I’m wrapping up reading Doctor Zhivago. I’d seen the David Lean film, which is great in its own way, but I think the NYT review from 1965 nails the problem with it: “Mr. Bolt has reduced the vast upheaval of the Russian Revolution to the banalities of a doomed romance.” The other problem is Julie Christie’s consistently perfect tan, which looks a little more French Riviera than Ural Mountains.

It’s definitely more than an epic love story; even the love story isn’t really a love story, but more of a mystical pile of D.H. Lawrence crap. (I like D.H. Lawrence, but, face it, it’s crap). And as you might expect, it’s more than what the polemecists who censored it (in the USSR) or praised it (in the West) saw it as.

Maybe a fuller review is forthcoming once I actually finish.

e.e. cummings was a hero of mine in high school, so it’s been interesting since I’ve moved to Boston to occasionally see him as a local boy.

Bostonist points out that goodgenes.com is advertising* on WBUR (Boston’s news-oriented NPR station) again. I still can’t quite believe that this organization exists, or that the NiPpeR takes their money.

The thing is, I thought they were a dotcom flash in the pan. They were advertising on WBUR back when Matt Shaw lived in town in 2000 or so. They ended up appearing in our never-quite-committed-to-paper screenplay for the world’s first yoga martial arts movie, in which the hangers-on and henchmen of Baron Baptiste were at perpetual war with the rival Power Yoga school of Beryl Bender Birch. The characterization of the Baron was going to be a subtle way to lampoon the things that are laughable about certain elements of Cambridge, and Beryl Bender Birch (whose name we would say differently every time, adding new “B” names to the list) represented the more ridiculous elements of Brookline. However, the turning point was to be when the two rivals realized they had to join forces to defeat the army of the evil Nazi eugenecists who were using goodgenes.com as a front. I also kept trying to find a way to work in something about celebrity chefs, but that might have made it unfilmable. We ended up just taking it out on the Baron by posting fake comments on his website’s guestbook, which are still there.

*I refuse to go along with the whole “underwriting” euphemism. The euphemism is increasingly irksome on WBUR, who now take ads from Dunkin’ Donuts, reminding listeners of how tasty their breakfast sandwiches are. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with taking money for airtime, but I do find it fairly irksome to pretend that it’s somehow not advertising.

I read the most wonderful bit of invective this morning in The Weekly Dig on my ride to work:

Black Sabbath should be admitted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Jackson Browne should be forcibly removed, preferably with a hot pitchfork.

If you disagree, ask yourself these questions:

Did Jackson Browne create a new genre? No. He nearly destroyed not one, but two. He took the Tom Joad bite out of folk and the Folsom Prison blues of country and watered it down with the post-Woodstock whining of a nation of hung-over Baby Boomers.

I will wind down this evening of updates with a link to Terri’s tales of meeting the band.

Somehow, going along with this to the point of seeing two shows in New York and one in Boston in the span of a week, going to a club post-concert where Carlos D., the bassist, was DJing, and snapping a few pictures of Terri and the guitarist makes me feel like what the self-help books might call an “ennabler”. But we were looking for an excuse to go to NYC, we’re always looking for a non-sleazy non-cheesy place to go dancing. And there’s something charming about Terri following a long deferred teenage fan-girl dream to meet the band she’s currently really into. Also, they dress like they stepped out of a 30’s gangster movie (e.g. holsters, fedoras, suits), and this not-so-secretly dovetails with my own style affectations.

Oh, and Mewborn, if you’re reading this and snickering, two words, buddy: Carrie Newcomer.

The other Google search where one of my blog posts comes in ridiculously high is “ikea somerville“. At the time of this writing, ridiculously high means dead first. Above the City of Somerville press release. Above the Ikea site. And way, way above the article I point to (again, I have the Somerville News to thank). Why is that? Could it be that the Somerville News publishes via Six Apart-owned Typepad, which is a competitor of Google-owned Blogger? No, that would be evil, and Google is never evil.

Anyway, since I’m an authority, I guess I should point out some developments. It’s not getting wide reportage, because there’s little to report. But stuff is happening in Assembly Square.

Last August in this story, The Somerville News had this to say:

We keep on telling you that we’re planning on printing the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the Mystic “My View” Task Force members. We are very happy to announce that we have one list of names and are working on a second. Instead of putting Mayor Joe on the spot and asking him where IKEA and The Christmas Tree Shop are – we think all those interested should contact Lanny Evarts of the Ten Hills – who claims to represent “the residents” of the city – he is the one who filed the lawsuit to stop the redevelopment of the Mall. We think his number is listed – give him a piece of your mind.

Mystic View Task Force is the group whose litigation is keeping the Ikea from going in. The one thing nobody seems to quite fathom is what their logic is. They claim it’s traffic, pollution, etc. But, I don’t see how anyone claiming to speak for the town and the neighborhood can honestly claim that what’s in Assembly Square right now is any better. It’s possibly the most depressing concrete wasteland dead strip mall I’ve ever seen (and let me tell ya, Western Pennsylvania has its share).

Postscript: I noted my Google rank for this search not because I was doing a vanity search, but because the recent news about Assembly Square development made me think to see if there were new Ikea developments. I was pretty surprised to see my own post come first.

Postpostscript: Re: vanity searches. One thing I’ve learned working on search engines: before you demo, always, always, always make sure vanity searches for the CEO’s last name work.

Terri recently pointed out that Moonlighting is finally coming out on DVD, but that’s nothing compared to the news I heard that the single greatest show of the 80’s is coming out on DVD.

I freaking loved this show. A friend in college thought it would be funny to dress up as the Greatest American Hero for halloween, and I helped him with his costume by drawing the insignia from memory. It wasn’t that hard considering I had drawn it on so many of my school tablets in first grade.

Don’t tell Terri, but I had a huge crush on Connie Selleca. Second only to my huge crush on Daphne from Scooby Doo.

It looks like the Somerville Gates was the wacky web meme of the week a few weeks ago.

The originator was decorated by Our Fair Mayor, who now has one of the gates on his desk. The story was picked up by the national media.

The mayor made Feb. 24, 2005, Hargo Day in the city of Somerville, presenting Hargadon with an official declaration.

”Hargo Day was established to recognize the importance of thrift, ingenuity, and artistic parity,” Curtatone read from the declaration. ”Hargo Day was established to also recognize the human capacity for appreciation, wonder, and awe that can be achieved when small plastic things are arranged in a certain order near and around a cat.”

The kind of cool thing is that for a while when it was getting so much play in the media and the blogosphere, my post on it was in the top 10 Google results for “somerville gates”, for reasons I don’t quite fathom. I got more traffic in a couple of days than I usually do all month.

I try to keep the blogging-about-blogging to a minimum, but this bit by Tim Bray is quite refreshingly practical and free from blogospheric hyperbole.

Gold Diggers of 1935 is on TCM right now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual Busby Berkeley movie, though I feel like I have. I missed half of this, but just saw this unbelieveable musical number with about 80 women all at identical white (probably fake) baby grand pianos, that keep moving around in different unbelieveable patterns. I’m totally knocked out. The aesthetic and effect are totally different, but there’s something about the sheer inventiveness that is making me think of Man Ray.