Thanks to eagle-eyed regular contributor Sam DeWitt, and also Danny Fisher, for the heads-up about this Buddha cameo from the forthcoming comedy, The Campaign:
Trailer here.
There’s been a lot of hubbub about Mad Men’s use of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” on the show; Producer Matthew Weiner and Co. paid $250,000 for the usage. After all, that’s a crazy-stupid lot of money. But then again, it shows just how much the Tibetan Book of the Dead — upon which the song was based — and its influence were part of the mid-late 60′s zeitgeist. In fact, this was the show’s second reference to the Tibetan Book of the Dead in two weeks. (Earlier, the show depicted ad-exec Roger Sterling, his wife, and other well-to-do New Yorkers, taking an LSD trip under the guidance of none other than Dr. Timothy Leary, whose book The Psychedelic Experience, quickly gained fame as an acid-trip roadmap, based on the TBotD.
But as the LA Times’ Show Tracker blog points out, this was not the first time the song had appeared on TV. It actually showed up in an animated Beatles cartoon, which you can watch here, below. But do check out Show Tracker for more.
Adam Yauch — aka MCA — of the Beastie Boys has died.
I can’t believe it either.
Small May 5 update: The story’s everywhere now. And then there’s this “News in Photos” gag from The Onion.
Update: The trailer for Samsara, detailed below, is now online via iTunes. Click here to watch it.
This is going to be good.
If you recall director Ron Fricke’s fantastic movie, Baraka, you’ll almost certainly want to see this, his new “guided meditation on the cycle of birth death and rebirth.” (more…)
Photo via Mister 536 (on flickr.com)
To many, it won’t be surprising that the forward formerly known as Ron Artest — now known as Metta World Peace — doesn’t seem to be living up to his name: Sunday night he hit Oklahoma City’s James Harden in the head during play; Harden sustained a concussion.
Oh well. What’s in a name anyway?
For what it’s worth, M.W.P. has expressed regret for the unfair hit — but faces suspension nonetheless.
Update: the suspension happened.
Two weeks ago on 30 Rock (one of the big Thursday NBC comedies), main character Liz Lemon meditated. This week, on Parks and Recreation (another big Thursday NBC comedy), Ron Swanson, played brilliantly as always by Nick Offerman, did not meditate. Repeat: Did not.
Yes, the “Don’t Tread on Me”-government-hating government worker did go to a meditation center, in a rare moment of deference to his health-nut pseudo-boss Chris (Rob Lowe), who sometimes goes in for spiritual or even New Agey stuff. But Ron’s only along to get chummy enough with Chris that he can keep his plum job of being paid to do as little as possible.
So what did Ron do in there if he wasn’t meditating? Chris may think that a post-sit Ron “radiates mindfulness” but as Ron himself puts it:
(more…)
The scifi/futurism site io9 is reporting on the coming premiere of Phoo Action, “a new BBC pilot adapted by Doctor Who director Euros Lyn from a semi-forgotten strip by Tank Girl co-creator Jamie Hewlett. Influenced by the sixties Batman TV show, the odd Buddhist-futurist series just might be the next cult hit or, if nothing else, an interesting televisual oddity.” Here’s the trailer:
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And for more, be sure to check out io9′s post.
On the Horse we sometimes call ‘em Dharma-Burgers. Over at his new Tumblr, “Dispirited Dave” calls ‘em “examples of the sometimes rather odd/clashing use of the Buddha as an image in the West.”
Check them out here: http://dispirited-dave.tumblr.com/. It’ll be fun to see what else pops up there.
Showed you this screenshot from the Total Recall remake back in September; now, here’s the trailer, for you completists.
I dunno.
That incredible sentence is just one of several uttered in Thursday night’s episode of 30 Rock, in which none other than Liz Lemon herself takes up meditation.
Does she stick with it? Well… maybe.
But that’s almost beside the point. Why? Well… why not read about the whole episode in this writeup I’ve just published on Shambhala SunSpace?