I had intended to address the matter of my blog-neglect with some bit of unfunniness. Perhaps a Top Ten List of Things Even More Neglected Than This Blog. I could say "O.J.'s search for the real killer" and "the Vice President's hunter safety certification," and it would be cute and mock-serious. Then it occurred to me that I could also say, more earnestly, "my writing life" and "my reading life" and "my movie-watching life." Then the joke isn't even unfunny any more.
Just too busy, or too scattered, or too whatever. I do take it, though, as a real sign of wellness when I'm making time for these things that are good for me-- like deliberate expression-- and a sign of the lack thereof when my habits slacken. This is all just to say that if you still point your browser in this direction and have not yet unbookmarked this, I'm appreciative and intend to restart better habits in updating.
In other news, I'm advanced of age. Thirty-five as of Monday. I celebrated by attending a meeting until ten-thirty. I figure that this birthday, all things considered, still beat the year I turned fourteen and stepped on a sewing needle in my bare feet while getting ready for school. There wasn't even any pleasure in missing school when the time was spent in the ER having them dig the half that was lodged in my foot out.
Of course this birthday was better; Ali threw me a great party on the 19th and I enjoyed the company of family and friends.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Two Rhetorical Questions
First, who are all these people out there who are attempting to take things away from athletes? Is there some sort of concerted theft of identity or accomplishment that we can stop? They seem so concerned with achieving things that no one can take away from them. I would like them to not be worried about this.
Second, I remember the moment when I heard about the story that forms the narrative action of When a Stranger Calls. I was standing in the front yard of the house of a neighbor, right in front of their wood-slat fence, and my younger sister's classmate laid it all out to me with a flair for the dramatic that was precocious for someone who was no more than eleven. I was probably twelve, and I still remember how effective the punchline comes across. It was represented to me to be a movie, but with the addendum that it had really happened somewhere, so the story came to occupy that hazy place in childhood nightmares where even the most outlandish fiction is just standing in for the things that have actually happened in some vague place one county over.
Maybe it wouldn't be possible to recreate that sort of experiential terror on today's twelve year-olds. It's too easy to snopes something and obtain one of many other unreliable sources of authority which can confirm or deny the actual occurrence of something that could have inspired something. Nevertheless, I had no idea they were remaking the film, and while I reflexively think little of these kinds of projects, it seemed to me that for a new generation of teens who aren't familiar with the older film, a well-done, non-gory remake might be a film experience worth having. You can remake a film like this because you can have some confidence that for many of the members of the new audience, the ending will be unknown to them. And because they don't care to read reviews of the films they see before they see them, it can remain unknown for a sizable number of kids.
Of course, it never occurred to me that they might give away the ending, perhaps the best urban legendary twist ending in post-70s American B-moviedom, in a TV teaser. That did not occur to me. And the fact that it didn't strike any of the film's marketing people as something that might want to be kept out of the advertising, what does that say about them? And about us?
Second, I remember the moment when I heard about the story that forms the narrative action of When a Stranger Calls. I was standing in the front yard of the house of a neighbor, right in front of their wood-slat fence, and my younger sister's classmate laid it all out to me with a flair for the dramatic that was precocious for someone who was no more than eleven. I was probably twelve, and I still remember how effective the punchline comes across. It was represented to me to be a movie, but with the addendum that it had really happened somewhere, so the story came to occupy that hazy place in childhood nightmares where even the most outlandish fiction is just standing in for the things that have actually happened in some vague place one county over.
Maybe it wouldn't be possible to recreate that sort of experiential terror on today's twelve year-olds. It's too easy to snopes something and obtain one of many other unreliable sources of authority which can confirm or deny the actual occurrence of something that could have inspired something. Nevertheless, I had no idea they were remaking the film, and while I reflexively think little of these kinds of projects, it seemed to me that for a new generation of teens who aren't familiar with the older film, a well-done, non-gory remake might be a film experience worth having. You can remake a film like this because you can have some confidence that for many of the members of the new audience, the ending will be unknown to them. And because they don't care to read reviews of the films they see before they see them, it can remain unknown for a sizable number of kids.
Of course, it never occurred to me that they might give away the ending, perhaps the best urban legendary twist ending in post-70s American B-moviedom, in a TV teaser. That did not occur to me. And the fact that it didn't strike any of the film's marketing people as something that might want to be kept out of the advertising, what does that say about them? And about us?
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