Book Club selected this work by Dan Brown for our May reading. I (and most of the Club) wasn't impressed.
You've missed so much!
Last weekend we went to Greater Boston for a wedding. It was in Rockport. It was fantastic! And we got to fly through New Hampshire. People were flinty there.
This weekend we're going to Chicago for another wedding. I doubt the folks will be as flinty.
I'm glad to see Cambridge is leading the way. Let's get married!
Or, If A One Kills A Zero On The Beaches Of Troy, Does It Leave A Stain?
How did this movie suck? Let me count the ways...
It opened with a belt-and-suspenders approach - three screens of text setting the stage going directly to a voice-over. You can open your movie with either text or a voice-over, although both are a little narratively weak, but to use both is crap.
Why do the Spartan and Grecian Kings (who are brothers) have Scottish Brogues? And look so Anglo?
The directing was leaden. So was the acting.
The dead bodies spread around the horse didn't have the symptoms diagnosed as 'plague'. If anything, they looked like they had anthrax.
Just because the director posseses the technology to multiply the actors on a beach-head doesn't mean he shouldn't just hire more extras.
Did they test screen this in front of anyone? There were so many parts that were laugh-out-loud funny, but not intentionally so. I always laugh at crap movies, but I had much of the audience laughing with me by the end. What had us giggling the most was Brad Pitt screaming 'Hector!' over and over again. He sounded like my alarm clock when I keep hitting snooze.
And for god's sake, we know this is a book! Every few minutes someone took the opportunity to point out how this was going to go down in history as a great battle, etc, etc.
What was with the Moaning Chick Soundtrack? Was that supposed to tell us this was an Epic?
Finally, a friend who accompanied us and who had previously been moved by Orlando Bloom as an elf said that her fantasty life with him had now dried up.
The one thing I did like was the ambiguity left about Achilles's mother - was she really the goddess? Or, in this movie that generally mocks the belief in the Greek gods, was she just a pretty lady selecting sea shells?
Of course, since I've never made a movie, I'm not entitled to criticize, right?
Man, these guys suck.
So many folks, not just on the right, have a hammer, and surprisingly enough everything looks like a nail.
It's been a while since I've done this.
Over the weekend I finished Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.
On Thursday night we watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
A while ago over the course of an afternoon I read Asimov's Second Foundation.
Inside, my mini-review of The Diamond Age. I'm not trying to spoil anything, but make no effort to avoid discussing the plot and characters.
As noted elsewhere I am a fan of Neal Stephenson. Through him, I have been slowly re-discovering my love of pulpy sci-fi, realized in a (re)reading of Asimov's Foundation series. This has been enjoyable and rewarding, I realized that most all of the sci-fi I'd previously read was written by dead guys (like Dick, Asimov, Herbert), many of whom started writing before digital computers even existed. I like the pulp, but don't like the bodice-ripping cheese. Stephenson seems to satisfy.
To quickly summarize, The Diamond Age follows several main characters through conflicts both personal and societal, more-or-less converging at the end but not wrapping up - the conflicts described between cultures are ancient and not to be resolved in the scope of this work. The sci-fi elements of the plot - widespread nanotechnology and a book that functions as a self-directed teaching tool for young girls - verge on being whiz-bang gratuitous but manage to stay in the line. By way of the above book, Stephenson manages to work in a bit of fantasy, but that mostly turns into a lecture on Turing machines - not the last time the author plays the instructor card.
I enjoyed this much more than Snow Crash, putting it almost on par with Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver.
So, the Book Club has read and discussed two books at this point - All the Names and Oryx and Crake. Summer is coming up so the attendance of the med student contingent will be spotty. Our next book will be the mass-market success The Da Vinci Code, hosted by the lovely Brooke.
I'm also in a second, secret, history book club. Our first book will be Viny's History of Early Rome. As soon as I buy a copy. This book club will (somehow) meet virtually, want to join?
Soak two cups of dried brown lentils in cold water for 2 hours.
In a large pot, sautee 2 medium onions, chopped, 4 cloves of garlic, chopped, 1/2 tablespoon cumin, and a teaspoon chili powder in olive oil. After five minutes add 6 cups of broth, 2 medium potatos cubed, one carrot chopped. Drain the lentils and add them. Bring to boil and cover, cook for at least an hour until lentils are soft. Reduce heat and continue cooking, at least another hour, until ready to server. Add water as needed. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon before serving.
I serve with a slotted spoon to avoid it being soup, and cover with a small garnish of sharp cheddar cheese.
In a food processor, combine 12-24 fresh basil leaves, 1-2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese, a handful of rock salt, 1/4 cup of pine nuts, and 3-5 cloves of garlic. Blend, combine with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and set aside.
Boil 1/2 to 1 package of angel hair pasta, run under cool water and dump into your large bowl.
Add in the pesto, 1-2 medium tomatos chopped, and the juice of half a lemon. Stir, add more oil to taste. Serve cold.
Last night we had Marshall and Gwyn over. Furn was supposed to come but her flight was delayed.
I made steamed green beans, angel hair pasta with tomato and pesto, and a lentil dish. For dessert I served the remained of the apple pie. My customers seemed satisfied.
We recessed to the new couch and discussed parasites.
Wash your artichokes. Snap the tops of the large leaves off; use a knife to cut the topmost points. Rub down with lemon quarters. Trim the stem if needed, but leave as much as possible, it can be eaten. Steam, covered, for 30 to 45 minutes depending on size, rubbing with lemon a few times while cooking.
Serve with a sauce of melted butter, lemon juice, and a dash of garlic powder. Eat the large leaves by scraping the good stuff off the inner top of the leaf with your teeth after dipping in the sauce. When the leaves cease to yeild anything worthwhile, quickly escape to the kitchen, cut off the remaining leaves, scoop out the choke with a spoon, and cube the heart and stem.
I made dinner for the TW on Saturday. We had Carmen's Salad, artichokes with lemon butter, and some tortallini in a tomato cream sauce. For dessert, I made apple pie served a la mode. Good stuff!
Friday Night TW and I went to the symphony, seeing Mitsuko Uchida brilliantly performing Mozart's 11th, 13th, and 12th piano concertos. Fantastic. Especially the 12th.
Sorry I've been neglecting you.
I woke up at 4am this morning with some sort of GI pain. I've been more-or-less awake since. Suckers!
I noticed an article on CNN today which covers a split between the global Orthodox church and its Greek head.
This lead me to do a little more research (mostly because I wanted to see more pictures of guys with long beards), and I came across an oped by Rev. Dr. Miltiades B. Efthimiou on the occiasion of the 800th anniversary of the Fourth Crusades, for which the Roman Catholic pope issued an apology.
This op-ed explains some of the basic difference between the Eastern and RC faiths. You know what seems to be #1? The issue of "filioque". Rev Dr Efthimiou's article didn't explain this difference to me, but more research seems to indicate that it's a slight semantic difference in the Nicene Creed. In the RC version, the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son", to the EOs, the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father".
Rev Dr Efthimiou suggests that the RC version emerged from an error in transcription, which may be reasonable, but - holy smokes! - that's the crux of a thousand years of schism? Ridiculous.