Pirates - Ho Hum

On Memorial Day, I went and saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End with several friends, and I have to say it didn't really impress me. I'm rating it a 6 because there are a few things I still like about the overall trilogy, but really it doesn't live up to the first movie. I mean after awhile even Jack Sparrow gets old. So then yesterday, I made up for the theatre disappointment by watching Garden State at home. I had forgotten some of the little details which made my rating a 9, but I was enjoyably reminded why it does deserve such high praise.

Movie Catch-Up

I haven't been keeping up with my movie ratings lately. Let me try to rectify that. Just last night we watched Casino Royale which I was really enjoying up until the last act. If the movie had ended after Bond won the poker tournament, it would have gotten a lot higher rating that the 6 it ended up with. Plus, I still think Pierce Brosnan is the best Bond ever. Last week we watched a couple of action movies -- one surprisingly good and the other unbelievably bad. I was not expecting much from Crank but the excellent editing and funny story bits left me rating it an 8. Unfortunately, we followed this up with the Protector, which my rating of 2 should say it all.

The simple things

This week's poem is about the simple things in life that are sometimes overlooked. Most of you know that I have a serious affinity for food, so I can really relate to the following poem by Mark Strand entitled "Pot Roast". As the author describes, it is often that as I enjoy a particular meal I am reminded of other times eating with family or struggling on my own in college or a dozen other key points in my life.

I couldn't find a good site with just the poem posted, so here is a copy from Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf):

Pot Roast

    I gaze upon the roast,
    that is sliced and laid out
    on my plate
    and over it
    I spoon the juices
    of carrot and onion.
    And for once I do not regret
    The passage of time.

    I sit by a window
    that looks
    on the soot-stained brick of buildings
    and do not care that I see
    no living thing—not a bird,
    not a branch in bloom,
    not a soul moving
    in the rooms
    behind the dark panes.
    These days when there is little
    to love or to praise
    one could do worse
    than yield
    to the power of food.
    So I bend

    to inhale
    the steam that rises
    from my plate, and I think
    of the first time
    I tasted a roast
    like this.
    It was years ago
    in Seabright,
    Nova Scotia;
    my mother leaned
    over my dish and filled it
    and when I finished
    filled it again.
    I remember the gravy,
    its odor of garlic and celery,
    and sopping it up
    with pieces of bread.

    And now
    I taste it again.
    The meat of memory.
    The meat of no change.
    I raise my fork in praise,
    and I eat.

Living Room Fort

A poem to revive childhood memories this week: Block City by Robert Louis Stevenson. I still recall many joyful afternoons and evenings in the basement of our Virgina home making the sofa into a spaceship or the cushions into safe rocks surrounded by lava. I hope I never completely lose that creative innocence inside me. Hopefully, rolling dice to fight against dragons every other week is helpful. :)

No Poem this week

I know so many of you are disappointed.... well, actually I doubt that the few who actually read this site could really care about the poem posts. But I've just been too busy lately; too stressed; too tired; too sick of work; too ready for a long vacation; too full of so many reasons to skip reading at night and just flop into bed. I know that may sound like a cop-out, but seriously, I've been struggling more at work in the last couple months than I have since Sprint. And most of you know how bad that can be. Anyway, I'm trying to just hang in there until after a big work deployment this weekend and then things are supposed to settle back down to a somewhat normal routine. So we'll see.... wish me luck.

Fun weekend

Okay, so I was in Oklahoma City this weekend visiting with my brother. We got to use my brother's Wii some more and Justin decided that it really does give a good work-out. He kept complaining of getting all sweaty after playing some tennis or boxing. Despite the lure of the video game, we did get out and played nearly two full rounds of disc golf and completed five or six geocaches. A few of the caches we skipped because of rain, but overall the weather was pretty nice to us. Even with a Tornado watch most of the drive home, we only met with a few sprinkles. It was a nice get-away for the weekend, but of course much too short.

Spidey's back!

So yes, I went to a midnight showing of Spider-Man 3 Thursday night/Friday morning before I left to visit my brother this weekend. I did enjoy the movie, but not quite as much as I hoped. I think part of that was the fact that I was really tired when I saw it, so I'm going to watch it again at some point. For now, my rating is sitting at an 8, but that's not final.

Just made it

Almost forgot to post again this week. I picked this poem on Monday, and am just now writing about the sweet words of Margaret Atword in Variation On The Word Sleep. To me this reads like a beautiful love song, evoking strong emotions. I'll post more when I get back home -- visiting with my brother this weekend.