On Friday, when the packing material was removed from my nose (in a fascinating moment that I won't describe out of deference to the reader), I still looked very strange. The swelling hadn't gone down much at all by the end of the day. In fact, it had spread to my upper lip, so that I had not just an enormous beak but a mouth that looked like a cartoonist's interpretation of a feminine smile.

But the same ears, eyes, hairline and jaw I always carry around.

Saturday I was halfway back, and went into Attila the Hub's office to show off my nose—only somewhat oversized by then. "Wow," he told me. "I haven't seen you in a while." I hadn't, either.

On Sunday I looked like myself, which was delightful. At that point I admitted that I'd been afraid something might go terribly wrong, and I'd always look like the product of a funhouse mirror.

Now I still have to wear the bandage on my face, but I can take it off for as much as an hour at a time, and even breathe through The Organ In Question a little bit.

I can see people's eyes pivot to the bandage, and then away as they realize it isn't polite to stare. A woman went up to me to say hello today, and just as I was wondering whether I knew her, she explained "I've been there." Ah, yes. It was that gauze chic look I was sporting. We're sisters in facelessness.

"Deviated septum?" I asked.

"And other breathing problems," she told me.

"I get the stints taken out of my nose this coming Friday," I remarked.

"It'll be great then. That's when you can really start breathing out of it."

Good to know. Until then, I've instructed my husband to call me Mistress Mucus. He likes that. "I'm out to do errands, Mistress M. See you later," he'll call over his shoulder on his way out the door.

I'm just so lucky to have had the opportunity for a procedure like this. I'm grateful, and happy to be living in a time and place where these problems can be fixed.

And grateful to my husband, who took a crappy union job last year that got me back onto the Luxurious Health Plan long enough to take care of my dainty (but apparenly malformed) schnoz.

Now go eat something. Enjoy the whole set of flavors, including those you need a sense of smell to perceive.

I'll be there soon.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:40 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Nice work, overall. I enjoyed the shot the President took at Teddy Kennedy. (Oh, come on. Do you think that segment on the importance of civility in debate was random?)

Bush is trying so hard not to smirk, and it just isn't in his nature: that goofy grin keeps sneaking back onto his face.

I'm wondering if anyone out there who voted for John Kerry perceived this, or whether perhaps it's a sign of bias on my part, but I really felt that G.W. at least tried to act the part of a parent adjudicating a dispute between children when he spoke of current Republican-Democrat tensions. With the mood so tense in the Senate lately, I felt he was attempting to communicate a sense of "don't make me stop this car!"

Most of my GOP friends won't be happy with his approach to immigration, but I am. Malkin, for example, probably gagged when he spoke about the guest worker program.

Energy policy: the olive branch here was in his not uttering the phrase "drilling in ANWR," but I found the "green" segment of the speech less startling than many probably will. Some of these government subsidies will indeed turn into boondoggles, but the fact remains that we need to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, so there is a need for a multipronged approach. And it wasn't like Bush was out there wearing his metaphorical Birkenstocks, either: he emphasized the fact that nuclear energy has to be part of the new game plan.

Hamas and Iran: These were both compelling moments in the speech, and the only two times that W. looked directly into the camera. He sent the same message twice ("do not fuck around with us, because we're serious"). And he delivered it forcefully.

And it was a nice touch, saying a few lines to the Iranian people. It's critical that we make the distinction between unfree people and the governments that oppress them.

And watching Mrs. Clinton, who could barely keep from rolling her eyes as she usually does during these addresses, I began to think some of us have exaggerated the threat she supposedly poses to the GOP: this pose of being above it all is not one that wil endear her to the American people. Her conduct on these occasions makes it harder to believe she's learned anything from her indisputably brilliant husband.

She is not, at heart, a real politician. She just happened to marry well.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:19 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The author of Scrappleface has lost his grandmother, who raised him and his three brothers. She sounds like a remarkable woman. It's decent and sweet of Scott to give us a glimpse into his family history—particularly while they are dealing with this enormous loss.

Please remember his grandmother—and the rest of his family—in your prayers. (Or send positive energy, for those of you who have difficulty anthropomorphizing God.)

(h/t: Cassandra.)

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. . . and their hammered sterling linings.

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Teddy Kennedy and Samuel Alito are having a passionate affair. It's really the only explanation that makes sense.

(h/t: Goldstein, who as I understand it does not endorse my theory)

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. . . would be a bad day, indeed.

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Does anyone want some cheese or furniture while I'm out?

How about some beer? Or candy?

Alternatively, you know—I could get you some sort of breakfast pastry.

Laurence says we can stop now, but I happen to like breakfast pastry a lot.

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. . . on the possibility that we're breaking through on solar power. (Yes; the subsidies will have to go, but go read: there may be some real potential there.)

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. . . is almost as good as making her your punk. So, go.

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Oh, what a beautiful day:

John Lasseter, the creative chief of Pixar Animation Studios, has wasted no time asserting who is boss after Pixar's takeover by Walt Disney - by stopping production of Toy Story 3, the controversial sequel to the two wildly successful animated films.

The original Toy Story, completed in 1995, was the first major collaboration between Pixar and Disney. Thehighly lucrative partnership went on to produce the hits Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and The Incredibles.

However, the joint venture became strained, partly because of personality clashes between the then Disney chief executive, Michael Eisner, and Pixar's chief executive, Steve Jobs, and partly because of Disney's desire to keep the Toy Story franchise running with a third and forth movie.

Mr Lasseter was deeply opposed to the idea but Disney went ahead, as it owns the intellectual property, putting 100 scriptwriters, animators and other creative staff to work on Toy Story 3 at its own Walt Disney Studios animation complex in Burbank, California.

On Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Mr Jobs and Disney's new chief executive, Bob Iger, unveiled the merger, Mr Lasseter went to Burbank with Pixar's president, Ed Catmull. He announced that Toy Story 3 would now be scrapped, without a word about the fate of the animation team.

According to talk in Hollywood, Disney was struggling with a script in which Buzz Lightyear, one of the two stars, developed a fault and had to be recalled to Taiwan for repairs.

According to regulatory filings in the US, the Disney-Pixar deal gives Mr Lasseter creative control over all of the two studios' animated film output, while still maintaining Pixar's independence.

Emphasis mine; the sun's coming up.

The Observer has this piece, which was obviously written by a business writer who doesn't get the often-ignored truth that entertainment is an industry unlike all others. (This is one of main reasons studios can be destroyed by freshly minted MBAs with no concept of how paramount storylines are to the telling, of, well, stories: in the words of my freakin' brilliant scriptwriter spouse, "for all they care, some of these executives could be making widgets. All 'product' is the same in their eyes.")

Disney's new chief executive, Bob Iger, has wasted no time restoring some lustre to the Magic Kingdom. The multi-billion-dollar acquisition of Pixar, the studio that inherited its reputation for making blockbuster, family-friendly films, is part of his plan to place animation back at the heart of the Disney empire. It also signals the end of a long battle between the two studios, in which Pixar's better use of new technology ultimately proved decisive.

No. Pixar's movies are not better than Disney's from the last decade because of technological superiority. After all, anyone can hire the best special-effects shops in town to produce whatever they want. Pixar's movies are superior because they are better written. And you can go back to the shorts they were making back in the 1980s—before Steve Jobs came aboard, and before they ever turned a profit—and see the commitment to quality productions. Not productions that look good as still cels lining the walls of high-end galleries in L.A., New York, and Santa Fe: quality productions with engaging characters and intriguing story arcs.

If Jobs and Lasseter may really create a "student rebellion" against the autocratic mullahs of Disney Animation, it will be a beautiful day indeed.

(h/t: K's Quest)

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1 There's an article on Pixar's corporate culture in today's NYT business section.

Posted by: David Foster at January 29, 2006 09:51 AM (7TmYw)

2 LMA, you're so right. Of course, I can't just leave it at that. First, I'll just observe that Jobs would make a great CEO of Disney, and that an Apple-Disney merger might be an interesting thing (admittedly, Sony provides an excellent cautionary tale). And, whether or not you agree with Lasseter's decision (I suspect I would, given the facts), you have to respect that he killed the project day 1, rather than do the usual "Oh, well, we're waiting to conceptualize the rethink of the new evaluation of the strategic reassessment" thing that both the entertainment and tech industry love. For anyone who thinks that technology is or is not the problem: Treasure Planet. There was nothing wrong with the animation. There was everything wrong with the story, which is why it sank like a stone and took the traditional animation division with it. And, as you correctly point out, large entertainment companies are the only kind of organization that, institutionally, have their own nemesis inside of them, receiving large salaries for doing things that actively damage the company they work for: Development executives. I'd love to read an analysis how this particular pathology developed. Is it an echo of the studio system, where executives felt they had to keep creatives "in line"? Still scared by the ghost of Heaven's Gate? I dunno, but can you imagine a brand-new 20-something MBA lecturing a General Electric business unit head on how to run their organization, and not only getting away with it, but receiving GE board-level support for doing so? No, I can't, either.

Posted by: Christophe at January 29, 2006 10:22 AM (td8Qe)

3 Let's see if we can fix "Toy Story 3" and sell it to Lion's Gate or Viacom. How about making it live action, with say, George Clooney taking on a role? Plot? How about Buzz seeing the climate approaching a "tipping point" and vowing to save the planet and rout the evil "Republicans"? To show it's not a propaganda piece, we will showcase the diversity of thought that is Hollywood today: Everyone from Barbara Steisand to Susan Sarandon to John Cussack. I see room for lot of cameos...Al Gore...John Kerry...Cindy Sheehan...are you reading this? We can have subplots! An eight-figure deposit into LMA's PayPal account can get the ball rolling....

Posted by: Darrell at January 29, 2006 12:21 PM (eprAF)

4 Oh, if they want crap, I can provide it. If they want quality, they should ask my cohabitant It's not my field at all.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 29, 2006 12:42 PM (XbEp3)

5 Christophe ponders the possibility of an Apple-Disney merger, which Steve Jobs could no doubt pull off, given Apple's rising stature as a meda powerhouse. Don't forget the clever acquisition of NeXT by Apple he orchistrated a while back, ousting Gil Amelio and installing himself as CEO. For more on this, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Amelio At the very least, maybe he can completely transition the Mouse Factory from PC to Mac. As for Disney Feature Animation, they certainly need creative leadership. When Katzenberg was fired by Eisner in 1994 after his failed attempt to succeed Frank Wells, the Feature Animation folks lost a serious ass-kicker, and the last executive with the balls to make hard creative decisions like bouncing Lion King back to storyboards and pushing the release date half a year *just* to get the story right. John Lassiter will be that ass-kicker. And he's not wasting any time. dc

Posted by: Dave Coons at January 29, 2006 01:55 PM (/BoHb)

6 I'll tell you though, you can tell a lot about a company from it's stills hanging in high-end galleries -- in this case, the Pixar show at MOMA. The amount of gallery-quality paintings, pastels, sketches, marker-doodles, collages, etc reveals the extrordinary commitment to finding the essence of the story in color, light, character, texture, sound, whatever. After seeing it, I desperately wanted to work for Pixar, although I write musicals -- I don't draw. You could see their commitment to story in every single object. It was rather mindblowing. Contrast this to, say, Madagascar, which looked like someone had taken their clip-art files and rendered them into a movie. Long live John Lasseter.

Posted by: Mango at January 29, 2006 04:21 PM (eYLz2)

7 To LMA (confidential):What a sales pitch! Of course, we'd be giving them crap. But the secret lies in keeping that a secret for as long as possible. To LGF and Viacom. I expect this to really speak "truth" to "power" big time! Better send in the money now before the other studios get wind of it! Who knows when global warming will destroy the Earth and put DVD sales into the toilet? Better act NOW! You don't want George W. Bush winning in 2008, do you?

Posted by: Darrell at January 29, 2006 04:24 PM (MdxyU)

8 But the point here is that the storylines cannot be driven by either the marketing folks or the artists: it must be written by actual writers.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 29, 2006 04:25 PM (XbEp3)

9 Christophe: I don't know a lot of specifics about Toy Story 3, but it seems to me that the endless making of sequels is part of the problem. "When it's over, let it go." My favorite story is about the actress who played Mrs. Howell on Gilligan's Island. Of course, she was a terribly experienced character acress, and got tired of being patronized by the youngsters. So the next time one of the 20-somethings asked her, "so what have you done?" she responded, "you first." Darrell: you'll have an easier time of it getting me to run for public office, vs. putting my head on the entertainment industry chopping block. Seriously.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 29, 2006 04:33 PM (XbEp3)

10 Might as well forget it now! I'm sure the studio heads have stopped the funds transfer! Couldn't wait, could you? On the other hand, how's this for honesty? Hope all you political big shots are watching... A regular George Washington, this one! Could have left the country with eight figures! And it's not just the 'goofballs' she's taking...

Posted by: Darrell at January 29, 2006 08:23 PM (aE94C)

11 Well, I had to do the honorable thing, Darrell, much as it pains me. Had I taken the money under false pretenses, I simply couldn't have lived with myself. You know, I've never had a fur coat--only a Republican cloth coat.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 30, 2006 02:50 AM (XbEp3)

12 Absolutely. I just read an article in either Fast Company or Business 2.0 (hard to tell 'em apart sometimes) about a crop of up-and-coming digital animation houses and which one was gonna be the next Pixar. Don't recall seeing a word about it being the one with the consistently strong scripts. I wouldn't dismiss Toy Story 3 out of hand, apart from Lassiter's heart not being in it. I thought Toy Story 2 was a better and deeper story than the original, which was just a (well-made, to be sure) animated formula buddy picture.

Posted by: Ken at January 30, 2006 08:30 AM (6W2zl)

13 I don't know much about Lasseter's management style, but given that he and Jobs get along, I have to assume they are compatible. Jobs is, by all accounts, a complete bear to work for: He takes exactly no bullshit, and he has the most finely-tuned bullshit detector in the business. I didn't like the NextSTEP takeover of the Macintosh OS at the time, but that was because I was an old Mac OS guy: Jobs was 100% right, and he saved the company (between that and the iPod). The old Apple would have be happy to commit seppuku rather than switch to Intel processors, but once again, Jobs was right. Jobs also has a health disregard for the "go along to get along" philosophy of business. His attitude towards the record labels is, "Your historic business model is of no concern to me." I'll be curious to see how long he'll be happy as a Disney board member. If I were Iver, I'd be making sure that I did everything in my power to never, ever report two bad quarters in a row. If I were Roy Disney, I'd be working on becoming Jobs' best friend (such as you can be). Anyway, yes. If you have a strong story, there is only so bad the movie can be. If you don't, there's no limit.

Posted by: Christophe at January 30, 2006 09:00 AM (2rBIo)

14 Christophe: in your references to the OS, are you referring to the development of OS 10, or is that a different issue?

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 30, 2006 10:44 AM (XbEp3)

15 Christophe: in your references to the OS, are you referring to the development of OS 10, or is that a different issue? (Christophe slips LMA a $10 for giving him such a great soapbox question.) Roughly, yes. Here's the whole pedantic story: Around 1989, it became clear that OS 9 was simply not going to be able to be pushed much farther, and that a whole new operating system for the Macintosh was required. Apple had two internal projects in addition to "Blue," the current Mac OS 9: "Red," a super-advanced OS for years in the future, and "Pink" (a somewhat) more modest OS for the short-term. (They were named, I kid you not, after the color of the Post-It on which the features were written in a brainstorming session.) For a variety of reasons, the received doctrine at the time is that developing a whole new OS was a project that only a company like Microsoft could undertake; Apple couldn't do it by itself. Thus, Apple spun off the Pink project as a separate company, as a joint venture with IBM (later including HP). This company was Taligent; I worked there. However, Apple politics being what they are, the instant that Taligent spun out, a different group inside of Apple started work on their idea of a next-generation OS. This OS was code-named Copland. The Copland team had a lot of extremely bright people on it, with some very good ideas. However, like Taligent, it suffered from the fact that the team was largely arrogant young things (myself included) that had very little experience designing a modern operating system. Thus, they flailed around trying to solve problems that older, wiser heads had already solved. "Reinventing the wheel" didn't even begin to describe it. When Jobs returned from NeXT, he did a review of Copland, and almost immediately killed the project. At the time, a lot of people thought it was just Revenge of NeXT, and that Jobs had no intention of preserving Copland. But the reality is that Copland was out of control, and was threatening to take Apple down with it. Something had to be done, and Jobs had a near-complete OS in his back pocket, ready to go. The NeXTSTEP system became OS 10, and the rest is history. It was the best decision that Apple had made since deciding to start the Macintosh project. I hated it at the time, but upon reflection, Jobs was completely right.

Posted by: Christophe at January 31, 2006 02:02 PM (2rBIo)

16 Oh, to be ultra-super-pedantic, I use "OS 9" above to mean "the classic Macintosh operating system." Of course, it wasn't "OS 9" in 1989, but it was the OS that ultimately lead to OS 9.

Posted by: Christophe at January 31, 2006 02:05 PM (2rBIo)

17 Understood. I like the idea of Jobs beginning to rival Gates in his influence on the future of technology. Something sweet about that, were it to happen.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 31, 2006 02:12 PM (XbEp3)

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It's not always so easy. When they woke me up Thursday a few minutes after the operation, I was fascinated by my surroundings: I wanted to know why the thingamabobs suspended from the ceilings had so many hooks in them. I wanted to know why I was in the bed to the left, rather than the bed to the right (this was because I was in the recovery room, which other than its lighting was a bit like the operating room: but I was in a different "slot" therein). I wanted to know the race of the man next to me, and why his moans sounded more like they came from pleasure than from pain.

But I didn't want to be much trouble. I did ask why I was now to the left of the room, and I enquired about the hooks. I figured out, however, that when I was too active I tended to alarm the nurses and attendents milling about. So once they took my oxygen mask off I kept trying until I could raise my head and shoulders a bit and look around. And as soon as the nurses turned their heads, I lay back down and returned to staring at the hooks in the ceiling, like a good patient.

I was taken back to my room, and there was a delay about informing my husband and my mother that I was out of surgery. So I asked another nurse about his shark tattoo, and requested cranberry juice, and tried to call my mother's and husband's cell phones, which weren't receiving very well in the hospital. Finally, my husband came looking for me, and we had a grand little reunion while I told them how absorbing all the equipment was, and how lucky a person I am.

And there were a lot of blessings in this experience, such as having a private room to recuperate in for a few hours after surgery. And the Latino nurses who provide "muscle," and specialize in moving patients from place to place. They had nice tattoos as well, and one of them was full of compliments, keeping me well supplied with warm blankets and telling me how beautiful I looked after the operation when I knew darned well I didn't. ("And why is that important?" I hear you ask. Because at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital there are a lot of aging actresses who have essentially been seduced and discarded by elements of the entertainment industry. If they are treated kindly and decently by their health-care providers—and flirted with just a little by the hospital staff—it's a humane and marvelous thing.)

I'd always been raised to aspire to stoicism, so when my husband asked me whether I was in pain I attributed my headache to being dehydrated and assured him it would be over soon. It wasn't, of course, as I'm sure he realized, as he stood over me, wiping the blood away from my eye, which was oozing a little. Another hour later a second wave of pain made me realize there was more going on than dehydration: getting the inside of your face carved up eventually makes your neurons hum fairly loudly.

Why now?I thought, and realized what would have been obvious to anyone blessed with a little common sense. "Oh, I must have been high as a fucking kite for the first two hours after I got out."

"Well," my husband conceded, "you were a little loopy when we arrived."

"What was the tipoff?—when I told you that I longed for my keyboard in the recovery room, so I could live-blog the experience of waking up from surgery?"

"Well, you know. Any time you have an operation and wake up really interested in your surroundings, the chances are that you're stoned out of your mind."

Attila the Hub, you'll note, has a healthy relationship with the practical world. I'm really glad that someone around here does.

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And, as with most friends, there's a point when you want to say, "fuck you."

I'm still mulling the whole thing over. I most certainly don't think the stance Google is taking here vis a vis the DOJ obligates them not to cooperate with the Chinese government: after all, privacy is a different issue from free speech. I think there's something to be said for Stephen Green's contention that this may not turn into a big deal in the long run. And of course there is the argument that the Chinese may be better off with half a Google versus none at all.

But the capitulation to "local standards and laws" leaves a very bad taste in my mouth, and makes me eager to try other search engines.

Goldstein has some thoughts, as does Esmay and his crew. And, of course, Malkin is furious in a fun way.

"Don't be evil," indeed. Try not being dickweeds, Boys.

Anyone know how to change the default search engine on Safari?

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Paging Michael Connelly.

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My nose is now producing more traditional fluids, in addition to those we might associate with emergencies.

And under the bandages I look a lot less like a corpse and a lot more like I'm just ugly.

I actually have two meetings on Sunday, though, so I'm hoping the swelling goes down and the biological material is less copius. Otherwise I'll have to show up sporting the bandaged look. Very chic.

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Neo has some thoughts; the anti-Semites come out to play in her comments section. Also, keep scrolling: she's got a roundup of blogger reactions on her main page.

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Everything went well. I'm trying to take it easy on the Vicodan—a decision I'm almost certain to regret at some point.

I look extraordinarily ugly, of course, even if you discount the bits of dried blood under my nose and one eye. Attila the Hub got one frame off with his phone camera; I'll try to remember to post it over the next several days.

They tell me, however, that uninhibited nose-breathing can be utterly intoxicating.

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I suppose you think youÂ’re better than me--just like the rest of them
Looking for someone to share the wonder of desperate, clawing loneliness
I have a really big heart! In the refrigerator
Could YOU be the one to help me forget my pain?
Have successfully completed three straight months of Pier One papasan chair payments
I want to end my parade of lies with someone special

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I'm going to bed, and I'll be gone/drugged-up most of tomorrow, getting reconstructive surgery done to the inside of my nose. Which means I will not live up to one of my life's ambitions: keeping sharp utensils away from my mucus membranes.

They'll put me completely under for this, so I'll probably be away from the keyboard most of the day. Hubris has some goodies here for you from his lovely, twisted mind, and Rightwing Sparkle will probably be by at some point to say hello.

Sweet dreams. See those knives? Get 'em away from your nose: I can still save you from my mistakes.

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to Glenn and Dr. Helen, who were interviewing Norah Vincent, of Self-Made Man fame.

Vincent's story is fascinating; I want to read this book immediately, though there are a few ahead of it in the reading queue.

The Glenn and Helen Show couldn't be more homey; it's without pretense, as the Instapundit blog is. I was surprised at Dr. Helen's Southern accent, which was stupid of me. Dr. H, in particular, was extraordinarily down to earth: clearly, teaching has given Glenn an edge over some of us in speaking before (potentially) large groups.

My favorite line was Glenn's signoff: "we'll be back again when we feel like it." Nice.

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1 I read Dr. Helen's post about this; it looks fascinating, but I'm with you. I have about seven feet of books waiting to be read (I measured - I'm a little weird sometimes).

Posted by: Matthew T. Armstrong at January 26, 2006 07:26 AM (xlx4L)

2 Tease!!!!!!! I hope you were present/participated when you lost your other "virginity". I sat through an hour of dial-up hell waiting to hear your voice(I thought you were a guest interviewer)...I must stop assuming! At least with the "dead"links, I get instant non-gratification!

Posted by: Darrell at January 26, 2006 12:13 PM (unx3B)

3 Oh, I'm sorry. It was a callback to my resisting LISTENING to these things, because I knew once I heard one, I'd want to start producing them. And, of course, I do: but I have to think about it for a while and decide what format, etc.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 26, 2006 04:32 PM (XbEp3)

4 You are so forgiven! What's an hour here or there? Remember your future political ambitions when you decide what to Podcast...Keep in mind that we can always blame Darlene for all the iffy posts...Or Dr. Myra Vanderhood...

Posted by: Darrell at January 26, 2006 09:27 PM (DY+dY)

5

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 27, 2006 05:24 AM (XbEp3)

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. . . familiar. Probably because I've been having similar conversations for years.

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