My Fierce One Turns 11

My beautiful daughter's birthday was today. For the event, those of us who could cook created a fine meal with tacos, guacamole, and other great accompaniments. Instead of cake, we had cupcakes decorated in various custom designs by the eleven year old of the hour and those who came together to honor her. BTW, if I ever want to get a giggle out of folk who know her, I refer to my youngest as "my quiet and demure daughter." For my mind, I think she gets her keen and fierce personality from the one who shares the same birthday (and who influenced her old man growing up). Had he lived, Bruce Lee would have turned 70 today. To celebrate them both, there's only one theme song that fits.

Song for the Holiday: Get Here

With the Thanksgiving Day holiday almost upon us, and being the busiest travel day of the year, it always reminds me of those trying to get home. When I think about my family and the holiday, being home for it means a great deal to me. As it does for others who have to travel to make it happen. Whenever my wife and I roam anywhere, it is my mate who the kids and I follow to our destination. She is the sightseeing one between the two of us, and loves getting us there. Me? While I have a fondness for journeying with the gang, it's my role for getting us home, together.

This post has been updated and moved to my current blog, which can be found here.

The Lathe of Heaven Film Review

Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.

Back in September of this year, I put together a post for My Picks for The Greatest... Sci-Fi Film Edition. In it, I placed a little PBS film high up on that loftiest of lists for this genre. There it drew the attention of my NoCal blogging compadre, Rachel (from Scientist Gone Wordy). So, per her suggestion for our next 'parallel post', The Lathe of Heaven novel and film, by fantasy/sci-fi author Ursula K. Le Guin, will have our mutual focus for this the November edition of our little book/film series. As usual, the wordy one will examine the text of the 1972 Locus SF Award novel winner, while I get to go back and relive my 1980 youth by reviewing that now famous broadcast of Thirteen/WNET's adaptation of the sci-fi classic. Rachel's book review can be found here:

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

This post has been updated and moved to my current blog, which can be found here.

I'm Waiting for This

A western, and one that has marauding alien invaders? Sign. Me. Up (says the Firefly fan).

Never Die Young

As close as a personal motto as there is in song for me:

We were ring-around-the-rosy children

They were circles around the sun

Never give up, never slow down

Never grow old, never ever die young

Synchronized with the rising moon

Even with the evening star

They were true love written in stone

They were never alone, they were never that far apart

And we who couldn't bear to believe they might make it

We got to close our eyes

Cut up our losses into doable doses

Ration our tears and sighs

You could see them on the street on a saturday night

Everyone used to run them down

They're a little too sweet, they're a little too tight

Not enough tough for this town

We couldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole

No, it didn't seem to rattle at all

They were glued together body and soul

That much more with their backs up against the wall

Oh, hold them up, hold them up

Never do let them fall

Prey to the dust and the rust and the ruin

That names us and claims us and shames us all

I guess it had to happen someday soon

Wasn't nothing to hold them down

They would rise from among us like a big baloon

Take the sky, forsake the ground

Oh, yes, other hearts were broken

Yeah, other dreams ran dry

But our golden ones sail on, sail on

To another land beneath another sky

Have a great weekend, folks.

Music & Art: Tatooine

Just so readers don't get the idea that I'm all about the old and forgotten music, I submit the following:



Not only being a deceptively catchy tune by Minnesotan Jeremy Messersmith (the self-described "Musician, nerd. Not in that order."), the paper animation by Eric Power in the music video is mesmerizing to watch. Being the old Star Wars fan that I am, the animator/filmmaker's ability to distill and render the original trilogy in 2:40 minutes can't be understated. My kids loved this video, and have been asking me to play the tune over and over again in the car via my iPod. I can't say I ever get tired of watching the glints in their eyes whenever we share a music and art connection of this sort.

Twin suns of Tatooine
Taught me everything I know
Twin suns of Tatooine
Taught me everything I know

There's room up there for second chances
Singles are fine but doubles are fantastic
I'd like to think that there's a star for me and you
Spinning round, falling for one another

Twin suns of Tatooine
Taught me everything I know
Twin suns of Tatooine
Taught me everything I know

Solos are fine but duets are romantic
A pair is grand but a trio'd be disastrous
I'd like to think that there's a star for me and you
Spinning round, falling for one another

Friday Forgotten Song: Everyone's Gone To The Moon

There are songs, if I happen to catch them on radio or the web, that can instantly transport me back to another time. Place doesn't much matter since the time machine remains all in my head to begin with. Random access memory via grey matter, all byway of music and lyrics. For instance, I can find myself back in the 90s whenever I come across Santana's Smooth (or other tracks from that album) -- all of this care of my wife because she brought the CD home one day. Sci-fi Fanatic has been sending me back to the 80s recently with his thoughtful music posts (Cutting Crew's Been In Love Before will do that to me). Just so I don't forget surviving the 70s, Macca and Wings' Band on the Run (along with How Long by Ace) will not let me leave behind that troublesome span. And if pressed, I will say it is Coldplay's Viva La Vida that does it for the 00s.

This post has been moved and updated to my current blog, which can be found here.