Friday, December 21, 2007

We built the Wall, we built the pyramids

I've been doing a lot of crosswords lately, ever since we saw the documentary Wordplay on DVD. Subtitles often annoy me, but with special irony for a movie all about words and spelling, there were an especially large number of mistakes in the subtitles on this DVD. Of the many, the one I remember is Will Shortz talking about all the mail he receives from "sobbers" (i.e. solvers).

Maribeth reminds me that that they were talking about words that have the letter Q without the letter U, for example the country QATAR, and the subtitles said "quitar," oblivious to the point of the conversation.

Also, Bob Dole is identified in the subtitles as "Man." No wonder he didn't win the White House, if someone subtitling a documentary on crosswords doesn't even know who he is. Although I believe he did a Visa commercial with a similar premise.

Yesterday's New York Times puzzle asked for "Actress Jessica" ALBA. Coincidentally we sat next to Jessica Alba when we went to the Omelette Parlor with Daniel on Saturday. Omelette Parlor now has a Monte Cristo sandwich; I tried it; it wasn't good enough to have again. It's hard to find a good Monte Cristo sandwich.

"Jeopardy whiz" and blog linkee KEN Jennings was in the New York Times crossword puzzle on Monday before last.

Recent reading: The Sea Wolf by Jack London. I had not read anything by Jack London before, nor did I know that Jack London was gay, but The Sea Wolf has a gaydar cross-section of 100 dBsm. Fighter jets could potentially dispense canisters of Sea Wolf paperbacks to jam enemy gaydars. Just saying.

Also: The Great God Pan by Arthur Menchen. Premise: Scientific experiments create woman who is part offspring of Pan, the unmentionable horribleness lurking underneath normal reality; hordes of Victorian gentlemen kill themselves one after another as result of associating with her. Mostly pretty terrible. Funny, in that most of the horrible queerness that outrages the conscience seems to consist of respectable people being seen in seedy London neighborhoods. The satanic experiences that might drive one to take one's own life otherwise aren't articulated. People have a mark of startling evil stamped on their visages and that kind of thing. Interesting ripped-from-the-day's-headlines references to the Whitechapel murders, and to wireless telegraphy.

5 Comments:

At 2:00 PM, December 21, 2007, Blogger Kathryn said...

Was Jessica Alba noticeably pregnant? I've heard she is, but haven't seen any bump pics yet.

 
At 11:35 PM, December 21, 2007, Blogger Richard Mason said...

I did not notice she was pregnant-- actually I thought she looked skinny-- but we only saw her sitting down so we might not have had the right angle. She was making out with some guy she was with.

 
At 4:27 AM, December 22, 2007, Blogger Kathryn said...

Was it Cash Warren?

 
At 8:50 AM, December 22, 2007, Blogger Richard Mason said...

Hmm. It could have been. He at least had a similar general appearance.

 
At 8:06 PM, December 30, 2007, Blogger Unknown said...

Sitting next to Jessica Alba - hope you wore gloves!!

 

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