The second best shooting story of the fortnight

This is a couple days late, but in case you haven't heard, Werner Herzog -- in addition to pulling Joaquin Phoenix out of a car wreck, having his awesome doc play 24/7 on the Discovery Channel, getting cast as Abraham Lincoln in Harmony Korine's latest, making a to-be-released sci-fi pseudo-doc starring only Brad Douriff, and basically having done more nutty things in his lifetime than can possibly be catelogued here -- was shot. Seems that while doing an interview, he was shot by a sniper (who, of course, may have been a crazed Herzog fan), only to calmly tell the interviewer that they should move. And so the interview continued, Herzog bleeding while keeping his composure. He later fed reporters this instant classic: "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid." Video here.

As a friend suggested, this sounds like a prank, though you really can't tell with a guy who's on filmic record eating his shoe (pictured).

Meanwhile over at Nashville Scene's Pith in the Wind blog, Jim Ridley tries to suggest this doesn't make him cooler than Chuck Norris.