This is why I love the man.

Picture my disappointment as I realized that, for all the pizzazz of “Superman Returns,” its global weapon of choice would not be terrorism, or nuclear piracy, or dirty bombs. It would be real estate. What does Warner Bros. have in mind for the next installment? Superman overhauls corporate pension plans? Luthor screws Medicare?

and even better:

“Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and superman—a rope over an abyss.” That is Nietzsche, coiner of the Übermensch, and in “Thus Spake Zarathustra” he scorns what he calls “extraterrestrial hopes” in favor of those, rooted on earth, who struggle to overcome the weakness of their own humanity. That is a proper, if perilous, subject for grownup cinema, and I for one have grown tired of supermen, and superwomen, who start with such a flagrant advantage over the rest of us. Mind you, if Superman is such a paragon, how come he wants to save a species so universally dumb that not a single member of it recognizes him when he puts on a pair of glasses?

have the same sense of fatalistic slow motion at their beginning as this one does?

My report on the Third Annual Print Arts Fair at the Museum of Printing in North Andover is up on my letterpress blog.

When we were in PA for Abby’s graduation a month ago (I’m so behind on the blogging) I saw a sad item in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that Rolling Rock was bought by Anheiser Busch. (unfortunately, I have to link to the evil Tribune-Review, because the Post-Gazette story has gone behind a paywall).

Production in the brewery in Latrobe, PA ends this month; from now on, Rolling Rock will be brewed in New Jersey.

Fortunately, InBev, the Belgian company that currently owns Rolling Rock, may have found a buyer for the Latrobe brewery itself.

Still, it’s the end of an era. Rolling Rock was probably the best known (and most palatable) of all autochthonous Western Pennsylvanian beers. Not that there are many left at all. Last fall, the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, makers of Iron City and IC Light went bankrupt (admittedly, this is not much of a loss; there’s a reason the stuff is not sold outside Pittsburgh).

I have found no word on whether or not Anheiser Busch will continue the poetic, painted-on labels with the enigmatic “33″ on them.

We made our first trip to Fenway Park this year to see the Sox take down the Nationals on Monday night, with Terri’s parents. Some random notes:

• Another reason to like Mike Lowell: his at-bat song is “London Calling”
• We got a chuckle when the Fenway sound crew played the “Three’s Company” theme song when two Nationals went out to the pitcher’s mound for a conference.
• Happy to see Gabe Kapler back at Fenway for the first time since his utterly bizarre Achilles tendon rupture last year. He got a standing O; in anyplace other than Fenway, a standing O for a part-time outfielder would seem weird.
• So, I can’t figure out if the Fenway sound people played “A Town Called Malice” by The Jam when lackluster reliever Rudy Seanez came out of the pen because Rudy picked it, or because the sound guys were making a comment on the fact that he was getting booed mercilessly. If it’s the latter, might I suggest “A Message to You, Rudy” for next time?
• Terri and I resumed our standing discussion of what our closer songs would be. I still stick by “Stigmata” by Ministry. Terri, in a similar vein, but far more ingeniously, sticks with, “Control I’m Here” by Nitzer Ebb, which I should let her explain, because I don’t want to steal her thunder more than I just did. I wish I had thought of it.
• And here’s an mp3 of the fans singing along to Sweet Caroline. A few seconds in you can hear an announcement that the Nationals put in former Sox and Damon-noggin-clocker Damien Jackson.

Unremitting Failure reminds me of that Wordsworth poem, and that reminds me that there’s something that has always bugged me about the Romantics, and it’s similar to what bugs me about all this indigo children crap. It’s this faith in children, this faith in the benevolence of nature. Children are mean little shits. Nature can kill a hundred thousand people in a matter of minutes.

Of course, the only people worse than people that worship nature are those who believe that you need to fight it. I’m not so mean spirited to think that you should fight nature, and certainly not so hubristic to think that you can win. But you can pick your battles.

Due to work deadlines, the posts you are missing are

• How much I, like Terri, am loving the new Camera Obscura record
• My visit to the 3rd Annual Printing Arts Fair at the Museum of Printing in North Andover.
• The beach be one of the best things we got
• A book report of Ghostwritten by David Mitchell.
• A book report of The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
• A book report of Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

Mentioning them here is my way of guilting myself into actually writing them.

…like John McCain and Arlen Specter, a constitutional amendement against gay marriage won’t be as big an issue in the mid-term elections this fall.

So, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one petty enough to notice the tacky frame that the photo of one dead Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was displayed in.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that the Mysteries of Pittsburgh movie will probably be shot it the ‘burgh, contrary to earlier reports.