Believing in Magic

     I love media about Magic- Harry Potter, Harry Dresden, The Belgariad, the tales of Middle Earth...  the list goes on and ever on.


     There are three movies about stage magic that I sort of group together. They are from very different directors, tell different stories, and are unrelated, except by theme. I just finished watching the three, and I would love to talk about them while they are fresh in my mind.


     The Illusionist



     A fascinating tale of a talented stage magician challenging a prince for the woman he loves. Much of the tale is told through the framework of the chief police inspectors investigation of him. This one shares some common ground with "the Usual Suspects", in that all the clues are there but you can't really assemble them until the end of the film.

      The Prestige



     A tragic and suspenseful tale of two rival magicians bound together in a cycle of envy and revenge. This is a Christopher Nolan thriller, and he keeps you guessing until the last minute and then some.


     And Now you See Me



     Where four talented amateur magicians unite to perform...miracles and daring robberies, all in the name of righting wrongs of the past. They call themselves the four horsemen... and yet there is a secret fifth horsemen behind them all along. there is a sequel to this one but I have not seen it yet.


     You will notice that in the tradition of the best magic, I am refusing to spoiler, or "give away the trick". If you haven't seen them, you will be pleasantly surprised, pleased, maybe a trifle horrified by some parts. But you will be entertained, and left wanting more.

Frailty

     I  hate feeling weak. I hate feeling like I can't take something. I like to think of the kind of person who would jog home from a vasectomy. I am writing this post using an on screen magnifier because I am not as recovered as I planned to be.

      The procedure went well, I am out of pain and mostly out of irritation, but my eyes tire easily. and I do not have the definition I am used to.


     Thus is nit a whining post. I did what I did for the future, so I can accept a little discomfort in the present.

My sister snapped this while they were activation the Riboflavin in my eye to strengthen my cornea.

that is haunting stuff. back soon with more better stuff


Mt reci\overy watchlist-

• Daredevil
• Blimd Fury

Doctor my Eyes

 I have been lax in updating- part of it is my Lazy and often Busy self, part of it is the looming thing that is happening today.

     I have a condition called keratoconus. It is bad in my left eye, and I did not know it was developing in the right as well. Today I am going to try to get the right eye stopped from deteriorating. Left eye they do not think they can restore sight to, so we are fixing what can be fixed for now.

     Keratoconus takes the sharpness of this:

and makes it into something like this:

The upshot is, if I look at you with my left eye, I can guess that you are probably a person, but not much more specific than that. And glasses can't correct it- Contacts may restore some function. They worked for my sister.









     So I get to leave this afternoon, and if all goes right and not horribly wrong, be back home Sunday after spending some recovery time at my sisters house. Birds are going to be Mad, but I will make it up to them.

So for now I leave you with a little Jackson Browne and will see you (hopefully clearer) on the other side

Farewell for now, Castle and Beckett

     I watched the series finale of Castle...finally, like a week later than I could have. Because I guess I was a little afraid to say goodbye.




     Watching the finale, I know they weren't ready to say goodbye either.




     Now, understand I don't pretend to know someone's mind, but I know stories. And I gotta say, yes, they concluded the LokSat storyline, but then they tagged on the "seven years later" epilogue.


     It felt rushed. It was a good, happy farewell to Castle and becket, but it left some things unwrapped. I would have liked to see Ryan, Espo, Martha, Alexis in the Idyllic little family scene with Castle & Becket + three kids.


     As endings go, it wasn't the best.


     It also was not the worst.


     I have seen some finales that were either no finale, or a direct middle finger, defiantly thrust upward at the viewer. Not a satisfying wrap up, but a bitter breakup instead.


     So I will let Castle and his family lie in their happy-ever-after until I collect all the DVD seasons and then visit them again. They ended their story true to the promise and premise they had built for 8 seasons.


     Castle and Beckett- Always...