After four months of no-doubt feverish scribbling, Sarah Palin’s book is scheduled to drop (perhaps an unfortunate word choice in this case) on November 17. It will be called “Going Rogue: An American Life.”
We wondered what were some of the rejected titles and came up with this list:
The Bridges of Ketchikan County
The Governor’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing
The Salmon Whisperer
It
The Governor’s New Clothes
Dangler*
Are You There Vengeful, Old Testament God? It’s Me Sarah
The Pilot, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Moose, Run
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Even in a Helicopter)
To Kill a Mockingbird. And a Moose. And a Wolf. And a Bear . . .
Brief Interviews with Hideous Governors
Turkey Slaughterhouse Five
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* Okay, this one is admittedly a stretch, but I was trying to play on the Cheney biography Angler and Palin’s penchant for high heels. No? Really?
All the internet kids are talking about Worst of the Worst, Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the 100 worst reviewed movies of the last ten years.
I’ve seen five of them, which is a shockingly low number considering how many wretched movies I’ve sat through. I think the reason my number is so low is that the list is heavily laden with lame mainstream ‘comedies’ like Boat Trip, Surviving Christmas, and the entire oeuvre of Larry the Cable Guy, and that’s a genre I studiously avoid. Now if the list was the worst horror/SF movies of the last ten years . . .
Here are my five, and I wouldn’t begrudge any of them a place on the list:
Babylon A.D.: Far from the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but then I’ve got a soft spot for Vin. Some nice set pieces in service to . . . nothing much.
Dragonfly: I literally cannot remember a single thing about this movie, but I’m certain I saw it. This is what happens when Costner is allowed to make movies that aren’t about baseball or golf.
Swept Away: How could the man who made Snatch make this mess? I blame That Woman. Now that Guy Ritchie is safely away from the skeletal clutches of that harridan, I am cautiously optimistic about Sherlock Holmes.
Battlefield Earth: Not only was it incomprehensibly incompetent as a piece of filmmaking, BE introduced the unfortunate but blessedly short-lived fashion of nosehair braids.
Alone in the Dark: It was directed by Uwe Boll and stars Tara Reid as an archeologist slash museum curator. What more do you really need to know? I actually saw this during its original theatrical release, maybe even on its opening weekend. In my defense, I was tricked into the theater by its cool, HR Giger-esque poster, along with the fact that I’d never yet heard of Uwe Boll.
This is just one component of the Hobnox Audiotool. More information here. Unleash your inner Gary Numan!
It’s strange how tools like this have divorced the ability to make music from the ability to play any instrument whatsoever (let alone an ability to read music).
The BJ lexicon should take common usage into account, but that doesn’t work here. With respect to common usage liberal and conservative have gone batshit insane. Conservative used to imply defending individual liberties against government interference. By that definition the ACLU is the most conservative nonprofit entity in America, and Glenn Greenwald, Joe Klein’s “civil liberties extremist”, counts as more conservative than practically anyone writing today. Yet for some reason nearly every American who calls himself ‘conservative’ hates Glenn Greenwald and despises the ACLU*. Conservative dogma also resisting international adventures. Back when such things mattered, the Republican party tried to block the war against Hitler and it was two liberal Presidents (Kennedy and Johnson) who sent us to war in Vietnam. Today “conservatives” on FOX News sneer down their noses at anyone who disagrees with bombing and (this part particularly tickles traditional conservatives like Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley) militarily occupying Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Burma, Venezuela and whoever else they hate today.
This brought to mind one of my favorite blog posts of all time, John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey’s classic lament, I Miss Republicans, which he wrote in response to the news that we had spent $100 billion on a missile defense system that doesn’t work in the rain (and requires the enemy missile to incorporate a homing beacon tuned to the correct frequency).
It began:
No, seriously. Remember Republicans? Sober men in suits, pipes, who’d nod thoughtfully over their latest tract on market-driven fiscal conservatism while grinding out the numbers on rocket science. Remember those serious-looking 1950’s-1960’s science guys in the movies — Republican to a one.
They were the grown-ups. They were the realists. Sure they were a bummer, maaaaan, but on the way to La Revolution you need somebody to remember where you parked the car. I was never one (nor a Democrat, really, more an agnostic libertarian big on the social contract, but we don’t have a party …), but I genuinely liked them.
How did they become the party of fairy dust and make believe? How did they become the anti-science guys? The anti-fact guys? The anti-logic guys?
Its sequel, I Still Miss Republicans, written on the eve of the 2006 mid-terms, was another good one:
I don’t call myself a Democrat — I know this will anger some of my more politically-minded friends, but I don’t self-identify around political parties. To me that’s about as relevant as calling myself a Whig. I have my little checklist of political beliefs, and whatever candidate most matches them, I vote for them. It’s just the crazy time that we live in where my checklist item #1 — “Basic competence and decent grip on reality” has been completely abandoned by one party’s rulers.
Personally, I’ve always find it ironic that conservatives seem to have so little interest in actually conserving anything beyond accumulated wealth.
I’m usually indifferent to the ‘kids sing rock and roll’ thing, but this is an especially sweet rendition. And probably more appropriate than covering this one.
The intrepid writers and readers of Balloon Juice have collectively channeled their inner Noah Websters to compile the instantly indispensable Balloon Juice lexicon. It is especially helpful in mapping the outer reaches of the Wingnutosphere.
If you are not yet aware of all internet traditions, this is the place to start.
One of my favorites:
Rebunk– to bring back a myth, lie, urban legend or totally discredited idea as though the evidence which reliably debunked the nonsense never existed. Almost always committed by Re-publicans.
After a predictably bad review of the new Dan Brown novel, The Lost Symbol (“For The Lost Symbol, Brown has crafted yet another variation on this formula, right down to an odd-looking assassin (in this case, heavily tattooed), as though he has a Da Vinci Code Mad Libs book somewhere for plot inspiration.”), these are the first three comments:
1. Amazing peice (sic) of work!
Posted by: LiteraryLion (24 Sept. 2009 | 12:33 AM CDT)
dan brown is the hemmingway (sic) of our time… misunderstood genius! this review was downright shameful. someday, ‘the lost symbol’ will be regarded as a classic of American lit!
to reiterate once more: this book is vintage Brown at his very best; unpretencious (sic), understated, and direct. Recommended from the heartland to anyone with an open mind and history buffs the world over!
I had the distinct pleasure of reading an advance copy of this work of fiction, as I work at the public library here in Des Moines. It was one of the true thrills of my life!
…lets just say we are having a hard time keeping this tome on the shelf for any length of time at all, so I guess I’m not the only member of the delightful Mr. Brown’s fan club!
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The careful reader can quickly discern that these comments were the work of either Dan Brown himself or, more likely, a minion thereof (an intern for his agent or publisher, an avid fan, his mother). How? Several tell-tale clues indicate that these comments did not originate with your typical A/V Club denizen:
The first commenter makes no claim to “firsties.”
The second commenter does not wish ass cancer on the first commenter.
The third commenter describes Dan Brown’s writing as “understated,” which is not a claim anyone outside of his immediate sphere of influence would even entertain, let alone state publicly.
The second commenter uses the phrase “to reiterate once again,” which is redundant and repetitious. In short, classic Dan Brown.
The third commenter cites reading a Dan Brown novel as one of the true thrills of his life. Come on, it’s not like he’s Michael Crichton.
The three comments are entirely free of the A/V Club’s requisite snark, sarcasm, ennui, and hipster d-bag posturing.
The comments employ four exclamation points in three posts. Exclamation points denote emotion or excitement, which is verboten at the A/V Club.
Behold COMBO, a collaborative animation from Blu and David Ellis. And here is Muto, a previous work by Blu.
PS: the title of this post is an admittedly strained reference to the old ad jingle for Combos, which were touted to “beat snack boredom, ‘cos they’ve got what other snacks lack.” This is the kind of thing I’ve got running through my head all the day long.
