Blogging disease

Is it real? I think it is, and I am infected. I just created a second blog on the slim pretext of journaling the life of our new popup camper. With us, I mean. Someone had to do it. I hope to get the picture thing worked out and add a few pictures to the new blog. Beware the blogging disease...my precious...

Retired and discharged troops to Iraq?

Where will it all end? Are we all to go over there carrying our guns? Recalling retired and discharged Army veterans, what can possibly justify this? I had hoped for a troop reduction, NOW. All this about transferring power to the new "government of Iraq?" Sure. Well, they better not have jurisdiction over U.S. troops and we had better plan on getting out. When this first started it was "We will WITHDRAW and hand over power to the government of Iraq, but what happened to the WITHDRAW part? We will never solve the problems of the millenniums in the Middle East. Are we hurting our own security by sending troops to Iraq? I think so.

Bamboozled..."The play's the thing..."

Astounding film. I use the word FILM because Spike Lee deserves all the Oscars he can lug home and yet - where are they? A nomination for "Do the Right Thing" for Best Original Screenplay, and a nomination for Best Documentary for "4 Little girls". Golden Globes - nominations for Directing and screenplay. Yet no winners in these two prestigious venues. I can only compare Spike Lee to Woody Allen for genius in direction and writing. They are the two directors who will still be remembered far into the future as American film greats.

"Bamboozled" got such mixed reviews. I think that's because it is uncomfortable for everyone, and yet it is a story about greed, human failings, injustice and the wish of every human to be taken at his own value as an individual. I knew that the end could not be pretty, and I cried because of the death of the innocent Manray. Used and thrown out by the people who had only one idea of his personhood, and then killed by violence in the most terrifying way, starting a chain of violence ending in tragedy for all the main participants.

Unfortunately, I think the worst indictment the film makes is of the whole television thing. Television exists ONLY to sell product, and whatever that takes is seemingly O.K., and has caused the gradual eroding of what we are willing to allow into our homes. The racist, horrifying, dehumanizing picture of how the media (and Spike Lee suggests we all have internalized these concepts) and its minions are willing to use and abuse the African American Community rang true to me, and all those critics who thought it was too far out, too over the edge; perhaps they missed the art form the movie took, the "Show is the show", the poetry in film. "The play is the thing" and as in Shakespeare, so in the work of Spike Lee.

Email...what's the big deal?

O.K....so I have several email addresses. Who doesn't these days. Who needs the massive storage. One day you will have to clean that baby out and save the ones you want, so keep it clean now! I mean 1 GIG? I am drawn to try Gmail, but even though I got the invite, I am not really excited. Oh, at first I thought, "Why not?" but then I realized I already had a really great account at Fastmail, and then there is Yahoo, so because both of these are great, and I use them a lot, and I actually PAID for Fastmail, and then bought extra storage, well, nothing more is needed. My work email is the SPAMMYyest thing out there. No SPAM control at all, and it's Outlook - what more need be said. But as to Yahoo, they have upped the storage, and overall they have been the most reliable and have had the most uptime of all the accounts I have used for the last ten years. And I got my account that is now Yahoo about ten years ago. WOW, how time flies. But if you need an account, why not try Gmail? Everyone does need more than one so that you can POP the mail when your main server is on the blink, so give it a whirl.

Topper and modern life

Having almost finished reading Thorne Smith's "Topper", I can say that the whole message of the book is that modern life has smothered many a fine soul. Written in 1926, it resonates just as much in 2004, except that perhaps we have a finer sense of the eventual mess alcohol and fast driving brings, but then again, maybe not. Through the ghosts of George and Marian Kirby, Topper is introduced to wild living and breaks out just a bit from the deadening pace of his ritualized suburban life, each day of which he can recite from memory as well as in advance: meals planned by the day of the week, and all appearances to be carefully maintained.

Of course most of us have seen the movie, and the casting of Cary Grant and Constance Bennett couldn't have been better. The DVD, released in Feb. 2004, is excellent. The book is different than the movie, mainly in the transfer of the action in several scenes to other settings from those in the book. I don't know why, but really, the movie does an excellent job of capturing both the absurdly confused state Mr. Topper is in after seeing the Kirby's, and the ambiance of the whole story. I love the movie, and now I love the book. Just a wee bit dated, but still a romp.

Interesting note: Thorne Smith is credited with creating the "modern ghost", and with the general pop culture status of ghosts in movies such as "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", "Heaven Can Wait", and even "Ghost". That last sentence is taken from the blurb on the back cover of the Modern Library paperback edition, published in 1999. Look for it. Read it.