consequences of gay marriage

couldn't let it pass.





more music charts

...and here's an online comic that will knock your socks off

I believe I've said it before --it always pays off to read Nalo Hopkinson's blog. This time it was a wonderful recommendation, the wonderful Bayou by Jeremy Love and Patrick Morgan. I like to think of it as a cross between Toni Morrison and Hayao Miyazaki, and I'm really looking forward to the second instalment. I had no idea you could read comics this good online, so Zuda, the home website in itself is quite a discovery.

I leave you with a teaser ;)

Bayou by Jeremy Love and Patrick Morgan

So many mistresses, so little time...

I've just finished the second season of The Tudors, and it's been exactly the same guilty pleasure as watching its first season or any season of Rome. It's great fun to see the beautiful costumes and the hyperbolic acting (John Rhys-Meyers, please cool it, will you). At the same time, however, you just want to smack them on the head with the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for all the historical inaccuracies they throw in just because. Margaret Tudor, especially, must be rolling in her grave for being merged with her sister and being portrayed like such a superficial $"·$%. As for the Atia of Rome, if there ever was such a thing as vengeful Roman ghost, I'm sure she will be there, holding a devout matronly rolling pin. (Of course, anyway, nothing will ever, ever, beat Braveheart becoming the father of Edward II for the sake of having Sophie Marceau squeezed in and having something of a happy end).

I'm not going Taliban on these people. Heck you have to film a movie or do a TV show, and I suppose nobody expects total accuracy when you have a limited budget and a limited time to stuff all the stories in. But if there is something that people like Simon Schama has proven with stuff like A History of Britain is that there are enough good stories in the history books to make such distorsions not terribly necessary. The problem, I think, is that there might be less boobs around, which seems to be the whole point of The Tudors and Rome at times. But oh well, being fun to watch as they are, all you can say is, bless Wikipedia for at least a few people in the audience will bother to check the facts out of simple curiosity, and that's good. The show becomes quite interactive that way -- at least for me. I'm becoming a complete expert on royal mistresses, who are all quite a curious bunch, what with all their ambitions, beauty (or lack thereof) and, more importantly, not giving a flying %&$%% about society's conventions. My favorite, so far, is Charles II's Nell Gwyn, if nothing else for this beautiful, beautiful scene, taken straight from the wikipedia article on her:

Nell Gwynn was one day passing through the streets of Oxford in her coach, when the mob, mistaking her for her rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth, commenced hooting and loading her with every opprobrious epithet. Putting her head out of the coach window, "Good people", she said, smiling, "you are mistaken; I am the Protestant whore"

Oh how I wish The Tudors got spin-offed all the way to The Stuarts! In any case, I'll certainly watch the third season of The Tudors next year, even though I'll miss the great Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn --she didn't look a thing like the historical Anne but hey she definitely can act. A lot of the weight of the show fell on her shapely shoulders and I worry that the actress they've chosen for Jane Seymour -- and, well, the character of Jane Seymour itself-- will not be enough to fill the space of Anne's severed head. Unless they go on to create a completely different Jane out of nowhere (see above), or dispatch her in a couple of episodes. And on with more interesting stories, such as When Good Portraits Happen to Ugly People.


Ps. One day, I hope, someone in Spain will do The Austrias. Now that's fun stuff for at least seven seasons.

you'd think NASA is getting some kind of publicity money from the Galactica crew...

Kara Thrace, anyone?

A 400 year old supernova captured by infrared and X-ray telescopes. This is sooooo going straight to my computer's desktop :)

NASA - A Vivid View

Ps. Yeah, I don't know how I'm going to wait another month... sigh.

yaaayyyyyy cylons!!!

... that's how articulate I can be about this... XXDDDD

(again, don't watch unless you want spoilers)



eheeeheehhehhheee XD

a short story of pop'era

... it started off fine with this...



the three tenors popularize the beautiful Nessun Dorma before the 1990 FIFA World Cup
(the idea was to make opera available to a larger audience, and it did. Many arias are known thanks to these three guys)

... went on with this, still making musical sense...



Freddie Mercury and Monserrat Caballe sing Barcelona for the 1992 Olympics

(Freddie has proven he knows about opera since Bohemian Rapsody and knows how to not take himself too seriously. This is why it works)

... started going wrong with this...


Andrea Bocelli gets a career by squandering a tenor voice on corny pop songs , e.g. Vivo por Ella

(note how Marta Sanchez, an otherwise competent pop performer, suffers greatly to catch up with Bocelli. This is what happens when you get opera trained people to work/compete with pop singers and they both take it seriously)


... quickly lead to this...



Il Divo. I guess it's better than being unemployed.

(I need someone to sit down and explain this video to me. Slowly. )

... degenerated into this...



The Ten Tenors. Bee Gee Medley?????!!!!! WTF?????!!!!!

(no, it is NOT a parody. Why you need to spend all your childhood and youth studying classical music to end up performing a choreographed Bee Gees medley with 9 other guys is a mystery to me)

... and finally, we got this...


...

I cannot believe I haven't posted in a month.

... sigh. It's been a busy month, though... the problem is, the longer you stay away from something, the harder it gets to come back. Posting something dumb sort of doesn't do the trick. But since it's been a Very Eventful and Happy Week in global terms, I guess I can post an Onion video that made me smile a few days ago...



Obama Undertakes Presidential Internship To Ease Concerns About His Lack Of Experience


That was lovely. Especially him "sitting" right next to Ibarretxe, the leader of the Basque nationalists... priceless... I honestly hope he brings dignity and respect back to the White House. And, since he's been to Harvard, we can be pretty sure this one knows at least how to spell those words.

Blogged with the Flock Browser