John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

A thought on going places

 

"Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."

— Kurt Vonnegut

 

A thought on lives lived ... and described

"Discretion is not the better part of biography."
- Lytton Strachey 

A thought on the finer things

"Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities." 
- Frank Lloyd Wright 

When you get the giggles ...

... you get the giggles.

I made this gif from one of Bill Hader's appearances as Steffon, the "city correspondent" on Saturday Night Live, whose brief was always, and strangely, to suggest family-oriented fun in the Big Apple ... and of course who never did. An ongoing appeal of the sketches was that some of Hader's lines were always changed at the last moment, often leading to breaks and giggle fits. 

via GIPHY

You can see the full sketch below. It's a Christmas one, too!  

The 'Jungle' burns

The New York Times has been doing some interesting 360-degree video, including this one of a fire set at the migrant camp known as "the Jungle" in Calais, France. 

 

The couple who wrote You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling are still happily married, 52 years later

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil have written many songs together, but nothing beats You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, the song they wrote on commission in 1964 for the Righteous Brothers, and more to the point for producer Phil Spector. In fact, it beats most songs by everybody else, too; it's been identified as the most-played song of the 20th century. 

Mann and Weil are still a going concern, as songwriters and as a married couple. That may seem especially remarkable, given the candid tone of a song about a love that has lost its last spark. They appeared last week on Sound Opinions on U.S. public radio. The interview is definitely worth a listen. 

 

Change management: the children's party example

I spent the day at a session for trainers (and it was quite good). This was the most amusing thing I've seen: a case example on responding to change with the case example of a kids' party. 

Kylo Ren, Undercover Boss

My son and I wanted this SNL video this morning, and had quite the chuckle.

 

Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base Posted by Saturday Night Live on Sunday, January 17, 2016

From Vertigo to The Shining and Star Wars, and every other Pixar movie nod in between

Nothing like an homage, especially in the genius world of Pixar movies. Brilliant bit of editing here. 

 

Pixar's Tribute to Cinema from Jorge Luengo Ruiz on Vimeo.

Ooh La La, it's toast

For some reason, I've long associated this - one of my favourite songs - with toast. And then I figured it out: it's the first song on a favourite playlist, one I often play on weekend mornings ... when I'm apt to be making breakfast.

Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson, feat. Bruno Mars ... and Leslie Nielsen and dozens of others

My son passed this one along: a video from What's the Mashup that has clips from no less than 100 movies all cut, right to the beat, to Uptown Funk. 

Which movies, you might ask? You can read the list in the notes section here. 

 

Steve Jobs: A movie about parenting as much as technology

My son and I went to see the movie Steve Jobs today. It's an interesting film, about a man who's both unlikable and charismatic, who was profoundly wrong about many things in his own life and yet was dead-certain in what he wanted to achieve ... and who ultimately got there. (The movie seems to say the latter happened after he dealt with the former. I think.)

The screenplay is dense and rapidly spoken; it actually felt a lot like a play, as it's in three acts, all set in closed spaced at three specific points in time.

I first used Apple products in the 80s, am peculiar enough to have loved the G3 iMac I worked with after it was introduced in 98, and now live in a house with multiple Apple laptops, tablets, phones and things, so the details and specificity in Aaron Sorkin's script were impressive.

Yet, the humanity of the story - a stubborn man's reluctance to let himself love his own child - is what binds it together.