pre-weekend catchall

[chanaleh]

Be part of the ACLU's focus group! Take a look at three proposed ads, and tell the ACLU which message you think will be most effective in rallying opposition to the PATRIOT Act: http://action.aclu.org/PatriotAds

Saw Batman Begins last night with ablock. It is good. I approve. I still can't get into Christian Bale personally (there's something about his mouth that reminds me too much of Jason Bilsky, which is fine in and of itself, but disconcerting out of context), and I can't get into Katie Holmes at all (although I was gratified to learn from imaginaryalice about the Free Katie movement) -- but I loved Alfred and [Sergeant] Gordon, and overall it was still excellent.

Oh, after we saw Howl's Moving Castle last weekend, Tiger Boy was asking what else Christian Bale had appeared in, and I had absolutely no idea. So here's a short list of roles in movies I recognized (even though I've only seen half of them):

• The lead in American Psycho (brrr)
  
• Shaft
  
• Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream
  
• Laurie in Little Women
  
• Swing Kids
  
• Newsies
  
• Henry V
  
• The kid in Empire of the Sun

In other news, we have 15 people officially signed up for the Israel trip, which means WE ARE ON! Yeah!

Getting another ketubah commission yesterday reminded me to work on updating my calligraphy site, except I can't get to rassafrassin' World to edit the directories. *sigh* tremontstshul is offering a Hebrew calligraphy class for the next 6 weeks, btw, if anyone's interested.

It's relatively quiet here today, which means I should be able to get some things off my desk. Looking forward to having Monday off, though, I must admit. For the fireworks: as in previous years, it looks like I'll be staking out space on the Cambridge side of the river near MIT... starting midafternoon with ablock, kalessin, awhyzip and friends, and accumulating a variety of special guest stars throughout the evening. Look for us!

And now, off to lunch with musicjill.

Comments

[mangosteen]

"Swing Kids?!?!"
*clickety click to imdb*
"Huh. Wow. I should get that on DVD."
*clickety click to amazon*

Damn you.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

See, and I knew about/had seen Swing Kids only because it featured Robert Sean Leonard. :-D

[dsrtao]

World just moved into Barry's basement. I don't think they'll be operating for very much longer. Now would be a good time to make sure you have a backup of everything you've stored there...

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for the heads-up. Yeah, I can't say I'm too surprised, if the end really is near.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

That's worrisome... have you heard anything further?

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

He was also in "Reign of Fire" and "The Machinist" (in which he lost 60 pounds).

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Oh, but "Reign of Fire" was awful. I can't honestly recommend it to even the most devoted Christian fan. :P

[cycon.livejournal.com]

Do I detect some anti-Christian sentiment?

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

okay, yeah, that didn't really end up sounding right, did it. Reading right. You know what I mean. :P

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

and I...am running out of initial capitals and overdosing on the emoticons. Time to turn off the computer.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Bale is also Gloria Steinem's step-son, to cover the personal-gossip angle.

[cycon.livejournal.com]

Batman Begins was indeed teh awesome. I loved the "reverse horror movie" bit when he's taking out the criminals on the docks one by one.

And thanks for the ACLU link. :)

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Velvet Goldmine and Metroland are both highly worth watching.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Be careful. This isn't the generic "Israel is dangerous!" warning. I have family over there; since 2000 they've avoided 2 things -- public buses and Jerusalem. 'sall I'm saying. You'll be fine, plenty of people come in and out of there every day, but when ALL of my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. avoid those 2 things. . .

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

If we were to look for you while wandering toward the fireworks, vaguely where do you expect to be?

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Urg! Sorry I missed this query... We usually end up (and so we did this year) on the Mem Dr median strip just downriver from Ames St (near Senior Haus, in MIT terms).

Next year? :-}

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

We'll hope so! We came close this year, but the traffic got us...