CULTURE SHOCK: After a week and a couple of days living in the Bay Area (by the way, should that be capitalized? Or is it just the bay area, or even the Bay area?), of all the things to which I need to accustom myself -- the abundance of fine food in restaurants, the serious and pervasive inferiority of grocery stores to those in LA, the politeness of the drivers, the Asian people in the Fruitvale stores speaking with inner-city Oakland accents, the inability to tell whether this is a pedestrian-scofflaw region (like NY or Chicago) or a pedestrian-law-abiding region (like LA and San Francisco), and the giant robots superintending both the Financial District and the Oakland Harbor -- the weirdest one for me is BART. Specifically: on BART, where each train car has seats facing each direction, why do the people standing (because there are no seats available) orient themselves in conformance with the seats next to them instead of in the direction the train is traveling? I always face the way the train is traveling -- that way I don't get queasy. I don't get the idea of riding backward just because the stranger in the seat next to you with an iPod and a copy of A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is also facing the wrong way.

I HEARD WHAT YOU WERE SAYING. YOU, YOU KNOW NOTHING OF MY WORK. YOU MEAN MY WHOLE FALLACY IS WRONG. HOW YOU EVER GOT TO TEACH A COURSE IN ANYTHING IS TOTALLY AMAZING: Daniel Johnson's Film Babble blog has a nice pair of lists up featuring the best cameos in modern movie history, from Orson Welles in The Muppet Movie to Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle to the genius of Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein.

Still, no Samuel L. Jackson as Hejira Henry in Out of Sight? ("You broke out?" "I prefer to think of it as an exodus from an undesirable place.")

HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN A GREAT MAN BEFORE? Let's firm this up: the first official ALOTT5MA get-together and hootenany will be Friday, July 13 in Philadelphia for the sing-a-long performance of "1776" at the Independence Living History Center. And then we'll find a local bar to hang out afterwards, though my knowledge of the Old City bar scene is about as dated as mine for the NHL at this point.

Advance tickets for the 7pm performance may be ordered via this link. Let us know if you're coming, and we look forward to seeing you.

BONG HITS 4 SHADYAC: The AV Club lists 10 Directors You Didn't Know You Hated.

COME TO LOS ANGELES! THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT, THE BEACHES ARE WIDE AND INVITING, AND THE ORANGE GROVES STRETCH AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE: Edward Copeland has his own list of the 100 greatest movies of all time. It's a good one.

e.t.a. See, also, Andrew Dignan, "Addressing This AFI Bullshit": "Titanic makes the list but L.A. Confidential doesn’t, proving once and for all nothing makes a film a classic like bilking millions of teenage girls out of their allowance. And can someone please explain to me how Tootsie keeps showing up on these lists (boy is that film attracting buzzards) but Broadcast News, which just gets more prescient with each passing day, is a no-show?"

[Also, I know I already raised the His Girl Friday issue, but I realized today that Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve didn't make the list either, and we're only talking about one of the best female performances of all time there from Barbara Stanwyck.]

SHE'LL SPREAD HER WINGS AND SHE'LL LEARN HOW TO FLY: But in the meantime, is Kelly Clarkson in "career meltdown"?

SAN FRANCISCO, 9:33 AM: I had to come in to work today and passed through the staging area for the Gay Pride Parade on my way from the train. I am pleased to report that Dykes on Bikes will be followed by a group of gay men on bicycles, Mikes on Bikes.

Also, even from twenty stories up, I can hear one kick-ass marching band.

I love America.