Bible Myth #63

Genesis 49:1-2, 28 states that the twelve tribes of Israel descend from the patriarche Jacob's twelve sons. As stated in 101 Myths of the Bible , "Jacob's twelve sons were the mythological founders of various political groups that merged into the House of Israel."
...just got busy...finish this line of thought later.

Trees and Hair

Seattle has so many trees packed into its city, the only way to add more trees is have the homes built in the trees as tree houses.
Stereotype alert: Do all of the local Seattle residents have bad hair? Even people with styled hair go out of their way to make it messy. What gives?

Seattle

How would I describe Seattle? Well, from my frame of reference, it is kinda a cross between San Francisco and Monterey, with trees EVERYWHERE. My g/f and I got there in the afternoon on Sat this weekend. The plan was to get there in the morning, but our flight was delayed. We had a good room (with a great bathroom) at the Grand Hyatt in the downtown area. This put us in walking distance of everything. We did a little shopping after settling in. Then we had a relaxing sunset dinner cruise around the harbor and inlet areas. Although the food pretty much sucked, the expereince was still very enjoyable.
We slept in hella late on Sunday. Lost half a day. Oh well. We started off by hopping on the monorail which took us to the Space Needle. It wasn't as tall as I thought it would be. We had a lovely and fun brunch in the revolving rest'rant at the top. I had my g/f place a penny on the rim to see if it would still be there when we rotated back around. Being the brat she is, she put the penny tail side up to give bad luck to anyone who tried to take it. When it came around again, I flipped it head side up to reverse her curse intent, but she said it didn't count. lol
That evening, we had dinner at Ototo, which is kinda a hip sushi rest'rant. It had good food in good portions, though I'd recommend avoiding the sake based cocktails.
Monday morning, we headed down to the Pike Street Festival. All kinds of local arts and craft were available. We watched the fish throwing antics of the famous fish market down there. The only question I had was, "Who would by so much fish at once?" cuz they sold the fish whole, and the fish they sold whole were BIG. Well, luck for us, someone did buy one of the fish, giving us a wonderous, yet brief, display of their throwing and catching abilities. We later checked out the Science Fiction Museum and part of the rock-and-roll museum near the Space Needle.
When checking in for our flight home, I discovered I had purchased first class return tickets. Nice surprise for myself. We literally had the worse seats on the flight to Seattle (next to the engines in the last row). We literally had the best seats on the return flight, complete with cushioned leather seating, breadsticks and a tasty dip, and whole cans of soda.
My thought upon returning home is that I could imagine living in Seattle.

I'm a happy camper

I got a promotion last week. Yeah me. Only draw back is that my job title now officially has the word "engineer" in it. Oh well. lol

Acting Style Star Wars Prequel Trilogy

America has been so over exposed to traditional Hollywood-style method acting and other "realistic acting" styles, we've come to consider any other form of acting as bad. Also, movies that fall outside the traditional Hollywood way of making movies tend to be either jeered or at least under appreciated. The Star Wars prequel Trilogy stands somewhere in the middle. The style of these movies today is considered very Hollywood in the action, filming techniques, etc. However, when the first Star Wars movie was released, it was anything but Hollywood. Hollywood has since adopted the original Star Wars style for its own science-fiction films. Before this point, the classic style of the old 1930's films had long vanished, and there wasn't enough interest in making sci-fi's to create a new genre in Hollywood. So, even though the original Star Wars movies were groundbreaking, the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy films today are very Hollywoodish by today's standards; except for its acting style.

There are several forms of acting. Each is used to tell a story for which it is best suited. "Realistic acting" (Method Acting, and also variations of Stanislavski Acting), have dominated Hollywood since the 1950's.  In particular, Method Acting best tells strong emotional character driven stories. Unfortunately, such styles are used for almost every movie these days. These acting styles do not fit many types of stories. But, us Americans are so accustomed to them, we are adverse to any other acting styles.

There's a quote from George Lucas about the acting style of the Prequel Trilogy: "It's not deliberately camp. I made the film[s] in a 1930s style. It's based on a Saturday matinee serial from the 1930s, so the acting style is very 30s, very theatrical, very old-fashioned. Method acting came in the 1950s and is very predominant today. I prefer to use the old style. People take it different ways, depending on their sophistication."^[001]

Taken in context of filmmaking, without regard for American prejudice, the acting in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy is very good. The formal acting style (derived from theatrical or stage acting) is used very effectively. It allows the story to be told through a balance between dialog, plot, and character development, rather than being over-driven by character development (as is the case for many Hollywood movies of any genre).

I too used to have a prejudice in favor of "realistic acting". However, the Prequel Trilogy has opened my mind to other forms, not just of acting, but filmmaking in general. I now understand Non-hollywood films and can enjoy them as much as I enjoy Hollywood films. I don't believe I'm alone. I think the Prequel Trilogy is, in part, responsible for the growth of the independent film industry since the 1990's. Thank you George Lucas.

Yesterday

I was in Fresno for my friend's graduation from Fresno State. Afterwards we had a bbq and fairly busy house party. It was a fun, long day. :) The drive was over two hours to get to Fresno. Today, I headed up to my folks place. They live about 1.5 hours from my place, so I'm still debating whether to head home tonight or tomorrow morning.

I did check out the Chocolate Festival in Oakdale today. Kinda lame. Hersey's Chocolate sponsers this thang cuz I guess they used to have a factory there or sumfin. Anyways, the festival doesn't have a whole lot to do with Chocolate, dispite its name.