Red Line Hero

No, I didn't stand up to a flash mob on the train today. What I did was so much better.

About 4 stops from home, a couple and their young child got on the train. As they sat down, the mother next to me facing forward and the father holding the child on the other side of the aisle facing backwards, the little boy began to scream and sob.

I'm not good a guessing age, but I think he must have been around 3 years old. The screaming went on and on until we reached the next stops while Mom and Dad tried to calm him down. I figured he must be terrified of the train. Finally, as we got moving again, I understood the problem. The kid wanted to be by a window, not seated in the aisle! Having a window seat myself, the power to give it away, and an intense disdain for ill-behaved children, I offered my seat to the mom. Rather than gratefully accepting, she said "I don't want you to have to do that" (of course, she moved her legs so I could get up). I told her I was off in two stops and the father said "she probably just doesn't want to hear him screaming anymore." Right on the nose, Papa Bear.

Once the family was re-configured according to their little brat's desires, he shut up, thank God. In my head I imagined all the other passengers applauding my actions (that didn't happen in reality, but it would not have been out of place in this situation). My good deed for the day is now accomplished, but I sure hope those people spare the rest of the world the ear-peircing shrieks of their child in the future.

What Would Lisbeth Do?

The trailer and poster for the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo have been released with quite a bit of fanfare. In the trailer, the cast looks good, the mood seems appropriate, but there is absolutely no dialogue and the accompanying music seems a questionable choice.

It is more of a teaser, I guess, than a trailer. I just find it strange. What is stranger, however is the movie poster

What is up with this? I read that you can actually visit the movie's website and enter your age and see the picture without Daniel Craig's arm covering Rooney Mara's breasts. Really? That's necessary? Isn't the objectification of women exactly what these books didn't do? I feel like if Lisbeth Salander was a real person, she would find a way to hack into the computers of the people who log in to view the topless photo. I don't think there is anything really wrong with it (I assume the movie will show a lot of nakedness) it is just so seedy.

Maybe this is just sour grapes...why is Rooney topless, but Daniel's amazing torso is covered in at least two layers of clothing?

Someday

This is the most awful thing I have seen in ages. Seriously, I don't think it could be more ridiculous if it were actually planned as a joke. Don't look away.

Baba's Got a Brand New Bag!

My BFF's brother just opened a screen-printing shop in Oakland California. It is super exciting and I really hope he and his partner have great success. They have a blog and I saw a nice canvas bag that I could order.

Johnny was the oldest kid in the neighborhood, even so he would often play our games and come to our parties (usually dressed as the scariest monster so my little brother was too frightened to come downstairs). Things changed when he got his first set of wheels, a skateboard. His freedom was absolute and he wasn't around any more to play "bumper cars" and eat the sweet william (and have to puke it up afterwards).

As we got older, his pants got wider until the point when I'm pretty sure my friend and I could have fit in together, one in each leg! He got piercings and his hair and sideburns got longer, but he still said "hello" to my parents in public so we knew he was still a good kid.

I haven't seen him in years, but I can only imagine that Johnny has remained a good kid. I wish him the best of luck as an entrepreneur.

Oh yeah, and I LOVE my new bag!

It even came with some bonus stickers

Howl

I am not a poetry fan. I don't really care to try and winkle out the meaning of a string of seemingly unrelated words and phrases. I know all poetry isn't like that. Some is very straightforward, but I typically don't care for that either. I guess I just prefer a narrative story in prose. I do consider this to be a shortcoming of mine, but I can't help myself.

Every once in a while, I will see or hear something that piques my interest in a poet. Usually it is a movie about the writer. I liked the movie Bright Star about John Keats, and Edge of Love (which was really less about Dylan Thomas than it was about the two women he loved). These movies were entertaining and interesting, but they were much more about the poet than the poetry.

The same cannot be said about Howl. In fact, this is truly a movie about a poem and the controversy its publication created. James Franco plays Allen Ginsberg and the film flashes between interviews with Ginsberg, portions of the obscenity trial, and a reading of the poem with animation. I've never seen anything like it.

Macho

Today a co-worker announced to me that Macho Man Randy Savage died. Even though I hadn't even thought of Macho Man in about 20 years, this saddened me. MM was never my favorite wrestler, I was much more of a Jake the Snake or Brutus the Barber girl. But still, his death reminded me of the WWF and going to the Erie Civic Center with my father, brother and great-grandfather.

Only in the 80's and early 90's could this man have been described as "Macho". Sure, he was muscular by any standard, but macho? The Village People might disagree, but that would just prove my point. Maybe it was all tongue-in-cheek, but I suspect not. If it was, I don't think wrestling fans were in on the joke.

No matter what, his untimely death (in what I understand was a car accident) at 58 is a sad event for his family, friends and fans. So snap into a Slim-jim and shout out a loud "Ohhh Yeahhh" for this unabashedly macho man.

The Death of Bin Laden

When my alarm clock woke me this morning the first thing I heard was "and news about the death of Osama Bin Laden". I was definitely groggy, but the import of the announcement did not fail to reach me. However, rather than feelings of elation, my reaction was more like "okay". Admittedly there was never much of a chance of me exulting in the death of anyone or anything, but I would have expected a more visceral reaction.

That reaction didn't come until much later in the day when I was exposed to countless jokes, "boot up his ass" type Facebook posts, and scenes of celebrating (read: rioting) in the streets from New York City to State College, PA and beyond. I do not presume to question the reactions of those who lost loved ones on September 11, or the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I suspect that those people were largely absent from the festivities, and while they may have felt that a sort of justice had been served, Bin Laden's death did nothing to bring back those who died before.

The fact remains that killing Bin Laden does nothing to dampen the spirit of Muslim extremists. In fact, he is now a martyr for their cause and they will probably believe that he is enjoying all the benefits of martyrdom in the afterlife. A far more fitting punishment would have been forcing him to live through the mercy of the United States and die a sick old man tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity.

I do not know what happened last night, if there was a choice between life and death, but I do know that how we react to this event is an indication of the state of our society. I believe we would do well to treat it with solemnity and circumspection otherwise we become what he and his followers believe us to be.