A Day at the Fair -- the report!

So, the other day we enacted one of our favorite annual rituals: a day at the Erie County Fair.

We've been going to the Fair ever since 2001 or 2002, the first year we actually lived in the Buffalo area. It's always been one of our favorite things about living in this area. Our county is populous enough to have a big fair, but it's also got enough farmland to have a fair that's got a really nicely agricultural feel to it. We love most things about the fair: walking the Midway, seeing the farm animals, noting the expressions of boredom on the faces of the farmers who have little to do but sit with their animals all day for two weeks, wandering through the various Crafts buildings, sending The Daughter on rides, engaging in lots of Crass Commercialism, and of course, eating a ton of food that really isn't all that healthy at all. A good day at the Erie County Fair is among the best days one can have, in my opinion. I just wish that the fair was a little bit later each year so it would be a bit cooler. The fair is almost made for overalls -- and yet it's always too hot for overalls when I'm there! Bummer.

We always like to get to the fair early on, before 11:00, when the admission prices are half-off. County fairs are amazing bargains, really, and if you can cut that in half, it's even more of a bargain. Our first order of business is to walk across the fair to where our favorite corndog stand is located; by tradition, corndogs are always the first thing we eat at the fair.

This year, though, our favorite corndog stand wasn't where it's been for the last few years! It seems that they did some offseason renovating and stuff at that end of the Fair, where the animals and the rides for smaller kids are located, so our favorite corndog stand was moved somewhere else. I didn't see where until later...but luckily, there was still a different corndog place not that far from where our favorite used to be, so that's where we went. Unfortunately, the corndogs at the new places are smaller than the ones we're used to, but they were still tasty.



After this, it was off to see animals. We always wander quickly through the pig and cow exhibition buildings, because...well, there's just so much staring at pork or beef (or milk) one can stand. Of greater interest to us each year, though, is the building that hosts ducks, swans, chickens, and The Wife's beloved rabbits.



The Wife raised rabbits in her youth, so she always has a good time checking those out. We also check out the goats and sheep, which I never find all that interesting (but The Wife and The Daughter do). Somehow we missed llamas this year. No idea where they were. I love llamas. Llamas rule!

Shortly after seeing the animals (and a new show this year featuring Sea Lions), it was the first of many snack times. One snack we always get at the fair is a bag of freshly made kettle corn. A big bag.

A big bag.



No, we don't eat the whole thing. Not even close! We still have about half the bag left, and that's after The Wife and I had some more last night when she got home from work. (Kettle corn stays tasty for a surprisingly long time.)

Essential every year is the Crafts building, which is always chock full of wonderful items. This is where people who grow orchids and African violets and ivy topiaries display their creations, as well as lots of floral arrangements and gladiolas. There are displays of sewing, knitting, and crocheting; there are paintings and quilting and photography. We always linger in this building for quite a while (and not just because it's air conditioned!).

One favorite thing of mine in this building, which I only really noticed last year, are the dioramas and the place settings, which are always organized around specific themes. This year, one of the themes was Star Wars! This was terrific. I loved these:



The big flower is, I suppose, meant to suggest the planet from Revenge of the Sith with the enormous flowers that obscure our view of the clone troopers' murder of that female Jedi. Cool!





Next up were the place settings, which were themed "Lunch with Luke". I loved this one:



Black and white for the Good and Dark Sides of the Force, obviously -- and the napkin is folded in the shape of a Star Destroyer! That's awesome.

Here's another that I liked:



One of the critical notes on the little card there reads, "Mug is slightly oversized". This struck me as silly, since the stoneware is obviously a set. What was the artist supposed to do? Shrink the mug?

Then there were the table displays which were themed to different movies. This one, I think, really got the idea of American Graffiti:



When I saw this one, however, I laughed out loud:



If the movie being themed were, say, Julie and Julia, I could see what's being done here. But the actual movie being themed here was The French Connection. I can only assume the author didn't see the movie, or even look up what it was about?

Another favorite place of ours (which we actually missed last year) is the Woodcarving building. There is some stunning work being done out there. I was amazed at some of it, like this:



And this:



Later on, while we waited for the daily parade, we decided to have The Daughter take our picture. This, proved a bit problematic, though, as The Daughter tends to not say anything to indicate when she's about to snap the photo, so we end up with results like this:





But we got the kinks ironed out:



Then the parade started, with the mounted cops, the marching band, Shriners in little cars:



And horse-drawn wagons such as this calliope organ:



After the parade, it was time to check out the horse barns (which are on the side of the fairgrounds completely opposite the rest of the farm animals):



By this time, night was setting, so after a dinner of Chiavetta's barbecue chicken (and a couple of hours after a snack of pizza for the kid and a pulled pork sandwich for The Wife and I), it was time for rides on the Midway:



"Rides", for us, translates to watching The Daughter do the bumper cars ten times. That is no exaggeration: she did those things ten times. Kids do the bumper cars and then, when the ride ends, get out and sprint for the entrance to go on again. Wow.

The one ride we all do as a family is riding the Giant Wheel, which I love but which I suspect The Wife and Daughter don't love quite as much as I do. I just think the Midway is beautiful from above:





And, toward the end of the night, one final culinary indulgence: the amazing wonder that is a giant plate of Ribbon Fries!



So...what else? Well, there's the Antique Mall, where we always spend a bit of time looking at old stuff. This is actually a small satellite location of a much larger antiques store that is located just a mile from Casa Jaquandor. I bought The Wife a pair of earrings there this time (pearls, to match the pearl necklace I bought her last Christmas). There were the other buildings full of Wares Being Hawked, although I did notice that the selling this time was more geared toward demonstration-type sales than actual booths selling stuff. We missed out on some vendors we've enjoyed in years past, only to find them missing this time. We also omitted our customary trip through the Native American "village" (a section of the park devoted to Native American art and culture). Not sure why we skipped this, other than that we just decided to do other stuff and never found time to make it back there.

I'm sure I'm forgetting about some stuff, but I think that sums up the day we had at the Erie County Fair pretty well. I'm sad that it's over for another year...but hey, next up is the Ithaca Apple Festival in October! Huzzah!

(See my Flickr photostream for more photos that I didn't use in this post.)

Final call -- Ask Me Anything!

I ended up being busier than I expected over the weekend, so I didn't get a start yet on collating answers to the questions submitted in Ask Me Anything! August 2010. That being the case, I'm leaving the submission period open until Tuesday morning, August 17. I'll end it at that time. So, one last day -- Ask Me Anything! We won't be playing again until February.

Leave questions in comments at the post linked above. (I do this to keep the questions in one place, for easy gathering.)

Sentential Links #217

Linkage....

:: I don't know why this is true but a cat simply cannot resist the pull of an empty box. (Heck, at Casa Jaquandor, the box doesn't even have to be empty!)

:: You should keep this in mind the next time you think the woman at the cash register at the grocery store is “too slow” or the guy at the parts store seems to be “not the sharpest knife in the drawer” or the girl behind the counter at the fast food restaurant fails to smile perkily enough. Keep in mind that they’ve been putting up with people like you, and worse, all day and if you’re not careful you might just be The One.

:: God, I'm getting tired of those three words, "in this economy." Seems to me that they're turning into a convenient excuse for a lot of BS we wouldn't otherwise be willing to put up with... (Isn't that the truth. Sometimes I wonder if there's not a particular breed of manager who hopes for a crappy economy, because then they can screw the employees and have a nice excuse for doing it.)

:: Horror isn't dead. (Neither is SF, GAWD.) We do not need dudes to save us from this terrifying dystopia. Trust me. The kids are gonna be all right.

:: Let's face it: as Canadians how often have we been in this situation -- having to bitch-slap a Yeti who has decided to get all up in your grill while you are cavorting naked in the snow. (I totally want this fellow doing my cover art when I publish my book. Which will happen after I write it. Sigh.)

:: Sometimes I wonder how the pioneers withstood this kind of heat. Or the native Americans. I suppose they just spent the days quietly, barely moving, staying in the shade or sitting in a stream. Something tells me the native Americans handled it better because they were acclimatized to prairie heat. Nor were they the whiny babies we whites have always been. They didn't struggle with nature, they lived in harmony with it. (Well, the Native Americans probably didn't have nearly as many goofy taboos regarding wearing clothes that we do. When it got too hot, they probably removed quite a bit more clothing than we allow ourselves to.)

:: There was, however, a young kid in a uniform sitting at a big desk, so I walked up to him and said what very well may be the most embarrassing sentence I have ever uttered: “Can you please tell me how to get to Pop Tart World?” (Buffalo can't get a friggin' sporting goods store to want to set up camp here, and NYC gets Pop Tart World. Ye Gods!)

All for this week. More next!

Be very careful when bending over....

This is one of the more unusual marketing efforts I've seen lately: overalls which are iPad compatible! As in, you can carry your iPad around in your bib pocket.



Well...OK then. Not sure about this...but then, I never carry anything around in my bib pocket anyway when I'm wearing overalls. I would think that would feel like walking around with a plate of armor on one's chest. But hey, best of luck with that!

Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: Who doesn't love some retro-future stuff? Here's a segment from an old Disney show about highways in the future. Some of this stuff is kind of prescient, while other stuff falls into the "Hey, it's the 21st century -- where the $*&#! are my flying cars!"



I'll even trade my flying cars for those cantilevered skyways in the mountains!

:: Scientific American has a nifty interactive doodad about "12 Events That Will Change the World", with the events discussed not just for what might happen but also for how likely they are.

:: Best not to even leave the house, kids -- otherwise you'll be maimed or killed!

:: I always figured, from all of my readings, that the ancient Greeks were a generally humorless lot, but a recently unearthed sculpture reveals a hidden side to Greek comedy:



(I have no idea where I got that from. Saw it months ago and copied it because I thought it was funny, and then forgot about it.)

More next week!

Summing up....

This makes it all pretty clear:



(via)

A Day at the Fair

Today The Family and I are off to the Erie County Fair for a day of gazing upon farm animals and farm machinery, watching the riding of bumper cars by The Daughter, perusing all manner of goods being hawked by artisans and capitalists galore, and consuming All Things Battered And Deep-Fried. Huzzah!

And don't forget, folks -- I'm open to questions for two more days on Ask Me Anything!. Bring 'em on!

"We're in a tight spot!"

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a movie I've been vaguely aware of ever since it came out, but which I'd never seen, for one reason or another. Mostly that I just kept forgetting about it, and even though I've enjoyed the work of the Coen Brothers in the past, there was just something about O Brother that kept me from...well, no, that's not the way to put it. It just never seemed to jump up past my interest level that can be described as "Huh, maybe I should watch that sometime." But I was at the library a week ago, saw the movie on the shelf, and thought, "Well, check it out and if I don't watch it, fine."

So I watched it, and I loved it. What a wonderfully fantastical movie. It's really something to behold. It's an epic fantasy story, with journeys and traps and villains and betrayals; it's an epic fantasy story with implausible escapes and divine interventions and grim prophecies; it's an epic fantasy story set in Depression-era Mississippi with no actual magic in it at all. Fantasy, with no magic. Or maybe it does have magic. There are events in the film that could be magical...or maybe they're not. We don't know.

O Brother is famously a recasting of The Odyssey, in the deep South. Three prisoners escape from a chain gang, led by Ulysses (!) Everett McGill, who tempts them with promises of a treasure that he hid before his prison sentence. The three men are, at first, literally inseparable; the only reason it's these three men escaping is because Ulysses is chained to these two guys. So off they go, on their way to McGill's home, hopefully in search of treasure, with a very scary and relentless law enforcement man (whose actual legal affiliation is never really explained) on their tails. The three men come across a blind man driving a manual railroad car who speaks prophetically; a one-eyed Bible salesman; three women in a river who seduce them with their song; and...well, I don't want to spell it all out, since part of the movie's charm is spotting all the parallels to The Odyssey.

One that stood out is the early scene in which the convicts come across a group of people, presumably Baptists, all slowly walking through the forest whilst singing, down to the river for their baptisms. The old pastor at our church actually used this scene a few times in services to illustrate the power of baptism, but seeing the movie, I wonder if the actual parallel isn't so much to the power of the Holy Spirit but rather to the Lotus Eaters, who are lulled into apathy by the food they eat. But I digress.

I loved the dialogue in this film -- there's an enormous amount of craft in the script, with characters speaking in the kind of long, florid sentences that you just don't hear much anymore in movies these days (if, in fact, you ever did). McGill, in particular, has a laconically verbose speaking style that's just a joy to listen to. Early in the film when looking for someone to break the chains that are binding him to the other two men, he asks some hoboes: "Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?" Or, as when he asks his ex-wife why she's been telling their daughters that he was hit by a train and she replies that it's better that than "He's a criminal and in prison", "Uh, I take your point. But it does put me in a damn awkward position, vis-a-vis my progeny."

The best thing about O Brother is its music, which is deeply steeped in the roots and folk music of the Deep South, including spirituals, jazz, and popular revival music that is the precursor to rock-and-roll. There's a reason the O Brother soundtrack album sold extremely well back when it came out. I'll need to get it myself.

Yeah, I'm late to the party, but O Brother, Where Art Thou? really pleased me on a lot of levels.

Reminder: Ask Me Anything! August 2010 edition

(bumping this post up)



Go here for details! More questions are needed. Serious questions, goofy questions, anything goes! Ask me anything! I'm taking questions until next Sunday, August 15.

Something for Thursday

Here are the last few minutes of a movie I like a lot, Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It. The film adapts Norman Maclean's novella about growing up with his brother in Montana, along a beautiful river with a father who was a pastor and an avid fly-fisherman. I don't think this clip really gives anything away, spoiler-wise.

I really hope he wasn't trying out for "Hell's Kitchen"

Well, I see that Buffalo has hit the national news wire again, this time for the actions of one of our fine citizens. Sigh:

Buffalo police rescued a cat from a Cheektowaga man who apparently was planning to make a meal out of his pet because he thought it was ill-tempered, authorities said Monday.

When Ferry-Fillmore District officers pulled over a car driven by Gary L. Korkuc on Sunday night during a traffic stop, they said they heard a cat crying from inside the trunk and investigated.

What they found has left animal lovers at the SPCA Serving Erie County in shock.

The cat, according to police, was in a cage “marinating” in a mixture of crushed red peppers, chili pepper, salt and oil.

Errrr...OK then.

Apparently the guy likes his spicy food, though: crushed peppers, chili pepper, and salt. Of course, I find out about this the same day that the finale of Hell's Kitchen airs, and another episode of Master Chef, so even as a cat lover who is appalled by the very idea of this, I can't help but be somehow amused at the culinary line of thought here.

The tale has a happy ending, though: the cat was adopted already by someone who isn't planning to cook him.

"I got him home now, and he's just looking and exploring like crazy," she said Tuesday night. "He's really passive and not aggressive at all."

He has a new bed, a new litter box and a new name: Oliver.

"He's all black, but he has white under his chin, on all his paws and on his chest," Dankowski said. "They bathed him so many times to get the spices out, so he feels so soft. He's absolutely beautiful."

OK, I'm sorry, but there's just something a bit morbidly funny about all this. There just is. I'm envisioning a woman holding her new cat on her lap, stroking his back and his chin, enjoying his purring...and starting to get a hankering for a pizza....

How about a version where they flood the theater with water?

James Cameron is working on a 3D version of Titanic, to be possibly released in 2012. This interests me, a little. I think that by then The Daughter just may be ready for that movie. She's already expressed interest in it, and knowing her tastes as I do, I do think she'd eat it right up. And I personally would not at all mind seeing it again on the big screen, as I've never understood the backlash against the film.

But...I'm not that terribly interested in seeing 3D movies. At all. I'm fine with good old 2D; give me a well-shot movie with a good story, and my head will fill in all the extra Ds. I don't need funky glasses, and I'm afraid I'll end up with a headache anyway. I hope that if Titanic does come back to the big screen, there's a concurrent 2D release of the original film, which is just fine for me.

(Oh wait...now that I think of it, there is one scene that might be kind of intriguing in 3D...and it has nothing to do with the ship sinking.)

Dinos! Whiskey! Sexy!

So a little while back we watched Jurassic Park with The Kid, a bit apprehensively as we thought she would find it a bit intense and scary. No dice; she just made fun of us for our worries! But she also insisted on watching the sequel, so I got it from the library and we watched it, after some warnings from me that while she might not find it scary either, she also might find it not as good. This because I distinctly recall my disappointment in The Lost World: Jurassic Park back when it came out, and I hadn't seen it in its entirety since.

Well, having watched it again at long last, I conclude that it's better than I remember it, but it's still not all that good.

The Lost World opens with a family setting up lunch on the beach of a tropical island off which they're moored their yacht. Their little girl wanders off and finds an adorable little reptile thing that acts all cute when she feeds it. This brings out its brethren. Lots and lots of them. Cue the screaming of the little girl, the running of her parents to her side, and the wailing of her mother when she sees what's happening (offscreen). This is actually kind of intense, and I remember wondering, "Jeebus, did Spielberg actually open his movie by killing a kid?!" That would have been a dramatic departure from Spielberg's previous efforts with children in his movies.

But no, the kid is later indicated to have been merely injured. That's good. It turns out that while the original Jurassic Park island was pretty much destroyed (along with all the dinosaurs) in a hurricane, the island next door wasn't -- and that's where they were doing the actual breeding, or something -- all of this explanation stuff whips by really quickly and it's not all that interesting anyway.

The only character from the first movie who really returns for any length of time is Jeff Goldblum's Dr. Ian Malcolm, the quirky mathematician from the first movie who was forever telling people what a bad idea cloning dinosaurs is. Since he's the only returning character, we have to spend some time meeting all of the new characters, some of whom we like and some of whom we don't. Malcolm is dating a stunningly beautiful paleontologist (Julianne Moore), who just happens to already be on Jurassic Park II. He also has a techno-whiz friend (Richard Schiff, yay!) and a documentary filmmaker (Vince Vaughn) who seems to have ulterior motives. Oh, and he has a kid. Who is all pouty because she's just been cut from the gymnastics team. And who is also pouty because Malcolm tries, but he's never quite there for her. And who stows away on the boat to the island. Oy.

Of course, there are the industrialists who want to capitalize on dinosaurs to make money, only they're a lot more bent on their dino-riffic get-rich-quick scheme this time out (meaning, they bring a lot of guns with them). Other than that, the movie involves a lot of the same tropes of the first one: humans trapped on an island with dinosaurs. This time the dinos get angrier (owing to people messing around with their young), and the set-pieces get more creative. I've got to give the movie credit: if seeing people suffer grisly demises at the hands of dinosaurs is your thing, The Lost World has a lot more going for it than Jurassic Park.

Of course, there are some mis-steps as well. I know whom I would place money on in the matchup of a velociraptor versus a teenage girl with some gymnastics skill, but apparently Steven Spielberg feels otherwise.

Watching the movie again, I was disappointed that it's not really a story; rather, it's a series of set-ups and pay-offs. Meet people; send them to island. Cut them off from the mainland; release the dinos. Escape dinos; run into more dinos. Lather, rinse, repeat, until the end, when it turns out that the entire movie is just one big set-up for the last giant set-piece, when the stupid dino-capitalists carry out their brilliant plan to bring a T-Rex to the mainland. And not the coast of Peru, either. Nope, their dino is coming to San Diego.

The first film had characters that it was easier to care about, which is part of what makes the second a bit harder to take. Ian Malcolm was the least developed of the characters in the first movie, and yet he has to carry the show this time out, so we have to spend time getting to know him and aside from his quirkiness and the fact that Jeff Goldblum is all kinds of nifty, he's just not that interesting a guy. And what stood out horribly for me this time is that the movie totally wastes its most interesting new character.

Well into the movie, we meet a very intriguing guy. I don't remember his name, but he's a hunter played by Pete Postlethwaite. This guy is calm, cool, deeply smart, wickedly observant, and he's itching to bag a T-Rex. He's also mainly used as a villain and a counterpoint for the "more enlightened view" of nature that the film is trying to underline. We only meet him about a half hour into the film, and when we see him last, we still have a half hour of film to go. The way the movie creates this highly intriguing character and then treats him about as disposably as a character can be treated is the most disappointing thing about the movie.

I ended up imagining an entirely different Jurassic Park II. What if we don't have any of the Ian Malcolm stuff, any of the dumbass-dino-exploiter stuff, and of it -- what if instead we have this old hunter who is tired and bored and can't find any more challenges? And what if we have this hunter hear whispers of an island somewhere? An island where some company was doing some genetic experimenting on animals, experimenting of an indeterminate sort, that resulted in the creation of the toughest big game on the planet? And what if our hunter takes a few friends to go see what's up, and finds, beyond his wildest imaginings, that he's hunting -- and being hunted by -- dinosaurs? That could have been a gripping movie, instead of a movie that gives gripping set-pieces alternating with dull exposition.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is fun to watch. Great action, and I really did like the T-Rex-in-San Diego bit. But the movie is still a misfire. It's a shame.

(Of course, I may just be a tad bitter toward the film because the T-Rex's first meal in the movie is poor Richard Schiff. I don't care if this was several years before he played Toby Ziegler on The West Wing; you don't get to feed Richard Schiff to the T-Rex! Especially not when he's gallantly risking death to save his friends!)

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Everybody has feelings about Christmas stuff being on sale in October, but: Halloween candy in August?! Yes or no?

The door that opens is the winner!

A couple of thoughts on the finale of Hell's Kitchen (highlight to read):

:: Jay got a bit too cocky. He ran a good dinner service, but listening to his constant trash-talking just got annoying.

:: I also got tired of hearing him drool over Holli. That's what blogs are for. (Did he really think he was going to get a shot with her?)

:: Holli's kitchen brigade for the final service was awful. Or maybe it just seemed that way due to editing. But the show really made it look as though Jay's kitchen was a well-oiled machine while Holli's was a Model-T that was missing a few parts.

:: I love the way they cut to Benjamin's pouty face within seconds of Holli being revealed as the winner. That was great.

:: I've gotta wonder if part of Holli's win was Gordon Ramsay looking at Holli's son and thinking, "Geez, I can't make that kid cry."

:: Jean-Phillippe apparently doesn't much like getting dowsed with champagne. Which is why that moment was really funny.

:: More next season! Can't wait!

"We're back! We're bad! You're black! I'm mad!"

So after watching Lethal Weapon a few weeks ago, it was natural to follow it up with...Lethal Weapon 2.

The second LW movie is one of the rare sequels that is of comparable quality to its predecessor. I don't think it's quite as good, but it's awfully close. The story this time doesn't make quite as much sense, and it's quite a bit harder to follow, but it helps that the villains in this movie -- South African diplomats, led by the ultra-smarmy Joss Ackland as Arjun Rudd, using their diplomatic immunity to run drugs and launder drug money -- are some of the more gleefully malevolent villains I can remember.

To note that the movie opens in medias res is actually an understatement; I can't think of a way for a movie to plop us in the middle of the action more than this one. After the opening title card fades, the first thing we see and hear is a close-up of Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) screaming "Ya-HOOOO!" in the middle of a high-speed chase through downtown LA. His partner, the more even-keeled Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), is driving as they pursue some thieves, or drug runners, or something. Any explanation for why they're in the middle of a chase is shouted quickly and it's easy to miss it all entirely. I've seen this movie a lot of times, and I've never been entirely sure as to the set-up for the chase. The chase ends, though, and Riggs and Murtaugh discover South African coins filling the trunk of the car. They're on to something, it seems.

This is one of those movies where several different plotlines seem to careen in and around one another, and we're not sure as to what the connections are until the final act. As the whole South African thing percolates in the background, Riggs and Murtaugh are assigned to babysit an accountant who has been laundering drug money, skimming from the take, and agreed to turn state's evidence against the drug dealers. This accountant turns out to be a high-strung guy named Leo Getz, who is played with some energy by Joe Pesci. Did I say "some" energy? It's actually manic energy. Pesci's character was extremely memorable; for years after this movie came out, the canonical impression people would do of Joe Pesci was to say, in Leo Getz's standard way, "OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK." And, of course, his signature bit of dialogue, in which he rants about fast food service: "They f*** you at the drive-thru!"

The creation of a third unique character to bounce off Riggs and Murtaugh is one of the movie's wise steps; had they kept things focused on just the two cops, some of the dynamic might have started to become routine. In the course of the movie, Murtaugh doesn't really develop a whole lot, but Riggs continues to grow and open up after stepping back from being suicidal in the first film. He even becomes attracted to a woman again, who happens to be the administrative assistant to the film's villain.

The film's third act becomes pretty intense, and in some ways, I've always felt it might be a little too intense. The villains decide to make a statement by slaughtering a whole bunch of Riggs and Murtaugh's fellow cops, and attempting to kill Riggs and Murtaugh themselves (they escape, obviously). It begins with the villains murdering a whole bunch of cops, and the film takes a pretty dark turn thereafter, when one villain discloses some information to Riggs regarding his wife's death. I remember this particular revelation being pretty surprising when I saw the movie, and I wondered then -- and still wonder -- if it was really necessary.

The action sequences in the film are all superb; it seems to me that Richard Donner has never really gotten his due as an action director. The humor this time out is broader, but most of it works. Murtaugh has one of my favorite lines of the "Goofy pun the hero makes after the bad guys are done with" variety: "They've been decaffeinated." (This is a pun on the South African word kaffer, which is their equivalent of our own N-word for black people.) And it's hard not to get a thrill from the scene where Riggs uses his pickup truck to destroy a house (a visual effect that was filmed for real using a full-size structure).

I recently read that Shane Black, one of the writers, wanted Riggs to die at the end of the movie, thinking that it was the logical end to his "arc". I'm not sure why there is so often a tendency to think that characters need to die once their "arcs" are complete; Black's thinking seems to be that we've already seen Riggs learn to live again, and once he's open to possibly loving again, well, that's when he's fully back, so it's time for him to die. I don't get this, any more than I get the people who think (Harrison Ford among them) that Han Solo should have died in Return of the Jedi. Riggs dying would have made for a very downbeat finale to this movie.

Wow....

At the school I went to when we lived in Hillsboro, OR last (from fall 1979 to June 1981), this lady was one of my classmates. Interesting to see what she's made of herself. (I only remember her because she is the only "Brenna" I have ever known. Unusual names stick in my head.)

UPDATE: OK, reading this a bit later on, I think I might sound like I'm saying that the only memorable thing about Brenna is her name. That's not what I mean at all; we were in third and fourth grade together, and I remember very few names from way back then. Hers is one.

A Horrific Quiz

SamuraiFrog has this quiz, which I must do. It's kinda-sorta about horror movies.

1: In Ten Words or Less, Describe Your Blog:

Guy obsesses over overalls and Star Wars. Film at eleven.

2: During What Cinematic Era Where you Born?
A: The Classic Horror Era (late 30's to 40's)
B: The Atomic Monster/Nuclear Angst Era (the late 40's through 50's)
C: The Psycho Era ( Early 60's)
D: The Rosemary's Baby Era (Mid to Late 60's)
E: The Exorcism Era (Early to mid 70's)
F: The Halloween Era (Late 70's to Early 80's)
G: The Slasher Era (Mid to late 80's)
H: The Self Referential/Post Modern Era (1990 to 1999)

I was born in 1971, so I'm kind of right on the border between Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist.

3: The Carrie Compatibility Question:
(gay men and straight women - make your choice from section A)
A: Billy Nolan or Tommy Ross, who would you take to the prom?
(straight guys and lesbians - make your choice from section B)
B: Sue Snell or Chris Hargensen, who would you take to the prom?

I wouldn't go to the prom.

4: You have been given an ungodly amount of money, and total control of a major motion picture studio - what would your dream Horror project be?

Filming one of John Bellairs's books: The Curse of the Blue Figurine or The Treasure of Alpheus T. Winterborn would be good starting points.

5: What horror film "franchise" that others have embraced, left you cold?

I don't understand the point of the SAW movies, aside from some pretty creative ways of killing and/or maiming people. But I don't want to watch that, so fuhgeddaboudit.

6: Is Michael Bay the Antichrist?

Not while Sarah Palin and Tom Brady are around! (Bay stinks, though. What an awful filmmaker.)

7: Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Frankenstein Monster - which one of these classic villains scares you, and why?

Dracula, probably. Or vampires. Real vampires. Not those stupid sparkly fake-ass "vampires" from Twilight.

8: Tell me about a scene from a NON HORROR Film that scares the crap out of you:

My obvious answer is the same one that SamuraiFrog gave, so that's off the table. The abduction of Barry Guiler in Close Encounters of the Third Kind is an extremely effective scene.

9: Baby Jane Hudson invites you over to her house for lunch. What do you bring?

A pizza. Which I leave on her doorstep. And then run away, after ringing the doorbell one time.

10: So, between you and me, do you have any ulterior motives for blogging? Come, on you can tell me, it will be our little secret, I won't tell a soul.

One day someone will ask me the Right Question, and on that day, the world will end. Or something like that.

But seriously...no. I just like to say what's on my mind and write about stuff that interests me. It would be nice if the stuff that interested me interested more people, or if what I had to say about what interests me interested more people, but hey, them's the breaks.

11: What would you have brought to Rosemary Woodhouse's baby shower?

Cream pies and seltzer water, because there's gonna be some hijinks when that kid's born!

12: Godzilla vs The Cloverfield Monster, who wins?

If it's Japanese Godzilla, then Godzilla wins. If it's Devlin-and-Emmerich Godzilla, than the Cloverfield thing.

13: If you found out that Rob Zombie was reading your blog, what would you post in hopes that he read it?

I was once driving with a friend to a meeting for the company we worked for, and I had a CD of The X-Files on, and he said that parts of it reminded him of Rob Zombie's music. I know nothing about Rob Zombie's music, so I have no idea how accurate that is.

14: What is your favorite NON HORROR FILM, and why?

Star Wars. Duh.

15: If blogging technology did not exist, what would you be doing?

I'd probably still be on Usenet or the FSM boards. Shudder.

Sentential Links #216

Two hundred sixteen of these posts.

Here's a weird factoid from my life: 216 is the only room number I remember from my high school building. For years it was a really big room that was only used for study halls, but around my junior year they needed another classroom or two so they put up a wall in the middle of Room 216, turning it into 216 and 217. I have no idea why that's stuck in my head all these years, but I remember spending time being bored in Study Hall 216.

Anyway, the linkage for the week!

:: Certainly our chest freezers are full of meat and it’s difficult to open the refrigerator without beets or carrots or cabbage rolling out and onto the floor, and there’s not always room on the counter due to the cantaloupe or tomatoes but there’s more to life than meat, fruits and vegetables. There’s cheese for one thing. Bread for another. And, of course, sweets. And that’s where bartering comes in. It’s one of my favorite things about going to market.

:: I recognize the library as the remedy to all of life’s problems. (This has nothing to do with Roger's post, actually, but let me reiterate my position that one sure way to mark yourself as an idiot is to say something along the lines of "Since we have Amazon.com now, we don't really need libraries anymore.")

:: Politics in a democracy isn’t a blood sport. We don’t kill members of the other side or intimidate them with violence. But it’s not a parlor game either. It’s serious stuff, and it deserves to be taken seriously. Republicans do a good job of that, and their approach to process “hypocrisy” merely reflects the fact that they have a reasonable sense of priorities. (I'm not sure I agree with Matt Yglesias's point here, but it's interesting to consider. I do think that Democrats would find their lives a lot easier, policy-wise, if they'd get over their somewhat irrational fear of what will happen if they start using process to beat Republicans over the head and get their work done.)

:: It is shameful, of course. Richest country in the history of the word, but don't let anybody tell you we are generous.

:: Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability?

:: "Anyone who thinks they're ready to be a parent ought to try living with three cats first." (Done, and done.)

:: Are there too many blond female sidekicks?

All for this week. More next week!

Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded

In the "I should really pay more attention to my surroundings" department, I've just spent 45 minutes scrolling backward through the archives of Buffalo Eats, a blog devoted to food in the Western NY region. I had no idea this blog existed. Huzzah!

100 more SF books everybody should read!

Lynn found this list, which differs substantially from the last one I did, so we'll do the same deal this time: already read it; own it and plan to read it; don't own but plan to read. With occasional comment.

UPDATE: There's apparently not 100 here. Oh well. Call it the "Almost a hundred", then.

The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
Cities in Flight – James Blish
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick (I still haven't read any PKD!)

The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
Babel-17 – Samuel R. Delany
Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
The Fifth Head of Cerberus – Gene Wolfe
Gateway – Frederik Pohl

The Rediscovery of Man – Cordwainer Smith
Last and First Men – Olaf Stapledon
Earth Abides – George R. Stewart
Martian Time-Slip – Philip K. Dick
The Demolished Man – Alfred Bester

Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner
The Dispossessed – Ursula K. Le Guin (Read it in high school. I'm pretty sure I missed its point entirely.)

The Drowned World – J. G. Ballard
The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut
Emphyrio – Jack Vance
A Scanner Darkly – Philip K. Dick
Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon

Behold the Man – Michael Moorcock
The Book of Skulls – Robert Silverberg
The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells

Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
Ubik – Philip K. Dick
Timescape – Gregory Benford
More Than Human – Theodore Sturgeon
Man Plus – Frederik Pohl

A Case of Conscience – James Blish
The Centauri Device – M. John Harrison
Dr. Bloodmoney – Philip K. Dick
Non-Stop – Brian Aldiss
The Fountains of Paradise – Arthur C. Clarke

Pavane – Keith Roberts
Now Wait for Last Year – Philip K. Dick
Nova – Samuel R. Delany
The First Men in the Moon – H. G. Wells
The City and the Stars – Arthur C. Clarke

Blood Music – Greg Bear
Jem – Frederik Pohl
Bring the Jubilee – Ward Moore
VALIS – Philip K. Dick
The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin

The Complete Roderick – John Sladek
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said – Philip K. Dick
The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells
Grass – Sheri S. Tepper
A Fall of Moondust – Arthur C. Clarke

Eon – Greg Bear
The Shrinking Man – Richard Matheson
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick
The Dancers at the End of Time – Michael Moorcock
The Space Merchants – Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth

Time Out of Joint – Philip K. Dick
Downward to the Earth – Robert Silverberg
The Simulacra – Philip K. Dick
The Penultimate Truth – Philip K. Dick
Dying Inside – Robert Silverberg
Ringworld – Larry Niven

The Child Garden – Geoff Ryman
Mission of Gravity – Hal Clement
A Maze of Death – Philip K. Dick
Tau Zero – Poul Anderson
Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C. Clarke

Life During Wartime – Lucius Shepard
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang – Kate Wilhelm
Roadside Picnic – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Dark Benediction – Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Mockingbird – Walter Tevis
Dune – Frank Herbert

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein (Well, I tried once, and bounced off about halfway through.)

The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
Inverted World – Christopher Priest
Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
Childhood’s End - Arthur C. Clarke
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells (Hold on, this is on here twice!)

Dhalgren (July 2010) - Samuel R. Delany
Helliconia (August 2010) - Brian Aldiss
Food of the Gods (Sept. 2010) - H.G. Wells
The Body Snatchers (Oct. 2010) - Jack Finney
The Female Man (Nov. 2010) - Joanna Russ
Arslan (Dec. 2010) - M.J. Engh (Given contemporary events, this is a really creepy book.)

In other SF reading notes, I'll just note here that I stopped reading Startide Rising by David Brin about halfway through. There are tons of nifty ideas in that book, but I didn't care one bit about any of the characters, to the point where halfway through I was having to look back to the book's Dramatis personae just to remind myself who was being talked about a lot of the time. Part of the problem, for me, is that a lot of the really interesting stuff in the story (the events of the Streaker's finding the derelict fleet) is over by the time the book begins, but another problem is that I just wasn't roped into caring about the people Brin was writing about. So I looked up a plot summary online just to see where the book went after that, and I'm done. I won't be bothering with the remaining books in the Uplift series.

Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!

Just one thing this week, because when I saw this over at Cal's place, I knew that nothing could top it or even merit being in the same post with it, so unbelievably f***ed up this is.

Apparently, there is a fad in Russia where people take their hairless Sphinx cats and get them tattooed.

My brain can barely process how messed up a thing that is.

Whoa, that's good Squishy

Seen on Facebook this morning:

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal™:
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks:
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the House of Mochas forever.

~Author Unknown

I was drinking coffee when I saw this, naturally. Weird!

A cryptic rant

One would think that a prerequisite of writing for a newspaper would be the ability to read one. Apparently not, however.

Krull

Ah, the fine lure of 1980s cheese movies! I loved Krull when it came out, and saw the thing twice. It hit all of my sweet spots at the time. But then, I was 12, and I've grown a bit more sophisticated since then. My sweet spots at the time? A young Prince thrust into Kingship by the sudden onset of war; sword fights; aliens with ray guns; aged wizards come to nudge the young Prince toward destiny; a funky and mythical weapon; a really pretty Princess; the Prince's motley collection of allies, most of whom are outlaws; perils like enormous spiders and quicksand-filled swamps and a monstrous villain who lives in an impregnable fortress of rock.

Yeah, those were all of my sweet spots when I was 12. And as it turns out, these are still a lot of sweet spots now that I'm 38! Which is probably why I still have a lot of fondness for Krull even though it's more cheerfully goofy to me now than the serious bit of heroic fantasy I thought it was back then.

The plot of Krull is...well, from my list of "sweet spots" above, you can pretty much figure it out for yourself. There's a planet called Krull, which is invaded by a force of soldiers called "Slayers" who wield ray guns and fly around the galaxy in a giant mountain-shaped fortress made of rock that lands on one world after another for conquering. This enormous spaceship lands on a planet, whereupon its hordes of ray-gun wielding soldiers in space armor ride out on horseback to take over. Yowza!

But the planet Krull isn't to be taken so lightly. Two Kings decide to put their kingdoms together, by marrying their son and daughter. But on the eve of Prince Colwyn's wedding, the Slayers attack and kill the two old Kings and kidnap Princess Lyssa! Oh noes! Colwyn wakes up the next morning, amidst the wreckage of battle, to find his father dead, his bride a prisoner, and a cranky old wizard (who is not named Obi Wan or Gandalf) binding his wounds and telling him to get up off his arse because he's a King now and he needs to go fight the Slayers and their horrible leader who is known by the horrifyingly scary name "The Beast".

And off they go. First they're off to pick up a nifty weapon called a "Glaive", which is basically a really ornate throwing star that seems to work by remote control or mental command or something like that. Then they need to find a powerful Seer, because they need to know where The Beast's fortress is going to be (it changes location every morning). Along the way they meet some brigand-outlaw types and recruit them to their cause. And so on.

It's all very typical, although I didn't realize it when the movie came out. It's full of British actors, which always helps lend an air of weight and believability to the most ludicrous plots. The film is full of beautiful shots of wonderful vistas (its director of photography, Peter Suschitsky, also shot The Empire Strikes Back), but a lot of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The Glaive is touted as an amazing weapon, but by the time we get to see it in action, it's actually a bit disappointing; poor Lysette Anthony as our beautiful Princess literally has nothing to do as she is a prisoner for ninety percent of the movie; some of the film's events feel contrived, as if the screenwriter felt the need to pad out the running time and tick off some well-worn fantasy conventions along the way.

The most notable aspect of Krull now, nearly thirty years after it came out (holy crap!), is its score by James Horner. It's typical young Horner: big and muscular, with lots of nods to various classical masters and to Jerry Goldsmith. Horner's tendency toward self-referencing isn't in much evidence at this point in his career, although there are places where the score sounds a lot like his most noted score to that point, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The score also has two of the best melodies of Horner's entire career (the heroic "Main Theme" and the love theme).

Krull really needs to be seen through the prism of time, for what it is: an artifact of the 1980s. If this movie were to be released anew today, it would be laughed off the screen, with its occasionally murky visual effects and its earnest and irony-free script. Oh well. I still have a soft spot for it. The scene where Colwyn and friends ride the Firemares across a thousand leagues is still a thrilling bit, even with some wretched 1980s-style rear-projection, and Ken Marshall is, all things considered, a pretty good Prince Colwyn. I imagine that as Hollywood gets more and more focused on remaking old properties, a new version of Krull is probably inevitable at some point. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that.

For a taste of Krull, here's a fan-made music video I found, using clips of the film and the best track from the score, "Riding the Firemares". The main theme kicks in at about the :36 mark. Try to not have that tune in your head for days. I had that theme in my head for years, which is amazing considering that for many years, the score album to Krull was nearly impossible to find. I didn't locate a copy myself until I was in, of all places, a Barnes&Noble in Cedar Rapids, IA in 1995, and that was a single-disc album with lousy sound that left off most of the score. The entire score has been re-released on a couple of film music labels since then (including La La Land Records, just in the last month or two).



ADDENDUM: Oh, what the heck. Here's the actual scene of "Riding the Firemares". The idea here is that Colwyn and company has learned where the Beast's Fortress will be the next morning...but the location is a thousand leagues away, so the only way they can clear that distance in time is to try to capture, harness, and ride the Firemares. What are Firemares? They're horses. Really, really fast horses. Horses so fast that when they really get going, well...here's what happens.



Even with the bad rear-projection -- oh, what George Lucas's ILM could have done with this scene -- it's a terribly fun part of the movie.

What do you get him for Boss's Day?

Via Cal, I saw this collection of memos sent from a boss to his employees at an oil company in Houston in 1977 and 1978. The memos paint a pretty, shall we say, surreal picture of what it must have been like to work for Edward Mike Davis.

Here are a couple of quotes, but it's worth reading them all, especially at the site linked above, because he has scans of the typewritten originals:

This is a business office. All correspondence and other things pertaining to this office will be typewritten.

Handwriting takes much longer than a typewriter -- you're wasting your time, but more importantly, you're wasting my time. If you don't know how to type, you'd better learn.

Remember, this was the era of typewriters, not e-mail and texting. You had to load a piece of paper into your typewriter, type your thing, make sure you had no errors, and then take the paper out and do whatever it was you did in that particular office to get the piece of paper you've just typed to the person who needs to see it. This requirement would seem to put a damper on intra-office communication.

Idle conversation and gossip in this office among employees will result in immediate termination.

Don't talk about other people and other things in this office.

I can see wanting to discourage gossip, but I wonder what Davis meant by "idle conversation" -- is he actually going to fire Jones in Accounting if he overhears Jones telling Smith that his kid made the honor roll?

I swear, but since I am the owner of this company, that is my privilege, and this privilege is not to be interpreted as the same for any employee. That differentiates me from you, and I want to keep it that way. There will be absolutely no swearing, by any employee, male or female, in this office, ever.

Had I received this memo, I almost certainly would have loudly exclaimed upon reading it, "Well, f*** me!"

We do not pay starvation wages, and there are some people left in this world who want to work. I am not fond of hippies, long-hairs, dope fiends or alcoholics. I suggest each and every person in a supervisory category (from driller up to me) eliminate these people.

...

Anyone who lets their hair grow below their ears to where I can't see their ears means they don't wash. If they don't wash, they stink, and if they stink, I don't want the son-of-a-bitch around me.

Well, I guess I wouldn't have received the "No swearing" memo, because this guy would have fired me on sight. Oh well.

These are my favorites:

This memorandum is intended as an addendum to a memo I wrote on January 12, 1978 about people speaking to me. Any supervisor who has anything to say to me, day or night, the fastest way he can say it to me is too slow. The terms about not talking to me meant I do not have time to stop and talk to everyone -- saying hello, goodbye, goodnight, etc. -- that is what I was talking about. If you have business with me, the fastest way is too slow -- day or night.

And:

I do not appreciate people coming into my office and helping themselves to my candy, cigars, medicine, and other personal items.

Unless you have my permission, you are not allowed to remove anything from my office, and particularly, do not remove anything from my desk drawers without my approval. I don't mind giving, but I would like the privilege of knowing and giving it myself.

Now, these are interesting. To judge by this fellow's personal history (what little of it is known -- there are links at the site), he basically inherited a bunch of money from a very rich woman for whom he had worked as her personal driver. He then used that money to launch his very own oil business in the late 1970s, which to my understanding was not the best time to be launching one's very own oil business in Texas. His company went belly-up just a few years after these memos were typed.

Davis seems to have been (or maybe still is, I have no idea if he's alive) a man of some conflicting impulses. He clearly wants to have been a rich and prosperous businessman with his own company and bunch of employees, but he also seems to have a deep discomfort, bordering on distrust, of other people. This is almost never a recipe for business success, unless one is fortunate enough to have invented a product that everybody needs. Davis, however, was just another Houston oil man when all the wells were drying up.

Reading the memos, one forms an impression of a company dominated by Nazi-like terror of the man in the corner office, but I wonder if that's the case. As I read through the memos, one after the next, I got an increasing sense that this guy was deeply insecure and worried about his image while being possibly without a way of really creating that image, short of mandating that nobody so much as talk to him and firing off one memo after another about some really idiotic stuff ("At lunch, don't be in the kitchen! I hired a woman who will literally hand you your food!").

Put it this way: Mr. Davis claims in one memo to be a "known son-of-a-bitch". But really -- if you actually worked for a genuine "known son-of-a-bitch", do you really think that your SOB boss would have to resort to a memo to tell you not to help yourself to the candy in his office?

Jaran

A while back I bought a copy of Kate Elliott's novel Jaran on the assumption that it was, at least kinda-sorta, a space opera. It turns out to not really be a space opera at all; it's more of a future planetary romance type of book. No matter; those are only matters of taxonomy and nomenclature. It's not a space opera simply because very little of it takes place in space.

So what is Jaran about, then? It turns out to be a science fictional romance story, as well as a tale of an epic journey, a clash-of-cultures novel, and a quite wonderful character study. I actually started the book a year or two ago, read a few chapters, and then put it aside -- not, if I recall correctly, out of any negative feeling for the book but because something else came along that I really wanted to read instead right at that moment. The last Harry Potter book or maybe a Guy Gavriel Kay book. Something like that. So I finally got back to Jaran, and in a lot of ways I didn't want it to end (which is nice because it's the first book in a four-book series).

Terese Soerensen (known as "Tess" to friends) is the sister of Charles Soerensen, a human who has been given a Dukedom over a number of worlds by humanity's apparently gracious conquerors, that Chapalii. As sister to a very important man, Tess has a number of responsibilities and obligations that she is less than thrilled about pursuing, especially after her fiance breaks her heart, so she decides to eschew her duties in favor of traveling to a world called Rhui, where she wants to bury herself in linguistic studies. But on her way there, she finds evidence of some kind of odd plot involving humanity's Chapalii conquerors, so she follows the evidence and ends up stranded in the middle of the grassy steppes of a vast continent. She soon meets the locals, who are human -- but who are not technological, and instead live a nomadic existence with the horse as their primary mode of transportation.

These people are known as Jaran, and the first one she meets is one of the most important of all Jaran, a man who wants nothing more than to unite all of the fractious, often-warlike tribes under one banner. His name is Ilya Bakhtiian, and he is unlike any person Tess has ever known.

Over the course of the rest of the novel -- and all of this set-up takes about twenty pages -- Tess will have to learn a new culture, travel across a continent by horse, investigate the doings of the Chapalii on a planet they're not even supposed to be on, come to terms with her own emotional pain, and work through her increasingly complex feelings for Ilya Bakhtiian. All of this makes for one of the finer "character-driven" stories I've read recently.

I suppose it's not much of a spoiler to note that Tess and Ilya do fall in love with one another, but the book is praiseworthy for the way it develops their relationship. Both characters are complex and flawed, and their relationship is full of strife and hardship. There were plenty of times when I wanted to slap either Tess or Ilya or both upside the head, and that's actually a good thing, as that means I had come to care about these people.

Elliott also displays a good gift for language, especially as she creates the recognizable, and yet alien, culture of the Jaran. They all tend to speak with unexpected cadences and rhythms, and the depiction of a matriarchal culture doesn't feel at all contrived as some SFnal matriarchies do. Many such societies end up seeming like regular old patriarchies with the genders switched, but Elliott avoids that trap in a number of interesting ways.

Here is a passage that I particularly admired. Here, Ilya Bakhtiian is talking to Niko, a wise elder, about his conflicted feelings for Tess and what those feelings may mean for his dream of uniting all the Jaran:

"Loving a woman and wanting a woman are not the same thing."

Ilya simply stared at him [Niko], perplexed. "Of course, to desire a woman only because she is pretty--"

"I am not speaking of anything so simple. Listen to me, my boy. When you came back from Jeds, you had found the path you were destined to ride, knowing that it would bring you fame that no other jaran had found before you. But the gods play this game with us, challenging us to strive for fame, and yet how many of us can ever hope to beat their players: the wind that never ceases, the deep earth, the rain that dissolves the ashes of the dead, the unbounded sky, and the silent stars. They play their game well. They have only to wait us out to win."

The rising sun laced hsi pale hair with silver. "Yet now and again, a man or a woman is born who has weapons against these opponents, one who can command quiet, who can see beyond death, one who can hold fire to the old ways and let them burn. You are such a man. You can change the jaran. You are changing them. You can leave this world with a name that will live forever. You can win that game." He fell silent. Two women spoke in low voices from the etsana's tent, too far away for words to be distinguishable. From the farther edge of camp, a man hallooed, and a child yelped and laughed.

"But you will die in any case, Ilyakoria. What good is everlasting fame to a man if he dies unloved?"

A wind had come up. It touched Ilya's hair, stirring it like a whisper.

"Love, Ilya. That is what we who are mortal have been gifted, a gift never given adn never known by the undying. The wind cannot love the plain, but I can love the plain, and I can love much more than that and be loved in return. Fame is something you want. A woman is someone you love."

(I'm finding, more and more, that I'm less and less interested in stories that don't have some component of a love story within them. This doesn't mean that I want every book to be a romance, but it does mean that books where love is not a theme are turning out less interesting to me. I'm not sure why this is the case, but it's something I've noticed in my reading lately in terms of the trends I've seen in my reactions to the books I've been reading.)

Ask Me Anything! August 2010 edition

[bumping this post up]



Yup, it's that time again! Or rather, it's that time already.

See, I've always done Ask Me Anything! -- well, not always, but the last few years, anyway -- in February, as part of my Blogiversary Month festivities. That just seems like too long, though; Ask Me Anything! tends to produce a lot of good posting-fodder, and it's a lot of fun, so I've decided to indulge a thought I had when I wrapped up the last round, this past February, and start doing Ask Me Anything! twice yearly. We'll do in in February and August, so each one is six months apart. Cool, eh?

So, here we go. Standard rules apply: Put questions into the comments on this post. I'll periodically kick this post to the top of the blog (or post a reminder), up until Sunday, August 15. Got questions?

Ask Me Anything!

Something for Thursday

I love John Denver, and to paraphrase Ron Burgundy, if anyone has a problem with that, I will fight you.

I was trying to decide which John Denver song to use this week, and I figured, there's no rule that I can only present a single one. So, first, here's "Looking for Space":



Here's "Calypso":



And finally: this song may have become almost a cliche over the years, but this song is one of my earliest musical memories. I remember listening to this when I was very little, and being happy when it would come 'round in the parents' record rotation when Dad would put four or five LPs on the stereo. (Remember those record players that would hold a few LPs at the top of a three-inch spindle, and use a mechanism to lift the needle at the end of a record, swing it back out of the way, drop the next LP onto the turntable, drop the needle, and start playing the new record? I was always fascinated by the coordination of the record changing.) Anyway, here's "Country Roads".

I have an "ilk"???

Wow! I don't recall the last time this happened, or if it's ever happened, but I got a hate-mail today! Yay!

Anyway, "Edward" says:

If I were you, I would hide under the first stone in the remotest forest...


you and your ilk should never open your stupid beak, you don't belong in this country, not even on this Earth. What a base kind of "human", and I am being generous, for God's sake!

Unfortunately, Eddie didn't bother to leave any indication as to what particular post of mine it was that brought this on, so I have no idea what it was that got under his skin. That is obviously something over which I will lose precious milliseconds of sleep tonight, but I'll make up for it with a nap tomorrow. I do assume that it was one of my political views that got him, with the "you don't belong in this country!" thing. That sort of attack always amuses me, because by simply writing those words, Little Eddie has already admitted, whether he knows it or not (likely not), that by definition, I am a better American than he.

Ah, the amusement!

Mazel tov!

Matt Jones, whom by virtue of having known him since fifth grade is the person outside my immediate family I've known the longest (unless you count the girl from 2nd grade who is now one of my Facebook friends) in my life, went and did something rather rash. Ach! He has to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom now! Aieee!

In fifth grade, by the way, Matt and I had hair of similar length. Clearly, judging by his photos, we have gone in somewhat opposite directions.

Anyhow, congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Jones. May the Force be with them!

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Benny Hill: yay or nay?

There ain't no justice!

An artist does this and everybody's all "Awwwwww, that is so adorable!" But George Lucas does it in Return of the Jedi, and the raping-of-childhoods begins. Harumph!

A quick thought on "Master Chef"

It's basically American Idol with food, which is fine, because Hell's Kitchen is basically The Apprentice with food.

Oh, and another quick thought: I'd like to go on this show, if only because when I got in there to cook, I'd whack that bald bearded dork with a frying pan and then say, "Sorry, fellas, that's all I got. I just wanted to clock this guy with a pan."

I loathe people who act as though they've just descended from Mt. Olympus.

Get in there and make the dish!

Notes on Hell's Kitchen. Spoilers, so highlight to read:

:: Ahhh, the "taste it and make it" challenge.

:: I didn't think I could loathe Benjamin any more than I already did going into this episode, but damned if he didn't manage to sink below that bar for the ninth or tenth consecutive week! I cannot stand this guy. Hate him. His constant baby-act "I shoulda won! I'm a better cook and I have passion and that person doesn't and wah wah waahhhhh!!!" is the most grating thing I've seen on a reality teevee program in...I can't actually remember one.

:: I don't believe his back injury. I think it's a tantrum. I also think he senses that he is not going to win Hell's Kitchen, so he is trying to set it up so that if he gets eliminated, he can point to his back injury. And believe me, I know that cooking in a kitchen is hard work, but there's no way that what Ben does is physically harder than what I do for a living, and I've had to carry around ten-foot ladders and work power tools and hoist heavy items all over the place after I've thrown my back out before. You pop a bunch of ibuprofens and get right on working.

Last season's winner, Dave, worked the entire season after breaking his wrist in the first week or two. Man up, Ben. Lose the way you deserve to.

:: Jay is irritating to me as well. He just is. On the one hand he's head-over-heels for Holli, but then he cuts her down when he's talking to Ben. What a putz. He's a good cook and probably the most deserving chef there right now overall, but I just don't like him all that much.

:: Oh look, Ben is suddenly OK to work. I'm going with my "passive-aggressive temper tantrum" and "excuse for almost-certain failure" hypotheses.

:: The chefs run the pass tonight. This is always fascinating, especially when he has the sous chefs sabotage them to see if they catch the stunts.

:: Jay did the best up there; Holli recovered quickly from early jitters and only missed one of her quality checks, which came from an erroneous ticket put in by Jean-Philippe. Ben missed two. But Ben is a genius! He's the only cook who can beat Jay! Asshole. And Autumn? God in Heaven, is she annoying.

:: Ben was sure quick on his feet. As noted above, I've hurt my back before, and while you can move around with effort if you're determined, you are not that quick. I'm still thinking "Liar liar, Ramsay's gonna set your portrait on fire".

:: Please...eliminate Ben...eliminate Ben...eliminate Ben....

:: Autumn finally goes. About time. I think she managed to get this far by never being as bad as someone else. (I liked her little dig at Ben: "I never quit.")

:: Second one...please give Ben the boot. Please oh please oh please.

:: YAY!!! At long, long last! Benjamin's an arrogant, sexist douche. And I love the look on his face as he hands in his jacket.

:: Go Holli!!!

Angular Modesty

There's something I'm seeing linked all over the place called the "Modesty Survey", in which (as I understand it) Christian boys are presented with statements regarding how women should dress, and doing the agree-disagree thing. As in, "Any shorts that are shorter than mid-thigh are immodest" and "Fishnet stockings are a stumbling block". It's all, I dunno, kind of odd, but there really is a population of folks out there who think that women should dress as cast extras on Little House on the Prairie or in Witness, and it's always interesting to see their thoughts.

But of particular interest to me was -- you guessed it! -- the survey thoughts on this statement: Overalls are modest as long as a modest shirt is worn underneath.

That cracks me up. It really does. The survey results actually fell on the "Agreement" side by a wide margin, so if you're looking to be "Modest", ladies, just put on your modest shirt under your modest overalls and go forth and be modest!

The text comments on this statement, though, cracked me up:

Overalls are usually very modest and if a modest shirt is underneath then it's not a problem for me.

Apparently a 13-year-old wrote that one. I'm glad we've established what women can wear so as not to give a 13-year-old certain needs, if you know what I mean.

From an 18-year-old: I agree, however, be sure the overalls come up past your chest, rather than sitting on top. For a girl who has a large bust, overalls are a bad idea, even with a modest shirt.

Now that's just sheer nonsense, to the extent that I can even understand it. They should "come up past your chest"? Is this kid suggesting that the bib should scratch a woman's chin?

And then there's this 23-year-old, who is putting a tad too much thought into this: And as long as they're not baggy, leaving a large, "horizontal" gap between the overalls and the shirt on the side at the waist, and as long as the bib terminates above the middle of the bust.

Good Lord. For proper wearing of overalls, a woman must calculate her ideal Bib Termination Point.

A 21-year-old opines: It would depend on the situation, but in public, a girl is overalls is looking for attention.

Oh, go have a beer, will you? You're old enough now. It's always such a treat to see the "But she was asking for it! Why else would she dress that way!" line of thought in action.

A not-unreasonable 18-year-old adds: Yes. Overalls are not tight, so that helps. The only thing I'd add is that they generally aren't very feminine.

Yeah...so? What makes them feminine is what's underneath, and their shape.

Here's a 19-year-old who apparently has trouble looking upon a woman's bust: Actually, if the straps come down too far, they can be pretty provocative by drawing attention to the bust.

A 25-year-old thinks: From a front profile they are fine. From the side profile, however, they are very suggestive especially if the shirt worn underneath is quite tight, which accent the curves of the bust.

I can see this guy on a date with a girl who is wearing overalls: "Oh Johnny, I'm having a good time, but why do you insist on facing me directly every place we go? Can't we walk beside each other?"

"Sorry, Susie, but no. When I am beside you, I can see the curvature of your bust. And then I get a strange feeling, you know."

Of course, this fellow is actually entirely correct, in a way; one thing I love about overalls on women is the way they obscure body features from certain angles and are more revealing from others. But that's a feature, man! Not a bug!

Feature!

A 16-year-old gets the final word: Overalls still tend to show a girl's figure, no matter how loose-fitting. However, they are more modest than regular jeans and having a modest shirt underneath is definitely helpful.

Well, thank God for that. A "modest" shirt is helpful. Helpful to whom, you ask? Why, all those men who might behold that lovely girl in overalls, see her figure, and be driven to a life of indulging sexual appetites. And we just can't have that, now can we!

Oh, how I wish we'd get beyond all this "modesty" crap and see the human body for the source of beauty that it really is!

Sentential Links #215

Linkage! To return to an older MO of mine for these posts, all of these links are from blogs on Roger's blogroll. Enjoy!

:: I don’t know if Apple Computer (through it’s authorised distributor, Renaissance) thought it was being clever or if they were just colossally inept, but the launch of the iPad in New Zealand was just plain stupid. Whichever it was, someone ought to be sacked over it.

:: The new costume presents Diana as if she has been shopping the clearance racks at Hot Topic. Not to mention they had the nerve to bring back the horrible WW symbol. Goddess, how I hate that WW. Is she a superhero or a spokesperson for Whataburger?

:: Yes, my child woke me up before 6 a. m. to ask me if something in the newspaper was a photograph of alcoholic beverages. If that doesn't constitute parent abuse, I don't know what does.

:: I am not exactly sure why I find this idea so interesting, perhaps there is something voyeuristic about it: stuff generally concealed put out on open display.

:: My powers are to mime out stuff and make bad guys go away. I have a motorbike and a plane.

:: I think my favorite part of the book is the discussion of how women were artificially created by aliens.

:: So it’s a replica…of the Sonic Screwdriver…that’s actually a screwdriver. Whoaaaa…far out, man.

More next week.

28 Questions

As always, via Sunday Stealing:

1. Was your dad named after anyone?

His own father. To differentiate, his parents called him at home by his middle name (Thomas, or Tom). So my grandmother would occasionally brag, as mothers do, about her son, Tom. Which meant that when my father (first name Harry) misbehaved in school, the teachers would say, "Why can't you be like your brother Tom?"

2. What do you think is the minimal age to get married?

I think that we need to decide what the minimum age is for all the same stuff: voting, drinking, driving, marriage, military service, et cetera. I tend to favor 18, but that's just me.

3. What’s the longest time that you‘ve been involved with the same person?

The Wife. Nineteen-and-a-half years and counting.

4. What actor/actress do you consider hot at the moment?

Stana Katic (Detective Kate Beckett on Castle). Also Robin Tunney (Agent Teresa Lisbon on The Mentalist).

5. What is your favorite album by a band?

Can't name just one, so here's a random one I like: Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits.

6. What is your favorite album by an individual artist?

Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely.

7. What is something that you‘d rather be a bit dirty?

Little House on the Prairie. Did it ever traumatize Mary and Laura and Carrie when they realized what those sounds were? The ones that came from Pa and Ma's bed, which was right down that six-foot stepladder from their own?

8. What was the last TV show that you watched?

The Simpsons is on as I write this, although I'm not paying a lot of attention.

9. How many people have you met from the blogosphere? Who are they?

A dozen or so, maybe a few more. All of them are Buffalo locals. (There are others I knew in person before Blogistan.)

10. What's your philosophy on life?

"Keep smiling, because you never know what life will throw in your face next!"

That, and: "Boldly go."

Oh, and: "Never go in with a Sicilian when Death is on the line!"

11. Do you think prescription drugs are over prescribed?

Maybe? I don't really have an educated view to offer on this, actually. I know people who are one lots of meds, but I have no confident basis as to whether I think they're on too many meds.

12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?

Sure, unless I don't like you much, in which case I'd reveal the secret and watch the carnage!

13. What is your favorite memory in the last year?

Good times with The Wife and The Daughter.

14. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?

Watching movies with a big bowl of popcorn (from the popper, mind you).

15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:

I can't roll my R's. Never been able to. (Which meant that I couldn't flutter-tongue on my trumpet, either. That inability occasionally proved inconvenient.)

16. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the 'world peace etc' malarky) - what are they?

Enough money to comfortably live for life, a house with an enormous room for books and a big shed for a workshop, and for a nice large car that still gets at least 40 mph, if not more.

17. Who would you want to get together with and make a cake?

Is "make a cake" some kind of dirty euphemism? I like cooking things with The Wife.

18. Which country is your spiritual home?

This one.

19. What is your big weakness?

My sweet tooth.

20. Do you think Judd Corizan is a good person?

Who?

21. What was your best/favorite subject at school?

Music, history, and English.

22. Describe your accent:

It lulls you into a false sense of security.

23. If you could change anything about yourself, would you?

I'd take off some weight.

24. What do you wear to sleep?

Errr....

25. What is your favorite casual outfit to wear?

Bib overalls, of course.

26. Do you use cigarettes or alcohol?

Cigarettes, no. Alcohol, yes. (I've never even tried a cigarette; the only smoking I've ever done was two cigars that were given to me years ago by co-workers who had babies.)

27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? (If you have no idea, just say something crazy, it'll entertain me!)

Well, we'd get a tub of Cool-Whip, and then we'd....

28. Rate the memes that you play generally. Use any scale or just in order.

I only check 'em out and see if I want to do them, so no ranking here. I do find Sunday Stealing the most consistent, though; others tend to have quizzes that make me think, "Yeesh, who came up with that...."

Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!

I wasn't online much the last few days, so I didn't see anything myself that seemed utterly weird and goofy, but rather than just leave this post empty of content (any moreso than usual), I'll simply cull a few links from Neatorama.

:: High school sweethearts reunite after 62 years apart.

:: Excellent Comic-Con costumes.

:: Space Invaders love seat.

Oh, and I found this someplace else (but I don't remember where). It's the destruction of a front-loading washing machine. Make sure to watch until the end:



More next week!

Snooze

We all know that newspapers are slowly dying away, their readership and functions taken over by new modes of media and news propagation. But it's always interesting to behold the physical manifestation of newspaper decay. Case in point: the front page of today's Buffalo News. Here it is:



What's wrong with this? Well, here's a list of stuff I spotted off the top of my head when I opened up the paper this morning:

1. The upper half of the above-the-fold section is taken up by the paper's logo, a giant banner indicating the locations of other stories, and the self-congratulatory "Paper of Distinction" thing at the top.

2. Below the fold, we have an Index to the paper's sections that takes up, oh, one-fifth of the front page's entire space. Below that, we have an enormous footer ad for a local health insurance company. I haven't measured things out, but I'd say that there is almost one-half of the entire front page devoted to stuff that isn't the news.

3. There are only four stories on the front page. Two deal with the same topic -- an important local topic, to be sure, but do both related stories require front page real estate? Of the other two stories present on our front page, one covers some shenanigans by a local politician, and the other previews a book soon to come out by a prominent local citizen (who is only prominent because of who she is married to -- Jim Kelly, the guy who retired thirteen years ago as the quarterback of our football team).

Four stories on the front page. That's it. Four stories, covering three topics. Each topic is of local concern only, and one of those is a human interest story, not news.

National or world stories on the front page today? Zero.

(I am not saying that the News shouldn't be covering those stories. I'm saying that not one of these seems to me important enough to be a front page story.)

4. Above the fold, we have just a single story. It's pushed over to the right by a surprisingly large photograph which is almost certainly the first thing you're looking at when you pick up the paper.

5. That photograph? Well, if you're paying attention to current events, you know that's Chelsea Clinton getting married. And you'd have to be paying attention to current events to know that, because the photo is not captioned. At all.

I could probably gripe some more -- I find the News's regular habit of putting the total dollar amount of the coupons enclosed in all the advertising, right up there above the banner, highly odd -- but that all is pretty illustrative, I think. We have a paper that focuses on pretty graphics, lots of colors, white space galore, and not a whole lot of news.

How fare your papers, readers?