Salad Fingers

My middle son scares me sometimes. For example, he recently introduced me to his favorite interweb video, Salad Fingers, which is an episodic cartoon produced by David Firth. It's dark, disturbing, and not for everyone.

I experienced uneasy pride as I thoroughly enjoyed episode 4. He wanted me to watch this one first, because he thought it would speak to me. He was right. I found it to be creepy yet hilarious. The main character is a green, three-fingered being with bad teeth. He enjoys role playing, rusty metal and blood. Why, it practically writes itself!

Mr Firth is a genius. And for that, I'll gladly purchase some of his apparel.

Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction is comedy-drama about an IRS auditor played by Will Ferrell who realizes that he's protagonist of a novel. Unfortunately, the author of this unfinished work is known for her talent for penning tragedies. Or hero, Harold Crick, sets out to change his fate and drama and comedy ensues. His love interest, Ana Pascal, is played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who I find myself attracted too even though she could be the spokesperson for the National Scoliosis Foundation. If you are the type of person that pays to see and movie and then refuses to suspend your belief, this isn't the movie for you. As the title implies, it's weirder than fiction.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie because it's very close to being a romantic comedy (even though is doesn't star Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks) and it's devoid the typical Will Ferrell physical humor.

It's a Literary Reference

The movie is entertaining on many levels, but the most obvious was literary. Authors and avid readers probably glean more from this film than I could ever hope.

Architecture

I love architecture. The film was shot in Chicago, a city with many beautiful and modern locations. I felt like the director wanted the spaces to be another character in the movie. As I listened to the dialog, I found myself admiring the rest of the scene. Most of the one-on-one interior scenes were not framed tight on the actors' faces. Instead, the director chose a wider shot that incorporated more of the surroundings. Warm lighting played off of the clean, contemporary architectural features. The Professor's office provided one of my favorite backdrops, polished stone walls segmented by tall slot-like tinted windows.

Watch

Another unexpected character in the movie was Harold's watch. Strange, but it worked. The watch took on its own personality as it attempted to stir his owner toward a different fate. The style of the watch, like the entire film, was clean and modern.

Augmented Reality

Ever since I watched the first Terminator movie, I've dreamed of a device (glasses, contact lens, retinal implants, ...) that would create annotated versions of what the wearer sees. For Mr. Crick, his obsessive and mathematical mind constructed graphs and annotations for the world around him. The facts and figures in his mind were displayed as 3D graphics attached to his head. You know the “I'm thinkin' Arby's” commercials, where the Arby's logo floats above the character's head and tracks his movements? Well, imagine that style of animation, but with a stream of words, numbers, and graphs rendered with clean white lines.

Math

All of the characters in the movie where named after famous mathematicians. I'm embarrassed that I didn't catch this, even with names like Hilbert, Pascal, and Mercator.

The GOD Delusion

After a grueling three month long endeavor, I finished reading The GOD Delusion. It is a logical and scientific dissection of religion by Richard Dawkins. An evolutionary biologist and Oxford professor, Dawkins is a champion of Darwinian theory.

The book was both interesting and exhausting to read. I found that I could only read 3 to 5 pages at a time. After just a few pages, my head was swimming with words, scientific facts, and historical events that I was eager to learn more about.

Here are a few things I learned:

• Albert Einstein was an atheist. I never would have guessed that with quotes like "God doesn't roll dice," and "God is subtle but he is not malicious."


• The Bible has tons of hilarious stories. How anyone can take it seriously is beyond my comprehension.


• Moses was one mean genocidal jackass.


• My relationship with my father is paradise compared to what Abraham and Isaac had.


• In 1969, the city of Montréal completely fell apart when the police went on strike.


• Pascal's Wager is great...as long as you pray to the correct god. If you get it wrong, a modern-day Moses might kill you, your wife, your farm animals, and your pets.


• The amazing history of Cargo Cults.


• A Letter To A Christian Nation seems like a much more entertaining book.


• If you're British, the word percent can be written as "per cent" and it's not a typo.

Dawkins has a very wordy writing style. Maybe it's a British thing. For example, on page 170 he writes:

A partisan in the controversy, I must beware of riding off on my pet steed Tangent, far from the main track of this book.

I think he means, "I don't want to talk about this right now."

Update (2007.04.17):
A friend of mine was unsure if I was recommending this book or not. Sorry about that. It's a qualified "yes". Although it was a difficult read, I still feel like it was worth it. The knowledge I gained was more valuable than the effort I exerted reading it.

State of Fear

I just finished State of Fear, by Michael Crichton. I loved it. In typical Crichton style, the book is a fun page-turner. Also in typical Crichton style, the ending is just so so. But that's OK, because the nonfiction component of this book makes up for its other weaknesses.

Nonfiction? But it's fiction, isn't it? This book is different than Crichton's other works because he includes many footnotes that backup statements made by the characters. What a fantastic concept.

Throughout the book, Crichton delivers blow after punishing blow against the global warming political movement. Each of his attacks is supported by references to real scientific studies. For me the coup de grace occurred in the first appendix, where he compares the popularity of global warming to the popularity of eugenics in the first half of the 1900s. I had no idea eugenics was so popular. I guess Hitler ruined it for everyone.

The character, Ted Bradley, was maddening and hilarious at the same time. Crichton was obviously mocking Martin Sheen. Ted Bradley¹ is a charismatic actor/activist most recognized for playing the president of the United States in a now canceled TV drama. Funny.

Not in the mood to read a 600+ page book? You might enjoy this 30 minute video from Penn & Teller. But trust me, this book is a must read. You'll feel much better about the state of the world when you're finished...or half way through.

I have to thank Tommy for recommending this book. Maybe I should listen to him more often. What were those other books he wanted me to read? The Joy of Sex? The Devil Wears Prada? The Bridges of Madison County?

- - - spoiler alert - - -

¹Mr. Bradley also plays a starring role in one of best death scenes I've ever experienced. It had me laughing out loud. That can't be healthy...I need help.