So, apparently there's a cable TV documentary coming out that claims to present the tomb and bones of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. When asked about this, Rev. David Knapp of the Full Gospel Christian Center in Port Jefferson Station, New York had this to say:
"This is all hocus pocus. Jesus died and rose from the dead and left the tomb and went up to heaven."
As a non-believer, I find that quote very very amusing. Showing a box on TV is hocus-pocus, but convincing people that one person in the history of history was able to rise from the dead and then the entire mass of that person traversed space, unaided by machine, against gravity, is the most plausable explanation. I suggest to Rev. Knapp that he replace the first period with a colon, thusly:
"This is all hocus pocus: Jesus died and rose from the dead and left the tomb and went up to heaven."

JURY DUTY
This past Friday, I had to call to see if I was selected to join the jury duty pool. They told me that I had to appear on Monday morning, not at the court complex 5 miles from my house, but the one 30 miles away. So this morning, after driving 45 minutes in the snow and slush, I sat in the big room with dozens of other bored and frustrated souls, reading my book. About 8 years ago I was in the very same position. That time I sat around all day and then was told I had served my country well and to go home.
This time I waited not longer than an hour before I was called in with a dozen others into a tiny, bare white room with two opposing lawyers. They asked us all kinds of questions and in the end I was selected as juror #6 in a 6-juror jury. We'll be hearing a case next Tuesday. Should be fun!

Oh, and in honor of the Oscars, I bring this piece of juvenility...I mean, "original piece of mixed media art":

INLAND EMPIRE
I think I've been a David Lynch fan since before I ever saw any of his work. I was attracted to "art" movies and "experimental" and "cult" movies. I knew everything about Rocky Horror before ever seeing it. I was captivated and intrigued by everything I had read about 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eraserhead before I ever actaully saw them.

I finally got around to finding a place that rented Eraserhead and watched it. Soon after, Blue Velvet came out, and I became a pretty hard-core David Lynch fan. I followed his progress and ever saw DUNE in the movies. Dune was a horrible mess that changed Lynch's career. It was the only film he didn't have complete control over and it was a nightmare for everyone involved. Many hardcore fans claimed they loved it, but I believe they were just fooling themselves. I admit it has some wonderful elements, but as a film it's pretty awful. So he instead made more very very odd movies and became known as a maker of bizarre films that had a real emotional texture to them, as well as a surreal core. His next projects, Industrial Symphony, Wild at Heart and Twin Peaks, were bizarre enough to please his fans but had a commercial quality to them as well. Then he began his dual-personality puzzle trilogy with Lost Highway. Lost Highway had no traditional story arc. It began as one story, but the main character changes into a different person midway and continues from there. It's incomprehensible, but it's compelling. The next movie was Mulholland Drive. In my opinion, this is his best work. Again, it concerns a woman who seemingly changes personalities. It's certainly not easy to follow, but the storyline can be understood and explained pretty clearly. Now we get Inland Empire, Lynch's latest film.

Lynch told the world his new movie was going to be about "A woman in trouble." I think this was Lynch being playful, as the same tagline could be attatched to Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive. He also announced that his film was shot on consumer-grade digitial videotape instead of film. He FURTHER announced that the film was made up as it was filmed, with no pre-determined plot. Oh yeah, and that it was going to be 3 hours long. I was simultaneously fascinated and frightened. I didn't know if I wanted to sit through 3 hours of crummy looking video blown up to a film screen. But the movie finally came to my neck of the woods by way of the Cinema Arts Center, an art-filmhouse on Long Island.

I girded my loins and drive out to the 8:15pm show. I was excited to be out on a chilly winter night, going to an art film all by myself. It seemed so bohemian. Unfortunately, I was wearing my Mickey Mouse T-shirt with a royal blue fleece over it and my red ski jacket over that. I considered changing into a more pretentious leather jacket with a turtleneck or something, but in the end I stayed true to myself. I followed a very pretentiously arty gay couple, who were all dressed in black and grey by the way, into the theater. The pretentious dirty hippie behind the register told me it was cash only, so I had to turn around and find an ATM at the 7-11 a mile away. As I drove to 7-11 and back, I had this conversation in my head about how these people found credit cards to be part of the establishment and only real cash money was cool. I don't know if that's the case, but I wouldn't be surprised. I bought my ticket and saw another guy in the booth watching Family Guy and laughing uproriously. There's nothing less pretentious and arty than Family Guy. Struck me as odd, is all.

I sauntered over to the café to get myself some (no joke) organic popcorn and a Sprite. As I entered the teeny tiny theater, I could practically feel the people watching me sit down with popcord and a soda as if I was going to be "watching a movie!" There were 5 people in the theater. I stood there for a second and then joked out loud, "Damn, all the good seats are taken!" ...silence...
A man asked if I would like to sit in front of him. I told him I was just joking, but thanks anyway. Then the lights went down and some trailers for some cool, odd movies came on. Then, Inland Empire began. Just as my review of the film does below:

First off, it looked better than I expected. The quality was not exactly film-like, and the autofocus kept going in and out, but for the most part, it was well lit and decent looking. But Lynch obviously likes the freedom of a small camera because he just couldn't help himself getting super extreme close-ups every chance he got. The movie started off a bit weird, but sort of settled into a somewhat traditional linear story. Then it got weird. Not interesting weird, but laughable weird. It was scene after scene of unrelated images that just went on and on and on. After an interminable amou of time I looked at my watch. 1 hour had past. I considered leaving. I've never walked out of a movie before. I had gotten this far, I decided, so I stayed the entire 3 hours. I'll admit there were some moments that interested me, but overall, this was a 3 hour, 11 million dollar experiment. I read people's reviews who say this is his best work. I think those people probably liked Dune, too. I love David Lynch's movies and a lot of his other art as well, but this was a miserable failure, in my opinion. What I mean is, it isn't really a film. It was David Lynch playing around with too much freedom and not enough restraint. I believe limitations of some kind are what lead to great artistic achievements. I don't begrudge him his right to make this film, or many more like it. I simply didn''t enjoy it. The attitude of the whole place was one of pretention and "artier than thou." I like what I like and am not ashamed to say I like Abba and don't like David Lynch's new film. It's sometimes hard to cross the line of arty and popular. Many times people will automatically like something because it's unpopular, and then as soon as it catches the public attention, they switch sides. I like to think I'm above all that posturing.

All that said, I will probably rent it when it comes out. I often do that when I violently hate a movie that does show some talent, like A.I, or Unbreakable. I hated both those movies, but could see that a lot of talent went into them and aknowledge I may just not be appreciating them as much they deserve. I like to give them a second chance. So we'll see.

Well, we got the mouse. I had worked late and was driving home at 9:00pm when Kat called me up in a panic saying the mouse was poking its nose under the basement door, trying to get into the kitchen. I was very uncomfortable with getting a traditional snap trap or glue trap, so I sprung $20 for a battery-operated mouse-zapper on the way home. It's pretty cool, actually. It takes 4 batteries and you just open the top and smear peanut butter (not included) on the far wall. The mouse smells it, crawls through a little tunnel and when its feet touch the two metal pads on the floor, it completes a circuit and dies instantly. Then, Ghostbusters-like, the light on top flashes to let you know the trap is full. I set it up that night and the next morning I was shocked to see the trap was blinking (not as shocked as the mouse, haha). I opened it up and, yup, there was an adorable little corpse. I just dumped it into a plastic bag and set it up again, just in case we had more. But it's remained empty and no more sightings, so I think we're good.

Of MICE AND VAMPIRES

| just finished Richaard Matheson's I Am Legend. It's a horror novella from the 1950's that is being made into a movie, due out next year. It's a vampire/zombie story, but it's so much more. without giving too much away, I will say it takes the vampire genre very seriously and treats it with nothing but realism and seriousness. The story is grim but gripping and exciting. I HIGHLY recommend it. Apparently it's already been made into 2 movies, once starring Charleton Heston and once Vincent Price. I gotta check em out.

Also, we have a mouse in the house. I spotted it up in the ceiling light about a week ago, but didn't tell my wife for fear of scaring her. Today, she spotted it on her own. It's the cutest little thing! But it's quick and sneaky and we can't catch it. I don't want to kill it, so I'm trying to lure it out so I can catch it. Wish me luck!

AQUA TEEN EXCESSIVE FORCE
I've not blogged in the last few weeks because of "3 Stooges in the Door Syndrome." I'm referring, of course, to the situation where too many thoughts are trying to expunge themselves at once, and they all get stuck, like when Moe, Larry and Curly all try to go through the same doorway. Every time I think of something to blog about, I decide by nighttime that it's too insignificant to warrent a post. Then I regret it and things begin to pile up. So I've mentally sifted and come up with these fascinating nuggets of joy:

So let me start by admitting I fell off the coffee wagon, but got back on quickly. It would appear that the coffee wagon goes very slowly and has big, soft-grip handles on it, making it very easy to get back on once you've fallen. My wagon, did, anyway. Sunday night, I barely slept and was getting a mild cold. Monday morning, I said to myself, "Screw it!" and bought a puny 16oz coffee. I could barely smell it, but it was nice to have. I didn't get any more that day, nor have I gotten any more since. But it's nice to know that if I fall again, I can not sweat it so much.

I also finished a book, HOW I CONQUERED YOUR PLANET by John Swartzwelder. It was incredibly silly and fun. I am still reading a book called THE DEAD HOUR, by Denise Mina. It's a mystery novel in the vein of James Patterson's Alex Cross books. But it's written by a Scot and takes place in Scotland. As an Anglophile, I found all the little differences in language and culture at first distracting and then charming. Everyone in the book says "Aye" and "wee" a lot and it's clearly not thrown in for color, but simply the way these people speak. I'm almost done and I'm enjoying it.

Every day I see news stories that make me want to comment, but everybody else is commenting, so who cares? But this Boston "hoax" has gotten me so enraged and entertained. If you don't know, the basic story is that 2 guys, in an effort to promote a cartoon called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", posted dozens of little Lite-Brite diplays all over the country. People in Chicago ignored them. People in New York stole them. People in Boston called the bomb squad and evacuated areas and spend a half a million dollars in determining that the silly cartoon pictures were in fact...silly cartoon pictures. Now these 2 guerilla advertisers have been arrested and people are furious and are calling it a hoax. It was not a hoax. A hoax implies an intentional attempt to decieve. This was Mayor Chicken Little being irresponsible. Everyone who is angry at the pair cites "the post 9-11 world in which we live." I don't understand this. The terrorists wanted us scared. They wanted to *ahem* TERROR-IZE us...make us so scared that we collapse under our own fear. Politicians talk about not letting the terrorists win...and then we ban water on airplanes and blow up Lite-Brites in Boston. The best part of this ridiculousness was the press conference that followed the arrest of the two men. They refused to discuss anything except hairstyles of the Seventies, much to the chagrin of the press and incredible amusement of sane, rational people.