Ozzies

It is now official: Hollywood plans to remake every film that ever existed, beginning with The Wizard of Oz. I look forward to the 2017 remake of Le Voyage dans la lune featuring Zach Galifianakis as the moon.

Holy Harry

Is the Harry Potter series a Christian allegory? And if it is, does that mean I have to start worshiping Dobby? Because that little freak gives me the creeps.

I know the seventh Harry Potter film is coming up, and that I should be excited, and that this is the END OF AN ERA, but for me the Harry Potter era ended with book seven. Not that it was bad. It was just the last one. The film mean...very, very little. Getting excited about a Harry Potter movie is like getting excited over a half-inch snowfall. Not worth the trouble.

Lox, Stox, and Barrel

This Sunday, I tried lox for the first time. "Lox" is a kind of cured salmon that can best be thought of as Jewish sushi, minus the rice and seaweed. You are required to eat lox on a bagel. This is an unwritten law, except in the state of New York, where it is a written law enforced by penalty of flogging.

Every Sunday, our dining hall--perhaps in an effort to atone for the rest of the week--puts out a brunch spread worthy of the name. You got your sausages, you got your scrambled eggs, you got your doughnut, and, if the "you" in this case is daring enough, you got your platter heaped high with lox.

For weeks, I was not one of those daring souls. Lox weirded me out. Pink, gelatinous, streaked with mysterious white stripes, it looked like it had come from the set of Star Wars. I averted my eyes and continued to the bagels, vowing that they day I ate lox would be the day I watched "Glee."

But a chance encounter changed everything. I was flying back to New Jersey when I struck up a conversation with my seatmate. She, a born-and-bred New Yorker, insisted that I should try lox. No, not should, I HAD to try lox. Otherwise I would go to my grave ignorant, unloved, and unhappy.

So I did. I picked out my favorite kind of bagel--a neon-yellow egg bagel, the kind that taste a little like challah--and piled it high with lox. This is harder than it sounds. Lox is sliced so thin that it took me nearly ten minutes of piling to get a measurable amount. Back to the table I went, carrying my lox and bagel like an authentic surly New Yorker on his way to a job he hates.

And...it was good! A little fishy, maybe, but that's understandable considering that it IS fish. Complaining that fish tastes fishy is as nonsensical as complaining that beef is beefy or chicken chicken-y. I ate it all and I'd do it again. In fact, I think I might smuggle some lox out of the dining hall beneath my hat. Today, I begin the arduous process of lox-proofing my baseball cap.

Stroke of Genius

They say you can become a "genius" at anything merely by practicing for 10,000 hours. Terry Teachout disagrees. Me too. Otherwise, I'd currently be a genius at sleeping, when in fact I am hardly above average.

Up in the Air

This being the holiday season, when people fly hundreds of miles to see people they ordinarily wouldn't cross the street to shake hands with, it's fitting that the Daily Beast ranks the best big airports in America.

I fly less frequently than a one-winged ostrich with weight problems, but I've been through a couple of these 'ports: Cincinnati (#3), Los Angeles (#4), Salt Lake City (#6), Charlotte (#8), Houston (#9), Washington (#10), LaGuardia (#19), Philadelphia (#22), Atlanta (#24), and Newark (dead last at #27).

My strongest memory of any of these places is LAX, only because there was a bird loose in the terminal. I felt sorry for it. Being sucked into a jet engine is probably a better fate than getting stuck in the rafters of a Cinnabon.

And yes, Newark richly deserves its ranking. I've never passed through that airport without getting the chance to study its utilitarian decor at great, great length. As in "several hours length." Once I nearly had to overnight in Newark when my connection was running late. On my list of ideal places to spend the evening, the city of Newark trails somewhat behind that planet in the movie Perfect Dark.

Lockout

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Will.

Will who?

Will Schultz, who accidentally locked himself out of his room on a Saturday morning and is now standing outside the door in his slipper and underwear.

Ha! Sucker!

The Cheat

How do cheaters cheat? They contact people like Ed Dante. I never realized how big the cheating industry was, nor how powerful a force for evil Google can be.

Rock On

Monday night and nothing to do. You know what this means: "The Thirteen Greatest Movie Performances by Boulders"!

Watching the clip from The NeverEndign Story reminds me how weird that film was. I mean, I'm all for letting your imagination run free, but there is a difference between letting it run free and letting it leap off the Cliffs of Insanity.

Fired Up, Ready to Go

I have a horrible fear of burning to death in bed due to a malfunctioning smoke alarm. It'd be a pretty bad way to go, right? First, burning to death would be painful. Second, it would hurt a lot. Third, did I mention it would be rather unpleasant to have your internal organs turned to charcoal briquettes? Fourth, the investigators would find your corpse, still in bed, and assume "Here's an asshole who was too damn lazy to get up even when he was on fire. Good riddance."

Thankfully, last night I learned there is little-to-no danger of sleeping through a Graduate College fire alarm. I learned this because I was asleep when the fire alarm went off. The GC had sent out an e-mail announcing that the fire alarms would be tested between 5 and 11 PM. Stupidly, I assumed the test would come early in the day.

You know what they say about assumptions. But at least I'm not going to roast to death. Rip van Winkle couldn't sleep through a fire alarm of that magnitude. It sounded like a million vuvuzela-wielding South Africans had decided to celebrate a World Cup victory by invading my ear canal. Yeesh.

Whiter Than White

I have always considered myself one of the whitest people imaginable. I don't mean anything racial by that, though it is worth nothing that my sun-starved skin is approximately the same color as Colgate toothpaste. No, I mean in terms of taste. I had thought myself to be the ne plus ultra of blandly radical mainstream culture.

But am I really? Let's go to the experts. I checked out the comprehensive list of "Stuff White People Like"--currently at 134 items--to see how many I actually do like. The results were very revealing. I liked the following:

Assists, Farmer's Markets, Wes Anderson Movies, Gifted Children, David Sedaris, Manhattan, Marathons, Breakfast Places, Arrested Development, Netflix, Sushi, Plays, The Sunday New York Times, Whole Foods, Irony, Apologies, Juno, Expensive Sandwiches, Standing Still at Concerts, Oscar Parties, Bottles of Water, Musical Comedy, Graduate School, T-Shirts, The Wire, Dinner Parties, San Francisco, The Ivy League, Grammar, Bumper Stickers, Sweaters, Facebook, The Onion, Hummus, America, Promising to Learn a New Language, Conan O'Brien, The TED Conference.

Whew! For those counting, that makes 40 out of 134, or a paltry 29.85%. I'm much further behind than I thought. Think of all the culturally acceptable things I have yet to like. Pea coats. Michel Gondry. Yoga. The Idea of soccer.

Worse yet, I've actually tried some of these things and found that not only do I not like them--I actively despise them. Camping. Frisbee sports. Tea. Traveling. Halloween.* My cultural stock is sinking lower and lower.

I need an intervention. Today, I vow to live life to its blandest by mashing together as many SWPL-approved activities as possible. Time to go snowboarding with my gay friend while wearing a vintage scarf and Ray-Ban wayfarers after having a difficult break-up with the Asian girlfriend I met at an ugly sweater party during my year off. Afterwords, we'll drink wine at a microbrewery in a gentrified neighborhood and talk about how our parents made high school miserable for us.

*Yes, one year removed from Chapel Hill, I can finally reveal the horrible truth: I hate Halloween. It's my least favorite major holiday. Not even a classic movie like The Nightmare Before Christmas can overcome its flaws. Thanksgiving has turkey, Christmas has Christmas cookies. What does Halloween have? Goddamn Smarties.

Regular Joe

My favorite Onion headline is, has been, and always will be "Shirtless Biden Washes Trans Am in White House Driveway."* Little did I realize that the Onion would turn Joe Biden into a cottage industry.

*Though "Pacifist Linebacker Dodges NFL Draft" and "Jurisprudence Fetishist Gets Off on Technicality" run a close third and second

Five Ways to Class Up Your Hot Pocket

Drain out the meaty-cheesy filling and replace it with foie gras

Instead of microwaving the Hot Pocket, saute it in butter with a side of onions

Make sure to eat it with your Hot Pocket fork, not your dessert fork

Spend several thousand dollars to send your Hot Pocket to finishing school

At least wear a shirt when you eat it, for God's sake

It's A Happening

Remember M. Night Shyamalan? He once made spine-tingling blood-chingling thrillers like The Sixth Sense. Now, he directs hilarious send-ups of the thriller genre, laugh fests like Lady in the Water and The Happening. Wait, you mean they aren't spoofs? You mean he's serious? Oh, man. This is bad...

Yes, I know this is not exactly timely. But I think all directors--and all film critics--should be required to read this review, on pain of death.

Fun Zombie Action

If you asked me, "Will, if you had to pick four historical figures to combat a ravenous horde of the living dead," I probably would not have picked Kennedy, Nixon, Castro, and McNamara. This, presumably, is why I am not a highly-paid video game designer.

The Wall

You know how news anchors love to use interactive displays on election night? You've seen them--big, video-game-style screens, where one touch can turn a state from blue to purple to red.

Ever wonder what happens when they go wrong? When the anchor paws helplessly at a graphic of Michigan, only to find the screen has gone dead? Wonder no more. Sounds like John King needs a hug.

Keef

Brilliantly imagined riposte from Mick Jagger against the new tell-all memoir by Keith Richards.

Can we agree that rock stars are loathsome people and be done with it? I can't think of a single one who was a decent human being. Heck, I can't think of many who deserve the title "human being."

John Lennon was an alcoholic, abusive jerk; Elvis was a spoiled momma's boy; Bob Dylan was and continues to be a cosmic prank played by God on an unsuspecting world. Maybe the guys from ZZ Top are nice, but I doubt it.

Mini-Review: The Conservative Mind

Russell Kirk is one of the biggest names in American conservatism. William F. Buckley might have been the charming face of the conservative movement, but it was Kirk's great brain that dreamed up its philosophy "The Conservative Mind" remains his best-known work, and with good reason.

First, a warning. Readers--especially conservatives ones--might want to pop a few Prozac before opening "The Conservative Mind." This is a book that might have been co-written by Eeyore and Puddleglum. Kirk originally titled it "The Conservative Rout," and every page, every sentence, every word exhales that gloomy spirit. This is a story of declines and falls, plural. Everything is bad. Everything is going to get worse.

Civilization might be sinking, but there are a few brave (or stupid) souls who insist on bailing out the boat before she goes under. These are Kirk's conservatives. He begins with Edmund Burke, the British statesmen who defended tradition against the ravages of the French Revolution. The cautious, pessimistic spirit of Burke was expressed in America by John Adams. According to Kirk, Adams believed that private morality was the key to good government--not exactly the most popular sentiment nowadays.

Some of the names in this book are familiar: Tocqueville, Disraeli, Walter Scott. Some are a little more obscure: Brooks Adams, George Santayana. And some are absolutely unknown: Maine, Mallock, Fitzjames Stephen. Interestingly, Kirk makes no attempt to claim Abraham Lincoln for the conservative cause. The Great Emancipator makes only a cameo in "The Conservative Mind." Indeed, Kirk rushes through the middle of the nineteenth century, stopping to nod briefly at James Fenimore Cooper.

"The Conservative Mind" is as much a polemic as a history book. Kirk is not just a historian; he fancies himself a sort of intellectual bouncer, keeping the rowdies from crashing to conservative party. Social conservatives are in, and anti-communists are welcome, but libertarians have to stand waiting outside the velvet rope. Their vision of a chaotic, progressive capitalism makes Kirk shudder in his tweeds.

Can modern conservatives learn anything from Kirk? Certainly, "The Conservative Mind" should be required reading for anyone who has ever confronted--or made--the argument that conservatives are brain-dead numskulls who wouldn't know their Condorcet from their Crevocoeur.

Be careful, though not to be overwhelmed by Kirk's gloom and doom. Remember that this is a man who talked about "Demon TV" and who referred to cars as "mechanical Jacobins." You can accept most his arguments without swallowing his anti-modernism. In this day and age, when everybody owns a mechanical Jacobin, you need to make some small concessions to the modern world. Kirk, of course, felt differently.

Scientists Astounded by Amazing Duck Boy

Historians, looking back on the great American-Indonesian War of 2011, may regard this article as the spark that set the tinder alight.

November: A Semi-Pre-Retrospective

We survived October. Most of us, at least. But now comes November, the month that separates the men from the boys, the wheat from the chaff, the Beatles from Herman's Hermits. Technically, here came November, given that the month is already one-quarter over. Still, I think November deserves at least a quick look-over before we plunge into its last three weeks.

Before, I mentioned my obsession with ranking the months. November sits very high on my hypothetical list. Ahead of even October, it trails only monthly titans December and May on my list and in my heart. Why, you ask? At least I assume you are asking why. If not, why are even reading this post?

Let's start with the weak points. I admit that, weather-wise, November is nothing special. In fact it is often downright dismal. Cool weather is good, and a welcome change from the summer heat, but November is when the temperature shifts from cool to frigid. One day, you're walking around in a light coat, enjoying a pleasant breeze. The next day you're freezing to death despite wearing an entire sheep-worth of fleece. At the same time, November withholds the only thing that makes cold weather tolerable: snow. I have never seen it snow in November. January, February, even April, but never November.

Put these disadvantages out of your head. November has plenty of high points in spite of its miserable weather. Sports, for instance. November sits right at the confluence of college football, college basketball, the NBA, and the NFL. You can even watch the NHL if you are one of those hockey-loving Canadian freaks. Yeah, baseball is over, but nobody watches it anyway. Such is the dirty secret of America's past-time.

November means good movies. It's the month when the studios begin chucking Oscar chum into theaters in hopes of drawing the sharks of critical acclaim. Wow, that was a god-awful metaphor. Sorry. You know what I mean, though. No more overblown spectacles that spend $100 million to digitally enhance Brad Pitt's abs. Now we get the good stuff. Stuff like..."Megamind?" Ah, well, not every November film can be a winner.

Until now, I've ignored the ten thousand pound turkey in the room. No longer! Thanksgiving elevates November from "pretty good" to "great." Turkey Day is a day without school, without responsibilities, a day to spend listening to "Alice's Restaurant" and watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade with family.

And eating. And more eating. Rather than make a coherent argument, let me list the things that make Thanksgiving special: Turkey. Cranberry sauce. Gravy. Stuffing. Stuffing with sausage. Cornbread. Sweet potatoes. Mashed potatoes. French-fried potatoes. Candied yams. Yam candies. Regular candies. Apple pies, cherry pies, mincemeat pies, boysenberry pies. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin cakes, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin lattes from Starbucks.

I would write more, but I have a sudden and completely inexplicable craving for something with pumpkin. But I hope the point is clear. November: long may she wave.

Five Reasons Why Traveling by Train Beats Flying

You can stick your head out the window and not run the risk of falling 30,000 feet

More time to savor the Jersey scenery

Easier to imagine you're on the way to Hogwarts

Significantly less chance of being killed by a high-flying goose

No mustache-twirling villain ever tied a damsel down in front of an airplane