Andanh.com

An early bit from David Koon's media column this week:

You know, we’ve always said that if there’s one thing missing from Fayetteville (other than black people), it’s a really great alternative weekly newspaper. Pig City – a college town full of music, arts, culture, bars and crooked politicians – has long been ripe for invasion on that front, but it seems no one has ever gotten around to actually putting the paper Fayetteville deserves to press. Recently, however, we stumbled upon the next best thing: the Fayetteville Flyer. Snippy, bitchy, deliciously smart on issues from bands to burgers, the Flyer is going a long way toward filling the alt-weekly gap in the NWA.

“Steve” is one of the brains behind the five-month-old website. Like the four or five other 20-something professionals who form the core of the Flyer’s writing staff, Steve would prefer that we not use his real name, citing instances where bloggers have lost their day jobs over what they’ve written online. 

Steve said that the idea for the website came about because one of their friends saw a need for an alternative voice in Fayetteville. While they didn’t have the capital to start an ink-and-paper weekly, they did have plenty of know-how about websites – hence, fayettevilleflyer.com

Back by unpopular demand, the Arkansas movie club.

David Koon: You know, for the past couple of days, I've been sort of steeling myself up. In the past, whenever one of my beloved heroes of yore has returned for a reboot in a new film (Ang Lee's Hulk comes to mind in this regard), I must admit that I've been overwhelmed by nostalgia enough to give the film a better grade than it deserved. Let's call it the "Sex With an Ex" phenomenon — it might not really be that good, but it reminds you of all the times when it was fantastic, so you're bound to give that B-minus performance an A+.

It's a measure of how much I love "Raiders" (and to a lesser extent, "Last Crusade," and still lesser "Temple of Doom") that I really, really didn't want to do that with the new Indy flick. I'm just going to call it like it lays, I told myself. I'm not going to get all school-girl mushy the first time he puts on the damn hat, and the first time he hits somebody and it sounds like he just whacked them with a two-by-four, and the first time he breaks out the whip.

Couldn't help it. Totally couldn't help it. From the first time we saw Ford onscreen in his rumpled shirt and Sam Browne holster, I was all Spielberg's. I really, really dug this film. It ain't "Raiders" good, but it definitely slots nicely into the middle of the Indiana Jones pack quality-wise. Some of that is, granted, my man-crush on Harrison Ford (Harrison, why oh why did you waste all those goddamn years making "Firewall" and "Sabrina" when you could have been cranking out Indy flicks, man?), but the truth is it's also really entertaining popcorn fare, just like “Raiders” was.

By the way, I think we should pause here and say a little prayer of thanks to Steven Spielberg for keeping the bearded, childhood-dream-raping menace that is George Lucas as far away from this film as he could. One can only imagine the myriad ways Lucas and the Industrial Light and Magic ewoks could have screwed this up:
Lucas: "Instead of Russians, how about we have Indy fighting a race of hyper-intelligent goldfish? Boys! Fire up the WHOPR computer!"

Spielberg: "How about you shut your cakehole, Jar-Jar? The adults are talking."

The Mid-America Science Museum, in Hot Springs, will host "Our Body: The Universe Within" from June 14-Sept. 28.

This is a take-off on the Body World exhibit that's been such a worldwide phenomenon and source of scandal. The cadavers on display are preserved by a process called polymer impregnation, where tissue is permanently preserved using liquid silicone. Sounds like plastination. 

Thousands will flock.