Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Oh God. Literally. The Vatican hates Avatar as much as I did, and, gulp, for some of the same reasons.
"Unoriginal." "Bland." "Sappy." But but hey, "stunning visuals."
My take on it? Well, yes. That's my feeling in a nutshell.
But. Ahem. Is it hot in here? That's the Vatican's review on it.
That's it. Show's over folks, go home.
The day the Catholic Church and I agree on the critique of movie is the day I check myself into a mental health care facility.
Though, in fairness to me, the Vatican doesn't like it for a lot of other reasons. They're feeling all jealous and indignant over the concept of worshiping nature. They say it "cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium." Scared, boys? Afraid nature is going to upstage you in your quest for world domination? I mean really, coming from a bunch of guys, guys, who turn Sunday church service into a Disney-worthy spectacle with elaborate costumes, fancy props and catchy musical numbers, mocking the concept of respect and concern for the environment is kind of lame.
Oh but wait, there's more. One thing that bothered me, a lot, but I didn't mention it, is the fact that Sigourney Weaver's character, a botanist/ecologist/gardener/defender of the plants smokes. A lot. I guess it's to make her appear tougher, ballsier.
Apparently a lot of right-wingers are glomming onto this hypocrisy, too.
Ouch.
That hurts. The Vatican and right wingers and I all agree on something? Gadzooks. Hold me. I'm scared.
Sigourney Weaver doesn't need a cigarette to pull off tough and ballsy. The woman was the lone survivor of an alien attack by a giant evil grabby monster on a space lab for crying out loud. We believed it, we believed in her, we know she's got the cred for tough and ballsy. She's had that cred, held the crown of that cred for what? 25 years? Why, then, the cigarettes? And worse, a chain smoking environmentalist botanist? How stupid does James Cameron think we are? I'm sure there are botanists/environmentalists who smoke. I have no doubt about it. But. It's hypocritical and throws their credibility and sincerity into question. I know in the movie she's been up on that planet a while and maybe she hasn't heard about the effect cigarettes and the tobacco industry have on the air, soil and water...but as a botanist on an environmentalist crusade to study and save the Smurfs, I'm thinking she'd put two and two together and realize a) the Smurfs don't smoke; b) there are several valid reasons for that; and c) cigarettes contaminate any environment with chemical toxins and oxygen depletion. If she were smoking homegrown, pure, unchemically altered weed or magical Smurfplant I could cut some slack. From God's garden to her lungs. But, heh heh, there's a ratings review board, censors, you know. Smoking pot is not PG13. Yet smoking cigarettes is G. So instead of a non-smoking botanist, or an occasional home-grown-plant-toking botanist, we have a chain cigarette smoking botanist releasing the deadly chemicals with every puff and contaminating the very environment she's trying to save. Smoking cigarettes puts a person side-by-side with cars, power plants and steel mills in terms of releasing deadly toxins into the environment.
Oh. And kids see this movie. Must we really give an otherwise mostly admirable female character a deadly vice? Can't we just have a smart, gutsy, female character in control without dumbing her down or giving her a flaw or killing her off so the guy or prettier, dumber girl can get screen time? I'm just sayin'...what point did the cigarettes serve other than to show hypocrisy in action?
