Within Earshot

Bluegrassical? Hip-hopera?

The music of Time for Three is dang near impossible to classify.  Try to imagine a pair of violins and a double-bass playing a peculiar hybrid of bluegrass, jazz, country, hip hop, tango and more.  Are you trying? Are you succeeding?  Doubt it.

Time for Three has been defying expectations and classifications for several years now, ever since a lightning-induced power failure at a Philadelphia Orchestra concert led them to play an impromptu onstage jam session in front of a full house (read more about that here).

Time for Three will playing their genre-jumping music at the UW Humanities Theatre tonight, as part of the K-W Symphony's "Intersections" series.  I'm going. You should too. Here's a taste:

I told myself I wouldn't cry...

So last night I went to see Bolt -- the Disney movie about the delusional dog who truly believes he has superpowers since he has spent his entire life portraying a heroic superdog on TV.

The main reason I wanted to see Bolt was because I interviewed the director, Chris Williams, last week. He grew up in Kitchener and first became fascinated with animated filmmaking after watching Bambi at the Bridgeport Community Centre (read all about it here).

But the REAL main reason I wanted to see Bolt was because I'm a sucker for sentimental cartoons with uber-cute main characters. So sue me.  I consider Wall-E one of the best movies I've ever seen, of any genre, and Bolt is pretty dang great too.  The action sequences are bombastic, the visuals are painstakingly rendered, the characters are thoroughly conceived and the writing is snappy.  And galdarnit, the tear-jerking moments really do jerk tears. I tried my damnedest to resist, but my hyperactive tear ducts went into flood mode when a sassy cat lamented aloud that her human family abandoned her.  The monsters!

It was the second-most tear-jerking movie I've seen in a long time.  Number one?  Commando, natch.

Scarlett Johansson: The Clone Wars

This is too weird not to share:

I mentioned Scarlett Johansson in a theatre review I wrote for today's paper.

Then, first thing this morning, I received a perplexing and terrifying e-mail about Johanssson, an excerpt of which is below:

FROM: Serge G.

SUBJECT: WARNING ! STOLEN BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL ! Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2007! regarding Scarlett Johansson (actress)

Hello dear Ladies and Gentlemen!
I would like inform you that Scarlett Johansson (actress) actually is a clone from original person Scarlett Galabekian last name, who has nothing with acting career. That clone was created illegally by using stolen biological material. Original person is very nice (not d**n sexy),most important - CHRISTIAN young lady! I'll tell you more,those clones (it's not only one) made in GERMANY - world leader manufacturer of humans clones, it is in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Mr. Helmut Kohl home town. You can not even imaging the scale of the cloning activity...

The message continues in such fashion for quite a while, growing less coherent with each sentence. But here are the three main points:

1.Scarlett Johansson is merely one of many clones fabricated in a German lab and subjected to Nazi mind-control techniques;

2. If you get too close to a clone, you too will fall under the sway of mind control. So keep your distance from Scarlett Johansson, Dolly the Sheep, et al.

3. The "real" Scarlett Johansson is not an actress, and frankly the real Scarlett doesn't think her clone is much of  actress, either. (Clearly the real Scarlett didn't see Lost in Translation). 

Call me alarmist, but this e-mail alarmed me.

Could Scarlett Johansson really be a mindless automaton controlled by neo-Nazi scientists plotting world domination?  Until some random stranger e-mails me with evidence to the contrary, I'll have to assume this is exactly the case.  I mean, just look at the photo above: Scarlett is obviously a marvel of modern science.

Meet the Uber-Cuber

Have you ever solved a Rubik's Cube?  If you answered "no," you're in the majority.  If you answered "yes," you're a filthy, evil liar.

Perhaps that's unfair. I suppose it's possible you have solved a Rubik's Cube, but I'd be willing to bet my life savings that you've never, ever solved on as quickly as Matt Walter can.

Matt usually solves the puzzle in about 14 seconds, though he has done in less than 10.

I wrote a big story about Matt in Saturday's paper, in which he tried to explain how he accomplishes such a seemingly impossible feat.  It has something to do with algorithms, which sounds a lot like math, so I still don't get it.

Matt's skils with the cube really have to be seen to be believed. So click the image below and watch him in action.