Quoted

Boo!

By David Poland - Saturday, October 31st, 2009

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We are big. It’s the Advertising that got small.

By David Poland - Monday, February 2nd, 2009


“With 100 million daily readers, newspapers are a tremendous scoring opportunity”
– A group called the “Newspaper Project” making the case that news on the printed page is not on the verge of extinction.

I will find you. And I will Kill You.

By David Poland - Friday, January 30th, 2009

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”
– Liam Neeson in Taken, opening January 30, 2009

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Science and men

By David Poland - Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

We were never special …

By David Poland - Friday, January 23rd, 2009

“For years I thought we’ve shared this secret that we would be wonderful in the world. I don’t know exactly how, but just the possibility kept me hoping. How pathetic is that? So stupid. To put all your hopes in a promise that was never made. Frank knows what he wants, he found his place, he’s just fine. Married, two kids, it should be enough. It is for him. And he’s right; we were never special or destined for anything at all.”
– Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road – opening wide, January 23, 2009

Reactions to Just Being Nominated

By David Poland - Thursday, January 22nd, 2009


I was in my living room (at his home in Rhode Island) having a cup of coffee, and my son’s father-in-law called me. … He said, ‘Way to go.’ And I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You not watch it?’ I said, ‘Really?’ I was truly floored.
— Richard Jenkins, best-actor nominee for The Visitor
It feels surreal. I just got a call from [onetime costar] Javier Bardem in Spain, and he was flipping out and screaming. The reality is I got up at 5:55 here in Utah and looked at the clock and figured the nominations were announced and it didn’t happen. I said to myself, ‘That’s OK, I can deal with it.’ Then I realized there’s a one-hour time difference.
— Josh Brolin, supporting-actor nominee for Milk

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Economics

By David Poland - Thursday, December 11th, 2008

“Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.”
– President Lyndon Johnson

Smarting

By David Poland - Friday, June 20th, 2008

Well, you’ve done your job, so I don’t suppose I can kill your wife Zenat. Although frankly I’d be doing the sighted world a favor.
– Siegfried

The last page

By David Poland - Sunday, June 15th, 2008

I always read the last page of a book first so that if I die before I finish I’ll know how it turned out.
– Nora Ephron

An Army of Ideas

By David Poland - Saturday, June 14th, 2008

A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea.
– Victor Hugo

Hulking

By David Poland - Friday, June 13th, 2008

We got a case of gamma poisoning in Milwaukee. A man drank one of those health soda drinks – guess it had a bit more kick than he was looking for…
– The Incredible Hulk

Heroism

By David Poland - Saturday, June 7th, 2008

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic.
It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost,
but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
~ Arthur Ashe

Lofty Ideas from a Master

By David Poland - Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

A lofty idea must be had,
not of what one is doing, but of what one may some day do.
Otherwise there is no point in working on.
– Degas (at age 70)

Wonder

By David Poland - Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Wonder, rather than doubt, is the root of knowledge.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

The universe …

By David Poland - Sunday, May 25th, 2008

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
– Eden Phillpots

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon