Enchanté

Chapter 3

Still absently blinking as his heart rate began to stabilize and the rest of the room came into focus, Liam’s hands fell momentarily to his knees and he stood silently bracing his body on locked elbows like a man who had just sprinted down a hallway and knocked an unexpected interloper to his hotel suite out cold with an oak book-end. As his brain began to warm up, executive functions beginning to catch up with the primal explosion, Liam soon realized that leaving the man unrestrained on the floor would soon prove to be a disastrous course of inaction. Stripping the man of his overcoat, Liam quickly ran through the man’s pockets and retrieved a small pile of booty. Both hands full, casting about the small sitting room in the tangerine glow of the serene ceiling lamp, Liam dumped his haul into the utilitarian wood grained laminate desk against the wall behind him. Next he grabbed the stunted table lamp from where it had been holding up a guide to local eateries and a Gideon’s Bible, and wrenching the cord from the back of the lamp with his left hand he set the pistol down next to the man’s possessions on the desk’s pocked surface got to work on the downed interloper. After awkwardly attempting to reassemble the scattered limbs, Liam hog-tied the stranger where he lay and eased him onto his side. Liam was almost overcome with the wave of stale marijuana smoke mingled with cheap booze and cheaper aftershave as the man’s face oscillated towards the ceiling. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, his still-heightened senses reeling from such a salient olfactory encounter, Liam left his ears in the sitting room and shot back down the hall towards the bedroom to retrieve his large black duffel. Ripping the zipper the length of the bag and unceremoniously dumping its contents in a shower of matted socks and rumpled t-shirts, Liam scooped up the roll of duct tape that had fallen heavily on top of the clothes and hurried back down the hall to find his charge unchanged.

Lugging the man’s body into the musty overstuffed sitting chair, cheek to cheek with the sallow visage of his assailant, Liam could feel his shallow breathing as the abrasive stubble grated into his own moderately scruffy skin. He haphazardly spun several dozen laps of the silvery webbing taut around the man’s body, the tape screeching as it pulled loose from the roll, securing him to the seat. Gaunt frame sagging against the restraint, Liam quickly assessed the man’s wounds. Not too bad. The man’s nose had nearly stopped bleeding, but the gash on his head looked angry and was still pushing a moderate amount of blood through the nascent clots. Wincing despite himself as he leaned in for a closer look, he took in the face’s features. They were craggy and grizzled, a face that could have been any age between 28 and 53, and seemed malicious even in their unconscious state. Scars festooned the man’s lips and cheeks, and lines of hard living were etched into deep folds around his eyes and mouth.

Liam quickly double checked the bonds on the man’s hands and feet and dashed off again down the hall to the bathroom, retrieving a spare roll of toilet paper and a plastic trash can with a brown flower on the front. Filling the trash can with a few inches of water from the faucet, Liam returned to crudely staunch the wound and clean some of the blood away with a sopping mass of cheap one-ply toilet paper. Once he had effected some semblance of repair, Liam dropped his bloody wad of tissue into the remaining water at the bottom of the trash can. As diluted blood continued to make its way down the eroded crags of the man’s cheek, Liam ripped off another four-inch swatch of duct tape and stretched it as tight as he could over a patch of fresh toilet paper before pressing it over the rend on the man’s oily forehead. Slapping it soundly once for good measure, he nearly tripped on his own feet as the man suddenly jerked and began to struggle against the layers of tape adhering him to the chair. The prisoner emitted a growling noise as he vainly thrashed in the grips of the tape, wild and low, but never cried out. Swiftly regaining his poise, Liam snatched the pistol from off the desk nearby and leveled it at the stranger, now glaring at him. One eye was nearly obscured with blood and duct tape. The other eye half squinted at Liam, who was unable to tell if the man was attempting to smile or glare at him.

“Oh, hello, Liam,” the man croaked. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Liam should respond:

A) "Yeah, long time no see."

B) "You've got about three seconds to start talking before I paint my nice pretty room here with the shit you call your brains."

C) "Who are you and what do you want with me?"

D) Say nothing, but stare coldly down the barrel of his new gun.

Who, Me?!

Today was a day of firsts for me. This morning I started my new work-out routine from Bill Pearl’s strength manual. Today was the first time in a long time that I’ve spent consecutive days in the Daily Book of Prayer. Today is the first time I can remember when I have been overtly propositioned.

Sitting at the intersection of Bullard and Villa at 11h45 this morning, listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR and (as Blake Shelton would say) minding my own, a setting which shall live . . . in infamy. I was making a bid for the right turn, sandwiched between the through traffic and the curb, when I noticed one of the girls in the car next to me casting furtive glances back in my direction. Catching her eye, I summoned by best head jerk and wan smile, expecting little if anything in return. To my utter shock and discombobulation, the girl mouthed something back to me. Puzzled, brows furrowing, I cocked my head shook it slowly from side to side, an electrocution in slow motion. I didn’t understand. Again, she mouthed her demand. Again I was nowhere close to deciphering the code, all blank stare and oscillating cranium. After three more failed attempts, the window crank was employed. I silenced Neal Conan with a careless flail at the radio face-plate.

“Hey, ma girl wants ta know, is you single?”

“Oh . . . uh,” I stammered, taken aback. I would have been better prepared to give the square root of 43 2/3. “Ah, no. I’m married,” I finished lamely, brandishing the ring of my left hand.

“Ah, aight,” and they pulled away at the light.

Thanks, random girls at the light on Bullard and Villa. I think.

Let's Try That Again . . .

Chapter 2b

Digging his knuckles into his eye sockets and straining his already extended senses beyond their limits, Liam could almost swear he could now hear the soft whistle of breathing intermittently trickle down the short dim hallway which lead to the rest of the suite he had been occupying for the last two weeks. His thoughts drifted to the past seven months of furtive habitation in suite after dingy suite in dive after dilapidated dive. He tried to remember the last time he had managed to string together more than six hours of restful sleep, but only managed to come up with a memory of his 7^th birthday party. Transformer theme. That had been fun.

Savagely shaking his head and rubbing his knuckles across his scalp, Liam froze as a he heard a soft suppressed cough ricochet down the hallway. His adrenal glands found a new gear he thought might actually cause him to vomit as the invisible spear of excitement exploded in his gut and effervesced through his scalp and toe-nails. Backing away from his perch directly behind the thin partition, Liam eased his head towards the hall-ward side of the door, catching a peek at the stark gray hallway and darker still room that lay beyond. Nothing could be seen stirring from that vantage, but all hope that he was alone in the suite had utterly evaporated. Tightening his gut and wiping his right hand on his boxers before re-gripping the cool hard bookend, Liam eased the door fully open and strained his eyes on the hallway’s aperture into the rest of the suite. ‘Fortune favors the bold,’ he thought to himself as he felt his feet begin to pump, grimacing mouth holding back his breath, a levy struggling against a flash flood. As the short hallway whizzed jarringly by, against the dim sitting room ahead an inky profile swung suddenly out from the left-hand wall.

“Oh, shit!” was all the gravelly voiced silhouette was able to blurt out before Liam hit him full tilt. Wrenching the body towards his own with his free left hand, Liam felt his forehead make contact with the bridge of the strangers nose, and as the intruder reeled back under the initial blow a vicious roundhouse swing with the bookend dropped the thin-framed figure to the floor with a perfunctory thud.

His shoulders heaving, blinking fiercely in the aftermath of the encounter, Liam spotted a wicked looking black Beretta Px4 on the floor near the body. Quickly stepping towards it and toeing it out of arms reach, Liam gingerly skirted the prone figure to be able to pick the pistol up himself. The body on the floor lay still, looking almost comical face down with limbs akimbo. “Squashed spider!” Liam wanted to guess, but there were no other contestants playing charades and the man on the floor didn’t seem able to either confirm or deny his postulation.

Keeping his eyes glued on the crumpled mass splayed on the floor, Liam backed up until his groping hand found the light switch, flooding the scene a warm light from the tattered orange light fixture hanging from the center of the room's ceiling. Taking a closer look, Liam could see that his interloper was beginning to ooze blood from his head and nose, slowly adding his own scarlet circlet to the already riotously stained carpet.

Liam should search the guy and then. . .

a) Jet, leaving the body there

b) Finish the job with his new gun

c) Tie the guy up in a chair and wait for him to come around

d) Take off immediately, forget even searching th guy

Long Shots

As jaded as I am with the current political process in this country, with its reward of duplicitous speech and exaggerated differences between facetious candidates impotently pandering to some vague middle ground which nobody at all seems to actually espouse, ‘Republican’ Ron Paul has recently piqued my interest in the 2008 Presidential Race. A ten year veteran of Texas’ 14^th district, Congressman Paul still stands on his Libertarian (and some would say, truly Republican) philosophy of reduced government spending, strong state’s rights and free trade. As a matter of principle he refuses his Congressional stipend, voted against what has now been exposed as the woefully under-planned Iraq War Resolution and in the process of saving several baby seals from being clubbed to death discovered a compound which makes teeth both whiter and stronger. Ok, so I made the last one up, but he is bringing a breath of fresh air to a party which by all other indications has become utterly moribund over the last eight hard years.

Sure his name sounds like an adult film star, but in a Republican race where John McCain is begging lunch money off the sound guy and Rudy Giuliani is scalping Yankees tickets to the debate moderator, something about the pugnacious Mr. Paul has caught my fancy. I know he’s not the prefect candidate. I don’t mesh well with several planks in his platform, he's at times ludicrously unrealistic and he would be a wildly impractical President, likely making Jimmy Carter look as efficacious as Josef Stalin moving legislation through Congress. Regardless, here’s hoping for the greatest American tradition: The Long Shot. Viva Ron!

The Little Things

Today is August 8th, 2007. The time: 13h26. The temperature? 84^oF (29^o C). This is a most convenient truth.

Liam's next chapter is coming soon . . .

Graceless

WARNING: Prolonged vent ahead! I try not to openly vent too often because I tend to be a tad juvenile about it, but this got me riled up last weekend and I couldn't help myself. What's a blog for if not for venting sometimes, right?! Anyway . . .

Some say that it’s best to expect the unexpected, but I’ve found that to be rather tiring endeavour; I prefer instead to just not assume too much. Even still, it’s refreshing to know that the Earth is a big enough place that no matter how unassuming I am there will still be contexts which leave me confused and disoriented. This weekend while I was relaxing in downtown Santa Cruz at a small café, on their sleek flat screen TV in between the woman with shorn hair openly breast feeding her young child, the French kids, the petite Asian student and the glazed thoroughly inked beach denizen was something that did not belong: Nancy Grace. I was nettled.

Nancy Grace, the brackish talk show host who eked out a living as a state prosecutor before becoming one of the most inane talking heads on a TV today, was staring out at me smugly in a Santa Cruz coffee shop. I can only assume that something more worthwhile had been on before her and that the channel just hasn’t gotten changed, but there she was none the less. She opined for several minutes about the recent tragedy in South Carolina involving the death of two small children found under a kitchen sink, and for the most part I couldn’t hear what she was saying so I was left unperturbed, except for occasionally catching her sneering visage from the corner of my eye. She eventually, however, stumbled her way on to the Michael Vick saga; while I still couldn’t clearly hear what vitriolic and uninformed diatribe she had embarked on, the footage for the spot was her and an assortment of talking heads in small boxes in the corner of the screen while they rolled stock footage of put bulls fighting in rings.

So let me get this strait . . . we’re indicting Michael Vick for fighting dogs, and in the process ejaculating every condemnation imaginable about the depravity and inhumanity of the practice. About how anyone who would stoop to even watching let alone organizing dog fights deserves time in Federal prison. About how the concept is so vile it should hardly be mentioned. In the meantime, though, while we talk about it ad nauseum, you might as well take in some footage of dogs ripping each other up. Perfect. Makes perfect sense. Thank you, CNN, for providing us with that well crafted piece of journalistic integrity.

I don’t know to what extent Vick was involved in the dog fighting ring being run out of his house in Virginia, but I do find dog fighting one of the more reprehensible practices around. Close behind, however, is watching Nancy Grace or any of the other difficult-to-respect-or-take-seriously reactionary thick-hearted and stiff-necked hacks running amok in the news media. Mercifully the channel was changed shortly after the Michael Vick spot began.

Yall Chose B

Chapter 2a

With anxiety dripping from his every pore, Liam inched his way around the listing bedroom door. His senses now almost fully divested of sleep’s dullness, every input was now being registered with laser precision. The cat yowling outside was out-clamored by a slamming dumpster while water dripped somewhere nearby and the toilet valve screamed at him as it clicked on momentarily to top of the perpetually leaking tank. The stale odor of years of tobacco imbibed by the walls around him combined with the delicate smell of the earliest morning, and both flirted with the slightest tinge of garlic. Trying not to think about the cute take-out girl from the Italian joint he’d ordered dinner from the night before, Liam began his stealthy descent towards the end of the short hallway. The suite he had been inhabiting for the last two weeks hung in a dull grey light, purgatory of the day, nearly familiar shapes indistinguishable in the small sitting room at the mouth of his vestibular avenue. Breaching the aperture of the hallway, still crouched and primed with the bookend at the ready, what had been at first a remnant of garlic odor swelled to an belligerent hurricane of olfactory sensation with overtones of cheap liquor and cheaper aftershave. Realizing too late the garlic scent had nothing to do with the leftover chicken parmesan in the sink, Liam turned to his left towards the impending onslaught. The last thing he saw as he wheeled around raising the bookend was the black steel dough nut of a silencer, followed by a Beretta Px4 both half obscuring a thin grizzled face sporting what would be the most and last unctuous sneer he ever saw.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Well . . . that was quick. So, the question is now where we go from here. Suggestions?

Holy Kegger

Some of my favourite friends are the ones who constantly surprise me. Even after living with the guy for a year in college, my friend Chef Hanssen still manages to pleasantly surprise me every time I have the opportunity to talk with him on the phone, or better yet, to hang out. Reading the Bible is often like hanging out with Chef for me, constantly being surprised by a Father God and Christ who consistently refuse to stay in the boxes that we’ve furiously constructed for them to inhabit.

Most recently, I have been taken a bit aback by John 2. Many of yall know the story: Jesus is invited to a poorly planned wedding, gets goaded by his mother, and bails out the party host by coming up with some wine. There’s a lot more to the story, however, than the felt-board narrative I remember from Sunday school. The jars that Christ uses to perform His miracle are ceremonial cleansing jars, and I don’t know enough about Jewish culture to know what the significance of using them is, let alone filling them with wine. Was this an act of convenience or was there a deeper significance to the jars?

Perhaps most shocking, however, is what happens after Christ selects his vessels. A far cry from what we would expect from the pious figure cross-legged in the lotus position, Christ commands that six ceremonial jars, each containing 20-30 gallons each, be filled with water which is subsequently transubstantiated into wine. For those of you doing the math at home, that’s about 150 gallons of wine. Crunching a few more figures, we discover that such a volume of wine would fill over 750 standard wine bottles or nearly 300 two-litre bottles. That is a lot of wine. Furthermore, Jesus broke out this wine after everyone had already drunk through the previous supply and were well on their way to significant headaches the next morning. What does this tell us, if anything, about Christ’s ethics of alcohol? What he did for a good time? This is the stuff I wonder about sometimes.

Get Excited

I've decided to be bold and install a feature I've been thinking about doing for a while. Here's hoping that it goes better than the movie reviewing . . . right?! Anyway, I used to love reading Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was young and I thought it'd be a fun thing to try on a blog. The plan is to update the feature weekly, so vote on the course of action you think most prudent at the end of each post and we'll see how many times we can end up dead. And now . . .

La Concha

The adrenalin was already singing through his chest and river dancing on his bowels by the time Liam’s eyelids snapped open, beginning to register his murky surroundings. The garish radiance of red, blue and yellow neon intermittently lit the room with a wan rainbow through the worn curtains hanging over the solitary barred window. His horizontal view shifted as he raised himself from his sweat-drenched pillow and swiped his hand over his damp face. “Stupid brain,” he murmured to no one in particular, now rubbing sleep from his left eye and yawing cavernously. Stealing a glance at the digital clock glowing a verdant 2:17 he shook his head ruefully. “Always coming with these weird drea . . . ” but he trailed off as he heard over the usual nocturnal bustling of the city about him a soft but distinct thump and faint rustle come from down the small hallway which lead to his kitchenette, like the sound of a trench coated body grazing a grimy wall.

With every nerve in his body now aflame and extending what felt like inches past his skin, Liam gingerly disentangled himself from his matted bed clothes and snatched the carved wooden bookend from his bedside table as he eased himself silently onto the dingy low-pile carpet of his bedroom floor. Toeing aside a discarded t-shirt and stepping over a pair of black wingtips, he ever so gently padded towards his slightly ajar bedroom door. Creeping along the wall of his bedroom, making sure to keep the door between him and the hallways as much as possible, Liam nervously worked his grip on the bookend, finding its solid weight and sublime burnish somehow reassuring. Arriving at the door still wound tighter than a nun at a frat party, he thought he could hear nasally breaths being drawn steadily from somewhere on the other side of the flimsy piece of composite board now only inches from face, but over the whooshing of traffic and the buzzing of the neon sign outside his window it was impossible to tell for sure.

Liam should:

A) Charge down the hallway into the kitchenette

B) Attempt to sneak down the hallway

C) Stay put behind the door until daylight

D) Call out to see if anyone is there

Bodamania

Things I learned while in Mexico for my brother-in-law's wedding:

1. In the States we slow our speech and get uncomfortably close to a person if they don't understand our English. It would seem that in Mexico, the opposite is true. Tío Sergio was especially fond of approaching and rapidly pelting me with urgent sounding Spanish. I would blink slowly, quickly sorting through my lexicon of approximately 25 Spanish words and see if any of them sounded like they could fit into the preceding deluge. Next I would venture a translation: "You gave the box to Tom?" Tío Sergio would blink back, say, " . . . No." And then launch into what seemed to me a more complicated and break-neck Spanish explanation. All in all a great time.

2. You can pay $10 (US) to go 10 kilometres in a Taxi or $15 (US) to go 200 kilometres on Omnibus Mexico. This leads me to the conclusion that we either got shamelessly bent over on a cab fare or the bus system in Mexico is subsidized. I'm inclined to think a little or both.

3. It's possible for the temperature to remain in the low 30's C and still sweat through two shirts in under 15 minutes while sitting in the shade. It's not pretty, but it's possible.

4. Harry Potter has spread at least as far south as Tampico, Mexico. So has Wal-Mart.

5. It is entirely possible to spend four days in Mexico, enjoy the local cuisine to the fullest, and not suffer any major gastrointestinal incidents.

6. Rumours of 'Mexican Time' have been greatly under-exaggerated. When the bride showed up at 7h15 for the 6h00 wedding I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore.

7. Despite the laws of physics which dictate that no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time, two-way traffic on 18'-wide roads in Mexico continues unperturbed.

8. Just because the 1h15am (A. M. !!!!!) flight to Mexico is cheaper doesn't mean you won't still pay dearly for it.

9. Shockingly, some parts of Fresno are nearly identical to rural Mexican towns.

10. I enjoy Mexico a lot more than I thought I did.

PS. The pic is not my brother in law. Just some yokel I found on Google image.

Lo!

There arose in those dark days a champion from amongst the Arbourists against which no unruly shrub nor unkempt tree could stand.  It is said that his saw sang stridently as it slaked its sap-lust slashing through misshapen foliage, and that the sound of his loppers was like a great engine breaking, a cacophony of staccato blasts chewing blithely through the stoutest of boughs.  Amongst the evergreens he was named Ethanatl-ul-taunphl, which in their tongue means "€˜He who hews with impunity."  Amongst the hard-woods he is called Ntllny’phn Hlthyphn, which means, "€˜The Steel Jaw."  Rumours of his shearing feats spread far and wide throughout the deciduous and coniferous world, and it is said that when the wind blows the trees can still feel his presence on the breeze; this is why they both moan in sympathy for the pruning of their brethren and quake with fear of their own inevitable coiffing as the gusts pass them by.

Good Idea/Bad Idea

Today, Friday the 13th, 2007, will find me pruning my parent's Chinese elms. This activity involves several ladders, sharp implements and me dangling anywhere from 5-20 feet in the air while stretching to lop off offending boughs. I'm thinking about bringing along a couple mirrors and throwing them down to the concrete below just to make a propper job of it.

Der Untergang

I should have realized when I started reviewing movies that I would never keep up with my copious consumption. I’m several films behind by now, well over a month since my last movie post, and after some soul searching I’ve come to terms with the reality of the situation. From now on, I’ll stick to only reviewing the standouts and smatter some of the more pedestrian films in and amongst real meat and potatoes. If, by some unfortunate accident, I happen to pigeonhole your favourite film into the ‘pedestrian’ category, I apologize in advance and will happily reprint a full retraction upon request. That being said . . .

Since my last post, I’ve had the pleasure of watching five films. At least four of them were completely different. They are, in order:

1. Love Actually (a James Orr fav)
2. Downfall
3. Confetti
4. Jesus Camp
5. Borat

I only really want to talk about Downfall, and I’ll leave the rest to scores and highlights.

The Germans, if you didn’t already know, are a singular people. Athletic, intelligent, cultured and industrious, it’s little wonder they very nearly brought the world to its knees twice within a span of 50 years. The film Downfall, an unflinching examination of Hitler’s final days as seen through the eyes of his personal secretary Traudl Junge, manages to capture the zeitgeist of the Nazi regime in its unwavering discipline, staunch principles, debauchery, decadence and myopia. Not once are the writers tempted to resort to painting their characters as caricatures, but instead force the viewer to witness the humanity inexplicably coupled with the monstrosity of the Nazi regime as Joseph Goebbles sings with his children and Hitler shares tender moments with his staff and friends.

The film is book-ended by an interview with Ms. Junge, and as the film closes she recounts a momment late in her life of passing by a monument to Jews killed at a labour camp and suddenly feeling the conviction of 6 million souls. " . . . But I hadn't made the connection with my past," says Junge. "I assured myself with the thought of not being personally guilty. And that I didn't know anything about the enormous scale of it. But one day I walked by a memorial plate of Sophie Scholl in the Franz-Joseph-Strasse. I saw that she was about my age and she was executed in the same year I came to Hitler. And at that moment I actually realised that a young age isn't an excuse. And that it might have been possible to get to know things."

While most WWII films claim to educate us about the atrocities so that we never allow anyone to commit them again, this film instead strives to warn the viewer that the person we must strive to censure is not a faceless enemy but in fact ourselves. It is our acquiescence, our own willingness to complacently follow and unquestioningly serve that must be constantly examined. In a nation where a genocide which still leaves its ghastly scar on a proud people is politely swept under the rug of casinos and firework stands every day, this film about personal and national responsibility speaks loudly and honestly about what can easily happen on any scale anywhere when we start to let our humanity come in second to expediency and convenience.
Grade: A+

Scores and Highlights:

Love Actually: A fun little romantic jaunt with the who’s who of British thespians. Strait down the pipe, with the drunken Bill Nighy character stealing the show for me.
Grade: B

Confetti: Another who’s who of British comedy, go figure. A clever film about marriage and weddings with a few genuinely funny moments, this film includes even more nudity than the previous, but none of it sexual. Actually very well done and enjoyable, I’d recommend it to anyone not offended by nudists.
Grade: B+

Jesus Camp: I was expecting a much more hard-hitting view of frighteningly conservative Christians, but the film really only picked on one charismatic church group from Missouri. Copious film editing and questionable sequencing aside, it was a fascinating look at the isolationist tendencies and blind espousing of rhetoric in certain conservative circles. Also featured in the film: Creepy behind the scenes clips of Ted Haggard preaching against homosexuality at his megachurch. Good times.
Grade: C+

Borat: Yeah . . . see it if you want to.
Grade: C

I Repent

It was brought to my attention that my previous Celebrity Playlist did have a hole in it, and for this I am truly sorry. It was not my express intention to misrepresent myself as so crass. While some questioned the validity Metallica's inclusion (I'm listening to No Leaf Clover right now), I'd like to strike the President's song from the record. An enjoyable track, to be sure, but definately one I can live without. In its stead, I'd like to insert Luckenback, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) by Waylon Jennings. A classic country track extolling the virtues of living simply and authentically, it's a relaxed two-step away from Heaven. In retrospect, it's rather shocking I didn't have a country track on there the first go round, and again I'd like to set the record strait. Waylon in, Presidents out. Metallica stays.

15 Minutes

I was drooling around on iTunes recently and decided to thumb through some of the celebrity playlists. Let me just say, Sly Stallone's track list is everything I hoped it might be. Anyway, if I were famous, this is what you'd be dying to find out I listen to . . .

1. Batman Theme Song, Danny Elfman. I’ve listened to this before every test I’ve taken through my college and graduate career, and I haven’t ever outright failed one I attended. There was the French final I completely slept through, but even that turned out better than I could have possibly imagined . . .

2. Bye Bye Blackbird, Miles Davis. It’s called auditory heroin. I can't get enough of it! But seriously, I love this song, totally chills me out.

3. Dancing Across the Water, Dave Matthews. This is the favourite of my many so called ‘drug songs.’ My parents started to wonder when I began getting into Pink Floyd, Nick Drake and Jefferson Airplane (before they went Starship). Another great chill-out song.

4. No Leaf Clover, Metallica. When I need to get angry, this is a good song to go along for the ride.

5. Against the Wind, Bob Seager. A classic about growing up the hard way. Not that I’d know, but I’ve heard lots of crazy stories and I like to pretend.

6. Body, Presidents of the United States of America. Yes. Yes, they did put out some great tracks, and yes I still remember them. Musically and lyrically this jam is bemusing.

7. Where the Streets Have No Names, U2. Clichés are cliché because they changed everything at one time or another. A paradigm shift, if you will (Michelle!). If you don’t get goosies when you hear the opening guitar riff, check for a pulse.

8. Oh! Darling, The Beatles. One of my fav’s from possibly their greatest album. Just a strait forward lil’ ditty, but I used to belt it out when I was listening to it on vinyl, age 8.

9. Requiem, Mozart. It’s worth your time to listen to all the way through. When I think about the fact that dude wrote the music for his own funeral, the reality that genius has its price begins to sink in.
   

10. One Day More, Les Misérables. I’ve always thought it would be an unbelievable experience to be in the cast of a musical, and Les Mis is as smokin’ a musical as any. The highlight of any good show for me is the montage piece, and this one is thick with story lines weaving and dodging. And when they all come to unison at the end . . . *ah* It would make wearing stage makeup worth it. Almost.

An Unknown Unknown

In honor of Independence Day, I thought I'd pass along a rather scathing Onion article which brought me back to '03. Here's hoping we figure out how to independence well some day.

Flash Back

This one is for my good friend James, who despite his ample intelligence and otherwise decent taste in music, continues to denigrate Billy Corgan in favour of STP.

Knickers Ablaze?

A question for you, readers. From the deepest, darkest, most pessimistic corner of my consciousness: Are we lying to our children when we tell them they can be anything they want? If not: Really?! If so: Is this a bad thing?

In Motion

He may not be as mysterious as James' man crush, the pseudonymed Kim Jong-Il, but I very much enjoy Pablo Neruda's poetry. I've always fancied myself more Latin than Asian, and between his works and my new favourite radio station, I'm swiftly approaching the point in my life where I need to break down and add Spanish to my repertoire to retain a modicum of authenticity. This is an excerpt from Walking Around which grabs me every time:

Just the same, it would be delicious
To scare a notary with a cut lily,
Or knock a nun stone dead with one blow of an ear.
It would be beautiful
To go through the streets with a green knife
Shouting until I died of cold.

I do not want to go on
Being a root in the dark
Hesitating, stretched out
Shivering with dreams
Downward in the wet tripe of the earth
Soaking it up and thinking
Eating every day

I do not want to be the inheritor
Of so many misfortunes
I do not want to continue as a root
As a tomb, a sollitary tunnel
As a cellar full of corpses
Stiff with cold
Dying with pain.

Though I am sure that in the mouth of someone like Antonio Banderas the spanish reading of this piece would melt me entirely, Sam Jackson's English redention is pretty sweet. I also recently heard Sam recite another piece of poetry:

You want my blood,
Take my blood.

Double Trouble

I’ve got a few films stacked up on me, so I’m pulling out the Drive-In classic double feature . . . and as far as double features go, this one’s a doosey. Both have stanch rebels against authority, wily women, shifting alliances and onerous villains. And now on to our feature presentation: Casablanca, followed by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest!

Casablanca was everything I thought it might be, plus some unexpected bonuses. I suppose this betrays a bit more of me than I’d like, but I’m always pleasantly surprised when I find old movies are crisp and poignant. Set in 1940’s Morocco, Casablanca follows suave cantina owner Rick as he attempts to make an honest living in a crooked world. Confronted with ghosts of his past and specters of the present, the film lets is characters struggle, showing their humanity and their desperate attempts not to loose it in what is ultimately constituted as a rich tapestry of history and character. Featuring lines like ‘Here’s lookin’ at you, kid’ ‘Play it again, Sam’ and ‘Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship’ which have become strayed towards cliché in American cinema, Casablanca is much more than a collection of classic movie quotes. If you like movies at all, give Casablanca 102 minutes of your life and enjoy a film made when Hollywood still wore the glow of youth.

Grade: A

Pirates of the Caribbean was everything you hope a sequel won’t be. Sequels are notoriously difficult to do well, with successful ones comprising a short list: The Empire Strikes Back, Temple of Doom, Weekend at Bernie’s 2. Maybe a few others. Presenting new material, continuing to grow characters and referencing the previous film tastefully are all very difficult tasks, and Pirates II seems to have had moderate to severe trouble with them all. The film have the flavour of a shameless remora, banking on the success of its predecessor and hoping to just enjoy the ride while doing as little work as possible, a poorly conceived follow up to a tight and witty first installment. Jokes were recycled ad nauseam, characters stagnated and plot lines were pressed thinner than Kiera Knightly’s waifish form. What could have been an interesting film with plot devices like confronting the immortal Davy Jones and reconciling Will to his father Bill, the film bogged down for me in some places and flew by at others, leaving me feeling confused and generally uninterested in the plot or characters. The special effects were impressive at times, and new characters such as Jones and the Fortune Teller showed glimpses of original thought and shine which garnered the first film its accolades, but as a whole it is a disappointing installment to an enjoyable franchise. I was left wishing the whole affair had ended with the first film in 2003.

Grade: C