Criminy, That Was a Crappy Movie

First, cool stuff: My homie E has become quite a flickr whore since purchasing a high-quality digital camera a few months back. She took the shot of Becky and I sporting our xmas shoes, which was promptly scooped up by some weirdo who scours flickr for pictures of shoes and added to the mix (listed as "cool kids shoes.") Now I have my feet on some random blog and a few of my tats on Devo's official website. The world is my, not really oyster, but maybe bottom-feeding shrimp. The world is my bottom-feeding shrimp.

Anyway, the movies. If you haven't already seen it, you owe it to yourself to go rent Hedwig and the Angry Inch. We watched it again for the third time last night and it hit the rock-spot. Which is a spot that was discovered by a team of scientists around the same time the female orgasm was established as a possibility by NASA.

Hedwig worked especially well as a contrast to the god-awful Velvet Goldmine, which preceded it here at Chez KFR. I remembered Velvet Goldmine as being a kind of fun, goofy, moderately-low-budget rock movie with some good tunes. Re-watching it last night, Becky and I were forced to remember just how much we used to drink. So, if you're a complete lush, Velvet Goldmine might be an option. Otherwise, avoid.

In other news, I'm heading back to the bunker to do some further world history reading today. As a FYI, Wallerstein's world system series is one of those things wherein one to three real points are made per chapter; the trick is wading through dozens of pages in search of those points. It's like being in a huge thrift store looking for that one cool shirt you just know is buried somewhere. For chapters 1 and 2 of volume 3, here's how it all goes down:

1. The industrial revolution and the French revolution are both inadequate as explanatory concepts. They only make sense in a global perspective.
2. England's wars with France in the mid-to-late eighteenth century gave it a permanent edge and allowed it to achieve global economic hegemony in the nineteenth century.
3. The French Revolution was a fundamentally anti-capitalist event, but it was ultimately defeated. It also undermined the possibility of France's recovering and possibly contesting England for dominance.
4. You, shook me all night long. Yes you, shook me all night long. Knocking me out with those American thighs.