Click for Better Things patfromch said... As reigning Beatles Expert on Vleeptron I could have warned you about that awful movie. And your resumee fits, disneyesque pepole with disneyesque problems sing awful arrangments of songs that were never meant to be sung in this context.
Still have to catch up with Ratatouille, it would be the first non-bad new movie I would see this year
Good to know you had a good time in Canada, this country is still one of the places I want to visit, expecially a bench in Toronto, the arctic circle and Montreal, where I will probably be the only tourist to understand french
hehe hey mate, come to Europe next time, see the wonders of the old world (Pizza you owe me not included)
Oh and that laptop with wifi: if it is a Sony Vaio, check back with your dealer ASAP, they are calling back models Friday, 05 September, 2008
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Oh No!!! Will my rechargeable battery burst into flame while I am Wi-Fying in a Montreal hotel room??? Thanks for the Sony Vaio Recall Tip, I will get right on it, that's a sucky way to Perish, it would make a really embarrassing obit:
WI-FI LAPTOP BLAZE
KILLS AMERICAN TOURIST
One of the veterans of the Lewis & Clark Expedition turned right around and marched back into the Great Wilderness to trap and hunt amongst Wild Savages for decades. This was the famous John Colter, who discovered Yellowstone -- "Colter's Hell" -- and had to run for his life naked and barefoot for 11 days and nights pursued by a band of murderous Pieds-Noirs / Blackfeet warriors.
And then died choking on a fishbone in a hotel restaurant in St. Louis.
On the 28-month Expedition itself only 1 member died: Of a burst appendix, which no doctor in the world's fanciest hospital at that time could have treated.
There were occasional brief exchanges of bullets and arrows, but the Explorers and the Plains and Pacific Northwest Indians usually got along famously.
Yeah, rent or web-hose "Ratatouille," it's practically the only computer-generated animation that's ever impressed me, and the only one so far that attended to the literary side of the Great Technical Project -- 4000 South Korean computer programmers, and 1 talented Screenwriter.
There's an adult "edge" to "Ratatouille," with lots of "adult situations" -- i.e., French situations involving males, females, and hundreds of rats scurrying around the kitchen of a 5-Star Michelin restaurant in Paris. The spirit of the thing reminded me a little of "Ren and Stimpy" by Jon Krickfalusa (sp?).
(While he lived, Walt Disney was famous for saving money by not hiring real screenwriters. When you watch the Old Disney, you are watching Minimum-Hourly-Wage Art Without Labor Unions, real k-Mart discount dramatic literature.)
Not being able to travel to Mitteleuropa this summer has broken my heart, but this Krazy Kanadian Train Trek was a really wonderful Prix 2eme.
If I had not been trapped on the High Seas on a ferry boat, I would never have had a chance to see a few parts of "Across the Universe," and it really was horrifyingly All Wrong, the drama as well as the Musical Wrongness of these versions of Beatles songs.
Well, at least the surviving members, Ringo and Paul, will be receiving some benefit from this mess -- although I think the entire Lennon-McCartney Beatles Song Catalog now belongs to Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. Clearly the poor misbegotten disaster was trying to cash in on the Nostalgia Pop craze of "Mama Mia" and A.B.B.A.
Well, anyway, Helvetia Or Bust is my new travel motto, and I will somehow get there soon. Here is another local travel motto befitting my plan to cross the Alps:
Excelsior
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
THE SHADES of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior! 5
His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior! 10
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior! 15
"Try not the Pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior! 20
"Oh, stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior! 25
"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior! 30
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior! 35
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior! 40
There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!
(I have a musical version of this clunker, Andre Previn on the piano accompanying a Music Hall baritone.)
This is a far, far better way for a Vagabond to perish than my laptop battery bursting into flame. Excelsior!
3 comments:
Pieds noirs is also a rather racist slang term for black immigrants used in France.
That story reminds me of the movie The Man they called Horse, but probably has nothing to do with the story
Anyway, Sony callback for Vaio TZ
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/04/sony-recalling-vaio-tz-models-due-to-overheating-risk/
this is not the first time sony had to call back batteries, last year or so they had to call back 3 million models, Sony lost a lot of dough on that issue, Engadget can provide you with a whole history of notebooks and other gadgets bursting into flame.
(I for one had it with PCs, like the good Rev I am going to swith to a Mac)
French fur trappers were the first Europeans to have contact with the Indians of the Plains, so most Plains Indians nations have French as well as English names -- Nez Perce / Pierced Nose is a famous one.
The most famous movie made of Colter's run for his life transplanted the story to Africa, "The Naked Prey" (1966) starring Cornel Wilde, very popular and thrilling movie.
I guess there's a eurocentric colonial subtext to this story, the naked unarmed white hero always manages to kill a few of his savage pursuers and reach the safety of (white) civilization. Well, savages need to buy a movie camera and make their own movies if they want to show their side of things. Like -- why are they so pissed off at the white guy in the first place?
At the start of the race, Colter's buddy Potts, another Lewis & Clark veteran -- a fat guy who wasn't a very fast runner -- was killed by the Blackfeet.
First thing Monday morning I am definitely checking out my Sony Ticking Time Bomb! Oh, also I have to figure out how to make it magically communicate with my desktop.
I found a great deal of effective data in this post!
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