More Celebrities and Some Confusion

It has been a long time since I last blogged. The Sudeikis/Helms episode of Saturday Night Live came and went without any mention of an uncanny similarity between the two, leaving me to conclude that I am the only one who sees that similarity.

In other television news, several weeks ago the world witnessed the departure of long-time Entertainment Tonight host Mary Hary. In the spirit of confusing celebrity pairs, I am reminded of days long ago when Mary Hart shared the airwaves with Mariette Hartley. Whatever happened to Mariette Hartley? Well, okay, one can read the linked Wikipedia article to find out whatever happened to Mariette Hartley. And of course in even bigger departure news, Oprah Winfrey ended her talk show. Could someone please explain to me why people go crazy over Oprah? She seems as if she could be the only person on television with even less talent than Carson Daly, if such a thing is indeed possible.

And Clarence Clemons has died. He made a lot of music with the E Street Band over the decades; what stands out most in my mind is his work on Dancing in the Dark. From the perspective of synesthesia, the synthesizer that forms the backbone of Dancing in the Dark is a smooth, gleaming gold, whereas the saxophone is a contrasting fuzzy gold. Even more remarkable is the sense of musical detachment created in that saxophone solo; it isn't a part of the song, but instead floats above the song and outside it.

Celebrity Confusion Abounds

I have a problem with confusing celebrities.

Ever since childhood I have confused Mickey Rooney and Andy Rooney.

Publicity for the current season of Dancing with the Stars has reawakened my confusion of Scott Baio and Ralph Macchio. They have similar names, they look similar, they both reached their respective peaks of popularity at about the same time, and they both worked with Pat Morita, Baio in Happy Days, and Macchio in The Karate Kid.

I am also starting to get Nathalie Portman and Winona Ryder confused—although separated in age by a decade, they kind of look alike, they both have fake last names, and they were both in Black Swan. (Please note that I know of the Black Swan connection only by reading about it; I don't watch movies about ballet.)

But none of this can compare to my difficulty in differentiating Jason Sudeikis (from Saturday Night Live) and Ed Helms (from The Office). These two NBC stars register on my brain as the same person. I even got them confused in a dream last year, as I previously noted on the blog.

A few months ago I kept seeing television ads for a movie about a man running wild with his friends. Bizarrely, sometimes the movie starred Jason Sudeikis, and sometimes it starred Ed Helms. I took this to mean that either I was going crazy, or Jason Sudeikis and Ed Helms really were the same person. As it turned out, there were two similar films being released at the same time, Hall Pass (starring Jason Sudeikis) and Cedar Rapids (starring Ed Helms).

This weekend my confusion will reach some sort of critical mass. Ed Helms will be hosting Saturday Night Live, where he will come face to face with cast member Jason Sudeikis. The part of me that is still a nerdy fifteen-year-old expects the show to begin with the two of them rushing together uncontrollably, causing an enormous explosion in which both of their bodies will be converted entirely to energy. The part of me that is a slightly more mature nerdy adult can only wonder if anyone else will note the similarity. Am I the only one who sees it?

Dammit Jim, You're an Actor, not a Singer!

William Shatner, who for years explored the cosmos in the role of James Tiberius Kirk, has announced the track listing for his upcoming album. The album contains covers of a variety of space-themed classic rocks songs, including Pink Floyd's Learning to Fly. That's one song that I can really imagine him rocking Shatner-style: My grubby halo . . . a vapor trail . . . in . . . the empty air!

The album will be titled Searching for Major Tom. Perhaps Shatner wouldn't need to search if he were aware that, as someone once informed us, ashes to ashes, funk to funky, we know Major Tom's a junkie.

Of course, none of this beats Leonard Nimoy singing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.

People Whom I Have Known Part III: Foreign Policy

I'm old. I don't consider myself old. I think to myself: I'm young. I'm hip. I know who Taylor Momsen is. But I'm actually old enough to remember when Slash and Axl were on speaking terms.

One of the few good parts of getting older is that, possibly, if one is lucky, a few of one's acquaintances or former acquaintances may acquire enough power or prestige (or perhaps infamy) to become useful topics in casual conversation. This happened to me twice last year, with the cases of Paul DePodesta and Rey Deceraga. And now it happens again with Samantha Power.

Samantha Power was last seen in 2008, when she resigned from Barack Obama's presidential campaign after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster". But now Power has reemerged as a senior aide at the National Security Council, and one of the primary architects of our military intervention in Libya. As such, she is the subject of conjecture and analysis all the way from The Nation to National Review. There is even speculation that she might be our next Secretary of State.

Before all this, though, she was one of the freshman counselors in my dorm during my first year of college. I didn't have much contact with her, because I didn't cause much trouble, and the freshman counselors were mostly concerned with the troublemakers. When I think back on our limited interactions, what stands out most in my mind is that she did not approve of my handling of the Squirrel Situation. But I don't feel like relating the Squirrel Situation right now.

At that time, I had no idea that she would rise to such heights in our government, nor how fake her name would sound if she were to be in a position of . . . well . . . power.

Words of Wisdom III

If you fall off a horse, you have to get right back on, so you can fall off again.

Trilobites on the Small Screen

In March of last year, I blogged about a scientific paper in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences in which several new species of trilobites were named after alternative rock stars of the Eighties.

Now, in the same combined spirit of paleontology and popular culture, I report on a paper in the December 2010 Journal of Systematic Paleontology (abstract here). Stephen R. Westrop, Raina A. Waskiewicz Poole, and Jonathan M. Adrain investigate trilobites from the Cambrian of Oklahoma. (Adrain is one of the authors of the earlier paper.) The following new species are established:

Dokimocephalus stewarti

Dokimocephalus blacki

Stittella beeae

The theme here, which may or may not be apparent to you, is that these trilobites are named after people from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, and Samantha Bee. (I must admit that I have never watched The Daily Show, which appeals only to a very specific audience of smug young urban liberal college-educated white people.) I, of course, know who Jon Stewart is; I have no idea at all who Samantha Bee is; and I have some idea of Lewis Black from his appearances on other shows, though not much beyond the general impression that at any moment his head could explode.

Trolls and Elves and Hobbits and Sheens

He's lean. He's mean. He's Charlie Sheen.

Every so often a series of unrelated things will come to my attention, and join together in my mind in a way that seems to make sense, if only to me. The most recent occurrence of this phenomenon stems, as does much of our modern discourse, from the strange saga of Charlie Sheen.

We start with John Cryer admitting that he is a troll . . .

. . . at the same time as this discussion of a rare genetic disorder that makes people look like elves . . .

. . . briefly calling to mind Homo floresiensis, an extinct hominid sometimes known as a hobbit . . .

. . . and finally leading us to the theory that The Lord of the Rings may have been based on a true story.