The Dabbler

HEAT: The Evolution of a Post Game

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:03:10 -0400

n Cleveland, James was the definition of a bruiser in the post. He would back down his defenders with multiple dribbles, often from the left side of the key, looking to use his size to get an edge on his defender, turn over his right shoulder into the middle of the paint and either finish over the top or draw a foul. As the numbers showed, it was effective, but those possessions also killed the shot clock, and when the defense brought a defender from the weakside, James lacked a counter-move to get himself out of trouble. The ball would stick, and the team would be left scrambling with a short clock. So, Fizdale started from scratch, breaking down James’ game to its most basic elements. He wanted James to understand how to get the most out of his size, to work on technique, balance and footwork, to learn how to draw multiple defenders and what moves are best suited to different situations. Not necessarily the aspects you would begin with any other player, but James was already such a talented, and willing, passer, Fizdale was afforded a selective focus.

"Whit Stillman’s first film in over a decade, “Violet Wister’s Damsels In Distress,” will be released..."

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:24:38 -0400

“Whit Stillman’s first film in over a decade, “Violet Wister’s Damsels In Distress,” will be released worldwide by Sony Pictures Classics. Starring Greta Gerwig and Adam Brody, the film is a comedy that follows a trio of beautiful girls (led by Gerwig’s character) who set out to revolutionize life at a grungy East Coast university. The film was privately financed and entirely filmed in New York State. Expected to come out at some point in 2011 (though that is not confirmed as of yet), it will be Stillman’s first release since 1998’s “The Last Days of Disco.””

- Sony Classics Will Release Whit Stillman’s Latest - indieWIRE

"Stern told the room he knows where “the bodies are buried” in the NBA, witnesses recounted, because..."

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 18:04:22 -0400

“Stern told the room he knows where “the bodies are buried” in the NBA, witnesses recounted, because he had buried some of them himself. “It was shocking,” Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose(notes) told Yahoo! Sports. “I was taking off my gear, and when he said that, I just stopped and thought, ‘Whoa …’ “I couldn’t believe that he said it.””

- NBA players’ union leader takes bold stand - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

(via Video: This weekend’s craziest finish happened in...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:12:06 -0400

(via Video: This weekend’s craziest finish happened in Spain - Ball Don’t Lie - NBA Blog - Yahoo! Sports)

"One reason Anglophone rockers dig Zé is that he resists the Portuguese-style nostalgia epitomized by..."

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 20:42:28 -0400

“One reason Anglophone rockers dig Zé is that he resists the Portuguese-style nostalgia epitomized by saudade. But though he never comes near morbidity, here he’s definitely an old man looking back fondly and a little sadly at the lost grace and sometimes companionship of his twenties, when it’s just possible he didn’t appreciate everything he had‑-particularly the melodicism of a quiet pop insurgency he was resistant enough to realize was also an assertion of cosmopolitan privilege. So he compensates with the most unabashedly beautiful album in his tuneful book‑-undercut, true enough, by his 74-year-old mumbles and croaks and even groans, but also lifted toward Sugarloaf Mountain by 11 different young or younger women whose mothers and grandmothers he might well have jerked off to in the Brigitte Bardot era. Nor is he about to lose his sense of humor. Because those groans are actually pretty funny, therefore also are they uncommonly beautiful. A”

- Expert Witness

Christgau offers a spot-on assessment of the Tropicalia era.

via lh5.googleusercontent.com

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:18:20 -0400

via lh5.googleusercontent.com

Essential Viewing: The Good “Bad” Acting of Juliette Binoche – Fandor - Essential films. Instantly!

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:59:33 -0500

Essential Viewing: The Good “Bad” Acting of Juliette Binoche – Fandor - Essential films. Instantly!:

I love the film essay format, even though most of them seem more insightful from their strong rhetoric than they really are.

Betty Boop decision: Copyright trumps trademark | The Beat

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 16:04:11 -0500

Betty Boop decision: Copyright trumps trademark | The Beat

"What you actually find when you arrive at L’Ami Louis is singularly unprepossessing. It’s a long,..."

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:51:07 -0500

“What you actually find when you arrive at L’Ami Louis is singularly unprepossessing. It’s a long, dark corridor with luggage racks stretching the length of the room. It gives you the feeling of being in a second-class railway carriage in the Balkans. It’s painted a shiny, distressed dung brown. The cramped tables are set with labially pink cloths, which give it a colonic appeal and the awkward sense that you might be a suppository. In the middle of the room is a stubby stove that also looks vaguely proctological.”

- Tour De Gall | Culture | Vanity Fair

"If a patient who has just gotten an abortion wants an IUD — the most effective form of birth..."

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:39:17 -0500

“If a patient who has just gotten an abortion wants an IUD — the most effective form of birth control, little chance for user error, good for five or 10 years depending on which kind you get — they have to come back for it, not because there’s any clinical reason to wait, but because Medicaid doesn’t cover two procedures in one day. Most of the time the way this ends up breaking down is they come back for their follow-up appointment, then again for a pap smear/pelvic exam to “clear” them for the IUD, then one more time for the insertion. All to make sure it gets covered. And also please don’t get pregnant at any point in that month-long process where you don’t have your preferred method of contraception because then the process repeats. Man, are they ever stupid not to pay for it themselves with the five hundred dollars they allotted that year specifically for that purpose! I wonder what else they’re dumb at.”

- Ask an Abortion Provider | The Hairpin

Nice Art: Hilary Florido and Farel Dalrymple do video...

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:20:39 -0500

Nice Art: Hilary Florido and Farel Dalrymple do video games | The Beat

"The sets, costumes, and overall staging is beautiful and breathtaking — not necessarily worth $120..."

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:35:13 -0500

“The sets, costumes, and overall staging is beautiful and breathtaking — not necessarily worth $120 for a ticket, but definitely something you don’t see every day. I mean, you don’t see a dead skunk on the road every day either, but Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is better than a dead skunk on the road.”

- Spider-Man: Turn off your brain | The Beat

Daniel Clowes draws Glenn Beck | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources...

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:47:07 -0500

Daniel Clowes draws Glenn Beck | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

The Feast / Top Shelf 2.0

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:49:30 -0500

The Feast / Top Shelf 2.0

freedarkostore — BECAUSE REPUBLICANS BUY SHOES TOO…

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:09:46 -0500

freedarkostore — BECAUSE REPUBLICANS BUY SHOES TOO…

"And make no mistake, this kind of thoughtless racism needs to be laid at comics’ doorstep at..."

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:30:02 -0500

“And make no mistake, this kind of thoughtless racism needs to be laid at comics’ doorstep at least as much as it does at Eisner’s. Comics is a language, a system of abstract visual signs with an agreed-upon meaning, and like how in Twain’s day “nigger” was a relatively commonplace part of English, in Eisner’s this kind of racial caricature was a part of the comics lexicon. There are still problems with the language of comics — a notable one being the way hourglass figures and balloon breasts are the medium’s most common code for “woman” — but time was that dinner-plate eyes and inner-tube lips were just as common a code for “black person”. Eisner certainly deserves as much blame as anyone else for propagating such a grotesque aspect of his field, but Ebony White’s appearance was sprung from the generalities of the era’s action comics, a character design as nondescript in its milieu as the Spirit in his suit and domino mask was. Racism was a part of the world once upon a time, and as such it was a part of comics. And it’s hardly left the world, let alone America, let alone American comics — but at least there are certain things you can’t do in public anymore, and this is most definitely one of them. Ebony White will always ensure that The Spirit isn’t presented in the grand fashion the work’s aesthetic value merits. In a way that’s poetic justice, a casual racism that no doubt endeared Eisner’s work to a populist audience in its day now preventing it from getting over to the world at large in ours. And there the story would end, if Ebony White wasn’t such a good character.”

- DEATH TO THE UNIVERSE: Your Monday Panel 49

Carl Bean - I was born this way (via drNeonlicht)

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:43:10 -0500

Carl Bean - I was born this way (via drNeonlicht)

"hat’s the first page of the first chapter of The Wizard of Oz, written (of course) by L. Frank..."

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:48:53 -0500

“hat’s the first page of the first chapter of The Wizard of Oz, written (of course) by L. Frank Baum, and illustrated by W.W. (William Wallace) Denslow. As you can see, Dorothy is leaning on the first letter of her own name, standing beside a Kansas wheat stalk. She stares into a mysterious fairie twilight…and not coincidentally, also seems to be staring into the book itself, with its own mysterious fairie treasures. Dorothy is about to enter the story, and she’s also the story itself; she’s an image and a name. You can’t show her without showing the start of the book.”

- Dorothy and the Wizard in Letters - comiXology

Clapping music - Steve Reich (via petervanderham)

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:47:13 -0500

Clapping music - Steve Reich (via petervanderham)

Drawn and Quarterly: February 2011

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:46:20 -0500

Drawn and Quarterly: February 2011