Like many people across the globe I found PSY’s Gangam Style to be a catchy and frighteningly addictive ear worm.
As a longtime fan of Bluegrass when I heard the Cleverly’s do a version I just had to share.
“What was that?”
Dielle rolled her eyes. “I said I thought they made a good couple…” They were walking in the middle of Maple Lake Park after they had left the restaurant. She had wanted to see the moon reflected in the water and had refused to listen to Gage’s litany of crime statistics, or that the park had closed at 11. “What did you think?” She asked again.
Gage tried to remember what he thought of Dielle’s friend L. He knew that L had told him his name but he just couldn’t remember it, one of those long Polynesian names. He remembered him as an earnest and polite in a shy nerdy sort of way. And his date… what was her name, Inna… Anais? Something long. She seemed nice too… but when he stopped thinking about it, what really stuck out was the way they loomed.
This was strange since when he thought about it in a perfectly rational way they seemed perfectly normal and smaller. He certainly didn’t remember a low rumbling bass that rattled his fillings when either of them spoke. “Yeah. They were all right. ” He said.
Dielle grinned. Her smile was blinding. “What’s the matter with you, Clarence? If you got any stiffer I would have had to get L to carry you home… and that would have spoiled his night”
“I was not stiff!” Gage shouted out instantly and instinctively.
“Of course you weren’t, Clarence. ” Dielle laughed putting a hand on his shoulder. “I could see you fidgeting all the way through. It’s a good thing those two were even more nervous than you were. ”
“I wasn’t that nervous. ”
“Of course you weren’t..” She repeated and paused looking up at the sky she looked back at Gage. “Full moon sure is pretty, isn’t it?” She said.
“It’s gibbous.”
“What?
“The moon. It’s not full. it’s waxing gibbous. ”
Dielle frowned. “Clarence? Do you always correct girls making small talk?”
“Uh I didn’t mean…” He began to stammer but Dielle put a finger to his lips.
“You want to be careful. The next one you run into might think you’re being rude. But you had fun, right?”
“Oh yeah… We really should do this again…. Can we?” He asked.
Dielle gave him an enigmatic smile turned and sat down on a park bench. She took off one of her shoes. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to heels,” She said. “My feet are killing me. ” She grinned mischievously and raised a stocking foot towards Gage. You want to rub them for me?”
BOOOM!!
Before Gage could say anything there the noise of a loud explosion followed by several more. They looked up to see fireworks going off all over the city. Gage thought he could hear a tune he couldn’t recognize being played through loudspeakers. The fireworks seemed to go on for over a half hour until finally they filled the sky over the lake with the words “LOVE YOU FOREVER”.
Gage and Dielle stared at the sky speechless as the display ended. Neither seemed to notice their hands touching. In the distance they could hear people talking, dogs barking, car alarms and sirens.
Dielle glanced at Gage they both pulled their hands away. “Aww, Clarence, you shouldn’t have.” She said smiling.
“What!? How could I have….”
“No. Of course not.” Dielle frowned. “But damn. Somebody has it BAD”
This week’s films, Equilibrium and Oldboy were two films I had been curious for some time but had been putting off watching indefinitely.
E
quilibrium had peaked my interest for two reasons. First, as a big science fiction fan I’m always on the lookout for the films that deal with the big ideas as opposed to being just space adventure. What I got when I watched it was a fairly boilerplate fascistic dystopia, which pretty much acts like an action remake of Fahrenheit 451. I think Truffaut did it better the first time. (as well as
The other reason I wanted to see Equilibrium was the Gun-Kata. Generally what the film is remembered for is Christian Bale running around guns akimbo and since I’ve had an interest in fight choreography recently and this was something I was looking forward to. Unfortunately, going by that criteria I was sorely disappointed. Apparently the original fight choreographer had designed a relatively functional gun based fighting style and the director didn’t use it because it didn’t look cool. What he replaced it with was extremely disappointing. You know something is amiss when the actual katas (that is to say the scenes where people are training) is better than the actual fight scenes.
All in all while it was a perfectly solid journeyman piece, Equilibrium didn’t deliver.
Oldboy was a completely different kettle of fish.
I’d read the manga it was based on a few years ago. It was such a kick in the head that when I heard about Park Chan-wook’s adaptation I was very reluctant to watch it. To a certain extant this is not the kind of film I would normally watch. I tend to be a bit of a wimp when it comes to over the top violence and it is a dark and violent film with the violence going back and fourth between almost ridiculous Grand Guignol to scenes so intense you find yourself averting your eyes. To spell this out; as someone who has had extensive dental work it will be a while before I can listen to Vivaldi’s four seasons in the same way again.
But what I like best about this film is all of the technical experiments Park does My favorite scenes were a fight in a narrow hallway done in a single, wide-angle shot and the scene where our hero Oh Dae-su played by (Choi Min-sik) learns just what he did to earn the wrath of the villain Woo-jin Lee played by (Yoo Ji-tae) to imprison him for 15 years. Seamlessly going back and fourth from past to present. It reminded me very much of a scene with William Defoe in Boondock Saints. On a lesser note Park does some really cool things with camera angles to make Woo-Jin towers over Dae-su when his coup de gras is delivered (he might have been using a wide angle lense for it but I’m not sure.
Oldboy is hardly a perfect film there are a few elements I think that could be improved upon but for the most part it has turned me into a fan of Park’s work.
Raise a glass and wish a very happy birthday to two of our favorite guys, Charles and Abe!
Today’s Rhapsody is “Urban Rhapsody” by the Neo Soul Acid Jazz Collective.
Just stumbled over this bit of fun from Tom Tomorrow that I had to share. A quick note as a middling at best football fan who barely remembers the lineup of his own team I never really cared about Tim Tebow. Most of what I knew about him was from a handful of culture war feeds which would have people like Pat Robertson going on and on about how inspirational he was, how Denver was keeping him to “placate a Christian audience” and when he was traded for being a mediocre player that God would punish Denver. That’s right. We are divine retribution! 
Addendum: To squeeze some of the humor out of this, according to one of those feeds some idiot at the WND believes this for real.
