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My Lunch with Kenneth…yet another course

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , on June 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, I finally watched Thor.  Kenneth Branagh was a good choice for the director and is also not the right choice for future adventures of Thor.  Yes, I love my Kenneth and he was great for laying out the mythology behind this Norse god.  Now he has wisely stepped aside to let someone else handle the action franchise that I am sure will follow.  What a wonderful blend of the classical and modern language.  I particularly enjoyed “Is this your chamber?” or something like that.

The thing I loved best about this movie was the very obvious lesson of listening to your parents.  I didn’t even have to hit the boys over the head with a hammer to catch it.  I wonder if I get a hammer, one of the plastic Thor hammers, if the boys would actually listen to me.  I don’t know.  They are great boys.  They are really well behaved except for the parts we’ve messed up.  Hubby and I have spoiled them.  It’s been tricky lately to work on undoing this.  We’re having a yard sale next Saturday, per the boys’ request as they want to make some money.  But they don’t want to sell any of their toys.  We’ve been working on this for a couple of weeks and today there was a small breakthrough.   They started to realize that most of their toys were played with for a couple of weeks and then the novelty wore off.  I am hopeful that they will come around in the next few days and select some toys that might actually sell.

They each had to pick ten toys for the yard sale and put them on my bed yesterday.  Older son called out that he was done this chore.  I predicted he would have chosen a Nerf dart and counted that as a toy.  I was right.

They both really got into Thor.  We called out some other classic Kenneth lines as we watched it.  Their favorite worked into the film a couple of times- “The arthropods are back.”  Not sure why they love this line from Kenneth so much, but they do.  I am clearly somewhat obsessed with him since younger son asked if the movie was directed by Hamlet.

I think I’ll be picking up Thor’s hammer and see if it triggers a response.  No, I won’t use it on them (though they said I should get the one with the lightning bolts that shoot out).  I’ll use it for the symbolism.  They dig the Norse mythology.  I need to capitalize on these events when I can.  😉

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My Lunch with House and Wilson

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , on April 30, 2012| 1 Comment »

Lunch would take place in a Jersey diner.  Where else could it, considering the circumstances.  Or maybe PJ’s pancake house in Princeton.  I guess it would depend on the time of day.  (There could one day be an entire post on the season 7 photos, including the blending of House and Pennywise.)

I love the show House, M.D. (we’ll use the full title at least once).  I enjoy procedurals and this one offered a nice little twist that I found irresistible.  The main character is an ass.  I actually sometimes wish doctors were more like House-cut to the chase and remind me that you are the one with the advanced degree while I am the biased patient who clicked too many links on google.  Tonight’s episode returned to truisms from the first season-everybody lies and the relationship (bromance) between House and Wilson is the key to the success of this show.

The past couple of seasons became too focused on the people and less on the interaction of these people within the work environment, which is why I liked the show in the first place.  I got tired of the House and Cuddy storyline.  Still don’t know exactly what happened between Chase and Cameron, and more to the point, I don’t care what happened to Chase and Cameron.  I think the show should end this year (as sad as I will be, just like I was when Monk went off the air), but they had done it all.  Plus, what I had hoped would happen with the end in sight did happen.  They got their mojo back.  House is back to being an ass and Wilson somehow sticks by him, though they have allowed Wilson to show the strain it’s been on him.

Tonight Wilson said some harsh truths.  House took it, handled it in his own way, true to form.  The pictures on Wilson’s computer at the end actually caused me to laugh out loud, dare I type it…LOL.  It was one of the better episodes I’ve seen in a long time because I cared about the characters, including the medical mystery of the week, and they made me feel something.  I do feel that may have also been partly due to Hugh Laurie directing it.  You cannot discount the care and affection the director has for the characters improving the heart and soul of an episode.

The House and Cuddy storyline simply made me feel annoyed.  The show had gotten bogged down with junk and messes to be cleaned up.  Tonight there were plenty of messes, but of the medical kind.  I can’t understand why shows feel the need to change things up when it works they way it was originally conceived.  This year House seems to have returned to its roots.  This is good and has even caused me to care that there are only THREE EPISODES LEFT.

Is it cliche that Wilson has cancer?  Yep.  But the way he and House are dealing with it is not cliche.  It’s reckless and stupid, just like them.  The emotional sap in me loved finding out that all of the knick-knacks in Wilson’s office were from patients.  It offered a nice snapshot of the emotional depth and connections living within Wilson.

There was some kind of contest to send in a picture that you felt demonstrated the key to House (or something like that) and the winner’s picture would be incorporated into the finale.  I did not submit an entry, mostly because I don’t know how to photoshop a single thing.  But I do know what I would have done.  Take a picture of House.  On his shoulders are Chase, the classic little red devil with horns and a pitchfork, and Foreman on the other as the classic angel, halo and all.  Cameron would be where we place the soul (in our attempts to understand this amazing concept) sort of near the heart.  Cuddy would be over his heart.  And Wilson, in full Jiminy Cricket wardrobe, would simply be standing next to him.  Offering advice, but much like Pinocchio, that advice is too often ignored and House looks like a jackass.

Truly part of me wonders if in the last 15 minutes of the last episode if House will simply wake up from a really fun night of partying with too much vicodin and too many drinks.  He’ll get up and go to work for the first real time in the series.  The whole eight years having been a hallucination, pulling a new variation on Dallas.  Or perhaps House and Wilson will pull a Thelma and Louise.  Don’t know…but I hope it’s good.  I hope it’s very House.  But I hope it isn’t lame.

Yeah, you’ll smile when you catch that one.

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My Lunch with Kenneth Branagh…fifth course

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , on April 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

During the fifth course, I would be quite full but I would persevere, for Kenneth’s sake.  The conversation would weave its way to Hamlet.  Not that I could ever cover this subject in a lunch or even a life time.  I humbly study this work of theater and will never even scratch the surface.  But we would focus on a specific scene.  Act III scene iv.  This scene from Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet makes me weep even when I simply think about it.

Hamlet Act III scene iv

(I am hopeful that I have successfully embedded the scene courtesy of tediousoldfools’ upload.  I adore tediousoldfools and all the wonderful uploads that I enjoy during the rare lunch breaks that I take.  I pop on a little Shakespeare & Kenny and my day becomes brighter.  So thank you to tediousoldfools.)

But the scene is the point of tonight’s blog.  Last night I treated myself to watching the movie again.    Once the ghost appears, Hamlet completely reverts to a small boy trying to please his father.  The fact that he just killed someone completely disappears as he looks at this ghost.  I love the voice of the ghost…his whispers are horrifying and filled with love at the same time.  He says to Hamlet,

“But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.”

And he immediately obeys.  This is a moment of tenderness and concern between Hamlet and Gertrude, one that for me seems to be sincere concern from her.  As he says “On him…on him” he simply becomes filled with sadness, respect, and longing for his father.  Kenneth’s face changes and the tears well up as he struggles to please his father all the while trying to grasp that his mother doesn’t see the ghost.  The levels of emotion that course through his being in these two minutes of film are outstanding.

The scene makes me feel the wonder of what it would be like to see someone that you loved one more time.  It makes me think about unresolved matters and the desire to set things right within a family.  I think that Hamlet stands the test of time because every family has betrayal within it.  Hopefully not as horrific of a betrayal as in Hamlet, but on some level everyone deals with betrayal and a destruction of trust.  And as in this story, not everyone gets a chance to resolve things before being separated by death.  In some cases, a person may choose to separate from a particular person because of a betrayal of trust and this perhaps helps to avoid it ending the same way Hamlet does.  Bloodshed seems to be never ending in this group.

But in this scene, you just see a boy missing his dad.  Wishing for more time.  Hoping to please him one more time.  To defend his honor.  To gaze on him, on him one more time.

In case you’d enjoy reading it, here is the text of the scene:

Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act III scene iv

HAMLET

A king of shreds and patches—(Enter Ghost.)

Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, he’s mad!

HAMLET

Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command? O, say!

GHOST

Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET

How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, how is’t with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

HAMLET

On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET

Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET

Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET

Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! (Exit Ghost.)

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My Lunch with the Younger Generation

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , on March 31, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I want to have lunch with the younger generation.  I want them to turn off their cell phones and not text while we’re having this lunch.  That will be the biggest challenge-to convince them that they don’t have to be connected for the hour we would spend eating together.  I worry about them.  What do they talk about?  What do they text?

The classic films are lost…the movies today are okay, don’t get me wrong.  Still, do they know that the movies of today wouldn’t be possible without the classics that came before them?  The filming of yesteryear set the tone for so many of the accomplishments made in film-making today.  I think back to Song of the South and Mary Poppins…putting people into animation.  This made Who Framed Roger Rabbit possible-putting animation into live-action.  The classic musicals created so many cultural moments.  Singin’ in the Rain, Hello Dolly, Brigadoon, On the Town.

Even classic children’s literature is falling to the wayside.  My sons have read only one American Tall Tale in school.  I make sure at home that they read a variety of Tall Tales.  We also read Aesop’s Fables, Hans Christian Andersen.  Of course, we’re still in our Grimm phase.  We read “Little Snow White” last night.  The text is full of such rich words and vibrant images.  These pieces of literature help children develop their imaginations and learn about the basics of crafting a story.

Music is different too.  I know, I know, I sound like that stereotypical old person (no, I’m not old…) “back in my day” but I’m serious.  Someone said to me recently that in a class about the history of rock he had just learned about a band called The Queen or something like that.  I said do you mean Queen?  He said, yeah, yeah, that’s the name.  Now obviously I’m biased about that particular band, but how does one get to their 20s and not know Queen?  Or the major shifts in music and how each change brought about new genres.  Why do youngins need to take a class to learn this stuff?  I suppose the radio is no longer in existence in their worlds…did “Radio Gaga” and “Video Killed the Radio Star” really come to pass?

I know there are cycles to culture.  I know the pendulum will swing back again.  I know it’s ironic that I’m posting this on the internet, one of the causes in this shift.  Why and how do they feel the need to be connected all the time?  I have survived for so long without being connected 24/7.  Yet so often I sit with people of the younger generation who cannot turn off their phone or tablet or the soon-to-be archaic laptop.  Radios don’t matter, they have 8,000 songs programmed on the teeny-tiny player.

If you are a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, friend of someone younger than 25, take them somewhere and make them disconnect.  Help them experience life with a person and not an electronic device.  I’m battling right now with my sons.  They are obsessed with the telly and on-demand.  They can’t get enough of the computer and online video games (based on the shows from the telly).  It’s ridiculous.  They get so angry when I say no.  So I say no more frequently.  When they don’t get angry anymore, I won’t have to say no as much.

Tomorrow night is the Earth Hour at 8:30pm.  Turn off your lights, phones, tablets, computers, any and all electronic devices and devices charged by electricity.  Talk to each other.  Laugh with each other.  Tell ghost stories.  Inspire each other.  Sing “Hello Dolly” or “Dream On” or “Radio Gaga”.  Go ahead, sing it with the clapping.  Or go for “We Will Rock You” with the clap/clap/stomp.  Go for it.  Turn off everything and be connected the old-fashioned way.

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My Lunch with the Gov

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , on February 17, 2012| 2 Comments »

Okay, this is actually a letter I sent this evening to the Gov, but I don’t have that category so we’re putting it under My Lunch with…

Dear Governor Christie,
Good morning (or whatever time of day this is read).  To whoever reads this on behalf of the Governor, good morning to you as well.

Please reconsider the bill for gay marriage.  I lean more toward the conservative side, typically vote Republican, though the better person for the job will get my vote.  I am a Christian (American Baptist) and I practice my religion.  I work on my faith every day.  My faith tells me to embrace everyone and learn to love the person regardless of what my faith may identify as sin.  Through my life I can live the way Jesus taught one to live.  That is my choice.  That is my freedom as an American.  We are all created equal in America.  Yet, gay marriage still is struggling to gain a solid foothold in our country.

I actually liken this issue to the suffrage movement.  Women didn’t have the same rights with regards to property and the like, nor voting.  Now voting is not an issue in this situation, but the rest lines up moderately well.  I could not imagine my life if my voice didn’t matter, if I were not equal to my husband.

How can I say that two gay people don’t deserve the same as what my husband and I share?  Love, respect, shared goals and hopes.  I know so many gay people and I love them.  I don’t like to see their pain and frustration over this issue.

I cannot stop thinking that passing such legislation would have so many benefits to our society.  It would be a giant step forward in diminishing stigma.  Imagine the hope it would offer to young people struggling with their identities in a society that makes it so difficult to express themselves.  Could it help to lower the amount of bullying?  Possibly.  Isn’t that wonderful-it would help to support the anti-bullying law that all the children are being legislated to learn.  If we can legislate anti-bullying, then we can legislate a new road to help forge the end of bullying related to homosexuality.  Remove the stigma and help with acceptance.  Help with finding the similarities rather than widening the differences.

There’s so much legislation that sounds silly to the average person.  Yet this legislation could actually improve lives.  And relationships between people.  And even the economy.  Most importantly, my friends would be able to celebrate their love.

Please know that I know you are making several statements with the whole veto thing.  I know what you campaigned on but this matters more than a campaign promise.  Sadly, if you leave it to a vote, not enough people will show up because apathy runs rampant in this state.  I know also that another reason behind the veto may be related to the whole political drama thing-making a statement that the senate and house are focusing on the wrong things right now.  This is finally a piece of legislation that moves something in society forward, unlike so many other bills that seem silly.  I really wish I could recall some of the stupider ones from the past year, but darn, brain’s drawing a blank.

You have impressed me thus far because you remind me of Dave.  Watch the Kevin Kline movie Dave if you want to know what that means (if you’ve never seen it).  But right now you’re starting to act more like a politician and it’s not impressive.  Stop campaigning with this issue, stop referring back to your winning campaign for the positive psychological impact that it can have on voters, and do the job you were hired to do.  And as Dave said, it’s a temp job at that.  Go for it, be a trailblazer.  Be bold.  Sign the bill.

Be well.

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My Lunch with Ferris Bueller

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , on February 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I trust we would have lunch in one of the finer restaurants of Chicago.  I’m sure we would have a wonderful table and outstanding service.

Once we had ordered our meals, I would rip him a new one.  How dare he sell out to Honda.  Really?  Ferris, you do not have the right to sell out my teen years.  This simply speaks to the consumer generation that we are.  I recently read an article for something at work and it was about consumerism.  The author theorized that we join a cult beginning in childhood and that cult is consumerism.  As I read this piece, I recognized every brand name included in it (there were many).  I also realized that the author’s claim that we function by the calendar of consumerism is true in my own life.

I feel the cycle as it rotates around every year.  I feel it starts at the school year with school supplies.  Then there is Halloween (yeah, I’ll never give that one up).  Then I feel like I have to buy new Thanksgiving stuff-even though I do not need anymore.  Christmas obviously has consumerism dripping all over it and I work harder every year to help my sons keep the birth of Jesus at the center of it.

New Year’s, Valentine’s, St. Patrick Day through Memorial Day through Fourth of July.  The list and cycle goes round and round.  And the mother of all consumerism-the Super Bowl.  People often miss the game discussing the commercials.  The price of a spot during the game is the highest in the business.  Which brings us back to Ferris.

Ferris Bueller peddling Hondas?  More to the point…Matthew Broderick is peddling Hondas while ripping off Ferris.  Life does move pretty fast but not so fast that I didn’t notice the commercial as I walked away from my television.  I usually do a little chore during commercials, put away laundry, clean, put stuff in backpacks, whatever.  I stopped in my tracks tonight (yeah, I didn’t watch the Super Bowl so I only saw it tonight for the first time)-selling a Honda?  The late, great John Hughes must be rolling over in his grave.  But we did it to ourselves.

We want all the stuff.  We want the fame and glory that we were weaned on during our teen years.  We want the brands because then we’ll be like the people in the movies we grew up watching.  Hell, we want the movies to show where the fictional characters are now.  I’d laugh my ass off if they were to make a really good reunion movie of The Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  I would love to know what happened to them.  They were such a part of my teenage years, my formative years (as they say…).  These films helped shape my views and my cultural foundation.  The characters helped me feel more normal because they showed it was okay to not be exactly like everyone else.

And now dear Matthew is hawking Hondas.

But the lunch would be divine.  He would probably have played hookie from work that day.  Maybe I would play hookie from work that day too.  It’s perfectly okay…I’d be with Ferris.  Driving around in a Honda.  When did product placement in films begin?  I’m sure it has been around for a long time, but it is so overt today that movies even mock the fact that they have product placement funding part of the film.

We asked for it, we got it.  Toyota.  Oops, sorry, this is supposed to be about Honda.

Probably wouldn’t have to even pay for lunch since Ferris is so charming.

Maybe I should have lunch with Cameron.  Or switch movies and go out with Duckie.

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My Lunch with Kenneth Branagh…again

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , on January 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I suppose by now we meet every few months to have a quick lunch.  This day would involve a lot of discussion about my sons.  They are addicted to Walking with Monsters, Walking with Dinosaurs, and Allosaurus, all narrated by Kenny.  They sit and mimic some of the narration, echoing Kenny’s beautiful voice.  My husband thinks I pushed these DVDs on our sons just to listen to his voice all the time.  It’s actually simply a lovely benefit of choosing a BBC series.

The boys love the BBC commercial during the previews the same as their mother.  They especially like the part about if you “stole” whatever you are watching then we should take a few minutes to think about your behavior.  They like the line about the accents and hearing things pronounced correctly.

Which leads to one topic during this lunch.  Our oldest yelled at the television when he heard how Kenneth pronounced Ankylosaurus.  He pronounced the “y” as a long “i” and that riled up our eight year old.  He shouted “It’s Ankylosaurus (pronouncing the y as a short “i”)!  How can you not know that?”  I have to side with my son on this one.  Traditionally speaking, at least with dinosaur names, the “y” is pronounced as a short “i”.  In Kenneth’s defense, I explained to my sons that there were probably paleontology experts there advising him or that it could be because of the British thing.  Ironically, Kenneth pronounced the “y” in “dynasties” as a short “i”.  Go figure.

His narration creates a particularly emotional tone  in Allosaurus.  My eyes have filled with tears several times watching the story of Big Al unfold.  You watch this adorable predator’s life from egg to death and Ken’s voice makes you invest in this dinosaur.  The films are an amazing series.  You should watch it if you haven’t yet seen it.  The images are stunning, the writing is solid, and the music is  beautiful.  Add to that Kenneth’s beautiful voice and you’ve got several hours of educational wonder.

The emotional responses evoked from my sons as they watch these films is classic.  They say “aw” when the little baby dinosaurs hatch and waddle into the forest.  They laugh when he talks about the amount of gas produced by the sauropods.  They are now desperate to learn the metric system to understand the measurements being given about the creatures.  They get angry when the fates of various creatures are described by Kenneth.  They call out the names of the dinosaurs as they appear on the screen.

While I don’t get to gaze upon Kenneth during these films, his lilting, smooth voice fills the house day after day.  I’d have to thank him for all my sons have learned about the monsters and dinosaurs, the art of speaking eloquently, and for all the ways to use dung in a sentence.  I have to say, I’d have paid extra if just once Kenneth could have called it poo.

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My lunch with Christopher Lloyd

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , on November 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Don’t know where I would have lunch with Christopher Lloyd.  If I am recalling correctly, he is rather shy so I assume it would be a quiet out-of-the-way restaurant.  I’d probably have to adjust my schema to the fact that he is 73 since I have been watching him in shows and movies since the mid-70s.  Loved him in Taxi.  What does a yellow light mean?  Slow down.  Whaaatt dooeesss aaaa yeellloooowww liiiigghhhttt meeeaaannn?  Slow down.  Whhhhhhhaaaaaattttttt doooooeeeeesssss aaaaaaa yeeeelllllloooowwww liiiiiiiggghhhhhhttttt mmmeeeeaaaannnn?  Classic.  I would definitely thank him for Reverend Jim.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest would be an interesting discussion.  I love the movie.  It’s an amazing film, with an unbelievably talented cast.  The acting, the story, the filming was brilliant.  The filming was so very stark and the characters were not caricatures which was a step forward for a film dealing with mental illness.  Still, my frustration would be that the film still did put folks with mental illness in a crappy light and set back acceptance within society in some ways.  ECT is a very valid form of treatment but after the film the concept was looked at as obscene and cruel.  It is still used today (Carrie Fisher gets it about once a month, so she says).  Lobotomies by the 1960s had fallen out of vogue as more research showed that lobotomies took away more from a patient than necessary and as more and more medicines were available that gave superior results.  Yes, they were still using lobotomies as treatments in the early 60s, but by the time the book was made into a film, over a decade had passed and they were nearly obsolete as a standard treatment.  I don’t know how many people realized that in that decade treatments had changed dramatically.  The film perpetuated an antiquated procedure.  Nevertheless, the film is a landmark piece of American film history and Mr. Lloyd was splendid in it.  He had a child-like innocence in his character which is quite realistic, sort of an arrested development.  He showed the muted energy of one heavily medicated.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was another film that affected the future of films.  No it wasn’t the first human-cartoon pairing (hello, remember Mary Poppins? Song of the South?) but it revolutionized it.  Christopher Lloyd is one character actor that can play the most trustworthy character (Doc) and also a great villain, as in Roger Rabbit.  Judge Doom is a wonderfully cartoonish meany.

But let’s face it.  The majority of the conversation would center around Back to the Future.  I watched all three today, twice, thanks to HBO.  Lloyd does some amazingly nuanced performances in these films.  The continuity of character is unbelievable.  He has to play the same character in three different centuries, with different amounts of knowledge about his time machine and about the world.  He uses his voice so brilliantly for this character, as he did with Reverend Jim.  The cast as a whole is again amazing, but it’s the chemistry between Marty and Doc that make the movies.  The mentor/friendship/father&son relationship would make great fodder for a college course or dissertation and I’m sure someone has already done that.  I suppose another reason why I like the character of Doc is that he is a geek and shows it.  While I’m a geek of a different color, all geeks can connect on some level.  I suppose it’s the pure joy he has at various moments in the movie, the free laugh of joy he has several times when things work out the right way.

The other aspect that the two characters share is both are outcasts.  Marty and Doc just don’t quite fit the standard mold.  These films were released while I was in high school and then college.  I was not in the “in-crowd” (I’m still not, and about twenty years ago I got comfortable with that concept).  These two outcast characters were so easy to connect with for me.  I also love to look for errors in continuity in films and these three presented a lovely challenge.  I don’t recall any major issues, though I think there was a question at one point in time that there are one too many DeLoreans at some point, though while watching today I couldn’t remember it.  Plus the movies have some wonderful tongue-in-cheek moments, a diverse use of vocabulary and general playfulness with language, and a fun historical angle.

Finally, I think well after dessert, I’d get to Clue.  If you haven’t seen it, stop reading and go watch it.  It is reminiscent of Murder by Death (in fact, the two films share Eileen Brennan in their casts) and is freaking hysterical.  Lloyd as Professor Plum is perfectly cast.  The film is so wonderfully quotable.  “Wait a minute, so who did I kill?…  My butler…  Oh, shucks.”  “Why has the car stopped?…  It’s frightened.”  “Nevermind about the key, unlock the door.”  (This last one is not one of Professor Plum’s lines, but it must be included.)  “Even if you were right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.”

You could easily spend the day watching Christopher Lloyd movies in your pajamas, as I did today.  I may in fact break out my Clue dvd after the trilogy finishes again.  I will then feel the need to watch Murder by Death.  Luckily, we get that extra hour at 2:00am.

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My lunch with pirates

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Ah, did you enjoy International Talk Like a Pirate Day?  I did.  Arrrr, matey!  If you didn’t know this day existed, allow me to introduce it to you.  All I really know about it is you can talk like a pirate today and no one can look at you funny.  See, this comes in handy for me since I often talk like a pirate.  I also think like a pirate.  Now, I not be talking about the really bad pirate stuff and I know piracy is actually a bad thing, but, son of a biscuit eater, the spirit of a pirate, by hook or by crook be alive and well.

They (those people practically as infamous as pirates) say you are either a pirate or a ninja.  Pirates be way cooler and can capture more booty with less death.  Pirates also love one of my favorite words, bloody.  Things can be bloody with multiple meanings when ye be a pirate.  I also feel piracy is more obvious in our society.  They (thar they be again…) don’t say that you ninja-ed the music, you pirated the music.  Thar isn’t a catchy, rhyming phrase like by hook or by crook.  Thar be no cool flag like a jolly roger.  These symbols and expressions are so well known and have been within culture in general seemingly forever.  Now I will give the ninja a plug–they be bloody stealthy in their ways and perhaps that is an advantage.  Some things may be better protected for the ninja way of life, or I just need to study me opposition a little more closely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at all of the influence piracy has had on society (and I only be looking at the influences that I can readily pull from the Davy Jones’ locker of me mind at this time of night).  Pirates were acceptable to Walt Disney decades ago.  Pirates of Penzance is a beloved operetta with really great songs (“For I am the Pirate King” or how about a “Paradox”, anyone?).  If Gilbert and Sullivan appreciated the value of piracy, everyone can.  Besides, Kevin Kline is amazing in that film.  Top of his form thar he be!

 

 

 

Obviously Disney’s Pirates grew beyond what I think even Walt could have imagineered.  Johnny Depp kicked some bloody arse in that role and offered a great way to celebrate one’s piracy with their children.  Pirates think outside of the box, highly confluent they be, while ninjas tend to lean toward precision.  Truly, I mean that.  It’s not just because of what I did at work today.  I have an awesome picture of Captain Jack Sparrow in my office.  My youngest has a beta named Jack Sparrow.  We’ve got the pirate castle, the pop-up Black Pearl ship, pirate hats, scarves, eye-patches…you get the picture.  And we often go with the flow, thinking outside of that box.

But piracy shows up in other places.  If you recall my obsession with Kenneth Branagh,  you will have guessed that I will now be referencing Pirate Radio, a great movie.  And the youngins think that piracy and music is something they connected together for the very first time.  Nope, long ago, in the 1960s the two were linked.  (Check out the cool pirate connection-Bill Nighy is in both Pirate Radio & Pirates of the Caribbean!  Check out the cool Kenneth Branagh connection-both are in Pirate Radio and Valkyrie-not a pirate movie, and one where I have to tolerate Tom Cruise, which is a completely different blog that you’ll never read because I wouldn’t spend the time, wow, I really can’t stand Tom Cruise, can I?  Except for the ritualistic viewing of Top Gun with my dad.).  Anyway…I digress.

Back to piracy in everyday culture.  Ahoy, Pirate Booty, the delicious snack food.  Love it!  Thar’s the Pirate weekend down in Maryland.  Heck, thar’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Well, me hearty, I must be off to bed.  If I oversleep, me boss will make me walk the plank and we don’t be wanting that.

By the way, I be skipping the editing feature since the pirate speak will cause the spell and grammar check  to use the cat o’ nine tails, flogging me blog about all the pirate talk.

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My Lunch with Josh Gates

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , on August 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My sons have discovered the Jersey Devil.  I introduced them to this fine piece of folklore over a year ago, but one has to meet children where they are.  They weren’t ready to connect to the Jersey Devil last year, but now they are ready to embrace this awesome connection to living in south Jersey.  My oldest has been researching JD on the web and discovered the episode of Destination Truth in which Josh and company trekked to exotic south Jersey and our beloved Pine Barrens to search for Mrs. Leeds’ thirteenth child.

If you aren’t familiar with the lore, grab a copy of Weird NJ by Sceurman & Moran and you will bring yourself up to speed with fun recollections from some locals, Pineys and non.  The short version is that Mrs. Leeds found herself preggers once again way back in 1735.  She cursed the child, calling for this one to be a devil.  While the baby was born human, it quickly transformed into a creature with hooves, wings, a horse-like face, and the ever popular red devil eyes.  It killed everyone in the room and burst out of the house.  He’s been haunting south Jersey ever since.

I’ve been hooked on JD since 1978.  In third grade, my art teacher had us do a unit on the Jersey Devil.  We learned the folklore and, then based on the descriptions we read, we created our versions of JD in various mediums.  This is my favorite kind of learning–face it, it’s every kid’s favorite type of learning–interactive and purposeful, with built-in assessments that are fun.  I didn’t think about the fact that my pieces were going to be graded, I simply focused on making the best JD art I could.

I shared this story with my boys and they were very intrigued.  We’ve been reading Weird NJ and one of the young adult novels…The Weird Club: The Search for the Jersey Devil by Fairbanks.  They are hooked.  After my sons watched the Destination Truth clip they told me, “Mom,you know  that show you watch with the guy who goes places and you’ve tried to make us watch it?  He looked for the Jersey Devil!”  This was shocking for my sons to think that we have a shared interest that they don’t feel is dorky. 

I think my sons would love to hang with Josh Gates.  I’d love to hang with Josh.  Please remember, when I say hang, I mean hang out, not hang for dear life on a perilous bridge or on a zip cord.  I don’t know that I’m adventurous enough to be on the DT team, but I wouldn’t mind being a researcher for the show.  I love the concept of the show.  I agree with some of the online postings about the contrived nature about the team (for the record, I don’t care who is schtupping whom).  Overall, the idea of going on adventures that are centralized around the amazing myths, legends, and folklore of our world is awesome.  But I couldn’t be on the team-I couldn’t eat the foods they eat.

Thus our lunch would have to be at a restaurant that Josh would probably consider bland.  His website says that he hopes the show and his adventures inspire children to go out and have adventures of their own.  So many children just don’t do that anymore.  I am fortunate that my boys do this all the time and have connected to Josh on their own, validating that what they like to do is cool.  It would be neat to chat with Josh about the Jersey Devil and some of the other trips they’ve done on the show.  The trip to the Antarctica and the search for the Yeti would have to be discussed.  Particularly the hair sample found while searching for the Yeti that was determined to be an unknown DNA sequence by the DNA people would be explored at length.  How cool is that? 

I would also seek Josh’s advice.  The boys get a wee bit creeped out after spending some substantial time on different legends.  This leads to the classic child to parent question, “Do you believe in…?”  How does Josh handle such a question?  I know how I handle it…I tell my sons that there is so much I don’t know about the world that I can’t say it’s not true.  How can I prove that these creatures aren’t out there, managing to hide from our intrusive existence?  I can’t.  I also don’t want my sons to lose their sense of wonder quite yet.  Then again I haven’t lost mine yet.  Neither has Josh, or at least it seems that way.  And why should we lose that sense of wonder?  That belief in what we can’t see?       

It’s awesome that the show offers some television time that isn’t us versus them with our boys.  Yes, we have Looney Tunes, Three Stooges, and a ton of movies that we all find entertaining.  We also enjoy our Animal Planet and Discovery shows.  But DT has some science AND entertainment.  By combining his love of archeology and theater, the show covers a lot of ground and Josh has some great expressions and reactions, particularly when eating various animal parts that no human should ever ingest.

Did I mention we would be at a bland restaurant?  Quite possibly some “safe” chain place with overpriced appetizers?

Well, it’s past the witching hour for me.  Mrs. Leeds’ thirteenth child is roaming the Pine Barrens somewhere, possibly searching for a place to bunk when Hurricane Irene shows up.  An earthquake and a hurricane all in one week for Jersey.  Quite a lot of fun.  A big adventurous week for two small boys.  Possibly even enough adventure here for Josh.  I’d let him know he has a standing invitation to dig in our backyard with the boys.  They’re searching for a Hadrosaurus.

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