Terry Levine | Noggin Advertising | Copywriter | Digital + Direct Writer | Blogging | Toronto | Canada

PUSSY GALORE: 140 WORDS ON SHREK FOREVER AFTER

Mostly a retread of Shreks one through three – but now in 3D! – loosely wrapped in It’s A Wonderful Life, Shrek Forever After still manages to entertain. This is, unfortunately, no thanks to Mike Myers who, like Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin, seems to have broken his funny bone in old age.

The laughs come intermittently from Eddie Murphy as Donkey, Walt Dohrn as Rumpelstiltskin and from fat boy Butterpants (“Do the roar! Do the roar!”) but mostly thanks to Antonio Banderas’s ri-donk-ulously porcine feline Puss In Boots who steals nearly every scene and probably deserves a spin-off movie of his own. (I’m sure Dreamworks is on that.)

RUST? RUST, ANYONE, RUST? 140 WORDS ON IRON MAN 2

 

Cocky can be sexy. But after a couple of hours it’s just plain obnoxious. That’s mostly the feeling I was left with after Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in the sequel to Iron Man. That and the impression that the movie was essentially the most expensive teaser ever produced for another movie, The Avengers, due out in 2012.

Other takeaways: the plot is silly, the science is sillier, the sexual tension between Stark and Pepper that appears out of nowhere at the end of the film is absurd, Scarlett Johansson is hot, Sam Rockwell is one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood, Scarlett Johansson is still hot and Mickey Rourke looks like a (barely) humanized version of the alien from Predator – again. He’s like the only actor aging more atrociously than Sylvester Stallone. I mean, what happened?

CLIMATE, KOOKS, CLICHE AND CONTEXT.

It's become a cliché for politicians caught saying something stupid or offensive to claim they've been taken "out of context" -- Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul and Connecticut Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal are two recent examples.

Despite this overused excuse, context -- real context -- is still important. It's how we understand the relevant meaning of something when that something may have more than one meaning, or even no discernible meaning at all.

Take letter combinations like 'tchst,' 'sthm' and 'tchph.' To the average English speaker, says Bill Bryson in The Mother Tongue, we would naturally conclude that these agglomerations are unpronounceable, at least in English. But that's where context comes in because the fact is we use them every day in words like 'matchstick,' 'asthma,' and 'catchphrase.'

With context there's often a flash of recognition as we, perhaps sheepishly, realize we were wrong -- that is, unless there's something else going on and we really don't care about context at all.

Climate change disbelievers, for instance, often point to a particularly cold winter as evidence that global warming doesn't exist. But in doing so they miss (or ignore) the context that they ought to be paying attention to: that over the long term, average global temperatures and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been rising over the last century, whether or not temperatures on any given day or in any one season go up or down. It's like absurdly concluding that because it's 80F today, winter doesn't exist. Context helps paint a bigger, usually more accurate picture (Glenn Beck's blackboard aside).

Likewise Tea Partiers who claim America's socialist/Marxist/Nazi/Muslim/Kenyan President has raised taxes too high are shown to be, well, a bit (!) disingenuous when it's revealed that in context, the tax burden on the average American is lower than it's been in 60 years.

So if you'd rather just believe what you want and damn the evidence, go ahead Sarah and Glenn and Orly. But if you prefer to think and live in a reality-based world, context can be your best friend.

I'LL HAVE MINE DE-HYPHENATED, THANK YOU.

There's a scene in the wonderful Canadian movie C.R.A.Z.Y. where the main character Zac introduces us to his brothers, one of whom -- the nerd -- reads cracker boxes. 

I read cracker boxes. And cereal boxes. And menus. And those notices from the condo board they post to the elevator wall. Mostly it's simply to occupy my time while I'm eating or moving from point A to B. Sometimes it's to see if I can spot the typos and awkward use of language.

One that irritates me to no end is the archaic overuse of the hyphen. Co-operation. E-mail. Thank-you. Those are probably by three favorite -- and by favorite I mean: not.

'E-mail' is probably the one I can let pass for now, but really only for a few more seconds. It's a relatively new word and there was a time, maybe 20 years ago, when it made sense to include a hyphen. But it really doesn't any longer. If we understand how to pronounce 'iPod' and 'iPhone' without a hyphen, I think 'email' can safely shed its hyphen without causing mass hysteria.

The other two words have no excuse. 'Cooperation' and 'thank you' are so widespread now that I can't imagine anyone, for instance, accidentally pronouncing it 'coop-eration.' I think people get it.

I understand why they do it. Like wearing a tuxedo at a wedding, it's safe. No need to take any chances. No need to get all crazy. Like the rule about never starting sentences with 'and' or 'but,' don't question it. Just do what you were taught in grade 3.

But it's clearly unnecessary, so why keep doing it?

Then again, I'm a proponent of putting to rest apostrophes in contractions. Does anyone have any trouble reading wont, cant or shouldnt without an apostrophe? Havent they become words in their own right without needing to be reminded that they derived from longer words? 'Goodbye' derived from 'God be with you' but we don't spell it 'Go-od-b-ye,' although some still hang on to 'Good-bye.' Sigh.

I think English was evolving in the direction of shedding contraction apostrophes thanks to texting -- that is until auto-correct ruined everything.

Or maybe that's autocorrect? LOL.

PURE IMAGINATION.

It's not that I hate when a company pulls at my heartstrings. It's that I hate when it works. :-)

AT&T has a spot running now using Gene Wilder's "Pure Imagination" from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Talk about a rush of childhood memories and emotions. Amazing how powerful music can be.

Strangely, iTunes has about every other cover of this song, but not the original. Thankfully I found it on YouTube. Enjoy.

ELITES GET A BAD RAP.

Seth Godin has a though-provoking post (as usual) on elites, which offers me a nice segue into my own thoughts on this curiously reviled segment of society.

If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the self-described Tea Partiers in the US (and really, I hope you don't), you'd think that "the elites" are destroying the country. The President is an elite because he went to Harvard (but curiously Bush wasn't an elite for going to Yale) and government in general is filled to the rafters with elites ruining all the goodness and apple pie average Joes like Sarah Palin have contributed to the American way of life.

The truth is "elite" has more or less simply become a replacement for the last bogey-man word conservatives were so successful at manipulating: "liberal." Remember when everything bad in the world was caused by liberals? Well liberals finally got smart in the US (it took them 30 years) and started calling themselves "progressives." And dang, it's way harder to rail against progress, so right-wingers had to find another in. Bring in the elites.

The disconnect is, in every other walk of life, being an elite is what we strive for. Our sports heroes are elite athletes. Our army (we hope) comprises elite fighting forces. The scientists who discover cures for the diseases that ail us are elite doctors. And thank God, don't you think?

Yet somehow, the half-governor of Alaska and others would have you believe that we don't need elites in government. Better to send to Washington that guy who's never read a book or the one who still believes evolution is a "theory" (you know, like the one about the earth being round). Better to elect an underachiever with zero curiosity or desire to better himself. (Dubya much?)

I think those who revile elites ought to really be speaking out against "elitism." You know, like when you believe you deserve more than the next guy because you're better, smarter, more powerful than he is? You know, like on Wall Street and in the C-suite of many corporations.

"I'm here at the top so you work your ass off and I'll collect my bonus check. Thanks peons."

That's elitism and, the fact is, it's not linked to liberals or progressives or smart hard-working people with the best of intentions in government or science or the military. It's part and parcel of the conservative philosophy, in part handed down by Ronald Reagan, which makes the wealthy believe they're entitled to be even richer because they somehow worked harder than the little guy.

That's not what elites believe, it's what elitists believe. There's a big difference. And it's time someone tells Palin -- or at least draws her a picture with crayons. (Okay, that was sort of elitist. My bad.)

THE MARK OF A GREAT TEACHER.

I hated Michael Kenneally nearly right away.

Kenneally was my first English Lit teacher at Marianopolis College, in a course on 20th century short stories. Having always done well in English in high school I expected to breeze through.

I was wrong.

The stories we read were interesting enough but when it came time for our essay assignments, Killer Kenneally slaughtered nearly everyone in class, including me. For the first time I was getting Cs and Ds. I was annoyed and embarrassed but most of all I hated this man who was ruining my life.

My hate didn't last long.

Because the truth is, apart from my later degree in journalism, nothing or no one shaped my writing more than Kenneally. As painful as it seemed at first, the rules he enforced on how an essay should be structured, how it should flow, made me a better writer and though, 22 years later, I can't remember one of the rules I learned at the time, I know they simply became ingrained in my writing DNA.

After the short stories course, I signed on for Kenneally's next one because I wanted him to teach me again. Despite having zero prior interest in Irish literature, I discovered James Joyce and Bernard MacLaverty and Brian Friel, and other writers I'd have never heard of or read otherwise. Kenneally didn't just teach me how to write, he exposed me to a whole new world.

I was reminded of him as I watched the video below of global health researcher Hans Rosling at TED. Simple passion and clever presentation enable Rosling to transform something as bone-dry as statistics into art and entertainment. (Watch and you'll understand.)

And that, after all, is the true mark of a great teacher: someone so excited by and in love with what they teach and so original in how they communicate it that their lessons stay with you long after the chalkboard is erased or the projector is turned off.

007 VS OPRAH: 140 WORDS ON 'OCEANS'

Nature documentaries haven't changed much since Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Then as now they feature stunning close-ups of how the rest of the world lives -- and by extension, what we're destroying. What's different in 2010 are the slicker production values.

March of the Penguins was the first in this latest batch to catch my attention. More recently, there was Planet Earth narrated by Sigourney Weaver and Life with Oprah. And now Disneynature's Oceans, accompanied by Pierce Brosnan.

Oceans doesn't work. Maybe because it wooshes by from one sea creature to the next, in 1 hour 24 minutes, never creating a sense of story, tenuously connected by the narration. (Life by comparison was 11 hour-long episodes.)

Or maybe that's it: there's simply something more Mother Earthly about Oprah or Sigourney taking us on these worldly tours than James Bond.

THE GREATEST WORD IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE COMES OF AGE.

'Fuck.' 

My own quaint history with the word began early when, around the time I learned to speak, my potty-mouthed cousin Peter accidentally taught it to me. To unteach me, my parents convinced me I meant to say 'puck.' And although they dodged a bullet for a few years, by my late teens I began 'fucking' in earnest and I haven't stopped since.

For reasons that are best left to Wikipedia, it's probably one of the most maligned and misunderstood words in the English language. But I suspect that's just because it's just so fucking versatile and the rest of the dictionary is jealous. After all, what other word can do this:

"'Fuck' can be used as a verb, adverb, adjective, command, conjunction, interjection, noun, pronoun, and can logically be used as virtually any word in a sentence (e.g. "Fuck the fucking fuckers"). Moreover, it is one of the few words in the English language which could be applied as an infix (e.g. "Am I sexy? Absofuckinglutely!"; "Bullfuckingshit!")."

But thanks to a lot of press it's gotten lately, its fucking time may have finally fucking come.

On the heels of  US Vice-President Joe Biden's well publicized whisper, Canadian Conservative pro-choice feminist Senator Nancy Ruth last week told a group of people she supports to "shut the fuck up." (I know, a conservative pro-choice feminist? WTF?! I was more surprised by that than her utterance. We've come a long way baby.)

And now a study appearing in the August 5 NeuroReport suggests that four-letter words -- like fuck -- may help alleviate pain.

"'Swear words are unique,' says Timothy Jay, a psychologist at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, who has studied the role of naughty words in linguistics. 'They’re really the link between the language system and the emotional system.'”

So the next time you stub your toe, get your credit card bill or just can't believe how beautiful it is outside, stand tall and loudly proclaim your love for one of English's greatest words.

To close out, here's one of the queens of the four-letter word, Kathy Griffin. Have a great fucking weekend.

MY GREATEST STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS.

I've been shy all my life.

When I was five years old my mom dropped me off at day camp and I cried so hard, panicked by the prospect of having to talk with other kids, that she took me home. (I eventually went back but I never stopped hating camp.)

My idea of bliss growing up was sitting around -- in my bedroom, in the den, in the garden -- reading. By 8 I had read all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books I was ever going to and graduated to my parents' books -- Ken Follett and Sydney Sheldon and Cynthia Freeman and Colleen McCullough (Thorn Birds was my favorite).

My battle with being an introvert has been a double-edged sword. It's often kept me from breaking the ice or building the kinds of casual relationships that grease the wheel of corporate life -- even though I've done a much better job at faking it as I grow older and social media tools like this one help immeasurably. But shyness has also has a positive side-effect, compelling me to seek refuge in books and information, which in turn made me a better writer.

Reading about a new study on shyness made me jump for joy because the cause -- or part of it anyway -- appears to be a trait called "Sensory Perception Sensitivity," which I have no doubt I have:

"The trait can be seen in some children who are "slow to warm up" in a situation but eventually join in, need little punishment, cry easily, ask unusual questions or have especially deep thoughts, the study researchers say.... Individuals with this highly sensitive trait prefer to take longer to make decisions, are more conscientious, need more time to themselves in order to reflect, and are more easily bored with small talk, research suggests. Previous work has also shown that compared with others those with a highly sensitive temperament are more bothered by noise and crowds, more affected by caffeine, and more easily startled. That is, the trait seems to confer sensitivity all around. The researchers in the current study propose the simple sensory sensitivity to noise, pain, or caffeine is a side effect of an inborn preference to pay more attention to experiences."

This is me to a tee. Slow to warm up? Check. Need time to reflect? Check. Easily startled? Check. Bored with small talk? God, check. Affected by caffeine?! Weird, but completely true.

Researchers believe that the sensitivity trait has a very real role in evolution:

"Biologists are beginning to agree that within one species there can be two equally successful 'personalities.' The sensitive type, always a minority, chooses to observe longer before acting, as if doing their exploring with their brains rather than their limbs. The other type 'boldly goes where no one has gone before,' the scientists say. The sensitive individual's strategy is not so advantageous when resources are plentiful or quick, aggressive action is required. But it comes in handy when danger is present, opportunities are similar and hard to choose between, or a clever approach is needed."

When a clever approach is needed? Check!