a fool in the forest

Sacre Bleu! Invaders!

I know, I know: on Life's List of Petty Annoyances there is surely a place for weblog posts on the lines of "those big-time bloggers have linked to this cool thing, but I told you about it way back when and I should get some kind of credit for that."  Prepare to be pettily annoyed.

Those big-time, high-traffic bloggers Instapundit and Althouse have linked to the "Human TETRIS" video.  My regular readers, if I had any, would know full well that I posted that same clip some three months ago.  With a better joke!  There ain't no justice when hifalutin blogging law professors can keep the little guy down like this.

Oh well: here's the same merry band in their performance of the immortal "Space Invaders."

The Original Human SPACE INVADERS

All of these human/game videos are product of the "GAME OVER Project" of Guillaume Reymond .   Bip!

~~~

Incidental Intelligence:  "Space Invaders" inspired an instrumental ("Space Invader") on the original Pretenders album, which will always be for me the First Great Record of the 1980's.  Per a 1995 Entertainment Weekly interview, that track turns out to have been an expression of technophobia:

Don't look for Chrissie Hynde lurking online.  'I've resisted the Internet and all that,' says the lead Pretender, a technophobe and proud of it.  'We named a song on our first album "Space Invader," because the guys were always on those machines at the studio, but I just noodled around the pool table and secretly regretted that the pinball machine had gone.  That's when old age started for me.  I even bought a little pocket computer to put my addresses in, but tossed it out and went back to the Filofax.  I know how to turn pages; I do it every day.''

They Shibboleth Well Enough Alone

Unable to keep my online identities strictly separated, my law and insurance weblog Declarations & Exclusions today features a post filled with the sorts of thing you would usually expect to find here: Anglophilia, art museums, light verse, that sort of thing.

In short, it's another episode of DANGEROUS ART!

~~~

UPDATE [112807]:  Wait -- there's more!

A Great Dane Explains the Blogosphere For You

Almost four years ago, I noted that the Wonderful World of Weblogs had been foreseen by Desiderius Erasmus in his Praise of Folly way back in 1509.  There must be something in the philosophical water in northern Europe, because Erasmus was not alone in his prescience.  Some 300 years later, speaking through at least two layers of pseudonymity, Søren Kierkegaard captured the workings of the political blogosphere with remarkable precision:

It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public.  They thought it was a jest and applauded.  He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder.  So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke.

A few pages later, SK adds this sound advice, sadly never to be embraced in American public discourse:

In itself, salmon is a great delicacy: but too much of it is harmful since it taxes the digestion.  At one time when a very large catch of salmon had been brought to Hamburg, the police ordered that a householder should give his servants only one meal a week of salmon.  One could wish for a similar police order against sentimentality.

Mmmmm: salmon.

~~~
Quotations from S. Kierkegaard, aka Viktor Eremita, aka "A", Either/Or, Vol. 1, "Diapsalmata" (1843).  Marginal drawing of Folly by Hans Holbein (detail) from Erasmus' personal copy of Praise of Folly, 1515 (Basel), via Wikimedia Commons.

Why I Will Never Again Speak Ill of Harvard

One never knows what will turn up in the referrer logs, and this afternoon delivers a real treat.

Professor Harry S. [Terry] Martin III, who teaches the Art Law Seminar at, ahem, the Harvard Law School, maintains a list of Art/Law links and has graciously included this weblog among them.  (It is an interesting list for anyone interested in the interaction of art and law.  There are a number of sites linked that I have not previously encountered, and at which I will certainly be taking a look in short order.)

The link is certainly welcome, but I must confess that Professor Martin has given this Fool rather more credit than is strictly deserved.  Share my blushes at his description (emphasis added):

A fool in the forest - Influential blog among lawyers and cultural enthusiasts emphasizing art and culture with occasional law notes

Mercy! 

Of course, the professor doesn't specify that I'm a good influence . . . .

It's an Honor Just to Be Nominated

Many thanks to Michael Blowhard who, in the last item in this "Elsewhere" compilation, links to two of my recent posts before adding:

George earns himself this week's 'Mr. Eclectic' award.

Sure, "eclectic" is just the word that polite people use when referring to my being easily distracted by shiny objects, but an award is an award.  Hence my thanks, and welcome to anyone who may have been directed here for the first time by Michael B's kind linkage.

Answer the Door, It's Blawg Review #89

The anonymous editor of Blawg Review has taken the reins of this week's Blawg Review #89 to produce a survey of the legal weblog world that is international in scope and optimistic at heart as we embark on 2007.  This edition boasts the added virtue of a truly inspired theme, that of "the Lone Mummer" traveling through the winter dark to call on these many distant points of legal light.  The accompanying illustrations, from the work of Newfoundland artist David Blackwood, are a pleasure in themselves.

Altogether, a particularly fine Blawg Review and well worth the time involved in reading it and in following through its numerous links.

The intrepid Editor is also granting a boon of sorts to the many law-related weblogs that are included in this edition: the proprietor(s) of each such site will be permitted, with limitations, to pose three yes-or-no questions that may lead to said editor's identity.  Since both of my own sites are linked, I suppose I might assert a right to ask as many as six questions, but I will not presume to do so.  In fact, I am quite content with the editor's air of mystery, and will likely pose no questions at all rather than break the spell.

Over There, Over There

While posts have been slow here the past few days, I have been more active than usual on my legal weblog, Declarations and Exclusions.  Two recent posts on that site could just as well have been posted here.  (Like Hamlet, I am a man who cannot make up his mind.) 

Please click yourself in that direction if I might interest you in

• A speculative discussion of the litigation-generating potential of the new Nintendo "Wii" gaming console, or

• An architectural consideration of the new federal courthouse in Eugene, Oregon.  The courthouse was designed by award-winning bad-boy Thomas Mayne, and my post comes equipped with a title invoking both Joni Mitchell and Pink Floyd.

Actual legal and public policy topics have also been on my mind at Decs&Excs lately, if you are inclined to that sort of thing.  More foolishness here anon.

Sploid Goes Splat

*Sigh*

Another Ken Layne-edited site is unceremoniously thrown beneath a train rides into the sunset with head held high.

~~~

P.S., Don't say I didn't warn you that this was about to happen.

P.P.S., Perhaps someone would be willing to pay Mr. Layne to revive his defunct, or moribund, "Highways West" site?

It Wouldn't Be Much of a God If It Couldn't Be Resurrected, Now Would It?

Silent for nearly a year -- he was last seen savaging some of Camille Paglia's more dubious views on poetry, the ease of doing which probably bored him nearly to death -- Aaron Haspel has returned today with a refurbished edition of God of the Machine.   He explains all here, in a post that encompasses E.M. Forster and Spinal Tap.

It appears that the gentleman has de-linked me in the process of toning and trimming his sidebar, which puts him in good company: big-time cultural and lit'ry bloggers the likes of Terry Teachout and Ron Silliman* have exercised that same privilege, when I have either lost their interest or shifted my attentions away from their preferred topics.  *sniff* 

In any case, get thee hence and welcome Mr. Haspel back to the land of the webliving by adding your visit to the Instalanche he's been granted by Megan McArdle.

~~~

*  Per what I see on Technorati today (8/2/06), either I was mistaken in my statement above or else Ron Silliman has restored me to his blogroll.  I took no offense when I/when I thought I had disappeared from it before, given that Ron's list focuses pretty exclusively on poetry weblogs -- it probably represents the most comprehensive list of poetry weblogs that is to be had -- and further given that the frequency of poetry posting hereabouts has gone down significantly in the past year or so.  Pressure's on now, I suppose, for me to reinvigorate the poetic percentage in the content mix.  Some among you (you likely know who you are) may consider yourselves warned.

I'll Take "Bad Luck Streak in Journalism School" for $1000, Alex

Thanks to Ken Layne and Sploid, I now know why there has been a sudden resurgence of traffic to my old, old item on mighty Jeopardy! mega-champion Ken Jennings: Ken J is in the news again, on account of certain Professional Newswriters who can't actually recognize news, or a joke.  Per the deadly serious Mr. Layne:

Quiz-show hero Ken Jennings is in hot water for writing a humorous blog post that confused and angered the idiots who work for the New York Post, Associated Press, USA Today and other media.

Jennings, who won more than $3 million on "Jeopardy," posted the satirical "Dear Jeopardy" essay on his website.

In the easy-to-understand fake letter, Jennings claims host Alex Trebek died in a car crash and was replaced by a robot.

Ken Jennings' joke is not for everybody -- it will be most amusing to longtime Jeopardy! fans -- but it is Very Obviously a Joke.  Very Obviously, that is, unless you work for the New York Post or the Associated Press.

The lesson is: don't believe anything you read anywhere, anytime, unless it is written by someone named Ken.

~~~

Given Ken Layne's yeoman service in keeping the record straight on this and many another earth-shattering story, I am hoping that some sympathetic buyer will be found now that overlord Nick Denton has gone and put Sploid up for sale. 

Attention domain name shoppers!  Past Jeopardy! Champions agree:

The inimitable voice of Ken Layne must not be stifled.  The Internet will be meaningless, without form, void, and really really dull if he is silenced. 

And no, I'm not just saying that in the vain hope of scoring one of those precious review copies of the new Ken Layne & the Corvids album.   Howard Owens has one.  (I liked the first one a whole lot, including the reference to a certain affordable but Potent Potable.)

~~~

P.S., Vaguely Topical Musical UPDATE [072606]:

A constellation of weblogging luminaries including the aforementioned Ken Layne, Colby Cosh and tony pierce (who is editing LAist these days) are hanging about in the comments to this post from Matt Welch about the life-altering effect of seeing Prince & the Revolution perform "Purple Rain" on the American Music Awards lo some many years ago.  Matt has the YouTubean evidence.  In the course of the colloquy, Mr. Layne and mr. pierce generously provide links to some extremely fine live performances by The Clash from around 1980.  Jeopardy! is not mentioned.