Tea with McNair

> help me! (BR&R,No.8)*

So, what movie do you want (me) to see?

I have been to exactly ONE Summer movie, thus far -- Live Free, or Die Hard.  In a sentence:  Bruce Willis vs.  bureaucracy in the form of an evil (and boring) white male (Timothy Olypant) and the head of a homeland security team (Cliff Curtis) but looks Middle Eastern. Actually, Curtis is of New Zealand Maori descent, but I digress. Hollywood seems terrified of terrorism, especially if there is even a whiff of Middle Eastern involvement. ("What about Oklahoma?!!!" They squawk.)
    Here in Die Hard 4.0 (the European title) John McLane (Willis) has a buddy. For most of the film he is big brother to a computer geek, played by none other than our hero, Matt Farrell (Justin Long), the now-famous Mac Guy in the "Hi. I'm a PC and I'm a Mac" TV commercials. (Photo, right, Willis and Long) Great casting.  This is an exciting experience with enormously implausible plot points--every twenty-seven seconds. They kill off the better villian, Maggie Q, far to soon and leave us with Thomas Gabriel (Olyphant) he never opens his mouth without a cliche  drooling out. Willis has his fare share of cliches, yet delivers them masterfully. Not only is the terrorism watered down, the film makers (likely the studio) edited the film and over-dubbed dialogue (removing naughty words) to reduce this big bang cocktail to a PG amusement park shooting gallery. Good fun, not great movie. Wait to see it on your friends 50" plasma with 5.1 surround sound in the DVD/Widescreen/unrated edition. Meanwhile DH/4.0 is a "darn" fun movie. (Die Hard I, II, and III were all "R"ated.)
    Your assignment, should you accept it, help me decide which movie to see next, this weekend. My first choice is Ratatouille. And, I am open to your suggestions. Give me a brief one to three line review of one film you would encourage me to see. Put it in the comments section of this blog post (below) so other readers will benefit from your ideas. Plus it's a great, easy, creative writing project. Please, don't worry if your choice has already been suggested by another Tea reader.  May I suggest, before clicking into the "comments" section below, select a favorite film you've seen (that's till running) and write a quick review. Then copy it into the Comments section and do not worry about  being the second or seventh person to recommend that film. 
    I will review the film I see here in Tea blog next week.

PLEASE - Recommend ONLY a film you have actually seen, not a film you want to see. I want to read your review, analysis, critical (productive) appraisal. There are lots of movies I want to see. What have you  seen that you recommend and why.

Meanwhile, until I hear from you, I will be pouring over the  "pink pages"--the DateBook section of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle (see photo of me "in the pink", above.)  Hmmmm, maybe I'll go to a play...outdoors...G.B. Shaw..in a lovely woodland setting in the hills, or....help me!

McNair

Standing by (in a seated position)

 

* BR&R, No.8 ~ Writing a movie review is the eighth exercise in my ongoing series "Between Reason & Recess." If you are new to Tea with McNair blog you can read all previous BR&R exercises on their own, dedicated blog site. Start with the preamble { Recapture Your Creative Spirit - Now! } at the top and then click on the link to i know a place that will take you to the introductory blog containing the secret I revealed in this series. It is a secret I have kept for more than forty years. 

[ Photo at the top of this post is the soon-to-be-renovated interior of the classic Fox Oakland Theater, Notice the two huge, gold Hindu Deity statues flanking the stage. They want to spend $68million renovating the theater and offices building (attached), but first turn it in to an intimate cabaret house for live music: tables, couches, etc. But first they have to remove mold, encase asbestos, clean up chipped lead paint, fix bathrooms, and notify: OSHA, Oakland Hysterical Society, the U.S. Navy, Homeland Security, ACLU, PeTA, and the dignity for Hindu Deity Board. Tickets go on sale Tuesday. ]

• wild idea

A Lesson from wild man and physicist, Niels Bohr

One of the keys to successful brainstorming is creating lots of ideas without evaluating, analyzing, or criticizing each contribution--however small, silly, or obtuse. (You gotta love obtuse thinking.) You need to think, imagine and write as fast as you speak. But MORE is not enough. As you are creating a mountain of ideas, be on the lookout for a particular kind of idea. It is neither good nor bad. It is wild.
        When a colleague of physicist, Niels Bohr, delivered an important speech to a group of their peers in the forefront of science, the speaker was curious as to how it was received by others in the scientific community. "Was it crazy?" He asked Bohr. Bohr told him,

“We all agree that your idea is crazy.
What divides us is whether it is crazy enough.”

    Wild ideas are vital to creativity. Rationality, logic, and common sense, are all nice, but they are not very creative. "Nice" is so last Tuesday (before lunch.) But what, then, is a wild idea?
    There's a well-worn, leather-bound, 1947 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary on my writing desk ~ in my safari-themed Livingston's Lounge. (See photo, right.) It belonged to my father, who gave to me as a gift when I became editor of my junior high school student newspaper. My father loved the cut-in alphabet notches. I now grab it daily. Therein Webster & Co. record wild as “stormy, boisterous, unruly and marked by turmoil.” That’s a good start.
    Wild ideas are outrageous, impossible, untamed notions that probably make no sense at first and might cost far too much. As often as not, Wild ideas feel embarrassing to speak aloud. Then, they spark the grey matter of another member of your brainstorming team, then another, and soon . . . we notice the value of saying whatever comes to mind, however goofy (wild ) it may sound or weird it may feel. When it’s still trapped in our head, trying to find a way past the border control at Fort Reasonable, just say it. If we’re lucky, Wild ideas will escape our lips without thinking. Brainstorming affords the rarefied experience of speaking your first impression and taking advantage of it. Looking back it amazes me how many first impressions were right impressions. Don’t blink. Speak wild.
    Wild ideas can be expensive, but quite often they are not. Or it may be something you don’t know how to do--yet. Wild ideas live way out of bounds of everyday life. “We’ve never, ever done it that way before!” My mother was mayor of Never-ever Land. Her motto could well have been “If we really have NEVER done it before, now's the time to do it.”
    A wild idea is something “they won’t let you do” if you ask. So, we don’t ask, mostly out of fear of rejection. Brainstorming is all about asking, then looking for, and finding, the answer.

TRY THIS: sometime today, this week for sure, make a wild suggestion when some one asks a simple question, What do you want to do? or Where should we eat? Go WILD and stay with it.

    Be sure to stop back by the old Tea blog and report on your wild time. The more of us who go wild, the more we can get others to go with us.

McNair

~ Today's tea selection, on my writing desk (right, next to old working phone) is Good Earth Original, caffeine free, with Splenda and generic non dairy creamer...mmmmm.

[This blog post is excerpted from my forthcoming book: DONUTS ON THE MOON, Brainstorming Secrets of a Theme Park Designer, chapter seven: "Where the Title Comes From." ]

• no. 231, in a series

•   •   •   •   •   •   •   •  

A Holiday Recipe

Will the fireworks be long enough?
Will the B-B-Q sauce be spicy enough?
Will the potato salad be ready on time?

Will the bands be loud enough?
Will cars be classic enough?
Will the ice cream truck have too long a line?

During you festivities would ya?
Please send a not to Fallujah
And tell them you're thinking and you care?

You know life in Iraq's hard.
So while there in you backyard
Make a card for the troops over there.

Provide paper and felt pens
To assembled family and good friends
To make colorful greetings to GIs.

Say, "We are thinking today
Of your lives far away."
And add a bar-b-q stains, for surprise!

You can't possibly know
Just how far that will go
On a hot day that may be 108!

So if everyone sends
A hand-made note, well then
You might make a bad day turn to Great!

Just for today
Put politics away
And get out the markers and stamps.

And tell the GIs
That at least in your eyes
They are every one heroes and champs.


© C. McNair Wilson
3  July 2007

P.S. Of the many great websites for helping you connect with GIs, a favorite of mine is AnySoldier.com. Lots of great, free resources of what, where, and how to send can be found there.

Professor-Howdy - Is another great site with some delightful, fun, heart-warming, and humorous photos of GIs interacting long-time friend, Mike Atkinson, "source Perrier" for all things on the infobahn .) As always, feel free to pass these items on to friends. When quoting or "reprinting" my poem (even on the net) please give attribution to me and my blogsite: www.TeaWithMcNair.typepad.com.

Be cool, have a bitchin' Summer, see you in the Fall!

 

Happy 231st Birthday America!

    4 July 1776~2007