Indiana Jones 4 — I hate to say it

I wrote this review 2 hours ago and deleted it. It felt cruel. But several searches were made for it, so here it is again. Look, the film was fine. It met all expectations for any Speilberg/Lucas work — the Russians could have been wearing stormtrooper whites or Nazi khakis, but otherwise everything was there for a fine film of this genre.

It was too sketchy though. Aliens, mad Russians, freakish jungle natives served as linking agents and props for the giant ants, spider webs, quicksand, and decaying corpses. It was a lot to track.

I’m stalling.

Actually my objection and failure to be thoroughly pleased with the film has to do with age. Sorry. Film is a visual art and that’s about — seeing. I hesitate to use the phrase “eye candy” but that says it. Harrison Ford looks old in  the film. His acting is pretty much the same quality, let me be quick to say. And Marion, love interest from the first film, got older over the past three decades, too. What a pair hugging over their mystery son (not a fan here either) she had without Dr. Jones’s knowledge.

Hello?! It’s natural. Happens to the best of us.

I KNOW. It’s materialistic. It’s shallow. It’s superficial.

It’s reality.

Acting and modeling are short-lived occupations. Thankfully there are creative careers wherein one can age and no one will know. Studio artists or something in radio, say.

Or blogging. You don’t even have to use your real photo.

Plastic playgrounds are just sad

Slate Magazine contributor Tom Vanderbilt has an article  ”Lawn Pox” which made several amenable points. First Vanderbilt decries the sprawl of huge, plastic, primary-colored “play sets” that clutter suburban lawns.  They’re ugly and usually vacant and therefore are a needless eyesore. Beyond that he suggests that the “toys” are indicative of significant sociological trends.

You should read about some of the companies that make these deluxe implements of “kiddie clutter” and what they get for a “6-in-1 Town Center!” Lucky kid!

Vanderbilt blames fear for the plastic jungle and disappearance of the community playground– fear of injury and predators. One parent boasted that there were no “splinters” in her kid’s smooth, plastic set. And then there’s parental guilt: get them a big, impressive toy to substitute for  . . .  you know.

One reader offered a feeble defense of the toys if you’re interested.

I’m not really pro-lawn, but I am anti-toy — not all toys, just the drossy kind. Giant toys for little children is just sad. The monoliths are as ugly as those green, plastic mail boxes and dog houses molded in the same vein. All of it’s headed for the yard sale.

My fondest memories are from gramdparents’ homes and the home of a second cousin. At the grandparents’ we ran through woods and built pine straw forts with sticks and sometimes broke garbage bottles on giant rocks (Milk of Magnesia was bright blue!) and pretended the shards were jewelry. Yea, it was dangerous if you were stupid.

At the cousin’s we had no “lawn,” so we played under a railroad track bridge with a creek running under it. There were probably snakes where we waded barefoot in murky water waiting for a train and the noise and terrific shaking. Good times.

And those woods? Leprechauns everywhere! We saw them! Promise.

Dead is worse than “Expelled”

Ben Stein’s documentary now showing in theaters had a timely opening with election upon us. The first segment of the film is Stein’s interviews of several professors who lost their positions with distinguished universities. Incompetent? Immoral? No, they all made the fatal error of examining ID, Intelligent design, as a possible explanation for the origin of the universe. This on campuses where claims of academic freedom are made, often embossed in stone and heralded in mission statements.

Stein effectively draws an analogy between the supression of ideas such as ID and Nazi Germany, crematoriums, and goose-stepping. Several shots of the Berlin Wall, before and after, are included, also symbolic of the fear of competing ideas in the marketplace.  The grim reminders that we’ve all seen before — the emaciated POW’s, the bones piled high, the gas showers — inspired my blog title. Loss of a job can be bad. But dead because of ideas that one is willing to allow into the discussion, upheld or not, is worse.  Several interviewees clearly did not want to allow ID and the possiblilty of a God onto the “freedom” table. This is America last time I looked.

Stein and others make the connection from Darwinism to ideaologies like Hitler’s and Sanger’s. If natural selection is followed to its logical end, eugenics makes sense. Good breeding is good for humanity. Why protect the weak, the disabled, the sick, the elderly, or the unborn, who may all be drains on society’s resources?  In fairness, the argument is made that right after the quotation from Darwin on the weak and imbecile, he advocates the protection of such people, thus making Stein’s quotation out of context.

The film’s structure is somewhat choppy, but easy to follow. Interspersed throughout the first section are black and white clips of kids being bullied and such.  Images grow more distressing as they include the all-familiar death camps and patrol guards.  In the middle these images and dialogue are outlined in old filmstrip style, the main points concerning how a Darwinist would best secure his message. According to Stein he’d enlist education, the media, and the government. Examples are provided.

Finally, Stein meets with whom he calls the foremost Darwinist of our day, Dr. Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion.) Dawkins has reportedly been angered by the interview on film. It does make him look less than trustworthy when he says that life could not have been created by God, but another type of intelligence might have done it– perhaps an ALIEN being.

My own stand is with those who favor intelligent design: I believe in the Bibllical God. That said, I want the best inquiry that science offers. I want to know what Charles Darwin did and said that set the world on its ear. I will not dismiss nor deny the Holocaust. I want to know why there was a big gash of concrete running through Berlin. I may be misinformed at times, but within my scope I’ll search out the truth. Most importantly, I don’t look to science for proofs of what I believe through faith (and a certain amount of personal objective and subjective experience.) It won’t matter to me if science “proves” that there is no God. They’re too late.

Who would have guessed?

I would have, actually. I know a few things about good writing. Now that doesn’t mean stuffy academic prose or elitist modern poetry necessarily. Good writing takes many forms, styles, topics, and genres. Writing is the expression of the mind — funny, smart, name the quality– and with training and/or education and with a good ear plus concentration, time, and hard work, we can be writers! Many people aren’t excited by this news. If this doesn’t excite you, you probably, as the ads say, “don’t have what it takes” and should pursue other talents and interests.

But writing can be lucrative for ordinary people like us — white or otherwise.

The guys at the 20 million-plus-in-hits blog “Stuff White People Like” are funny, smart, and prosperous. Random House has given them a $300,000 book deal. Sigh. Only in America. The blog features a list of around 100 items White People Like and an occasional article (NYT often) that mentions “likes.” These are highlighted for us.

I’m for it. Why not? The blog is entertaining. It speaks to current culture. It’s simple and well-organized and has a definite thesis (academic term for “what’s your point?”)

Among the listed white favorites are Indie music, wine, microbreweries, performance clothes (funny,) graduate school, dinner parties (funny,) bicycles, ‘Whole Foods and co-op grocery stores, and others. And like all good satire and humor in general, the ring of truth has to be there. And it is.

Congratulations, SWPL!

The Bodies Exhibit: Why we read Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, usually credited as the first true work of science fiction, stresses the fairly common themes of man’s overweening pride, his error in overstepping boundaries, and the often horrific events that follow such actions.

In Shelley’s day, early 19th century, many in the field of “natural philosophy,” or science, were trying to discover the “life impulse,” or the origin of the life. This was the time that Dr. Galvin (see Galvinism) was attempting to resurrect dead bodies. It was commonly believed that electricity, also newly discovered, was the spark of life and experiments were conducted making a dead frog’s legs jump, for instance. Percy Shelley’s first wife, the pregnant Harriet, drowned herself in the middle of London in a pond upon learning that her husband was having an affair with Mary. Doctors tried new methods of resusitation on her to no avail.

Many, like Shelley and her atheist husband, Percy the poet and her philosopher parents the Godwins, had abandoned a belief in God, so substitiute answers to fundamental questions were sought. Elaborate salon discussions were held at the Godwin home where Percy and Mary met.

However, the Shelleys held Romantic worldviews. While denying the Judeo-Christian God, they also distrusted pure science and favored a more transcendental view and certainly believed, like all Romantics, in the sanctitiy of Nature — capital N. Tamperings with nature, its fundamental laws, would surely open a Pandora’s box.

Hence, when the married Percy, Mary, Lord Byron and Mary’s half-sister and another friend were vacationing at the Vila Diodati, a contest was proposed. It was raining and philosophy is only fun for so long. Everyone go away and write your best ghost story.

The boys got bored with the project and left it in favor of throwing the football, but the 18-year-old Mary invented the monster we are all so familiar with today: Frankenstein’s monster. (Frankenstein is actually Victor Frankenstein, the dubious creator. The monster is unnamed.)

The novel was and still is a hit and has been produced and parodied in many genres, including Gene Wilder as “Young Frankenstein” in Mel Brooks’s comedy. But Mary was dead serious. Her point: Don’t mess with Mother Nature. Victor’s fascination with the “unhallowed arts” digging around in cemeteries searching for body parts was even to the atheist a despicable act. Further, Victor’s experiment playing God (Shelley’s Nature) results in the death of his little brother, a family friend, and his own bride on their honeymoon, all victims of the monster and Victor’s pride.

Last weekend I visited a museum where the Bodies exhibit is on display. This exhibit has stirred global controversy, one side lauding its educational value, its magnification of the glories of the human body, the other side declaring it an exploitation of human dignity. In the museum I visited, the exhibit was adjacent to the children’s museum. A uniformed employee steered children away, loudly warning parents to keep to the right.

No wonder. Twenty-one real human bodies and 260 body parts are displayed in “dynamic” positions that mimic everyday activities. Some hold that the Church kept the world in the scientific dark ages through its squeamish approach to the human body. Others, like me, believe that there is a sanctity to life and death and the body itself. To display real people, though dead, without names, without identity, and reportedly without their permission (possibly Chinese prisoners,) is an invasion of privacy (current battle cry du jour) in the most extreme manner.

In an article by Paulette Miniter for SmartMoney.com, the following financial statistics shed more than a little light.

“Provocative ideas are often lucrative ones, and though Premier [Geller runs Premier Exhibitions (PRXI: 4.68, -0.34, -6.77%), a $463 million company that operates "Bodies" shows around the globe.] has been public since 1993, it’s just starting to get respect on Wall Street. Shares have gained 158% year to date to $15.65 as of Wednesday’s close. “We believe the company’s stock price has only recently begun to reflect its potential for significant sales and earnings growth,” Chris Krueger, an analyst at Northland Securities in Minneapolis, said in a research report in late July. Shares hit a 52-week high of $18.62 on July 18.

“In Premier’s fiscal first quarter, ended May 31, revenue nearly doubled to $11.4 million and earnings about tripled to $3.3 million. Cash and cash equivalents are up to $19.7 million, a substantial increase from $2.5 million a year earlier.”

The National Enquirer pulls in big bucks, too. This display appeals to man’s base, morbid curiosity. It’s a freak show. Anyone who wants to study the human body for educational purposes will find no shortage of material. Exhibit viewers see more than medical students do.

Who are these “bodies?” Victor used the random recently dead and buried. “Bodies” uses anonymous cadavers, too. From China. According to an AP article by Mitch Stacey published by the Washingtonpost.com August, 2005,

“The company says it legally obtains specimens from the Dalian Medical University Plastination Laboratories in China, but there’s been media speculation that some of the bodies are those of executed prisoners or other victims of an underground anatomy market. Premier maintains the bodies used in its shows are unclaimed cadavers.”

Anything for a profit. Imagine your father’s body, privates and all, on display for millions of gawking viewers. Without his permission. He has no name any more. He has no grave with a tombstone marking the resting place of his mortal body. He has been plasticized by a firm in China and is viewed at $2o.oo a peep in a carnival side show. Hardly dignified. It’s dehumanizing and recalls everything we hated about Nazi experimentation, doesn’t it?

Where is the Church on this? It holds the corner on these issues and should make the traditional Judeo-Christian view on this subject known. (I saw some Catholic anti-exhibit press.)

I appreciate the navy burial service and offer it here. Note the careful, reverent protocol. But what were we thinking. Look at the “Bodies” stock figures. The Department of Defense could make billions! The exhibit: War . . . What is it good for? 

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq85-1.htm

In lieu of flowers . . .

Christmas? Long gone! Within two days of December25, store aisles bulged with all those lovely heart-shaped boxes,  teddy bears, red and white Jelly Bellies, and other mishmash in RED. 

But for many people February 14 is a day dreaded with the ardency afforded a root canal. Pressure! We have to make the day PERFECT. The gift, the reservations, the card, the flowers — make that — the roses.

Now we know how impossible to resist in this culture are the reciprocal gift-giving holidays. Even though we may feel that we, in fact, don’t feel it or see the point our minds being occupied with something else, we go along for the comfort of others: spouse, kids, friends. “What did he get you?” Status is attached to an appropriate response for both sexes. And independent thinker or not, no one likes the unanimous disapproval of a culture which asks so little really in its scores of special calendar days which usually imply purchasing things.

So we go along — Valentine’s Day!

But don’t get me flowers. You don’t want to earn my disrespect while attempting to secure my love. Or at least tweak it. Please think me worthy, if we’re going to do this, of something beyond the standard fare. And don’t confuse me with the grateful recipient of a Hallmark card, that well-known source of great poetry.

And I love chocolates, but the yellow box at the end of the grocery counter may make me feel as if you were buying the milk and suddenly remembered. And that red box you bought clandestinely marked “half off” was a Christmas red box, not a Valentine’s red box, but it was sweet. Well, not exactly sweet. The candy was also marked “dietetic” in deceptively small print.  It wasn’t your fault.

Clothes? Not that there’s anything wrong with your taste in day or night wear, but my taste being so undefined and in transition right now, I wouldn’t want you to spend time on a shopping trip. But I did enjoy the turquoise thigh-highs that year and hated parting with them as spring approached.

Flowers? I mean, roses? For clues, look around the yard. You will see the original boxwoods that came with the house and that Christmas tree we planted because we bought one with a root ball. Add two more oaks and that’s about it. Oh, yeah, I planted the four crepe myrtles for “summer color,” but they’re no maintenance.  Is it really good to give me as a symbol of our love, something doomed to die in five days while we look on?

May I speak honestly? We have to eat anyway, so good food is always a winner with me. Do we not enjoy our bi-monthly movie date nights? With over-priced popcorn and coke? Early and late, we know what we like — years of trial and error. Let’s don’t let something like yet another commerce-driven “day” ruin a good thing.

Rate a woman (yourself or one you know)

A favorite essay collection is Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman, who I believe is still editor of The American Scholar.  The 157-page book is well worth reading; it’s interesting, varied, and Fadiman’s style is so elegant.

When her great-grandmother died, Fadiman inherited a book called The Mirror of True Womanhood: A Book of Instruction for Women in the World. Published in 1886, the book was a prize the great-grandmother had received for excellence in about fifteen areas.

Reverend Bernard O’Reilly, the author, was a New York priest, who asserts to his women readers, “Woman’s total existence, in order to be a source of happiness to others as well as to herself, must be one of self-sacrifice.”  (This was 1886, and I don’t believe the good Father had a wife.)

Father O’Reilly sets the bar with a list of virtues with which a woman might measure herself. Like Fadiman, I asked my husband to rate me on a ten-point scale.  Try it.  And thus . . .

Discretion                                                                                                    
Discipline                                                  
Religious fervor                                       
Power to soothe and charm                   
Truthfulness                                            
Thrift                                                         
Avoidance of impure literature, paintings, statuary  
Kindness                                                                           
Order in the home                                                       
Cheerfulness
Abjuration of fashion
Self control
Excellence in needlework

I didn’t flunk! And no, I didn’t bribe the judge. This time. I would have scored better, but literature, fashion, and needlework got me. But though I wouldn’t have earned a gold star exactly, I would have been marriageable in the 19th century! That’s a comfort.

The question raised is what traits would today’s list contain? Father O’Reilly apparently didn’t place a high value on “hotness.” His was supposed to be an advice book on “true womanhood.” There isn’t even a chapter on hair!