I would put my money on the white shoes.

So I got my new digital camera today. It fits in the palm of my hand. I took a lot of pictures of shoes. It was neat.

Really though, I need to know how to thumbnail images, and then maybe start my own gallery too, if someone would like to help me set that up.

Another short Friday, another good movie!

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how my future children will never have the same childhood experience Ric or I had. I think somewhere at the end of the 80s, a certain way of life kind of disappeared. I'm sure many people say the same thing in each generation, but I think the change gets more drastic as time passes on. I grew up watching old movies, Looney Toons, playing the piano, and singing hymns in church. The kids of this generation have Pixar, watch Nickelodeon-style animation, play sports instead of instruments, and have never heard of "children's church." Everything is a lot more computerized, a lot less home-style, and faster-paced in general. Unless I do something to teach my own kids to enjoy the great charm of old forms of entertainment and music, they will never understand what I enjoyed about A Prairie Home Companion.

Watching this movie, for me, was like mourning the exit of the simpler forms of entertainment from prominence in American life (I know, I know, it lost prominence awhile back - I'm just in denial). I watched Roger Ebert's review, and he seemed to take it more as a trip down memory lane, which celebrated the old radio days, but I couldn't help getting teary-eyed at the end of this one, even though I had never heard of Garrison Keillor's show until this movie came out.

The movie has a great cast, including Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, Linsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, and Garrison Keillor himself. The story, which I guess I haven't covered yet, follows all of the entertainers on and off stage on the last night of their performances on "A Prairie Home Companion", a live radio show that is performed in front of an audience.

I have only seen director Robert Altman's Gosford Park and Kansas City so far, but I really enjoy how his style feels detailed while also letting the scene feel very fluid and natural.

Keillor's script is great. The dialogue is fast and realistic behind the stage and right on cue during the live performances. He manages to basically take a quick premise (last radio show) and turn it into an actual plot by weaving all of the characters together, throwing in Guy Noir (Kline) and the angelic woman, and making us look forward to finding out what happens when the Axeman arrives.

I loved all of the acting, all of the singing, and the way the story moved along. Whether or not a person likes the music involved, I think there's enough there to give the movie merit, and plenty of laughs and touching moments occur off the stage, but I guess not everyone grew up with the same entertainment I did, so maybe I just had a stronger attachment to it than other people might.

The Telegraph has a news story about a play currently running in London that is so shockingly and gruesomely violent that they have a problem with patrons fainting during the performance.

The play? Titus Andronicus. The playwright? William Shakespeare.

I have never seen the play or the movie with Anthony Hopkins, but I read the play a few months ago, and that was enough for me. It's definitely not one of Shakespeare's better plays; in fact, some aspects of the story are downright awful (some scholars claim that Shakespeare was really only responsible for part of the play). It is, however, the most twisted and disgusting work of fiction I have ever come across (and people have accused me of liking some pretty twisted movies).

I think it's amazing that in a time when sadistic torture and dismemberment are the stuff of Hollywood movies, a 400-year-old play can still elicit a physical reaction in people. As I've mentioned before, people today have a distorted view of the past. We look at the prudishness of Victorian-era fiction and attribute that to all literature from the past. When I look at Titus Andronicus and The Canterbury Tales, which were very popular in their own time, I think that the opposite may be true: certain audiences in the past had a taste for blood and gore and sex that we are now just catching up to.

By the way, the article in The Telegraph describes just one of the more visually shocking scenes of the play. I think the most gruesome and twisted moment comes later, at the play's climax. If you're one of those people that likes this kind of thing, you don't want to miss it.

On August 6th, I am going to be running in the Ryka Iron Girl 5 mile race here in Denver. As part of this race, I am raising money to support the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults. The UCF support youth and their families and friends by way of support, education, and resources provided at no cost. I have set a goal to raise $500 by August 6th. If you would like to make a donation, I have set up a website for that purpose. Please visit it at
http://www.active.com/donate/UCF/kellyward.

Also, I'd invite any female readers out there to come join me in the race! It should be a lot of fun.

Thanks.

~Kelly

Who Killed the Electric Car? is a documentary about the electric car that GM made for a while in 1996. When the leases ended for the cars, all the GM EV1s were reclaimed and destroyed. Why was such a well-liked car discontinued? Several of the customers wanted to buy the car when their lease was up. Why weren't they allowed to? And why did GM collect these cars and shred them to bits, even though some of them had never been used?

I heard about this on the PBS Now podcast (download the episode). I'm looking forward to seeing this movie. It should be opening wide later this summer.

The Singularity Is Near : When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil

The Office

Haughty Melodic by Mike Doughty