Anyway, here's what's been happening in the land of the Faust.
Charlton Heston, R.I.P
I'm supposing that my brother and I will both miss having Chuck around, albeit for two different reasons. My brother, being 13 years older, grew up on Mr. Heston in his epic roles - The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, El Cid, Will Penny, Major Dundee. The parts well served by his larger than life leading-man presence.
Being born later, I remember a different Charlton Heston - the rugged, heroic everyman forced into impossible circumstances. I'm talking of course about the great Charlton Heston Sci-Fi Trilogy of the Early 70's - Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, and The Omega Man.
Now I know you'd be hard-pressed to call any of them Sci-Fi, or even Early 70's since one came out in '68 or '69 - but for a kid struggling to survive the horrors of Junior High and early High School, this was pretty heady stuff. Remember that the endings to Apes and Soylent were brand new back then, instead of being the target of parody that all twist endings fall victim to ("I see dead people!"). When stuff like that happens, it's hard to remember the magic impact that the original had when first seen in the flickering light of a theater.
Rather than wax eloquent on Heston and his roles and the importance they had to me at the time, I'll instead say this. I recently had a chance to revisit Soylent Green and I thought it held up remarkably well. It was a well crafted thriller for its time and deserves a look past what is considered to be an overwrought ending.
In the meantime, I'm going to take another look at The Omega Man soon, inspired by seeing I Am Legend with my son over the Christmas holiday. I was surprised at how much the Will Smith remake owed to what I remember of the Heston version - so it'll be an interesting look, especially if my son is around to see it.
Well what do you know...
I'd grown up hearing the expression flea circus. I always assumed the expression originated from an attraction that was basically an illusion, a miniature circus that was run by hidden magnets and gears to give the illusion that it was being run by real fleas.
Well, insipired by today's installment of Lio, I checked out "flea circus" in Wikipedia and guess what?
Apparently, at one time, real fleas were used in flea circuses. They were even trained and everything. Seriously.
Now I Know How Scientologists Feel When Tom Cruise Starts to Open His Mouth in Public...
Why, oh why, oh why do other believers do this sort of thing? Don't they realize that Jesus has his hands full trying to save our wretched souls and doesn't have time to appear in municipal court?
Pastor sees noise citation as precedent-setting, says Jesus Christ is his attorney.
And... well, that's it. There were a couple more, but I've spun them off into their own stories. One you've already seen, about my
