[lit-ideas] Re: Shoot 'em Up
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 12:55:10 -0800
I have a new plan for the college in-service day, which will occupy all of next
Tuesday and will be concerned with...well I've deleted the e mail, but the gist
of it was that accreditation is now a perpetual motion machine, requiring
near-constant adjustments as we make our way through storm, calm and unforseen
budgetary emergency. The latest adjustment is caused by a new mission
statement, which of course means that we now have to re-measure and re-attach
everything to the new statement. I'm hoping for diversionary sirens myself,
and so shall bring rope and a handy portable mast, but if these fail to appear
I've taken inspiration from Dilbert. In one strip in a book I found at the
library store, someone proposes hanging a bell and ringing it any time anyone
achieves anything, or thinks that he or she has done something useful. I have
a bell which I can donate to the cause. No doubt next Tuesday it will ring
practically without cease.
When I'm not reading or writing or teaching, or contemplating managerial
maneuvers for art and garden, I've been working on a piece for my
father-in-law's eightieth birthday party the weekend after next. L. said that
since I've done ceremonial poems for people in the past, she's hoping for
something on this occasion. What I'm discovering is what poets laureate all
know: there's a considerable difference between writing something because you
have an itch that wants scratching, and writing something because people hope
for, or even expect, a product. In draft one, there were more than a few hints
of irritation, which is not what the program needs.
Last night I watched a movie. I recommend it with the caveat that it delivers
exactly what the title promises. It's called "Shoot 'em Up." This British,
possibly also American, expression describes a quite predictable kind of movie,
in which the hero is inviolate and lots of schlubs are doomed to fall to his
impossibly wonderful accuracy, ingenuity and warrior grace. There is no
meaning to be grasped, but the plot demands a soft core to the gruff exterior
and some love or lust interest. I thought "Shoot 'em Up" was an excellent
shoot 'em up, more Bond than some Bonds, blither of course, but very good
blither.
There is no connection, real or implied, between the first and third paragraph.
Carry on.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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