The blockbuster we deserve

Halfway through Dark Knight I actually thought: "I hope the war on terror ends soon, so every time I go to the movie show I don't have to do so much work." And then, right about the time Michelle Obama blew out her brains all over an early conference committee draft of FISA, the movie show reminded me -- for the first time in years -- that it's not going to end. Ever. It was a horrific realization, and I shook.

Elrond, Toffler and the breakdown of the family

I saw Fellowship of the Ring tonight for the first time in four or five years.

I think one of the more touching things about Lord of the Rings, and maybe sword-and-scepter epics in general, is the presence of powerful parents. Literally. The books are scattered with the fantasy of vigorous, independent adult children whose parents are still at the top of their game.

Maybe this circumstance is actually a lost treasure of the entire pre-industrial past, the days before everything we learned was constantly being torn apart by discovery.



Frodo is wounded, lying on the ground in a forest. "We have to take him," Arwen says, "to my father."