What a crazy weekend--Thursday night I was here at Cook Library until 10pm. Cha and I were supposed to leave at 10:30 for OC (the MSTA conference, and a friend's three-bedroom condo were waiting). She was, however, delayed at the Carnival Verde event aboard the USS Constellation. Apparently Earthdragon almost got into a fist fight with someone who volunteered to help him break down his equipment because he felt insulted by one of the Green Congressional candidates and decided to go into a funk. Cha said she had to jump in front of him when he charged a volunteer who'd offered to help. Ugh. At any rate, she didn't get home until 11:30--the Greens did raise more than $1500 for their local candidates, and the evening was apparently spectacular, with bellydancers, The Scarborough Affair, the Rogues, and a sword-swallower entertaining the crowd.
We left shortly before midnight and arrived at OC just before 3am and promptly crashed. She got up early and went to the conference, while I, lulled by the sound of surf and the salt air, slept like a zombie until noon. I NEVER sleep until noon! It was fucking spectacular to do so. We had a great Friday at the beach, despite a rainy afternoon. We bowled three games of tenpins, we played putt-putt golf (she kicked my ASS), we ate well, we walked to the shore, we shopped, we saw "Team America" and had an argument because she thought the audience would be unable to figure out the satire (Ebert apparently feels the same way); I thought she was right but didn't care. The film is good, but not great; the South Park dudes really lampoon the entire "rah-rah" USA GI Joe bullshit so prevelant today (the Team America Police have a themesong called "America. FUCK YEAH!"). They also parody the rightwing view of lefty elitists (most particularly Hollywood activists) in a manner that may confuse unsophisticated audiences--soft-headed PC lefties are already whining that their portrayal of Tim Robbins and their use of Michael Moore are insensitive and way too harsh, while FOX News is pushing the film for all the wrong reasons, and misses the satire completely (or knows its audience won't get it). I got some really good belly laughs for my $7, that's all I care about; I say fuck the censors on both ends of the political spectrum. Kim Jong Il singing "I'm so Ronery" while walking past his Hummel figurine collection, the "Montage" satire, and the all-too-accurate portrayal of the consequences of US military action in Paris and Cairo made it worthwhile--and the film has more to offer. I'm not a HUGE Parker and Stone fan--I like some South Park stuff, but find some of their scatalogical satire too facile. That said they do rise on occasion to brilliance; Team America is worth one viewing.
On the way home Saturday afternoon we narrowly missed the disastrous rainstorm that fucked up I-95 so badly; good thing, too, because we would've been late for Em's nuptials. We stopped at the Mall to pick up a part of our gift just as the first wave of thunderstorms blew over. The parking garage was so jammed we had to drive up on the roof, but that turned out to be OK given the two simultaneous and vivid rainbows over Towson--I've never seen any so clear that the violet was clearly discernable, and here were two side by side. Nice.
The wedding was excellent from the setting to the ceremony to the food. I found the Celtic hand-whatever ceremony really moving, and it amplified for me the personal nature of the wedding ritual. Too often we think of weddings as granted to couples by some external authority--some gigantic Church/State morph--and we lose sight of the fact that weddings have little to do with external authority at all. Your preacher or your archbishop or your congressional representative will not be there for you at 2:30am when you have doubts--your spouse will (ideally). Em's service was moving and elegant and intensely personal, and her brother and her significant other's sister did a marvelous job (as did Ferocity as Matron of Honor, and the drag king who was Best Man), and the choice of ceremony reminded me of our wedding because Cha and I were also tied up at one point. I joked with J357 that the sanctity of my marriage was a bit threatened; he said "yeah, that storm that came through was like the Wrath of God!" I mentioned our earlier vision of the rainbows as a more likely message.
Now, I'm back at Cook--my worthless student is out today (thank God) with a case of Yankeeitis. I'm grading papers and helping morons turn the pages of "Broadcasting and Cable." I'm hoping to finish some grading and to get some homework done, but it doesn't seem likely so far.
2 comments:
What do you make of the "17 US soldiers held in Iraq after disobeying orders", "NY Times: Detainees at Guantanamo stripped, shackled" headlines and the NYT endorsement?
bored. been holed up in Media Services for six hours straight with no break. Gahh.
Just got done reading the papers--the Vietnam war ended when so many US troops started to actually rebel on bases that our mission over there (whatever it was) became untenable. The story about the 17 troops over there is the second recently about troops disobeying orders--the other was I believe at a base in SC where Guardsmen were confined to quarters after rioting when they found out they were being shipped back to Iraq.
I wasn't surprised by the Kerry endoresement in the Times, but I was pleasantly shocked at its tone. Some media outlets have gradually regrown their balls of late.
I'm bored too, and fucking hungry. I'm stuck at the desk with no help until 5 (I came in at 11pm), and can't go get food or eat until my student arrives in an hour.
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