Slept very badly two nights ago, which meant I had to go to Defcon IV last night — the guest room (for total silence and darkness) and an over-the-counter sleep aid, which doesn’t so much help me fall asleep, but keeps me that way through the little wee-hour disturbances that tend to rouse me. I got the six solid hours I require for function, but the downside is morning grogginess. I’ve been watching Gawker.tv clips in an attempt to regain my sense of humor, and it seems to be working. I laughed, anyway.

The movie in that clip — “The Craigslist Killer” — was advertised at one of the movies I saw over the holidays. That’s the movies nowadays: Arrive early, and you not only get previews (which always start late), but a pre-show, as well, featuring commercial after commercial. One was for “The Craigslist Killer,” another for Axe body wash, a fragrance I would happily work a shift running a honeywagon to avoid. Have you seen these? There’s a whole series of them, all about washing balls, washing back doors, washing ball sacks. You’ll feel like you’ve been locked in a room with a 14-year-old boy. Old Spice did it miles, miles better, and it probably smells better, too.

What is it with young men and their fragrances? When my nephew was a teenager, he and his friends went around in clouds of stinkum, more than I ever recall wearing as a girl. I guess they’re self-conscious about their rapidly changing, suddenly mystifying bodies. I don’t mind a nice-smelling man, but my definition is perhaps a little different: A man should smell like clean skin and soap. Even a little hint of b.o. doesn’t bother me; it just means he’s working hard. Whereas I take one whiff of Axe and think: Jersey Shore.

So, let’s skip to the bloggage, shall we?

Two video bits kick us off today. First, for fans of “Boardwalk Empire” or just digital magic in general, a quick walkthrough of the major visual effects used on the show. Yes, yes, they built that huge boardwalk stage in Brooklyn, but they built a lot more on a hard drive. My favorite was the boat, and the maiming of poor, haunted Richard Harrow:

And our own J.C. Burns was BoingBoing’d yesterday, when someone stumbled across his signoff video from WOUB-TV in Athens, Ohio, c. 1977. Groove on the cool ’70s hair and swingin’ fashions, all:

I knew a few of these people. I see Bill Dickhaut makes an early appearance. You pronounced his name “Dickout,” and you can imagine the jokes. You think you’re so funny when you’re 19. Here’s to all the people with funny names, who suffer for it. I like to think it’s not such a cruel world anymore; far more funny names in the world. One of my professors from that time was Korean. Sung Ho Kim. He said he went through grad school in the U.S. being called Wong Hung Lo by his classmates, and it was months before he realized what was going on, at which point he demanded to be called Wong Hung Up.

This story, about the state budget crisis in would-you-believe?-Texas! is weird — it seems to cut off after the lead. I wanted to know a lot more. But the figures are jaw-dropping, even with the weasel word “potentially:”

This month the state’s part-time legislature goes back into session, and the state is starting at potentially a $25 billion deficit on a two-year budget of around $95 billion. That’s enormous. And there’s not much fat to cut. The whole budget is basically education and healthcare spending. Cutting everything else wouldn’t do the trick. And though raising this kind of money would be easy on an economy of $1.2 trillion, the new GOP mega-majority in Congress is firmly against raising any revenue.

Which sent me googling for comparison; Michigan’s shortfall is $1.9 billion, which is regarded around here as apocalyptic. And look here at this photo of the new governor at his first staff meeting, which included his chief of staff — Dennis Muchmore. (See above.)

One final thing: Please stop sending me the incredibly sad pictures taken by the latest French duo to go through town, set up their tripods, and take pictures of Detroit’s very picturesque ruins. I haven’t been so moved since …the last batch, which were probably also taken by Frenchmen. There are so many French journalists wandering through town the hotels have probably renamed the continental breakfast for them, the way the hotels in Honolulu had miso soup and fish on the breakfast buffet in the ’80s. Yes, they’re lovely photos, but I’ve seen versions of every one for years now, and the accompanying stories are always wrong in some fundamental way, and I’m just tired of reading them. They’re perfect examples of how you can get every fact right and still miss the truth.

Off to get some work done. And catch my rabbit.

If I didn’t get my fill of movies-in-the-theater during the holidays, I came pretty close. For all my posturing as a cineaste, the plain fact is most of my viewing is via DVD, so much so that I’ve started noticing how much I’m coming to resemble Kate at her first in-theater movie (“Elmo in Grouchland,” in the year Three): Sitting on Alan’s lap, happily scarfing popcorn, the movie started and she froze. Her hand didn’t move from the popcorn bag, and neither did she, for many long moments. That wide screen was pretty overwhelming.

Nowadays, when I see a movie in a real theater, I need to ask myself, “Was the cinematography in ‘True Grit’ that good, or did it just look good to someone who’s seen the last two Coen brothers’ movies on a not-even-16:9-TV?” Answer: Yes. It’s that good. And after “The King’s Speech,” I had to marvel at Colin Firth, who played two-thirds of his performance with the camera about three inches from his nose. Or maybe they set it back a few feet and used a long lens, but he still filled the screen. And when you fill the screen, you better know what every muscle in your face is doing, and to the extent he seemed to have control over all of them, well, it’s Oscar-nomination time for Colin.

The last of the three was “The Fighter,” and I think I enjoyed that one best of all, and I’m not sure why, although let’s check off its pleasures: The fabulous Melissa Leo, Christian Bale playing a crackhead dancing right up to the edge of chewed scenery but not stepping over, the fabulous Amy Adams, a perfectly fine Mark Wahlberg, and boxing. I’ve come to appreciate boxing late in life; too many Saturday nights spent on the couch watching HBO bouts has finally paid off, and I can see the sport of it now. It’s not just two guys pounding each other, it’s scoring and strategy and plans of attack. The film is based on a true story, and I was glad not to be a lifelong fight fan, because I didn’t want to know the ending. Alan said afterward he could see it coming like a punch in slo-mo, but not me.

But it raised the question about things like that. I don’t think I’m being spoiler-y here about “The King’s Speech” when I tell you the story — about how King George VI learned to master his lifelong stammer — all leads to a climactic address before the entire British Empire, via radio, and that he manages to pull it off. There wouldn’t be much of a movie if he had stood in front of the microphone and gaped like a landed fish, after all. And yet, you watch it unfold with your heart in your throat. The director, Tom Hooper, keeps the suspense high by showing Britons gathered around radios around the world, all gnawing their fingernails to the quick, waiting for their king to buh-buh-blow it. You empathize, the great miracle of storytelling.

The other wonderful thing about “The Fighter” was its several scenes of lively arguments between large groups of people, everyone talking at once, that reminded me how hard it is to capture these things. I guess it’s a credit to the director. When you watch your share of amateur-made short films, that’s the first thing you notice. One person talks. Then another person talks. Then the first person replies. And so on. It’s just not the way life unspools, especially when you’re arguing. I’d love to watch David O. Russell at work. He directed my all-time favorite rom-com, “Flirting With Disaster,” which contains a dinner-party scene just like that — audio chaos, everyone yap-yap-yapping over everyone else. Just sublime.

Anyway, I recommend all three. “The King’s Speech” isn’t a big vitamin sandwich on whole-wheat bread, either. It features Eve Best as Wallis Simpson — how wonderful is that?

Pretty wonderful. As is our first bit of bloggage today, from our own Coozledad. He always wanted to live with a sexual athlete. But he might have arranged the furniture more wisely.

Last night was a slow news night. Some people were late for church, and it made the main page of the New York Times.

Do not take health-care advice from celebrities. A new year’s resolution that’s easy to keep.

Finally, a sad story from a former Freep reporter: Farewell, Detroit. It broke his heart.

As for me, I’m just freezing. The long dark slog toward the light begins with the disassembly of the holiday displays. And it’s Monday. Urg.

For what it’s worth, I think this will be the last entry of the old year. The de facto holiday weekend begins tomorrow, so I might as well get down with the program, and give myself a couple days off as well. I plan to spend them brooding and cleaning. I brood while I clean, and vice versa. Nothing like a dirty bathroom for a good brood. And when it’s all over, you have a clean tub, which always improves my mood. This week I put the finishing touches on a long-simmering creative project, reread it all, and came to a conclusion: Well, this sucks. Get me rewrite. Time for a brood. And a workout. And the removal of all this Christmas stuff.

I get an annual Christmas newsletter from a couple of old friends. She’s a state officeholder in Ohio, he’s a lawyer, and some of you know who I’m talking about by now, but if you don’t, sorry, I’m not going to name them. They’re a loving, ambitious family, and over the years, I’ve found their annual chronicle of their year — and their successes, always their successes — a little oppressive. Their kids are all well-adjusted, smart and attractive. Even their dogs and cats are photogenic. Year after year, the newsletter details trips to glamorous overseas destinations, scholarships, admissions to exclusive schools, election to office, and one year, even a Robert F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. When you’re like me, and your successes have not featured photo ops with Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, and your holiday letter could boil down to a phrase or two — another year older, no longer wearing anything other than Bermuda shorts in summer, love, Nance — opening theirs is sometimes an uncomfortable exercise.

This year’s letter arrived with a big disappointment in the lead — sorry, friends, no insider’s tour of the United States Senate for you in the new year — and then settled into its usual tone of optimism. There was even a guffaw, one made for a Christmas letter, in which their youngest son, already supporting himself as a full-time college student by working as a waiter in a jazz club and “modeling when assignments come along that he can fit into his schedule,” was approached about auditioning for “The Bachelorette,” but turned them down. (I told you this family was special.) And it occurred to me that success of all sorts is relative, and I’m putting 2010 down in the win column. We all stayed healthy, employed and afloat in some very stormy seas. That will have to do this year.

I hope you can read this appreciation of Quincy Jones (Wall Street Journal, paywall, etc.) pegged to his new book. If not, I’ll share one morsel I loved:

As (Michael) Jackson’s producer, Mr. Jones selected the songs—plowing through 800 to find nine—hired the musicians and engineering team, and supervised the recording, mixing and mastering of his three monster hits. Yet Jackson lost his appreciation for Mr. Jones’s contributions. “All he does is sit there and hold his head,” said Jackson, according to Mr. Jones. Jackson’s father, Joe, claimed the producer spent too much on “Thriller,” though the budget was well under $1 million. Thus far, the album has sold about 100 million copies.

Have they given out the Darwin Awards yet? Because I think we have a late-season winner.

It’s easy for the mayor of a city like New York to think your job is somehow greater than its description. Michael Bloomberg should have studied the career of Chicago’s Jane Byrne — in the end, it’s all about snow removal.

And with that, adieu for the year. See you on the new calendar.

I simply refuse to pay close attention to wonk-circle chitchat during a holiday week, but I gather this piece on the current fashion for libertarianism was the subject at hand yesterday.

I read it. It made sense. It seemed fair. Of course, libertarians hated it. I gather they thought it got mean toward the end. I’m taking that as a sign it was pretty good. This passage got to the gist pretty well:

There are reasons our current society evolved out of a libertarian document like the Constitution. The Federal Reserve was created after the panic of 1907 to help the government reduce economic uncertainty. The Civil Rights Act was necessary because “states’ rights” had become a cover for unconstitutional practices. The welfare system evolved because private charity didn’t suffice. Challenges to the libertopian vision yield two responses: One is that an economy free from regulation will grow so quickly that it will lift everyone out of poverty. The second is that if somehow a poor person is still poor, charity will take care of them. If there is not enough charity, their families will take care of them. If they have no families to take care of them—well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Of course, we’ll never get there. And that’s the point. Libertarians can espouse minarchy all they want, since they’ll never have to prove it works.

I like that because it restates what I’ve been saying for years: Being a libertarian means never having to say, “So help me God” on swearing-in day. Today we have a few exceptions, but not enough to change libertarianism from a philosophy to a party. All you need to know is that Ron Paul is pro-life to know what a joke it is. Sorry, ladies — your liberty stops when you get knocked up.

And also, this:

It’s no coincidence that most libertarians discover the philosophy as teenagers. At best, libertarianism means pursuing your own self-interest, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. At worst, as in Ayn Rand’s teachings, it’s an explicit celebration of narcissism. “Man’s first duty is to himself,” says the young architect Howard Roark in his climactic speech in The Fountainhead. “His moral obligation is to do what he wishes.” Roark utters these words after dynamiting his own project, since his vision for the structure had been altered without his permission. The message: Never compromise. If you don’t get your way, blow things up. And there’s the problem. If everyone refused to compromise his vision, there would be no cooperation. There would be no collective responsibility. The result wouldn’t be a city on a hill. It would be a port town in Somalia. In a world of scarce resources, everyone pursuing their own self-interest would yield not Atlas Shrugged but Lord of the Flies. And even if you did somehow achieve Libertopia, you’d be surrounded by assholes.

(I think someone saw that video.)

OK, then. I have to say, with all my complaining yesterday, I do love the pace of this week. Fifty percent of the world is on vacation. No one calls. I can sleep late. Why yesterday, I even took time for a luncheon graze through Costco — they had all the party dips and spreads out for sample. I bought a bottle of champagne just to be a good customer. And then reflected that my life is pathetic, and all I need is a Christmas sweater to tip all the way over into total nerd-dom.

A quick skip to the bloggage? Sure:

Lesbians — they’re just like us! They go on vacation, wear silly hats, and shop at Hermes.

Of all the things that would upset the right about $P, it took…s’mores? We live in Crazytown.

Take that disembodied hand off my knee, or the best of the year’s worst Photoshops.

Think I’ll go do some more pretend work.

Just to be festive, and just because one item had stubbornly eluded all my shop-local efforts, and just because it was on the way to the movie theater where we were seeing “True Grit” Friday afternoon, we stopped at Best Buy on Christmas Eve. The computer said they had nine copies of Crystal Bowersox’s “Farmer’s Daughter,” but the best efforts of the three of us and the nice salesgirl couldn’t turn up one.

“I could check in the back,” she offered, not very enthusiastically. Yes, The Back, the famous Back, always your last-ditch hope in stalking the elusive whatever-it-is. I took a look at the line, which stretched from the registers through a side aisle, almost to the back of this very big big box. It was a line worthy of a new Apple product, a Springsteen concert where tickets were only available at the door, or the Soviet Union. My resolve cracked. Screw it, Amazon’s handling this one. We’ll have it shipped directly to my sister-in-law’s house. Let’s go to the movies.

And with that, the holiday really began. It was a nice one. Kate got a guitar and a USB mic. She was upstairs within a couple of hours, laying down tracks in Garage Band. I got new kitchen stuff and a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook. Alan got a framed photo he’d admired in a small show last summer. It’s a street scene in contemporary Havana, because we are of course communists. I still recall 1993, when Alan and I were planning our wedding, and the evil empire was collapsing and surely Fidel would fall in a matter of weeks. “Let’s go to Cuba for our honeymoon,” I said. “I want to see it before Hilton and Marriott and all the rest of them get their mitts on it.” Ha ha ha. (We ended up honeymooning in San Francisco — same politics, colder climate. Ha ha.)

I’d still like to go. Although the photographers had some cautions: “Bring food,” they said. “We went to bed hungry a few nights. You can have all the money in the world, but there’s still nothing to buy.” Vacation paradise.

I also got a Keurig, and if you don’t know what one is yet, you will soon — it’s the single-cup coffeemaker that’s sweepin’ the nation. Now that I have reached the age of galloping decrepitude and near-constant exhaustion, I find myself wanting a single cup of coffee from time to time. But I’m too bourgeois to make a pot, because I know I would throw most of it out, etc. Enter the Keurig, which follows the disposable razor/inkjet printer model of economic extortion — cheap machine, dear supplies. I don’t care if the little K-cups are pricey. I don’t spend much money on alcohol anymore, so I’ll just shift the funds over to caffeine. And it makes a sublime cup of coffee, in about 60 seconds. I’m an American, and trash production is my birthright.

How was “True Grit,” you ask? Pretty good. Not perfect, but very entertaining. Where do the Coen brothers find these fantastic character actors to play the little parts? The voice of the lawyer who cross-examines Rooster Cogburn in the opening scenes will ring in my ears for days; it belongs to Joe Stevens. And Roger Deakins’ camera work was glorious, as usual. I don’t think Kate liked it very much, however; she said she couldn’t understand Jeff Bridges. And there was a big continuity error, after Maddie swims the river with her horse and faces Rooster and LaBoeuf on the other side, completely dry. I guess they had a reason for it, but it bugged me, too.

How was your holiday? Are you off this week? I wish I was, but alas, I am not. And so I’m outta here.

A little bloggage:

When the roll is called up yonder, Jimmy Carter will be there. A true Christian (despised by many other alleged Christians).

Jon Stewart, an heir to Edward R. Murrow? Maybe.

Roy does the dirty work of reading the right-wing blogs so you don’t have to, and has compiled his year-end top 10. You have to read some of these to believe them.

And now I’m off. Good Monday, all.

All that talk yesterday about Christmas carols reminded me of when Kate was in elementary school, and how the Christmas choir concert would unfold. Mrs. DeCarlo always mixed the grade levels up, and the kindergarteners usually came in the second half of the program. One year, as the curtain rose on the assembled little ones, the man next to me slapped his palms together once and said, “Yeah! Now for the good stuff!” His child was not in kindergarten; he just knew what he was talking about.

Mrs. DeCarlo didn’t stint on the material, either — they always sang the most charming songs, frequently with hand gestures. My favorite was “Christmas is Coming” with new lyrics: Christmas is coming, and we are getting fat / ’cause we eat too much of this and that. It was so sweet it made your teeth hurt. A little boy in the first row began potty-dancing to such an urgent extent that the other music teacher helped him into the wings. He returned during the second number to scattered applause.

It was like that every year. K-1 are the rock stars of any school concert.

Folks, I’m hanging up the laptop for the rest of the week. Too much left to do, too little to say. (Obviously.) I might toss up some photos, but this will be it until Monday. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and until then, here’s some bloggage to chew on:

An interview with the Christmas innkeeper, by John Scalzi:

The baby is born, right? And then these guys show up. And they say, we have brought gifts for the child. And I say, that’s nice, what did you bring. And they say, we have brought gold and frankincense and myrrh. And I say, you’ve got to be kidding.

What’s wrong with that?

Let me quote another Christmas song for you. “A child, a child, shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold.” Really? Silver and gold? And not, oh, I don’t know, a blanket? An newborn infant is exhibiting signs of possible hypothermia and your response is to give him cold metal objects? Who ever wrote that song needs a smack upside the head.

A wonderful Detroitblog on the real Santa. He drives a sleigh — you really must see the picture, it’s a hoot — and he’s black. I’d love to see his naughty list.

Robin Givhan, the Washington Post fashion writer, is leaving the paper. Too bad. I’d love to see a compare-and-contrast piece between Michelle Obama and, oh, Jane Sullivan Roberts. I can’t believe we have a first lady who wears Marc Jacobs. I don’t know if the Obamas will be gone in two years or six, but when they go, I will miss ’em. They are the most photogenic First Family in…maybe ever.

Who have you showered with lately? Barney Frank schools a reporter from CNS. (You can tell CNS is a shoestring outfit, because they can’t afford a good microphone.

Roy has finally had enough of the war-on-Christmas nonsense. Note cleverly hidden racism in the Christmas card that poor National Review writer is allegedly forced to buy (“Whass Happenin’ on the Holidays?”). Yeah, that’s all that’s available where I shop, too. What a load.

Not to end on a sour note, but I’m off to the Eastern Market. List, checked twice: Ham, nuts, peppermint bark, whatever else tickles my fancy. Merry Christmas! The New Year comes later.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for an 18-year-old movie. If you haven’t seen “The Crying Game” and still would like to, best head for Gawker.

You can only watch “The Crying Game” once. It’s a surprise package (heh heh), and you get one shot at the surprise. Unlike other films with a fourth-quarter twist — “The Sixth Sense,” “The Usual Suspects” — it can’t be enjoyed a second time. I watch the latter two films for a few minutes when I surf past them on cable, just to see if they cheated, even a little bit. So far in my frame-by-frame examination: Don’t think so. “The Sixth Sense,” in particular, was very very clever in how it built to its climax, and you can go back through every significant scene and, nope, didn’t cheat there, nope, not there, etc. “The Usual Suspects” is more of a final-moments joke, but it’s an enjoyable one, and any rewatching includes Pete Postlethwaite, so, y’know, WIN. The only thing I don’t like about Pete Postlethwaite is spelling his name, and the way he says, “I work for Keyser Soze” cancels that out.

But back to “The Crying Game,” which I just can’t enjoy anymore. Loved it the first time, still think it’s a wonderful movie, but once you know the big honkin’ hairy secret, not so much. I keep yelling at the screen: Aren’t you wondering why this girl’s hands are so big? Aren’t her hips just a little too slim? And is she really that beautiful, or just…hello, Stephen Rea! Wake up and smell the coffee!

My pal Lance Mannion, who has a background in theater, says it’s an old stage trick, just a simple bit of conjuring. We know Forrest Whitaker was in love with this girl. Rea falls in love with her picture. Because he loves her, and we identify with him, we love her, too. I’m not the smartest moviegoer in the world, but I didn’t fall off the truck yesterday, and the big reveal totally surprised me. The whole theater gasped. And now the illusion is so well and truly shattered, all I can think on subsequent viewings is that Stephen Rea plays an Irishman who’s been brain-damaged by drinking, or is perhaps half-blind.

Poor me.

I’m talking about movies today because I’m thinking about movies, because this year’s holidays fall on weekends, and I intend to lap a few up, the first with Kate (“True Grit,” “The King’s Speech”) and I hope at least one with Alan (“The FIghter,” maybe “Blue Valentine”). And I’m looking at end-of-year lists, particularly David Edelstein’s Best Performances wrapup, which revealed one I hadn’t even heard of until now — “Mother and Child.” (Where are all these films playing? I live in a big city, and a significant percentage fly straight over my head.) I also enjoyed the 14 most thankless female roles of 2010, as at least one of these was inflicted upon me this year — “The Killer Inside Me,” which you should avoid like a cesspool.

And now I’m off like a prom dress, to do last-minute shopping of this, that and the other thing. I might also take my Mont Blanc pen in for a cleaning and degunking, which they will charge me for. I haven’t paid a repair bill on an Apple computer ever, but this pen is one headache after another. Good thing I do most of my writing on this thing.

Bloggage:

Don’t ask don’t tell — repealed.

Census — not surprising. Michigan stands alone as the only state to lose population in the last decade. Foreman says these jobs are going, boys, and they ain’t coming back to your hometown…

Finally, a Christmas movie you couldn’t pay me enough to see: Little Fockers. I wonder what they paid DeNiro for this thing. I hope it was a lot.

Off to buy REDACTED and REDACTED for REDACTED and REDACTED.

I generally have the chance to attend a big, splashy, over-the-top Broadway musical — i.e., the ones where tickets start at $100 and climb swiftly upward — about once a lifetime, if that. I find ticket prices like that a little hostile. In fact, now that I think about it, the only show like that I’ve seen, if you rule out a few also-rans, is probably “Miss Saigon,” which I didn’t even like. I thought the helicopter stunt was showoffy, and, well. Give me a night of Eugene O’Neill and I’m happy. I think theater should be all about talking and minimally dressed stages, but your mileage may vary. No judgment. Life is a cabaret, old chum.

So it may be that I’m looking at the ongoing train wreck of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” with unsympathetic eyes. You tell me:

An actor performing in the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” was injured during a performance Monday night, according to the police and several witnesses.

Theatergoers who attended Monday’s performance of “Spider-Man,” a $65 million musical featuring complicated aerial stunts, said that they saw a performer playing the title hero fall about 8 to 10 feet into a pit during the closing minutes of the show, and that some equipment fell into the audience when this occurred. A video of the performance showed a line holding the performer apparently snap.

The story goes on to reveal some remarkable facts. I caught the tail end of a public-radio segment about the problems the show is having getting up to speed, but it sounded far more routine than this — the accident described above is only the latest and most serious in a string of mishaps that have included concussions and some sort of injury suffered by actors in “a sling-shot technique meant to propel them across the stage.” Oh.

The show’s budget is at $65 million. I wonder what they’re paying for insurance.

I know this production — it seems wrong to call it a “play,” somehow — is directed by Julie Taymor, the MacArthur-branded genius of the Disney musicals. Since her branding, her work has been a tetch uneven, at least if you accept the critical consensus that “Across the Universe” was a disorienting p.o.s. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, but just one paragraph of his review gave me a headache:

Julie Taymor, famous as the director of “The Lion King” on Broadway, is a generously inventive choreographer, such as in a basic-training scene where all the drill sergeants look like G.I. Joe; a sequence where inductees in Jockey shorts carry the Statue of Liberty through a Vietnam field, and cross-cutting between dancing to Beatles clone bands at an American high school prom and in a Liverpool dive bar. There are underwater sequences which approach ballet, a stage performance that turns into musical warfare, strawberries that bleed, rooftop concerts and a montage combining crashing waves with the Detroit riots.

A swift recovery to the fallen actor, whose injuries we don’t even know the extent of, yet. Best of luck to this production; the world needs all the art it can take. I’d say “break a leg,” but somehow I think that would be in bad taste.

Tuesday of Christmas week — time to check the list a third time and run around buying last-minute stuff I should have gotten weeks ago. Also, groceries. Apparently there are two other people living in this house, and they expect to be fed from time to time. So I’d best be doing that soon. Any bloggage? Sure.

Via 4dbirds, PolitiFact takes on a meme circulating through the right/left/crazy blogosphere: No, Virginia, the government does not want to regulate your backyard garden. These people will believe anything.

Stop laughing. This isn’t funny. It’s NOT funny when someone shoots himself in his sleep. In a car. On the Ohio Turnpike. Well, the guy is from Detroit; he had his reasons.

MMJeff wanted to draw attention to this story, so consider it drawn. A plan to make homelessness history? Good luck with that. How to address the voluntary homeless, the street kids and other spare-changers who make street navigation in places like San Francisco and Seattle so irritating? Not much mention made of those. The plan is ambitious, however, and I wish its executors well. Like the producers of “Spider-Man.” But we shall see.

Some years back, my paper ran an interview with the author of a new book. I forget the title, but it was a guide for younger women who marry older men, which the author had done. How this happened was glossed over in a sentence:

“Bob was married when he met Tiffany, but he soon separated from his wife, and they began their relationship.”

Oh.

I believe Bob was a dentist, and Tiffany was a hygienist in his office. Oh.

A friend clipped the story, and scrawled in the margin: She broke up a family, and now we’re doing an approving story about her.

For once, we were ahead of the curve. For the first time in maybe ever, this NYT story from the Vows pages was on both memeorandum, the political blog aggregator, and wesmirch, the gossip blog aggregator. You can see why:

Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla met in 2006 in a pre-kindergarten classroom. They both had children attending the same Upper West Side school. They also both had spouses.

Blah blah blah about how well they got along and what fast friends they became, and:

They got each other’s jokes and finished each other’s sentences. They shared a similar rhythm in the way they talked and moved. The very things one hopes to find in another person, but not when you’re married to someone else.

Ms. Riddell said she remembered crying in the shower, asking: “Why am I being punished? Why did someone throw him in my path when I can’t have him?”

In May 2008, Mr. Partilla invited her for a drink at O’Connell’s, a neighborhood bar. She said she knew something was up, because they had never met on their own before.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” he recalled saying to her. She jumped up, knocking a glass of beer into his lap, and rushed out of the bar. Five minutes later, he said, she returned and told him, “I feel exactly the same way.” Then she left again.

Well, you can see how this would be a talker across the spectrum. The National Review sent its designated old maid to tut-tut. Even Gawker and the Village Voice joined the fun of beating up on John and Carol Anne.

I’ve known a couple or two who got their start like this. It’s unfortunate, but it’s really not the worst behavior I’ve seen in 53 years of life on the planet. I believe following your feelings should end when you start following a stroller, but everybody’s different, and besides, without couples like John and Carol Anne, who would we beat up on? My puzzlement is best summed up by the Voice writer, who wondered, “Why would you sign up for this? Why would you apply to air your family business? WHY ARE YOU SO DAMN PROUD OF YOURSELVES?” Well, yeah.

There is one blanket exception to the rule I would make in all cases, and that’s when one spouse decides he or she wants to leave for a same-sex partner. In those situations, the most decent thing you can do as an onlooker is button your lip, avert your eyes and silently Be There. I’m still waiting for the Times to Go There. Maybe next year.

Not much going on here today. We’re into the holiday slide, methinks. School is out, but work carries on. We had the Nall Family Christmas Saturday, which went very well, although my brother overbought, as usual. He could head these situations off at the pass if he did a little advance planning, but as usual, the last couple of days were punctuated by phone calls from the mall. The most famous of these came one year, 60 minutes before dinner was to start, and went like this: “Does Nancy need a vacuum cleaner?”

I didn’t. But this year I got a soap dispenser with an electronic sensor, which cracks me up. Did I activate the optional blinking-light timer, which runs for 20 seconds, so that your hands get good and washed? You need to ask?

So let’s skip to the bloggage:

I know the Irish drink, but I had no idea the Brits were this bad:

The foul smell is ominous. Downstairs in a central London pub, a woman has passed out on the floor of the ladies toilets, lying on the cold tiles with her dress pulled above her waist and knickers at her feet.

Intoxicated and at risk of choking on her own vomit, this is no teenage tearaway but a respected economist and middle-aged chief executive of an international company. It is Christmas party season in the City.

The City being, of course, the financial districts of one of the world’s most important cities. A great rewrite of “Silver Bells” is just waiting to happen.

This guy hangs out at a corner I sometimes pass en route to the freeway. Sometimes I wave. I used to think he was homeless and crazy, but I can see the iPod wires in this clip, and he’s obviously oriented enough to know what season it is:

Off to work. Happy Monday, all.

It seemed the sun would never rise today, and I imagine it will be in a big hurry to get out this evening. I understand there’s a reason for that. It’s also the reason I’m feeling lamer and blanker than usual this morning. It couldn’t possibly be that I had four glasses of wine on a mostly empty stomach last night. As I had the night off and we were home before 11, I followed them with an over-the-counter sleep aid, ’cause I had the rare opportunity for a full night’s sleep and I didn’t want anything short of a wailing smoke alarm to penetrate it.

And sleep I did, but I still feel wrapped in cotton wool. After breakfast and two cups of coffee. Oh, well. If you’re not allowed a third cup four days before the winter solstice, when are you allowed?

And, not making excuses here, but I have work to do on a story. So let’s go to the bloggage early, shall we?

(Third cup, in progress.)

You’ve probably heard of PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times’ website, which strives to bring light to the darkness by fact-checking claims made by politicians. It was the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for Public Service, i.e., the best of the big P’s, and has been widely emulated around the country — there’s a version of it in Michigan now, run by a non-profit think tank, and original-recipe PolitiFact has licensed its name to other papers, as well. Seven states have PolitiFact sites now. (Don’t worry, Indiana. I’m sure you’ll get one…some day.)

This week, PolitiFact named its Lie of the Year. Before you click, see if you can guess. Anyone? Anyone? OK, Iet’s cut to the chase:

PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections.

Remember, earlier in the week, when we discussed the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and how they game the system? They have company: The Center for Science in the Public Interest, another group of nutritional busybodies. Yesterday they were a player in this story, which had the conservative blogs and Facebook rockin’ with outrage:

With perfect Grinch timing, a consumer group has sued McDonald’s demanding that it take the toys out of its Happy Meals.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, claims it violates California law for the hamburger chain to make its meals too appealing to kids, thus launching them on a lifelong course to overeating and other health horrors. It’s representing an allegedly typical mother of two from Sacramento named Monet Parham. What’s Parham’s (so to speak) beef? “Because of McDonald’s marketing, [her daughter] Maya has frequently pestered Parham into purchasing Happy Meals, thereby spending money on a product she would not otherwise have purchased.”

The story goes on to harumph about Parham’s lack of parenting skills, blah blah blah, to the point that you can almost ignore a few key phrases:

You’re probably wondering: How is this grounds for a lawsuit? No one forced Parham to take her daughters to McDonald’s, buy them that particular menu item, and sit by as they ate every last French fry in the bag (if they did).

No, she’s suing because when she said no, her kids became disagreeable and “pouted” – for which she wants class action status. If she gets it, McDonald’s isn’t the only company that should worry. Other kids pout because parents won’t get them 800-piece Lego sets, Madame Alexander dolls and Disney World vacations. Are those companies going to be liable too?

No, New York Daily News, all the conservative bloggers in the world and MMJeff, they aren’t. Filing a suit and seeking class-action status isn’t the same as winning a suit or getting class-action status. I know we have many lawyers in this house, who can maybe speak to the possibility of Ms. Parham’s suit getting anywhere beyond the pages of the New York Daily News, but at this point, it hardly matters. They’re in a New York daily newspaper, their message has been amplified, they’ve put McDonald’s on notice that it has wandered into the crosshairs of the media-savvy Center for Science in the Public Interest and WIN WIN WIN.

The CSPI is the group behind the “health scares” of the ’90s, which really showed how this ridiculous gamesmanship works, the “studies” that showed fettuccine alfredo, Chinese food and movie-theater popcorn is bad for you. Remember the phrase “heart attack on a plate?” That was theirs.

Another Xtranormal winner: Why your waiter hates you.

Did you know Coozledad has a pet chicken? And that he talks to the animals, just like me? He does.

Phone’s ringin’. Gotta go. Have a great weekend, all.