Someone Out Standing in My Field

This is what happens when you go Googling for friends: You find someone who seems for all the world like he/she would be sympathetic to your particular bent (in a nice way, I mean), only to find that this person appears to be committed to not talking to you or anyone else. (Actually, in the blogosphere, this may be a sign of health.)

Somehow I doubt this particular person checks Technorati, so linking to her probably isn't going to sow the seeds of love either. Que sera.

UPDATE: Like this post. Favorite graf starts with "i think of it like this..." Nice bit:

tv can be poison. video games are poison. screens are unneccessary for so many. children need to feel what's real: leaves, dirt, wood... they don't need to climb on rubber play sets and fade into a world of screens and bells and whistles.

throw your tv out. play a game with your kid. make your kid get bored- boredom breeds creativity. otherwise, give 'em screens, buy them games, and teach them to live in a world of un-reality.

(Full disclosure: I have a TV, write for TV and own a playset. But we only watch videos, we only watch the episodes of the show I write for on DVD or online, and the timbers of the playset are all made from the cores of cedar trees. So that takes at least half the curse off, right?)

Anakin Skywalker Buys The Farm

Not this farm.

This one.

Here's something about it from somewhere else:

"I recently acquired a farm north of Toronto,” Christensen announces, “and I just bought a big excavator and a dump truck and a bobcat – construction toys. I plan to start building soon. I can’t wait to go out there and move dirt and get my hands dirty.” He bought his heavy-duty vehicles at an auction in Southern Ontario, where to his immense pleasure the people were far more intent on ogling gear than celebrities. “It’s currently a hay farm, but I want it to be a working farm. I want to fill the barn with livestock. First pigs, then cattle and horses."

Most provocative line from the Cele|bitchy post:

Lots of celebs live on cute, trendy farms. But I’m pretty sure none of them own dump trucks that they use to move dirt around their property. And if they do, they must be hip enough to keep quiet about it.

Apparently they're also "hip enough to keep quiet" about their trendiness. Farm life all the rage in Hollywood? Who knew?

Is there an RSS feed for outings of covert celeb farmers (faux or no)? Or is that my job?

UPDATE: I don't think this counts, as she's apparently not working anymore. But then, maybe what this shows is that Hollywood and non-faux farming are like vegetable oil and bottled water?...

A Ballad Mourning Tradition

UPDATE: Looping this in your head helps you to keep working. I don't what that says, but I think it's good.

Bringing Down Ben

This is Ben Mezrich.

This is Ben Mezrich on Hollywood.

Any questions?

There should be.

Like about Ben's answer to this question:

tbc: You got the movie deal even after exposing Hollywood's tracking boards in your Wired piece?

BM: That worked in a positive way. They like any kind of publicity. I didn't say anything people didn't already know: that Hollywood is a big game.

Actually, what he said in that piece were things like:

If the rumors are true, it means that the fix is in: major collusions between studios, arbitrary blackballing, a system that mocks any standard of fair play.

Opinions are one thing. But collusive behavior, or manipulative lies - like the pumping and dumping on an Internet stock board - these are more complicated issues. With no regulation, there's just no way to know how dirty the system really is.

I've seen how the system works, and can no longer pretend that projects are considered purely on their own merits. I am an insider now, reeling from a week that started in Utah, passed through LA, and ended in Sin City. I'm not starstruck anymore. I'm angry.

Guess schmooze, booze and flooze have a way of taking the edge off.

News from the Come-Back-Home Front

Ran out of hay yesterday, called our pals at Cold Brook Farm who usually hook us up, but they're out 'till the next cutting at the farm next door (i.e., June). So in desperation I took myself to the top of the south hill overlooking Cortland to a certain venerable establishment (farm founded 1810) for a) a couple of emergency bales of the grassiest horse/cow hay they had (goats are picky, picky, picky) and b) info on what seeds we should use to start growing hay that our goats will deign to eat.

I got to chatting with Dave, long-time business partner and friend of the family, and learned that the boy who broke that family's generations-long chain of farmers and headed for Hollywood (he got into USC film school--plus the barns aggravated his asthma) was coming home for a commencement speech at his high-school alma mater. (This local boy made good, you see, and is now helming pictures like Enchanted and National Treasure: Book of Secrets.) Moreover, this same local boy has reportedly been making noises about taking up residence in a house on the family farm. This after finally buying a house in the Hills--or somewhere equally astonishing, I can't remember--the top of Mount Olympus? Anyway, he's never there, says Dave. Is the "original Hollywood Farmer" looking to settle down back east?

Small talk travels fast in a small town. Updates as I get them.

The Latest Casualty of the Iraq War:

Jessica Queller's breasts.

Because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of flesh. Or something.

Little known fact: The likelihood of Saddam Hussein developing WMDs from that great big nuclear stockpile of his was figured at 85.9 percent. So it actually makes perfect sense that Jessica declared war on her boobs.

In other news, come to the farm. For one thing, I need to fill a few stalls in the writers' barn. Writers' room. I need to fill a few seats in the writers' room. I also need fewer than two lives. Even if one is only imaginary.