Thwarted

In Sherman's Lagoon, the title character shark learns that there are any number of ways for your food to disagree with you.

To Kill To Kill a Mockingbird

Early on in Aaron Sorkin's saga of adapting Harper Lee's well-known novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Sorkin and the production company were sued by Lee's estate for planning on deviating too widely from the novel. The producer sued back, and the case was settled in 2018.

Sorkin had said that he was presenting characters in a different light than either Lee or original movie screenwriter Horton Foote. As someone who thinks Sorkin has never equaled his Sports Night TV show from 1998-2000, I had little interest in his revisionist take on Tom Robinson, Atticus, Scout, and Jem Finch or Boo Radley. So until I read this review at Mockingbird I had no idea what kind of screwing around Sorkin had done, and it seems clear that I was not the worse off for not knowing.

Most folks have probably seen a production of To Kill a Mockingbird, since a playwright named Christopher Sergel had written one some 50 years ago. In the leadup to the opening of the Sorkin version, producer Scott Rudin had the production company formed to produce it sue to make sure no performances of the Sergel adaptation would be staged within 25 miles of any city it deemed a major metropolitian area that might host a touring version of Sorkin's play -- even for companies that might have already purchased rights to perform the Sergel version.

The bullying move was called out by many, causing Rudin to offer permission to those companies to perform the revisionist Sorkin adaptation. He said the offer was intended to "ameliorate the hurt caused here," which makes it clear he does not know what "ameliorate" means.

Confidentially Crud

Given the incredible liberties that screenwriters Sean O'Keefe and Brian Helgeland take with their source material, the only honest way for a Robert B. Parker fan such as your humble blogger to review the Netflix release Spenser Confidential is in two separate arenas. How does it succeed on its own and then how does it succeed as an adaptation of Parker's best-known character and his world?

As to the first, the answer is a weak meh. Mark Wahlberg plays the title character, an ex-cop just released after a five-year sentence for thoroughly punching a superior officer. He moves in with an old friend, gym owner Henry Cimoli (Alan Arkin), who puts Spenser up with a new fighter he is training, Hawk (Winston Duke). But the police captain is murdered the very day Spenser is released, and when officers question him about it he becomes curious himself. The apparently neat frame of another officer for the crime motivates him to find the truth, and he is able to enlist Hawk and Henry to his cause, as well as his (sort of)ex-girlfriend Cissie (Iliza Shlesinger).

The entire main cast -- all of whom are Friar favorites -- work very hard to make the O'Keefe-Helgeland script better than it has any right to be. They succeed but since the original material started out so far below adequate they can barely manage to elevate it to the aforementioned meh. Banal predictability means not a single development in the story can sustain the slightest suspense. Plot holes wide enough for an 18-wheeler keep the narrative swerving from side to side in often futile attempts to avoid them. Had Robert Parker never written a Spenser book or had these characters been removed from any connection to the books, Spenser Confidential would still be a solid exhibit in the case that Netflix has more money than it knows what to do with.

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But Robert B. Parker did write Spenser novels, and the inevitable comparison between his version of the characters and the Spenser Confidential version makes the latter a nearly complete failure. It's not simply that O'Keefe and Helgeland changed the characters' backstory, relationships and in a few places substituted entirely new characters to take familiar roles. Robert Urich brought a lightness of spirit to Spenser that Parker didn't often intend in the 1980s Spenser for Hire, so changes by themselves are not necessarily harmful.

Meaningless changes, though, made for no discernible reason are another matter. Some may be intended to bring a comedic element into the mix and the question of whether or not that's a good idea is made moot by the dismal execution. Again the cast tries as hard as they can but short of giving them the authority to rewrite the script they're fighting a lost cause.

Several gushing reviews on Confidential's Facebook page note that the movie's ending sets up sequel possibilities, and one commenter said they could make several movies since Parker and his successor Ace Atkins have written dozens of Spenser novels. But as seems clear, O'Keefe and Helgeland don't need any published novels as guides for their movies: They are more than capable of sucking all on their own.

Ultimate Vindication

Back in 2013, Mats Järlström challenged a ticket that his wife got for running a red light. She wasn't pulled over but was instead nailed by a camera. Järlström said that the timing of the camera was wrong and drew upon his experience working for the Swedish Air Force and his degree in electrical engineering. His data impressed the Institute of Traffic Engineers (ITE) enough that they wanted him to address them, but the state of Oregon decided to fine him because they said he was representing himself as a professional engineer even though he didn't have a license as one.

Of course, Järlström hadn't called himself a registered engineer when presenting his research to the state so he didn't pay the fine, he paid a lawyer. In 2017 the state said they wouldn't impose the fine if Järlström didn't try to represent himself as a professional engineer, but both he and the group he was working with wanted something a little stronger than a state bureaucrat's promise to lean on. Last year, a federal court forced Oregon to recast several of its licensing procedures and the fines accompanying their violation.

And this week, the ITE updated its standards for timing on red-light cameras in ways that take into account the speed and size of the vehicle, deceleration rate, whether or not it's turning and so on. Their guide in doing so? Järlström's "extended kinematic equation" that he had initially presented when he thought his wife's ticket was wrong. If the state of Oregon wants to keep its traffic light cameras updated, they will have to use the very same research results for which they once tried to fine Mats Järlström.

You win some, and then sometimes you really freakin' win some.

Round 'Em Up

-- California Assemblyman Evan Low introduced a bill that would fine stores with more than 500 employees $1,000 if they marketed toys or clothes in spaces segregated by sex. In other words, if G.I. Joe is not on the same aisle as Barbie, then someone is going to get a ticket. I have no idea if there is marketing research that shows whether separate or mixed areas make for better sales for stores. I don't live in California or shop for toys so I don't really care what burdens its representatives want to inflict on its businesses. But then I read the rationale for Assemblyman Low's introduction of the bill: "A spokeswoman for Low’s office said that inspiration for the bill came from the 9-year-old daughter of one of Low’s staffers. The child told Low that she didn’t like how boy and girl sections were separated and that he should make a law against that." Since this is either A) untrue or B) one of the stupidest reasons possible for passing a law I think someone ought to put Assemblyman Low's proposal in the closeout aisle.

-- Writing in Mother Jones, assistant editor Becca Andrews recalls a 2017 interview in which Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg said since he was 75 and had a lot of things to do, he might run for "president of my block association, but not much more than that." Some folks might believe that the former NYC mayor has changed his mind, but I'm not so sure. Given Mr. Bloomberg's limited understanding of what it takes to farm and his belief that people from Texas pronounce it "Tay-has," he might very well be, in his mind, running for the president of his block association. Because his block is the only part of the country that matters, ya see.

-- Former FBI Director James Comey, who managed to find almost all of the wrong steps he could take in his job during the 2016 campaign and afterwards, tweeted his endorsement of former Vice-President Joe Biden. A member of Mr. Biden's campaign responded by making fun of Mr. Comey. Despite this obvious play for my support, I remained a registered independent and did not vote for Mr. Biden in today's primary election.

Reconfigure

The cool thing about being an engineer is that if something you use doesn't work in the way you want it to, you can either figure out a way to change it or just build something that does.

Justine Haupt of Brookhaven National Laboratory did this when she became frustrated with some of the glitchier features of a touchscreen smart phone, like the way that it can start random functions when you hold it against your face and accidentally touch them with your cheek or ear.

She didn't go back to what's often called a "dumb phone," or a cell phone with pushbuttons. She built a phone that runs with a rotary dial. Pictures and a description of what the phone does are at the link.

The next step is obviously to recruit Sarah from The Andy Griffith Show and put her to work. When we are mistakenly accused by the government of a crime because they say we were inciting terrorist activity, she will be able to vouch for the fact that we were just talking about buying Jeff Dunham tickets because she will have listened in on the conversation herself.

Precision Language

Economics professor Tyler Cowen noticed that a nearby library is being renovated and expresses his fear that the remodeled structure will have fewer books rather than more. He created a German neologism to express that fear:

Öffentlichebibliotheksumbaurenovierungssammlungsbeschränkungsangst.

I started to read the comment thread, thinking that because professor Cowen is an extremely intelligent man the people who read his posts -- your humble author excepted -- must also be extremely intelligent and I would benefit from perusing the discussion. I was wrong; there was a bunch of sniping about censorship and then a bunch more sniping about how public libraries are an artifact of a past life that we need to leave behind.

Very fun post, though.