In People: 'Nelson Mandella' on The New Yorker Cover December 16th 2013

All Rights To This Picture Owned by Conde Nast / The New Yorker / Contributors

Link-up In Music: Jay-Z's favourite albums ranked by ... Jay-Z

Arguably, Jay-Z is the smartest dude on the planet, a close second being Arnold Schwarzenegger, before he reached too high too early, but that's another story. So Kottke linked to this, hence I just re-link to him with some other comments.

Jay-Z's book, Decoded, is not the greatest ever written. It's no "Road to Freedom," but I read it because I do believe it's a smart dude. So, in his works, you could argue it's a piece of long-form poetry,  I would rank that maybe around Blueprint 3.

I came across him during Blueprint 1 & 2, as well as the Black Album, all of which were great and continue to be re-listens. I'm also, for some reason, a great fan of American Gangster (movie & soundtrack), which is kind of like a fairy tale of a gangster movie, where you root for the bad guy, even though you know the man's eventually going to get him.

Do I really think he's smart? Yes, absolutely. The smartest? It depends on context, but I do think he's got an empire state of mind (much like Arnold) and moves the chess pieces accordingly. So he deserves my respect for that.

OK, I'm out. 

In Film: Why "Frost / Nixon" was made at this time

Why? Read this article.

About 31 min. into the film.

Frost: Well what is it that you want to achieve
Reston: I'd like to give Richard Nixon the trial he never had.
Frost: Of course, we'll be asking difficult questions.
Reston: Difficult questions… the man lost 21 thousand Americans and a million Indochinese during his administration. He only escaped jail because of Ford's pardon.
Frost: Yes, but equally going after him in some knee-jerk way, assuming he's a terrible guy, wouldn't that only create more sympathy for him, than anything else?
Reston: You know, uhm, right now I submit it's impossible to feel anything close to sympathy for Richard Nixon. He devalued the presidency (emphasis mine) and he left the country that elected him in trauma. The American people need a conviction, pure and simple. The integrity of our political system, of democracy as an idea entirely depends on it. And if in years to come, people look back and say it was in this interview that Richard Nixon exhounorated himself, that would be the worst crime of all.
… (actual silence)

You see a little bit of that conversation in the trailer as well.

To me, this film was one of the best of 2008, and yet Nixon was never convicted, so was it a victory for democracy?

In People: You'll love Russell Peters as a global citizen

Russell has a way of insulting half the room and making it all better by insulting the other half two seconds later. If you somehow cannot take jokes about your race / culture, you'll probably hate him.

In films: "I'm not there"

"The smile is contagious, I was born to love her"—a random lyric from the end-titles of "I'm not there."

I felt like blasting this picture up there and writing no words at all.

Detachment is the word that most comes to mind to describe the film. 6 actors, of which Kate Blanchett was the biggest surprise, because I just couldn't place her, each of them apparently portraying a stage in Dylan's life.

But he's never there and you get this real guessing game going about what's going on.

I like the film, it felt like it went through some important questions about the meaning of life. Do we have a responsibility to change things or just report them? Why don't people revolt more? Is there ever a point to revolting? I also had an good discussion about the phrase "Plus ca change" during the film, essentially meaning: the more we change, the more we all become the same. And vice versa.

And I realised that when we truly listen to ourselves, we all become aliens to everyone else. And when we try to be different, we end up listening too much to others and become like them. It's sort of related to the film, but not really.

"I'm not there" cannot be described as anything less than a piece of art. Which makes it, by nature, difficult to digest. You never know whether you're being taken for a ride or whether there is a great lesson there. But, the acting, the music, I had a good time for 2 hours.

Oh, and I think it's probably best to read some kind of summary, before watching the film.

In people: my Twitter quotes of the day

Twitter.com/vincentvw

I've been collecting a number of quotes over the last few months, not many, but enough for this post.

• "A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." (Warren Buffett)


• [about starting a company] "The truth is boring: the state of the economy doesn't matter much either way." (Paul Graham) http://bit.ly/3rtGG7


• "I only report what I know to be true. This is not some sort of high standard. It is basic journalism." (John Gruber) http://bit.ly/1gE0YN


• "Think about the things that don't change in the next 5-10 years." (Jason Fried).


• "find an editor you can trust, one who is working at the highest possible level of professionalism" (Simon Roberts) http://tinyurl.com/4phbo8


• "How much of human life is lost in waiting…?" Ox, Indiana Jones, 2008


• "Truth be told, I like getting my ass kicked because it makes me angry, motivated and focused." @jasoncalacanis on the downturn


• "When things go bad nowadays, you get yourself an Ism, and you're in business" (M. Vanderhof 1938) http://tinyurl.com/2f56yw


• "Risk Aversion is the single biggest innovation killer" (@KathySierra), via @ceciiil http://tinyurl.com/6x9933


• "He who looks outside, dreams; he who looks inside, awakes." (Carl Jung quote from an AVC comment)


• "what A-list twitterers are doing with their 1000s of followers is turning it into mass-media again."(@Matthias20)

In web: Phil Gyford’s website

Gyford.com

Design:

• I first noticed the nicely categorised lists at the side: currently reading, the recently listened to tracks (changes to most listened artists when you click on a post, which I prefer).
• I liked the choices in rss-feeds: writing only, pictures only, links only, or a combination of the above.
• The picture feed at the top is very subtle.
• And I love, love the time-line view of the things he's done. Best I've seen so far.

Content:

• The time-line view, once again, is excellent and shows a well-rounded background, which should also translate into better writing.
• I can mainly judge the article I originally fell on through Kottke, entitled "Graphs that lie," which makes for an interesting point.
• The video he acted in, called Manicato, is very nice though!

1st impression: I like.

In film: why I crush on Naomi Watts

One movie and one scene.

In film: Jean Arthur, everyday heroine

There's nothing particularly special about Jean Arthur, except that she's funny, she's got spunk, and she prefers to be photographed and filmed on her left side—ever since I found out that fact, I've been paying attention and it's true.

She's famous for three films mainly, in which she's not the quintessential "hot" actress that everyone expects a leading lady to be. Rather she's the everyday heroine, but what a heroine she is.

3 great movies she's in:

• Mr. Deeds goes to town (1936)
• You can't take it with you (1938)
• Mr. Smith goes to Washington (1939)

Enjoy!