Black (Friday) is the New Holiday

25 Nov 2011 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , ,

Thanksgiving, the Holiday where we say “Thank you God for everything that I have.” Today is the day after that one. Black Friday, the day where we say “What about all of the things I don’t have?”

 The News has been going on for weeks about Black Friday, since Nov 1st to be precise, and the great sales and crowds and economic upturn that is expected to accompany it. Where did Thanksgiving go? A visitor to our country is likely to think that we celebrate Black Friday as a national Holiday. Last night on the CBS evening news the anchor actually called it Black Friday Eve.

   Thanksgiving is overlooked enough as it is; with it being hidden between Halloween and Christmas. We really shouldn’t obscure the Holiday completely by placing a fake Holiday immediately after it. A Holiday where instead of being thankful and happy we scramble around and fight and go into debt just so that we can worship the false gods of Consumerism and Greed.

Why did so many people waste the true Holiday Camped out in front of Best Buy instead of eating turkey with Family and Friends?

I am writing this too late to stop anyone from going to those early sales but that is because I did a little thing I like to call sleeping in.

 Black Friday isn’t good. Good Friday though is a different story.

 

 

On Writing

19 Nov 2011 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing Tags:

Hi sorry I was really bad about getting a post out this week; I will try harder next week. Until then here’s a little look into my writing philosophy. 

I have heard it said that great writing teaches us about humanity. Where we’re going, where we’ve been and everywhere in between.

But if you really think about it isn’t writing really about only one person? The Writer. The only reason we write is to be understood by others. We have these thoughts in our heads and all we want to do is share them. Sometimes when the words are in our mouths they just don’t come out right. So we sit and think about what we are trying to say. We put it on paper. Try as hard as we can to make the meaning clear. And then hope that someone is listening — Reading.

Writing isn’t about enlightening humanity it’s about connecting with humanity. Are all writers socially inept introverts like me? No. But I’m sure that all writers feel like they have something to say.

Writing is very much the act of putting one’s soul down on paper.

Fiction = Dreams. Non fiction = Conscious thought.

So the next time you’re reading anything remember it’s not about you or the human race or even the main character it’s about the writer.

Yes I am even conceited enough to say that it’s about me.

But if understanding me better helps you know yourself better or even humanity, then that’s ok too.

Cathrine

The Big Three

09 Nov 2011 2 Comments

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Shakespeare, Star Trek Tags: , , ,

There are three great works that are so deeply ingrained into our popular culture that there isn’t a person on the planet who wouldn’t recognize quotes from one of  The Big Three.

These three opuses will forever be around to shape the human imagination and to inspire future generations.

The three greatest collections of knowledge and inspiration, which are so powerful that each was built on the shoulder of the one before, are:

The Holy Bible — which is the very truth of God. This is the work of works. It has shaped our modern culture into what it is.

The Christian Bible tells us why we are the way we are and what we should yet strive to be.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare — Encompasses of the human spirit. It tells us what we are as the Human race. Shakespeare shows us how we think and how we feel.

Like the Bible, Shakespeare requires Faith. denying that Shakespeare wrote his own plays is like denying that Jesus was the Son of God.  In the same way that no one would die for a madman, would Shakespeare’s friends have bothered spending the money to publish the First Folio if someone else had written the plays?

And the last but definitely not the least is. . .

Star Trek — Take the franchise as a whole or just take the three original seasons of The Original Series, either way it would be hard to deny Star Trek’s influence over our modern way of life. Just flip open your Cell phone and talk, you are holding the communicator from Star Trek.
Star Trek inspires us to look to the future. It encourages progress and it shows us what we can achieve and what the future can become.

Star Trek also embraces the past and reminded the generation of the late 60’s and the early 70’s of the moral lessons that were no longer being taught in their class rooms. Maybe not a lot of people realize it but Star Trek is actually a series of Morality plays that expound Biblical morals and Shakespearian ethics.

Go ahead question me but then sit down and really watch it. Even if the show is lacking in direct quotes you have to admit that the ideas are there.

So there they are the Three most important contributions to modern society. The inspirations for everything  we achieve.

The Record of the past that tells us how we began and why we are here.

The poetry and plays of The Bard that move  us to thought and spark our imaginations.

And the Futuristic morality plays that dare us to move forward without losing sight of the past.

Interesting how the Big Three move through the different mediums from written record to stage plays to television production.

One wonders, Will there be a fourth and what form will it take?

Vampires: only a Christian can kill them

31 Oct 2011 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Theological Musings Tags: , , , , ,

Happy Halloween!

This is a very special blog post. I understand that some people who read my blog might not realize that I am a Christian. So I am including this one time *RELIGION ALERT* if you don’t think you can handle hearing a bit of the Bible then I will not fault you for not reading but I do hope you will read and think and enjoy.

It has always struck me as weird that only a Christian can kill a vampire. You’ve got: Crosses, Holy water, and in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula Van Helsing even uses Communion bread to create barriers against Dracula. Even their vulnerability to sunlight is a metaphor for only The Son (of God) can kill them. Yet a Christian is about the last thing that you would expect to see in a Vampire horror movie.

Check out this clip from Fright Night the new remake of the 1985 cult movie.

This clip has a parallel scene in the original 1985 version but alas I could find no Youtube clip for it.

Interestingly, there is also a stunning parallel found in the Bible:

 “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, ‘In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.’ Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. [One day] the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?’ Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and over powered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.” (Acts 19:13-16 NIV)

The very name of Jesus contains power but only for those that have permission to use it.

The above verse reinforces and give credibility to the claims made in the movie Fright Night that the only way a mere mortal can take on the undead is by having a relationship with the ultimate Undead, Jesus Christ, and in so doing become Undead ourselves.  

“And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit, who lives in you.” (Romans 8:11 NIV)

Do you get it? Not just Heaven; not eternal afterlife. But Life in our mortal bodies.

Being one of the undead is great. Unlike the vampires and Zombies who terrorize and murder large numbers of people to survive a Christian only needs to feed on the soul sustaining flesh of ONE man. The Body and Blood and of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Halloween is the night that the Undead supposedly walk the earth. But Christians are the Undead.  So why is this night dominated by the forces of Darkness? Why does a Faith filled Christian never come to the rescue in Vampire movies?

What if Romeo & Juliet had lived?

28 Oct 2011 3 Comments

by C.O. Bonham in Shakespeare Tags: ,

So everyone seems to think that the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is so sad but really what kind of future could they have had together? This week I ask the question: What if Romeo and Juliet had lived? This is just a little bit of fun. I don’t mean to actually rewrite Shakespeare but seriously: Can you picture them with kids?

 Romeo what a hypocrite he has become. Let’s see how the once great lover handles young love when the shoe is on the other foot.

Romeo with sword in hand, “Stay away from my daughter you prepubescent villain.”

“But father I love him,” pleads his little girl, “you and mother were younger still than us when you snuck away to Friar Laurence’s hidden bower and wedded at a secret hour.”

“It matters not,” Her uncaring father shouts, “I’ll shan’t have this scoundrel within my house.”

His daughter Portia begs and pleads but watches helpless as her lover bleeds.

While Romeo breaks his daughter’s heart his wife is dealing with her own problems.

“Tybalt please come back from there. I’ve told you a hundred times if I’ve told you once to not play on the balcony. If you fall from there you’ll break your neck and be as dead as your namesake, my poor cousin.”

And what of the warring in-laws? Have they made peace? Or is peace only found in tragic death?

“I’ll have none of this Grandfather,” Lord Capulet tells Tybalt’s twin Metrucio. “I’ll not share a term of endearment with that Montague scum. Call me Ompa if you must but never address me as equal to your father’s sire.”

The little boy runs off and alerts his brother to Lord Capulet’s desires.

Meanwhile, Lady Montague is having quite the chat with her generational counter part.

“Really they were quite the match. I will never know how it all went so wrong.” Lady Capulet bemoans. “Paris would have provided everything; Money, Power, A place in court. I will never understand that girls logic.”

“Yes you’re right it is quite tragic. For my Romeo I could have gotten a Danish lady if only the wench hadn’t drowned herself.”

“Oh Lord what fools our children be!” Exclaims lady Capulet to heaven.

“Indeed quite right. Have you heard how they fight?”

“It’s true of course the passion faded long ago. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Friar Laurence hadn’t had a change of heart and alerted the Prince of his secret doings.”

“Oh that I know right enough. Our children would be dead because our husbands would have killed them. Or the children would have killed themselves.”

“No not my Juliet. She is too pious and has such fear of Hell that she would never deign to take her own life.”

 

Gremlins: The Techno Woe Begetters

21 Oct 2011 2 Comments

by C.O. Bonham in Well founded paranoia Tags: , ,

The discerning reader might have noticed a particularly Anti-technology slant to last weeks blog post as well as a related post from some weeks before.

 Well, like I said in the post titled “Save the Books” it’s not really that I don’t like technology; technology just doesn’t like me. Or should I say that the Gremlins don’t like me.

 According to The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures Gremlins are a species of Boggart that was first classified during World War I  when Radio operators and Airplane mechanics noticed unexplained malfunctions.

 The Word Gremlin is derived from the Old English word gremian which means to Vex. (They sure like to Vex me.)

 These little buggers deserted their European homeland and came to America with our returning troops. Ever since they have been infiltrating and breaking down our electronic devices.

 It is no coincidence that the car known as a Gremlin kept breaking down. For some reason the sneaky fairies were attracted to them like flies to honey. Thus the lemon earned the name Gremlin.

 These device destroying creatures are not to be confused with the mutated Mugwi featured in the movie Gremlins that is an entirely different animal.

 No the Techno munching  menace that we face is all to real.

When something on your computer messes up, listen carefully and you can hear them laughing at you through your computers speakers.

 If you are traveling and you find that all of your batteries are dead this is because a Gremlin has stowed away in your luggage and has been sucking the juice from your electronics in order to survive. Keep them away from your car battery by closing all of the air vents in the car and turning off the car’s automatic lights. Also buy Maps instead of relying on GPS. If one of them gets into a GPS you will never reach your destination.

 To catch a Gremlin take an old floppy disc and place it on a mouse trap.  Then stick this set up under your computer desk. When the trap snaps don’t be surprised if the Gremlin looks like a mouse. Because they do you know. In fact place some cheese on the trap too. Just to show the Gremlins that you’re on to their little disguise.

 Remember gremlins are out there and they want to Vex you so vex them first by cutting back on your level of technology. Gremlins will always search out the highest level of Tech. So if there is a Gremlin around you will be glad that you’re not the guy with the smart phone. If you are the guy with the smart phone I am truly sorry but I told you so.

The Power of Paper

15 Oct 2011 3 Comments

by C.O. Bonham in Well founded paranoia Tags: , , ,

On September 14 I posted a stirring rally to preserve the printed word from the insecurity of the digital ether titled “Save the books.”

 It seems that the United States Postal Service shares my concerns. They have started airing new commercials promoting the security of paper. Check out the new commercial here. or watch below. Sorry the sound is so bad but it is the only one I could find on You Tube.

[Update: I guess the sound on the video is actually good it was my Computer that was off. If you have the same problem that I did try messing with the balance and wave on your speakers until it sounds good.]

It is probably a half-hearted attempt to scare people into throwing some business their way. But I ask you, where would this Country be without our Postal Service?

So in keeping with the anti-technology theme  I challenge every one who reads this to write a snail mail letter to a some one. Make it some one that you don’t see a lot. In your letter mention this blog. What? I’m entitled to a little self promotion. Then ask them to write a letter back. 

Besides getting mail is amazing! Don’t you want to give some one the gift of opening their mail box and finding a surprise? It is so exciting to receive correspondences from non-businesses.

So in addition to saving the books you are now charged with preserving our US Postal Service.

ALL HAIL THE POWER OF PAPER!

The “You Brute” Letter: A Sherlock Style Deduction.

08 Oct 2011 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Sherlock Holmes, Victorian Fiction Tags: , ,

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short essay called “Some Personalia about Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” This essay is reprinted in both The Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook and The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

In it ACD talks about all of the fan mail that he received in regards to Holmes. One letter really stands out. ACD does not reprint the whole letter but just the salutation line. The letter, received after the publication of “The Final Problem,” began with “You brute.” ACD states that the letter writer was a woman but gives us no other details.

My first thought was, “Wow really deluded fan!” But then it occurred to me that if this woman had believed in Sherlock as a real person with Arthur Conan Doyle as a pen name for John Watson then she would have sent condolences, not insults. So we now know that she accepts the stories for the fiction they are. Second observation: With the etiquette of letter writing drilled into Victorian/Edwardian Lady, why would a woman sitting down to the thought full task of writing a letter choose to open with “You Brute?” Answer she was under such emotional strain that no matter how calm she became she still thought of him as a Brute. But why such emotion over the death of a character that she knew to be fictional? Perhaps someone she knew was not as rational as herself and so took Holmes death at Reichenbach Falls rather hard.

One more deduction before I reveal what I believe would have been in the original letter. I think that this woman must have been an American because no proper British lady would have used the word You in place of a proper title. An English lady would have began it with Dr. Brute (The Sir was added after this) or, if she was ignorant of his profession, Mr. Brute.

 And now my logically thought out reproduction of the “You Brute” letter:

You Brute,

Did you even stop to think how news of Holmes death might effect other people? If you didn’t want to write anymore about Holmes then just stop writing. To just Kill him so heartlessly is beyond reason. Would you have still done him in if you had known just how truly devoted and attached Holmes’s fans really are? My own poor Husband has been barely been able to eat or sleep since reading of Holmes untimely demise. I do believe that he loved Holmes as a brother. Nay he loves him more than his own Brother. I can not ask you to revive The honored detective but do please write to my husband and try to help him see reason. You created this problem so I ask you now to fix it.

 Sincerely,

Mrs. Hope Sherrington of New York

Doyle’s reply must have read thusly:

Dear Madam,

I recommend that your husband, and all other mourners, seek psychiatric counseling.

Sincerely,

 Arthur Conan Doyle

P.S. Do your utmost to keep Cocaine away from your husband. I would hate for any poor soul to become addicted to the stuff for love of anything that I had written.

Everyone Could use a Montage

27 Sep 2011 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing Tags: ,

Montages are great they allow an epic task that would normally take forever to occur in 30 seconds or less. With some creative camera angles and an upbeat pop song anyone can go from science geek to superhero.

Want to lose weight? No problem. Just inter cut scenes of intense cardio workout with shots of the numbers on a bathroom scale steadily declining and finish with a shot of you modeling skinny jeans.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had montages in real life? Think about it.

If I decided to write a novel all I would need are a few really good shots of me typing followed by a shot of the printer emitting an endless stream of paper. Then a shot of red marked pages being crumpled and tossed into the waste paper bin. More typing. Insert the required shot of me sleeping on the key board while “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” flashes across the screen. More typing, hit the print key, shot of printer spitting out one last sheet of paper with “The End” on the bottom.

That was easy none of the wasted hours of staring at a blank word document or the annoyance of having to delete a days work because that scene I wrote was too clever by half. No getting distracted and organizing all of your writing utensils into separate pencil cups by color. Don’t ask.

Is it just that a montage gives a false sense of time passing? I don’t think so because it is understood that some of the montages take days weeks or even years out of the narrative time in the movie. What the montage does is give the viewer a false sense of focus. Making us think that we will really be able to stay in the game and devote the required amount of time to reaching our goals. It’s true that many people have stuck it out and written that great novel or lost the weight. But it doesn’t take  just one time of saying, “I am going to do this.” It takes constant re-motivation, patience and even knowing when to call it a day. Really, who wants to wake up to “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?” That would really upset me having to delete all those Rs before I could do anything else. 

The montage might work for people living in TV land but in the real world we have to do it the hard way with all of that real-time in between shots in which to lose focus and get distracted.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have some writing to do. But we both know that I’ll just end up wall papering my room with post-it notes.

Cathrine

Go West Young Shrew

23 Sep 2011 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Shakespeare, Theater Tags: , , ,

The National Players were at Owens Community College, in Perrysburg Ohio, last night (9/22/2011) performing a wild west interpretation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. This interested me for two reasons firstly because as you may recall I have written papers on The Taming of the Shrew thus making it what the cowboys would call familiar territory. And secondly, if anyone has read “Souls are Wild” (Cross and Cosmos Issue 4) then you know that the Old west is also familiar territory for me.

 Sadly though Shakespeare’s entertaining Induction was cut, it almost always is, and replaced with a verisimilitude inducing prologue which provides the plot in a nut shell for those new to the play. Still it would have been interesting to see the drunk tinker Sly being kick out of a saloon and then getting taken in by a wealthy cattle baron.

 The set design was simple but very effective it consisted of two sets of swinging doors one stage left and the other stage right, the stage right doors decidedly more Saloon looking, and an open doorway center stage. The lumber, looking aged and weathered, was rough cut and gave a very Boomtown impression to the city ofPaduaItaly. I guess that made this a Spaghetti Western.

 The National Players gave a truly rough and tumble performance with comedic sound effects adding emphasis to stage punches and kicks. And in true frontier style extra effort went into making sure that none of Shakespeare’s physical innuendos went over anyone’s head. While, thankfully, the production avoided sprinkling Shakespeare’s words with the old western clichés of ‘taint and I reckon I do have to mention actor Chad Tallon who played Grumio. He managed to maintain a particularly thick “westerny” accent while at the same time speaking clearly and giving wonderfully comedic timing to an already hilarious character.

 Everyone who worked on this production did a great job and deserves praise but I only have so much room. Still, just one more nod. This nod goes to Costume designer Ivania Stack. All of the costumes looked fantastic and, I think, perfect for the time setting but I have to say that I really loved Kate’s coat that she wears in the final Act. It is just stunning and I really want one. Sorry I couldn’t find a picture.

 Unfortunately the there was only one performance at OCC but here’s the link to their web site. If anyone reading this hears about a production coming to your area I hope you’ll mosey on down and take in the show.

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