- Inception was very, very good.
- Black Dynamite was very, very good. It's like Lost Skeleton of Cadavra but with a higher budget and for a different genre. An absolutely spot-on... parody? Homage? Affectionate spoof?
- The Expendables was pretty disappointing. If it was meant to be to 80's action films what Black Dynamite is to 70's blaxploitation films, I think it failed. It was no A-Team, anyway.
- Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant was really unexpectedly good. Did that even make the theaters? I remember seeing a preview for it and then bang, it was in the Netflix queue. A pity, I really liked it and hope they make a sequel.
- I do not recommend watching Inception, Franklyn and Re-Cycle within three days of each other either, and not just because I thought Re-Cycle had a pretty banal ending. You will start thinking disturbing thoughts about the nature of reality and end up not getting anything done.
Oh, and of course Uncle Baby Quinn and his cool pop were here for all-too-short a time on a motorcycle trip. We got up to SF to see the Asian Art Museum and the mandatory Fisherman's Wharf visit.
(the bottom picture is Quinn. Just in case of confusion).
I highly, highly recommend taking a ceramics expert with you on your visit to the Asian Art Museum. Quinn's Cool Pop made the visit about a million times more interesting (um, not that it's not an interesting museum. But having your own personal expert tour guide is great!)
And the picture-taking during all this activity raised a bunch of interesting questions thanks to my recent reading of Cognitive Surplus. At the Mountain Winery concert particularly, a sign said "No Professional Photography." What is professional these days, when literally anyone with an Internet connection has a "Publish" button?
That whole question might be another blog post, but I do highly recommend Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody, especially to those people who have read Blind Faith.*** I guarantee you will thoughtfully put the book down and say "Huh. Never thought about that," at least once.
* Motto: "Our wildlife is so full of mercury that you can tell the temperature by watching the snakes' heads bob up and down!"
** A very nice venue, and there's a restaurant up there that we'd like to try out. The view is amazing.
*** Well, at least if you found Blind Faith disturbing and dystopic, and want to be reassured of the good side of modern information technology.
So Cenobyte with her writeyness has mentioned this, of course, but a couple of weekends ago was the wedding of my old and dear friend to a lovely woman who I hope will become an old and dear friend. It was a blend of Vedic, Catholic and secular traditions, which provided a constant low-level cognitive dissonance that was really enjoyable. Ganesh was invoked and the sacred fire was kindled under the benevolent gaze of the Christ. I had no idea that Catholics were so ecumenical.* And of course Cenobyte and I still share a brain.**
The reception was in the basement of the Post Office.*** As I believe I said at the time, if someone had told me 28 years ago at a D&D game that one day, I'd be in the basement of the Post Office celebrating the DM marrying a supermodel ninja, I'm not sure I'd have believed it. But there we were, watching the father of the groom in full Highland fig (he had changed from his shalwar kameez), singing an Elvis song to a group of appreciative ladies in saris.
(our friends have the best weddings!)
We got to see many other friends too even though our visit was terribly short. On the bright side, we only had a few days exposure to the mosquitoes, which because of the warm, wet summer are particularly vicious. The event was two weeks ago and my legs still look like a bunch of Smurfs went on a hickey rampage. We've lost all our Saskatchewan-born instincts of self-preservation, as I realized when I paused outside the rental car to text Effigy that we were coming. Silly me.
Still, a great weekend!
* Not meant to be snarky, honestly. I really was pleasantly surprised. Apparently the Catholic Powers That Be, with the close reasoning that I associate with Jesuits, have carefully thought through how mixed marriages will be performed ("mixed" here being Catholic and non-Catholic, so a hard-shell-Baptist/Catholic wedding uses the same rules as a Hindu/Catholic wedding. This pleases me.) I gather the participants still have to be of different sexes, but baby steps.
** I wore a gray dress and decided it needed punching up a bit with a red handknit shawl. Completely independently, she wore a lovely red dress and decided to wear a gray handknit shawl. We looked like the backup singers. And she stole my shoes again!
*** Well, in a jazz club that's in the basement of the downtown building that used to be the main Post Office. To me it will always be the Post Office.
So there was much rejoicing. About the only cogent argument* I've heard is one that unelected judges should not overturn decisions that the majority of people have made. But the question I'd like to ask to that in turn is: Is an unelected judge overturning a majority decision ever right? I think that it is; that judges are supposed to protect the minority from the majority, because no one else can.
I seem to have lowered my writers' block a bit; I actually have a couple of other posts fermenting in my brain-juice. But this just seemed worthy of note.
ETA: A funny yet accurate summary of the debate is here
*Some religious book defines marriage differently? Irrelevant to the law. Marriages must be for producing children? Simply untrue. It's a slippery slope that will lead to paedophilia and bestiality? Demonstrably untrue, any more than giving women the vote led to hamsters and babies voting. It will degrade hetero marriages? Bewilderingly untrue. Children must be raised by one mother and one father? Untrue, with disturbing implications for the legal future of divorce and single parenting.
