Once More, Soldiers, Into the Brink

I'm off to LA to spend a week out there working on good ol' "Breaking Bonaduce." Woo. I thought of maybe wearing my David Cassidy shirt when I meet him, but I think that would be asking for it. Still, I packed it anyway.

We saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tonight and I lurfed it, particularly the honest-to-goodness Roald Dahl oompa loompa poems, particularly the polyphonic-spree esque choral number they sing to Veruca. Kickawesome. The only thing is, I think Dahl wrote them as tribal chants and the words aren't necessarily written to be performed lyrically and melodically, but, heck, it's Danny Elfman, so hey. Anyhoo. Awesome movie; I take back what I said on MSNBC about not caring about anything in the theaters -- this one rocks.

(Although I saw War of the Worlds last Friday and it didn't rock -- Spielberg shoots a fine action sequence, and he builds suspense masterfully, but for me, if the world is under attack by giant alien tripod biomechanic things, I'm more interested in watching someone more exciting than a deadbeat dad and his two kids. Show me world leaders or key religious figures or anyone about whom I might care -- Dakota Fanning's all cute 'n' shit, but I just don't care about her cute little fate when the entire world is seemingly doomed. I don't recally anything in the book about a dockworker dude, but, hey, at least they still lived in New Jersey).

Also, haven't you always wanted to know how the Canticle bit of Scarborough Fair/Canticle goes? (or "Parsley Sagels," as one might call it). It's quite pertinent nowadays, as it was when Simon and Garfunkel inserted it into their song. And it goes like this:

On the side of a hill, in the deep forest green
Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground
Blankets and bedclothes, the child of the mountain
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call.
On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves
Washed is the ground with so many tears
A soldier cleans and polishes a gun.
War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions
Generals order their soldiers to kill
And to fight for a cause they’ve long ago forgotten.