Brent Dady's Roxorlog

Mar 15

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Mar 14

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Mar 10

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Mar 08

Recent Good Reads.

• Africa’s Dirty Wars. A bit here on Kony’s LRA and the state-less rebels without a cause who are running amok through the continent.
• Inside the September 13th 2011 U.S. Embassy Attack in Kabul.
• The Mystery of the 18 Twitching Teenagers. Mass psychogenic illness reminds me of Chunk’s puking story in The Goonies. 
• Lenny Dykstra. I’ve posted Dykstra’s crazy life story here before, but this may be his last chapter as he was just sentenced to 3 years at age 49 — he’s convinced he’ll be dead at 52 thanks to a fortune teller’s prognostication years ago. What an insane life story.
• The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto. Short excerpt by David Kushner, who also wrote the excellent Masters of Doom.
• Apocalyptic London. By the talented China Mieville.
• I Was A Warehouse Wage Slave. Makes me rethink my Amazon Prime subscription.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted. Great story about Iraq’s top terrorist killer.
• How Companies Learn Your Secrets.
• Why French Parents are Superior.
• The End of Wall Street As They Knew It.
• Three Trials for Murder.
• An Oral History of the Malice at the Palace. Pultizer-worthy sports reporting about the dark day when Ron Artest Metta World Peace broke down and attacked Detroit’s fans. After reading this my perception of Jermaine O’Neal completely changed.

Mar 06

Fight Club trivia. -

I’m pretty sure David Fincher is a genius. IMDB has a great list of many of the clever little touches that were included in Fight Club, one of his pinnacle achievements and a rallying cry for the XY-chromosomed of my generation.

One of the coolest things I learned from that IMDB page is that Fincher cut several super-subversive spots to pitch to Fox as an anti-marketing campaign. Which they shot down. Derp.

Feb 27

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Feb 24

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Feb 23

Fantastic interview with David Fincher, Tim Miller of Blur, and Neil Kellerhouse about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’s opening titles. Extra-fascinating for me how all three have very different points of view and backgrounds informing their approaches to this project.

Fincher has a way with words (but usually gets a bit cutesy and overwrought, at least in the interviews of him I’ve read/seen); this quote about the creative process really struck me because I’ve seen it so many times in my field of work: 

I always feel that the best things come out of having just enough time to get into some serious trouble and not enough time to navel-gaze endlessly about something.

Killian Eng is talented. I’d kill to see an animated film that he art directed.

Feb 15

Feb 03

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Feb 02

Some Recent Good Reads.

• A clear-eyed look back at Obama’s first term.
• Mass Incarceration in America.
• More, more, more condemnation of Scientology.
• Will Israel Attack Iran?, by an investigative reporter from Israel’s largest paper with access to the highest levels of Israeli government. TL;DR: Yes.

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Feb 01

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