Irony of Ironies...

Happy 12th Night!

My "Rosca de Reyes" is doing it's last rise before baking and I was going to try the picture taking thing, but I think I'll wait until it's done...but I don't promise anything as it is rather past my bedtime.

I would have started earlier but was distracted by a big shiny thing in the form of going down to the Pacific Science Center and watching "I Am Legend" in their iMax theater.

Note to self: You are not, nor have you ever been a suspense OR "zombie" movie fan. They creep you the hell out and now you are anxiously waiting the return of Andy and Tim cuz the apartment is too eerie and quiet and man is it dark outside and how the hell are you supposed to fend off attacks if there are so many windows...urgh.

To distract myself I put in the one "holiday-eque" movie I rented this season...and I actually didn't plan for it to show up around this time either, really! "The Nativity Story" was put on the queue shortly after returning from Italy in May as that and "The Last Temptation of Christ" were both filmed in a part of Italy where we stayed, the Sassi in Matera and I really wanted to watch at least one of them. You really gotta see it to believe it. It really is more "ancient Jerusalemeque" than Jerusalem, that's why they keep using the area to shoot those kinds of films.

So yeah, on 12th night/the night the 3 kings are supposedly to have come to visit the baby Jesus as he lay in the manger, asleep on the hay (12 years of Catholic school, I know all the lyrics); as I'm baking my King's cake...I watched it happen on TV...this from the girl who was told by Sr. Holy Water (she must be dead by now, let us not speak ill...and all that) in the third grade that I was going to hell if I did not immediately begin believing in the Holy Spirit.

Thank God for blogging, that kind of shit could haunt me for decades and make a therapist a rich man.

Where was I?

Right, the movie, the second one that is. I was rather disappointed in "I am Legend." They went for remaking the 70s action-blood-and-gore movie version instead of basing it on the book...from the 50s I think. I'm putting that on my Library queue right after this.

"The Nativity Story" though, well, same story, new interpretation. I repeat, 12 years of Catholic School. Every xmas and passion play I honestly wondered why did they all go through with it? Why not change it?!? It's like that scene in "Our Town" when the girl is trying to "relive" a scene in her life and it's just that, a replay, nothing changes and everything goes too fast.

My 8th grade year I got to play Mary (both plays) and my friend Jesus got to play, you guessed it, Jesus (just the passion play), we added a scene at the end. AFTER the Crucifixion they wrapped up Jesus in the white linen and laid him in my arms, no dialog, no narrative, just the thought that we should end the play the way it began back in December; we made people cry that day.

Well, seeing Mary holding the baby as all the shepherds and magi appeared? It hit me more like that DeVotchKa lyric, "You already know how this will end" but we're not going to show you that bit, just how it all started...kinda like the opposite of JC Superstar where you only see him as an adult and know so very little about his mom and dad...so maybe it's more like Weird AL's "Little Annikan Guy" song, (to the tune of American Pie) "Maybe Vader someday later --now he's still a young fry." Cuz you need something to make you smile, otherwise it's just too easy to sink into the dark and sad place that would take hours of typing and/or hundreds of therapist dollars to conquer. And I really did appreciate the humor. It made everyone seem more human. Sure, they all became saints and stuff later, but they too were just small fries too, in a sense.

Okay, I smell bread...So don't forget to leave your shoe out! You never know if the Three Kings will come a calling...better them than the rabid zombies.