February
2008
By Douglas Kent,
Email: doug of
whiningkentpigs.com or diplomacyworld
of yahoo.com
On the web at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com – or
go directly to the Diplomacy section at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/. Also be sure to visit the new Diplomacy
World website at http://www.diplomacyworld.net
All Eternal Sunshine readers are encouraged
to join the free Eternal Sunshine Yahoo group at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/eternal_sunshine_diplomacy/
to stay up-to-date on any subzine news or errata.
Quote Of The Month – “My crotch is still here, just as you remembered it.” (Clementine in
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”)
Welcome
to yet another issue of Eternal Sunshine, the only Diplomacy subzine which roots for Team ABC during the NFL season when
the New York Football Giants are not doing well; ABC being Anybody But the Cowboys. Fortunately, I have the pleasure of watching the
Giants attempt the seemingly impossible a few days from now: toppling the
undefeated New England Patriots from their designated NFL throne. Could it happen? Probably not, but then again nobody gave them
a chance against the Cowboys or the Packers, and they won both of those games.
As
a registered Cowboy Hater, I cannot begin to describe to you the joy of waking
up and going outside the morning after the Giants knocked off the 13-3 First
Seed Cowboys. Listening to the sports
shows on the radio, reading the newspapers, watching the blank disbelief in the
faces of everybody on the roads; it is like winning the lottery. Cowboy fans carry with them an incredible
sense of entitlement which goes much deeper than the obnoxious
title of “America’s Team.” This town had
already been booking tickets to the Super Bowl, much in the same way they were
planning the parade before – oops – the Mavericks lost in the playoffs. Just look at the press coverage after the
mid-season loss to the Patriots, and you’ll see Patrick Creighton saying “We’ll
see them in Glendale.” Yes, that’s the
same Cowboy receiver who dropped a wide-open critical pass, and who quit on his
route on the second-to-last play of the game which probably would have been a
Cowboy touchdown (if he hadn’t dropped that one too). Nice game Patrick! Next time use your hands and legs more and
your mouth less.
Now
with the Giants moving on to the Super Bowl, that Cowboy Fan sense of
entitlement has only gotten worse. They
whine to each other about how they
would have beaten the Packers and gone to Arizona. If only, if only…they’re like people watching
game shows, yelling out the answers or solving the puzzles and somehow
believing that because of that, the prizes should be awarded to them instead of the contestants. I tell you, I get a warm feeling all over
when the playoffs are still taking place, but the talk shows are discussing the
NFL draft. Last year we had Tony Romo drop the ball on the gimme
Field Goal, and this year we have the Cabo
Controversy. Bwahahahahaha!
In
other subzine news, we have the appearance of a new
section from my lovely owner/boss/wife Heather.
Since she reads much more than I do, I wanted to start including short
book reviews by her. In addition, there
is a new occasional column about favorite “lost” movies entitled Cinematic
Catacombs. There’s also a gamestart of a brand new game of By Popular Demand. Now is your chance to get into a game without
starting out way behind the leader! Cal
White has threatened that he won’t play in this one, because he wants to retire
“undefeated”…but maybe you can convince him not to be a coward, and to join in
the fun. Perhaps he is afraid of how
well Jamie and Andy are doing in By Popular Opinion? Only time will tell if he has the stomach for
this challenge!
I’ve
been working on my latest little story, but it isn’t completed yet, and to be
honest it lack the punch that some of the earlier ones have. So when I*do* finish it, there’s a chance
that I’ll choose not to print it in Eternal Sunshine at all. But don’t fear – if you have enjoyed some of
my prior stories, one of these days I’ll return with something similar, whether
it’s about prison, my relationship with Mara, childhood, or something current. I haven’t written enough lately – work and Diplomacy
World #100 taking up most of my time and energy – but I am committed to
doing better in the coming months. And
if you haven’t enjoyed my previous writing, then consider these last few issues
my gift to you, a reprieve from suffering through it!
The Savages – In her first film
since The Slums of Beverly Hills, writer/director Tamara Jenkins has once again
delved into the world of family, parents, and how both shape our lives. On the back of a strong performance by Laura Linney and a typically-on target one from Philip Seymour
Hoffman, The Savages succeeds in exposing the full canvas without forcing you
to concentrate on the individual brushstrokes.
Like any fine work of art, those details are there if you want to become
absorbed in them, but if not you can appreciate the creation as a piece by
itself.
Linney and Hoffman are brother and sister, the
only two children in a family they would rather forget about but carry with
them in everything they do. Their mother
walked out years earlier, and by choice they have been out of contact with
their abusive father for over a decade.
Inevitably the phone call arrives: their father’s live-in girlfriend has
died, and he (Philip Bosco) no longer has a place to
live. He is also confused and losing
touch with reality. Forced into action,
the children fly to Arizona, where their father is diagnosed with
dementia. With no other viable option,
they arrange to move him to a nursing home in Buffalo (where Hoffman teaches at
a local college and works on obscure books).
Linney is a struggling playwright, so she
stays with Hoffman for a while to be near Dad.
Every
action and every emotion of the children is influenced by their experiences as
youngsters. Linney
has tremendous guilt about her father, lies about her career, takes
painkillers, and is sleeping with a married man. Hoffman is watching a three-year romance end
because he is afraid to commit. Both
fear the idea of creating their own family, as it might result in the same
nightmare they experiences themselves.
The
brilliance of Jenkins’ touch is she does not bend the characters to fit the
situation. They are realistic, and their
motivations remain obscured but decipherable.
Even Bosco’s father character is
three-dimensional, and true: he is confused, frustrated, and both angry and
afraid of the occasional realization that his life is over. Yet his actions and reactions to the activity
around him bring new insight into both how he became who he is, and how his
children came to cut themselves off from his world. The dark humor of the script reasserts itself
whenever things get too heavy, and she avoids any heavy-handed Hollywood
epiphany. Just as earlier experiences
have shaped them, these new struggles will help shape the characters for the
future. This is a very strong film, but
not overly powerful. I recommend it
highly.
The Diving Bell and
the Butterfly
– This French film (with English subtitles) is the true story of Jean-Dominique
Bauby, the editor of Elle Magazine who suffered a debilitating
stroke and was left paralyzed, with no movement except for his left eye. His mind still fully functioning, Jean-Do
(played by Mathieu Amalric) remains trapped in this
horrific prison of a body. Unable to do
anything, even to end his own miserable existence, he is forced to accept his
fate and to try and find some way of (as an acquaintance tells him) “keeping
his human portion alive.”
Nearly
all of the film is shot from the perspective of Jean-Do’s eye. We see faces speaking to him, bent over
awkwardly. We see him looking at his
useless hands, his twisted reflection.
And eventually we see him learn to communicate through the one working
body part he has left, in a good part due to the efforts of a speech therapist
(Marie-Josée Croze).
Amazingly, Jean-Do is still able to appreciate life, both in the
world around him and the mind within him.
And he maintains a strong sense of humor as well, even when those around
him do not. His ability to express that
humor may be limited, but that doesn’t seem to matter to him. And eventually he decides to continue with a
project he was about to begin before the stroke: writing a book. Only now the subject will become much more
personal.
Between the strong acting and the effective and creative cinematography,
this adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s book is
largely successful in its endeavors.
Even though told from the point of view of Jean-Do, we still feel the
emotions and thoughts of those around him, and how this tragedy affects their
lives as well. Try to see this film, now
or on DVD when it becomes available.
You’re likely to hear it mentioned when the Oscars roll around.
Seen
on DVD
– Dexter [First Season] (B, I liked
this show overall, but it took me a few episodes to get into it, and I found
some of the Ice Truck Killer arc to be predictable and too long. I would have preferred two smaller arcs
within the season). Sid and Nancy (C-, just didn’t hold up, couldn’t get interested,
and the Sex Pistols seem too long ago to be as relevant as they once
felt). Awakenings (A-, Heather had never seen it, still a very moving
film. Not surprisingly, she cried a lot,
even though she knew how it would end). The Mists of Avalon (C+, TNT Network
adaptation of the novel, and while it wasn’t terrible, it simply left out far
too much of the best parts of the book.
If I’d never read it, after watching this I wouldn’t have much of a
desire to do so).
I’ve
been meaning to add this section for a few issues, but I keep forgetting to
organize it in advance. I’ve been
spending more time writing than I used to, and the latest issue of Diplomacy
World #100 has taken up additional hours because of all the old-timers I
had to harass for contributions (and the larger size of the issue). So I haven’t been reading very much, and when
I do read I find myself re-reading older books (or browsing through humor books
like Onion anthologies while in the bathroom).
Heather, on the other hand, reads quite a bit. So I wanted to include a few comments on each
book she finishes, including an appropriately Heatheresque
rating system (up to five pumpkins).
Heather’s reading tastes are quite eclectic, from serious fiction to fun
Young Adult supernatural stories to books on animal care and everything in
between. So you never know what you’re
going to find in here! Okay, enough introduction, on to the books she finished (or abandoned) in
the past month…
Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead – I really liked
this book. The main character is HOT,
but the book doesn’t read too seriously, which is exactly the level I was
looking for at the time. Georgiana works
in a bookstore (in an attempt to be a but human),
hangs out with demon friends, deals with the demon hierarchy…and preys on male
victims to maintain her energy. Lots of
fun! 3 ½ pumpkins. 
The Dogs Who Found
Me by Ken Foster – Stories of dogs
the author rescued. Some of the tales
were endearing, but the writing style left a lot to be desired. Probably should have hired a ghost writer. 3 pumpkins.
The Cat Who Couldn’t
See in the Dark by Howard Pawdee DVM and Valerie Moolman – On the other
hand, Dr. Pawdee (a veterinarian) did collaborate
with an author on this book, and it pays off.
Not only were his unusual stories of cats he has treated in his practice
very moving, but the book is written in such a way that the reader learns quite
a bit about proper cat care along the way.
4 pumpkins.
Animal Hospital by Stephen Sawicki – This book was very
informative, but I wish it spent more time on the animals and the individual
cases, and less on the hospital and the people doing the work. 3 ½ pumpkins.
Extreme Encounters by Greg Emmanuel – A very interesting and rather
disturbing book, detailing information on what very unpleasant experiences are
like (such as being bitten by a shark, getting stuck in quicksand, or dying of
thirst in the desert). They’re all
written in the first person, so you feel the details quite clearly. The only thing which helped take the edge off
is the realization that Heather isn’t likely to go vacationing in the Amazon or
climbing a mountain any time soon. 4 pumpkins.
No Dogs in Heaven? by Robert T. Sharp, DVM – “Scenes from the
life of a country veterinarian.” Good
book, but too many stories about damn cows!
3 ½ pumpkins.
This
is an occasional section where I can talk about movies I used to love as a
child or young adult, but which have been generally forgotten since then. In some cases I will have located a copy and
can discuss the plot and cast in more detail, but in others it’ll be simply
what I remember about it (some of the movies aren’t available anymore, with VHS
copies rare and expensive). In a few
cases I might not even know the real name of the movie! I’d love to get more information on any of them,
if you have it…or if you happen to remember the movies too, feel free to share
some of your own memories…or suggestions for future features.
This
issue, the feature is Children
Shouldn’t Play With Dead
Things. This is one of those movies
which te Kent children were
initially attracted to because of the very odd title, as well as the fact that
it was listed in TV Guide as “horror”; we were huge young fans of all horror
movies, from the Universal classics to the Hammer films to anything else we
could find. We’d get to watch a lot of
them on Channel 7’s “The 4:30 Movie” each weekday afternoon, albeit in highly
edited format. Others we’d stumble
across on weekends…but the best, the strangest, the most offbeat, we’d discover
only because one of us (usually me) would look through the TV Guide “This
Week’s Movies” section for any late-night weekend horror gems. This was in the days before cable TV, so the
movies section was short and very useful for our purposes.
CSPWDT
was usually only on after midnight, which meant we’d have to force ourselves to
stay awake or else set our clock radio alarms to get up on time. Often one of us would get up and sneak
through the house waking up the other children.
On a few occasions we’d screw up and miss the intended movie…or we’d all
get up and one of us (or more) would sleep through the whole thing. Whoever was awake would attempt to ridicule
them out of sleeping, but the usual half-assed response was “I’m not sleeping, I’m just resting my eyes.”
The
plot is simple enough: a group of twenty-somethings
(all members of an acting troupe) go to a desolate island where a forgotten
graveyard lies, in an attempt to raise the dead with the help of an ancient
text. Alan, the leader of the group, is
egotistical and has led the ensemble there to play a practical joke on
them. Inevitably, as you might expect,
the joke goes awry and the dead rise from the graves anyway. There’s plenty of mild gore, creepy
photography, and a few good laughs along the way.
I’m
not sure what sets this film apart from other goofy monster movies, except it
really *is* creepy. Plus the cast plays
together well (they generally use their real first names for their character
names), and you’d be surprised at the talent the film contained. “Alan” is Alan Ormsby,
who also did the makeup and co-wrote the script. Later in his career, besides more ghoulish
make-up, Alan would write the scripts to My Bodyguard, Porky’s II, and the 1982
version of Cat People. His wife at the
time, Anya, also appears in CSPWDT. I
was also surprised to learn than Ormsby created the
toy “Hugo, Man of A Thousand Faces”… my brother Andy had one of those growing
up, and later on Pee Wee Herman would use one to “hypnotize” people in his
night-club act.
The
other famous name involved with this film was the late director Bob Clark
(listed on this film as Benjamin Clark).
Clark has a long list of notable films as writer and/or director, including the Porky’s series and A Christmas Story. The whole cast seems to be a group of real-life
friends, who would show up attached to each other’s projects years later
(“Jeff” in CSPWDT, Jeff Gillen, plays Santa Claus in A Christmas Story…”You’ll
shoot your eye out, kid!”).
Children Shouldn’t
Play With Dead Things is out of print,
but should be readily available used on VHS and poor-quality DVD (simply a
transfer of the VHS to DVD) for under $10.
Check it out!
Jim Burgess: I really, really liked the "The Life of David Gale"
but find that nearly everyone I've talked to about it either loved it or hated
it. I did care about the characters and I was taken into the deeper
meanings and sub-meanings in the movie. I also can see very well why
other people did not take to it. A few parts were a bit too predictable,
it surely wasn't a perfect movie by any means, but it was one of my top 10
movies of the year it came out (2004 or something like that)? Sorry if I was
the one who got you to see it,
No, it wasn’t you…I bought it on DVD for Heather because it was a Kate Winslet movie she had never seen. Simple as that! Andy York: The latest ES came today, a full year - on schedule
and regular. I'd say you're fully back into the publishing business as a matter
of course - not just as an irregular subzine. So,
when does the resurgent "Whining Kent Pig Empire" start to expand??
Who knows?
There isn’t much reason to branch out – just to keep working and
writing…
I haven't seen any of the movies you went to.
"Margot at the Wedding" lasted only four days before it was pulled
from the arthouse. That's the quickest I've seen one
come and go - usually they last a week. I
guess a weak box-office coupled with the Christmas release of "The Savages"
did it in.
I do plan on seeing "Sweeney Todd". And,
"Rape of Europa" finally came for a week at
the University art house (Dobie Theater). As it had such a short run, I ended
up seeing it on the last night. Surprisingly, there were a couple dozen folks
on a Thursday night with only one that appeared to be younger than me (the
University was on break). I had a few historical minor nits and was a bit put
off by the extremely slanted, "pro-American," presentation. However,
for someone not knowledgeable about the situation, it made an excellent
introduction.
I quite enjoyed Jamie's letter and your response in the LetterCol. I laughed out loud!
Diplomacy (Black Press): Graham Wilson, Brad
Wilson, Chris Babcock, Melinda Holley, Alexander Levinson, Jeremie
Lefrancois, needs just
one more. Getting close, who
wants to join in the fun?
Balkan Wars VI (Black Press): Signed up: Jack
McHugh, Graham Wilson, Brad Wilson, Brendan Whyte, needs two more. Rules and map on request, or you can find
them online within Paul Bolduc’s Boris
the Spider site at: http://members.aol.com/prbolduc/boris/hrules/BW6.html
7X7 Gunboat Tournament (No Press): Four signed up, needs
three more. I would publish the results
without maps most likely, although I might email maps to the players. Anybody interested?
By
Popular Demand
Credit goes to Ryk Downes, I believe, for
inventing this game (although his original version had the GM supply the
starting letter as well). The goal is to
pick something that fits the category and will be the "most popular"
answer. You score points based on the number of entries that match yours. For
example, if the category is "Cats" and the responses were 7 for
Persian, 3 for Calico and 1 for Siamese, everyone who said Persian would get 7
points, Calico 3 and the lone Siamese would score 1 point. The cumulative total
over 10 rounds will determine the overall winner. Anyone may enter at any
point, starting with an equivalent point total of the lowest cumulative score
from the previous round. If a person misses a round, they'll receive the minimum
score from the round added to their cumulative total. And, if you want to
submit some commentary with your answers, feel free to. The game will consist of 10 rounds. A prize will be awarded to the winner.
