I

XIII

Euch, o Grazien, legt die wenigen Blätter ein Dichter
   Auf den reinen Altar, Knospen der Rose dazu,
Und er tut es getrost. Der Künstler freuet sich seiner
   Werkstatt, wenn sie um ihn immer ein Pantheon scheint.
Jupiter senket die göttliche Stirn, und Juno erhebt sie;
   Phöbus schreitet hervor, schüttelt das lockige Haupt;
Trocken schauet Minerva herab, und Hermes, der leichte,
   Wendet zur Seite den Blick, schalkisch und zärtlich zugleich.
Aber nach Bacchus, dem weichen, dem träumenden, hebet Cythere
   Blicke der süßen Begier, selbst in dem Marmor noch feucht.
Seiner Umarmung gedenket sie gern und scheinet zu fragen:
   Sollte der herrliche Sohn uns an der Seite nicht stehn?

—By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

II

A.
Elegy XIII (from Goethe's Roman Elegies), in which the poet compares himself to (positions himself as) a sculptor, is number 13 in the Luke edition, but 11 in most standard editions, which leave out the first (Prologue) and what Luke places in the third position.

Cythere is a reference to Venus, whose offspring with Bacchus was Priapus, and who is missing from the pantheon assembled.

B.
A friend, colleague, something (or someone?) emailed last week, wondering whether I was around, the whole nine yards (you need ten for a first down) and I finally got back to her the other day. We'll do coffee, burritos, and/or a movie at some point, for I have to have someone with whom I can watch faux-70s-double-features, zombie movies, and bad adaptations of graphically pleasing but textually vapid comics.

A lot of sh*t is hitting the theaters this season.

The Bucket List: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, and Rob Reiner in continued late-career downward spirals take all the bite out and head straight for PG-13 maudlin. A Dec. 25 release only makes it more obvious.

Finishing the Game looks more amusing, and pulls off the mockumentary bit until half-way through the trailer when it devolves into simple, traditional comedy. It was supposedly released last week; The Onion reviewed it October 4: “Lin's portrait of the low-budget B-movie business plays more strongly than his spoof of badly dubbed kung fu flicks and his riff on '70s fashion.”

you haven't seen the depths of barbarity that white man can sink to until you've seen the Bavarian father/son mullet/rattail combo.
[ s o u r c e ]

Comedies these days just rarely do it for me, though Tom Waits might be reason enough to give Wristcutters a chance. It's like Cost Cutters, only with dead people. Hell, circus people, drugs, Satanists, and little people might be reason to give Weirdsville a chance, but the line-delivery in the trailer and the trailer's narrator/voice-over is enough to make me want to ignore it.

If nothing else, Youth Without Youth looks gorgeous. It's Coppola, so nothing surprising there.

“Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.”
[ s o u r c e ]

I'm pleased that Southland Tales is finally making it to theaters.

And then come the documentaries. As a rule I don't care about documentaries. If they're on PBS and it's an interesting topic ... yeah, I might leave the TV on rather than read or write or drink booze, but if it's not a David Attenborough project or similar, I find myself not caring. That goes for you, Michael Moore & Co. As a politically engaged, blah-blah-blah citizen I almost find that hard to admit. See, if I watch a documentary, I often end up liking it ... I just never have any desire to watch them. “Hey, let's catch the latest documentary by Ken Burns. Hawt!” Not. Give me the booze.

But I must admit that the following three look fascinating. Sharkwater “takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world's shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.” It seems a bit preachy, but it is what it is. Not a neutral-POV-flip(per)flopper. fie! on your fair-and-balanced. Terror's Advocate follows the career of Jacques Verge, lawyer-to-the-stars^Wbombers. It looks gripping. It's out there, so I suppose some folks have already seen it. The A.V. Club only gave it a B: “Terror's Advocate is well-paced, and has the kind of professional sheen—right down to a dramatic soundtrack—that a veteran like Schroeder knows how to provide. There's scarcely a necessary interview that Schroeder doesn't get, and he cuts them together with file footage and newspaper headlines to make the whole movie play like an interactive magazine article. But what's missing is any kind of definitive judgment on what Vergès has done and why.”

I don't think that picture deserves such a harsh judgement, but he [Vergès] DOES look like the love child of Victor Garber and Jon Favreau.
[ s o u r c e ]

And then there is Protagonist (“Explores extremism and the limits of certainty. Inspired by Greek drama, this visually inventive documentary weaves the stories of four men—a German terrorist, a bank robber, an ‘ex-gay’ evangelist, and a martial arts student consumed by personal odysseys.”) by Jessica Yu, which Variety describes as “irresistible” and evaluates as follows: “Although most of Yu's movie consists of the subjects reviewing their own lives—and how and why their dedication to their chosen causes eventually crumbled—she has chosen four very articulate people who never stumble over their words and have a total grip on the meaning of their lives. Their recollections never feel rehearsed, and the briskness of their delivery keeps the film from bogging down.”

On top of that there is the full-length trailer-as-snorefest that is The Golden Compass; the tailer lacks bite, arc, or any purpose other than to introduce all the actors and special effects. I still have high-enough hopes for this one (I love the cast [Nicole Kidman, Eva Green, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott, and more]), but that's just the low blood-sugar talking.

“Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear, well, he eats you.”

I loved Daniel Boone and Grizzly Adams reruns when I was a kids. Bonus video: the intro to Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (ah, Marlin Perkins), not to be confused with bad sing-alongs to In the Jungle.

But back on topic (trailers): I've seen Pay-Day-Loan ads with better animation than that featured in the new Sunday-School-Snoozefest The Ten Commandments (featuring the wasted voice “talents” of Ben Kingsley, Christian Slater, Alfred Molina, and Elliott Gould). The A.V. Club saw fit to give it a rare F: “If there's a less imaginative scene in the movies this year than a long sequence in which Moses and Aaron (Christopher Gaze) discuss their flight while walking through the desert, taking the exact same computer-dictated steps each time, it will probably go straight to YouTube and involve a cute kitten.”

“I think an entire animated biblical movie voiced only by Woody Allen would be great.”

“I was just kidding. Ben Kingsley could play a black woman. He is an incredible actor. Hopefully, I didn't offend any BK fans, Jewish people, or horrible animation aficionados.”

Bad Christian Movies Are Great
by Natiohead
“So long as they make them, I'll watch 'em. What's better than having a viewing party of the ‘Left Behind'’ films while laughing derisively and having a beer? Answer: several things, but I still like this activity.”

C.
Right on time the carpentry duo arrived this morning. I had just finished a pleasant breakfast of bacon, eggs, coffee, and milk. Eggs in bacon fat, food of the gods. The bacon aroma helped to offset the last reminders of last night's garlic and onions still wafting through the recently renovated kitchen.

Today there is more drywalling, hopefully with taping and mudding so more mudding and sanding can occur tomorrow, with priming set for Thursday and painting for Friday, allowing me to move my things back in over the weekend.

Last night the Packers pulled it out vs. Denver on the first play of overtime with an 82-yard touchdown pass to win it 19–13. I didn't watch it; I don't have cable.

But shortly after the game ended my father called for his weekly chat and we discussed the game I didn't see and another game involving different Broncos vs. Fresno, which I also didn't see.

Back to the Packers: Favre (the NFL record holder for touchdowns and interceptions) now has 244 consecutive games started. The one player with more consecutive starts is long-retired former Viking Jim Marshall, who played defensive end, started 282 straight regular season games and 302 including the post-season, and is also known for a 1964 game against the 49ers in which he recovered a fumble, ran the wrong way, tossed the ball out of bounds after reaching the end zone, and scored a safety. The Vikings still won.

I came to work and found little to do.

III

XIII

These few leaves are a poet's oblation, oh Graces: on your pure
   Altar he lays them, and these rosebuds he offers as well,
And he has done this boldly. An artist is proud of his workshop
   When he looks around it and sees such an assembly of gods.
Jupiter bows his majestic head, and Juno holds hers high;
   Phoebus Apollo strides forth, shaking the locks from his brow;
And Minerva looks sternly down—and here's light-footed Hermes
   Casting a sidelong glance, roguish, yet tender as well.
But on soft Bacchus, the dreamer, the gaze of the lovely Cythere
   Falls with sweet longing; her eyes even in marble are moist.
She remembers his ardent embrace, and seems to be asking:
   ‘Where is our glorious son? Her at our side he should stand!’

—Translated by David Luke