Letters to Holly

Friday, June 23

Star Trek stuff

No update yesterday as I was swamped in work meetings all day. I learned my high school chum Esther had a baby, her first. A boy. My other pal from that time, Rebecca, is due to get married next June. You might remember Esther and her family from my wedding; she was the photography wrangler, making sure we got all the pictures we wanted.

After work, I ran my frustrations out with a good session at the gym. Our buddies Travis and Kathy are celebrateing their fifth anniversary tonight at a German restaurant in Hendersonville, and we're invited along. I haven't had real German food before, and I'm eager for the nosh.

Your Sis and I have made a recent habit of watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation," only because we hit a string of decent episodes. Once the channel loops back to the series' first seasons, we'll bail; those early ones are embarrassing to watch as the producers didn't have a strong grasp of the series. We did end the night on a strangely dumb episode built around a murder mystery; we noted the flaws in the logic and the avoidance of simple regular show elements that could have solved the matter quickly. For instance, how do you perform an autopsy on an alien without cutting him open? Move him using the transporter. It employs a diagnostic and quarantine for foreign particles. How can you tell who was in the room with a dead person? Ask the ship's ever-vigilant computer. Also, Whoopi Goldberg's character doesn't hold up well. She's too similar to the counselor empath, and that hat will never look anything other than absurd. Credit the regular cast for holding up their end while working with her. She's an Oscar-winner and a born performer wheras the NG cast didn't have much oncamera experience.

Picture of the Day
Apparently a real poster. Can't say it's all that effective.



In the news
Federal agents captured a group in Florida who were planning attacks there and in Chicago. Details are still coming in.

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A casting rumor says the Star Trek movie reboot might get Matt Damon for Kirk. This idea would be more mind-blowing had Your Sis and I not already picked him last year. We decided to recast the original crew for a new film, and we came up with this:

Matt Damon as Kirk
Denzel Washington as Spock
Gary Senise as Bones
Lucy Liu as Sulu
Angela Bassett as Uhuru.
Mandy Patinkin as Scotty
Famke Jansen as Chekov, based on her accent in Goldeneye. I dunno about changing the gender of two bridge crewmembers. I say they can get any current male teen heartthrob for the role.

We're also working on recasting Star Wars.

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Ebert doesn't like Adam Sandler's Click

Wednesday, June 21

Man Eats Fish, Lives to Tell

I ran again at the gym yesterday and was worn out as can be. I cooled down, drove to the gas station, filled the tank, drove home, stripped, showered, dressed and still was breathing heavy when I sat down.

Your Sis broiled halibut last night, and it was a winner. As you know, I'm new to this notion of eating from the water. She used a marinade with lime and jalapeno. Not bad at all.

For the record:
Baked salmon = good.
Halibut = good.
Crab soup = bitchin'.
Lemon shrimp = ambrosia.
Trout = the pain, oh the pain.

I feel a bit weird this morning, but I'm not willing to ascribe that to the fish or the exercise.

Picture of the Day
It's Mars.


In the news
I haven't talked about Iraq in a while, because I've tried to determine what I think about it. I mean, I've known from the get-go that our invasion and occupation was a show of strength. And it diverted our focus from Afgahnistan and Pakistan where the terrorists where holed up. But last week gave us the good news of Al-Zarqawi's death and bad news of the deaths of two U.S. soldiers. It also gave us more bombings, Japan's plan to withdraw their troops, and the political grandstanding over our own timetable to leave. In other words, Iraq is a fucking mess, and we're doing ourselves no favors by braving the turmoil. The only reason we're staying is to spook Iran and spare the GOP any Democrat told-ya-so's this close to rthe midterm elections. Al Qaeda is growing in Somalia, we're still fighting a war in Afghanistan, and North Korea reminds us again that they are bugnuts. Iraq is a bad habit we need to kick so we can focus on stuff that might actually affect our security.

Tuesday, June 20

Secrets of Shakespeare

The Brevard Friends of the Library sponsored a lecture on Shakespeare by a traveling English professor. He spoke about 2 years ago on the history of the English langauge. We got to the new library building about 20 minutes early and found a packed parking lot. Inside the lecture room was even more crowdeder. About 300 old people and the two of us showed up. Turns out, this was also the first meeting of the Friends of the Library Club in this new building. We didn't know the group was holding the event.

When we entered the room, a man hawking tickets asked if we were Friends of the Library. I, not knowing the group's name, told him I had a card. To me, that says I'm right chummy with the place. No, he said, that's not good enough. You can't be involved unless you're a Friend of the Library, he says. I take this to mean I can't see the lecture and get a bit miffed. Then he explains only Friends can join in the raffle for a gift basket. No, I told him, I don't want that basket (it's sitting right there and looks like it's filled with bath soap). I just wanna hear the guy. He then tries to sell me on joining the group, but his initial comments put me off of that. And if we had joined, I suspect we would be the only two younger than 50 in the group. Seriously, the place was jam packed with senior citizens. The event started with some club business and a rambling speech by the outgoing president. I started to worry that tthe affair would stretch too long and we would miss our wrestling. We have our priorities.

But the lecture was quick, fun, and a little disappointing. What was billed as "How William Became Shakespeare" was more about the Globe Theatre's influence on our language and customs. He told us these facts:

1) Because the Globe Theatre was in the middle of England's ghetto, the ushers only carried tiny boxes to collect the admission price (four pennies). They would constantly trade out full boxes for emtpy ones in a room behind the stage. This was called the box office. That's where the name comes from.

2) The concession stand move inside the theatre to avoid competition with the local businesses. Then they could charge whatever they wanted. They sold oranges, meat pies and tomatoes. But no one ate tomatoes; they were for throwing. If a play didn't get good within 15 minutes, the audience would chuck them at the worst actor.

3) The groundlings only paid a penny for the show, but that got them inside and in the front rows, touching the stage and standing (not sitting) for three hours. They were so stupid and unsophisticated that they would gape at the plays and drool on the stage where they stood. One actor's diary notes he was afraid of slipping in their puddles. Because actor's were very superstitious, they wouldn't wish each other good luck. Instead they would say words to the effect that "I hope you're so good that the groundlings are so immersed that they drool all over the stage, and you slip and break your leg." This is where we get "break a leg."

4) Because Shakespeare wrote for the uneducated, paying audiences, he started each play with a bang and made the plots simple to follow. For instance, King Lear is about a king and his three daughters -- two evil, one good. The youngest is the good one, a device taken from fairy tales, which William knew the groundlings would remember from childhood.

5) All his tragedies can be summed up wby the first two lines of "Humpty Dumpty." Overachieving people put themselves in a position of peril and tumble to their deaths.

6) He then listed a clutch of phrases used in everyday language that all come from Shakespeare.

It lasted maybe 45 minutes, and we didn't miss one minute of wrestling. Culture abounds!

Moving Picture of the Day
A fascinating look at how special effects were used to manipulate Marlon Brando's face for the new Superman film.

Monday, June 19

We Shop

We caught Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Friday. It's tremendous fun, a smartass noir film. It just came out on DVD. It owes a lot to the Pulp Fiction style but it's cool and jazzier. Val Kilmer steals the show with every line.

We had Saturday lunch with your parents and then stayed in Asheville. Your dad offered to buy us a freezer as a family tradition to newlyweds. Upon looking at freezers in Best Buy, we realized that we don't really need a freezer, and for a few hundred dollars more, we could get a new fridge with an adequate freezer compartment. Also, we are leaning toward a flat-screen TV. The TV I brought to the marriage is just fine, but our couch time is expanding, and we'd like a snazzy screen to watch our TV. Not HD. We don't need that. Nor a speaker system. Just a sharper picture. We bought some patio chairs in hopes we'll entertain during the summer. We could only find two nice ones at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Lowe's offered only high end items. We may buy a bench from them, though.

We then hit the Asheville Mall and bought a lot of clothes. We like Old Navy (t-shirts are dirt cheap), and I got a denim jacket to satisfy Your Sister's John Cougar Mellancamp fetish. We also picked up some items in Eddie Bauer. It was 8:30 by this time, and we were dead tired. We returned hom to watch the U.S./Italy World Cup game. Brutal. We still haven't scored a goal by ourselves, but Italy couldn't beat us with a 10-to-9 player advantage. I don't know how people can knock soccer. I've seen so very little of it, but I could wtch every World Cup game. It flies by, and it's immediately interesting. My grasp of the rules is shaky (that offsides rule seems suspect), butthe game is nowhere near as intimidating as football to learn.

On Sunday, we shopped again for patio chairs and found some nice ones in Target. Not too nice, but good enough for our crowd. We returned home to watch Brazil beat Australia in a solid game. And we capped the night with Napoleon Dynamite. It's boring. I laughed out loud for the first ten minutes, and then it ran out of funny. We stopped it maybe 40 minutes in (Trish accepted his invitation to the dance, click.) Now I worry that Nacho Libre, made by the same director, will miss the mark. It's a luchadore comedy; it's right up my alley.

I've made some progress in the Star Wars drawing and may have it finished by summer. Still can't decid on pencils vs. inks. Alsi, I started The Tempest. I had no idea it was this short a play. Also, the obligatory comic relief scene is still funny; I never find that to be the case in most Shakespeare.

Picture of the Day

A cool Fanta ad.