What's more self-indulgent...

...than a blog?

A blog, a personal Web site and a band MySpace page.

I just can't help myself.

With all the looniness going on, the only sane thing to do is grab my guitar and autoharp, then post about it online. It beats Prozac and is whole heaps better than whining about things over which I have no control. (Not that I'll stop, mind you.)

So check out our new, improved Spindle Sisters sites, now with the miracle cleaning power of mp3s!

Reactions from The Eyrie: World Trade Center

Okay, this isn't a real film review. There are no cast and crew details (that's why IMDb exists, after all) and I've never taken Film Appreciation at even the lowliest level. I just know what I like or don't, and occasionally I'll post that here, because I can.

I seldom see films nowadays for obvious reasons (cash flow, dearth of quality, annoying and rude theatergoers), and ones based on disasters are not usually on my short list when I do go. My husband really wanted to see Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, and I went along to please him more than anything else. Being claustrophobic, the last thing I really wanted to sit through was a depiction of two Port Authority police officers buried alive under the devilish wrath that was September 11, 2001. However, I owed Irish big after he sat through March of the Penguins and Pride and Prejudice, so off we went. I knew it would affect me emotionally and even physically regardless of the director's method. Indeed, there were a few scenes during which I had to look away, and some that made me visibly shake. Irish asked if I needed to leave the theater. I wanted to, but was riveted by the thought that if those people could live through something like that, I could honor them by at least staying to hear and see their story.

The movie is vivid without being ghastly in its realism. The entire cast does justice to the victims, living and dead, of that awful day. At no time do we see a Hooray-for-Hollywood-rootin'-tootin' sensationalized tabloid tale. Instead, bedraggled female characters, all but forgetting to take a breath, let alone fix their makeup, endure the most agonizing day of their lives; men look like they've just been belched from the very maws of death itself; kids lose their childish trust that Mom and Dad will fix everything and the world's an okay place to be. Besides being honest, World Trade Center is a family-honoring and (big surprise!) God-honoring work. (Imagine, people of faith being portrayed positively, even heroically in a mainstream movie!) Above all, I was mightily impressed that Stone managed to make good on the story and not inject his particular political slant. That alone is a huge measure of its success as a film and his as the director. (Did I really just say something complimentary about an Oliver Stone film?).

Nothing being perfect this side of Heaven, the movie has its flaws. Could anyone have accurately portrayed the hardship the rescuers endured, hour after hour digging down into what could very well have been their own tomb? The rescue effort itself had to be truncated, both for time's sake as well as to spare the audience from being itself buried in the tragedy. Some characters were inevitably combined or overlooked. Without giving spoilers, there were a few characters and occurrences in the story line that I chalked up as script devices to move the plot along or add drama. I was amazed to read interviews with the real-life Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin later and find out that these were, in truth, part of their actual experiences. Amazing.

Please don't take children--this is much too overwhelming for anyone younger than mature teenagers to sit through. The use of profanity is brief and quite appropriate. The audience filed quietly out at the end without the usual banter and giggling that accompany a Saturday night crowd. Don't shortchange yourself by sitting this one out. It was the day life changed profoundly for all of us.

Pluto follows St. Christopher

A day of ignominy for the celestial body formerly known as the Planet Pluto--just as the Catholic Church demoted saints like Nicholas and Christopher, so now Pluto has lost the status it held since 1930 and been downgraded to something called a "dwarf planet". No more will third-graders fashion mobiles of nine gradated sizes of crumpled paper. 8 is the new 9 in our trimmed-down solar system.

There, Pluto--that's what you get for horning in on Neptune's orbit. And think of the economic boon as millions of new science textbooks are rushed to print.

Of course I didn't write it, but...

Today’s history test:

1. In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:
a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. A Muslim male extremist between ages 17 and 40

2. At the 1972 Munich Olympics, athletes were massacred by:
a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists between ages 17 and 40

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists ages 17 to 40

4. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up (killing 241 marines) by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists ages 17 to 40

5. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
a. The Smurfs
b. Davey Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists ages 17 to 40

6. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists ages 17 to 40

7. The World Trade Center was bombed the first time in 1993 by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists 17 to 40

8. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton
c. World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists 17 to 40

9. On 9/11/2001, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to destroy the World Trade Centers, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was crashed by the passengers, killing thousands of people: The hijackers were:
a. Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and friends
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Eight 75 year old grandmothers
d. Muslim male extremists 17 to 40

10. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by:
a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists 17 to 40