I had the weekend of a million and one things going on, which made narrowing things down to four a bit on the tough side, but I managed to come out intact with only minor scrapes and bruises, minus the new hockey injuries, which occur on a weekly basis, like Iranian death threats or outbreaks of mad [insert animal here] disease in the UK.
I managed to catch the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie on Friday, which was like sitting through a Johnny Depp playacting his way through a Keith Richards rendition of Harry and the Hendersons theme song, in that it made absolutely no sense, and in terms of cultural impact, will have done nothing to add to the perceived coolness of pirates. It did, on the other hand, remove several hours of my life in which I might have been at home looking for funny videos on YouTube, so the tradeoff was minimally invasive. I like the idea of pirates in theory, but I find the execution of pirate-like ideas in visual form renders it somewhat stale, as if being subject to the air conditioned theatre environment of the 21st century and produced with teeming hordes of mindless computer render farms makes a pirate less interesting. Mind you, I’m a fan of goopy special effects monsters and “Arrrr, avast ye landlubbers” kind of talk, maybe even more than the next guy, but my patience ran a little thin after I realized that the movie had no real plot, per se, just a rollicking series of action set pieces separated by droll passages of muddy expository tell-not-show dialogue.
But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I still have the review to write.
World Cup on Saturday and Sunday, which was like being introduced to football for the first time. I’ve been watching various games in the tournament, but I felt like I was part of the international community with the two finals. Skipped church on Sunday to watch Italy v. France, and wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, I was actually pulling for France. I thought I was feeling a bit Gaulish earlier in the week, and it hadn’t quite worn off by the time the game rolled around. I was quite disappointed by Zidane’s blustery headbutt of Materazzi, nearly switching over to Italy just out of spite, but Penalty Kicks drew me back. I’m not much for footie commentary. All I know is it’s a fun game when you realize that maybe a billion people are watching in various corners of the world. I bet there was a satellite TV in an Antarctic waystation picking up the broadcast.
Saturday evening I attended a dinner party, hosted by a friend I met at the Conservatory coffeeshop. Also there was, and I kid you not: a producer; a South African writer; a gay real estate salesman; a literary/casting agent; a graphic designer; and a bikini wax lady/channeller. It couldn’t have been more diverse if the Pope and Kofi Annan had shown up. We talked movies and tv and true celebrity sex stories, so it kind of played like an episode of E! Hollywood Stories without all the blurred out naughty bits. The positive development was meeting the literary agent–I’ve tried to reach him before and we just hadn’t had much luck making contact with each other. Here’s to possibilities on that front.
It doesn’t sound as exciting when viewed through the lens of the blog, but then again, no one ever forced you to read through the entire thing to get to this part where I mock the whole enterprise of encapsulating my life into digestible chunks. It’s always a challenge not to make your life sound like it’s the excitement equivalent of a commercial break during the Dick Van Dyke show, but occasionally, just remembering is enough to make you realize that even if your life isn’t a Tom Cruise crazy fest, it can still be fun. Just not to other people.
Review of PotC2 tomorrow. See ya then.