In the New Yorker...

[Jeff Wrangler]

Aha! Happily, I was wrong! Brokeback Mountain does get mentioned in the Anna Faris profile:

Though she had arresting cameos in "Lost in Translation" and "Brokeback Mountain," her more usual task, in fare like "The Hot Chick," has been to perform CPR on such dialogue as "It's not every day that your best friend grows a penis."

[Front-Ranger]

Gives new meaning to "Woman talks a blue streak." 

[serious crayons]

Here's a 2006 NYT Magazine profile of Anna Faris that I just stumbled on (it was linked to compare it to the New Yorker piece). It mentions BBM in more detail, saying her performance as Lashawn landed her a starring ole as a stoner.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/magazine/12wwln_encounter.html?scp=6&sq=anna%20faris&st=cse

She made a memorably dizzy appearance in Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning “Lost in Translation” as Kelly Strong, a hypervacuous starlet last seen in the lounge of the Park Hyatt in Tokyo belting out an off-key karaoke version of “Nobody Does It Better.” Even “Brokeback Mountain” had a dumb blonde in the form of Lashawn Malone, ably played by Faris, a fast-talking, hump-haired Texan who in a scene at a dance hall is too busy prattling on about sororities and clothes shopping to notice that her husband is deftly seducing Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Jack Twist, right under her pert little nose.

“In a really small part, she just popped off the screen,” says the director Gregg Araki, who saw Faris in “Brokeback Mountain” and consequently cast her as the lead in “Smiley Face,” an independent comedy about a struggling actress who accidentally eats her roommate’s pot brownies.

[Front-Ranger]

Jonathan Franzen's latest article "Farther Away" is on the Internet for a limited time. It tells about his sojurn on Selkirk Island reading the novel that was inspired by a Scotsman's stay there, Robinson Crusoe. Here's a quote:

"I’d been ... feeling more and more like the graphical lozenge on a media player’s progress bar. Substantial swaths of my personal history were going dead from within, from my talking about them too often. And every morning the same revving doses of nicotine and caffeine; every evening the same assault on my e-mail queue; every night the same drinking for the same brain-dulling pop of pleasure."

http://www.facebook.com/newyorker?sk=app_199738353381002

[Front-Ranger]

Tina Fey on Fresh Air today...here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/freshairwithterrygross

[Jeff Wrangler]

I just finished "Just Write It!" by Laura Miller, in the April 11 issue, about George R. R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones. I found it very interesting, especially the parts about members of on-line fan communities. ... 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Jonathan Franzen's latest article "Farther Away" is on the Internet for a limited time. It tells about his sojurn on Selkirk Island reading the novel that was inspired by a Scotsman's stay there.

I started to read this article over lunch today. I'm finding it very rewarding and thought-provoking.

Plus, I'm relieved to learn that R.E.I. sells a stainless-steel martini glass with a removable stem. No camping trip should be without one! 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Of course, what really interested me about the Franzen article was to notice, early on, that he seems to have diagonosed my own problem: I am bored in a major way. 

[Front-Ranger]

Does this mean you'll be heading off to the Galapagos Islands without your phone, TV or computer soon, friend Jeff?

I'm reading the article The Possibilian now. Neurologists seem to have all the fun these days! A quote: "It's hard to describe the taste of a sound, the color of a smell or the scent of a feeling. (Unless, of course, you have synthesthesia--another of Eagleman's obsessions.)" I think Annie Proulx must have synthesthesia, when I read things like "flying in the bitter euphoric air"!!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Does this mean you'll be heading off to the Galapagos Islands without your phone, TV or computer soon, friend Jeff?

Not likely.