Sometimes, when life is dealing you a bunch of bum cards, you need to retreat and watch an uproariously funny movie.
So, my faithful readership, I am in need of your very best recommendations for really funny movies. Bonus points for films easy to get at an average video store (it’s a small island, and they do their best). Also you will get points if no one dies in the movie. We’re not into dying at the moment.
So let’s have at it. Anything has to be more amusing than Zoolander.
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For my friends in the gifting movement, some insight from the Buddha’s Sappurisadana Sutta:
‘These five are a person of integrity’s gifts. Which five? A person of integrity gives a gift with a sense of conviction. A person of integrity gives a gift attentively. A person of integrity gives a gift in season. A person of integrity gives a gift with an empathetic heart. A person of integrity gives a gift without adversely affecting himself or others.
‘Having given a gift with a sense of conviction, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And he is well-built, handsome, extremely inspiring, endowed with a lotus-like complexion.
‘Having given a gift attentively, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And his children, wives, slaves, servants, and workers listen carefully to him, lend him their ears, and serve him with understanding hearts.
‘Having given a gift in season, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And his goals are fulfilled in season.
‘Having given a gift with an empathetic heart, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And his mind inclines to the enjoyment of the five strings of lavish sensuality.
‘Having given a gift without adversely affecting himself or others, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And not from anywhere does destruction come to his property — whether from fire, from water, from kings, from thieves, or from hateful heirs.
‘These five are a person of integrity’s gifts.’
Happy Thanksgiving.
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The Smithsonian launched it’s prize jewel, the National Museum of the American Indian last month in Washington. Joy Harjo was there:
Sitting outside the National Museum of the American Indian after a reception and viewing of the museum, the day before the opening, I run into Carlos Nakai, one of Indian country�s finest musicians. We admire the lily-filled pond, the grounds rich with native plants. It�s idyllic. We both agree that what�s missing are the junked cars, chickens, skinny rez dogs, kids running around, dried meat racks�.and so on.
Yeah!
But I will say one thing for that museum. They have their language right. It’s no mere anthropological curiosity. It treats living indigenous cultures as living cultures.
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I back from a week in Orange County, California. The hotel I stayed at, the Ayres Country Inn and Suites featured a room that opened on to a French country-style courtyard on one side and a California suburban parking lot on the other. Every ten minutes a plane streaked 100 feet overhead on it’s approach to John Wayne Airport, which lay across the street.
Within the hotel itself, were photos of Newport beach and environs in the 1920s. One telling shot showed the Pacific Coast Highway in 1920. It was four lanes even then packed bumper to bumper with Model T Fords. The title of the shot was “Traffic Jam, Newport Beach, 1920.” That’s a long time for a community to have lived with the worst of the car. And it appears as if no one has learned anything. In the 1930s for example, GM bought up the popular interurban streetcar service called the Redcar, fearing that if public transit caught on it would ruin their market. It was probably the best business decision they ever made. With that one acquisition, car culture was entrenched in southern California and as the archetypical California suburb exported its design across North America, the car followed suit.
It’s good to be home in the rainy embrace of Howe Sound.