Much in the same vein as When We Were Kings, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (imdb | rotten tomatoes) is a film about boxers that even boxing fans will find fascinating. Where Kings was a boxing movie that was really about Muhammad Ali, Unforgivable Blackness is about race. And where Triumph Of The Will now serves as an inadvertent historical damning of Nazism, Unforgivable Blackness is a gobsmacked study of racial ignorance.

Granted, it was a hundred years ago, but I could scarcely believe the words written in prominent newspapers (the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, etc.), openly referring to Johnson as an animal or a savage. It’s hard for me to grasp, but I suppose at the time there were still hundreds of lynchings each year in the US, so…it’s just a different world.

And it was a different world that made Johnson’s story remarkable. Had he been of lesser talent and lost to a white champion, there would have been no story. Had he won the title but conducted himself humbly and meek as the white onlookers would have preferred, there would have been little notice taken. But Johnson was a thoroughly dominant fighter, and as far from humble or meek as one could imagine (though next to modern-day fighters, he looks downright mellow), and so he had to go. No one could beat him inside the ring, so they decided to beat him outside of it.

Despite being nearly 4 hours (it is a Ken Burns documentary, after all), I strongly suggest you see it.

Just when I thought I was done with accounting for a couple of weeks, it sinks in that I have a ton of prep work to do before my course in 9 days. And what with the mother-in-law visiting and GB’s birthday get-together this weekend, I may have left it a bit too long.

See, the exam’s worth 70%, so if I blow that, I blow the course. And this is a course that killed a bunch of people last year, so everyone’s nervous. I just happen to lack a work ethic when it comes to subjects I couldn’t give less of a shit about.

Just took Stanzi on her first CD-selling trip, where I sold a few of my own. Bought a few too; by the time trades were factored in I walked away with new copies of Bodies And Minds by the Great Lake Swimmers and Trespassers William‘s Different Stars (thanks to David @ largehearted boy for the reco), and needed only $2 to cover the difference. And, as a bonus (some might say a requirement on such a toasty day) we picked up some ice cream on the way home.

If there’s a better ice cream out there than the roasted marshmellow at Greg’s, I haven’t found it.

Well…a better ice cream that’s for sale. My dad’s homemade strawberry ice cream (made with our own strawberries) is, without a doubt, the best I’ve ever come across. And I know my ice cream.

I’m glad to see that Saving Face (imdb | rotten tomatoes | official site) is being released to theatres next month. It was a surprise favourite of mine at last year’s festival, so I’m glad to see it reach a bigger audience.

411song.com

• Hear a song you love.
• Call (866) 411-SONG.
• Wait for the beep and hold your cell near the music for just 15 seconds.
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Pitchfork gives the new Sleater-Kinney disc a 9. Metacritic says 8.7.

I can’t believe how stupid this looks.

And with panic spreading faster than the virus, the once clean and healthy city of Toronto became the pariah of the western world. Restaurants, theatres and streets emptied, and incoming travel and tourism were virtually shut down.

Are they fucking kidding? I barely noticed! Not to diminish the deaths or the effort by the health care workers, but jesus…they make it sound like there were tumbleweeds blowing up Yonge Street! We still went to work, we still used the subway (there were just a few more people than usual wearing masks), we still ate at restaurants and went to movies and played in parks. These idiots are making it sound like the scene at the beginning of 28 Days Later where Jim’s walking around an empty London.

Not that I have a lot of respect for CTV to begin with, but it’s just sad that they have to completely stretch and distort everything in order to exploit the city. Then again, there’s certainly a big Canadian audience who’s willing to watch Toronto take it in the nuts…

My Nomad just served up Bruce Springsteen‘s acoustic rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (which gives me chills, by the way) followed by “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by The Band.

[update: my Nomad quickly put an end to that by throwing NIN‘s “Love Is Not Enough” at me]

Almost forgot…the other night we also watched Blue In The Face (imdb | rotten tomatoes), the companion piece to Smoke. It was a bit too jumpy and spazzy to really feel like a movie; it was more like a series of vignettes strung together, half seemingly random (explained away by Harvey Keitel’s Auggie as a bunch of bizarre things that all happened around the same time) and half as a love letter to Brooklyn. The spazziness was predictable since most of the film was improvised, but there some particularly funny bits: Michael J. Fox, Lily Tomlin, Madonna, Mel Gorham singing in front of the mirror, and Roseanne. It was also cool to see Jim Jarmusch basically laying the groundwork for Coffee And Cigarettes.

Amusing enough if you’ve seen Smoke, but not enough to stand on its own.