As Halloween slithers in I like to catch up on movies I haven't yet seen. This weekend I watched The Crow. A dark, gothic, action-fantasy, it is high on the creep-o-meter because Brandon Lee, playing a vengeance-seeking murdered man named Eric Draven, gets killed during the filming. It is a movie about death and resurrection, and in the mother of all improbable ironies, Lee was killed during his character's own death scene. That thought never quite left my mind as I watched Lee as Draven living out the final minutes of both their lives. Lee's death was definitely one of the more bizarre, and controversial, occurrences in film history.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
The cricket liked its dark, moist home hidden beneath a rock that had lain undisturbed for longer than it knew. Suddenly the rock moved and a bright light shone down amid excited voices. The cricket could not understand the voices, but the voices spoke anyway.
"There's one, daddy!"
"Get him, get him!" Another one called.
"Ok, ok, I got him," the daddy said.
Swiftly, yet gently, the daddy grabbed the cricket and dropped him into a clear container with some leaves and a stick. Antennae nervously waving, the cricket examined its new environment. Also in the container was a toad. The toad looked at the cricket. The voices outside the container continued to speak.
"Can we keep Mr. Toad, daddy? Can we, CAN WE?"
"We'll see what happens." The daddy said.
"What will happen?"
"Well, by morning, either the toad will eat the cricket, or they will be friends."
The next morning the children hurriedly appeared and looked in the container. Mr. Toad looked back. And he didn't have a friend.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Last night I had some nice fresh bagged spinach... and then watched the news. But this morning I feel strong-ska to the finish-ska, 'cause I ates me spinach-ska....
A Ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga.
But this sailor man wouldn't be laughing if he had any of these symptoms, though. Yechhh.
Monday, September 11, 2006
I took this photo during my daily commute a month before 9-11. I don't know that one would call it a premonition, but I bucked the voice in my head that asked, "Why take a photo of something that will always be around?" Along with a dozen other writers, several years ago I contributed my version of that day's events here.
{ 12:03 PM }
Monday, September 04, 2006
If you had to die doing what you loved, what would that be? That's the question Steve Irwin's death has me thinking.
This summer saw my return to scuba diving. I earned my diver certification back in 1987, logging over 30 dives in Cape Cod and the Caribbean. I explored the wreck of a freighter at night off Aruba, swam with a school of needle-toothed barracuda off Cozumel's Palancar reef, and delicately handled unexploded ordnance in a debris field around a World War II Liberty ship in Cape Cod Bay. No doubt, getting up off your couch involves an element of risk. But I love getting outdoors. Career and family have kept me from it of late, but this year I had several opportunities to get under the surface and I'm glad I did. It's when I feel most alive, which is no doubt how the Croc Hunter felt, and that kept him doing it, and in a freak occurrence that stingray jabbed its spine into his heart.
But getting broadsided by a New York City bus just wouldn't have been his style. And it's not mine, which is why I'm as careful as I can be in the streets. I like to think I'll take nature's risks anyday. That said, though, I really do want to be around when my kids grow up. { 6:11 PM }
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