The Neo-Paleo Gourmet

Oh my

"300" will be playing in IMAX theaters after it opens.

Recent concerts

David Byrne (of The Talking Heads) at Carnegie Hall
Co-wrote a musical with Fatboy Slim about Imelda Marcos.  How could it be anything but amazing, even when rough?  Here is one, and from the Times review:

"So, later, when people gave the show several standing ovations, were they applauding the enticing performances, the obvious potential of “Here Lies Love” or the fact that Mr. Byrne is an immensely charming artist who loves to take anticommercial risks? Like staging a rough work at Carnegie Hall."

David Byrne hosting "One Note": Haale, Alarm Will Sound, Camille at Carnegie Hall

The theme was that each of these bands incorporated one note through all of their pieces.

Haale had a cool, tragic-meditative sound.

Alarm Will Sound is an orchestra playing electronic and other types of music. 

Appreciated the first two, but wasn't enthralled.  Until the third act.

Camille was phenomenal.  She would sing, often looping her own beats at the beginning of songs, accompanied by a bassist and a pianist.  I haven't listened to albums, but I'm sure she's one of those musicians whose energy and spontaneity lift her performances to a whole new level.  Here is here her wikipedia entry.

My good friend Andrew Blake bumped into David Byrne during a reception afterwards, causing him to spill red wine on his sleeve.  Oops!  Good thing it was a dark coat.

Calexico, at the Allen Room at Lincoln Center

One of the best shows I've ever been to.  The venue is entirely glass behind the stage, overlooking Central Park and Columbus Circle.  Amazing venue, amazing show.

If you're not listening to Calexico, you should be. 

Moneyball follow-up

From the Michael Lewis interview posted below comes "An Economic Evaluation of the Moneyball Hypothesis", an economic paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.  From the abstract:

"Consistent with Lewis's story and economic reasoning, as knowledge of the inefficiency became increasingly dispersed across baseball teams the market corrected the original mispricing."

As "On Base Percentage" has become efficiently priced, Moneyball teams (Oakland, Boston, Cleveland, Toronto I think, many others)  have had to find inefficiencies elsewhere.

If you look at Oakland, they've gone after defense.  As Lewis discusses in the interview, defense is a much more difficult ability to measure.  Any stat based on errors doesn't cut it, since the best way to avoid getting an error is not to even reach the ball.  Slow players look better than fast, aggressive players.  So teams are developing proprietary systems to evaluate defensive ability, and then bargain hunting come draft time.

But in the long run, small market teams are doomed.

Frank Miller's 300 and CrossFit

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                          "300" hits theaters on March 9.

I recently learned that all the actors playing the Spartan warriors trained on a CrossFit program.

See a video about their training (i.e., CrossFit training) here.   It's also on the official site under "Making of 300", "Video Journals", "3. Spartan Training".

See the movie trailers here

The Eighth Deadly Sin: Obsession over Business Cards

From the web wanderings of Alexa Hawvrycz comes this site containing over 1100 movie ratings, all reviewed from a conservative Christian perspective.  The relative order isn't far from what I would say, but some of the verbiage is....well, read a few selections, ranked from highest (most acceptable) to lowest.

Mary Poppins (G), CAP Final Score: 100

"Mary Poppins was a delightful romp for children and the young at heart through a make-believe world of frolic and fantasy...While there were several occurences of 'magic,' there was nothing evil or sinister about any of the 'magic.' "

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone  (PG), CAP Final Score: 55

"An amazing excursion through dazzling computer animation and computer-aided graphics. A colorful display of goth art. A bunch of delightful and bright kids displaying great talent and skills. Ingenious planning and outstanding attention to detail rivaling commercial nuclear power production (and I spent 14 years as a nuke). Several points of wisdom, integrity and honor skillfully placed. And all to present evil as good. [Isa. 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.]"

"I have not read any of the "Harry Potter" books.  Thus I am not influenced or biased by them."

"By the way, Harry converses with a snake in this movie.  Not a cow, not a dog, not a cat, but a snake."

Natural Born Killers  (R), CAP Final Score: 12

"While there is no foul language in this report, it is impossible to be accurate with this movie without the report being intense. The bottom line: "Natural Born Killers" is a movie with all manner of corruptive influence right out of the smoking pits of Hell."

American Psycho  (R), CAP Final Score: 0

"Other than telling you there is a lot of insane screaming-while-crying-while-laughing while committing slicing, dicing murder -- and cannibalism -- I will not waste my time or yours detailing the events in this movie. If you want to know the ignominies in it, see the Findings/Scoring below."

"Impudence/Hate (I):

- 27 uses of the most foul of the foul words

- 20 uses of the three/four letter word vocabulary

- punk dress

- orders to lie

- sexual obsession over business cards

- sitting studiously over victim's body after murder

- laughing and crying at the same time with screaming in a mad frenzy, repeatedly"

8MM  (R), CAP Final Score: Not Computed

"The purest form of celluloid trash. Since I could not stay for the entire movie, this report is just a commentary of what I observed."

JLD: I seem to recall watching the beginning of 8MM and deciding to watch something else.  And yes, Marry Poppins is a delightful movie, which I had the pleasure of catching on tv three weeks ago.  Dick Van Dyke or Nicholas Cage?