October 2005

“Explain,” said the interrogation machine…

Posted on by Patrick

… “Describe their culture.”

“They have an impor­tant cel­e­bra­tion,” said E.T., “called Hol­low Bean. Every­one carves faces in fruit squash­es and dress­es up in sheets.”

“Who holds this celebration?”

“The chil­dren, who actu­al­ly rule the Blue Plan­et of Earth. They are more intel­li­gent than the old­er peo­ple and out­run them on bicycles.”

The machine whirled around him again. “And what is the pur­pose of this celebration?”

“To col­lect the all-impor­tant food.”

“Which is?”

“Can­dy.”

– William Kotzwin­kle, E.T. The Book of the Green Plan­et. 1985, Berke­ley Books.

Hap­py Hol­low Bean, every­one! And b. good.

This weekend

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Judo tour­na­ment Sat­ur­day. I won’t be com­pet­ing; I was­n’t at class for essen­tial­ly the month of Sep­tem­ber, due to The Sid­ing Project, and I’ve also still got enough of a cold to affect my breath­ing a lit­tle. (Not enough that I notice in day-to-day life, but it’s impor­tant to breathe prop­er­ly when you’ve got 220 pounds of oppo­nent on your ribcage in osae-komi*.)

We’ll be mov­ing mats today after work, and then set­ting up the gym. Whee!

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* “Hold-down”. The grap­pling side of judo.

Can’t blog. Writing.

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I’ve decid­ed to enter a non-fic­tion con­test, and I have to have the sto­ry in the mail by Nov. 1st, so I’m kind of up against a dead­line. The theme of the con­test is “A Mem­o­rable Voy­age”; my entry, in about its sec­ond draft, is here. You’ll need a pass­word, too: it’s win­nipego­sis. Read it, if you’d like; let me know what you think. (It’s short, only about 1100 words.)

I fin­ished Last Light of the Sun last night. It was enjoy­able, well-researched, and some­thing that I don’t nor­mal­ly read. As a fan­ta­sy it was very low-key; as a his­tor­i­cal nov­el it was heav­i­ly fic­tion­al­ized; as an out-and-out sto­ry that hap­pened to be set 1,000 years ago, it was excel­lent. Gabriele, I seem to remem­ber that you were read­ing it. Do you have any com­ments on it? Did you fin­ish? Did you enjoy it?Later, y’all!

Brandon Life

Posted on by Patrick

The very def­i­n­i­tion of “slow news day”: Res­cued kit­ty feel­ing bet­ter.

We went to see As You Like It, per­formed by the local 7 Ages the­atre group. I quite enjoyed it. Kath­leen, who saw it last night as well, said that the per­for­mances were much improved. The fool Touch­stone stole the show, caper­ing and danc­ing, mut­ter­ing and mim­ing. As usu­al, it took me awhile to get the hang of Shake­speare’s Eng­lish, but once I was in the right mode I found that the sto­ry just ticked away like a smooth-run­ning gun. 

I can’t rec­om­mend the film My Sum­mer of Love; by movie’s end, I’d found not a sin­gle sym­pa­thet­ic char­ac­ter in it, and I want­ed to punch them all, from the girls to the moody born-again-but-not-real­ly broth­er to the neglect­ful father. Why o why do I only seem to end up show­ing the grim and dark and ulti­mate­ly depress­ing flicks?Anyways. Hope you all had a good week­end. Later!

Bein’ sick sure sucks

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Head cold. I spent the day on the couch, essen­tial­ly, alter­nat­ing short naps with play­ing Abe’s Odd­ysee and watch­ing a cou­ple episodes of Fire­fly. The West­ern vibe of the lat­ter makes me want to say things like “Bein’ sick pow­er­ful sucks”, but I’ll try to restrain myself.

And now I have to go to the Evans, to show the ear­ly show (My Sum­mer of Love, it’s called).

What are you doing* for the weekend?

__________

* The first five times I tried to type “doing”, I end­ed up with doni’g. ???

A trip to the farm

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We went last week­end (the week­end after Thanks­giv­ing*) to my grand­par­ents’ farm, up by Win­nipego­sis. While we were there, Grand­pa H cel­e­brat­ed his birth­day, and we went into town to vis­it Grand­ma J, too. (My par­ents grew up about fif­teen miles from each other.)

Plus my wife bought me the coolest cook­ies pos­si­ble the oth­er day:

__________

* The Cana­di­an kind.

My First Meme

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…here, any­ways.

From John Scalz­i’s Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, here’s the “Canon”, with the films I’ve seen in bold:

The Adven­tures of Bucka­roo Ban­zai Across the 8th Dimension!
Akira
Alien
Aliens
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Broth­er From Anoth­er Planet
A Clock­work Orange
Close Encoun­ters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Des­ti­na­tion Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gor­don: Space Sol­diers (ser­i­al)
The Fly (1985 version)
For­bid­den Planet
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Inva­sion of the Body Snatch­ers (1956 version)
Juras­sic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix
Metropolis
On the Beach
Plan­et of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop
Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
The Step­ford Wives
Superman
Ter­mi­na­tor 2: Judge­ment Day
The Thing From Anoth­er World
Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
La Voy­age Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version) 

Exact­ly half, if I’m count­ing right. What­taya know, I am a nerd.

Reminiscences (2)

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So Michaëlle Jean, our new Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al, is mak­ing her first offi­cial vis­it as the Cana­di­an head of state*, and she chose Man­i­to­ba, my province, as her first offi­cial des­ti­na­tion. (“Trav­el Man­i­to­ba! Just like the queen-by-proxy! See the sights!”)

They wel­comed her with a twen­ty-one-gun salute, which remind­ed me of an exchange I had with a friend back in my uni­ver­si­ty days. He’d just fin­ished watch­ing a funer­al scene in Back­draft, new­ly released on video, and he said to me, “Pat, when I die, I want a twen­ty-one-gun salute.”

Me: I’ll see what I can—

Him: Right into my coffin.

Me: [amused and con­fused silence]

Him: I’m afraid of being buried alive.

* As she rep­re­sents the Queen, she is in fact in charge of our government.

Movies

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I watched Seren­i­ty again on Tues­day. It’s still a great film, espe­cial­ly if you love SF. I would love to see it a third time, but I don’t know if I can jus­ti­fy it. (Maybe I’ll just do it any­way. The hell with jus­ti­fy­ing everything.)

My wife and I went to see Wal­lace and Gromit last night. I loved it. Right from the moment the theme music start­ed up, I was in my Hap­py Place™. I’ve been wait­ing for this film for a while, and it did­n’t dis­ap­point me in the least. It had every­thing I want­ed: wacky inven­tions, giant bun­nies, Gromit’s end­less­ly expres­sive facial expres­sions, Wal­lace’s good-natured so-smart-he’s-kind-of-dense per­son­al­i­ty, and some bril­liant action scenes, includ­ing a dog­fight sequence with coin-oper­at­ed car­ni­val planes. Best use of plas­ticine ever.

Tonight: off to see March of the Pen­guins at the Evans, the small art­house­/sec­ond-run the­atre where I vol­un­teer. I’m look­ing for­ward to it.