The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Category: review

Reviews of books, movies, CDs, whatever.

  • Review: Billy Goat Tavern, Chicago

    Billy Goat Tavern
    430 N Michigan Ave., Chicago IL

    Billed on several sites as home of “Chicago’s best cheeseburger” and made famous by a skit on early Saturday Night Live (“cheezborger! cheezborger! cheezborger!”).

    As part of our very-intermittent plan of sampling “the best of…” in Chicago eateries, Annie and I decided to stop at the original Billy Goat’s Tavern on the way back from the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

    What can I say?  Meh.  The burger wasn’t bad but it was far from the best I’d ever had.  Heck, it wasn’t even the best I’d ever had in Chicago.  (That goes to the Jona’s burger we had at Jacky’s on Prairie yesterday.)  The Billy Goat burger was, well, ordinary.  It was quick and it was priced right.  But I think that all the raves reflect more on nostalgia than quality.  If I happened to be out and about near the Tribune building, and I happened to be hungry, and someone happened to suggest Billy Goat’s Tavern, I would not be opposed.  But it’s not the sort of experience that makes me want to plan a return outing; it’s not the sort of burger that demands a second sampling.  The tavern has a real working-class ambiance and the place is decorated with more Chicago history than you can imagine…  but the burger?  Just OK.

  • Review: Metatropolis

    Review: Metatropolis

    Metatropolis
    Edited by Jack Scalzi
    Rating on an arbitrary 5-point scale: 4 out of 5

    Metatropolis is a science fiction anthology exploring, as it claims, the “future of cities”.  That’s not strictly accurate. It’s really a collection of stories that explore the question: If we as a species are going to survive the mistakes of our forebears (particularly ecological mistakes), what will human society have to look like?  It’s pretty clear that we won’t be able to ratchet up world living standards to the stereotypical 2.4 kids in the suburbs mid American ideal.  Resources are too finite and indeed running out.  If our profligate carbon society doesn’t right itself soon, if we face a Century of Judgment, then what will emerge from the drowned coasts and droughted interiors?

    The five authors (Jack Scalzi, Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, and Karl Schroeder) don’t really offer blueprints and white papers, of course.  They offer five distinct tales, appropriately interdependent, that explore a possible future.  This is a shared world on the model of Aspirin’s Thieves’ World, though not quite so sprawling or tightly woven.  It is clear that the authors spent considerable time together thrashing out their shared world — though, in keeping with the theme, much of that might have been online and virtual.

    So, does the book succeed?

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  • Review: Inception

    Inception
    a Christopher Nolan Film
    Arbitrary 5-Point rating: 5 out of 5

    Inception is a weird, ambitious, action-packed sci fi thriller-cum-heist flick.  It is, in its own way, as ambitious as The Matrix and suffers from the comparison only in that it didn’t come first.  Leonardo DiCaprio plays Tom Dom Cobb, a thief of a singular kind: He can enter the dreams of others and “extract” information they’re trying to keep secret.  On the run for (at first) unspecified horrible crimes, he parlays his skill into a lucrative, if high-risk, lifestyle.  But in the end all he really wants to do is get to go home again and pick up the shards of his former life, including two small children.

    More detail, and spoilers, to follow, but in short, this is a fantastic film that’s better than it has any right to be.  The pacing is superb, the acting is above-average, and the setting and technology are remarkably well fleshed out.  Although everyone draws comparisons to The Matrix, the real spiritual ancestor of this film is The Thirteenth Floor (which, ironically, came out at the same time as — and got lost in the glare of the hoopla of — The Matrix).

    Spoilers ho!
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  • Ethics and Economics in Journalism

    Via Ezra Klein, a well-argued piece by Timothy Lee on the recent flap over the forced resignation of Dave Weigel from The Washington Post.  If none of those names mean anything to you, then this is unlikely to be very interesting…  Lee’s thesis is that reportorial objectivity is more a function of the economies of scale of a major newspaper than any unquestionable principle of High Journalism.  And now that the economics of reporting have shifted, so too must our understanding of what is appropriate.

    And yes, I didn’t link to the Post because I happen to think they’re wrong on this one and I’m just petty enough to deny them the infinitesimal traffic I might contribute.

  • Knowing is Half the Battle

    I was cruising TechDirt and saw a neat post on “Is The Federal Government The Most Interesting Tech Startup For 2009?”  The idea is that the recent data.gov initiative has led to an outpouring of with-it and effective apps allowing anyone to get a handle on the vast trove of information compiled by the federal government.  If you haven’t checked out data.gov, give it a whirl — it’s pretty astounding.  After a week of hearing about ludicrous claims of “death panels” and “keeping government’s hands off my (government-run) Medicare”, it was nice to be reminded that good people working hard can produce tremendous work — that government can serve a positive purpose and isn’t intrinsically evil, corrupt, or incompetent.

    Some of the nifty apps I saw (via the techdirt link) were

    This isn’t quite the level of Star Trek (“Computer, rearrange known data into a new theory of physics”) but it’s a step in the right direction.  🙂  And if the survival of democracy requires the active participation of an educated and engaged citizenry, then cataloging what is actually known can help secure the health of our republic.  For all the noise and thunder of the 24-hour news cycle, this is where the action really is.

  • Joking about Science

    I regret the simple me-too-ism of just posting a link to an article, but this piece over at Project Syndicate is a nice, short reflection on how jokes scientists make (about their own profession) illuminate the two distinct views we hold of science (as relating to truth and utility).  Short, easy to read, and worth the time.

    As an aside, doesn’t “Project Syndicate” sound like an effort to produce an open-source organized crime gang?  🙂  Crime 2.0, baby!

  • The Start of Summer

    Everyone has their own unique signs that summer is upon us, the signature sound that signals the academic year is winding down. For me, it’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears.

    More below the fold.
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  • Two Finales (2): Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

    As mentioned in a previous post, recently two of my favorite shows reached their conclusion.  While the Battlestar Galactica finale left a lingering bad taste in my mouth (The Cylons had a plan all along?  Bollocks!), the conclusion of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was gripping and satisfying.  In fact it was one of the best hours of TV I’ve seen in a long time.

    More below the fold.  Warning: Indiscriminate spoilers follow.

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  • Two Finales (1): Battlestar Galactica

    In the past couple of weeks, two science fictions shows I follow have had their finales: the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. (OK, so technically, the word is still out on Sarah Connor, but many people feel it’s doomed, and although I have no inside information, the reasoning seems solid.)

    Very brief report:  Sarah Connor rocked and send the show off — if this is indeed the end — amazingly well, while leaving the door open to an even better third season.  But Galactica … meh.  I watched the finale two weeks ago and I still can’t get the taste of disappointment out of my mouth.

    A review of Galactica is below the fold; Sarah Connor gets its own post.  Warning: Massive spoilers for both shows follow.

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  • Senator Clinton’s Speech

    Senator Hilary Clinton has finished her address to the Democratic National Convention. My personal response: She didn’t hit it out of the park but she definitely got some extra bases and maybe batted some runs in.

    I think she delivered a full-throated, crystal clear indictment of the past eight years and of John McCain’s alignment with it. It was a bit corny but I liked the line about McCain and Bush meeting in the Twin Cities because you can hardly tell them apart. Senator Clinton did a good job enunciating what the Democratic Party is for — things like universal healthcare and improved public education — as well as what the Party is against — such as military adventurism, crony capitalism, and the abandonment of civilized society to a race of all against all. I still believe that had she delivered this message consistently throughout the primaries, rather than focusing on her opponents, she would have made the hurdle and would be speaking tomorrow instead of last night.

    Perhaps not surprisingly, the speech was nonetheless still mostly about her — her experiences on the trail, her motivations for running, etc. That’s to be understood and it was a historic campaign, so it can be forgiven. She spent a little too much time on that, and she did detour into the end into a polishing of the legacy of President Clinton. If you tuned in to the middle and you cut out before the last few moments, you would be forgiven for thinking this was a Clinton acceptance speech.

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