Eat your vegetables

November 9th, 2008

[This post is participating in The Cooler's Politics and Movies blog-a-thon.]

I don’t know how my mom ever got me to watch the film 1776 in the first place. Probably it was by turning it on to watch it herself and relying on the hypnotic spell of the TV to pull me in. Ever since she did, I have spent a large part of my life trying — and failing, mostly — to persuade others to see it too. You see, the movie is almost impossible to describe without making it sound like “eat your vegetables” or “floss your teeth” or “do your homework” — something boring but essential because it’s good for you (shudder), even though it’s actually as entertaining a two hours as you’re ever likely to spend. Its educational value is just a nice little plus.

Here, I’ll show you what I mean:

1776 is the true story of how the Second Continental Congress, which at first opposed the idea of separating from Great Britain, eventually came to adopt the Declaration of Independence. And it’s a musical!

See? You couldn’t possibly want less to watch it now, could you? The fact that it’s a musical only seems to confirm that it’s a subject so dreary that it needs some added flavor, like oatmeal. Let me try again:

In 1776, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin persuade a reluctant Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, and a reluctant Congress to adopt it.

Ugh, that’s worse. Try this on for size:

Franklin.
Jefferson.
Adams.
They’re not just names in history books. They’re not just stodgy portraits, marble statues, or dry-as-dust lists of accomplishments. They were ordinary people like you and me. 1776 makes them accessible and shows how they achieved the impossible.

Oy. Clearly I’m trying too hard. Maybe if I concoct a modern high-impact movie trailer using scenes from the film and some dramatic narration…

            NARRATOR
      You know how it ends.

Close up on the new Declaration of
Independence as John Hancock adds his
distinctive signature.

            HOPKINS
      That's a pretty large signature,
      Johnny.

            HANCOCK
      So Fat George in London can read
      it without his glasses!

            NARRATOR
      But it almost didn't happen.

Congress in session.

            RUTLEDGE
      South Carolina will bury now and
      forever your dream of
      independence!

Congress in session.

            ADAMS
      They stopped our trade, seized our
      ships, blockaded our ports, burned
      our towns, and spilled our blood!

            NARRATOR
      In a world that doesn't know
      freedom...

Congress in session.

            DICKINSON
      I have no objections at all to
      being part of the greatest empire
      on earth!

Congress in session.

            RUTLEDGE
      Black slavery is our peculiar
      institution and a cherished way of
      life.

            NARRATOR
      ...a secret cabal...

Franklin indicates Jefferson, Adams, and
himself.

            FRANKLIN
          (singing)
      A farmer, a lawyer, and a sage!

            NARRATOR
      ...defies the mightiest army on
      earth...

Congress in session.

            THOMSON
          (reading a dispatch)
      "There can be no doubt that their
      destination is New York for to
      take and hold this city and the
      Hudson Valley beyond would serve
      to separate New England from the
      other colonies permitting both
      sections to be crushed in turn."

            NARRATOR
      ...and an even greater enemy:
      apathy...

Congress in session.

            HANCOCK
          (distractedly)
      General Washington will continue
      wording his dispatches as he sees
      fit, and I'm sure we all pray that
      he finds happier thoughts to
      convey in the near --
          (swats a fly)
      -- future.

Outside Congress.

            ADAMS
          (singing to the heavens)
      A second Flood, a simple famine,
      Plagues of locusts everywhere
      Or a cataclysmic earthquake
      I'd accept with some despair
      But no, you've sent us Congress!
      Good God, sir, was that fair?

            NARRATOR
      ...to attempt the impossible.

Franklin and Adams scheming outdoors.

            FRANKLIN
      No colony has ever broken from the
      parent stem in the history of the
      world!

            NARRATOR
      One man with a vision...

Congressional chamber, empty.

            ADAMS
          (singing)
      I see fireworks!
      I see the pageant and pomp and parade!
      I hear the bells ringing out!
      I hear the cannons roar!
      I see Americans, all Americans
      Free forevermore!

            NARRATOR
      ...one man with a quill...

Jefferson appears at his window and lets
a paper flutter down to Adams and
Franklin in the street below.

            ADAMS
      Franklin, look!  He's written
      something -- he's done it!
          (reads)
      "Dear Mr. Adams: I am taking my
      wife back to bed.  Kindly go away.
      Your obedient, T. Jefferson."

            FRANKLIN
          (admiringly)
      What, again?!

            NARRATOR
      ...and one man with the savvy to
      see it through...

Congress in session.

            FRANKLIN
      We've spawned a new race here --
      rougher, simpler, more violent,
      more enterprising, and less
      refined.  We're a new nationality,
      Mr. Dickinson.  We require a new
      nation.

            NARRATOR
      ...must overcome incredible
      odds...

Congress in session.

            ADAMS
      But it'll never be unanimous,
      dammit!

            DICKINSON
          (pleased)
      If you say so, Mr. Adams.

            NARRATOR
      ...their personal prejudices...

Franklin and Adams scheming outdoors.

            FRANKLIN
      Nobody listens to you.  You're
      obnoxious and disliked.

Hopkins and Franklin milling about in
the Congressional chamber.

            HOPKINS
      You are without a doubt a rogue, a
      rascal, a villain, a thief, a
      scoundrel, and a mean, dirty,
      stinking, sniveling, sneaking,
      pimping, pocket-picking, thrice
      double-damned, no good son of a
      bitch.

Outside Congress.

            JEFFERSON
          (singing)
      Oh, Mr. Adams, you are driving me
      to homicide!

            NARRATOR
      ...and their own weaknesses...

Adams and Jefferson in Jefferson's
apartment.

            ADAMS
      Do you man to say it's not
      finished?!

            JEFFERSON
      No, sir.  I mean to say it's not
      begun.

Adams and his wife.

            ADAMS
      I've always been dissatisfied, I
      know that.  But lately I find that
      I reek of discontentment.  It
      fills my throat and floods my
      brain.

Franklin and Adams in Congress.

            FRANKLIN
      What will posterity think we
      were -- demigods?

            NARRATOR
      ...to prove to the world...

Congress in session.

            ADAMS
      Certainly we require the aid of a
      powerful nation like France or
      Spain.

Congress in session.

            DICKINSON
      Mr. Jefferson, are you seriously
      suggesting that we publish a paper
      declaring to all the world that an
      illegal rebellion is, in reality,
      a legal one?

            NARRATOR
      ...that all men...

Adams and Franklin in the Congressional
chamber.

            FRANKLIN
      Whether you like it or not, they
      and the people they represent will
      be a part of the new country you'd
      hope to create!  Either start
      learning how to live with them or
      pack up and go home!

            NARRATOR
      ...are created equal.

Congress in session.

            FRANKLIN
      There's no backing out now.  If we
      don't hang together, we shall most
      assuredly hang separately!

Laughter.

            HANCOCK
      Gentlemen, forgive me if I don't
      join in the merriment, but if
      we're arrested now, my name is
      still the only one on the damn
      thing!

Tags:
Posted in movies, politics | 1 Comment »

Fit-ness

November 6th, 2008
Survival of the “Fit”test

A lower price wasn’t the Fit’s only advantage over the Prius. While car shopping I rented a Prius for a one-day extended test drive, ending up with three specific complaints:

  1. Visibility through the rear window is poor;
  2. The console’s large, animated engine-performance display is dangerously distracting;
  3. The keyless engine-start button is (a) unsafe with small children around but (b) too cool to disable with the child-safety lock.

More than a year ago I replaced my 1998 Honda Civic hatchback with a new Honda Fit. Fuel efficiency was a key decision criterion for me, and naturally I considered the Toyota Prius; but the Prius gets its best gas mileage in city driving, and at the time of my purchase most of my driving was on the highway, where the Fit’s efficiency was close to that of the Prius, at a much lower price.

I’ve been tracking my Fit’s fuel consumption on a spreadsheet for several months now and the trend is clear: its efficiency is consistently in the 35 MPG range. Nothing to sneeze at, especially given the dismal fuel economy of almost all other cars on the market; but disappointingly it falls short of the mileage I was getting with my Civic at the end, which occasionally exceeded 40 MPG — with the previous decade’s engine technology!

You can see the mileage I’m getting, fill-up-by-fill-up, in my Google Docs spreadsheet.

Posted in math, shopping | 1 Comment »

Shell game

November 5th, 2008

The United States of Bigotry — that’s us.

The nation was founded on bigotry: the Second Continental Congress refused to adopt Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence in 1776 until anti-slavery language was removed; and one war and eleven years later the Constitutional Convention declared a Negro to be three-fifths of a person for census-taking purposes — and for voting, zero-fifths. Our growing nation spent most of its first century internalizing these injustices. When after stealing entire lifetimes from one generation after another we finally got around to trying to fix the problem, it was too late: bigotry was in our DNA and couldn’t be purged without civil war and several more generations of discrimination and institutionalized racism.

Yesterday we elected to our highest office a man who, apart from being the best person for the job, is incidentally a member of that oppressed racial group, and it would appear we finally closed the door on that particular flavor of bigotry — though the job won’t be done until we nail a bunch of boards across that door, shove a chair under the doorknob, and stand permanently to one side with a raised baseball bat. However, in the very same instant we opened the door to a new kind of bigotry as three states outlawed gay marriage — and this after a presidential campaign in which one candidate scored political points by calling the other a Muslim. It’s as if bigotry can’t be ended, it can only be shifted from here to there like some sort of hateful shell game.

In California, where you might least expect a gay-marriage ban to succeed, where did its electoral support come from? In a stunning, epic, historic stroke of irony, exit polls show it came from the very demographic that was motivated by bigotry to turn out in greater numbers than ever before: black voters, who in their (justifiable) eagerness to overcome a legacy of discrimination passed the baton to a whole new class of victims.

Update (7 Nov 2008): My friend Bart points out that this exit polling result is being blown out of proportion to its reliability and may itself be the cause of further bigotry — perish the thought! See “War of the Words: Fear and Hate Behind Proposition 8” on Skepticblog.

Posted in politics | No Comments »

Words of prey

November 4th, 2008

I realize I’m a little late to the party but I had to write a few words about Birds of Prey, the short-lived TV series from 2002. I checked out the first few episodes over the weekend courtesy of Netflix after learning that my childhood playmate Dina Meyer starred in it as Batgirl. I hoped to discover it was kid-friendly and that I could show it to Jonah and Archer and then boast to them that I knew Batgirl.

Unfortunately, when Dina assured me it was kid-friendly, she must have meant young-adult friendly. Or maybe she just meant that it’s more kid-friendly than the Saw films, in which she also stars. At any rate it wasn’t age-appropriate for a four- and a six-year-old. But that’s not the only reason I wouldn’t show it to them. Nothing against my friend from the old neighborhood, who did a fine job with what she had to work with, but I have some serious problems with the show’s premise.

Birds of Prey takes place in the city of New Gotham, some years after a cataclysmic confrontation between Batman and The Joker. The Joker lost, but on his way out of town he murdered Catwoman — Batman’s true love — and attempted to kill Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl, Batman’s protégé. Barbara survived, paralyzed below the waist. Batman vanished from New Gotham, apparently driven to despair by the Joker’s targeting of the the two women closest to him. Under the new alias Oracle, Barbara Gordon presides over a super-high-tech crime-fighting lab from which she supervises The Huntress, a heroine with Matrix-style superpowers of combat and wardrobe and who, by the way, is the secret love child of Batman and Catwoman. Together, with the help of a third babe with mental superpowers who joins their team, they battle a variety of supernatural foes stalking New Gotham, most of them under the direction of the scheming Dr. Harleen Quinzel, once The Joker’s groupie and now a respected, unsuspected mental-health professional and director of Arkham Asylum.

OK, where to begin?

Batman has a daughter he doesn’t know about? With Catwoman? Well, I might be able to buy the with-Catwoman part — maybe (mustn’t their love remain unconsummated because she chose the wrong side of the law?) — but considering the importance of Batman’s own parents to his mythos, it’s tone-deaf to make him a daddy too and then make him (a) unaware and (b) absent.

Speaking of which, Batman’s gone? What about the terrible graveside vow he made to his parents? He just broke it? What, does he think crime in New Gotham is over now that The Joker is defeated? I’m sorry, but Batman would never simply up and leave town, I don’t care how much he has suffered — especially with Barbara Gordon still alive and still fighting crime despite suffering even more directly than Batman from The Joker’s attack.

Supposedly Batman dealt The Joker some sort of total final defeat. What kind of “final defeat” leaves The Joker free to murder Catwoman, cripple Batgirl, and then skip town? And where did The Joker go after leaving New Gotham?

And why “New” Gotham? What happened to “Gotham City”? Feels like some sort of not-your-father’s-Oldsmobile nod to the kids watching the WB network. (And look what happened to Oldsmobile.)

Back to those parting shots from The Joker. His attacks are mere executions. There’s nothing Joker-like about them. We actually get to see the attack on Batgirl. He knocks on her apartment door and shoots her point-blank when she opens it. With a handgun, one that shoots bullets, not a telescoping boxing glove. He doesn’t blow up her apartment. He doesn’t drive a wrecking ball into the side of her building. Where’s the jack-in-the-box spraying poison gas? Where’s the robot clown with spinning razors for hands? Where’s the sadistic glee, the cackling laughter? If he was capable of this kind of attack before, why did he wait until he was “defeated”? And how did this master criminal get the drop on Batgirl and merely cripple her, not kill her?

And why in the world would crimefighter Barbara Gordon, daughter of the police commissioner, simply open her apartment door to The Joker?

Speaking of, where is Commissioner Gordon? He’s never mentioned.

About Dr. Quinzel: how did The Joker’s kooky moll become a professional psychiatrist, administrator, and evil mastermind? “Harley Quinn” is flighty and ditzy, the very opposite of the restrained, duplicitous, organized schemer she’s portrayed to be here. Judging from other incarnations of her character, she should be doing no more or less than constantly searching for The Joker and looking for ways to bring him back to New Gotham.


Tag line reads, “Batman’s
little girl is all grown up.”

I could let all of those other problems slide if it weren’t for the thing that bothers me about The Huntress: she has superpowers. Why would the daughter of Batman and Catwoman have superpowers? Why would anyone in Gotham (sorry: New Gotham) have superpowers? The Batman universe is appealing largely because there are no superpowers. Yes, I’m aware of Superman/Batman crossover stories, and that you can’t have staple Batman comic-book villains like Clayface without superpowers; but my Batman universe — the one on TV and in movies — has mostly stayed away from the supernatural. I like the idea that with nothing more than a bottomless pile of cash, a preternaturally capable manservant, and a will of iron, I could be Batman.

Finally: isn’t it a little sexist to call a show about three hot chicks Birds of Prey?

Oh well. Someday Jonah and Archer will get to make up their own minds about it. But consistent storytelling matters to me. I’d almost rather they see Saw first.

Posted in tv | No Comments »

Couldn’t I be a little less right all the time?

November 3rd, 2008

Preface: It’s remarkable how quickly, after all we’ve been through, it’s becoming irrelevant to bash George Bush. Of course some of this is by his own design: he’s sitting out the election to prevent harming McCain’s chances (any more than McCain and Palin are harming them themselves), and everyone’s bashing energy has shifted to more prominent targets. Very likely, once the election is over, we’ll be hearing a lot more about Bush as he gives the world whatever final fuck-you he has in store; but for now, I’ve got this blog post that I’ve been tinkering with for weeks, and if I want it to have any relevance at all I better wrap it up and push it out the door now, ready or not. Here ’tis.

Global finance in total meltdown. Major cities half obliterated. Peak oil (and peak helium, platinum, indium, zinc, copper, phosphorous…). Deteriorating soil quality in the heartland, and plummeting water tables — in fact, water shortages everywhere. Polar ice caps disappearing. Fishing stocks depleted. Our protective global magnetic field weakening. Vast methane clouds pouring out of their ancient undersea vaults. The U.S. Constitution in tatters.

Not that long ago, when my friends and I would get together and discuss our biggest concerns, they were along the lines of, “With the world so peaceful and prosperous, how will we keep our kids (when we have some) from growing up into spoiled trust-fund brats?” We were looking for solutions a little more subtle than worldwide strife and deprivation to teach them some humility, but I guess worldwide strife and deprivation will have to do. It worked for “the greatest generation,” after all. (Careful what you wish for!)

Honestly, it’s almost worth it to see everything turning to shit all at once, just to be able to say that, when I warned four years ago that the world couldn’t afford another four years of George Bush — that no scenario of devastation was too far-fetched — I was exactly right. It wasn’t hyperbole when I said George Bush could destroy the world. He now has.

Ahh.

Of course the destruction of the world could have taken many different forms. Here’s one way I’ve thought it might happen. Don’t you just know that this is exactly how Bush would respond to this kind of crisis? Imagine with me now…

EXT. GOLF COURSE - DAY

            AIDE

    Mr. President, Space Command has
    detected an extrasolar object in a
    geoconverging orbit, exhibiting
    nonballistic maneuvering capability.
    Here's the report: "Alien starship
    will reach earth in three months."

            BUSH

    "Space Command"?  We have one of
    those?  You're shitting me.

            AIDE

    Yes sir, but the report --

            BUSH

    OK, you've covered your ass.  Now
    watch this drive.

INT. UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

            AUTO EXEC

    Dammit, Dick, these new CAFE rules
    are killing us.  Building more
    fuel-efficient cars adds almost a
    full percent more to the cost of
    manufacture!

            ASSISTANT

    But the public wants these cars and
    will pay a premium --

            AUTO EXEC

    The public?  Bah!  You're fired!

            ASSISTANT

    But the free market --

            AUTO EXEC

    Get out!  ...Sorry you had to see
    that, Dick.

            CHENEY

    I know how it is with these kids who
    "care."  Say, don't I remember
    reading something highly classified
    about an alien starship...?

            AUTO EXEC

    A what?!

            CHENEY

    Oh it's probably nothing... except
    it's just what the doctor ordered
    for your fuel-efficiency problems.

            AUTO EXEC

    Thanks Dick, you're the best.

            CHENEY

    Yes.  Yes I am.  Fuck you.

INT. OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT

            BUSH

    My fellow Americans, an alien
    spaceship is approaching earth.  It
    will arrive in two months.  Top
    scientists have analyzed it and
    determined it is likely that its
    intent is hostile.  I urge the
    Congress to release one point six
    trillion dollars to fund my
    planetary defense program.  In the
    meantime, this government is taking
    all possible steps to ensure the
    safety of all Americans.  I have
    suspended fuel-efficiency rules so
    that automobile manufacturers can,
    ah, include lead shielding in the
    passenger cabins of all new
    automobiles as protection against,
    er, a possible alien death ray.

INT. PRESS ROOM - DAY

            MILBANK

    Yes, Harvey?

            HARVEY

    What is the president's response to
    reports that MIT scientists have
    deciphered transmissions from the
    alien ship and determined its
    mission is peaceful?

            MILBANK

    The president sees through that
    transparent ruse.  I direct your
    attention to this report, released
    yesterday by the NSA, pointing out
    that Al Qaeda operatives received
    the same transmissions.

            HARVEY

    Of course they did, everyone on
    earth rec --

            MILBANK

    Next question -- Paul?

INT. U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES - DAY

            A REPUBLICAN

    Madame Speaker, I move to end debate
    and vote on the proposal to release
    the one-point-six-trillion dollars
    that our commander-in-chief requires
    to defeat the Al Qaeda terror
    spaceship.

            PELOSI

    Very well.  If there be any opposed
    to the proposal to fund the
    president's Al Qaeda space-defense
    program --

            KUCINICH

    Hang on, that spaceship has nothing
    to do with Al --

            PELOSI

    Shut up, Kucinich.

          (bangs gavel)

    Without objection, the measure
    passes.

INT. ALIEN STARSHIP

            LIEUTENANT

    Commander, sensors indicate a
    massive missile launch from the
    planet's surface.

            COMMANDER

    Target?

            LIEUTENANT

    Computing... sir, I don't
    understand.  The missiles are
    heading straight for us, but --

CUT TO:

INT. WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM

            ADVISOR
          (frantically)

    --those missiles don't have enough
    fuel!  It's what I've been trying to
    tell you!  They're intercontinental
    missiles, they can't even achieve
    low earth orbit, let alone--

CUT TO:

INT. ALIEN STARSHIP

            LIEUTENANT

    --our geostationary orbit is far out
    of range.

            COMMANDER
          (sighs)

    I had hoped for a cultural exchange,
    but I can see these people are both
    warlike and stupid.  Incinerate
    planet.

            LIEUTENANT

    Aye sir... planet incinerated.

Let’s hope that if aliens do come — or whatever the next disaster is — it’s not in the next seventy-seven days.

Posted in humor, politics | No Comments »

Son of Superpest

October 31st, 2008

As I’ve written before, my mom once adopted the nickname Superpest for her ability to wheedle conciliatory goods and services from large corporations that had failed or wronged her in one way or another. Her secret weapon: dogged reasonableness.

Early last year I took the plunge and got a big plasma Philips TV for the living room. Between that and my DTS sound system I was in home-cinema heaven! But after a few months I noticed an intermittent problem: when turning on the TV, sometimes the display was distorted in one of a couple different ways.

Wrong Right
Wrong Right

Sometimes there was no picture at all. Turning the screen off, waiting a few seconds, and turning it on again usually fixed the problem. Sometimes a second power-cycle was necessary.

The problem only happened a few times per month and so was extremely hard to diagnose. A succession of authorized repair centers variously (a) tried and failed, (b) pretended, and (c) refused to fix it. Over and over again, I directed appeals to Philips, only to be referred to another local service center, who would eventually send me back to Philips, which would assign me a new case number and the cycle would repeat. Add in several unanswered phone calls and letters and you can see how this stretched into more than a year.

Finally I sent them this letter:

To whom it may concern,

Eighteen months ago I purchased a Philips plasma TV. For the past twelve months I have been trying to get a defect in that TV repaired. The lengthy saga of those attempts involves incompetence, unresponsiveness, and evasiveness among a variety of authorized service centers, along with miscommunication, misunderstandings, and other less outlandish obstacles. A detailed chronology is enclosed.

A few weeks ago a technician from C—-’s TV visited my house to inspect the unit. His opinion was that it could not be repaired. For one thing, the problem is very hard to reproduce. It happens only two or three times a month. For another thing, if he went with his guess and replaced the circuit board that he suspected was the culprit, any replacement he might try would come refurbished from Philips, not new, and would be likely to have its own quirks. He didn’t want to see me trade one minor problem for another possibly worse one.

He had a point. The problem I’m dealing with is minor: occasionally when I turn on the TV, the display is garbled or blank, but I can fix it by turning the TV off and on once or twice. He said that, if I’m lucky, the problem isn’t a circuit board at all but is due to bad grounding. His parting suggestion was that if I observe the problem again, I should try fiddling with the wires and the connections and rapping on the components in the path between the TV and ground.

Since his visit I have observed the problem two more times, and I followed his advice, but to no avail. The problem persisted until I power-cycled the TV. I despaired of launching yet another go-round with Philips customer service seeking some sort of resolution to this problem, certain that I’d end up chasing my tail once again. But then I had an idea:

I can live with having to power-cycle my TV two or three times a month. My main concern is that the problem will worsen somehow, to the point where my ability to enjoy the TV is substantially degraded. Maybe one day I won’t be able to fix the problem by turning the TV off and on. Maybe one day the screen will remain persistently a little garbled.

So here is my proposal to you. As long as the problem remains an occasional minor annoyance, I will live with it and leave you guys alone; however, if it should significantly worsen, then even if it is out of warranty you will replace the TV with a new, comparable unit and a new warranty at no cost to me, since the problem has existed since the TV was under warranty and remains unaddressed despite my own best efforts.

If this proposal is acceptable to you, I would appreciate a written acknowledgment, however I will also consider a lack of response (within two weeks of your receipt of this letter) to be an acceptance of this proposal. On the other hand, if this proposal is not acceptable to you, I must unhappily resume my efforts to get this problem resolved and insist that you take new steps to remedy it.

Sincerely, etc.

Two weeks passed and I heard nothing. Another couple of weeks later I got a call from Philips: “Your replacement TV is on its way.” Yesterday it was delivered and installed.

Yay! Chalk one up for dogged reasonableness (and for maintaining a detailed chronology of phone calls, repair visits, and so on). The moral of this story is that customer service costs money, and eventually it’ll impact their bottom line less just to give in to your reasonable demands. Or kill you, but for big-screen-TV-peace-of-mind that was a risk I was willing to take.

Posted in advice, shopping, tv | No Comments »

The anti-Clone-Wars

October 27th, 2008

My kids saw The Clone Wars when it was in theaters earlier this summer. Mercifully I didn’t have to; they went with a friend’s family. I’d seen and heard enough to know that, if the three prequel films were so bad that they made me “retroactively dislike Star Wars” (as I have been fond of hyperbolizing), The Clone Wars was so toxic it could have put me off movies altogether.

After they saw the movie we were subjected to many days of Anakin this and Count Dooku that. The occasional four- and six-year-old Yoda impressions were pretty amusing, but the rest was hard to take.

We hadn’t realized that the theatrical release was only an extended commercial for the new TV series, and we might never have found out (we don’t have cable) except that we were staying with friends in Seattle when the show premiered and the kids got a double dose of it, goosing their fervor.

But then the situation was defused by something that I wish I could say I had planned, because in hindsight it was obvious that a new batch of adventure stories with better writing and better acting and stories that actually engage the intellect would cleanse that Clone Wars garbage from my sons’ developing minds:

Classic Trek!

We’ve watched a couple of episodes a week for the past few weeks and the kids have stopped saying “roger roger” and “young Padawan.” They are now talking about “beaming down to the planet,” “repairing the anti-matter nacelles,” and “red alert, all hands to battle stations!” It warms my heart. Here is the birthday card that Jonah made for me a few days ago. It depicts the entire family in bed, watching an episode of Star Trek.

(It’s strange that he depicted an old-style aerial antenna on top of the TV. Watching all of this 1960’s programming may be affecting him in ways I hadn’t previously suspected — just like when Spock was trapped in that ice age and reverted to the primitive behavior of the Vulcans of that era!)

Posted in family, starwars, tv | No Comments »

Coincidence fatigue

October 26th, 2008

Part 1.

The first time I heard the song, “Going in the Right Direction,” by Robert Randolph and the Family Band, I thought this lyric sounded familiar:

I was lost
I thought the losing dice were tossed

Wracking my brain for a minute produced the answer: it’s also a lyric from the song, “Just In Time,” an old standard from mid-century.

Part 2.

Out of the blue several days ago, Andrea calls me and asks whether she should buy a group of discounted tickets to an upcoming Cal Bears game. “College football?” I asked. (I was right.) I said sure — it’d be fun to take the boys, and maybe a friend or two, not that it had ever occurred to us before to go see a live football game. We’re baseball people (and we barely manage even to see that once a year).

Part 3.

Our friends Michael and Julia are buying a house! I’d previously offered my help moving their belongings when the time came. But when the time did come, it coincided with the Cal Bears game. “I can help later in the day,” I told them apologetically, “but meanwhile, if it helps, we can take your son (Jonah’s friend) to the football game with us so he doesn’t get in the way.” Oh my God, came the reply: their son is already scheduled to go with his aunt to the same game. This, from another family that has exhibited no particular interest in football before now.

Part 4.

Driving home from Point Reyes this afternoon, the song, “Going in the Right Direction” comes up in my thousand-song MP3 shuffle. As usual I idly try to remember the name of that other song that has the same lyric, but this time I draw a blank and then forget all about it. The very next song that plays is a Mel Tormé rendition of “Just In Time.” I am gobsmacked. I explain the coincidence to Andrea. She hears the identical lyrics. Shrugs. I do the verbal equivalent of grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her, but she is unimpressed despite the long odds.

My only explanation is that she has coincidence fatigue from the business with the Cal Bears tickets.

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Boy heaven

October 26th, 2008

We did an amazing thing today.

As usual, Andrea had to drag me out of the house to it. I’m getting over a cold and all I wanted to do was catch up on blogging and work and Netflix discs, all of which sounded more interesting than driving to Point Reyes Station to see the culmination of the Giacomini Wetlands restoration project. But Andrea insisted, and I’m glad she did because she was right as usual, and it was amazing.

It’s a former marsh that was walled off from Pacific tides sixty years ago with a series of levees to create pastureland for cattle. Eight years ago the land was purchased by the National Park Service to begin a wetlands restoration project, which it turns out is a lot more complex than merely ripping out the levees. It’s taken from then until now for the project to reach its climax, which happened at high tide this morning. The public was invited to trek across the former ranch as water poured through a brand-new levee break and flooded the land for the first time in three generations.

Turnout was huge. Hundreds of nature-lovers showed up on a crisp, picture-perfect autumn morning to walk across a vast flat range of grasses and overturned dusty soil where construction machinery had been hard at work. A shallow channel was dug into the ground, making a straight line for the open water that we could see on the horizon; and when we’d walked far enough across the pasture, we came to a spot where a trickle of water was turning the dusty channel bed damp. As we watched, fingers of mucky water reached inland, inch by inch.

We stepped out of the channel onto the grass, which lay a few inches higher, as the water slowly overtook the spot where we’d been standing. Jonah and Archer tentatively placed their feet in the new muck.

A few minutes later they were notably less tentative.

All the grownups in the vicinity participated vicariously in Jonah’s and Archer’s delight at tromping through the mud, splashing in a dozen brand-new streams, pitching pebbles, ripping up tufts of grass, and conducting miniature impromptu soil-engineering projects. One onlooker commented to us, “Boy heaven.” (Lamentably, we saw almost no other children with anything approaching the liberty that we gave Jonah and Archer to explore and get absolutely filthy.)

Wherever we saw a limb of water, we could watch it reach into the low places in the land, rills of water filling one tiny depression after another. In some places the matted vegetation underfoot would grow first squishy and then splashy. Now and then a field mouse would emerge from a flooding hole and head for higher ground. Clods of dry soil would darken, crumble, then melt into thick dark mud through which Jonah and Archer gleefully trod. (We’re amazed it never sucked their shoes off.) Newly flooded sections of the plain bubbled noisily long after the last bit of earth was covered up.

When the tide began sluggishly to reverse itself, we retraced our steps through the pasture — at least, those parts of it that were still dry — returned to our cars, and reconvened a few miles down the road for a champagne celebration with the Park Service rangers and scientists for whom this was not merely an incredibly cool way to spend a Sunday morning. That it had been a lot of hard work was obvious, as was their satisfaction at its outcome.

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Brush with t3h h4wtness

October 26th, 2008

Several days ago, my sister Suzanne was “friended” on Facebook by Dina Meyer, the actress, whom you may best remember as the other woman in the love triangle in Starship Troopers.


Don’t let the alien-ichor-spattered battle armor fool you. It’s a romance.

The friend request included no explanation beyond the message, “OMG!” So Suzanne started sleuthing and enlisted my help and our dad’s.

Thanks to ye vasty Internet we learned that Dina Meyer grew up in Forest Hills, New York — just like us. She was born in 1968 — right between me and Suzanne in age. She has an older brother named Gregory — just like an early-childhood playmate of mine (who had a younger sister named Dina). The clincher came when our dad recognized Dina’s mom in a picture of the two women.

Gregory and Dina were neighbors in our apartment building, just the right ages for me and Suzanne to play with. They had a different last name then. Our playdates (though in those days they weren’t called playdates) also included Jackie and David, two other neighbor kids who were just the right ages for us.

Eventually, Dina and Gregory moved away. As I learned just recently, their parents split and their mom remarried, which must account for the new name. Later our own parents split, and a few years after that our dad remarried — and weirdly, Jackie and David became our stepsiblings!

And now, because you know I’d never leave you hanging, here’s a picture of Dina literally using my sister (bottom left) as a stepping stone to stardom. (Those Hollywood types are all the same.)

Posted in family, movies | 1 Comment »

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