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Wind, Sand and Stars - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 738
An imaginative recounting of Saint-Exupery's (author of "The Little Prince) time flying the mail over Europe and Africa. Landing on high plateaus and finding them scattered in meteorites, purchasing freedom for a Moroccan Slave, the disappeared customs of the Africans and Arabians, to the Spanish Civil war, he writes lyrically and humanely upon a world that has largely the disappeared.
It inspires me to search out the places he references, my satellite view can be little different than his own...
ruins in the desert...
more, blown over with sand.
In the end - after this book, he flew off and disappeared. And it's hard not to wonder if his life was not imitating his art, the airman in the Little Prince having flown clear to another planet...
Perhaps a little premature...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1176
My assessment still stands, although I was a little early in the execution.
Waiting, seeing the daughter, deadly hungover from the night before, having prematurely celebrated my victory a little too thoroughly...
Explaining my theory, swearing her to silence - no one shall know of this, NO-ONE! YOU UNDERSTAND!! NO ONE! WE'RE GOING TO BE RICH!!! RICH!!!! RICH!!!!
We weren't going to be rich, it was going to be a lot of boring work that would be entirely undercut if they knew what we were up to...
I explain it. She's doubtful. I prove it to her with spreadsheets and numbers and reassure her that - despite all evidence to the contrary - her Pa's a genius...
Head on down, take your place at the table, make your bets.
...it goes. This is the long boring part...
She speaks up - "Why not try #32?"
I ignore her. "Because it's not on the list...."
The croupier calls out..."#32..."
I look at her. She punches me.
A few more spins, again - "#29" she tells me, then changes her mind when I pile the chips. Chips off the table, the croupier calls it:
"#29"
This is getting to be a bit much. She refuses to assist me any longer, my precog-daughter, 7th daughter of a witch for sure, and my theory, it evaporates with my pile of chips on the table.
Running the numbers back at home, trying to figure out what went wrong...I should have fucked my theory and went with the daughter's guts.
You know you've failed when you have to write the test...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 1221
Looking for work, online, every employer has a little test they want you to do. Personality tests, which screen for possibly independent thoughts...logic tests..."skills assessment..." - read "Do you like to lick, suck or bite carrots when you find them on your plate.." or "It's our best customer. Do you bend over forwards or backwards?", the lists go on and on...
I remember applying once for Telus, a 500 question Personality Assessment and you know, just by virtue of the fact that you're jumping through their hoops, sitting through their test, that you've failed. Even if you qualify for the position, especially if you qualify for the position, passing any large corporations personality assessment is as damning a confession of spiritual and moral abandonment that you could hope for...
But now, every job is a choice - financial bankruptcy or moral bankruptcy.
Meditate, jump through their hoops, answer their questions, every fucking one of them a hammer blow, a round nail being punched into a square hole, sooner or later...
The Mandalorian
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 733
The daughter was curious as to watch this so I watched it first so we could discuss it.
It's received a fair bit of press, and I haven't yet read a negative review. Which is strange...so - here it comes.
A short list of the movies it's ripping off:
- Lone Wolf and Cub
- The Seven Samurai
- John Wick II
- Cat meowed at Yoda - borrowed from Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro"
- Music hints at Sergio Leone's "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"
- The Mandalorian - sounds more than a bit like Clint Eastwood and speaks with an inflection that I'm pretty sure he borrowed as well.
- These are just the ones that I noticed. I'm sure if you were a little more culturally fluent you'd recognize more. Suffice it to say there isn't an original bit of material in it.
Questions: Why does every outpost and every intergalactic port look like a ghetto in a third world country? And, really? Really? Are they STILL using plastic?
Now, the ripping off - the film-literate Star Wars fan might suggest that these are just "homages", tributes to the Disney Imagineers favorite films. Except the quality of this is so abysmally low that any one who sat through any of the above movies referenced isn't going to be able to sit through this without a lot of squirming very uncomfortably in their seat. So, not "homages" - this audience isn't going to understand - this is just a rip-off.
Now the dialogue - written for 5-year-olds, the acting - well like the actors realized at the last minute they'd just signed on to terminate their theatrical careers - abysmal - like out of a kids muppet movie - worse even - episode 4 - "Mandalorian interacts with barmaid"...painful, literally burn your eyes out painful. And - the solution to the many plot stalls is to throw in another crazy looking alien or robot. How about a new ice monster? Now you're thinking...
The Imagineers in a Brainstorming Session:
- "Lets add a silly robot..."
- "yeah, great idea, how about a killer silly robot?"
- "Hilarious! And it's got to want to blow itself up every time things go wrong..."
- "Now you're thinking..."
Inane.
Having sat through almost 4 hours of this - so you won't have to - I can tell you - not everyone needs a back story. Not Boba Fett, not Yoda, "The Mystery Character" is no longer a mystery character if you devote a whole fucking series explaining who he is. I'll tell you what needs explaining, What really needs explaining in this is how on earth Werner Herzog signed on to this...he better be fundraising for something great because he's got some atoning to do...
This is the world of corporate creativity, Disney's own milquetoast brand of "creative" storytelling, less plot, less dialogue, more visual effects. The Dystopian Disney...their corporate "imagineers" plundering all the best moments of popular culture and reducing them, dumbing them down to the absolutely lowest common denominator.
End Episode 4: " "I'' miss you 'baby Yoda' sooo much...". Don't you worry you little brat, Disney's going to make sure you can buy a lifesized replica just in time for Xmas...
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