Curiouser and curiouser

Before beginning in earnest, lets take a moment to think about cheese, and not having read 'Alice In Wonderland' in ages. That really has to pop up onto my 'to do' list. One simply can not keep making these Lewis Carroll quotes without having read the source texts. It's one of the modern day crimes of this Information Age. Oh, the blasted Information Age! I'm fighting another of those crimes right now by reading 'The Tempest' in anticipation of the fan commentary we are going to record for 'Forbidden Planet', so take that, tertiary source biased Information Age. Ha!

Actually, 'The Tempest' is turning out to be quite good. I was expecting the usual Shakespeare awfulness experienced elsewhere; they really choose the dreariest ones to give you at school. Ah, school. It was a good week at school, a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It's true that as an observer you only get the best of things, and that the week was dominated by Christmas rehearsals, but there was still enough to get an assessment of how things work at an effective primary school. Aww, it's so much nicer at primary schools than secondaries. I'm almost smitten by the whole thing, but now remember that this is probably a bit dull for the hypothetical reader. Mutter mutter.

The 'Superman' serial from 1948 is playing as this post gets closer and close to completion. It too is actually very entertaining, although I am wondering how many more times Clark Kent can hide behind a similar rock to change into his Superman costume before the whole thing falls apart completely. However, cynicism has no place here in the context of adventure serials, or anywhere else really. The concept of cynicism is the enemy of practically every entertainment enterprise. Get away, cynics, and learn the joy of wonder once again. Yes, wonder, the antidote to all ills.

A sense of wonder, after some long and repeated thoughts on the subject, dominates a lot of what I seem to enjoy. There seems little point in watching kitchen sink dramas, reading pretentious literary tragedies, or violence fuelled action movies when in other places you can find wonder in its purest forms. That's really what I would hope the power of the movie was back in its heyday: A distilled sense of aspiration and wonder that could then inspire people to be happier in their own lives. Does that still happen? It sounds very much like a topic for another day, in any case, and one that needs time to form so that it doesn't turn into yet another example of old-headed railing about how things aren't what they used to be.

Ah, a week ahead of no scheduled activities. It's going to get curiouser and curiouser, whether our fates are influenced by auspicious stars or not. This Shakespeare guy could write when he was on form, so Project Gutenberg's going to provide a few more of his plays for consideration; anything but 'Macbeth' or 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Yeesh.

O.