Didn't need this first thing on Saturday Morning.

http://community.livejournal.com/sca/757193.html has completely put me off the desire for breakfast, which I still need to eat given that yesterday was a fast day.

I feel terribly sorry for people who have to put SCA before real life and put household before family. MY life is not mundane, thank you. MY family is not less important to me than a group of people I socialize with a few times a month or once a year, however fond of some of those people I may be.

We are a bunch of geeks in funny clothes playing a game on our off time. We cherrypick history and make the rest of this shit up to suit ourselves and that is not a sacred trust by any yardstick that matters. 

Quit Dreaming.

Get real.

Seven Samurai on the big screen

Oatmeal has been ingested.


J and I met outside as planned. His handshakes are awfully tentative, but other than that, he was good company.

The Stanford Theatre is a gorgeous old-timey movie palace from the 1920s, complete with a big Wurlitzer organ that was being played as J and I paid for our tickets. We got front row seats in the balcony - I mean, when was the last time I could go to a theater that HAD a balcony??? Chatted a bit over the Wurlitzer until it swung into a spirited rendition of the theme from "The Magnificent Seven," at which point I cracked up. The lights went down and people actually began applauding as the titles came up and the curtains swirled open.

It wasn't a DVD projection either, it was film, because the opening few minutes had a little "confetti" on the print as well as some tinny sound, which went away as the movie played. And what a movie. Shichinin no Samurai is a classic because it is a good story well told and well acted. Toshiro Mifune is wonderful, of course, as the mercurial Kikuchiyo, but Takashi Shimura as Kanbei, the leader of the samurai, is the rock, the leader.  Bokuzen Hidari's Yohei, the long faced peasant, provides great comedic touches. "The farmers have won, not us," Kanbei says, surveying the graves at the end, while the peasants sing and plant their rice.

So worth it. I'm going down Sunday afternoon for a double feature of "Rashomon" and "Scandal," if anyone cares to join me. "Rashomon" starts at 3:55.

Rashomon (1950)