Letters To An
Overseas Friend.

Just saw The Ten Commandments Cecil B. DeMille 1956 version. I enjoyed it very much.

I can’t take Chuck Heston seriously no matter what he says or does, mostly because all I can hear is him telling Mister Burns, “You truly are the king of kings.” Luckily, this only enhances the entertainment value of the movie.

While probably maudlin and by modern comparisons possibly banal, I find Moses’ treatment of various individuals from his past touching and maybe even moving. Maybe even instructive.

The character of Nathan comes too close to succumbing to the Iron Giant Effect at times. But as the representation of a kind of self-preservation and what-have-you-done-for-me-lately logic, he seems rational enough and quite necessary to explore the higher ideas of the movie, ie. evidence and faith.

The movie has some very inspirational special effects. And some corny ones which I still enjoyed. This could simply be because the visual effects are hand made, or, if you like, artisanal. This should be a term: Artisanal FX. I only just noticed that you can’t have artisanal without anal.

Yul Brynner’s Pharaoh offers disprovable scientific conjectures to disregard The Plagues Of Egypt. To paraphrase: The river turns red via leaching of iron oxides in the mountains which causes the frogs to flee into the fields and into human populations. This tainted water fatally poisons cattle which triggers an explosion in the pest population and an increase in the spread of disease, etc… Later, Pharaoh pays hard for his Occams Razor type rationalization.

He also has a pretty convincing speech on the self-serving impetuses of various religions, including his own. Turns out, Pharaoh’s thesis is incorrect, at least when it comes to one of said religions in light of how poorly numerous supernatural events turn out for him.

I never would have sought to see the movie. I watched it almost by accident through the magic of basic cable. I saw a movie in a theatre about the Sagrada Familia today that I’ve had circled on my calendar. Did not enjoy it. I am thoroughly in the camp that believes that the un-curated TV experience carried over from our past allows for a valuable type of media consumption.


Also, during the movie, on a major US network, I saw an ad for Farm Heroes Saga on mobile. I didn’t know they did that.

In continuation of our discussion on imagination, I was reminded of this story:

There once was a guy. We’ll call him, I don’t know… Archimedes. He was at a child’s birthday party one day. Archimedes was a grown up, but he was at the party for some reason. Let’s say because he is family. It’s not important. At this party, there were bubbles because kids love bubbles. And lots of bubble solution. And plastic cups. And plastic straws. Archimedes remembered something from his distant past:

1. You pour a little bubble solution into a cup.
2. Then you use a straw to blow into said solution.

Result: massive foam, whose massiveness was only outsized by massive fun. Bubble beards. Bubble coifs. Bubble clouds. And, as children make outrageous stretches with their outrageous thought processes, a bubble castle that, to the more inelastic imaginations of grownups like Archimedes, looked like an amorphous pile of foam on the lawn. Why the castle? So bombers can sprinkle sand on it and watch the castle explode. That’s why. Sometimes you build so you can destroy.

As the children in the post-toddler cohort did this, a toddling girl watched from a distance, looking like she wanted in on that. Badly. Archimedes saw her. And handed the now smiling toddling girl a cup ‘n solution set up. Why? Depending on who you ask, because he doesn’t think. But don’t worry. Before straw could come to mouth, the other grownups, let’s give them a representative and call this person Everyman, shut that down. “SHE’S TOO YOUNG,” said Everyman. “SHE’LL DRINK IT,” Everyman educated. Smart Everyman. Stupid Archimedes, depending on who you ask. Shameful Archimedes, didn’t think it through, did you? Well that is a problem but that’s no problem because problems have solutions, thought Archimedes. “She looks pretty smart to me. Why don’t we start with water in place of the bubble solution and see if she grasps the concept of blowing into the straw?” Queried Archimedes. “NO,” said Everyman.

The older kids played on. The toddling girl spectated. The older kids eventually moved on to other activities. So did the toddling girl. And an adequately good time was had by most.

Proofs of concept. Fart jokes. Things that look like other things. These were our competing interests…

When I try to do something cool and fresh (fresh to me) with the youngsters, it fails I’d say about 80% of the time. A frustrating number to be sure, but then you get a reminder that that means you succeed 20% of the time. This evening’s small scale aviatorial dream was one of the 20%. Some notable failures from the past include the Lego man that walks by himself (lifeless), vinegar powered vehicles (more intricate than I anticipated), harnessing the power of lightening (please), and anything remotely related to aviation*.

Rory recently got a book of paper aeronautical designs, and she wanted to make a plastic bag parachute. But we’re mad scientists. We don’t do tried, tested and true. We do this:

It’s based off a mental image I have of a Leonardo da Vinci drawing. Although I realize now I might be thinking of his helicopter. How accurate my design was, I didn’t care at that point. Because it actually worked!

The real thing doesn’t even look like it has any right to not fall apart in my hand. Believe me, the photo is too flattering. I am not a delusional man. I was emotionally prepared for the disgrace of failure. But before accepting defeat, you must have persistence. That’s why I love a good rapid prototyping session (it even sounds cool: RAP-ID PRO-TO-TYP-ING). But while I was doing real and important science through iteration, Max preferred to distract us with word games (like calling it a fart-o-type and a para-fart). Rory insisted our creation was a worm and needed to make the thing look more worm like. Efficiency suffered. I just couldn’t keep everyone on the same page.

Worms have eyes I’m told:

Cool is relative. Of course.

The best laid plans of the children and this man gang aft agley. But not this time! Rory got to enhance the visual design of our craft. Max got to entertain us all with his comedic stylings (as well as gathering raw materials), and we all achieved slowed aerial motion via manipulated air flow. By any measure, the evening was a success and a good time was had by all.


*In spite of that, I believe I am still looked upon as a trick-full magician. But for how long?