‘Avengers’: More Marvel, Less Fun

What if Marvel gave a party and everybody came? That’s the organizing principle of “The Avengers,” the much-anticipated, hugely hyped, immensely expensive and fitfully enjoyable (with an asterisk) convocation of comic book superheroes in which Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye team up to save the world. I’ll explain the asterisk later. First let me note the magnitude of the event for the movie’s fan base versus the oddity of the mashup – a slow start, a single star performance surrounded by indifferent acting and an onslaught of computer effects that range from seen-it-all-in-“Transformers” to a whole sky full of spectacular stuff in the midtown Manhattan climax.

Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and Hulk were all good in their own movies but I’m not sure if I’m going to like them packed into one sardine film can.

Elsewhere:

• ‘Avengers’ Opening Weekend a Boon for Product Placement, Too

#movies #avengers

The Plant | Chicago’s vertical farm and food business incubator

The Plant is a new kind of organization in a very old building. It’s part vertical farm, part food-business incubator, part research and education space – and it will be entirely off the grid. Read on to learn more about what we’re doing – and welcome!

Only about an hour from the house.

#naturerocks

Storm Large to play Aladdin Theater benefit for Northwest Pilot Project

Storm Large is Storm Large. At this point in the game, we can dispense with the boilerplate resume points, right? That’s the nice thing about your hometown. They know you. They’ve seen your play. They’ve read your book. They shelled out to see you before you had a play or a book or that little stint on the singing show where Tommy Lee was a judge.

You can never go wrong with Storm.

#music

I used to superglue the arms and legs of my brother’s action figures so they wouldn’t move. My mom was baffled and asked me for scientific advice.

Also singed my eyebrows when I was like 10 from lighting a cigarette off the stove. Luckily I had another brother 8 years older who took the fall, unknowingly at first.

#confessional

Those little fluffy bags down at the bottom of the hill, I’ve missed you. This mighty shepard lost the flock along the road to self-damnation.

#HickvilleUSA

Hulu to require Cable TV subscription

Hulu, which attracted 31 million unique users in March under a free-for-all model, is taking its first steps to change to a model where viewers will have to prove they are a pay-TV customer to watch their favorite shows, sources tell The Post. It’s like they’re trying to chase their customers away!

Hulu needs to figure out what its mission is.

#tv #hulu

Back before #Facebook, people had faces.

Audio (MP3): 20120415 - Unrelenting Happiness

Feelings need not always be put into words. They can just be felt, like tigers or butterflies, snake bites or feline purrs. After they’re done (and even if they’re not), open your heart to the love, to the glow of the Universe. It’s there waiting and it’s yours. It’s your right, your entitlement and a perquisite to unrelenting happiness.

#lettherebehope #diariespodcast

2:44 pm

Well I’m just a poor little baby.. Cause.. Well, I believe them all.

Y Control.

4:44 pm

Nature Gave Us Four Kinds of Happiness | Psychology Today

Oxytocin happiness is triggered when we trust those around us. It promotes bonding between mother and child, and between sex partners. It’s stimulated when you’re with a group of like-minded people, or when you get a massage. But we did not evolved to feel oxytocin happiness all the time because there’s no survival value in trusting people who are not trustworthy.

Good stuff.

#writtenword

From 1999, in Iowa.

Eyes
twitching in hardly 20
minutes. Sherlock-ing answers from
whyte-tiles. make mistakes? smoking
doesn’t solve my problems. Might
have been the cattlyst, an engine.
oxygen for glowing-embers. { damn
you hobble } impatience will be my
cru-si-fix-shun. Re-assure-ants from
a good-friend wood have plucked
the doubt. Took a rain-check. It lay
there. Am I sleeping any better? No
po-sit-shun will snuff stirred-coal.
Hardly an hour and { i should’ve
stayed } never left ever { go } and now I
know why I shouldn’t, was a cold
engine. Now ouch to the touch. No
solace lays with staying and no
fault-lines lie with waiting. Now am
.waiting.4.the.call. and rep-i-ti-shus.
volunteer torments for an e-ternitee
in Dante’s allegory { wright me in }
only to lay but with stolen tonight.
Again.

#writtenword