Dracula discussion on MPR's Midmorning with Kerri Miller

As I mentioned earlier, my book club read Dracula last year and loved it. It spawned one of our best ever book discussions.

Here's audio of Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning show from 10/26/10 (re-aired from 10/28/08) wherein Kerri Miller interviews Leslie Klinger, editor of "The New Annotated Dracula."

I love Jim Cantiello

He recaps Idol and Glee for MTV. His "Glee-caps" are in song. I share with you his Glee-cap from the Rocky Horror episode that aired last night, with a notable (to fans of Idol's Season 8) cameo.

MTV Shows

His writing for the Glee-caps is probably a tad less witty than his Idol recaps due to the extra challenge of putting them to music. His writing in his Idol-in-Sixty-Seconds recaps is A+.

Really?

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

Anyone care to defend?

My book club has made its picks for 2010-11

Lots of great books:

Nov. 22: My Antonia, Willa Cather
Jan. 3: Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson
Jan. 31: Madame Bovary, Flaubert
Feb 28: Little Bee, Chris Cleeve
Mar 28: A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
Apr 25: Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
May 23: The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky
June 27: Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
July 25: Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Aug 22: The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
Sept 26: I'm Not Scared, Niccolo Ammaniti

Douchember! Right after Movember!

Wait.  Never mind.

Get ready for Movember!

Do you know about Movember?

The Mo, slang for moustache, and November come together each year for Movember.

Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month. The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men. Much like the commitment to run or walk for charity, the men of Movember commit to growing a moustache for 30 days.

The idea for Movember was sparked in 2003 over a few beers in Melbourne, Australia. The plan was simple – to bring the moustache back as a bit of a joke and do something for men’s health. No money was raised in 2003, but the guys behind the Mo realized the potential a moustache had in generating conversations about men’s health. Inspired by the women around them and all they had done for breast cancer, the Mo Bros set themselves on a course to create a global men’s health movement.

In 2004 the campaign evolved and focused on raising awareness and funds for the number one cancer affecting men – prostate cancer. 432 Mo Bros joined the movement that year, raising $55,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia - representing the single largest donation they had ever received.

The Movember moustache has continued to grow year after year, expanding to the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands and Finland.

In 2009, global participation of Mo Bros and Mo Sistas climbed to 255,755, with over one million donors raising $42 Million US equivalent dollars for Movember’s global beneficiary partners.

You'll want a T-shirt for Movember. K has designed some that you can get through zazzle. Zazzle keeps 81%, but K will donate the other 19% to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. The main purpose of the shirts, though, is to generate discussion, raise awareness and encourage people to donate.


Make personalized gifts at Zazzle.

Reading list with Scooter's info added

The Scarlet Letter

Just kidding, not quite done yet.

Manhunt

My knowledge of history is best defined by its enormous gaps; the assassination of Lincoln, the conspiracy, and the aftermath is one of those gaps.  Early on I thought that for an academic and non-writer that Swanson was, yes, fabulous, but revised my opinion as the book progressed.  Still, fascinating stuff.

Our Kind of Traitor

Fabulous.

Nemesis

Fabulous.

American Assassin - How Rapp Became Rapp

It's a prequel.  I'm not the biggest Mitch Rapp fan, but this is fabulous.

Juan and NPR

I've been thinking for a long time that Juan Williams had ceased to contribute anything of value to NPR, so I'm not sorry to see him go. He never seemed to be fully prepared and kept offering ill-supported conclusions. But, as Ezra describes so well, NPR erred in the way they let him go.

I always appreciate help getting perspective on huge piles of money

This NYTimes story highlights the disingenuousness of Republicans claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility by putting recent Republican policy choices in perspective. For example:

Calculations by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other independent fiscal experts show that the $1.1 trillion cost over the next 10 years of the Medicare prescription drug program, which the Republican-controlled Congress adopted in 2003, by itself would add more to the deficit than the combined costs of the bailout, the stimulus and the health care law.

Technology is amazing; creative people are amazing.

 "In October of 2010, New York's Atomic Tom had their instruments stolen.  Fortunately...they know how to improvise."

Russell and John

Interesting article that made me go, "Wow, I had no idea."

Adam in Malaysia

HuffPo ran a story (I think it's the AP story) about Adam's decision to perform in Malaysia sans stage kiss, rather than cancel his show there.  I was shocked at the comments that the story generated.  I suppose it's just a handful of hateful bigoted people, but to see it in writing, at HuffPo no less, was disheartening.

And of course, some loser made the predictable "I'm sure he'd love going to prison" comment, but HuffPo deleted that one.  You know how I love him, so it breaks my heart to see people be so hateful to him.  I can't imagine what it's like for parents to see their child bullied or be the object of hate.

In a press conference in Malaysia yesterday, Adam noted the hate that he sees in the comments section of news stories about him:
"[I]f you go down into the comments section, there's a lot of hate.  But you know what? If I focused on the hate and let it affect me, I'd be letting that hate win and I refuse to do that.  I'm going to focus on the positive, focus on the love, and ignore all the hate."

Here's the press conference, in which he could not be more charming:


His Malaysia show was finished a couple hours ago.  He blew the audience a kiss in "Fever" instead of kissing Tommy.  All reports are that his vocals were insane (as judged by people who've seen video of every song in every concert this summer).  Over 16,000 Malaysian fans attended and showed him love.

Update 2:20 pm  Perfect commentary from peacevehicle via Twitter

Adam singing Fever in Manila

In follow-up, here's a video of Adam singing Fever in Manila last night. This is my favorite song on the FYE album. It's the only song on the album that includes a male pronoun; rumor has it that that is enough to scare US radio stations from playing it. It's currently topping or climbing charts in New Zealand and Singapore, though. It's during the tour performance of this song that Adam kisses Tommy and I offer it for context. And beauty. And fun!

This video (like most that I've posted here) is taken by Suz526. You can tell she's quite experienced at videotaping this song since she gets the close-up of the kiss, but then moves to the wider shot by the time the dancing begins.

Islam vs. Adam (with bonus bullet casings)

I've found a story relevant to both Michael's and my blogging interests: Muslims behaving badly (Michael) and Adam (me).

Malaysia's Islamist opposition party on Monday demanded that authorities cancel a planned [October 14] concert by U.S. glam rocker Adam Lambert that they say is promoting "gay culture" in the mainly Muslim country.

"Adam Lambert's shows... are outrageous, with lewd dancing and a gay performance that includes kissing male dancers, this is not good for people in our country," said PAS Youth leader Nasrudin Hasan. Homosexual sex is a criminal offence in Malaysia.

Pretty much every night, Adam kisses Tommy Joe Ratliff (not a dancer, but the bass player) on stage, much to the screaming delight of fans. The nightly kiss is a much-celebrated bit of stagecraft. I suppose it "promotes gay culture" but it probably does more to spur the market for homoerotica.

Apparently, Adam's concert in Kuala Lumpur will go on as planned, though he's required to "dress appropriately and not remove his clothes". He never removes his clothes, unfortunately, so he should be safe. (Some contract drafter in Malaysia is going to lose his/her job for forgetting to get Adam's promise not to pantomime ~pleasuring Tommy's bass.)

Finally, for gun lovers: one of Adam's dancers had some trouble clearing security at an airport (not sure if it was in Manila or Hong Kong) a few hours ago because his outfit or accessories included bullet casings.

Update moments later: Taylor's bracelet made the news. Surprising how many airports that bracelet has made it through without problems.

Update 10:30 am: Adam's story mentioned on NYTimes Arts Beat blog.

Update 3:16 pm: Adam tweets

Update 3:24 pm:  And then Adam tweeted some more:

Update 3:33 pm:  And some more.  (Adam, maybe a column in the NYT would be more efficient.)

Update 4:14 pm:  And then Adam's dad, Eber Lambert, tweeted.

Update 10/12/10, 6:16 pm: PRI's The World covers it, with audio from Adam.

Update 10/13/10, 10:17 pm:  Adam tweets before the Malaysia show:

Because it just gets better every time he sings it...

Adam singing Sleepwalker, from Manilla last night (preceded as always by the fab dancers on tour: Terrance Spencer, Taylor Green, Sasha Mallory and Brooke Wendle):


Update: 10/12/10:  And in Hong Kong last night.