The Tragic Want of Mead Distribution

Last night's tweets;

Refugee soldiers sleep in an old hive.
Brady clones leave an acid frosting trail.
Nuclear algae make sprinkles alive.
The city's shadow's swallowed by a whale.

If anyone wants to know how to get me drunk quickly, the answer is mead. And keeping me from food for several hours beforehand.

Since I've been without a working dishwasher, I've been getting these insulated disposable cups--basically generic brand versions of Starbucks cups. They even come with lids. I'd been using them for my coffee, but they turned out to be just the thing for hot mead. It kept it hot for as long as it took me to drink it.

I think I may actually need to see this new Robin Hood movie, even though a lot of the mostly negative reviews specifically mention things I've consistently found to hate about a lot of modern movies--like feminism as validation through martial prowess and phoney, sombre realism at the sacrifice of story and fun. Of course, those are two things that kind of contradict each other. Certainly there are examples of independent, powerful women in the Middle Ages, but did you know that they're not all Joan of Arc? I'm still reading Frances and Joseph Gies Women in the Middle Ages, and as one example;

In 1266, the abbess of Notre-Dame-aux-Nonnains, Odette de Poungy, dared to resist a project of Pope Urban IV. The Pope was a the son of a shoemaker of Troyes, and wanted to build a church where his father's shop had stood. Odette opposed this plan because the site impinged on the abbey's property and went so far as to lead an armed party that drove off the workmen and demolished the work. Two years later the same abbess led a second demonstration that brought excommunication to her whole convent. The sentence remained in force for fourteen years, but formidable Odette never wavered, and the new church, St. Urbain, was not built until long after her death.

But, of course, in an action movie no-one's really part of the game unless they can swing a sword. Even though, as a critic named Latauro on AICN points out, it doesn't actually make much sense within the story, "We'd already established Marion as a strong, realistic character. Why the fuck is she suddenly Joan of Arc? Anyone who isn't groaning or laughing at this point of the movie has a better tolerance than I do." If Scott must go that route, one wonders why he apparently, according to these reviews, felt it necessary to excise all the whimsy. Maybe he's still bitter over Legend, from which he removed Jerry Goldsmith's original score because it wasn't hard enough for him, only to realise his mistake decades later and put it back in. Looks like Scott's back in neurotic machismo mode, but then, one could easily argue that's the mode of society at the moment. One can't even begin trying to top the Errol Flynn film when homophobic antennae quiver at the idea of "merry men."

But like I said, I may need to see it anyway. Partly it's that I was obsessed with Robin Hood as a kid, but I was obsessed with werewolves as a kid, too, and I didn't see the new Wolfman. It's more that, in Roger Ebert's otherwise negative review, he praised the photography and I remembered how I was able to appreciate Scott's A Good Year for its aesthetic beauty alone despite its otherwise mediocrity. Damn it, Scott, you fucking will-o'the-wisp.

And I just know there's all kinds of historical inaccuracies in this supposedly real life style movie other reviews haven't even spotted yet, just like Kingdom of Heaven. Would someone please give Ridley Scott a good sci-fi script for fuck's sake?