My friend Aviezer Tucker, author of the (p)anarchist article “The Best States: Beyond the Territorial Fallacy,” has an amusing piece in the Prague Post this week titled “It’s a Small World.” I met Aviezer at the PCPE in Prague last March; Sophia, the daughter he mentions in the piece, essentially learned to walk on the day that he was showing me around the city.
I’ve just seen the first episode of Steven Moffat’s new Sherlock Holmes tv series, and quite enjoyed it. There’s more than a little resemblance between the way Moffat writes Holmes and the way he writes the Doctor (in fact the Holmes actor is rumored to have turned down the role of the Doctor).
Doctor and Companion in front of the TARDIS -- no, sorry, I mean Holmes and Watson at 221B Baker Street
This is also one of the coolest versions of Watson ever. (I hate versions that make Watson stupid. What makes Holmes impressive is that he outthinks smart people, not that he outthinks stupid people.)
Despite being set in the present day, the show is a lot more faithful to the spirit of the original (IMHO) than the recent Downey/Law film (though the two share in common the rather neat gimmick of displaying Holmes’s thought processes visually; of course Moffat did something similar in “The Eleventh Hour” as well). At the same time, it’s both lighter and darker than the original – in typically Moffatian ways.
My only real complaint was that I figured out the major plot point before Holmes did; admittedly, the audience has some information Holmes doesn’t, but still I thought he was a bit too slow on the uptake on that point.
Anyway, I recommend it; and the opening episode is on YouTube (at least for now) in ten-minute increments:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
I’m done with my two-week libertarathon – tiring but fun. Now just two weeks before fall classes begin!
I notice that the Mises Institute has a lot of good pamphlets out, suitable for tabling – including Fréderic Bastiat’s The Law, Gustave de Molinari’s Production of Security, Étienne de la Boétie’s Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, Carl Menger’s Origins of Money, and Murray Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State and Left & Right: The Prospects for Liberty. (Now they just need to publish this baby.)
In other news, check out Kevin Carson on a day in the life under the corporate state.
Fans of Metropolis will appreciate this behind-the-scenes pic.
If you want to see the advance trailer for Thor before it’s taken down, click here.
Too soon to evaluate this, but at least the Destroyer armor at the end is perfect.