Posted by barb on May 6, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
While I enjoyed AI, I felt that it should have ended about 20 minutes before it actually did. However, Hollywood seems to have to add a happy ending to just about everything.
In the near future, the polar ice caps have melted, causing the costal cities to flood, and resources have become scarce. The government responds by regulating the number of children born — couples need a license to conceive a child. Monica and Henry had their child, but Jake is in cyrogenic suspension due to some kind of illness. The doctor’s tell them that they must move on — it may be beyond science to revive their son.
Henry’s company deals in mechas — mechanical humans who are built to serve human’s needs. They have developed a prototype mecha that can love. A child. But, for the protection of the “adopting parents” this mecha’s love can only be imprinted on one parent, and that love will last forever. If the parents decide to get rid of this “child”, he must be brought back to the manufacturer to be destroyed.
Henry and Monica are trusted with one of the first versions of David. After taking some time to get used to the idea, Monica has David imprint his love on her. Of course, shortly there after, Jake’s condition becomes curable, and he comes home. It becomes clear that David is a danger to Jake, not on purpose, but because he just doesn’t understand. Monica drives him back to the manufacturer, but is unable to let him be destroyed. David runs, with a “super Teddy” as his only friend.
From here, David begins a quest to become a real boy — sparked by hearing Monica read Pinnochio to Jake and him.
Not bad. However, the “happy” ending was just too contrived for my taste.
Posted by barb on May 4, 2003 in
Books by Diana Marcellas
The shari’a were an ancient race, but when the Allemanii came to live in their lands, the peace only lasted 80 years. Now, several hundred years later, the shari’a are nearly extinct, believed by some Allemanii to be merely a myth of a long-ago era.
Brierley is a young shari’a witch living in Yarvannet. She’s a healer living a quiet life, trying not to bring attention to herself. She knows that if she is found out, her days will be numbered. Her secret, however, comes out when she saves the life of a noblewoman. The Earl of Yarvannet feels obligated to protect Brierley from the shari’a laws, since she could hardly be seen as evil.
This launches her on a quest to find other shari’a, her ancient lands, and lands her in love.
Wow! I went into this book expecting to enjoy it, but I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I did. The writing style took me a chapter to get into, but I must agree with the quote on the book’s cover from Morgan Llywelyn that the writing is often lyrical. I’ve never thought that about a sf book before. I’m looking forward to the second book, The Sea Lark’s Song.
Posted by barb on May 4, 2003 in
Concerts,
Movies Andrew introduced me to Hesperus shortly after we started dating. In fact, the first fall we were together, he bought a season subscription for their local concerts. I’ve enjoyed all of the concerts we have attended (though I keep missing the Christmas, Dancing Day, concert). Hesperus performs early music (i.e. Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque) on instruments from the period (or reproductions of period instruments).
The concert today was a new score they had arranged for the 1922 silent film version of Robin Hood. They had chosen music from the time of the Robin Hood legends, and performed the score while screening the film. The music, obviously, was quite appropriate, though I remember thinking once that the hunting song they chose was a bit weird for the goings-on on the screen. The film was a lot of fun, though the “prologue” seemed to take up half of the film. In fact, we didn’t get to King Richard (the lion-hearted) leading his men off to the Crusades for about an hour. The “Robin Hood” part of the film took up only the last 45 minutes or so.
Posted by barb on May 3, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
While I’m certain I haven’t seen this version of The Importance of Being Ernest before, I’m sure I’ve either seen another version or actually read the book. I don’t think I read the book, because I remember another section of my English class reading it, while my section read something else. I also can’t remember having seen a version before. Perhaps there is another movie out there based on the story?
Anyway, it was a fun 2-hour diversion. Two men each have a second personality, each with the name Ernest. Jack uses his “brother” Ernest, who has fallen into some bad times, to escape his country house and got to the city as another person. Algy uses his make-believe invalid friend, Mr. Bunberry, to escape the city (and his aunt). But Jack’s Ernest becomes engaged to Cecily, and Algy pretends to be Jack’s brother Ernest come to visit Jack’s country home.
Fun movie.
Posted by barb on May 1, 2003 in
Random Thoughts When I was in first grade, my Mom told me about the May Day tradition of making up baskets full of goodie. leaving them on the doorstep of friends, and trying to get away without being seen. She didn’t tell me about the rest of the tradition. My friend Corky knew the rest of the tradition, though.
It must have been 1978 when Mom told me about the May Day tradition of May Baskets. That year, on May Day, I made little baskets out of construction paper. Mom and I went to the store and bought a couple packages of candy, and I dolled them out between my homemade baskets. The memory of who I made baskets for has faded — certainly there was one for Gretchen and one for Debbie (two of my best friends) — the one person I remember, though, was Corky. He was my one friend who happened to be a boy.
When I had all my baskets made up, Mom drove me from house to house to deliver the baskets. All of the other deliveries were uneventful. I left each basket on the doorstep, rung the doorbell, and ran behind a nearby tree or bush. When the coast was clear, I went back to the car, and Mom would drive me to the next stop.
Corky’s basket was the last one I delivered. I remember his house being on a bit of a hill, with the road at the bottom. I trudged up the hill, left the basket on the doorstep, and ran around the side of the house. Just like all of the other deliveries. Except this time, I heard Corky coming around the house, too. I frantically looked around for a better place to hide, but I didn’t see anywhere — not that I could get to without completely exposing myself. Mom was trying to get me to run down to the car, and make an escape that way, but I didn’t see her. I was done for. He was going to find me.
I ran when I saw him round the corner, but I had nowhere to go (going to the car didn’t occur to me for some reason). Plus I’m not, nor ever have been, much of a runner. It was easy for him to catch me.
And when he did catch me? He kissed me! My first kiss.
I must admit that the kiss wasn’t entirely welcome. Mom forgot to tell me that May Baskets were really part of a courting ritual, and that a young man was expected to kiss the lass who left him the basket, if he could catch her. I’m sure Mom thought that it was very precious. I, however, was not the least bit amused.
Posted by barb on Apr 30, 2003 in
Saxophone This was my second lesson out of the new book, Alto Saxophone Student by Fred Weber in collaboration with Willis Coggins. I must say I quite like the book. It’s very structured — each page can be divided up into a warm up, a quick lesson and a piece or two that use the new information/notes/scale/etc. The pieces are more classical than the other book I was using (The Complete Saxophone Player). I liked the other book, but it was structured more for self-teaching.
Before my lesson, Andrew and I looked at the sheet music, because I had a coupon for 20% off. I found a great book of 50’s songs, so I’ll probably pick one or two out of that book to work on this week. We also got me a spiffy new, soft-sided case for my sax. Yay! I hated the old one it came with — it was original, and the sax was made in the 1920’s, so you can imagine how stylish it was.
One other interesting thing. Fred expressed some amazement that Rudy (the adult student with a lesson right before mine) and I were doing so well. I thought maybe he was trying to say that we just didn’t look like we could do it, so I was prepared to be offended. But he went on to explain that he’s had many adult students, and most of them stick with it for about a month before deciding that they just don’t have the time or patience for it. So the amazement is more that Rudy and I have been at it now for four months.
Posted by barb on Apr 29, 2003 in
Random Thoughts I dragged Andrew down to Arlington to get a free cone at Ben & Jerry’s . I suppose we spent more on the Metro ride and Metro parking than we would have spent on a cone, but I wanted my Chunky Monkey .
It wasn’t a completely wasted trip, either. We started with dinner at Big Bowl — I had the kung pao tofu (which should not be eaten the night before an annual ob-gyn exam, as I found out the hard way last year). When we walked by the B&J’s on the way to Big Bowl, the line wasn’t long — just to the door of the shop. After dinner, the line was out the door, but it turned out to move quite fast — we were happily licking our ice cream cones within five or ten minutes. Yum!
Posted by barb on Apr 29, 2003 in
Random Thoughts I had my first visit to the dentist in over 7 years in January of this year. The only thing they will do for new patients, in all of the offices I called, is get a set of X-rays and assess what needs to come next. I only had two cavities, though I also needed to have my wisdom teeth removed and I need a night guard (for nocturnal teeth grinding). Today was my first visit — my next is scheduled for July. (Curse me for choosing the “HMO”-like plan. It takes three months to see anyone. I lucked out with my January appointment, because they had someone cancel just before I called for my appointment.)
The practitioner and the dentists in Birmingham City Centre did say that I didn’t have too much plaque. Weird. It’s been seven years, so it’s amazing he’d say something like that. I was expecting excessive bitching over my long absence. Oh well. Actually, that reminded me that when I was still on my Mom’s health insurance, I had a hygienist tell me the same thing, and they promptly changed me to cleanings every 9 months instead of 6. I figured that they just wanted to see me less frequently. I really appreciate Frisco, TX orthodontists, since I’d previously had trouble with that same dentist — they were very skimpy with the novocain, and I started feeling the drilling before he was done (it was only one cavity, too, so not like I was having a string of them done). My parents had experienced the same thing, so it wasn’t just an aberration. Anyway, despite the pain, I decided not to say anything, because I figured he was almost done drilling, and I just wanted to get out of there.
Posted by barb on Apr 28, 2003 in
Biking It was beautiful weather this afternoon, so I decided to get on my bike with my PhD thesis proposal and stacks of AGN variability papers and head up to Starbuck’s. I know it’s a yuppie kind of place, but they have a very yummy frozen chai drink that I just can’t resist. Plus it’s the closest place that has outside seating (besides Famous Dave’s, but as a vegetarian, that just doesn’t work for me).
The ploy worked — I went through the first several pages of crap I’ve pieced together from other proposals and papers, and made it sound more coherent. This may not sound like much, but I’ve been trying to work on this proposal for three weeks now, without much success.
However, after I’d been working for about half an hour, a smiling young man (early 20s, I’d guess) dressed in black pants and a white button-down shirt came over to my table and struck up a conversation. I already knew that he was a Mormon (is that the same as Seventh Day Adventist?, which I think is what his shirt said), because I’d heard him and his friend talking with another man at a nearby table. I’ll admit that I wasn’t very polite at first (though I am from the midwest, so my idea of “not too polite” is still fairly polite by East Coast standards). I don’t want someone coming up to me, and witnessing to me cold. It’s different if I was an acquaintance who showed some interest in their religion, but to just come up to me on the street? Or knock on my door? No.
Anyway, we discussed my thesis a little, and his friend came over. They asked if I knew what they were, and I said yes, in fact I know a mormon at work. So they asked if I’d talked about their religion much with this friend at work, and I said no, since he knew that I just wasn’t interested. I must give them some credit at this point. They didn’t pursue that line any further. Instead they asked if they could sing me a song, and then be on their way. Why the hell not? So they sang “Children of God” to me, and they did a nice job of it, too.
Okay, so they weren’t too bad. The thing I hate most, though, is their fake smile. I know it’s fake. I know that they want me to think that they smile all the time because they are living in the love of God, but I know that it’s just an act. This friend I have at work also has that fake smile. I’ve seen him genuinely smile, and it blows the fake one away. These two young men who accosted me at Starbuck’s had the fake smile down. But I knew better.
But the thing I’m going to remember most from the encounter, is that the first young man had a spot of white in the corner of his mouth. I found it absolutely captivating. I know this is not what they want me to remember, but I can’t help it. I wonder if it was toothpaste that he just didn’t wipe off his face. Or maybe it was a bit of spit that had dried there. Maybe he was rabid…
Posted by barb on Apr 26, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
As Andrew pointed out, there are no real likable characters in this. I can see that someone might take pity on Phuong, but I had trouble feeling too much sympathy. Brendan Fraser plays a young American, Alden Pyle, new to Saigon during the war in 1952. He seems to be an idealistic aid worker. He becomes friends with a London Times correspondent, Thomas Fowler, played by Michael Caine. Fowler has a Vietnamese lover, Phuong, whom he can’t marry because his wife, in London, will not allow it (due to her religion). Pyle and Caine end up vying for her love in the backdrop of the politics of Vietnam.