Month: March 2004

I just want to go on record as saying that this is a really good idea.

And by “really good idea”, I mean “really friggin’ bad idea”.

(via Atrios)

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Well, I’m off to see Return of the King for the second time in less than an hour, so I presume I’ll have updates later on today. Yes, the film’s been out for three months, and I’m only now getting around to seeing it again. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to see it again in a theatrical release (although buying the DVDs is a no-brainer), but I decided that since I have no idea at all when I’ll be able to experience these films again in their intended theatrical presentation, I’d better do it.

Last night, though, I completely immersed myself in Middle Earth, watching the first two films back-to-back. That’s quite the experience, and if you haven’t done so, please do. I know it’s hard to free up the eight or nine hours necessary to do it (adding extra time for trips to the kitchen for snacks and to the loo once the snacks from the first movie need to come out toward the end of the second), but you really get a sense of the story’s emotional sweep that way.

Before I go, just a couple of things about the Extended version of The Two Towers:

:: There’s a scene at Edoras in which Aragorn calms a terrified horse, and then directs the stablekeepers to set the horse free, saying something like, “This animal has seen enough wars.” Is this the same horse that later finds Aragorn after he goes off the cliff and floats miles downriver?

:: The extended ending of The Two Towers simply doesn’t work as well, in my opinion, as the theatrical version. Frodo and Sam are warned by Faramir that Cirith Ungol is a particularly dangerous path, which to my mind mutes the idea that Gollum is leading them unawares into horrible danger; and Merry and Pippin’s finding of the pipeweed, while a charming scene, rather deflates the pathos of the film’s conclusion.

:: Legolas has something like twenty “kills” in the first ten minutes of the Battle of Helm’s Deep, but only ends up with 42? Did he take a long lunch or something?

:: I loved the moment when Fangorn Forest exacts its revenge on the orcs.

:: I’d like to know what the state of mind was of the person who first scouted the location for Osgiliath and said, “Yep the foothills of Mordor are a fifteen-minute walk away, so let’s build a town right here!”

:: After having seen Return of the King and watched Legolas single-handedly bring down an oliphaunt, the cave-troll fight in Fellowship plays a bit differently. I’m thinking, “Oh come now, quit messin’ around! You can defeat a beastie twenty times your size, but this troll is beyond your ability?”

:: One facet of Peter Jackson’s story construction is pretty obvious: needing some major deaths along the way but not really given any (except Boromir), he simply looks for characters who are never mentioned again in the books after their initial appearance (Haldir, Hama) and then brings them back to kill them. Brilliant!

OK, that’s it. I’m off; back later.

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I was up early this morning to get the Wife and the Kid to the airport, and I’ve spent most of the four hours since their takeoff hitting “refresh” on the airline’s flight status page every minute or two, and wondering if the Kid’s reaction to her first ever airplane flight rises from her “Everything’s an adventure!” self, as opposed to her “Everything’s a big terrifying monstrosity!” self. I’ll find out later, I suppose. Meanwhile, nothing more for today — I’m going to decompress for a while and watch Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers back to back. (Extended versions, which is cool, but on VHS, which isn’t. The DVDs were already rented out at BlockBuster. No, I don’t own either of the Extended versions on DVD yet. I decided to hold out until the inevitable mega-box set arrives. Sooner, I hope, rather than later.)

Meantime, by all means peruse the fine folks in the blogroll. Lynn Sislo (Reflections in d-minor) has a couple of nifty conversations going on about music, interesting stuff as always at 2Blowhards, and yet more great stuff at Wil Wheaton Dot Net. Enjoy!

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The Earth, from the Martian surface. Man oh man!

Also possibly observed was an old Viking orbiter, long after the Viking missions ended. (It could have been a meteor, however.)

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I want to see a complete episode of that action TV series they’re always watching on King of the Hill — the one where the hero is apparently a Mexican or Spanish priest who always says “Vaya con Dios!” before dispatching the bad guys in pretty violent fashion.

Actually, I like the idea of fictional works of art that come up in stories — they always add a bit of richness, a sense that we really are looking into another world and that the people there are acting out lives as opposed to a plot. It’s that level of extra detail that makes fictional worlds convincing.

So, what fictional art works would you like to see? (or hear?)

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I like to listen to a lot of Celtic music, which — in its more “fun” forms — involves listening to a lot of drinking songs. Thus it has come to pass that one of my daughter’s favorite songs, owing to its presence on a frequently played CD, is “Beer, Beer, Beer”. Well, OK….except the other day I was playing a different CD, and on comes another song about beer, “Beers To You”. (It was the opening titles song to the Clint Eastwood movie Any Which Way You Can.) She immediately adopted that one, as well.

But I can draw hope in the fact that she looks at me with disapproval every time I actually drink a beer, right?

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No, this isn’t the start of a new weekly series. I just liked this bit from Matthew Yglesias, in which he bluntly expresses a long-time frustration of mine: namely, that today’s Democrats are so terrified of taking a few lumps themselves that they seem to invariably end up landing no punches either, and often taking lumps anyway.

(Oh, and apologies for the profanity. PG-13 blog and all that.)

“Fundamentally, for Democrats to win they need to change the nature of the ‘values’ conversation. Values — the important ones, anyways — aren’t about who has a potty mouth and who fucks whom, and Democrats need to make that case to the American people, not run around like a bunch of chickenshits.”

That’s exactly right.

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Before the death in the family (scroll down three posts) occurred, The Wife was scheduled to attend an out-of-town, overnight meeting on Monday and Tuesday, which forced me to request off from work at The Store on those days (since no one would be around otherwise to watch The Kid during the non-preschool daytime hours). Of course, now, they are both going out of town for the entire week, leaving me with a few days completely alone during which I won’t even be working, since The Store’s schedule for next week was already posted by the time news of the sad event reached me.

So, how to spend the time?

Well….part of me feels a bit dirty for considering doing this, since it rather feels like putting a death in the family to work for my own purposes, but I’m leaning strongly toward taking in the Lord of the Rings films in their entirety. I’d watch Fellowship and The Two Towers tomorrow, and then go to a matinee of Return of the King on Monday. Or something like that. I don’t know, really — all this time just plopped into my lap via circumstances I could not possibly have ever wished for, and I’d really rather actually work. I’ve notified the managers at The Store that I’ll be available if they need someone on a call-in basis, but it’s still a weird feeling — a little like “The Monkey’s Paw”.

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:: Andrew Cory celebrated a birthday on the anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s death, as well as composer Sergei Prokofiev.

:: Lynn Sislo celebrated the second anniversary of her deportation to Blogistan. (Which means, in turn, that this blog is a couple of weeks older than hers! Heh!)

:: And in a surprising bit of epiphany, New England Stupid Patriots cornerback Ty Law is to be congratulated for realizing, however belatedly, his role in the ascendency of the greatest force for evil in all Sports-dom and his concurrent wish to atone for his sins.

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I always enjoy the way some of the more extreme Christian fundamentalists undergo tremendous mental gyration in order to fit the current world situation into their interpretations of Apocalyptic writings — stuff like “Scriptural prophecy tells us that the Kingdom of Beebop-alulah will invade Israel during the Days of Ten Thousand Goats! Clearly, Armenia is the Kingdom of Beebop-alulah!”

In that vein, check out the Middle East Invasion Map, courtesy of that always-entertaining whacko, Jack van Impe.

(via PZ Myers)

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