Monday, June 03, 2002
For Sale: One Holy Land
You want to talk about buying and selling land? You tell me that land which I bought years ago is so valuable to the kids of the old tenants they're willing to send their children out to blow themselves up to get it back, Ill tell you what we have here are what the real-estate trade calls motivated buyers.
What, have the Israelis forgotten how to be Jews? Sell them the god-forsaken land back at a hefty profit, jacking up the price because of all the improvements. If they dont have cash, make them sign sixty-year mortgages, and appoint the Swiss Guards as the collection agents for the loans. Take the profits and retire to Palm Springs.
Sheesh.
The Unholy Lands by J. Neil Schulman
It's either that, or possibly have the UN take control of the Holy Land, or just Jerusalem, since it's apparent that Jews, Muslims and some Christians want it to themselves and can't share, so let's make so that none of them own it and have to answer to some other higher authority, since YHWH (aka God aka Allah) certainly isn't taking charge here.
The Dinner Song of J. H. Marx
Did I tell you we called him Tom?—possibly because that's his name. I, of course, asked him to call me Tom too, but only because I loathe the name Julius.
Yours,
Tom Marx
Ah … Groucho Marx. Gotta love the guy. 29 years ago today Groucho Marx and T. S. Eliot met for dinner, as each was a fan of the other's work. The dinner didn't quite go as expected but at least Groucho had a sense of humor about the affair.
A little touched
A brain-damaged hippie has decided to devote all his time and money into pitching a surreal cartoon/live-action musical/Hollywood blockbuster about the powers of peace and love. He has a convoluted plot that involves love babies and sperm and magical lovemaking and the KKK and Vietnam and death and birth and it's all done in this heavily marketable style that is so fucking insane you will never want to go near acid ever again.
HIGHLIGHT: He goes off on a tangent about a new chain of organic vegetarian restaurants called Peace and Love that will stem from the success of the movie and will compete with McDonald's.
Via Flutterby, TOUCHING PEOPLE
I'm not so sure about these touching people, but I will say that the videos on this page are of people that are seriously touched. The funniest I found was the Martin Carlton Stunt Special, where he seriously attempts to leap from the top of one pine tree to another pine tree maybe 50, 100 feet away. He doesn't quite make it. The saddest (or pathetic, depending on how you view it) is of Orson Wells selling champagne near the end of his life (can you say “pissed drunk?”).
Then there's the CEO of Winnebago attempting to make a commercial but comes off more like an extra in a Scarface (oddly enough, Spring and I had a conversation about swearing last night; mainly about how little I do and why. I said that I grew up being taught that swearing was bad and that the adults in my life actually did very little swearing. And if used too much, the words loose their power and when something really bad happens you could be rendered speechless; not having any words powerful enough to express the emotion. Spring said that she had, in fact, found herself speechless on a few occasions—the swear words not being powerful enough for her to express what she was feeling).
Star Wars Geeking
Major geekage.
Rob and I got into a conversation about the Force and light sabers. I don't remember exactly how we ended up on a Star Wars conversation, but we did.
What can I say? We're both geeks.
I remarked that in all the films so far, we haven't really seen light sabers used to their full potential. Almost in The Phantom Menace, with Darth Maul's double-ended light saber, but I felt he didn't use them to full effect; what he should have done was light only one end to fight Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and when the opportunity presented itself, snap on the other end and sweep across in a surprise attack. Rob said that doing such a maneouver would be very dangerous and very hard to do if the power switch wasn't right there for Maul to ignite the blade. Or even if the switch was turned on at the wrong moment (“Ooops … impaled myself … darn it all!”).
Point conceeded, but hey, we're talking about Force-using warriors here—ones who can use telekinesis to move objects. Who's to say that without the proper training that a light saber can't be turned on using the Force?
Even then, we don't really have an evidence that a Jedi (or Sith Lord) can both wield a light saber in battle and use telekinesis at the same time. In every instance in the various movies, the use of telekinesis is exclusive with direct engagement with the light saber.
But even more creative uses of the light saber have yet to present themselves (in the movies that is). Why not strap the light saber to the arm, and have the on-button in the palm of the hand? As you (the Jedi knight or Sith Lord, take your pick) punch your opponate, hit the switch and instant impalement. Rob said that such a use has been described in the various Star Wars books that take place after Return of the Jedi, but I would like to see more creative use of light sabers in the movies.
The conversation then turned to actual fighting styles. In the book for Attack of the Clones, it mentioned that Count Dooku used a fencing style, where as the rest of the Jedi use a Kendo slashing style sword play. The Kendo style makes sense in the presence of lasers—the sweeping motions are used to deflect the beams but in Jedi-to-Jedi combat (and even in real life, Rob assured me) that unless the skill levels are way out of wack, a fencer will slice to ribbons a person using Kendo; the fencer has tighter control over the weapon and can take advantage of openings that a slashing style presents. And Rob should know, he plays with swords quite often.
