November 29, 2000
Dear Everyone:
Three weeks and counting and we still don’t know
who the
sock-puppet-elect is going to be.
This reminds me of when we were kids, playing football in the
back yard. “Byron” would
have the ball and head for the goal line (just short of the rose bushes
on the left). “Richard” and
“Marshall” would both tackle “Byron”, or try to in any case.
“Byron” would, of course, keep right on plowing across the grass,
with “Richard” and “Marshall” each grimly clinging to an ankle until
“Byron” made the touchdown.
That’s when they decided to “let” me play with
them. On “Byron’s” team.
The idea was that my inferior gender and fairly total ineptitude
at sports would act as a handicap for “Byron” and thus even the odds.
It worked pretty well actually.
It will be interesting to find out who’s got the
ball at the end of
The Stagger to the White House.
And who will play the principle roles in the made-for-TV movie
(and which network gets it to the screen first).
But enough of this silliness.
Let me explain why there was no Letter last week.
I was on vacation.
Time was when I didn’t do a Letter when on vacation because I
only had my company PC with which to write the Letter (I did it on my
lunch break once a week). As
time passed, I had a computer at home, but needed the company copier to
make all the copies. Then,
as more and more people opted for email, I needed fewer copies and could
print them at home. Most
recently, I figured out how to print the copies back-to-back, which
saved on paper. And I’ve
written Letters while on vacation in the past.
Hell, I’ve even written Letters while home sick.
So why not last week?
Tom Clancy wrote another book.
I found it while Christmas shopping the Monday
before
Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving week was pretty quiet.
Mother had gone off to her “other” family in
Italy.
“Marshall” and “Jeannie” opted for Thanksgiving at
Monterey.
Having been to Monterey a couple of years ago, I wasn’t that
interested in going again so soon.
I figured the water hadn’t changed that much.
In fact, I was looking forward to some nice quiet time by myself.
So everyone was happy with the arrangement.
I was going to do some serious pre-Holidays
housecleaning and work on a couple of little projects.
Maybe rent a few movies.
But then I found Clancy’s new book.
All 1028 pages of it (hard cover).
It’s
The Bear
and the Dragon, one of his “Jack
Ryan saves the world from bad guys” books.
If you like Jack Ryan, you’ll love this one.
If you’ve never read any, don’t start with this one.
Start with
Patriot Games
and work your way forward. I
made the mistake of starting with a later book, then had to backtrack to
get everything in order.
Consequently, in at least one book, I knew two of the characters would
survive because I’d already seen them in the sequel (not that there
wasn’t plenty of suspense to go around in other areas).
So I read Clancy pretty much all last week.
I’d volunteered to feed a friend’s cat while she was out of town,
so it was read until around 2:00.
Put the book down and drive down to
Pleasanton
to put out fresh cat food, deal with the litter box, scratch the cat’s
ears, drive home. Elapsed
time: 40 minutes.
Start reading the book again until bedtime.
Wednesday afternoon rolled around and I realized
that I should put the book down and write the Weekly Letter.
But, I rationalized, even if I write it right now, there’s no
mail pickup tomorrow, so it won’t go out until Friday.
And the people who get it via email aren’t going to be checking
their email on Thanksgiving anyway, especially the ones who only use
email at work. I can go on
reading and write the Letter tomorrow.
For Thanksgiving dinner, I had the traditional
Thanksgiving macaroni and cheese out of a box because I could leave the
book on the kitchen counter and read between stirring boiling water.
Again, no mail pickup, no one checking email on Thursday; I can
do the Letter Friday morning and still send it out in time for the
Postal Service.
By Friday, I was too far gone to do anything but
read and feed the cat.
Finally finished the book a few minutes before 1:00 Sunday afternoon,
just in time to go and feed the cat one last time.
And do the weekly grocery shopping.
So much for housecleaning.
So much for projects.
So much for decking the halls with boughs of holly.
Anybody want a really good book for Christmas?
I’m already finished with it.
Movies…
Before getting sucked into Tom Clancy’s world, I
did get in a couple of movies.
Since “Jeannie” doesn’t like
Arnold
Schwarzenegger, I went to see
The 6th
Day by myself. If
you like Arnold, you love this movie because you get two Arnolds for the
price of one. Arnold has
been cloned (a
violation of “The 6th Day Rule” which outlaws cloning humans,
whom God created on the Sixth Day).
The clone has taken Arnold’s family and life.
Arnold wants them back.
Much mayhem ensues.
Typical summer blockbuster fare, which for some
reason was held back for the Holiday season instead.
Tony Goldwyn
(he played the “friend” in Ghost)
is great as the multi-billionaire who thinks cloning people should be
(profitable) business as usual.
Interesting twist right at the very end.
Billy Elliot.
Like
The Full
Monty a few years ago, this concerns people living in a small
English town down on
its luck. In this case, the
town is a “company town” near a
coal mine in
northeast England. The year
is 1983. The miners have
been on strike for over a year.
Money is tight. Still Dad
manages to scrape together the “50 pence” to pay for son Billy’s
boxing lessons along
with most of the other eleven-year-olds in the village.
Trouble is, Billy doesn’t have much of a flair for
boxing. But he discovers,
quite by accident, that he does have something for
ballet.
A local woman gives ballet lessons to a small group of girls,
also for “50 pence”. Billy
stumbles into the class one day.
Pretty soon, he’s using the money to pay for ballet lessons
instead of boxing. When Dad
finds out, he’s horrified.
“’Balley’s’ not for lads!”
The teacher encourages Billy to follow his heart, possibly all the way to the Royal Ballet School. Dad is, of course, vehemently opposed. Until he finally gets it through his thick skull that entrance to the school could be Billy’s ticket out of “the Pit”. Then he can’t push the boy fast enough or hard enough.
They must have used a shoehorn to fit as many
metaphors into this film as they did.
Billy finds freedom in dancing; but because his father
disapproves, he practices in secret in a
public convenience.
Billy dancing through the streets… until he smacks into the metal
wall that surrounds the coal mine.
The violence between the striking miners and the police, who play
impromptu
soccer when they aren’t smashing heads.
If you go, be prepared for
pathos up the
wazoo.
Take the entire box of
Kleenexes with you.
Don’t count on those wimpy napkins they provide at the popcorn
counter. And, watch for the
final scene which shows Billy at age 25.
Here is an
actor
who has only one scene (and only two words of dialogue) in which to
express all the passion, daring and determination that drives Billy
Elliot to work as hard as any coal miner to get to where he’s going.
Go, Billy!
Remember, the
whole box of Kleenex.
As for The Stagger to the White House, maybe we
should put Tom Clancy in charge of it.
He’d probably use a conveniently deranged sharpshooter to take
out the both of them. Or we
could just flip a coin.
Love, as always,
Pete
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