That's Why Your Robot Never Worked

[robotnik2004]

"See all that stuff inside, Homer? That's why your robot never worked!"

A quiet Sunday reading the paper, and books, and other nonelectronic things, and copying Season 2 of MI-5 from TiVo to VHS for jeregenest, who was in a scary and freakish and random accident. It sounds like he's going to be OK, mercifully, but he will, I assume, be convalescing for a while. (On reflection, odds are good that Jere's already seen the MI-5s, but it's nice to have a project.)

I was amused by this quote in the Sunday Book Review:

Here's the problem with 'Write what you know': What too many aspiring writers know, it turns out, is that a suburban American adolescence causes vague feelings of sadness—especially when one's formative years include a dying grandparent or housepet.

Yes, indeed. Substitute "Canadian" for "American" in that sentence and I know that problem all too well. (See, Homer? That's why my novel never worked...) The review in question goes on to say "It's the lucky writer whose story is familiar to himself and exotic to his readers," which then made me think of The Russian Debutante's Handbook, a bit of a trendy must-read novel a few years ago that I had somehow missed. L gave it to me over the holidays, and it was great. Highly recommended. One of the funniest books I've read in a long time. The feckless Gen-X hipsters therein reminded me an awful lot of me and my own friends in the PC 1990s, at least until the Russian mob shows up and starts breaking their kneecaps. That didn't happen to me and my friends as far as I can recall. (See how my uneventful Canadian adolescence has prevented me from being a literary prodigy? Oh the pain.)

I posted another rambling essay today about Ben Franklin and the Turk and 18th-century robotica over at my big boy website. Halfway through that post I mention that I have "another cool anecdote about the Imperial Academy of Science in St. Petersburg in the 1700s that I want to tell you." I know, I know, most people would be content with just one such anecdote in their life, but you are blessed with me as a friend, so you might as well enjoy it. Check this shit out: Peter the Great, Tsar from 1682 to 1725, was a passionate collector of monsters. In the 1690s, he began assembling a collection of anatomical and zoological monstrosities and abnormalities, living and dead. In 1704, he ordered that midwives throughout Russia were strictly forbidden to kill or hide newborn children with deformations. All "monstrous" births were to be turned over to the clergy, who would deliver them to his Cabinet of Monsters in St. Petersberg. After Peter's death in 1725, the Cabinet came under control of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

"Cabinet of Monsters." Nice ring to that. Well, I doubt I have to tell you what I'm thinking: If those "monsters" were not giants and hermaphrodites and hydrocephalic kids but actually, you know, monsters... you could have a crazy 1700s Russian League of Extraordinary Gentlemen adventure, or some very cool backstory for the Russian version of the BPRD in a certain long-threatened Soviet Hellboy Delta Green game.

What else? Oh yes. bryant's Best Movies of 2004 post is up, which is great, and relieves me of having to write one. I spent a lot of 2004 passing off a combination of Bryant and Anthony Lane's opinions about movies as my own, so it seems appropriate to just link to his Best Of list now. My only gripes with his list? I'd drop Sky Captain. I found it dull and disappointing, and I can't help thinking that caffeine and a sense that "I should like this" is deluding Bryant and my other geek chums who still champion the film. And where is the love for Napoleon Dynamite? But other than that, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Comments

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

princeofcairo's Suppressed Transmission this week was on the Turk.

[editswlonghair.livejournal.com]

Peter the Great rocks my socks. He's a one man crazy 1700s Russian League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, what with personally designing and building St Petersburg and designing and building the Russian navy. Plus I seem to recall a stint as an English privateer or something that sparked his love affair with the sea. And the tales of him carousing during his stay in London... I actually remember him being refered to as a 'frat boy' in a book I read once. Heh.

[bryant]

I've contemplated this mad fondness of mine for the movie, and come to little conclusive opinion. I've even seen it twice. I will get the DVD and freeze-frame the last second to find out if Joe was lying about the lenscap. Obsession!

In my saner moments, I suspect two things: that I am right in my assertion that it's perfectly crafted pulp, and that the pulp serials sucked rocks. I've been watching Ace Drummond one episode at a time before Huey Long's Men of Action, and while it's great for setting the mood, lemme tell you... it's an awful piece of cinema. I mean, it's just dreadful. The acting is wooden and condescending, the action scenes are ponderous and goofy, and the plot is just an excuse to string together acting and action scenes.

This would imply, if true, that Sky Captain is a perfectly crafted replica of something that sucked in the first place. Which would explain a lot. But that's a hard sell of an argument, since we all think we love pulp to pieces. Nah. We just love Indiana Jones, which deviates from the formula.

[bryant]

Oh, yeah, Napoleon Dynamite. I thought about it. It's definitely at the top of the Best of What's Left Over After the Best of the Rest... no, wait, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban came out this year. Well, it's tied for the top.

In all seriousness, I liked it but it didn't have the emotional depth to really captivate me. I also docked it a notch for the cheesy "we're a success so we're adding an scene and asking you to see it again" campaign. Look, I saw your damned movie when nobody was seeing it; don't make me double dip! Grr.

[sneech515.livejournal.com]

>Substitute "Canadian" for "American" in that sentence and I know that problem all too well.
And yet, you're lucky in that you're not also replacing "suburban" with "Prairie" which, toegther with "adolescence," would form the classic insufferable hat trick of CanLit cliches.

(The judges would also accept "remote northern mining town" or "Cape Breton.")

Also, "cabinet of monsters." Hee. That's gold! Gold!

Napoleon Dynamite? Peter Nitrov Glyzerin!

[equine-cocoon.livejournal.com]

"lucky writer whose story is familiar to himself and exotic to his readers" I think Chuck Bukowski gets the trophy for this, I bet there's like 156 hundred thousand young men around the world trying to be him. "strictly forbidden to kill or hide newborn children with deformations" Smart guy, he got the whole country to learn how to read, even the adults. I hope he was researching all these monsters, rather than just having some kind of freak show. No wait, I hope he had a freak show. "best movies of 2004" The Day After Tomorrow was the only movie I rented that I did not finish watching because it suckd so badly. I wonder if sales have jumped since Boxing Day?

[baummera.livejournal.com]

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