Män som hatar kvinnor

We saw the 2009 film version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo yesterday at Guild Cinema. The film is in Swedish with English subtitles; the title in Swedish (as with the book) is Män som hatar kvinnor or Men Who Hate Women.

It’s a fast-paced but not frenetic 2-1/2 hour adaption, faithful to the book in the essentials. There’s something to be said for seeing the movie first (surprise element) and something to be said for reading the book first, as I did (having a clue what is going on).

All of the acting is remarkable; Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander is simply all you could ask. It’s hard to imagine another actress in the part after this; how’s her English?

A Bourne-type film without being manic. We liked it a lot.

Galarraga pitches 28-out perfect game

Video highlights.

Charles Pierce sums it up arguing for the commissioner to overturn the call.

I mean, it’s not like there aren’t already fluky perfect games dotting the major-league record book. The first recorded one was by a guy pitching for the Worcester Ruby Legs. (Major leagues? Please. ) And, for 74 years, they counted Ernie Shore’s having thrown one in June of 1917, despite the fact that Babe Ruth started the game by walking Ray Morgan and then slugging the home plate umpire. This earned him an ejection, which brought on Shore in relief. Morgan got thrown out trying to steal and, until they changed the rules in 1991, Shore got credit for a perfect game because he retired the next 27 guys. How is that less complicated than what I am suggesting? Let’s give Galarraga seven decades, too. He more than earned them.

Shore retired the next 26 batters, not 27.

Factoid of the day

Did you know the United States was on daylight saving time year-round during World War II?

From February 9, 1942, until September 30, 1945, the entire country was on daylight time. It wasn’t called Daylight Time or Standard Time. It was Eastern, Central, Mountain or Pacific War Time.

Nobody’s perfect

Detroit Tiger’s pitcher Armando Galarraga threw the 21st perfect game in 135 years of major league history tonight — and inconceivably the third this season.

Well, he would have, except that first base umpire Jim Joyce just didn’t know it and inexplicably called the 27th Cleveland batter safe at first when he was clearly out. Not even close.

Galarraga got the next batter to end the game and preserve the shut out.

Instant replay anyone?

Joyce apologized after the game and Galarraga accepted the apology with grace.

Here’s the video.

The first out in the ninth was a spectacular catch that preserved the perfect game for Joyce’s screw up. Here’s that video.

Another Slacker

“She’s popular, and a bit maddening, in the way that only a woman with seven children, a medical degree, fluency in three languages, an aristocratic–academic–pharmaceutical-entrepreneur husband, and a record of promoting both Christian values and paternity leave can be. She was called ‘Zensursula’—censorship, Ursula—because of a campaign against child pornography on the Internet; her father was a politician who now suffers from Alzheimer’s, and whom she cares for at home. Also, she dresses well, without being gaudy.”

Amy Davidson at The New Yorker describing Ursula von der Leyen, a favorite to become Germany’s new President.

The job pays €213,000 a year — for life. It’s primarily a ceremonial role as head of state. The German chancellor heads the government; at present that is Angela Merkel.

May 30th

May 30th was Memorial Day (or Decoration Day) for over 100 years. According to the Library of Congress:

In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery … Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day. In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade. …

In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended it to honor all soldiers who died in American wars. A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30.

Jeanne d’Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431. She was 19.

Keir Dullea is 74. Michael Pollard J. is 71. Pollard was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance in Bonnie and Clyde.

Gayle Sayers is 67, Wynonna Judd is 46 and Manny Ramirez is 38 today.

Mel Blanc (1908) and Benny Goodman (1909) were born on May 30th.

The first Indianapolis 500 was 99 years ago today (1911).

The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on May 30th in 1922.

The quest for frisson

Roger Ebert begins another wonderful if somewhat meandering blog post:

The French word frisson describes something English has no better word for: a brief intense reaction, usually a feeling of excitement, recognition, or terror. It’s often accompanied by a physical shudder, but not so much when you’re web surfing.

You know how it happens. You’re clicking here or clicking there, and suddenly you have the OMG moment. In recent days, for example, I felt frissons when learning that Gary Coleman had died, that most of the spilled oil was underwater, that Joe McGinness had moved in next to the Palins, that a group of priests’ mistresses had started their own Facebook group, and that Bill Nye the Science Guy says “to prevent Computer Vision Syndrome, every 20 minutes, spend 20 seconds looking 20 feet away.”

Continue reading at Roger Ebert’s Journal.

The Girl Trilogy

I’ve read all three Stieg Larsson books since I began the first last Saturday afternoon. (The third I read on my iPhone using the Kindle app.)

Two kept me up to after one. The third kept me up to 2:30 this morning. I finished it early this afternoon.

If you like crime, detective, police procedural, espionage books you should like these.

Read them in order. It’s essential.

Lighter than air

Fill a lightweight material with hot air, helium or hydrogen, and you have a vessel that floats in the air. People around the world use balloons, blimps and airships for transportation, to conduct research, to deliver messages, to protest, and – mostly – for having fun. Collected here are recent photographs of balloons of all shapes, sizes and purposes – ranging from a child’s toy to a football-field-sized research instrument, and much in between. (31 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com

But none from Albuquerque.

25 Horribly Sexist Vintage Ads

Since the 50’s, a lot has changed in way of women’s rights and their duties in and out of the house. I highly doubt any company could get away with phrases like “The Chef [mixer] does everything but cook – that’s what wives are for!” nowadays. Or how about an ad agency pitching a company an idea of a wife bent over her husband’s knee as he prepares to spank her.

25 Horribly Sexist Vintage Ads | The Best Article Every day

Plant the corn again, please

Charles Pierce isn’t a fan of Field of Dreams. An excerpt:

This is supposed to be a film about fathers and son, and the connective generational tissue that is baseball. As such, it can’t even get Shoeless Joe Jackson hitting from the correct side of the plate? Nobody thought to check? And, even if you buy the conversion of the novel’s J.D. Salinger character into the reclusive black-activist played by James Earl Jones, having done so, do you think that character wouldn’t have noticed that there didn’t seem to be any room for Josh Gibson, or Cool Papa Bell, or Buck Leonard out there beyond the cornfield? Heaven, apparently, is as segregated as the 1939 St. Louis Browns.

Elsewhere, Dave Kindred discusses his top three sports movies. They are:

3. Raging Bull
2. Bull Durham
1. The Hustler

Each of the above links deserves a click to read the whole essay.

Thanks to Avelino for the tip.

Today’s Photo Bonus Photo

Playing around with Aperture 3, Apple’s advanced photo management software, I applied the faces feature to an album of photos taken at various zoos. Faces scans photos and identifies what it thinks are human faces. You can then identify the various faces to create collections for individuals among your photos. It’s fun, if imperfect.

The only “face” the application found among the zoo photos was this one, a tiger at the Denver Zoo. Gotta admit, an impressive face. The picture was taken in May 2004.

Today’s Photo

It was a beautiful night for a ballgame Tuesday — temperature 82º at game time, dropping into the 70s. Alas, the Isotopes left nine men on base and lost to the Reno Aces 3-0. Photo taken with an iPhone 3G from row L. Ticket price: $14. (Though parking at UNM across the street is no longer free. It was $5.)

A young woman is keeping me up nights

Her name is Lisbeth Salander.

I bought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo the first week of January but didn’t get around to reading it until now. I began it Saturday afternoon and finished its 590 pages Sunday night (Monday morning) at 1 AM.

Monday I ordered the second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire. It arrived yesterday around 2:30. I finished its 630 pages at 1:15 this morning.

I’ll be ordering the third book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest today. I may get the Kindle version so I don’t have to wait (I can read Kindle books on my iPhone or my Macs).

If you like crime thrillers with fascinating characters, complex plots and a feminist bent, you’ll want to spend nights with Lisbeth Salander too, tattoos and all.