WonderBlog

You know, I had always thought I'd seen Karate Kid. But I'd never seen it, really. I'd only seen Karate Kid 2. They play the last minute of the first movie in the sequel, so I thought I'd seen it when I hadnt.

Where did Ralph Macchio go? He is SO cute in this movie. Oh my god. I felt 14 years old, I swear. All googly and crushy at this boy.

I had to google him to find out what's he's up to. Well, to be honest, I wanted to find a more recent photo. He's 41 now, and I really thought I'd like to see how he matured. Mabye he's even cuter now, with a little more experience.

I couldn't find any older pictures of him. Too bad, i'm pretty sure he's aged well.

The movie is so familiar to so many people. I mean, how else could I have THOUGHT i'd seen it when I hadn't? But I was totally taken in.

Yeah, it's about Karate and kicking the ass of the high school rich bully. Which was great, don't get me wrong. OH my god, though, it is still a major chick flick. Just the way he treats his girlfriend...And the way he folds her into a hug..MMmmm...

I'm gonna watch it again.

Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention the Soundtrack. It is a total 80s time capsule. Some good songs on there.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:18 PM | Permalink

Seeing the previews for this movie made it seem like it had all the depth of a piece of paper. But actually, it was a lot better than it looked.

Classic Cinderella story, really. The maid in the hotel gets mistaken for one of the ritzy guests, the "Prince Charming." Of course, one of the irritating things about the classic Cinderella story is how passive Cinderella is.

The Cinderella we all know is the one who is so sweet and good, she wouldn't dare stand up for herself and push back at the wicked step-women. Of course, it turns out she doesn't has to, because the prince comes along and rescues her.

Dr. Phil would not approve.

Jennifer Lopez as the Maid in Manhattan Cinderella is not so passive. She has a lot more going on. She has a past, represented by her mother, her ten-year-old son Ty and his invisible father. She has a present, mostly represented by her job and her son's issues. And she has dreams of a future that she wants to make for herself.

The issues of class, self-doubt, and self-respect are a big part of the movie. And of course, LOVE. But a got-your-head-on-pretty-straight love.

It was quite an enjoyable show.

Oh, yeah. Don't forget the soundtrack. Little gifted Ty is all into 70s stuff. They picked some of the good tunes you remember, plus some break-your-heart love songs.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:51 PM | Permalink

Tamara Kobilkina, a dear friend from Mirnyy, had that certain turn of phrase. She spoke English very well, but there are ragged edges in the overlap of languages. One idea can be expressed beautifully in one language, perhaps because it is a concept widely understood by the culture. But that same idea is awkward in another language.

Tamara liked to ask me what my impressions of Russia were, what I thought of different things and places that I have seen.

I had forgotten about her "Impressions" question until I went to Germany with Chris. I was full of ideas and new sites, sounds and tastes. I turned to Chris, to ask him what he thought of everything.

I had to grope for the right phrase. "So what do you think?" did not adequately cover the ground.

"What are your impressions of this place?" is just right.

If I ever see Tamara again, I will thank her for that beautifully fitting question.

I have so many many many many impresssions.

I loved the trip. I have been LONGING to go to a foriegn country. I have been to the UK and to Ireland in the past decade. But they did not feel foriegn.

Because, you see, we speak the same language. How foriegn can we be?

And I remember the HIGHLY foriegn country that I spent a year and a half in.

Anyone that knows my family, not just one or two individuals, but my whole family, knows that some part of us is frozen, like Han Solo, around the impressions we got in Russia.

So, I wanted to try a new flavor of foriegn country. Russia was so tremendously exciting.

Tamara told me that I understood the Russian soul.

I don't think so. Maybe just being impressionable is the Russian soul.

Right now, I am full to the brim of impressions of my trip to Germany. I am very sad to have left.

Yet, here I am talking about everything but Germany!

well, there is a lot to tell.

One of my huge impressions is of the contrast, how INCREDIBLY TERRIFYING my stay in Russia was.

and how incredibly ignorant I was. I did not even know enough to be afraid.

My mother told me that she was really scared to be in Russia.

To her, she said, Russia was the bad guys.

In school, she said, we were taught to drop under the desks to be safe if Russia dropped the bomb on us.

Well, I didn't go to school. I had VERY little TV, or Movies to tell me who the bad guys were.

Because, you know, you have to be told.

It has been ten years since I lived in Russia. That's pretty much the span of my adult life.

I've seen a lot of TV and Movies since then.

And most of those TV and movies pointed to the Germans as being the bad guys.

When I was in Germany there were a few moments of feeling illogically afraid.
I have more sympathy for my mom's fears, now.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:40 AM | Permalink

I just got back from my vacation to Germany.

Chris had never been on a driving tour of a foreign country. I told him, "You know we are going to fight over the map."

Peaceful, considerate man that he is, he said, "why? I don't want to fight with you."

I said, "Trust me. Driving in a foriegn country means that you will have a fight while driving. It may mean that you fight the entire time you are driving."

He is a good man. We really didn't fight that much. Yes, there were the moments of tension when the directions we were given ceased to bear any relationship to the signs posted.

We made it through okay, and I think it is due in large part to the superior map we had. I recommend this one.

Michelin Germany/Austria/Benelux/Switzerland/Czech Republic Atlas
by Michelin Travel Publications, Michelin

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:53 PM | Permalink

That's what Bryan calls Martha Stewart.

After my last post about Martha Inc, the TV movie I watched last night, I went to check out MarthaStewart.com

I'm gonna break out in hives.

You know, i watched her show once, I think. "Living". But you have to say "Living" in that certain pear-shaped, sighing tone.

I remember that she was telling her viewer that she liked to make home-made marshmallows for smores on the picnic that was the theme of the show.

Homemade marshmallows.

What kind of masochistic woman flagellates herself about not making homemade marshmallows for picnics with her family?

Is this an East Coast thing? Are they so snooty over there that they have to invent ways to feel simultaneously class-superior and personally deficient?

The woman was not raised in California.

And let's not even talk about what kind of homemaking show would originate from Alaska. I can just imagine Martha coming up with cute ways of using natural fibers for toilet paper in the outhouse when the family is snowed in and low on supplies in the winter.

She wouldn't last a winter in Alaska. The woman would have been mysteriously dead come spring.

I think that some of her ideas are kind of neat. I would make home made marshmallows once, to try it. It would be interesting.

But I cannot hold myself to that kind of standard. Good god! I enjoy my life too much to impeccably clean up after myself.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:07 AM | Permalink

I saw the TV movie about Martha Stewart last night. I turned on the TV while I was doing things, and I didn't realize it was about Martha Stewart.

There is more than one Martha in the world, after all.

It started out with her wanting to be a model. So I thought the story was going to go in a totally different direction. Of course, the cute little ambitious model turned into the bitchy Martha Stewart.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit more than I thought I would. But they didn't let Martha be very lovable. She was protrayed to be as hypocritical as we all hoped she was when we saw her in the smarmy TV show.

One thing I learned is that the Kmart thing happened rather early on. Martha Stewart entered my consciousness as a TV show. But long before her show, the Kmart backing really pushed her off the ground.

funny funny. Little miss priss got up in the world on the back of the blue light special.

I admire her for how hard she worked to make her ambitions happen. But of course, she should have paused once in a while to enjoy her family. Her husband in the movie was portrayed as a very dear man, and it's too bad she lost him.

I thought the story was pretty good. If they re-ran it, I might watch it again. Especially since, I confess, I missed the very last part about how she did the insider stock thingy.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:39 AM | Permalink

I've been kinda quiet here lately.

That's a shame. I like to write on my blog. But my life has been somewhat exciting, and that doesn't always leave time for writing.

Isn't that funny? When life is most interesting, you don't have time to stop and tell about it.

I remember I kept a diary as a teenager. I would oh-so-faithfully write down everything that happened or occurred to me. Volumes, pages and pages of my life would be documented.

I soon grew incredibly sick of writing down all the nothing that occurred in my life. I thought to myself "I am spending so much time writing down what I'm doing that I am not doing anything."

I was young and had no basis for comparison. It did not occur to me that I had no life. I just had directionless ambition for a life.

Anyway, I am blessed to have a life now. And that life has been getting in the way of my art--the art of this blog.

You know, I'd love to fill this blog with delightful bits of interesting, useful and enlightening paragraphs. Some of the bits are those things.

Some of them aren't.

I suppose that anything i write is useful to me. It is useful to write, it is useful to express my thoughts, for my own edification, even if no one else really cares.

So, I do write.

But I would really like to be better at expressing my thoughts and impressions in such a way that others can benefit. Sure, I don't mind being self-centered. That's fine. But it is more fun when you can bring others along on the trip.

Sometimes, though, when I am at my most creative and original, when I am most inspired, I seem to lose connection with others.

I am in love with originality. I reach for it whenever I can. I am thrilled when I find a new perspective, or a new way to express something difficult to grok.

It is HARD! We struggle, I struggle to understand more about how people workd and how the world works. WHY are things the way they are? WHY do things turn out the way they do?

Once in a while, I catch a glimpse. A flash of what I know to be the bigger picture hits the retinas of my understanding.

Hallelujah! Tell everyone and throw a party! I just got a little bit more of what it's all about!

Except...not everyone wants to come to the party. I want to share the gift I recieved, but it turns out that people are not ready to listen.

What?! I thought we were all doing this together. I thought that this was we were all working on. Understanding, enlightenment, all of that.

So why don't you want it when it comes available? I want to share, and you don't want any?

Why not?

Maybe other people really aren't looking for enlightenment. Maybe they prefer dim light and stupefied complacency.

Or

Maybe I'm just kidding myself. Maybe the revelation I think i have recieved is not amazing. Maybe I am stupid, and this insight that I astonishes me is as ordinary as a rock.

Or

Maybe I've been walking on a slow incline. As I work towards understanding more and more, my atennae are picking up bits and pieces and gathering and re-forming the information that I get. Maybe the accumulation of knowledge has been a slow process, one requiring diligence and time.

Therefore, my flash of brilliance took place at a mountaintop. I've been working towards it harder than I realized.

When I go to share it, I find that I am already being a geek and using advanced examples that others don't understand.

It's like I've been following a train of thought pretty far down the tracks, and I'm way down the line.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to explain something, I get frustrated. I feel like snapping my fingers and saying "Hey! Keep up! Pay attention, we haven't even gotten to the main point yet."

But then, who am I to demand that kind of attention? If others don't want to know, they won't pay attention.

I know some nerdy people who know a hell of a lot about certain rather narrow subjects. They dove deep to get to what they wanted to know. About the inner workings of physics, or the inner workings of a computer, or the relationships in telecommunications networks.

And that means they get to a point where they can only talk to each other about those particular subjects. No one else understands them.

I often feel like that. Like I've jumped into a body of knowledge, and I've gotten far enough that it's hard to talk to others about it without a LOT of background explanation.

Except...where are my colleagues?

Poets and philosophers are not honored in this computer age.

Original thought is not prized. Not unless you can patent it.

And you know what? I understand that. I am a deeply practical person. I understand the value of a good meal. "Good" meaning reliably recurring.

But I also understand the value of an original thought; it is at the same time the most selfish and altruistic act.

For what is more personally gratifying than discovery?

And by what means will humanity and the world improve itself than through the adoption of new ideas?

I wrestle with my creativity. I am electrified and frustrated by turns. And sometimes at the same time.

Perhaps it would be easier if my talents lay in more tangible directions. If I were inspired to be a plumber, for example.

But that is not the case. Here I am, striving with Ideas.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:54 AM | Permalink

Okay, so I've been looking at a lot of guide books for Germany

This one was the first one I bought, but that's because it was on sale at AAA when I went down to renew my membership. I was also trying to shake them for free maps of Germany.

They don't have them. You have to pay for maps not it America. That's what the last A in the series is for.

So, I bought this guide. It seems very good, if you don't read any other guides. But the problem, is, Rick Steves is very opinionated. He only tells you about the parts he likes. So he tells you all kinds of things about the stuff he recommends, gets you all excited. But he doesn't give you a chance to make up your own mind.

If you want to just follow his footsteps, go ahead and use this book.

Otherwise shop around.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:13 PM | Permalink

In
One week
Seven days

I will be on vacation in Germany! I will, to be exact, be in the very same town that the Brothers Grimm lived in while they were gathering their fairy tales.

I love the Grimm Fairy tales.

Kindermarchen, they call them.

Skazki, also.

I read all of them when I was a kid.
I immediately recognized that Disney had not told them right. They are much scarier and bloodier the old way.

I guess we liked the scary parts.

I wish that we still told one another stories. I fear that story telling is dying out. We read now. Or we watch it on TV.

We don't tell.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:32 PM | Permalink

Professor Wilson was the one who taught me Victorian Literature. He was quite good at it too.

Of course, you had to get used to the fact that he would take a 3 1/2 hour class, talk for three hours without a break, then send you home a half hour early. Once you learned not to drink a lot of liquids before his class, and that all his questions were rhetorical, you could settle in and start to enjoy his very dry humor and somewhat bashful retelling of victorian scandal.

He knew his stuff, and when you learned to listen, you learned a lot. I remember he told us a story of one victorian figure (can't recall who) that had a fetish for women with strong arms. He left his wife and became involved with this cleaning woman who had very well developed muscles in her arm. However, the gentleman did not actually become intimate with this cleaning woman, much to her frustration.

I don't remember exactly, but I have the impression it ended in some sort of murder. I do remember exactly how Professor Wilson would tell the sordid details with excruciating delicacy and yet with absolute relish and delight.

When I ran across the graphic novel A Treasury of Victorian Murder by Rick Geary, the idea fit in very well with my concept of Victorian times. The artwork was a wonderful combination of cute and sinister, perfect for the subject. Geary shows all the nice little details of dress and furnishings that gladden the hearts of Victorians, but he shows the terrifying evil faces of the murders that would satisfy the judgemental souls.

The book is not very long, but it is only one in a series. Geary tells the stories in a journalistic, factual way. He lets his pictures build the drama.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:34 PM | Permalink

What is it about sexual abuse stories? They are such a strange combination of feelings. One part is the seduction, the sexiness of talking about sex. But at the same time there is the alarm bells, ringing "Danger! This is wrong!" There is the pushing-away feeling of disgust at the molester, that is part of the alarm-bell feeling.

There is also the hypnotic sensation of watching a car accident happen in slow motion. This horrible thing is happening; is the bad man going to get caught? Is the poor child going to be okay? and you are not sure of either.

And while I am wondering if the kid in the story is going to be okay, I also wonder if I am a sick person to be seduced into the sexy side of the story.

It makes me feel sick to my stomach, while being slightly turned on, which makes me feel even sicker.

That is what this story did. I guess that means Vogel did a good job of making me feel the same sort of thing that Li'l Bit felt. Surely she must have felt those feelings and more.

This play was better than just a "How I recovered from my Molesting Uncle" article in a woman's magazine. There was a stronger pull of power between the girl and her Uncle Peck.

It reminded me a whole lot of Lolita, the way Li'l Bit turned the situation to have more power. Lolita had a pull of power over Humbert too.

The influence of Li'l Bit's family on how she dealt with issues of femininity were quite funny-a horrifying combination of frankness and misinformation, high expectations and hypocrisy.

The characters are all sympathetic, Vogel made everyone come alive.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:07 AM | Permalink

One of the things I always have trouble with, in the WW2 movies, or really, almost any war movie, is that I can never tell the different characters apart.

They all look somewhat uniformly handsome, they wear uniforms. As the movies progress, they all get kind of dirty and greasy.

How am I supposed to tell who from who?

Some people, guys especially, can tell the difference by the hats and the insignias on their uniforms. Chris knows all about it. Even more!

He brought over a bunch of DVDs, A Bridge Too Far among them. We started to watch it. He would pause it and explain to me all the different implications of what was going on.

Boy, that made a difference! I mean, I could tell, when they talked, who was american, british, german and polish. But it was hard to tell when they were just walking around. And they would refer to each other by numbers: 82nd, tank support, etc.

This movie tried very hard to make the characters distinction by using famous actors. Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Elliot Gould, Sean Connery, Laurence Olivier were among the characters. That helped.

The story was a really amazing battle that took place towards the end of WW2. The Americans, Brits, and Poles all cooperated to try to close in on some bridges in Holland.

They used Paratroopers extensively, and the battle was the first to do so. It was amazing to see, in the movie, all the parachutes opening up in the sky. I kept thinking, "they are going to land on top of each other!"

The movie is almost three hours long, but it was gripping. It took some paying attention to keep track of who was where and who they were talking about at different times. The movie didn't let you rest.

I kept feeling sad about the whole thing. The difference between the enemy and the allies was just placement. This story did not focus on the atrocities of one or the other. It just seemed to show the damage to all involved.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:36 PM | Permalink

Yesterday, as i was riding the bus home early because I was coming home sick, a young man got on the bus. He handed the bus driver a ticket, and then made some gestures like he needed to say more.

After trying to understand him for a moment, the bus driver said, "I speak six languages, but I do not speak American Sign Language."

The young man gave up and sat down.

He had been motioning that he wanted to write something down. But he didn't have any paper. I happened to have a pad on me.

I took it out, and wrote down:

What do you need?

I handed him the pad and pen:

I told him that I did paid ticket at the metro rail transfer to bus should give me ticket is some

You want another transfer?

I gave him my ticket need to change a bus ticket. also i paid ticket at the metro rail machines

You need another tranfer or what? a 'transfer' is a ticket that lets you get on the next bus.

I need a ticket because my grammar isn't good. but most of time I using on american sign laguage.

Well, if you need another bus pass, you need to pay for it. He will give you one.

I did gave him of my ticket. I was paid a ticket machine at the metro rail, can rail transfer to bus don't need I another to pay a ticket just I gave him give me one a ticket. if I not paid only metro rail it mean i can't get another a ticket

Do you need something else? You are riding the bus now

Just forgot about that I'll pay other but I knew depend on the people force to the people to pay but i knew about rule MTA

Then it was time for him to get off the bus. He blew me a kiss and held his hands to his heart, mouthing the words 'thank you.'

He was very nice, I thought. A nice deaf young man.
I really wish I could have understood what he meant.

All this, I write, to illustrate the
IMPORTANCE OF GRAMMAR

There are times when it is very important to be understood. Constructing sentences with subjects, objects, verbs and prepositions really helps out with being understood.

I wish that boy luck, but man, he needs to study his grammar.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:30 PM | Permalink

More Southern Drawly Drama.

This story is basically funny, but if you only look at what actually happens you wouldn't think it was. But the family, and the way they handle the problems that come their way make it comedy.

The action starts on Lenore's birthday. Her sister Babe is just being released from prison, because she shot her husband in the stomach. The oldest sister has come back from her failed starry singing career in Hollywood to help out the family. The family tragedy, one that happened years before, is that their mother committed suicide, hanging herself and their pet cat in the basement. All these things are definitely the makings of tragedy.

But it doesn't turn out like that. The sisters are so funny--the way they interact and bicker! They do foolish things, but they are very good-hearted about it.

They bring up the subject of their mother's death, and wonder why she did it. The only thing they can come up with is that "She had a really bad day." Towards the end, they decide that they have got to figure out how to get through the really bad days.

The sibling interaction alone makes this worth seeing.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:17 PM | Permalink

This novel by Philip Roth is number 52 on the "Top 100 best English language novels of the 20th century." I've talked about this list before, and I'd said how I've read a number of them already.

I hadn't read Portnoy's, although I'd read another more recent Roth novel, The Human Stain.

That one was really good. Interesting characters, challenging themes, plot twists, all good stuff. I figured I would like Portnoy too.

Mm. Portnoy's Complaint came out in '67. I think the author has matured quite alot by the time he got to Human Stain.

Intresting how there are some similar themes: Female who is illiterate, Jewishness, Racism, Sex.

But PC positively reeks of the sixties. I think, what with the sexual revolution and all that, the on-going topic of masturbation was much more compelling than it is now. And I guess all of Portnoy's sexual exploits were supposed to be deviant and shocking.

Gotta tell ya, they just aren't anymore. Other than his obsession with choking his chicken as an adolescent, his main sexual sin seems to be fulfilling his fantasy of sleeping with two women at once.

Yawn.

This is regular prime-time fare in the naughty aughts. What shocked in the 60s is discussed around the dinner table this side of the 20th century.

I found his resentment of his family to be a far more interesting story line. And his Jewishness. Ethnic distinctions have also faded in importance by now, but it is interesting to remember how important they used to be.

I'm glad that I've read Human Stain already, it lets me know that the author has also progressed with the times. The Anti-Semitism that is the obsession of Portnoy is completely outside of my own experience. And the 90s setting of Human Stain reflects that cultural change. In some ways, chronicles it.

But that's another review.

Portnoy's Complaint seems like an artifact now. Perhaps the reasons it is so heralded is because it said some things for the first time. It does not come to any kind of conclusions. It just states a problem, Portnoy's problem.

I don't identify with him that much. And even if I did, he never offers any kind of solution. He's just complaining.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I went to visit a hospital for a checkup, but they put me in a gown and gave me a bed. The bed was in this huge open room with tons of other beds and no walls.I didn't know why I was there, or what was wrong with me, other than that they were going to operate. There were going to open up my stomach and cut me.

I was so upset, I didn't want to have this operation. No one would tell me what was going on, no one would talk to me. I felt fine! I thought that if there was something wrong with me, surgery should be the last, rather than the first, effort to solve the problem.

I was crying and pleading with people as they passed, asking what was happeneing, demanding to see a doctor, but no one would pay any attention to me.

Finally a nurse stopped, and explained that I had little growths, like plantar's warts, on my intestine, and that they were going to remove those parts of my intestine.

"But, That sounds very risky! what if they grow back? Or my intestine doesn't heal properly!"

"That's ridiculous! This procedure has a 100% success rate"

I didn't believe her. I begged to see a doctor, and she left, exasperated that I was so silly about this perfectly safe procedure.
I just lay down on the bed and cried.

Then I woke up. Freaky. Dreams can be so interesting.

Fortunately, I have a marvelous book.

10,000 Dreams Interpreted

I will admit, this dream is kind of baffling, but I have found Dream dictionaries (which is what this book really is) to be quite useful for understanding what my subconscious is trying to tell me.

This book is a good resource.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:37 PM | Permalink

Stephen King writes books that a lot of people like. I mean, A LOT of people like his books.

I am not one of them. Can't stand horror. Not it a snide "that's so low-brow" kind of way. More in a "Oh my god, I will never close my eyes again" kind of way. So, I've avoided Stephen King books the way some people avoid battery acid. I know what they will do to me.

This book, however, I sought out and enjoyed. King was writing about how to write. That subject can be scary too, but in a totally different way.

He has some good things to say, starting with what started him off and moving on to more technical issues.

I think I might have gotten more out of the story if I were familiar with his works, but even so, I got plenty enough out. He was fairly personal, talking about his young life and influences, and even exposing his drug and alcohol addiction.

He gave out some good advice: Don't use adverbs, especially 'zestfully.' Interesting. And he even gave some real nuts and bolts, like specific magazines and books to check out if you want to be a writer.

I will say one thing, though. I listened to a recording of this book, and that was great. I got to hear King's memories and thoughts in his own voice with his own rhythm and cadence.
BUT!
The man has the strangest way of pronouncing the sound "L" that I have ever heard in my life. He closes his throat around it. And as much as I was interested in the last bit of the book, when he got into some very practical advice, I STILL wanted to strangle him for that weird gutteral "L."

Go get the book. READ it, and you will be glad you did.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:22 PM | Permalink

Shanower took the Illiad and made it, or at least the first part of it, into a graphic novel. I love the heroic epic, and comic book format is a perfect medium to use for its re-interpretation.

I confess, I've started the Illiad, but not finished it. I know the story, but I'm shaky on some of the details. Really, the poetic language of the original can obscure some of the more prosaic details.

Also, the different Gods require interpretation. Maybe the Greek listeners knew who everyone was and what their 'powers' were, but had a little trouble keeping the dieties sorted out.

This novel was great in showing the action of the story. Naturally, the incredible beauty of the poetry can't be shown to the same advantage in a comic book. But Shanower wasn't trying to go there. He has a huge Bibliography in the back, which impressed me. I feel pretty confident that he stayed true to the facts.

I could already tell the he had kept to the characters of the people. Oddyseus had the arrogant and sales-pitch kind of conversational skills i remember from the original. Achilles and his mother interacted on their comic cell the same way they did in the stanzas.

Also, Shanower pointed out some of the political implications I had missed. Somehow, I hadn't realized that Troy was such an important trade route. It made more sense that the battle be fought from political and monetary reasons than just that Helen was such a hottie.

The drawings were wonderful, too. The decorations and clothing of the people were interesting to see. Also, Shanower employed a range of graphical devices for his storytelling that kept things very interesting. He uses his drawing in 'shots' like a movie camera, sometimes. It gives a greater perspective.

This is a worthwhile book.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:35 AM | Permalink

Foriegn language films have always had that mystique of being particularly sophisticated. The subtitles mean that you must READ, and if you READ you must be smart.

And sophisticated.

All About My Mother has subtitles in English-the language spoken is Spanish. Spain-ish Spanish, that is, which sounds different to my ears accustomed to the rythms of Mexican accents. They lisp: "Grathias" and "Barthelona." It sounds very gay to me.

But gay works in the story, even though the lisping was an unintetional addition to the gayness of the story. There are a number of transvetites who are important to the story.

The director, Pedro Almodovar, came highly recommended. He has another movie out right now, Talk to Her .

All About My Mother makes it sound like there is a main character whose mother we are learning about. But, the one who might be such a character died very early in the film.

It's kind of a creepy thought, that the heroine's son would be hanging around watching. The movie doesn't really worry about his afterlife.

It seems to be more the director's, Almodovar's story about his mother. Or more broadly, it is a treatment of what femininity is. The story focusses on women, or men who feel like they are women. Transvestites always cast a bright light on conceptions of femininity, because they challenge conceptions of what it means to be a woman.

This movie is really lovely, with amazing camera shots and situations that bring out real feelings in the viewer.

And it was fascinating to see Streetcar Named Desire played in Spanish.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:37 AM | Permalink

Rank and file workers in America are not doing so well lately. Apparently, the UN cafeteria workers were striking for promised wages.

Those folks over at the UN are supposed to be the world's best diplomats, right? The ones chosen from all over the world to reasonably work things out fairly and equitably. Force is for savages; we are all civilized here.

Hmm...That works until they have to give up their after-school snacks. With the workers on strike, the cafeterias were closed.

...count the seconds until someone storms the kitchens and the looting begins...

TIME.com: Food Fight

"The decision to make the cafeterias into "no pay zones" spread through the 40-acre complex like wildfire. Soon, the hungry patrons came running. "It was chaos, wild, something out of a war scene," said one Aramark executive who was present. "They took everything, even the silverware," she said. Another witness from U.N. security said the cafeteria was "stripped bare." And another told TIME that the cafeteria raid was "unbelievable, crowds of people just taking everything in sight; they stripped the place bare." And yet another astonished witness said that "chickens, turkeys, souffles, casseroles all went out the door (unpaid)." "

That is the result of the world's best experts in diplomacy being left to their own devices.

Be very afraid.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:23 PM | Permalink

I have not been writing so much on my blog lately. I feel dully guilty about this.

But not too guilty, because I have been trying to write a lot in other places. Places like my hard drive, which are not published.

I like publishing my writing, and I like my blog. Before I had my blog, I spent a huge amount of time writing emails. Emails are at least read by ONE person, I hope. I enjoy the attention, I have to say.

My email style tends to the ponderous, however. I think what I say is generally interesting, but it can get really long.

I guess I'm an e-conversation hog.

A few years ago, I noticed myself getting embroiled in long and involved, complicated e-conversations. I found myself composing the emails in my head as i went about my life: "...and this illustrates my previous point..."

This began to worry me. How much of one (or two or three or four) people's attention could I monopolize? I thought that my emails were no longer really working well in the medium I was using.

But I was impressed by what I had written, I felt that I had reached some new understanding through the discourse. I didn't throw them away.

But I realized that the effort I was putting into these writings was inefficient. I should put my creative energy into something a little more universal than a RE: subject line could encompass.

I thought I should spend time writing for real, not emails.

But I missed the audience. I missed knowing that it would be read.

It seemed empty, words not read like a tree falling alone in the forest. Did they really matter?

I was very pleased with the arrival of blogs. I have tremendously enjoyed my blog. Recently, I have been pushing really hard to write and post and post. I enjoy posting. And I really like posting on Blogcritics, because the readership is even larger there.

But I am brought up once again. I have the same problem with the blog that I had in email. My blogposts are somewhat ponderous. The popular blogs, it seems to me, are not as wordy as mine. People don't want to spend a half and hour reading something on a computer monitor.

Well, it depends what it is. Maybe if it's REALLY GOOD, then they might.

So. Then I have to be REALLY GOOD if I want to follow my inclination to ramble on and on.

Or maybe ( and here we are at the same place again) the blog is not the proper medium for some of the things I feel like I need to write.

Blogs seem to be an Extrospective kind of writing. People are commenting on politics, on popular culture, movies, TV, music, whatever. Toss off an opinion, a fact, a perspective, this seems to be what blogs are good for.

I can do that. I throw out my take on various subjects, books and movies especially. I think I do it reasonably well, although one commentor recently gave me the distinction of writing the worst movie review ever (it was for Waiting for Guffman).

But what about introspective? This particular posting is introspective. I'm not apologetic about it, but I realize that it invites a different readership with a different mindset than the extrospective stuff.

And maybe that mindset is not engaged by the computer screen.

AND

maybe the type of writing that I am trying to do needs a little more room than a blogpost can comfortably give me.

Interesting tangent:
I wonder how large MT allows posts to be? Hmm...

Blogposts have to achieve some kind of completion at the end. But writing, the kind that you get up and do for 2 hours every morning, does not need completion before you stop. The point is, it's bigger than you can accomplish at one sitting.

And maybe that's the next rung.

I admit, it is very satisfying to write a blogpost and finish it. It takes more discipline and organization to work on a long story and finish it.

I'd like to write longer stories though.

And I've been trying to work on it. Which is why my posting has slowed a bit.

It's a shift of focus.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)