Number One Is Walking

My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions

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I picked this up at Portsmouth Public Library on a whim; I've been a Steve Martin fan for (cough) quite a while. And I loved many of the movies he's starred in and written (especially Roxanne and L. A. Story). So…

Well, there's not a lot of text here. It's more like a very wordy comic book about Mr. Martin's movie career. The graphic content is provided by cartoonist Harry Bliss. The combination works fine.

The title refers to what an assistant director says over his walkie-talkie to notify people on the set that the star of the movie is on his way there.

Mr. Martin's reminiscences are nearly entirely golden and pleasant. He's got nice things to say and interesting stories about nearly everyone. (Only exception: actor Dean Jones, who drove Carl Reiner a little nuts by demanding a shooting schedule that worked around his religious duties.)

He even likes the famously irascible David Mamet.

Mr. Martin and Mr. Bliss have a book of cartoons, A Wealth of Pigeons. Next time I go to PPL…


Last Modified 2024-01-15 5:24 AM EDT

You Were Warned

I don't like reusing these eye-candy images, but I was looking at an item in last year's New Year's Eve post which featured a downer essay from Alana Newhouse titled Everything is Broken. And my comment on that was…

I hope she's wrong, I fear she's correct. Sorry to be such a downer, but if you see another "dumpster fire" picture here for December 31, 2022…

So there you go.

Briefly noted:

  • In our "Everything You Know is Wrong" department, Jerry Coyne highlights More debunked or questioned psychological studies. There are a lot of them! But this one stood out:

    No good evidence from the famous Milgram experiments that 65% of people will inflict pain if ordered to. Experiment was riddled with researcher degrees of freedom, going off-script, implausible agreement between very different treatments, and “only half of the people who undertook the experiment fully believed it was real and of those, 66% disobeyed the experimenter.

    Son of a… I just finished a book last week that treated the Milgram experiments as holy writ. I'll have to update my report with another black mark.

  • A story we're following is covered by the Los Angeles Blade ("Southern California's LGBTQ News Source"): Anti-LGBTQ student group threatening legal action at UNH Law.

    A Christian student group opposed to same-sex marriage, abortion and the rights of transgender people is threatening legal action after the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law student governing body failed to act on its petition to form its inaugural chapter at the university.

    New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) correspondent Todd Bookman reported that the Free Exercise Coalition is an organization with the stated mission to “equip religious students in their free exercise of religion,” according to paperwork filed with the school.

    As you might expect from "Southern California's LGBTQ News Source", the Free Exercise Coalition is described:

    Student board members of the group pledge to uphold “Judeo-Christian” religious traditions and beliefs, as well as oppose gay marriage, abortion and transgender people.

    I can believe they oppose gay marriage and abortion. But what does it mean to oppose "transgender people"? What does the pledge actually say? I think that's here.

    I believe that the Judeo-Christian belief system is incompatible with Transgender Ideology, and that a person is either born male or born female according to the Divine’s decree.

    Not quite the same thing, Los Angeles Blade.

    The Blade cites Todd Bookman's report for Commie New Hampshre Public Radio , which is here. As you might expect, it makes the same invidious caricature:

    Board members of the group pledge to uphold “Judeo-Christian” religious traditions and beliefs, as well as oppose gay marriage, abortion and transgender people.

    Again, that should be "transgender ideology." Not people.

    The NHPR report also contains a quote from a local atheist:

    “When people realize the school is not really friendly, not really supportive to DEI, and that the school is not friendly, not really supportive of religious persons and beliefs, no one is going to want to come here,” he said.

    Did he really say that?