David After the Dentist

In my class "Children and Technology", our discussion took a detour and we ended up watching this video on YouTube, ostensibly because it has to do with how children perceive the world. It's about the thoughts of a young boy with the excellent name of David, who has just been to the dentist and is more than a bit high on medication:



For even more fun, check out this remix:

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:-)

Pride and Predator

~As if Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from my last post wasn't enough, here comes yet another fantastic Jane Austen parody: a film titled Pride and Predator (no, no, not that Pride and Predator), directed by Will Clark and produced by a company owned by, of all people, Elton John.

According to The New York Times, "The movie...will juxtapose brooding aristocrats with a brutal alien that lands in 1800s-era Britain, attacking residents and leaving them with neither sense nor sensibility." I imagine that the appearance of a 7-foot-tall, heavily armed, dreadlocked, spine-collecting alien hunter will give those lords and ladies something a bit more immediate to consider than arranging advantageous marriages.

Elton John's company, Rocket Pictures, hopes to begin production later this year, so the mayhem will have to wait. In the meantime, here's a question to ponder: Will the Predator wear appropriate period clothing? And will he sing "Rocket Man"??

Pride and Prejudice...and Zombies!

~Rarely will I promote a book that I haven't actually read, but in this case the concept radiates such sheer brilliance that I will make an exception. In honor of both Valentine's Day and Friday the 13th, I wish to direct your attention to the upcoming novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. The tagline for this terrifying text is: "The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!"

Grahame-Smith, the author of How to Survive a Horror Movie, has taken the entire, uncut text of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but has made his own "additions". I cannot possibly equal the description given by the publisher, so I'll let you read it instead, with bold text by me:

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen's classic novel to new legions of fans."

If you found that description amusing, check out the parody (?) Pride and BRAAAINS!, on the webcomic HijiNKS Ensue.

P&P&Z will be published on April 15th, 2009. So armor up your van, rev up your chainsaw, load your shotgun, grab your Zombie Survival Guide, and prepare to face the undead horde!

Just Roman Around

~I lost Internet access for a few days (the tubes must have been clogged), hence the lack of recent posts. But now I'm back!

Lately I've been watching a lot of the HBO series "ROME" on DVD, a historical drama set in the late Roman Republic and featuring Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, Cleopatra, and other famous movers and shakers of the time. Today, I ran across this interesting page, which gives a rough view of how much workers earned in Ancient Rome and how much goods and services cost. Of course, like all large economies, the Roman Republic (and later Empire) was subject the inflation, price gouging, massive price fluctuations, and so forth, much like today. Still, it's interesting to compare how much laborers and soldiers earned when compared to the price of food and clothing.

Most striking is the price of food, which often consumed over 50% of the average worker's pay. Many citizens would not have been able to survive without food subsidies from the government, such as free grain. In the latest episode of ROME that I watched, Caesar arrived in Egypt to settle a civil war between Cleopatra and her brother, which threatened to disrupt grain shipments from Egypt (the breadbasket of the ancient Mediterranean world) to Rome. Without these shipments, the common people back in Rome would have likely revolted and removed Caesar from power.

After nearly a year of fighting, Caesar was able to settle the dispute and place his lover Cleopatra on the Egyptian throne, stabilize the Egyptian economy, and return to Rome in triumph. Well, at least for a while. Et tu, Brutus?