:: Monday, July 14, 2003 ::

Surely the canals of Venice aren't that big...

AARRGGHH!! Curses on the Summer movie season and all the movies that come out that I want to see! The Italian Job, The Hulk (maybe?), 28 Days Later, Terminator 3, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Too many movies, too little time. Sigh.

But, I did get to see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen this weekend. It's gotten a lot of bad reviews, but I'm a huge fan of the original comic book, and I thought the movie stayed pretty close to the feel and style of the comic.

Yes, there was no need for Tom Sawyer as an American Secret Service agent (are we so stupid that we can't appreciate a movie about English people without an American to identify with?), and Captain Nemo's Nautilus (from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) was as big as an aircraft carrier....AND could fit in the canals of Venice?!?!

Not a perfect movie by any means, but I thought making Mina (Murray) Harker an actual vampire was good, and the other new character, Dorian Gray, was done very well. He was played by Stuart Townsend, who I like as an actor. He played Lestat in Queen of the Damned, and though that was not that good of a movie, he made a helluva better Lestat than #%$^&*! Tom Cruise!

So, good movie, overall...it could have been better, but it could also have been worse. An afternoon's time well spent, I think.

Now if only I can figure out how (and when) to see all the other movies I want to see....

:: posted by Rob 6:50 PM [+] :: 0 comments
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Love as thou wilt

"Mighty Kushiel, of rod and weal, late of the brazen portals, with blood-tipp'd dart a wound unhealed, pricks the eyen of chosen mortals."

That's my favorite quote from Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel trilogy, made up of Kushiel's Dart, Kushiel's Chosen, and the latest, which I've just finished, Kushiel's Avatar. Basically, the books follow the adventures of Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève, a beautiful comtesse, courtesan and spy who also happens to be an anguisette, blessed (or cursed) and chosen by the angel Kushiel to feel pleasure from pain.

The books are sort of alternate historical fantasies, taking place in about the year 1400, but in a very different world than what we are used to. Basically, the angel Elua was born from the mingled blood of Jesus Christ (called Yeshua ben Yosef) and the tears of Mary Magdalene, and wandered the earth with angels as his companions until they founded the nation of Terre D'Ange, in what we would call France. Also, it seems that Yeshua was accepted by the Hebrews as the Messiah, so Christianity as we know it never developed, leaving Europe (and the rest of the Old World) to develop differently from the real world, with old dynasties and old gods still existing. The D'Angelines, descended from Elua and his companions, live in an essentially Renaissance-level culture in Medieval world. They worship Elua and his companions, based on Blessed Elua's precept, Love as thou wilt.

That's a bit of a simplified synopsis of an incredibly rich and detailed setting, but it hopefully gives some idea. Of course, there's a lot more than that. There's politics, intrigue, great quests, comedy, tragedy, as well as some good old VALNAC*. These three books, and especially the latest, Kushiel's Avatar, are definitely and firmly ensconced on my list of all time favorite books.

Please check them out...I can't recommend them highly enough.

And for those of you who have read the books, take Kushiel's Quiz to find out which character you are. My results are below.

*VALNAC: Violence, Adult Language, Nudity, Adult Content


You are Melisande. Beautiful, compelling, devious
and utterly wicked, you entrance your prey
before you lead them to their deaths. You are
self serving, brilliant, diabolical and just
warm hearted enough to keep your foes off
balance.


Kushiel's Quiz
brought to you by Quizilla

Love as thou wilt.

:: posted by Rob 5:01 PM [+] :: 0 comments
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Titles? We don't need no stinkin' titles!

So here's a little thing I decided to try...titling my posts. Hopefully to distinguish between different thoughts on the same day. Feel free to let me know if you like them, hate them, or just don't care!

:: posted by Rob 10:05 PM [+] :: 0 comments
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ID4

And one final thought: When did we stop calling it Independence Day? That is what we're supposed to be celebrating. Otherwise, we're just celebrating the fourth day of the seventh month. Whoopee. And what's the point of that?

Unless it's our own cinco de mayo.....

:: posted by Rob 6:31 PM [+] :: 0 comments
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"...island hopping, crab cay bound..."

Oh, and I added a new blog link, The Island Chronicles. Who wouldn't want to just pick up and go live in the South Pacific?
Rock on.

:: posted by Rob 6:26 PM [+] :: 0 comments
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Independent Thoughts on Independence Day

Happy Birthday, America, you big lug!

Here's my obligatory 4th of July post (and only 3 days after the fact!). My patriotism, lately, goes in swings. One day I'm as unpatriotic as can be, ready to hop the next plane to Sweden if I had the means, and the next, I'm all about being an American in America. And the 4th of July, with all of its fireworks and its assorted summery fun, tends to make me into a happy American. There's a lot I love about this country, and a lot I don't. Is it the same for everyone else, everywhere else? Probably, I think...I don't know. I hope so.

Because no one should be completely patriotic all the time. If nothing else, it's just plain stupid. This isn't a popular viewpoint these days in post-9/11, War-on-Terrorism, Liberation-of-Iraq America. These days, patriotism = good, dissent and disagreement = bad. But I'm gonna say it anyways, because somebody has to.

Being patriotic and pro-American (or pro-whatever you are) all the time, to the exclusion of all else is incredibly short-sighted and naive. If you walk around in red, white, and blue blinders all the time, secure in the notion that everything your country and its government does is good and right, how will you know if it's doing something wrong? Everyone makes mistakes, yes, even the good old U.S. of A. But if we blindly trust everything that we do, we will miss the mistakes that we make, and then we can't learn from them.

I have a pet theory (and I'll admit, I'm biased, what with a piece of paper that says B.A. in History on it), that all American presidents should have to have history degrees. That way they will know what came before them, what mistakes were made, what solutions worked, and maybe, just maybe, they will not be doomed to repeat the past.

Would that solve any of the problems facing America, and more widely, the world? I don't know. It certainly would help, I think. I'm getting a little off the topic of what I wanted to say, but here's the final thought I want to leave you with.

America has become far too complacent. Yes, we are the world's sole remaining superpower. Perhaps we do have a duty and an obligation to police the rest of the world. But here we are, celebrating our country's 227th birthday. That's a long time. It seems like America has been around forever. And it seems like it'll always be around.

It hasn't. It won't.

It's been around 227 years. And while that may seem like a long time to you and me, it's barely a feather on the scale of history. Ask Europe, with hundreds of years of history. Ask China, with over five thousand years of recorded history. 227 years is nothing. And yet, you may ask, if China has lasted 5,000 years, why can't America? Perhaps America can last as long, but it won't be the America we know and love. China today is nothing like it was 5000, 1000, or even 100 years ago. It's history is filled with rebellions and invasions and fallen dynasties.

That's the point I want to make. Nothing lasts forever. The great Kingdoms of Egypt? Gone. The Roman Empire? Fallen. Even the British Empire, which less than a hundred years ago spanned almost the entire globe, is once more back to its little group of islands in the North Sea. So, too, will America decline, and perhaps fall.

But only if we let it.

We have to realize that our actions have consequences in the wider world, we have to realize that we need to change to embrace the future.

So happy birthday, America, and to all you Americans out there, be happy, celebrate and love your country, but think - really think - about how we, how you can keep this country going the way we like it. Don't be complacent, don't be arrogant. Let's all just try to be.

Thus endeth the lesson.

:: posted by Rob 6:24 PM [+] :: 0 comments
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