07.01.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:29 pm by mysterio
There are plenty of fictional societies in cinema, but the following could possibly work as a real life alternative to our current systems.
SUMMERISLE ISLAND IN THE FILM, THE WICKER MAN (ORIGINAL)
Why It’s Great:
An island of hot pagan chicks literally cavorting around. Heavy on the Morris Dancing.They seem self-contained and are having an absolute blast. Imagine a Renaissance festival going on twenty four seven where nobody hassles you and nobody is rude.
The villagers seem to have such a rich life, that so-called amenities such as television aren’t even wanted. Making Papier-mâché masks is probably better for kids than watching dumb re-runs of Who’s The Boss?
But the greatest reason that this society is so awesome: Britt Ekland*. Now imagine an entire island of Britt Eklands running around in peasant dresses. It really is an utopia.
* Britt Ekland is so hot, she damned near killed Peter Sellers, in bed. That’s right. She did him so hard, it gave him a heart attack. You think about that, dear reader.
Downside:
That once-a-year human sacrifice thing is definitely a downer. But even that isn’t too bad. In the movie, the so-called bad guys picked the straightest, squarest, Tory-voting guy around to put in the Wicker Man and burn alive. Officer Howie has a naked Britt Ekland outside his door just asking for it and doesn’t know what to do. He deserved to be immolated in an ancient pagan rite for being such an uptight twit. Even as a kid I always sided with the Summerisle Villagers in this movie. Burn, baby burn!
THE ‘FREEDOM SCHOOL’ IN BILLY JACK
Why It’s Great:
The movie Billy Jack is more famous for the title character beating up on redneck townfolk, but the commune/school that they live on seems real cool too. The “Freedom School” exhibits all the utopian ideals of the late 60s. “The only rule is that there are no rules. Instead of worrying about boring stuff like cell mitosis, the Magna Carta and the Periodic Table, Freedom School kids run amok, smoking funny cigarettes and playing folk guitar.
Downside:
Making macrame’ is not a viable marketable skill in today’s job market. Everybody in the Freedom School are warm and nurturing, even Billy Jack is kind of nice, but the townsfolk suck and will throw flour at you if you’re not white.
FANTASY ISLAND
Why It’s Great:
A beautiful island paradise where every whim is fulfilled. All houses are either quaint cottages or mansions. Everyone rides around in these canopied go-carts. They don’t seem to litter there. Imagine a tropical island without stinging insects.
Downside:
Mr. Rourke wants you to live your fantasy but the price tag is something like a million dollars. If you have a million dollars, you don’t even NEED to go to Fantasy Island.
Also, Mr. Rourke always tells his employees, “Smiles everyone! Smiles!” This indicates that Fantasy Island is all artifice, much like Disney Land. These are fake smiles. The kind you purchase, and so it seems illusory. So, this might not be a very good basis for a society.
THE SHIRE IN LORD OF THE RINGS
Why It’s Great:
These folks are really laid back. They only farm to support their lavish celebrations and weekly Thanksgiving style feasts. Gluttony is not considered a vice in this community, in fact, it is encouraged. Hobbits typically live in ecologically friendly houses, that are dug out of the hillside.
Downside:
Nasty neighbors such as orcs and goblins can kill you. For a society like this to exist, people have to be of a cheerful nature, like hobbits, and most people don’t get excited about pulling up turnips.
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06.27.08
Posted in Music at 1:56 pm by mysterio
I hope your weekend is like an Abba song.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:40 am by mysterio
You want to see something really freaky? Of course you do.
Go to this webpage. I’m not sure what this is, it’s some kind of celebrity charity, gee aren’t we great people even with our conspicuous consumption lifestyles. If you read my blog, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing you won’t be interested in.
Go down aways…
Keep going…Past pictures of Elton John and people like that. That’s not the scary part, although that is pretty scary too.
Then you will see it. It is a thing of nightmares. You have been warned.
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06.20.08
Posted in Holidays, Uncategorized at 5:39 am by mysterio
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06.12.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:05 am by mysterio
I’ve been known to enjoy a glass or wine or two. Imagine my delight when I came across these clever wine glasses.
I know it’s wrong to be materialistic, but maybe Santa Claus will brings these to me!
Wrath, Greed, Pride, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Sloth
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06.07.08
Posted in Music at 8:34 am by mysterio
I saw The Cure last night. They were…fantastic! I’ve never been the biggest fan in the world, and kind of went to see them with my wife as a lark. They have won me over. They played non-stop for three hours. We had fantastic seats. They sounded perfect.
Robert Smith certainly has stuck to his guns as far as his look goes. He looks like he always does, black wrinkly clothes, a huge rat nest Edward Scissorhands haircut, and smudged Kohl makeup over his eyes. I’ve always thought him an unlikely rock star. He’s the reverse of David Lee Roth. There wasn’t much witty repartee with the audience. It was usually a sheepish, “Thanks” Looks embarrassed and overwhelmed. Brief fleeting smile. Back to saturnine persona. Plays another song. When he would on occasion simply walk over to Stage Right or Left people would go bezerk. I found myself screaming like a twelve year old girl when…when Robert walked over to our side of the stage a-and he, looked at us with detachment.
I have to admit it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen in my life.
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Posted in Movies at 6:31 am by mysterio
Joshua Glenn of the Boston Globe has an interesting article , probably tongue in cheek, about the possibility that Dr. Indiana Jones could be sympathetic to the Communists.
As can be expected, fans and critics have analyzed every single piece of dialogue of this movie. There are two eyebrow raising issues the article brings up.
When Indy is summarily fired, err..put on leave…indefinitely from his job as a tenured professor of Marshall College, he is asked what he will do. He says he will look into a job offer at the University of Leipzig. This would be 1957 and that would definitely be East Germany. Indy would have to defect to teach there!
The second reference the film brings up is after an exciting chase sequence between Soviet bad guys, Indiana winds up in the library and a student asks him a question. Always the professor, Indy wholeheartedly recommends V. Gordon Childe. During that era, Childe, who was a real person, was an unrepentant Marxist.
The second point is easier to refute than the first. Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. was above all else a scholar. Certainly he can knock you out with a well-placed haymaker, but he used his intellect above his athleticism. Dr. Jones would not have a problem recommending V. Gordon Childe because he believed that is where the best information would be.
A modern example would be if someone wanted to study linguistics. Somewhere along the way, a person’s intellectual voyage would have them run into the works of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is more publicly famous for his politics, than his real expertise, which is linguistics. If you’ve never read his political tracts, let me distill his views down to their essence. USA and Israel: BAD. Hezbollah: GOOD. I’m not sure I would even want to be in the same room with Chomsky, but if I were to study linguistics, you can rest assured I would study him.
I don’t know why Indy would want to teach in East Germany. Certainly he is smart enough to realize that he would be hassled and spied on by the East German secret police, the Stasi. Also, when Col. Dr. Irina Spalko asks him if he has any last words, Indy doesn’t spout off any thing like, “Workers of the world unite!” He says, “I like Ike!” This means that Indy’s dying words were for the support of a Republican president, hardly the words of a communist or even someone sympathetic to Marxism.
I’m sure that Dr. Jones would vote for someone like President Eisenhower. In those days, the Democrats were a bunch of racist, corrupt thugs. Imagine a political machine composed of sweating bureaucrats in white Colonel Sanders suits, who all spoke like the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn. Ah say, ah say! We’s gotta continue the nobel insta-TOO-shun of seg-gra-gay-SHUN tuh pru-tect the in-nuh-sunt flow-uh of Uh-mer-i-cuh’s white wimmen! Yeah, it’s no fucking wonder Indy would vote Republican.
I think our National Secrets are safe with Dr. Jones. Not because he was a Colonel in the Office of Strategic Services and later the Central Intelligence Agency. Indy shows his true mettle by resisting Irina Spalko. I know that if I was bound and hand cuffed to a chair and Col. Spalko was in my face, with eyes so blue, I first thought they were a special effect-I would start blabbing anything she wanted to know.
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06.03.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:53 am by mysterio
I read with mixed sadness and amusement that the designer of the Pringles potato chip can died this week and left instructions that his ashes be buried in the can of his creation.
I don’t eat them that often, but I’ve always loved Pringles. When I was a child, my dad moved us all to Isfahan, Iran. It was tantamount to living in Oz and then having to move to dusty old Kansas. My memories of Iran are in monochromatic shades of tan, and Isfahan is one of the prettier places in Iran. When we finally moved back to America, we stayed in Holland for awhile, and everything was so colorful, that I thought Amsterdam was a kind of amusement park. My mother always likes to tell the story that when we arrived in Iran, I turned to her and asked in earnest, “Mama, are we on the moon?”
Anyway, when I was in Iran, my sister would talk about these great potato chips that they had in America called Pringles. My sister’s description fascinated me. They were stacked in a tube! Obviously in the Third World, this is not something you can go down to the store and buy. I bugged my mom and talked about how much I wanted to try them someday that my grandparents somehow shipped two tubes of them to Iran.
We opened them up, one tube for Lisa, one tube for me. Unfortunately, the long voyage had reduced them to yellow potato chip sand. But a few of the chips were still nested together, by some process that still fascinates me to this day. So I don’t remember any tears of disappointment that day.
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