Wednesday Double Feature

by on June 25, 2014 at 9:10 am
Posted In: Test

Thanks to the move and other inconveniences I’ve had the Wednesday double feature on hiatus even longer than the strip. It’ll ta

215px-Pasolini_Gospel_Poster

ke me a little while to get back into the swing of things so I’m going to keep things relatively short.

The first on our agenda is something I’d been curious about for some time as it’s on nearly every critic’s top hundred list of great films I’ve ever seen. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Gospel According to St Matthew. When I first heard about it what I heard was how Pausolini used mostly amateur performer’s and also because of Pasolini’s politics and atheism it seemed odd for him to make such an overtly religious film. Because of this I expected something in the “Historical Christ” vein… perhaps something like Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazarath.

To my surprise this was a perfectly straight adaptaion or perhaps a better phrase is illustration because if there is one thing that a straight, literal adaptation shows us is that once we get past all of the usual story points, miricles, crucificxion and such the Gospels really doesn’t have much of a plot. Jesus, played with great intensity by Enrique Irazoqui, spends most of the film giving sermons. Some of the ones he gives makes him come off as slightly radical.

Pasolini’s directing has a nice, but somber, lyrical quality to it. He reminds me a bit of Bergman the way the camera lingers on faces and landscape. Quite a bit of it kept reminding me of a medieval mystery play. All good.

220px-NotTheMessiahBoxArt-smStill after watching this I felt a bit of a palate cleanser was in order so what better choice than Monty Python’s irreverence? Unfortunatly I have the obvious choice, Life of Brian virtually memorized a fact that kind of defeats the purpose of this exercise of broadening my film horizons. Therefore I went with the musical adaption Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) by Eric Idle and John Du Prez a comedic oratorio that servesa musical adaptation of the film as Spamalot did for Holy Grail. It also parodies such pieces as Handal’s Messiah. It’s a hoot throwing in everything they can not just from Brian but just about everything from Python that can fit including any excuse to play “The Lumberjack Song” All in all it’s an enjoyable hoot and Eric Idle’s a much better singer than I thought he was.

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Tuesday Rhapsodies

by on June 24, 2014 at 8:07 am
Posted In: Test

This week’s Rhapsody is Asian Fold Rhapsody arranged by Richard Saucedo. It includes such Asian folk tunes as the upbeat Chinese The Bamboo Flute, the Japanese Sakura and the Korean Ahrirang. So here it is performed by theGMEA District 9 Middle School Concert Band at Riverside Military Academy. Laura Stanley conducting

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First Night

by on June 18, 2014 at 10:17 am
Posted In: Test

Well I’m happy to say my housing woes are nearing their closure. Yesterday I finished the first wave of moving (that is to say bringing in most of the bare essentials that can be moved in with an SUV and doesn’t require the furniture I’m going to need to find a pickup truck for. At the moment I’m just figuring out where everything is going to go an my biggest frustration is that I’m not seeing how my largest set of bookshelves are going to get up the stairs and pivot in the hallway but anyway… it’s a work in progress

So anyway I had my first night in my own bed in my own apartment for the first time in over three weeks. So far I am pleased. It’s a little noisier than the old place, but the bedroom is a bit more insulated sound wise than the rest of the apartment, so no big deal. Besides it’s more of a case of different sounds than more sounds so it should be fairly easy to get used to.

But other than figuring out where to put everything is going to go, I’m happy. The location is fantastic. Even though I haven’t lived in the U-District for over a decade it has been the center of my social life and entertainment since I’ve moved to Seattle a place where I spent most of my free time. Now I’m in the heart of it with other cool neighborhoods like Wallingford, Greenlake and Fremont really close by! To be quite frank I’m beginning to worry about gaining wait since what were previously half hour long bike rides are now walking distance. To spell it out the Dreaming, one of my favorite hangouts, is now a nine minute walk… and I can order food before I leave because Tokyo First, my favorite teriyaki place is right on the way!

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Game of Thrones Season Four Finale

by on June 16, 2014 at 9:03 am
Posted In: Test
The Imp Bites Back

The Imp Bites Back

Well with “The Children” Season Four comes to an end. I was interested how this episode was going as I knew how many scenes were left but I didn’t know how they were going to fit them all into an hour’s worth of show. It did not disappoint. The scenes I expected were very well executed. The ones that I didn’t (one because I expected it to be in the next season the other being completely unique to the show) did also impress. What I missed most was a small but very important plot point involving Tyrion and Tywin. To a certain extent I’m surprised. They had the set up for it in the first season but I guess the writers decided it wasn’t that important after all but still it’s going to change a lot of Tyrion’s motivations for the rest of the show which should be… interesting. But what I missed the most was the book’s epilogue which brings the unexpected return of a certain character. But who knows perhaps it was a subplot that needed trimming or… it will be yet another reason to look forward to season five.

As for the season as a whole this was fun. To a certain extent I thought the pacing was too slow but I think this was mostly due to just how “Storm of Swords” was split into two seasons and a need to keep characters who disappear for two books visible. Frequently this is something I only have a problem with only when I watch it one episode at a time. When I’m watching the entire season on DVD this ceases to be an issue.

The other thing I find fascinating is just how different it is from the book. As I mentioned earlier one of the things I’ve been enjoying as a reader of Song of Ice and Fire one of the things I’ve enjoyed the most is handicapping the episodes, making educated guesss on just what they are going to tweak, embellish or trim. Another thing I’ve noticed is how a lot of these changes began to snowball becoming larger changes in future seasons. For all of the changes that had been made in the past for the most part the seasons stayed on the general outline. This season in my opinion started going off script in major ways most obviously seen in Sansa, Arya and Brienne’s stories. I’m beginning to be reminded of such franchises as Akira, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Full Metal Alchemist where the adaptation passed the original and became something very different. (no complaint mind you just something interesting) As a whole what I missed was no one made any use of the “Hands of Gold” Song something I thought they had several opportunities to put in context and would have been great!

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New Apartment

by on June 14, 2014 at 11:25 pm
Posted In: Test

NewApartment2014-06-14-16.51Well the day I’ve been waiting for finally came to pass.

Due to the  owners needing to get the apartment cleaned up, they would not have the place available until the fourteenth.

So this gave me two weeks to chill and recover from moving out of the old place, take care of some last minute logistical matters (which I had a little too much time to overthink and blow out of proportion) and start drawing again.

So finally the day has finally arrived It was nice to see that the place was bigger than I remembered it being not to mention being in some primo location. Of course there was a whole lot of paperwork to sign and the walk through to do. So it was all set except for one catch. The door key I had been given didn’t work the door. At first we thought it was a simple mix up and she would get me the right key the next day. However the next day came by and found myself waiting til noon (this was not doing good things for my sense of humor as I had access to a friends car for the weekend and this was taking a number on my move in time.) I finally called to see what the hold up was. It turned out that there was as much of a comedy of errors going on on their sides involving the handiwoman getting stuck on the highway, and then the there usual locksmith being closed on the weekend and probably a few other things that was not mentioned.

Finally I was told there was a place holder key for me but they didn’t really recommend me locking the door and I wouldn’t have to worry about theft If i didn’t put anything in the place. Anyway I went to pick up the key. I couldn’t find it at first. (I had been told it would be on “the counter” and I didn’t realize which counter she meant until after I called to say I couldn’t find it.) As a final straw for the day I couldn’t help noticing a small hole in one of the windows which I was sure I hadn’t seen in the walkthrough. It looked like it could have been a bee bee pellet (or perhaps a slightly higher caliber) which had me feeling just a little paranoid.

Still it will get this over with so I can start figure out how I furnish the place.

Still l

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