Twin Musicals to End the Year

We ended the year on a Hollywood Musical note, but perhaps not the traditional sort...

First, over the weekend we made it up to our local Krikorian branch to see the Tim Burton treatment of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Then on New Year's Eve, we watched John Travolta carry off Divine's role on the "Shake and Shimmy" DVD edition of this years film version of the stage musical made from John Waters' classic cult film Hairspray.

The short version of what follows is simply that both are quite entertaining and well worth pursuit on either disc or screen.

Sweeney Todd

First, I should say that I have never actually had the chance to see a production of the original musical, but I have known of it and the story for some time. Also, one of my favorite misuses of musical theatre in film occurs in the Kevin Smith film Jersey Girl, where the little girl Gertie (Raquel Castro) coerces her father (Ben Affleck), grandfather (George Carlin), and his blue-collar work buddies into performing some of it as a grade school project. (Incidentally, the film is worth seeing for those scenes alone, even if it could have benefited from reducing the Jennifer Lopez role all the way down to a brief cameo and a photo on the mantelpiece.)

And, of course, I have been a fan of Tim Burton since tripping over his short animated film Vincent many years ago. Since then, his films have always proved to be nicely odd and edgy, and generally among my favorites.

This film is no exception. It is the highest class and highest budget slasher film I have seen, bar none. The supporting cast is as strong as the lead roles, but never draws attention completely away from the strong horror film plot. And there is enough blood around to satisfy just about any fan of the genre. At the same time it is also a Shakespearean tragedy, as well as a light romantic comedy.

Without seeing the original staging, it is hard to be too critical of the musical choices that were made. However, all of the main characters hold up the musical ends of their roles quite satisfactorily.

All in all, we were thoroughly entertained by this one, and look forward to adding a DVD to the collection.

Hairspray

The original film is probably the most mainstream of all of the John Waters cult films, and certainly of those films that Divine was involved in, but it still has the Waters touch in spades. I wouldn't call it his best work ever (I'd favor Polyester or Pink Flamingoes of the ones I've seen ahead of it) but it is worth watching even if only for the ensemble cast.

Then they made a Broadway Musical out of it, which just seemed like a nutty idea at the time... but it apparently worked. I haven't had the chance to see the a production of it, but it did well and won awards.

Since other musicals have been doing well when moved (back) to film, it then made sense to try doing that to Hairspray.

One key feature that makes the 2007 adaptation work is the choice of John Travolta to replace Divine. I don't know who else could have brought as strong a voice to that role without being overshadowed by Divine himself or the makeup job required for the part.

With the cast anchored by Travolta as Edna, the rest of the ensemble is suprisingly strong, including new discovery Nikki Blonsky as Traci, and Christopher Walken as her father Wilbur. Travolta and Walken really do play well off each other although there are a couple of moments where one wishes the scene had cut a moment or two sooner... The rest of the cast is just as strong, the song and dance sequences are well structured, all the cast can sing, and there are even some nice cameos by original cast members to watch for.

I doubt I'll benefit personally from the song lyric subtitle track or the detailed dance instruction sequences that were included as extras on the DVD, but some of the alternate versions and dropped musical numbers were also nice to see.

This is one DVD that would really benefit from a quality sound system...

Things learned when searching Google

While looking for something else entirely, I tripped over some general computer knowledge pages at http://vlaurie.com/ which included the surprising bit of trivia that there is a kind of font editor shipping in XP, but not well known.

It is the Private Character Editor, and is intended to allow an end user to design characters in the Unicode range dedicated for private use. This is the recommended place to put a company logo character, for example. Apparently, there is a mechanism in place in Windows to allow characters built in this tool to be logically attached to individual fonts.

The private character editor is not found in the start menu. To launch it, click Start, Run, type eudcedit in the box and click Ok. If you want to create a shortcut to it, it seems to live in %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\eudcedit.exe

The private characters can be retrieved for use in a document with the aid of Character Map. Of course, once you use a private character in a document you are faced with a different dilemma, namely how to let anyone else use the character too... I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

An impressive single-tasker

We've all had the experience of taking a string of Christmas lights out of the box, testing them to prove they work, stringing them up, and finding that now they don't work. Until now, I haven't known of a better solution than to inspect each bulb individually, which is a painful process.

This year, I found the right tool for the job: the Lightkeeper Pro.

Its advertising, packaging, and even its documentation reads like a Super Bass-o-Matic '76 commercial. But actually does work as described. Honest!

Within its vaguely gun-shaped package is a bulb remover, a 60 Hz hum tracer, a bulb tester, a fuse tester, storage for spare bulbs, and a flashlight.

But wait! There's more!

The real magical feature is the piezoelectric light string repair device. Just remove any bulb from a dark segment, plug the gun in where the bulb was, and pull the trigger. After a couple of pulls, the string is likely to just turn back on. All except the bad bulb, which you can then replace.

Now how much would you pay?

Remember, all this can is done with the string installed and power on. And with only one short trip up the ladder to the top of the eaves.

MSRP is $25, but it can be had for $20 or so in stores like Amazon, Target and Lowes. Even if you don't need one this year, grab one in the post-season sales and add it to your toolbox. You'll thank me next year when you pull the lights back out of storage.

Comics that remind me of a certain someone

One art form that seems specifically designed for the world wide web is the comic strip. A daily three-panel strip at a legible resolution fits neatly on a page, and even a Sunday special rarely requires a scroll bar.

More importantly, the web permits an artist a degree of editorial freedom that can never be had from formal syndication. It also has a potentially world-wide audience, and with a loyal, multi-lingual fan base can even end up translated into multiple languages. This might be the earliest media product to demonstrate that self-publication is practical and that the old distribution channels may not keep their monopolies forever.

Independent music is following a similar path, podcasting has already had a visible effect on radio (although in that medium it seems like the old distributors are embracing the new channel from the outset), blogging has visibly impacted the traditional print media, and there have lately been several attempts at film and video production targeted specifically at online delivery.

Here are a few comic strips I've noticed, some of which have characters and settings that strongly remind me of people I know.

Specifically who these remind me of is left as an exercise for the reader...

Girl Genius

Adventure, Romance, Mad Science!

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

A steampunk manga written Phil and Kaja Foglio and drawn by Phil Foglio. You might recognize Phil as the artist behind the covers for the first editions of all of the Myth Adventures books. Many of the pages are full of background details and inside jokes that probably are best appreciated in the print editions. Six volumes are available as graphic novels, and volume seven is currently in progress.

Narbonic

The dreams that we have had
Are gonna prove that we're all mad
And that's okay

http://www.narbonic.com/

The story of Narbonic Labs by Shaenon K. Garrity ran from mid 2000 through the end of 2006. It is formatted as a three to five panel daily strip, and Sunday specials.

It is presently being rerun as a Director's Cut with commentary from the artist about each strip, and a weekly podcast. The entire run is also available without the commentary, and four print volumes were issued.

User Friendly

Impairing productivity since 1997.

"Tech support, ghost in the machine speaking."

http://www.userfriendly.org/

An inside view into the workings of a (fictional) small ISP called Columbia Internet. It is written and drawn by J.D. "Illiad" Frazer, and much beloved by working geeks. It is notable for its long run, with new strips appearing seven days a week (at midnight, Pacific time since Columbia Internet is located in Vancouver, B.C.).

xkcd

A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

http://www.xkcd.com/

Stick figures and geek humor written and drawn by Randall Munroe. It starts with scans of art drawn when he was supposed to be taking notes in classes, much of that early art is reminiscent of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Le Petit Prince. Most of the later art is in a minimalist stick-figure form which allows the absurdity to shine without distraction.

From the site: "Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."

Rory, Cat, Requiescat in Pace

Rorschach (Rory) b. ca. January, 1991 d. August 27, 2007 A Faithful Feline Forever.

On the twenty-seventh day of August, 2007, at four hours past noon, our cat Rory died of heart failure. He was nearly 17 years old. Rory is survived by his companions in feline mischief Emily and Apostrophe, and by Michelle and I, his faithful staff.

Rory (short for Rorschach) was born to an unknown mother cat sometime during the winter of 1990-1991. When he wandered into Shal and Annette's yard that spring, he was estimated to be only about three months old. Rory came to live with Michelle and I within a few days. He came to us with a clean bill of health and his first round of kitten vaccinations thanks to Annette and Dr. Sylvia Domotor. Dr. Domotor has been his first choice of veterinarian for his entire life, and she was with him when he died. We named him Rorschach because the tabby patch on his body was shaped like a perfect ink blot. He quickly became Rory for day-to-day usage, at least partly out of an urge not to have to spell Rorschach all the time.

As a young cat in our condo, he amused us by following us everywhere, sitting on my shoulder, and sleeping curled up tightly in my armpit. That first spring he was too small to climb the stairs easily, but stubbornly managed them one step at a time anyway.

When we moved the following winter to our current house, naturally he came along. We weren't too worried about the relocation because he had never been allowed to be outside unsupervised. The move itself was uneventful, and with one minor exception he immediately took over the new, larger, space.

His first experience with ceiling fans unfortunately coincided with his first experience with large expanses of linoleum flooring. The new house came with a ceiling fan in the dining room, and linoleum over the entire dining and kitchen spaces. On his first exploration of the house, he was uncertain about the cold flooring. About the second time he wandered into the dining room someone had turned the fan on. He got out into the center of the floor, then realized something was wrong. Hunkered down, he scanned the room for the threat, saw the large, moving fan blades, and panicked. At that point, he learned that it is not easy to accelerate from a standstill on clean linoleum....

Once we were all well established in the house, Emily wandered onto our doorstep. When she and Rory touched noses through the screen door, we decided that it might be safe to capture her and add her to the family. After she got a quick visit to Dr. Domotor, we solved the often thorny problem of introducing the second cat to the house by leaving on vacation for two weeks. When we returned, neither cat was speaking to us, but they were fast friends and remained so to the end. For his last weeks at home, Emily was helping to clean Rory up after syringe feedings, and generally grooming him in his last few days.

Our third cat, Apostrophe, was also a stray. We watched him grow up from a clumsy kitten barely able to walk without tumbling, into a lanky, amiable klutz. He argued persistently for months that there was room for at least one more cat inside, and we finally relented and moved him indoors full time after the second trip to a kitty ER to have punctures on his backside cleaned out. Rory took the addition of a third in stride, and in time they too became fast companions.

So, Rory, requiescat in pace. You touched many lives, and are missed by all who knew you.