Kubrick

Tony Frewin and Leon Vitali, who’d been working as Stanley’s assistants for years, said there was a staff joke about the one phrase you would never hear at Childwick Bury, and a week after Stanley’s death someone actually said it to them. It went, “Use your own judgment, and don’t bother me with the details.” His concerns ran from the ethereal-aesthetic through the technical to the crudely logistical, no detail too prosaic, all the way down to stationery and paper clips.

—“Kubrick” from Vanity Fair

Gamble a Stamp 03

[The Dark Knight Returns] is the blaze of glory. It’s a revitalization before death. Watchmen is the autopsy. At the end, there are no secrets. What’s Flex Mentallo? It’s a wake, that time when everyone gets together, gets drunk, and talks about the deceased.

—Gamble a Stamp 03: Superhero Comics Are Dead

Cablevision

Last summer, as we were considering whether to drop cable, I drew up a list of all the shows we watched that were available over the air versus only on cable networks. In our case, the balance was about 80/20. The more I thought about that, the more I resented that I 80% of the money I was paying Comcast was going to them to just repackage shows that are available over free, public airwaves. The current fight Fox and Cablevision are having is funny to me, in this light. If you’re in New York, you’re paying Cablevision to not give you a channel you could be getting for free.

Big Networks Block Web Shows From Google TV

I just love it. So predictable.

A Few Quick Observations about FaceTime on the Mac

• Yes, you can FaceTime yourself from your iPhone.
• Yes, it makes neat echos if you point the phone at the Mac.
• FaceTime on your Mac will ring even if you don’t have the app running.
• I don’t see a way. but it would be great if you could link your phone number and your email address so that people will reach you wherever.

Tina Fey Signed Copy of “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin

The Road Home

I’m not reading any of DC’s “Bruce Wayne: The Road Home” books. Here’s Brian Hibbs writing about how poorly-produced the specials were:

[I]nstead of being “one shots,” as their solicitation text describes, the final product turns out to effectively be an eight-issue miniseries, with each one-shot being released with “to be continued in…” the next “one shot.” Naturally, someone messes up the production and at least one of the books “points” to the wrong “next” title. And let’s not forget to mention that the eight covers link up to form a single image – but that that image is neither the order of release, nor of reading order.

Mad Men Theme Song With a Twist

Bizarre thing I didn’t expect to find: Brian Williams’s daughter singing Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy” to the tune of the Mad Men theme.

Robot Cars

Engineers at Google have developed and tested in actual traffic a car that drives itself. Eventually it seems like we pebbly will be able to build cars that can drive themselves more safely than we can. But surely they’ll still crash sometimes, right? How will we deal with that? Psychologically I’d think it would be totally different to blame an AI for a loved one’s death than another human.

On Treating Bone-itis

Last month I was contacted by the National Bone Marrow Registry, which I signed up for in college. A 57-year-old male with cancer (aka “myelofibro myeloid metaplasia” aka “bone-itis”) needed a transplant and I was a likely donor candidate. I went in and submitted some blood for testing and found that, yes, I was a perfect match. A few weeks ago I went in for a physical to clear me for donation, and was scheduled to donate bone marrow in just over two weeks.

Today I was told that the patient was transferred to Hospice and not expected to make it. The donation has been cancelled.

It’s been an extremely emotional time for me. I’ve always heard that donating bone marrow is an extremely painful process. It turns out that there are two ways it can be harvested. One is through surgery, removing the marrow by drilling into the hip, and is quite painful. The other is by donating peripheral blood stem cells. This newer PBSC method involves taking a series of five injections of a drug called Filgrastin which would make my body create extra marrow and release it into the bloodstream. I’d then go in one day and sit in a chair for several hours while they pump out my blood, spin out the marrow in a centrifuge, and pump the plasma back in. Side effects of the drug range from mild discomfort to flu-like symptoms, headache, and bone pain.

It sounded better than surgery, but still wasn’t something I was looking forward to. But there was never a time when I was considering declining to donate marrow. I was given a chance to literally save someone’s life in exchange for a week of possible discomfort. The brochure said that being asked to be a donor can be emotionally trying. It’s certainly taken its toll on me. Reading through the list of possible side effects made my physically ill, and watching the video about the donation didn’t help. I had a feeling of, “why is this happening to me? Why do I have to go through this?” I started to feel better about the process when I went in for the screening physical and was told that most patients just feel a little lousy from the drug, take a steady dose of Tylenol, and then it’s over. Seeing how the procedure worked let me understand it, and being treated like a hero by the x-ray technician was an amazing feeling.

But now it’s all off, and this guy I’ve never met is going to die within two weeks of my being able to give him the marrow that may have saved his life. The registry rep said he likely wasn’t diagnosed in time. All that’s left is for me to say a prayer for him and his family.

Action Comics 893

Lex Luthor!!! Kneel before Grodd! You have walked into my ambush! And I have brought my biggest combat spoon—to eat your tasty brains!!!

—Action Comics 893, by Paul Cornell and Sean Chen