At least you can afford shoes

Alejandro González Iñárritu, the marketably avante-gardish Mexican film-maker who directed Amores perros, did the commercial above. I hate to admit I liked this when I saw it at Slate, in spite of many of the things it represents-- commercialism, mindlessly hyperkinetic editing, glitzy phoniness, celebrity worship, and probably a bunch of other things which if pointed out would just belabor the obvious and make this long sentence even longer. But it's still pretty gee-whiz, even if you're not a soccer fan. (Do you ever wonder if some American bloggers pretend to be to soccer fans just to burnish their geek cred? )

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

Novelist Elif Şafak-Euronews

Euronews — June 06, 2010 — Elif Şafak is Turkey's most popular female writer. She has also gained fame abroad, not only for her literary accomplishments but also because of the lawsuit brought against her in Turkey because, in one of her novels she refers to the mass killings of Armenians in 1915; that is in The Bastard of Istanbul. The suit was dropped. Euronews met up with Şafak in Lyon, France, where she was attending a book festival. We asked her about her impressions of Europe, her writing and culture.

Eyjafjallajökull

No, I don't know how to pronounce it either. However, I note that Wikipedia has a sound file,here, which is bit too quick to be helpful for my slow ears. Also, they note that "...the first fissure occurred at Fimmvörðuháls." Fimmvörðuháls! How can Icelanders understand each other with words like that, let alone give each other directions?

Ingibjörg Egilsdóttir

Who is Ingibjörg Egilsdóttir? You may well ask. She's Miss Iceland for 2009. How do you pronounce her name? I don't know. In the unlikely event I ever meet her, it'll give me an excuse to ask her that. I wonder if her last name means "Eagle's daughter." I guess I could ask her that too.

Anyway, she's darn pretty, and posting her pic is also an excuse to use fun diacritical marks that don't generally appear in English. I hope you like her photo, and you appreciate my extraordinary restraint in avoiding seemingly obligatory jokes about snuggling for warmth cause she's from Iceland, etc.

How can a mass murderer look like Santa Claus?

I guess he just can. Or he can impress you with his homespun ways and shrub-clearing skills. All kidding aside, I was impressed that the Europeans didn't feel obliged to share footage of Radovan Karadžić's arrest making him look ridiculous the way the so-called coalition forces in Iraq seemed to feel obligated to show us Saddam looking bewildered climbing out of his hole and having his teeth examined.

Admittedly I just assume this is the case, not having done an exhaustive search for news items about Karadžić. But I also assume that we here in the US would be made aware of it if it had happened, given our domestic media's appetite for that sort of thing, which is only stayed when it's a (still-current) ally of the US foreign policy establishment.

Ségolène n' Buddy

AFP foto

Ségolène Royal, on the left, and Buddy Sarkozy were the two top vote-getters in the first round of the French presidential election, as you probably already know. Ok, ok, I think his name is Nicholas. But he looks like his name should be Buddy, if you ask me. You can tell how much they like each other, too.