The Big Molice Pan and the Bertie Dumb

Once a big molice pan
Met a Bertie Dumb,
Sitting on a wide sock
Booing gubble chum.




“Hey,”  said the molice pan,
“Gum and simmy come.”
“Sot your rotten kicking pox!”
Cried the Bertie Dumb.




Then the big molice pan
Rank Jamaica drum,
Wide at dunce, but grows with runts.
(Kate to strinkum. DUM.)

I just stumbled across the apparent foofarah that TV’s Community actor Donald Glover is campaigning for an audition in the upcoming movie reboot of Spider-Man, and he’s (gasp) not white.

I love comic book movie adaptions and I’m a huge Spidey fan, but as much of a geek as I am, I only get hung up on the details that matter.

Yes, he’s always been drawn white, but in terms of impact on the character or story, Peter Parker’s ethnicity or family culture was never more specific in the books than “working-class New York.”

Frankly I’m much more dismayed that a reboot means they’ll likely waste a whole new movie re-hashing an origin instead of crafting a good story.

***

At the other end of the plausibility spectrum, I couldn’t believe it when I read that the upcoming Captain America movie has cast somebody (trust me, it doesn’t matter who) as none other than mad scientist Arnim Zola.

Zola was one of the freakiest artistic creations of Jack Kirby, who wasn’t exactly known for his restraint or attachment to realism.  He wasn’t exactly famous, though. Even as a life-long Marvel comics fan, all I really knew about the character was that he was that guy with a little box for a head and a face on his chest. Sound goofy? Weird? Oh yeah. Don’t believe me?  Click to reveal the craziness:

Frankly, the only cool thing about this character is how utterly ridiculous he is.

Do I have any faith that a major Hollywood studio is going to put something that nuts in a movie?

Well, let’s just review what happened a few years ago when Kirby’s greatest creation was brought to the big screen.  In the comics, Galactus is a 30-foot tall cosmic mo-fo who eats planets.

Pretty nifty-looking, huh?

So how does Hollywood portray him?

A cloud. Oooooo…. menacing.

Given that, I give you my prediction for the best we can expect for the 2011 cinematic Arnim Zola. You were warned!

It’s basically twitter with music: your feed is a constantly-updating playlist. I like music from all over the spectrum, so the people I listen to have pretty diverse taste. I’m currently listening to 60 people, of whom probably 15 are active daily, and at any given time I might be on at the same time as five or six.

It’s an amazing exercise in not-quite-randomness.  I get everything from lo-fi indie to 80s hardcore to techno washing over my eardrums in a glorious mix. Depending on my mood, and the mix of people on at the same time as me, I can focus on one genre for a night, or just bounce all over the place.  I get introduced to great new music every day, and sometimes get the joy of  introducing someone to a favourite of mine.

Even those friends with whom I share a major overlap in musical taste probably only like about 50% of the same stuff I do, so it’s pretty fantastic to swap tunes with people who share not only my taste, but my mix of tastes.

As a medium, Blip is interactive, but not really conversational. Between that and the fact that the content is pretty much completely confined to one topic, I have finally found a social network on which I feel absolutely no need to self-censor. I may not want to bore my friends with my professional life or feel the need to update my work colleagues about my weekend, but I am completely comfortable blipping Hank Williams, Radiohead and The Stooges in the same night – plus five other artists  you haven’t heard of (and I hadn’t two hours ago).

Like his protegés, Malcolm often reveled in telling people he was a pimp, a fake, a money-grubbing sleazebag. I have no inclination to contradict that.

I am grateful he was in the right place at the right time to bring the Pistols to fame.

Thanks for that, you filthy rotter.

This thing is cool. Very cool. Maybe too cool.

I suspect Cylons are involved.

26 fantastic illustrations. Check ‘em out.

Props to Phronk for this link.

Yeesh.

Surround yourself with good people if you want to have an awesome weekend.

This weekend I took part in the London Fringe Festival’s 62-Hour Film Contest. You can get some teasers of the experience here and some more of Kevin’s photos here. although the film itself will not go online until the screening next weekend.

I am way too distracted tonight to write much about it, except to say how proud I am to have spent two and a half days:

• creating something cool

• re-discovering the fun of acting (even for 30 seconds of footage)

• seeing how good a lot of my friends are at acting (and somehow not being surprised)

• being reminded that the best people never accept the credit they are due (Mr. Caplan, I’m talking to you)

• learning how much goes into even the simplest aspects of filmmaking

• validating a previously held theory that sauerkraut should not be grilled, nor should one allow oneself to be confined in small places with grilled sauerkraut

See you at the movies!