Why Santa Claus Pisses Me Off - Twice!

No one ever tells you Santa Claus has a raven called Hugin and another called Munin, or that he rides a eight-legged horse called Sleipneir. Or that he originates in Scandinavia, not so much as lives at the North Pole, and that at one of his residences, Gladsheim, he has at his beck and call twelve judges called the Diar, who are not in the least bit concerned whether you've been good or bad this year.

Odin Allfather, Wotan, The Wanderer, is just one myth co-opted by, and rolled into, the legend of Santa Claus. The eight-legged horse may have become an eight reindeer sleigh, and Gladsheim may have become Santa's workshop and factory of happiness... but that is neither here nor there.

An economy has grown around this legend, one that slathers the entire world in red and green ever December, and that seems designed to keep retailers merry and their registers a-jingling; but that is not my problem with Santa. I'm happy to ignore the blatant consumerism that has in turn co-opted the Santa legend in modern times. (If they didn't have Santa they'd invent another mascot). No, my problem with Santa is two-fold:

I see Santa Claus as an enemy - The Enemy - of myth. And I see him also as an enemy of Reason. And yes, I do have an explanation...

The Phantom Menace of Middle-Earth?

I don't remember The Hobbit (the book) as well as I do The Lord of the Rings. I have read it only once, several years ago, and at a breakneck pace (as filler, almost) during my first reading of The Silmarillion. LOTR and the overall Tolkein lore I have read/ mined a lot over time... Perhaps this is why I was able to watch Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey not as an adaptation, but as a prequel to the magnificent LOTR trilogy. And it works!

I loved it, with one or two reservations. I will absolutely watch it again in HFR, having seen it in IMAX 3D. Next week then? Any takers?

"The Phantom Menace" of the LOTR movies this is most definitely NOT. Although... The Phantom Menace would've been an excellent name for this movie, given its attention to Mirkwood :)

Navel Gazing

I have never been someone -
Anyone! - other than I
Speaking here of feet,
Eyes, ears, nose, skin, and, tongue.
Not mere shoes!

How would it feel then, (one fine day)
To awaken as another?
In thought, memory, and dream
Preference, manner, affection
In appearance, relation, in obsession

Would I still be I, and recall
What yesterday felt like?
Or will I have forgotten me;
A faded gong once the hour is past;
Stillness following the ripple...

Has this already happened?
This morn when we awoke
Do I write as Another
In unwitting salute to the I that was...But yesterday?

Am I you? Are you me, right now?
Through time and space, hurtling
Being one another - Aren't then,
Love, rage, envy, lust, pity, hate, empathy
Rather dipped in irony?

Heady thoughts to assail our heart,
And on sated stomach, this Friday afternoon!
Bladder girded, leaping into revelry,
I bequeath the inevitable hangover
To you; for tomorrow!

Cloud Atlas - A Review in Three Metaphors

'Cloud Atlas', the film directed by the Wachowski siblings and Tom Twyker, based on the book by David Mitchell, is a remarkable film. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before, on many levels, and it is likely that nothing close to this will be attempted for some time to come. It is as much a 'paradigm shift' as the first "Matrix" was, and is perhaps best compared not to other movies, but to something like "Faust" in that it is grand, operatic, and yet fundamentally an exploration of the human condition.

Cinema legend tells us that when Darren Aronofsky saw "The Matrix" in 1999, he... "walked out of The Matrix with Jared and I was thinking, 'What kind of science fiction movie can people make now? The Wachowskis basically took all the great sci-fi ideas of the 20th century and rolled them into a delicious pop culture sandwich that everyone on the planet devoured. Suddenly Philip K. Dick's ideas no longer seemed that fresh. Cyberpunk? Done." Feeling challenged the director collaborated with Ari Handel, to toss around ideas for a new film they would eventually call "The Fountain".

I loved The Fountain - it was the one film Cloud Atlas reminded me most of. And Mr Aronofsky? Looks like the ball is back in your court, sir... the Wachowskis have raised the bar. Again!

It is impossible to describe this movie in regular terms. I cannot commit the atrocity of trying to "summarize" the plot. I cannot give you a dramatis personae because it is beside the point. Having not yet read the novel I cannot put forth a tirade on the literary underpinnings and compare the book and the movie. If I was being crude, I'd describe it as the love child born out of an orgy that V for Vendetta, Pulp Fiction, The Fountain, Blade Runner, Faust, and Mutiny on the Bounty had, because it has DNA from each one of them... and yet. Yet. This is a whole new ballgame.

Nor does this movie play the game of regular terms. It will likely not be a box office hit, and one is heartened by the fact that it was made independently. Even if it makes a loss, it is good to know that there are people (despite the knuckleheaded corporatised studios) that spend money on good art. It deserves (but may not win) an Oscar or twenty. It is almost three hours long, but was never dull for me.

I think it is also impossible to review this movie - although Roger Ebert has reliably done a beautiful job of it by employing the Churchill quote about Russia; "it is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". Let me then attempt to review this movie, without spoilers, and not in the usual way. Perhaps fittingly, here follows a review in three metaphors...

iExperimented

That's no Apple!

The Rebel Alliance has acquired a Death Star.

Zounds!

Listen, I am no Apple fan when it comes to their software or policies, let alone attitude. I have always admired their hardware though... and you have to give them credit for upending conventional wisdom time and again, whether with the iPod, or iPhone, or iPad. So when the chance came to give an iPad a real world whirl, I took it.

My dad got a (then New, now old as of yesterday) 3rd generation 32 GB iPad, with WiFi and 3G (which I won't be using). He had trouble getting it to work for him, and gave it up in the end as too much of an effort to unlearn Android (he loves his Note). My mom meanwhile couldn't be bothered with unlearning Windows and so never quite took to it. Result?

Here I am, with iPad in hand. Free. Apple. Hardware. Narf!

I've now spent 4 days playing around with it... I'm sure I will eventually get to a point where I'll jailbreak it, and beg the wizards over at XDA to come up with an Android Key Lime Pie ROM I can put on it - but first, I thought I'd validate how much of my own Android love/ Apple 'hate' are justified.

Like that TV show where some racist people were made to live - for, what... 40 days? - with the very people they hated to see if racism survives reality, I'm willing to be a guinea pig and write about my iPad using experience without prejudice. Maybe over 40 days, maybe less, maybe more.

So, enough prelude... Hail of bullets follows, sorted into categories I made up on the fly...