Poem for October: To Be of Use

Because Marge Piercy is still alive, and I'm concerned about copyright, I will link to the poem. Find it here: http://www.northnode.org/poem.htm

I found this poem by flipping through the readings in the back of the UU hymnal one Sunday in late September. I needed a poem for October and the last two stanzas were a responsive reading. Memorizing it wasn't too hard, though Piercy is very precise in her words and I wanted to be doubly sure I would get each phrase right. I'm having trouble with actually remembering to include the third stanza, I want to jump straight from the "mud" to the "work of the world," bypassing the fields entirely. This is even though I love saying "parlor generals and field deserters" and the image of work done in common rhythm.

I also enjoy the lines about everyday work vessels being put in museums. Sometimes, when looking at something historical on display, I like to imagine all the hands that have touched said item, through its long history.

Marge Piercy has a few of her poems excerpted as readings in our hymnal. And she wrote one of my top five books of all time (Gone to Soldiers.) I expect we will be seeing her again.

Three sentence movie reviews--American Zombie

Were I elected president, I believe my first act--after passing a resolution to encourage more production and consumption of the vegetable kale--would be to pass a law limiting mockumentries to a maximum run time of 45 minutes, based on the fact that the joke gets old after that point. This movie would have benefited tremendously from this legislation as it had a good premise, but just kept going on and on and on. I got bored.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2008/american_zombie.html

Three sentence movie reviews--MST3K's Werewolf

If you only see one MST3K* movie in your lifetime, let this be the one. Some of the humor is dated (mid 9os) but I have not laughed so hard in years. The following make this movie so bad it's good: bad hair, incredibly bad acting, uneven story line, awful continuity, and the unintelligible English spoken by a pretty, but not understandable, actress.

I can't help myself, here is Julian Kennedy's review from IMDB:
Werewolf: 2 out of 10: Wow, this is a classic mess. First off, it “stars” Joe Estevez. Yes, Martin Sheen’s brother. Star of some of the worst films ever made. (A shocking 191 films according to his IMDb page with a discouraging 13 still waiting to be released.) Maybe one of the reasons he can star in so many films is that he only works for a few days at a time. In Werewolf, he disappears without explanation a third of the way through the film and was barely in the movie to begin with. However, I guess when your cast consists of non-English speaking Eurotrash, Estevez seems like a draw.

Speaking of the rest of the cast, we have Jorge Rivero whose hair changes every scene and is the most interesting character in the film (The hair not Jorge). Richard Lynch who plays the male lead with all the charisma of soggy toast. Adrianna Miles who I thought was two different actresses. (One character lives in the house with the gun toting Santa Claus where she types in panties. The other character has never been to the house and lusts after Lynch.) Turns out the script was more confused than I and it is the same girl.

Adrianna Miles is certainly attractive and has those nice deer in headlight eyes but her grasp of the English language is tenuous at best and she simply cannot wrap her lips around the word werewolf. (It comes out wahr-wil, wahrwilf, wearwaollf etc) Speaking of confusing, the “werewolf” appears as a large bear, a broken bat puppet, an elderly version of teen wolf (driving a compact car no less), and something else from the depths of cinematic hell. At no time does it actually look like a werewolf. I could go on for hours (The moon stays full through the entire picture we are talking two weeks in a row minimum.) But I will let Mike and the Bots take over.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 10 episode 4: 10 out of 10: This is simply one of the best riffing jobs Mike and the bots have ever accomplished. Obviously, this is the only way to see the film.

poster from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_%281996_film%29

*Mystery Science Theater 3000

Three sentence movie reviews--Carrie

I didn't expect to like this movie at all. But aside from the somewhat awful acting, I am happy to say that this movies is beautifully filmed, from the first not-at-all-grounded-in-reality high school girl's locker room scene to the ending carnage. It was very pretty to watch and I say excellent job, Mario Tosi!

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1976/carrie.html

Birthday BINGO

For my birthday, the MAunts and I saw BINGO! the musical at the Broadway Rose Theater Company. It was splashy and zippy as promised. And, we got to play BINGO during the production. I particularly enjoyed the turns of phrase in the song "Gentleman Caller."

I thought winning the BINGO game would be a nice birthday present, but it was not to be.

Just in time for Halloween

I was walking to volunteering at George Middle School when I noticed this swinging down from a large tree. Can you see what it is?

Here's a better picture. It's a huge spider. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything that big in person before.

Signs of autumn

I've always liked the look of red leaves against the bright green grass. In Portland, most people don't water their lawns during the summer and they become yellow and brown. With the return of the autumn rains, they green back up, just in time for autumn colored leaves to fall on them.