Life Review Facilitated Through Movie Review of: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

As I sat in the theater I was captivated by the thought that: "there was a time when I would've been anxiously counting down the days until this movie was released - now I could barely be bothered to see it over a month after it came out." Now I'd like to explain what I've come up with. As a young girl growing up in the rural plains of Alberta with three older sisters and three older brothers, very few proclivities were formed through my own discovery. Automatically the movies I liked, the music I listened to and the clothes I wore were determined by my siblings in an effort to garner relativity with them. Midst my plagiarized personality was a distinct love of all things Tolkien. My older brother loved the books, and although I was always too lazy to read them myself, he also had the animated feature films - a medium I could embrace wholeheartedly. I remember the dulcet tones of Glenn Yarbrough narrating the adventurous quests with folkloric song. The heaviness of the content softly contoured with the intricate (albeit off-putting) animation. I spent many a 'sick day' laying on a couch, drinking apple juice from the cardboard, Sunrype box watching The Hobbit and its literary family brought alive on screen. Flash forward to my late teens. 2001. The release of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings. The excitement was palpable and the aftermath measured in merchandise, soundtracks, figurines and homemade t-shirts. Didn't we all feel like we were on the quest right along side them every December? The anticipation in the months leading up to the release of the next film brought with it a surge of imagination and excitement. I was never disappointed. Flash forward to 2012. The first installment of the Hobbit is released. But the anticipation has waned. I'm excited to see it, but I realize that I've barely thought about it. I walk away feeling a coating of mediocrity covering my cinematic experience. So much so that with the release of the second installment, I had no real desire to see it at all. Now that I've seen it, I'm afraid to say that my indifference was justified. Why would you have CGI orcs when you just painted up a bunch of hobos in the first 3? Their cartoonish and instill annoyance rather than fear. The language is beautiful, but why do the actors have to deliver every line like they've just passed a kidney stone? Everyone is so severe, surely we can conjure up some more levity than a giant spider getting stabbed brutally in the... in the...face? I wanna say face, but I fear that's not entymologically accurate. What changed?! (Sigh) I fear the answer might be as simple as it is painful...have I 'grown up'. Now, don't misunderstand me. In NO way do I mean to disparage or call into question the maturity of those who maintain their constancy in love of Middle Earth. Quite the contrary; I miss the power of Middle Earth. I miss the days when Tolkien was fodder for my imagination and showed me how just deeply an imagination could run. Now, I'm disillusioned. I'm no better than the hipsters who watch Japanese documentaries on the drying properties of paint and walk away thinking it's the most prolific thing they've ever seen. Have I put on cinematic heirs? Or am I repeating the same migratory pattern that lead me to liking Tolkien in the first place? Regarless - Peter Jackson, you're losing me.

Lesson of the Day: January 17

Do you know where whores buy their clothes? I bet you've just always assumed that they alter clothes from malls, or that they shop in sex shops. Well, since this is a relatively narrow niche of Calgarian society, I imagine that sex shops aren't the Walmart of the flesh trade. As for altering clothes from malls, again, that may be the case for your upper to upper middle class pros, but what about the entry level lady of the evening? Fabric stores!! They MAKE their own clothes! I went to a fabric store this afternoon and boom! like 4 of them rummaging through discount pleather. This actually opens up an avenue of respect that was never there before. Scoff all you like at how they make a living, but I respect a woman that's her own tailor...and dentist.

Freedom

Three years!!? That seems impossible! So much has irritated and simultaneously delighted me over the past three years it seems so strange that I would write nothing in that time. Alas. I'll forgo the customary race to catch everyone up on where I've been and what I've been up to. Needless to say I'm still alive and capable of typing - the rest is inconsequential. Lately I've spent some quiet moments in contemplation about the progression of society and the subsequent indenturement of the Western world. Don't worry 'righties' and 'leftie', I'm not about to go off on some self-agrandizing sermon calling for the dissolution of government or the redistribution of wealth. No, today I'm nostalgic for a life that I've never known. It's hard to believe that there was a time where people knew how to live off the land and could go wherever their feet or the feet of their equine companions could take them. Whether we've stopped to take note of it or not, we've all become addicts. Junkies. Unable to live outside of a way of life that requires almost comprehensive interdependency for the necessities of life. We've progressed to new heights of human achievement, but neglected to maintain the basic standards of self-preservation gained over millenia of evolution. How many of us would be able to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves without the aid of another person or corporation? I sure as hell couldn't. Somewhere in the pursuit of any, I would require assistance to make up for my lack of knowledge and/or skill. I don't know whether to feel gratitude about this, or fear. Now, let's hope this topical exploration doesn't end with me hunting for fungus and grubs in the wilderness wearing pine cones over my junk trying to 'reconnect' with my genetic predecessors. All of these musings seem to become more sobering when considered in the context of freedom. True freedom is the ability to do for yourself. It is choice. To be able to secure your own survival. I can't help but feel we've signed a lot of that away in pursuit of comfort. There's wisdom in relying on others and the creation of a society, I can definitely see that. It creates the foundation for the betterment of man and a higher quality of life. But every once in a while, I can't stiffle the disappointment of realzing that in a Zombie Apocalypse, the elements would kill me long before the zombies got the chance.