Fiction Authors

     On one of my not infrequent trips to the ARC thrift, I happened across a book titled Storm Front, by Richard Castle. It's not bad. It's not the best piece of western fiction I have ever read, but its not bad.

      So if you don't know... Richard Castle doesn't actually exist. I suppose he is as real an author as John H Watson M.D., and as real as people believe. But independent life...? He has none. Richard Castle is the title character on Castle, where he is a bestselling author who consults with New York's finest on their strangest cases.

     The book is a media tie in, one of the books the fictional Castle wrote and published.

     It makes me think of Spinal Tap, that famous nonexistent band, subject of  a documentary and two successful albums. There are those who still believe Spinal Tap was a real band and not three actors well known for tongue in cheek humor.

     It also makes me ponder how much our beliefs create reality. How real does something have to be to be believed in, and how much do we have to believe to make something real? a quick check on Google shows results between 20-50% of people who believe Sherlock Holmes was a real detective, and that historical figures such as Winston Churchill were fictional.

     We are human- much of our intelligence, much of our culture is about believing in things you cannot prove. Little Surprise then, that the things we love, and that entertain us become more real than the things that have more historical meat. I'm going to out myself here, and admit freely that my relationships with fictional characters are often more real and rewarding than my relationships with actual breathing humans. Just turned out that way, I'm afraid. 

     So I am gonna read this book, and look forward to Castles next bestseller

Three Nights With Robin Williams

...And Ben Stiller


     As I am sure you have figured out, I watched the Night at the Museum trilogy this week, and I realized as I was doing so that it was kind of my way to say farewell to Robin Williams.


     I found myself really enjoying, but assessing the characters in all three movies, and the characterizations. The only possible casting choice I find dubious is General Custer, but Bill Hader is hilarious- he just looks a little young to me.(We're Americans. We don't plan, we do!). Stiller and Azaria as Larry Daley and Kahmunrah respectively get to have some great verbal duels that harken back to Mystery Men.


     But to Robin...

     He's great as Teddy Roosevelt, nobody better I could picture- funny, but wise and mentoring at the same time. I may be imagining it, or I may be dead on, when I say I could see he was really tired in the third movie. I think it's natural, and oh, so very human to look for hidden clues after something like Robin Williams' suicide; to say "he looked so sad in that last movie...I can't believe we didn't see it". My Ex, Sam, talked a lot after "the Dark Knight" about how someone should have seen that Heath Ledger was really messed up, and helped him out, that not all of his chilling and freaky performance as the Joker was performance, some of it was the medicine he was on. But I digress- I am a known Digressor. (if you drift off onto another subject in order to avoid a fight, does that make you passive/digressive?)

     The ending of the last movie just seems so...sad, for Larry, and for the New York Museum bunch. Even the epilogue, 3 years later seems sad for Larry. I was seriously choked up for about the last half hour.

     For one of the last movies Robin Williams ever made, it was not his finest, but it sure wasn't bad, either. It was a suitable cap on his career, giving us all the ways he made us laugh and cry, in a neat little package.

     Thanks, Robin, for everything from Mork to now, you crazy, crazy, beautiful performer.

Upgrades

     I'm going to add here to the list of body parts, I would cheerfully carve out and replace with reliable machinery.

1. Left Eye
2. Pancreas
3. Stomach
4. Lungs
5. SPINE

I somehow managed to pinch a damn nerve, I know not how. I went to the Chiropractor, it's better, but not 100%, and it makes my right arm pain me in certain positions(like using the mouse on my desk, for example)

     So far, the score of people who got my joke about it do not include my Chiro, who was mystified

I told him that it must be the C-4 vertebra, because it feels like it exploded, and C-4 was kind of a silly thing to make a vertebra out of anyway...

     Yeah, he didn't get it. Neither did his wife/receptionist. 

     Anyway, I will probably be seeing him next week to finish the job. he beat me like a rug, but I don't think I am all back into place yet. It's also probably even more explosive now because I put a tiger bomb on it last night.

For the Birds

     Just an update on the Tango Bird, which I thought I would start with the following conversation between me and him

Daddy: You know I love you?
Tango: yeah
Daddy: you love me?
Tango: Yeah...I guess so
Daddy: You Stinker
Tango: Yeah

and yes, that is verbatim.

     These are Tangos new toys. I found them for $1 for 18 Pcs. down at Target. I thought : these might amuse him for a bit...
     He figured out how to take them apart within 15 minutes

and he completely forgot how as soon as the camera was pointed at him.