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malsperanzaThis is priceless. I have to post the whole thing. It is just too perfect:
By John Tierney
Baghdad, Iraq, Aug. 15 For people who woke up this morning, as usual, without electricity for their televisions, it took a while to hear the news of the lightning bolt or whatever gremlin turned out the lights in America. But by noon the word had spread, and Baghdad was a city awash in schadenfreude.
"Allah sent that thunderbolt," said Kahdum Hassan, smiling as he sat outside his clothing shop. "He wanted to show the Americans what we suffer through every day because of their incompetence."
But even as they smiled at divine justice, Iraqis showed their generous side. To Americans panicked by a few hours without air-conditioning in 90-degree weather, they offered survival strategies coolly developed on 125-degree days. To energy planners trying to avoid more breakdowns of the Northeast transmission system, they offered lessons from another antiquated, unreliable grid.
Some of their tips to Americans:
Do not try to repair the Northeast grid yourselves. Entrusting the job to Americans, Iraqis warned, would only result in more blackouts and endless excuses about "sabotage" and "neglected infrastructure." Thamir Mahmoud, a retired clerk, said he was especially worried by President Bush's promise to fix the problem. "If the American government is involved," he said, "you must be prepared to be patient. They work very slowly."
Some Iraqis suggested inviting the United Nations to supervise the reconstruction, but others had a more radical idea. Put Saddam Hussein in charge of the grid. "Saddam had the electricity back two months after the last war," said Maythum Hatam, a computer-science student. "With his methods, you would have electricity right away, but you must expect to lose some workers."
Have a personal backup plan. The well-equipped Baghdad home has one diesel generator ready to kick in as soon as the power goes off, and another generator standing by in case the first one fails. Those without generators keep food from spoiling by using old-fashioned ice boxes (vendors sell large slabs of ice) or a technique using water and cloth, which Miad Khudair Abas explained.
"First you hang the food in a basket," Mrs. Abas said, pointing to the hook on her kitchen ceiling. "Then you cover it with a wet cloth. The water will keep it cool for two hours. Then you have to wet the cloth again." She smiled and added, "We are so happy the Americans are learning what our life is like."
Shoot looters. "Those thieves must be handled with an iron fist," said Ahmad Auda, whose restaurant was robbed during the postwar chaos, referring to the looters in New York on Thursday night.
Stop whining about the "heat." Baghdadis considered themselves lucky earlier this week when the temperature dropped below 100 — at midnight. "Let Americans come to Baghdad and try to sleep one night," said Ahmad Faris, a 12-year-old vendor of soft drinks. "They are like kings. One night without electricity, and they are complaining."
On hot afternoons, "get in the shower with your clothes on," said Jaber Hassan, a government employee. "When you finish, lie down in your wet clothes and take a small nap. The water will cool you." What if your clothes get wrinkled? "Always change your clothes after the nap," he said. "It is good to change your clothes two or three times a day."
On hot nights, adopt an Iraqi sleeping custom. Sleep outside — in a yard, in a courtyard, or, best of all, on the roof. But do not adopt an Iraqi wedding custom. The more people sleep outside, the less fond they are of the AK-47's ritually firing into the night sky to celebrate weddings. The problem is not so much the noise as the law of gravity: what goes up, must come down.
Drink hot tea. Iced tea may seem logical on hot days, but Iraqis insist on taking theirs hot. "When we drink hot tea, we feel cooler because we don't sweat as much," Mr. Auda said. "Maybe it's psychological."
No matter how hot it gets, maintain your dignity. The temperature may be above 120, but you will not see any self-respecting Iraqi adult in public wearing shorts. "The foreigners wear shorts," said Mr. Hassan, the clothing vendor, "but to us they look childish."
Learn from the blackout. Faris Habib, a shoemaker using a hand crank to turn his stitching machine during a routine power failure, was as happy as everyone else with the Northeastern blackout, but not merely because it served the Americans right. He told a story he had heard on his grandfather's knee:
A prince who wanted to take charge of his country did not know how the people lived. "He lived in a golden palace, slept late and ate whatever he wanted from a golden spoon," Mr. Habib said. "So his advisers made him get up early, eat a small piece of bread and work long hours in the fields. Only after he suffered as his people suffered did he learn how to rule them.""
As if on cue, the electricity came back on and Mr. Habib rested his arm as the stitching machine worked on its own. "Maybe after this experience," he said, "you American princes will learn how to rule Iraq."
And
By Laura M. Holson and Geraldine Fabrikant
Kevin Costner cannot seem to catch a break. After a string of box-office duds like "3,000 Miles to Graceland," Mr. Costner appeared to have a more successful effort on his hands in the western "Open Range." But the blackouts in major film-going cities like Cleveland, Detroit, New York and Toronto have wreaked havoc on the best-laid promotional and distribution plans for the film, which stars Mr. Costner, who also directed.
The free publicity movies get when a star appears on the late-night talk shows was significantly diminished for Mr. Costner when roughly 15 percent of NBC's "Tonight" show viewers were not able to watch his appearance Thursday night...
Mind you, the same article also notes that
Despite the crisis in the city ["American Splendor"] nearly sold out its first three screenings at the Lincoln Plaza Theatres on Manhattan's Upper West Side, according to the theatre's manager, Ewnetu Admassu.
Three words, boys and girls: Air Conditioned Theaters
Which leaves poor Mr Costner with little explanation for his poor showing. A clue may be found in A. O. Scott's review in yesterday's paper: "Ms. Bening’s performance, unfortunately, is well matched to Mr. Costner’s; if the two of them were any more upstanding, they’d be trees."
Hee. I love a really snarky review. (Dorothy Parker on Katharine Hepburn: "She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.")
Parker also once said in a book review, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
And here's her warning to fanfic authors: "X is beyond question a writer of power, and his power lies in his ability to make sex so thoroughly, graphically and aggressively unattractive that one is fairly shaken to ponder how little one has been missing".
One of my favorite well-deserved vicious reviews was in the NY Times panning Kelsey Grammer's 2000 production (starring himself) of Macbeth, which opened and closed after just a couple of performances and universal howls of derision:
(A full review, almost as fun, is here: Why wealthy actors should never be allowed to produce anything starring themselves)
Also from today's paper is a nice, thought-provoking comment on translating novels to film:
The films that succeed in translating text to screen are those, I think, that find a film equivalent not only for the author's passion but also for his or her voice. I think of the old Tony Richardson movie of "Tom Jones," in which Fielding's witty asides to the reader were converted into various characters' winks at the camera (and at one point Tom hangs his hat over the lens). It was in no way a literal rendition of the book, but very sympathetic to Fielding's style and general attitude toward storytelling.
By John Tierney
Baghdad, Iraq, Aug. 15 For people who woke up this morning, as usual, without electricity for their televisions, it took a while to hear the news of the lightning bolt or whatever gremlin turned out the lights in America. But by noon the word had spread, and Baghdad was a city awash in schadenfreude.
"Allah sent that thunderbolt," said Kahdum Hassan, smiling as he sat outside his clothing shop. "He wanted to show the Americans what we suffer through every day because of their incompetence."
But even as they smiled at divine justice, Iraqis showed their generous side. To Americans panicked by a few hours without air-conditioning in 90-degree weather, they offered survival strategies coolly developed on 125-degree days. To energy planners trying to avoid more breakdowns of the Northeast transmission system, they offered lessons from another antiquated, unreliable grid.
Some of their tips to Americans:
Do not try to repair the Northeast grid yourselves. Entrusting the job to Americans, Iraqis warned, would only result in more blackouts and endless excuses about "sabotage" and "neglected infrastructure." Thamir Mahmoud, a retired clerk, said he was especially worried by President Bush's promise to fix the problem. "If the American government is involved," he said, "you must be prepared to be patient. They work very slowly."
Some Iraqis suggested inviting the United Nations to supervise the reconstruction, but others had a more radical idea. Put Saddam Hussein in charge of the grid. "Saddam had the electricity back two months after the last war," said Maythum Hatam, a computer-science student. "With his methods, you would have electricity right away, but you must expect to lose some workers."
Have a personal backup plan. The well-equipped Baghdad home has one diesel generator ready to kick in as soon as the power goes off, and another generator standing by in case the first one fails. Those without generators keep food from spoiling by using old-fashioned ice boxes (vendors sell large slabs of ice) or a technique using water and cloth, which Miad Khudair Abas explained.
"First you hang the food in a basket," Mrs. Abas said, pointing to the hook on her kitchen ceiling. "Then you cover it with a wet cloth. The water will keep it cool for two hours. Then you have to wet the cloth again." She smiled and added, "We are so happy the Americans are learning what our life is like."
Shoot looters. "Those thieves must be handled with an iron fist," said Ahmad Auda, whose restaurant was robbed during the postwar chaos, referring to the looters in New York on Thursday night.
Stop whining about the "heat." Baghdadis considered themselves lucky earlier this week when the temperature dropped below 100 — at midnight. "Let Americans come to Baghdad and try to sleep one night," said Ahmad Faris, a 12-year-old vendor of soft drinks. "They are like kings. One night without electricity, and they are complaining."
On hot afternoons, "get in the shower with your clothes on," said Jaber Hassan, a government employee. "When you finish, lie down in your wet clothes and take a small nap. The water will cool you." What if your clothes get wrinkled? "Always change your clothes after the nap," he said. "It is good to change your clothes two or three times a day."
On hot nights, adopt an Iraqi sleeping custom. Sleep outside — in a yard, in a courtyard, or, best of all, on the roof. But do not adopt an Iraqi wedding custom. The more people sleep outside, the less fond they are of the AK-47's ritually firing into the night sky to celebrate weddings. The problem is not so much the noise as the law of gravity: what goes up, must come down.
Drink hot tea. Iced tea may seem logical on hot days, but Iraqis insist on taking theirs hot. "When we drink hot tea, we feel cooler because we don't sweat as much," Mr. Auda said. "Maybe it's psychological."
No matter how hot it gets, maintain your dignity. The temperature may be above 120, but you will not see any self-respecting Iraqi adult in public wearing shorts. "The foreigners wear shorts," said Mr. Hassan, the clothing vendor, "but to us they look childish."
Learn from the blackout. Faris Habib, a shoemaker using a hand crank to turn his stitching machine during a routine power failure, was as happy as everyone else with the Northeastern blackout, but not merely because it served the Americans right. He told a story he had heard on his grandfather's knee:
A prince who wanted to take charge of his country did not know how the people lived. "He lived in a golden palace, slept late and ate whatever he wanted from a golden spoon," Mr. Habib said. "So his advisers made him get up early, eat a small piece of bread and work long hours in the fields. Only after he suffered as his people suffered did he learn how to rule them.""
As if on cue, the electricity came back on and Mr. Habib rested his arm as the stitching machine worked on its own. "Maybe after this experience," he said, "you American princes will learn how to rule Iraq."
And
By Laura M. Holson and Geraldine Fabrikant
Kevin Costner cannot seem to catch a break. After a string of box-office duds like "3,000 Miles to Graceland," Mr. Costner appeared to have a more successful effort on his hands in the western "Open Range." But the blackouts in major film-going cities like Cleveland, Detroit, New York and Toronto have wreaked havoc on the best-laid promotional and distribution plans for the film, which stars Mr. Costner, who also directed.
The free publicity movies get when a star appears on the late-night talk shows was significantly diminished for Mr. Costner when roughly 15 percent of NBC's "Tonight" show viewers were not able to watch his appearance Thursday night...
Mind you, the same article also notes that
Despite the crisis in the city ["American Splendor"] nearly sold out its first three screenings at the Lincoln Plaza Theatres on Manhattan's Upper West Side, according to the theatre's manager, Ewnetu Admassu.
Three words, boys and girls: Air Conditioned Theaters
Which leaves poor Mr Costner with little explanation for his poor showing. A clue may be found in A. O. Scott's review in yesterday's paper: "Ms. Bening’s performance, unfortunately, is well matched to Mr. Costner’s; if the two of them were any more upstanding, they’d be trees."
Hee. I love a really snarky review. (Dorothy Parker on Katharine Hepburn: "She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.")
Parker also once said in a book review, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
And here's her warning to fanfic authors: "X is beyond question a writer of power, and his power lies in his ability to make sex so thoroughly, graphically and aggressively unattractive that one is fairly shaken to ponder how little one has been missing".
One of my favorite well-deserved vicious reviews was in the NY Times panning Kelsey Grammer's 2000 production (starring himself) of Macbeth, which opened and closed after just a couple of performances and universal howls of derision:
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. And that's pretty much it for the Broadway production of Shakespeare's "Macbeth," starring Kelsey Grammer in the title role..."
(A full review, almost as fun, is here: Why wealthy actors should never be allowed to produce anything starring themselves)
Also from today's paper is a nice, thought-provoking comment on translating novels to film:
"When filming period novels then, don’t just recreate the writer’s world: find a cinematic equivalent for the writer’s passion." (Margo Jefferson, NYT Aug 15, 2003, p 25)
The films that succeed in translating text to screen are those, I think, that find a film equivalent not only for the author's passion but also for his or her voice. I think of the old Tony Richardson movie of "Tom Jones," in which Fielding's witty asides to the reader were converted into various characters' winks at the camera (and at one point Tom hangs his hat over the lens). It was in no way a literal rendition of the book, but very sympathetic to Fielding's style and general attitude toward storytelling.
