Little Shop of Horrors is really good

I didn't watch Little Shop of Horrors when it was in theaters because as a child, I avoided scary movies, and "horrors" in the title said to me the movie would be scary. I missed out, not that I would have appreciated the movie as a 10-year-old anyway. I wish LSoH would return to theaters with the original apocalyptic ending. If they had stayed with the original ending, instead of the test-audience-inspired ending used for the popular release, the movie would have been a cult classic. The story is meant to be a tragedy and perhaps cautionary tale, not a comedy with a feel-good ending.

Just as entertainment, LSoH is an excellent musical film with terrific songs and performances and the use of camerawork to orchestrate scenes in a way that couldn't be duplicated on stage.

The movie also works as incisive social commentary and a sensitive critique of human nature. The main message is basically summed up with "The path to hell is paved with good intentions". Ordinary people, even decent likeable people who deserve better, can bring about disaster by compromising with temptation. In the movie, Audrey II begins helpless and dependent, and grows by progressively manipulating Seymour into increasingly awful acts to feed it. Audrey II makes him uneasy, starting with its strange appearance in front of Chang's shop, but Seymour doesn't question his good fortune. Its feeding demands are first victimless, if unhealthy for Seymour, then escalate to a bad guy (the abusive Orin Scrivello DDS, well played by Steve Martin), then Mr. Mushnick, then innocent Audrey and finally Seymour himself (in the original story) when he belatedly tries to stop a now-powerful Audrey II. In exchange, Audrey II fulfills Seymour's desires until he, literally, is consumed by the monster, Seymour's greed embodied, that proceeds to wreck the world.

In the moral tale, Seymour was not tricked and could have stopped Audrey II at any point before it was too late, but instead chose to delude himself because the benefits were too great and the alternative was to accept a lonely, hopeless existence. As Seymour declared fatefully in the opening act, "Down on skid row . . . I would do anything to get out of here".

If faced with choosing between a pathetic life whose only expectation is an anonymous death or a glorious life whose cost may be mass destruction, which would you choose to sacrifice, your life or the world? The noble answer is obvious, but the honest answer is not. The moral of the fable rings true today with the incredible stories of corruption and greed behind the financial meltdown. The metaphor might also be applied to the welfare state, which has a hand in the financial meltdown. We're very good at rationalizing self-benefiting choices that could be harmful to others.

Teen actresses Tisha Campbell (Chiffon), Tichina Arnold (Crystal), and Michelle Weeks (Ronette) impressed as the ever-present greek chorus with their intricate song and dance numbers which they performed with terrific energy. As part of the background, they shaped Little Shop of Horrors as much as John Williams's score shaped Star Wars.

These outtakes and making-of featurette are interesting, though the latter is missing talk about the original ending, Levi Stubbs, and Vincent Gardenia.

Eric

MilVets shout-out to Oscar Escano

Oscar is on the right end of the back row, together with the other recipients of the NYC Comptroller's Distinguished Service Award in 2006.

Oscar was the MilVets president in my 2nd stint as MilVets VP in 2005-2006. Returning as a MilVets executive wasn't a goal or ambition of mine; I started the group and had been MilVets' 1st VP in 2002-2003, albeit my 1st stint as VP was less than successful.

When Oscar recruited me to be his VP in Spring 2005, in the middle of the 2005 sprint to the University Senate vote on ROTC, I really just wanted to be only a student again. But, Oscar intended to get the group right and believed I could help him get it right. He appealed to my sense of unfinished business and the parental feeling I had for the group. So, I agreed, but with the 2 conditions that he wouldn't waste my time and we wouldn't get caught up in bureaucratic bullshit. By that point in my career as a campus organizer, I had a very thin tolerance for either.

It may sound prosaic, but my praise for Oscar as MilVets president is high: Oscar didn't waste my time.

Our executive summary for the 2005-2006 MilVets. Our term was bumpy in places, but we achieved what we set out to do.

I suppose I'm giving him a shout-out now for a similar reason I gave a shout-out to Shane Hachey in 2005. When I wrote about Shane, my stint as Oscar's VP was just starting, which caused me to reflect on my 1st stint as group VP. Now, I'm starting the veterans alumni club, which again has made me reflective about my last experience, as Oscar's VP. Credit where credit is due.

Eric

Barack Obama Prez Rickard

Prez Rickard is a DC comic character who fixed the town clocks so they ran on time as a youth, eventually became President of the United States at age 18 in gloomy times, and became the greatest and most beloved president ever. I know Prez Rickard from Neil Gaiman's Sandman, not the original series.

The adulation and expectations of President Obama remind me of the Prez Rickard story. Turns out I'm not the first comic fan to make the connection.

President Obama's inaugural address offered something to everyone, out-Bushing Bush in areas, while also saying we would have to make difficult choices. The only meaningful takeaway from the speech for me is that his administration will examine everything, end non-working programs and policies, and pursue new ways to prepare our nation to be competitive into the 21st century. I don't know what that means in detail and it is an indefinite pledge, but necessarily so at this early point. Under Bush, evolutionary change for the military was already put in motion. Hopefully, that process will continue while everything else is re-examined.

Eric

Dr Bill Krissoff, father of Nathan

President Bush referred to Dr Krissoff in his farewell address. Navy Lieutenant Commander Krissoff and his story are worth knowing.

Eric

Good-bye, President Bush . . . and thank you.

On Tuesday, President-elect Obama becomes the 44th President of the United States. I look forward to it. Tomorrow, Martin Luther King day, is President Bush's last day as the Commander-in-Chief. He's already given his farewell address. My largest hope for Obama is that he will continue to advance the War on Terror (a good sign) but be a better spokesman for it than President Bush.

The Washington Post's David Ignatius interviewed retiring US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who succinctly sums up the defining event of President Bush's presidency: the 'surge' in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Though I can criticize much else, that one leadership decision by President Bush, in my eyes, redeems his legacy.

I previously discussed Bush's '3 am call' on the counter-insurgency 'surge' in Iraq here.

From "A Farewell Warning On Iraq" by David Ignatius:

The key to success in Iraq, insists Crocker, was the psychological impact of Bush's decision to add troops. "In the teeth of ferociously negative popular opinion, in the face of a lot of well-reasoned advice to the contrary, he said he was going forward, not backward."

Bush's decision rocked America's adversaries, says Crocker: "The lesson they had learned from Lebanon was, 'Stick it to the Americans, make them feel the pain, and they won't have the stomach to stick it out.' That assumption was challenged by the surge."

Ambassador Crocker's other key point - that President Obama's decisions on Iraq must be made with the understanding that current events are part of a long arc extending into the past and our next actions will shape the future - is worthwhile, too.

Eric

Babe of the day: Kelly Rutherford

From Brisco County Jr fan site's Dixie Cousins page.

As a high school teenager, I was a captivated fan of Kelly Rutherford, who exuded healthy all-American beauty and energy as sassy, stylish, and lovely Dixie Cousins, on the short-lived television series The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.. She reminds me somewhat of previous babe of the day Lynn Chen, or more accurately in a historical sense, Lynn Chen reminds me somewhat of Kelly Rutherford.

18JAN09 UPDATE: Rosamund Pike (check her out as Bond girl Miranda Frost) reminds of Kelly Rutherford.

Via youtube, this scene features Kelly Rutherford as Dixie Cousins (also check out this youtube clip):

Eric

Comment on Israel-Hamas war

I left this comment on Professor Nacos' blog in response to Israeli-Palestinian Clash: Who is Winning the PR War?:

One of my favorite quotes about Operation Iraqi Freedom is relevant for Israel's current campaign:

"... war is undertaken at the risk of the national soul. The moral certainty that makes war possible is certain only to unleash moral havoc, and moral havoc becomes something the nation has to rise above. We can neither win a war nor save the national soul if all we seek is to remain unsullied—pristine. Anyway, we are well beyond that now. The question is not, and has never been, whether we can fight a war without perpetrating outrages of our own. The question is whether the rightness of the American cause is sufficient not only to justify war but to withstand war's inevitable outrages. The question is whether—if the cause is right—we are strong enough to make it remain right in the foggy moral battleground of war."
- Tom Junod

As we've learned - and needed to learn - in Iraq, for modern liberal Western nations, of which Israel is one, it's insufficient to defeat the enemy on the battlefield and declare victory. In modern liberal Western politics, and for the media that deliberately frames our politics, the perception (fair or not) of being the victimizer is politically debilitating and victims are granted political power. That's good and right in principle, but also exploitable by those who do not share our principles. Therefore, for the stronger side, when that side is a modern liberal Western nation, victory requires not only defeating the enemy, but establishing a tangible long-term better state in the defeated enemy's domain. The non-liberal 'weaker' enemy - whether Hamas or the Iraq insurgents - understands this as a vulnerability they do not share and the more they can promote suffering among the people, and use the media to blame their liberal enemy for the suffering, the stronger they are.

As President Bush's stubborness (which, hopefully, President-elect Obama will inherit) and the Petraeus-led counterinsurgency strategy also has taught us in Iraq, the modern-day guerilla strategy you discuss in this post can be defeated, but it requires more intimate engagement - not less - and a long and patient, intelligent, full-spectrum, and expensive commitment by the occupier to build the liberal peace. These peace-building efforts must endure even when the mission becomes protracted and ugly due to our own entering incompetencies and learning curve, the inevitable circumstances of change on this scale, and the sabotage of a ruthless calculating intelligent enemy. They must endure even when the mission becomes unpopular and misunderstood within the liberal societies of the occupier, and used cynically for political gain by competitive political entities within those societies.

How can Israel win this time? Move beyond 20th century thinking and learn from America's 21st century strategy in the War on Terror. Do more than win on the battlefield. Stay to work for liberal security. Israel must not be cowed by the media-driven protests within the modern liberal West that aid the non-liberal enemy and, therefore, perpetuate the suffering that empowers the enemy. Israel must first decisively defeat and disenfranchise the non-liberal enemy. Then, Israel must not settle for being a realist occupier for the sake of maintaining a security buffer for Israel proper; Israel must be a liberal occupier, as we've been in Iraq, and endure the costs in order to transform the region by building towards a modern liberal peace.

One can hope the media will choose to err on the side of the forces that work for long-term solution through liberal reform rather than continue to synchronize their efforts, deliberately or not, with the non-liberal enemy's open strategy of perpetuating a destructive status quo.

Eric

South Park Elementary School Musical and the voice of Gen-X

South Park's masterfully entertaining, typically insightful take on the High School Musical series was purely a Generation X reaction. The movies' appeal to the younger generation baffles me as much as it does Stone and Parker. I enjoy musicals and the movies made from them, such as Little Shop of Horrors, Grease, Mama Mia, and Fiddler on the Roof, so when I first heard of High School Musical, I thought it'd be worth checking out. I watched 5 minutes of the 1st movie on TV and I couldn't take any more. It was awful, unwatchable. Yet, apparently, the series has been immensely popular among teenagers.

When time comes the latest trends seem alien, it's time to realize our generation is being pushed off pop culture's centerstage. Cartman spoke for Generation X: "Well, I'm out guys. If this is what's cool now, I think I'm done. I no longer have any connection to this world. I'm gonna go home and kill myself. Goodbye, friends."

The November 12, 2008 episode, Elementary School Musical, reaffirmed Matt Stone and Trey Parker as the preeminent social commentators, satirists, and voice of their generation, and their undiminished creativity continues to render expectations irrelevant. Rogert Ebert wrote nearly 10 years ago in his review of the South Park movie: "After making "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut,'' its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, had better move on. They've taken "South Park'' as far as it can go, and beyond." As it turns out, Parker and Stone were just getting warmed up.

Eric