play supporting roles. One of those books I was truly hoping would never end...

Milk

We finally saw "Milk" last night. Well-made, as expected, but I found it overall a little flat. Sean Penn's astonishing performance, however, is everything it is cracked up to be. The movie also ought to be an exhibit in Harvey Milk's canonization, if and when the Church ever comes around to making saints of gays and unconverted Jews.

The most interesting theme is the notion that Dan White was a tortured, closeted gay who was simultaneously drawn to and repelled by Milk. In the movie, White is ultimately the biggest victim of homophobia, while Milk, supremely comfortable in his own skin and a fighter from the very beginning, is anything but.

28 weeks later?

My wife Laura wonders why Dick Cheney doesn't just "slink away" and leave us all alone. I would no more expect Dick Cheney to slink away than I would expect one of those infected guys in 28 Days Later to do the same. They just keep snarling and coming at you. Here he is again, offended that the Obama administration is taking some baby steps toward investigating our homegrown torturers. Well, at least we can all agree that there is something offensive here.

Harry Potter and the...

... Half-Blood Prince, I believe. Saw it on IMax, with 3-D for the first ten minutes or so. What I can say about 3-D is that the technology is quite improved from what I remember. It no longer makes you nauseous, and some of the effects are fairly striking. Still, most of the time it reminded me of looking through a View-Master, with the obvious discrete foreground and background. I.e., still a gimmick.

The movie? Not bad overall, but not worth the $14 I spent. Too much teen angst and snogging for my taste. The new Dumbledore pales in comparison to Richard Harris. The memory pensieve is quite cool: Harry sticks his head in a toilet bowl and trips out. The journey across a lake straight out of Dante to retrieve the horcrux is poorly done, not nearly as intense as it is in the book (yes, I read it). Biggest problem: the vivid three-dimensional characters that J.K Rowling created in her excellent novels are portrayed by, alas, appealing kid actors who grew up to be second-rate young adult actors. What can you do?

Best man for the job

The President on reappointing Ben Bernanke:

“As an expert on the causes of the Great Depression, I’m sure Ben never imagined that he would be part of a team responsible for preventing another. But because of his background, his temperament, his courage, and his creativity, that’s exactly what he has helped to achieve.”

Like, what he said.