Welcome to America: Speak Spanish or Go Home!

First, a little about me: I speak six languages, and I am fully bilingual in English and Spanish. Some people have remarked how interesting they find it when they see me do mathematics and I jump and alternate between the two tongues!

As a multilingual person, I always found the "English language only" movement to be a meaningless inflexibility that transforms ignorance and provincialism into a point of pride. Sure, English is a great equalizer and lingua franca and all that, and it is certainly important for for new immigrants to speak English well for no other reason than upward mobility, a fact I can support with family experience! Still, that ideal doesn't always match the "facts on the ground," and people that want to meaningfully participate in their communities should do what intelligent and mature adults always do: adjust to their circumstances instead of instead of insisting everyone adjust to them.

I lived for a number of years, while on full scholarship as an undergrad, in Astoria, Queens, a neigborhood that is mostly Greek to the point some restaurants publish menus in Greek only. So, guess what I learned to do? Speak Greek! I can still do it, too. In fact, after a few months with my looks, lots of people I regularly interacted with assumed I was Greek myself! I swear, only in America could lack of knowledge, xenophobia and thickheaded obstinacy become virtues instead of obvious liabilities.

Obviously some may take exception to that characterization, and to that I have two responses.

The first is that the stereotype of the "Ugly American," monolingual and hidebound, is a stereotype that has real longevity because it is unfortunately often true. Before anyone has the right to get offended about a stereotype, they should ask themselves this question: what have you, personally done to contradict that stereotype?

My fellow women: if you don't want men to stereotype us as incompetent and dependent...don't be incompetent and dependent! If you don't already know, learn how to change a tire. Take a higher level math and science course. Jars can be a pain in the ass, but I use a mechanical jar opening kitchen gizmo, and I have a stepladder in the apartment.

Second, there is indeed inarguably a segment of the American population that revels in ignorance and obstinacy. I do not agree with President Obama on everything, but when he said that every American child should learn a second language, it struck me as a totally true, noncontroversial common-sense statement. No one, anywhere, should just speak one language, and the fact that many do is indeed shameful. But lo and behold, some pundits took exception to the idea Americans should have to learn a language other than English! I just couldn't believe it!

Read them here. These links are work-safe but sanity-unsafe.

Obama: Americans who aren't bilingual are an embarassment (Well, it is an embarrassment!)

Neil Cavuto: Obama wants U.S. Kids to Speak Spanish?

ALIPAC - Voters reject Obama's call for bilingualism

All of this is a part of a greater trend in our culture I find troubling, one so masterfully lampooned on the Simpsons: the demonization of intellectuals, specifically, the manipulation of the doubt that drives science into claiming there is a dispute in areas where in reality there is a universal consensus. Of course I'm talking about anti-science positions like creationism and global warming denial. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to deny physical reality.

The most embarassing moment in recent political history was in Bobby Jinda's response to a recent State of the Union address. He complained about stimulus but singled in on the single worst aspect of the entire bill, support to fund volcano research and early warning. The kicker here is that a few days afterward, one of the volcanoes so monitored erupted!

This reminds me of a great Simpsons episode where a giant comet headed for the town but was narrowly averted. An angry mob formed, with the rallying cry "Let's burn down the observatory...so this never happens again!"

Renaissance Man: Morris Mendez

If you've ever seen a bodybuilding mag in the past five years or so, you can probably recognize Morris Mendez. There's nothing sexier than a bald guy. And best of all, he's as aerodynamic as a car hood ornament! What's even more impressive about Morris Mendez is that he's a true Renaissance Man, with successes not just in natural bodybuilding and modeling, but also in other fields: he's a clinical psychologist that works with disabled kids. You go, boy!

Anyway, he's got the most intense, soulful look ever. He's one of the few bodybuilders you could just look at his face.

"Mathematics Illuminated"

For those of us with a love and curiosity about mathematics, check out the 13-episode series, available entirely online,"Mathematics Illuminated."

Visit the Series Website

Series like this, that really explored and laid out mathematical functions, are part of what made me a fan of math in the first place. Well, that, and the art of M.C. Escher.

That’s NOT Funny! Review of “Young Hercules”

Booooooo!

Thanks to Hulu, you can see all the episodes of Young Hercules for free, and they’re worth that, too. The humor reaches near-Battletoads levels of terrible. Just check out the titles like “Lyre, Liar.”

Hey, I can do some Greek-themed puns too:

“A Pita the Action”
“Olive You Very Much”
“Juno What I Mean?”
“The Feta All Mankind”

HILARIOUS!

The jokes in this series are like a mighty Cyclops of myth: you see it coming from a mile away and don’t laugh at all.

QUESTION: where was hunky Jerry O’Connell during all of this? He was big during the nineties, right? He would be my first, second, third and only choice to ever play a young Hercules. He has incredible heart-melting blue eyes and a likeable gee-whiz quality.

I did a double-take when I saw the credits. That couldn’t really be quirky, indie character actor and Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling as Young Hercules, could it? The star of Lars and the Real Girl, which was easily the best movie of 2008, far and away superior to any other film that year? (I am still outraged that it wasn’t nominated.)


Ryan Gosling plays Hercules as a likeable yet quiet loner. Gee, what a stretch for him.

Also, it seems the actor playing the god Aries is named Kevin Smith, same as the stoner-movie director, and I had to double-check to make sure they weren’t the same guy. I’ve had friends that swear by him (the director, that is), but I’ve never understood the appeal of his obtuse and dimwitted stoner-comedies (actually, I understand perfectly since there’s a segment of the audience that finds jokes about the Ice Planet Hoth to be the height of wit, and since my mother may one day read this blog I’m not going to say whether I’ve taken my share of puffs from the giggle-sticks). His films seem custom made for people that enjoy Family Guy, but wish it was more subtle.

Anyway, Kevin Smith’s Aries is the only guy in the series that’s sporting a little beefcake arms. He has triceps of downright Jamie Bamberian proportions.

The episode I immediately went to was “Girl Trouble,” because contrary to my reputation as an ice-queen with a withered black heart, I do enjoy love stories as much as I enjoy CGI monsters. So why not have them together? And the good-natured, macho joshing between three guys that have trouble getting laid who compete over a woman seems believable. At least until you see the girl they’re fighting over, who, in the words of the movie “Spinal Tap,” looks like an Australian’s nightmare.



Speaking of the antipodes, the best part of this series is the constant struggle of the talent pool to hide their Kiwi accents. To his credit, Sam Raimi thought of filming a cheapie fantasy series in New Zealand long before anyone else, and certainly before Peter Jackson stole the credit for that particular idea in the eyes of the world.

John Cleves Symmes's Globe

If there's one peeve of mine, it's cranks.

All cranks, whether they insist 9/11 was an inside job, or we never reached the Moon, or there are UFOs that kidnap people, irritate me to no end.

There is one theory that actually is pretty interesting to me, the idea the earth is in fact hollow and there are gigantic openings at the poles. There's something so outlandish and 19th Century and improbable about this theory that it's actually a little charming.

The biggest booster for this crank theory was a guy named John Cleves Symmes, who in the 1850s petitioned Congress for three ships (like Columbus!) to head to what he thought were the openings at the polar regions into the center of the earth. He actually was about to get it, too, until the Civil War happened, which put an end to the whole thing.

Symmes's father was actually a great man, a signer of the Declaration of Independence for New Jersey (which to my mind, explains everything!) and his first cousin was the wife of President William Henry Harrison. Further proof that in Washington, it's possible to fail upwards really spectacularly.

Still, Symmes had made a fabulous one-of-a-kind globe detailing his crank view of what the earth looks like. Perfect for the crazy collectors among us.

Dennis "Inhuman" Newman

I can't think of a bodybuilder as sensational as Dennis Newman was in the early 1990s, and he was the first bodybuilder I ever knew by name as opposed to image. It was like he was custom-designed for bodybuilding magazine covers: soulful, crystalline blue eyes, he had a masculine and handsome chiseled face like a movie star, youthful and virile with a body like a classical Greek sculpture of a deity. He was so flawless he almost didn't seem real, exemplifying the ultimate male specimen.



His proportions were sensational: an incredible 6' and 245 pounds. No wonder he was often approached to be the "face" of the sport in muscle magazine covers, with one of the greatest physiques of all time. He was a rising star, and had nowhere to go but up...


...until he was diagnosed with leukemia, only ten weeks after getting his pro card and winning the Mr. USA.


Since then, we haven't heard much from Dennis. Nonetheless, I am very, very pleased to announce that Dennis won his battle with Leukemia and is with us today! There is a type of strength that trascends and is far more all-encompassing than just how much you can bench.



For many years when I thought of the perfect good looking guy I thought of "Inhuman Newman." In fact, the first time I read Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame I thought of Newman at every loving description of the ultra-beautiful Pheobus. But as often happens I forgot about him until recently when a reader reminded me of him.


Part of the reason that teenage girls often have their objects of adoration be pop stars that look like teenaged girls is that, as girls are initially discovering sexuality, men, who are often very aggressive, come off as extremely threatening. This is part of the reason for the fascination with pop stars, and is one of the reasons (though not the only one) for the fascination with male homosexuality. I always thought someone like "Inhuman" Newman would be what male idols are like in an alternate universe where there's a lot less anxiety about men.

I've always felt like laughing bitterly at movies that show awkward young guys stumbling as they try to talk to girls. Guys are such crybabies, I tell you. I assure you, nothing could be greater than the real fear women have of boys in early days!

From here on I'll let his photos and videos speak for themselves. What an object of adoration!








Considering his future illness, this video, which talks about his promise as a young 23 year old, is actually unintentionally bittersweet.



Well, what do you know? He was "the captain of the football team," the biggest High School movie cliche of all. Sort of like...(dare I say it)...Jake Ryan?



Also: I got through this entire blog post without a single Seinfeld reference! Woohoo!

Arnold vs. Bear: Hercules Goes to New York

After my look at Pumping Iron, a friend recommended I give Hercules Goes to New York another glance, a cheapie starring the current leader of the world's 5th largest economy.

The general effect of the movie is actually kind of depressing. Let me explain that. The movie was made is 1970, a full half-decade after the peplum boom ended and the only way that Hercules and other muscle heroes would be relevant is by poking fun at them. It's sort of like how Shatner and Adam West and other irrelevant actors past their expiration date reinvent themselves as self-parodies living up to their campy image.

I don't find this funny...I find it tragic. For that reason, as heretical as it sounds, I never much liked Blazing Saddles. Just look when it came out: 1974, a year after the last truly relevant Western, the sentimental Sam Pekinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which was the Hollywood Western's funeral, eulogy and last cry of defiance in one. In that context, Blazing Saddles is like a prop comedian seltzer-squirting a widow at her husband's wake.

When parodies are bigger than the actual thing it parodies, it's a sure sign something is no longer relevant. What I find amazing is that Blazing Saddles is often the only Western that people of my generation have ever seen!

I always thought the moment America stopped taking newspaper science fiction strips with any seriousness was with the Mad Magazine parody of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon went from a strip with characters people love, to being an irreverent way for magazine writers to talk about an architectural style.

If you need another example, look at the hilarious Rent parody in Team America: World Police, "Everybody Has AIDS." There's such a thing as a parody that is so spot-on, it torpedoes the effectiveness of its target forever, and I'd definitely put "Everybody has AIDS" in that category. No wonder the ten years too late movie version with Rosario Dawson tanked.

Maybe I'm just not getting the joke of movies like Hercules in New York that reinvent their genre as parody, and instead I'm spending my time mourning the end of the peplum. A Norwegian friend of mine told me that there's much more of the Nordic character in me than the Latin, as Latins are a culture that enjoy life whereas I cry much more easily than I can laugh.

Then again, this movie is so weirdly done that with almost all the jokes you're not sure whether to laugh or not, if something is intentionally funny or just an elaborate translation mistake.

There is one bit of humor in the movie, though it's entirely unintentional. This has to go down in history as the most dated-looking film I've ever seen in my life. The best part has to be Arnold's tan cordoroy jacket/turtleneck sweater combo. Most people can guess when a movie is made (give or take three years) just based on how a movie looks, and this is one of the few films I've seen you can guess it to within the actual year.

Believe it or not, the most effective scenes in the film are actually ones where Arnold and his girlfriend are just walking around New York, enjoying each other. They're simple, quiet little scenes where the character of the city of New York is the star, and they're much to be preferred over Arnold stopping a forklift and going "a fine chariot, but where are the horses?" (THAT'S NOT FUNNY!)

The all-time winner has to be this scene:




I can't even identify the best part: the meat-smacking sounds when Arnold pounds that bear (only Harrison Ford has a more distinctive sounding punch) or the fact that, come the midway point, it's obvious the bear is down for the count and Arnold is just whacking it out of sadism. The merry bazouki music is a very weird, whimsical touch.

There was one scene where some New Yorker friends of Hercules got together and suggested that Hercules was just a demented guy that thought he was Hercules. For some reason, this struck me as a much more entertaining premise than the actual movie itself.