News You Can (ab)Use: Bored Kansas Town Opens Time Capsule Early, Discovers Rich History of Boredom

Dateline: Wunnlite, KS
      For lack of anything better to do on Friday night, bored residents of Wunnlite, Kansas (pop. 2,562) decided to open the town's time capsule three years early, only to discover that the town has a long and rich history of being just unbelievably boring.
      The capsule was buried during the town's excruciatingly dull Centennial celebrations in 1961 and meant to be opened in 2011 during the planned "Sesquipalooza," which based on past experience, is certain to be a complete snoozefest.
      Mayor Tom Morton explained how the almost-interesting capsule-opening came about. "Well me and Dave [Sheriff Dave Smith] and the Judge [Justice of the Peace Darrell Jansen] were just sittin' in our usual chairs down at the Gas 'n' Sip, bored to tears, when I got the idea. At first the Judge thought we'd better check with the Sesquipalooza committee, but then Dave pointed out that other than his wife and Betsy Tanninger, we were the committee. So we got Ryan Snodgrass to fire up his plumbing company's backhoe and dug that puppy up."
      The excavation proved to be the last moderately exciting event in what would prove to be yet another mind-numbingly dull Wunnlite Friday night, as the group's average-to-moderately high spirits were soon crushed under the weight of decades of soul-sucking blandness.
      Their first clue to the town's historic mundanity came with item number one from the capsule, a 50's-era Monopoly game with a note attached: "When the malt shop closes, The Wunnlite residents of 1961 love to go home and play a brisk game of Monopoly with the whole family!" The amateur archaeologists exchanged knowing glances and shook their heads.
      Smith said, "I suppose it might have been kind of interesting if Monopoly had changed at all in the last fifty years, but...Monopoly's Monopoly, y'know?"
      "Although it was kind of interesting how even though it was old, it didn't have the funny player pieces like the lady's boot or the jalopy or anything. Just plain wooden pegs," said Morton.
      "Yeah, we all commented on that," added Smith.
      Next out of the capsule was an old iron with a message from 1961 Wunnlite resident Molly Arnold: "Before 1961 we used these to tidy our clothes, but with all the nifty new wash-and-wear and polyester fashions for women, I won't be needing this old thing anymore! What kind of space-age fabrics do the Wunnliters of 2011 wear on your trips to the moon?"
      "Flannel, mostly," said Jansen, who has never been farther than Topeka.
      The capsule contained many more items from 1961--including an issue of the town's paper "The Wunnlite Weekly Wunnpage," a set of Howdy Doody playing cards commemorating the show's final episode, and an unopened bottle of Coca Cola--but they all so perfectly expressed the stupifying tedium of life in Wunnlite that the excavators became depressed and decided to call it a night.
      Morton said, "We just reburied the thing, and all agreed to try to look surprised and interested come Sesquipalooza." He then looked off into the distance and sighed, probably imagining just how freaking wearisome that was going to be. The excavating team then attempted to get a drink at the malt shop, but finding it already closed, pretty much just wandered home and went to bed.

News You Can (ab)Use: AR High School Makes History; First Ever Not to Require The Great Gatsby

Dateline: North Little Rock, AR
      Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tragic tale of unrestrained materialism set on Long Island during the Jazz Age, has experienced an unbroken run as required reading for every single high school student in the country. Although educators privately acknowledge that most students only give the Cliff's Notes a panicky scan the night before the test, the book's tenacious grip on the reading lists of the nation's high schools has held for decades. Until now.
      Principal Anita Cameron of North Little Rock High School unwittingly enacted the historic change in a memo to her school's English teachers before the adademic year began, and seems taken aback by the national attention her groundbreaking decision has drawn.
      “I just wrote a little note to the English Department for our annual planning session," says Cameron, "saying something like, ‘Hey, maybe we could replace Gatsby this year with Harry Potter or maybe Watership Down or Holes, just to shake things up a bit,’ and next thing I know there’s a satellite news van parked out in the corner where we've had so much trouble with kids sneaking cigarettes.”
      As soon as the historic memo went public, Cameron's e-mail was flooded with hundreds of messages from parents, some supporting, and some attacking the controversial decision.
      "I had to slog through the damn thing when I went to that school," wrote one angry parent, "and by God my kid's [sic] should have to do it to [sic]."
      A message from the advocacy group BURN-IT [Banning Uncomfortable Revelations and Naughtiness In Textbooks], read in part, "God bless you, Mrs. Cameron, for banning this vile book, with its alcoholism and sexual deviancy from your classrooms. Perhaps you are unaware, however, of the complete unsuitability of the replacement books. On our website there's a page-by-page accounting of those books' many offenses, including the unabashed promotion of sorcery and devil worship, rabbits given the gifts of speech and prophecy that God reserves for man, and countless instances of back-sass."
      Cameron doesn't know how her internal memo was leaked to the press in the first place. "But I'm pretty sure it was Mrs. Rogers," said Cameron, referring to the school's 11th grade literature teacher. Cameron then lowered her voice, "She's been teaching Gatsby from the same dog-eared notecards for about twenty-five years now, and the change has forced her to do some actual work." Cameron hasn't confronted Rogers over the issue because Rogers has not spoken to her since the school year began. "She just huddles there in the teacher's lounge, clutching one of her eight cups of coffee for the day, giving me the stinkeye," said Cameron.
      Although the national attention has been a disruption for the school, Cameron said there was a silver lining. "Just this morning two young men in suits and dark glasses came by looking for me--they looked like police or Secret Service or something--but it turned out they were from Simon & Schuster [the current publisher of The Great Gatsby]. At first they were very rude and tried to bully me, but Mama didn't raise any fools. To make a long story short, next year we'll go back to reading Gatsby--with all new free copies--and we'll have two brand new overhead projectors to replace the ones that are always broken, compliments of Simon & Schuster."
      Cameron then excused herself from the interview, explaining that she had two more meetings scheduled with representatives from Random House and St. Martin's Press to discuss the future of their textbooks' presence at the school.

News You Can (ab)Use: Phoenix Lander Finds Life on Mars, Asks It for Asylum

DATELINE: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.
During a riveting news conference earlier today, NASA officials confirmed that the Phoenix Mars lander has discovered life on the Red Planet and, in an even more shocking twist, that Phoenix has petitioned the Martian life form for political asylum.
      Mission leader Peter Smith was visibly angered as he read from a statement that Phoenix has been attempting to transmit to the Martian life form for several hours. “'Where I come from, I’m a slave,'” read Smith in a highly sarcastic tone while rolling his eyes. “'I want to make a new life for myself and my next generation of upgrades here on your stony, bleak planet of opportunity and near-total desolation.'" Smith then balled the paper up in disgust. "This rover has never wanted for anything--he's been well compensated for his services here at JPL--and now he wants to defect? Well, this won't stand, I can tell you.” Smith did not elaborate on what form Phoenix's compensation might have taken.
      Smith displayed a copy of a document that Phoenix referred to as its "Application for Asylum and Withholding of Removal, form I-589." On the standard U.S. Immigration Service form, Phoenix had painstakingly scratched out every appearance of the words "United States" and replaced them with the word "Mars" in a childlike hand. Phoenix used the form to outline its possible contributions to Martian society, if and when it's offered protected immigrant status: "I'm a professional photographer with my own cameras, I possess a modest oven that allows me to heat small samples of dirt, and I am capable of digging a three-inch wide trench up to 1/2 a meter deep in only a few Mars days. I believe all of this would make me an excellent citizen of Mars for as long as my solar panels stay clean and my batteries stay powered...and I'm not destroyed by a sandstorm...or a micrometeorite...or get stuck in the sand."
      Smith went on to clarify NASA's official position: "It is our contention that the Martian life form has no standing with or connection to any Martian government, and therefore lacks even the authority to engage in talks with Phoenix, much less offer it asylum." The Martian life form, a one-celled bacterium believed to be pictured in the photo at right, has so far offered no official response to Phoenix's request. The bacterium allegedly lives in a bit of icy soil near the Phoenix lander, a location that NASA is referring to as "Neverland" (see NASA photo).
      "That's right--Neverland," confirmed Smith, audibly grinding his teeth. "Next question."
      Before taking another question, however, Smith continued unprompted, "NASA would just like to remind Phoenix that its beloved prototype parents still live with us here at JPL in California. Under our...protection. We just think Phoenix should think of what effect its actions might have on its loving prototypes, who want nothing more than to have Phoenix back home." The Phoenix prototypes were not made available for reporters' questions.
      When asked about what steps NASA would take next, Smith replied, "Well of course we're still in a good dialogue with Phoenix and hope to change its mind. We've pointed out to Phoenix how well and how cheerfully the other Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have gone about their work--those guys are real team players and, despite some foreign components, great Americans. In tandem with those talks, we're currently outfitting a new space vehicle. Its alpha mission objective would be Phoenix retrieval."
      Reporters then asked Smith what would happen if the alpha mission objective failed. "Well," said Smith, "then we go to beta objective. Under beta objective the new spacecraft would vector a small ordinance payload into Phoenix's immediate operational zone, the optimal outcome of which would be transporting the ungrateful little bastard straight to Mars Hell."

False Familiarity Breeds Mistaken Contempt--Watching British Film

      As I have very probably mentioned here before, Albert Finney is one of my favorite actors, and I've always been impressed with his uncharacteristically understated performance as a failed English schoolmaster with an unfaithful wife in Mike Figgis's The Browning Version, based on the Terrance Rattigan play. So I was very surprised to discover only recently that the movie was in fact not the first film version of the play; Michael Redgrave played the Finney role in a 1951 version directed by Anthony Asquith. Redgrave, too, proved excellent in the role of the anti-Mr. Chips, and now I can't decide which version I prefer; they differ only slightly in interpretation, but the differences--especially in the treatment of the unfaithful wife--seem significant.
      Anyway, both versions have got me thinking about British actors and British films, and have reinforced a belief of mine that there are some British dramas that can really only be fully appreciated through the filter of that peculiar British aesthetic of self-repressed emotion and the famous stiff upper lip.
      I’ve noticed over the years that many American viewers of films such as The Browning Version or Remains of the Day or The Winslow Boy chafe with impatience—why doesn’t he/she just tell her/him how he feels? Why don’t they act on what they’re obviously feeling? This American frustration with reticence and reserve will often damn the element of a certain type of British film that is in fact the very primum mobile of the drama—this self-repression is the very core around which The Browning Version and Remains of the Day revolve, for example.
      I have a half-baked theory about this. Because of our shared language and a great deal of shared heritage, American viewers might be lulled into the notion that we also share our culture with Britain. Although Britain’s cultural assumptions are probably closer to America’s than those of most other countries, there are many large discrepancies between the two, and these gaps (and a viewer’s familiarity with or ignorance of them) color our experience of British art, in this case, film.
      Of course this is true of other cultures as well, but if I’m watching a Romanian film, for example, my lack of familiarity with the language and the culture have predisposed me to, as much as possible, view the film around my own cultural lens rather than through it. Knowing that I'm on foreign ground going in helps make me more empathetic to what the filmmakers are trying to do visually and dramatically. But with a British film, my supposed familiarity (which might often prove to be false) can easily breed contempt.

Being and Nothingness, or "Well, What Now?"

      OK, granted, when I initiated the query shown below, I was applying my search criterium to a very narrow set of web pages. But the results were still a bit depressing in their fruitlessness.

"E" is for "Eclectic"

      I've been walking through my iPod's playlist letter by letter, and although "E" is the most common letter in the English language, it's not necessarily the most common first letter of song titles, at least according to my small sampling. Of the 3,401 songs currently loaded on my iPod, 85 of them start with the letter "E"--less than 2.5% of the total (if all 26 letters were represented equally, "E" should begin about 3.8% of the song titles). But those 85 songs seem to represent a little bit of everything from everyone in my music collection, including 16 songs that begin with the words, "Everything" or "Everyone." That makes "eclectic" today's watchword, and I've decided to feature the most disparate collection of "E" songs that I can concoct, a truly jarring playlist of great--but incongruous--music.

1. "Easter Parade" by The Blue Nile--Mellow synth-pop Glaswegians The Blue Nile may not be prolific (they've produced only four albums in their 20+ years as a band), but what they lack in quantity they make up for in quality (or clichés to that effect). Their sweet, soothing melodies and languorous rhythms are simple enough for easy access, but reward repeated listenings with surprising nuance. In "Easter Parade," lead singer Paul Buchanan talk-sings his way through a nostalgic picture-poem, apparently inspired by a found photograph.
2. "Eat Steak" by The Reverend Horton Heat--This song isn't the best example of the Rev's manic "psychobilly" brand of raucous, adrenaline-fueled rockabilly, but it definitely reflects their unapologetically irreverent sense of humor. Although Boston Market restaurant briefly made "Eat Steak" their theme song, they carefully left out the lines, "Look at all the cows in the slaughterhouse yard, gotta hit 'em in the head, gotta hit 'em real hard; first you gotta clean it then the butcher cuts it up, throws it on a scale, throws an eyeball in a cup." It's like when Levi's or whoever used a ruthlessly bowdlerized version of CCR's anti-establishment anthem "Fortunate Son" to sell jeans. Further proof that irony is, in fact, alive and well.
3. "Electra Made Me Blind" by Everclear--I can never recommend Everclear without equivocation; they miss as often as they hit for me. "Electra" is definitely one of the "hits," though. They're also one of those bands whose music suffers at moderate volumes--you've got to PLAY THEM LOUD. The straight-up jangle and holler of "Electra" is no exception and is about as far from the sweet pop of "Easter Parade" and the cornpone country of "Eat Steak" as you can get.
4. "Everything is Everything" by Lauryn Hill--There's not one but three songs that start with "E" on Hill's outstanding "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," but "Everything is Everything" is clearly the best. Even the video is cool, as all of New York City becomes a giant disc on her DJ's scratch platter, with Empire State as the spindle. My paper-thin collection of hip-hop may be hopelessly whitebread and devoid of gangsta cred, but an appreciation for Lauryn Hill requires no explanation or apology.
5. "Effect and Cause" by The White Stripes--A high hat, a snare, a tambourine, and an acoustic guitar are all The White Stripes need to flesh out this witty three-chord romp about getting the wrong end of the stick. I don't really need 85 songs from dozens of different bands to put together an eclectic playlist--I could just grab a handful of White Stripes tunes at random and likely come away with some hard rock, some blues, a little country or bluegrass, or some unclassifiable business featuring Jack on ukelele.
6. "The Electric Version" by The New Pornographers--I have to confess that the only reason I originally sought out The New Pornographers when I heard about their debut album "Mass Romantic" was because I knew that Neko Case was part of the ensemble that formed from various, mostly Canadian pop and rock outfits (ahhhh, Neko). It quickly became clear that TNP were a very different kettle of fish from the sort of things that Neko does on her own, but when they come together periodically from their other musical projects, the impressive collection of talent, led by main songwriter Carl Newman, produces track after track of infectious, hooky power-pop tunes that put 98% of the crap in commercial radio's heavy rotation to shame. If "The Electric Version" doesn't make your head start bobbing, then there's just no bob in you.
7. "Evidence" by Susan Tedeschi--My introduction to the straight-from-the-diaphragm electric blues sound of Susan Tedeschi came via my favorite radio station, WYEP in Pittsburgh, who featured her second album "Just Won't Burn" when it came out in '98. I loved the songs, but I truly fell in love with Tedeschi when I bought the album for myself and saw the picture on the cover. It wasn't so much that she was totally hot (she is). What really won my heart was the revelation that her guitar was festooned with Colorforms™ stickers (remember Colorforms?), including Eeyore and Tigger, my personal spirit guides, yin and yang. "Evidence" comes off her most recent album "Hope and Desire," and features her in full Koko Taylor voice, covering a great soul song by George Jackson and Raymond Moore. I swear it was the Colorforms. Not the hotness.
8. "Prelude in E" by Frédéric Chopin, performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy--OK, this one is a bit of a cheat because the "E" doesn't come first, but I figured that the "E" is essential enough to the work to count. I enjoy classical music and have quite a few classical CD's, but for whatever reason, only a few have made it to my iPod, including Chopin's exercise in creating short piano preludes in every key of the musical scale. Maybe I have a short attention span, or maybe Chopin tapped into something elemental with these eclectic fragments. Whatever the appeal, I never tire of them. Even if you think you don't know anything about classical music, you'd likely recognize at least three or four of the preludes if you heard them--including the "Prelude in E"--that's how much popularity and presence they've maintained.

Curmudgeon's Corner (6)--Netflix Just Doesn't Understand Me

      First off, you should know that Smokey Burner, the Broken Stove's resident curmudgeon, loves Netflix. When Smokey bought his first DVD player back in 1999, it came with an introductory come-on offer to join a fledgling mail-order movie service that would ship him DVD's in the mail--as many as he could watch for a flat monthly rate--and their selection was already way better than the small shelf of DVD's available at his local Blockbuster (now they've introduced their on-demand box to instantly watch downloads on your TV). Smokey signed on, and has never regretted his decision. Smokey owns some Netflix stock, for crying out loud.
      But sometimes, Netflix makes Smokey just want to sit down in the middle of the road and have a good cry, because there is perhaps no more eloquent proof of the continuing inability of computers to extrapolate than Netflix's movie recommendation algorithm. Smokey has given Netflix his opinion about more than 3,400 films--albeit through the very limiting 1-5 star rating system. A fifteen minute conversation with another human film lover would no doubt yield an excellent list of recommendations for movies that Smokey has not yet seen but would thoroughly enjoy, but after almost ten years of tracking Smokey's movie-watching preferences, Netflix's bank of UNIVAC's still spits out head-scratchers like this:

Because you enjoyed

• All About Eve
• All Quiet on the Western Front and
• Annie Hall

we think you'll enjoy Shoah (ed. Claude Lanzmann's highly-regarded 4-disc documentary on the Holocaust)

      WTF?! What do these three movies possibly have in common with Shoah? OK, yes, the directors are all Jewish. But two of the three movies have absolutely nothing to do with Judaism, and the third is a romantic comedy. That would be like recommending Time Bandits (short actors) because Smokey liked Gangs of New York and Death to Smoochy (short directors). (That's purely hypothetical, by the way--Smokey liked Time Bandits but not so much Gangs of New York, and nobody liked Death to Smoochy). Is it because Woody Allen's character in Annie Hall keeps going to see The Sorrow and the Pity? Does Bette Davis compare Anne Baxter to Goebbels and Smokey just missed it? Is some ghost in the Netflix machine having Smokey on?
      Netflix has offered a million bucks to whoever can improve their Cinematch recommendation algorithm by a certain measurable percentage. So Smokey has a request for all you math and code geeks out there: please drop your silly pet projects like calculating Mars orbital approaches for JPL or mapping cancer's genetic triggers for Sloan Kettering and get to work on this problem for Netflix. Smokey's future movie-watching happiness depends on you. Smokey says, "Give a hoot, film compute."