Odd Consumer News
Underwater hockey is spreading
[http://www.wral.com/apstrangenews/5411464/detail.html]. It is played in 20 U.S.
states and 17 countries.
Entertainment
Brazilian Singer Cancelled
The Catholic Church continues to stand up for itself:
> A Brazilian singer who promoted the use of condoms in an anti-AIDS campaign has
been dropped from the lineup of next month's Christmas concert at the Vatican,
organizers said Friday. . . .
> The popular singer participated in a government
More Walk the Line Praise
The sane folk at Southern Appeal
[http://southernappeal.blogspot.com/2005/11/holiday-movie-mini-review-i-saw-walk.html]
plug Walk the Line, causing me to wail and gnash my teeth again at my rural
outpost and its four isolated theater screens:
> I saw Walk the Line tonight and was just knocked out by
Odd (and Timely) Consumer News
In time for Walk the Line:
> Johnny Cash's tour bus is up for sale on auction site eBay.
> The singer, who died in September 2003, apparently used the vehicle while on
tour in the 1980s. . . .
> The current highest bid is $35,000 (£20,500)
The Theater's Problems
> The era of moviegoing as a mass audience ritual is slowly but inexorably drawing
to a close, eroded by many of the same forces that have eviscerated the music
industry, decimated network TV and, yes, are clobbering the newspaper business.
Put simply, an explosion of new technology – the Internet,
Carpet Bombing the Culture
The New York Times was making a different point, but in the process it provided
pretty good evidence that Hollywood and TV have been bombing our culture with
homosexuality [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/movies/20jame.html]:
> There has been an explosion of Oscar-baiting performances in which
JPII Comic Book
> In life John Paul II was a global superstar who produced several bestsellers,
including memoirs, plays and poetry. Yesterday he proved that he had star appeal
even in death as a comic book that tells his life story sold out as soon as it
appeared in the bookshops.
>
South Park Takes on Scientology
I don't know this blogger
[http://oooohdark30.blogspot.com/2005/11/tom-cruise-needs-to-come-out-of-closet.html]
and I didn't see South Park last night, but both sound pretty good (the poor
grammar and spelling notwithstanding):
> [F]or those of you who missed [South Park], here's a
Porn Culture II
> Last spring, Ralph Frammolino began regularly covering the pornography industry
for the [Los Angeles Times]. He says the porn trade is too big an economic
engine to be ignored
[http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/142005a.asp].
NYT on Narnia
Pretty good feature piece at NYT about LWW and Lewis
[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/movies/13narnia.html?pagewanted=1&incamp=article_popular]
, though I have two quibbles:
> [T]here are some Hollywood observers who seem to believe that there is a good
reason Lewis is