One word: overkill.
Sometimes good, sometimes bad. But that’s the single most precice and concise description I can come up with to summarize Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
Avast, ye maytees!
This should be a blast — according to an article in the Seattle PI, this August there will be a fleet of sailing ships coming to Seattle, including a cannon duel on Lake Union!
I’m there. Apparently more info can be found at the Tall Ships Challenge website.
Music, books and other real-world fun
Back in the summer of 1991, right after I graduated high school, I took a trip to Germany with the Bartlett High School German Club. While there, I was browsing through a music store and stumbled across a band that sounded interesting — Poems for Laila. I picked up two of their albums, Another Poem for the 20th Century and La Fillette Triste.
Unfortunately, over the years, tapes die — especially well-listened to tapes, as these definitely were. I’d never been able to track down any PfL albums over here in the states, and the times I’d looked into trying to get them as imports, it had either been more expensive than I’d wanted to try, or I hadn’t had a credit card available. This week, however, I stumbled across AudioGalaxy (one of the modern Napster alternatives), and have spent the past day downloading PfL .mp3’s like a madman. Not only have I been able to regain both of the albums I used to own, but I’ve also got the entirety of two more albums (Katamandu and I Shot the Moon), plus much of a few other albums that they’ve released since then. It’s great to finally be able to hear this band again — wonderful, beautiful music. So I’ve been cheezing over that.
I also picked up my next book to read — a compendium of the entire Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. I haven’t read these in ages, and am greatly looking forward to diving back into them again. Should be quite cool.
That’s really about it for now, I suppose. Tomorrow starts the work week again — what fun!
Woohoo?
The Complete Chronicles of Narnia
Well, I just finished all seven books of Narnia. I hadn’t read these in many, many years, and at some point C.S. Lewis decided that he’d rather have the books presented in their chronological order (according to events in Narnia) rather than the order they were written in, so it was in many ways an almost entirely new experience for me.
Incidentally, the preferred order of the books is as follows: The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and his Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle.
I had a blast reading these again — though it was a far different experience from when I did when I was younger. I really had no idea there was such strong Christian symbology running throughout the series! It doesn’t really surprise me, as I’m somewhat familiar with some of C.S. Lewis’ other work, it was just something that I hadn’t caught on to when I first read the books. At this point, though TLtWatW is the one that is most known, I think that either THahB or TLB are my favorites in the series — THahB mostly because of its somewhat different take on Aslan, and TLB for coming up with not just a wonderfully fitting end to the entire series, but for its depiction of Aslan’s country and what happens after the end of everything.
Wonderful stuff, and well worth re-reading after all these years.
Why blog?
Some days I sit back and wonder just why I do this. My site doesn’t get a whole lot of traffic — primarily just my folks and a few friends who stop by from time to time when they remember. And, admittedly, much of what I write probably wouldn’t be of any real interest to the world in general. Bits and pieces of my life, what I’m doing, what’s going on. Heck, I don’t even get personal enough most of the time to make for any real good drama!
I found the following quote over on Peach’s site after she left a comment to one of my posts, and it seemed to sum up fairly accurately why I keep banging away at this — because, whether or not it’s seen all that often…it’s fun.
I am very pleased with my (o.k. and yours too) blogger. I feel like I have fallen down the rabbit hole; just falling and falling in a blissful state, sans the drugs. I love IT! It is peering through my own looking glass at my own ego and my written word. Whether you are an amatuer or a professional; whether you are an exquisite artiste or you stink, it makes no difference. Most people who create at some time or another, have a strong sense of who they are in the images they create. Mediocrity is the scare word for us. Your word or my word, we all checked off ‘public’ for a reason. We would like to be read and responded to.
Sometimes, though, I feel that I shouldn’t be ‘published’ unless I am very, very good. And then again, who cares? It’s my Journal and if you want to read it, be my guest.
Ack
Oops — I just upgraded my blog software to the newest version, and in the process nuked the hack I had that inserted smileys into posts. Hence, my Spider-Man post isn’t displaying the stars at the moment. Grr. I’ll fix it tomorrow….
Spider-Man
I told you I’d get around to this. ;)
In brief — it rocked. There are a select few movies that were a successful translation from the comic book medium to the silver screen (Superman, Batman, and X-Men — all IMHO, of course), and Spider-Man just rocketed straight to the top of that list.
Plot — well, okay, it’s a summertime comic book movie, but for what it was, it worked quite well. Cast — spot-on. Effects — a bit shakey here and there, but overall quite impressive. Directing — Sam Raimi kicks much booty.
Ugh
In brief — I saw Spiderman, it rocked. More later. I’m currently battling off a really nasty flu bug…hence why no updates for a few days, and only this really short note right now before I curl up in bed.
I’ll get more up when being vertical doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. ;)
American Gods
What happens to our gods when we stop believing in them?
Since the dawn of man, we have created gods to explain the universe around us, to worship, and to sacrifice to. As people moved from place to place, their gods came with them, carried along in their thoughts, dreams, and ceremonies. When people started coming to this continent — whether in the cargo holds of slave ships, as settlers immigrating to a new land, or as tribes crossing the ancient land bridges — they brought their gods along, asking for their help as they got started in the new world.
Over time, though, as cultures grew, met, and merged, the old gods found themselves with fewer and fewer believers. Old beliefs and religions became supersitions and stories, as new gods arose in the minds of the people of the new world. Odin and the Norse pantheon, brought here with the Viking explorers; Anasazi who came with the African slaves; even the Hindu god Kali; all found themselves passed by, nearly forgotten, existing only on the few prayers from those who still believed in them.
Meanwhile, the new gods gain in strength, as more and more people worship them, though their worshippers don’t always realize it. Gods of the train, the automobile, the television. Gods of drugs and the internet. New gods, who see the future as their world — and hold those old gods that still scrape by, existing where and how they can, as useless. Relics of ages gone by, doing no more than getting in the way of the future.
And a storm is coming….
Now this is what I was hoping for from Neil Gaiman.
After being less impressed than I hoped after I read Neverwhere, I hedged a bit in the bookstore before deciding to go ahead and pick up American Gods. I’m quite glad I did, though — a much better book than Neverwhere.
Drawing upon mythologies the world over, Gaiman has created a fascinating look at the conflict between old beliefs and new, and the dichtomies created in America when so many cultures and religions come together, clash, mix, and evolve over time. Of Gaiman’s works that I’ve read so far, this is easily my favorite.