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Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Do The Duties of Fall Include Blogging?


The girls are back in school. For the next week or so, their sleep-time will be marked by passionate but inarticulate chatter, and (in the case of the youngest) grinding teeth. I'm not sure what marks my sleep-time; my wife couldn't tell you, either, because I fall asleep last and wake up first.

I've been mulling over several possible topics, including commentary on two DVDs: Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music. Both were provocative, amusing and unsettling documentaries looking at what sort of purposes extreme music serves. There's plenty to comment on, but at this moment I find I don't much care to. In fact, I think I got turned off.

For both movies, the subject quickly gains theological import. But instead of training the camera on a bunch of pious propeller-heads with vandyke beards who jump at the chance to pontificate at length, we're subjected to a bunch of pierced, tattooed and edgily-coiffed personalities who jump at the chance to pontificate at length. I know that's what I paid for, but the overall effect gets to be pretty dreary, particularly when said pontificators have difficulty mustering up a sense of humour. I'd say of the two, Why Should The Devil is more amusing -- both intentionally, and otherwise. Why's material also opens itself up to some genuine surprises, while the world of Metal is quite predictable (nice to see, though, that Ronnie James Dio has a penchant for collecting cute ceramic froggies). Perhaps if Metal's Sam Dunn is up for another round with the material, he might consider contrasting Wacken with Cornerstone, and his reactions to the two. That would certainly be of anthropological interest, I would think.

But, whatever. Back to the tasks of fall. Canning tomatoes. Draining, cleaning and putting away the pool. Sealing the house against winter-dazed flies and bees. Killing the hamsters.

That's right: killing the hamsters. The girls' dwarf hamsters have passed the two-year mark, and they are in sad, sad shape. Neither of them runs on the wheel anymore. One of them has probably suffered a stroke: it is verifiably blind, and can't seem to use the left side of its body. Combine this with the fact that it's been months since either of my daughters has played with the little blighters, and I think we're dealing with some genuinely miserable creatures. Time for humanity to assert some control over its lesser charges.

And so it is with heavy heart that I leave my computer and head for the back yard, where the end for these creatures awaits...

12 comments:

  1. "Bring out yer dead!"

    "I'm not dead yet."

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  2. I laugh because it's true.

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  3. Am I reading too much into this or is there an undercurrent of Heavy Metal and Hamster Killing flowing through this entry, i.e. the former is a precurser to the latter?
    ..oh, and from the hamster's point of view and taking Jim's reference point, I plead, "I'm not dead..yet!"

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  4. Hmm. You're envisioning this as some sort of neo-Pagan ritual, are you? I suppose I set myself up for this, but since we're already playing with Heavy Metal rhetoric, let me just say that that is COMPLETELY uncalled for, and NOT AT ALL what I had in mind, and HOW COULD YOU EVEN *THINK* SUCH A THING?! YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY THE ONE WHO IS SICK HERE, AND NOT ME. I will NOT BE CENSORED, and ... *huff, wheeze* ....

    Word verification: "yiiwmj" Norwegian backwards masking for, "Kill the hamsters!"

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  5. To paraphrase The Onion:

    Campaign '80

    Jimmy Carter:
    "Let's talk about a skilled, merciful end."

    Ronald Reagan:
    "Kill the bastards."

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  6. Scott, I think you're misquoting one of history's Great Men. I'm pretty sure he said, "Kill the hamsters."

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  7. Somehow reading this put me very much in mind of Blackadder IV - the one set in the trenches.

    I don't think their hamster made it either.

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  8. Didn't that hamster wind up on Baldric's upper lip during their tribute to Charlie Chaplin? Or was that a slug?

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  9. So, I take it you never read "All Creatures Great and Small" ???

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  10. "All Creatures Great & Small"? Is that the sequel to "Blood Meridian"? (asks the man now wearing hamster pelts).

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  11. Reading forward to the Star Wars Lego entry and then cutting back to comments here, couldn't you use those "hamster pelts" to sew some costumes for thsoe wooly things that lived in the forest in one of those Star Wars episodes. Just thinking a good hamster pelt should not go to waste.

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  12. Those pelts are no mere fashion accessory - they will keep my ears warm this coming winter. Utility and aesthetics converge at opposite sides of my head.

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