Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

5 October 2003

Pumping Iron

I caught the frequently-mentioned-of-late movie Pumping Iron a few days ago. It's showing through election day at San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and it's also available on VHS. I remember seeing a bit of it on PBS when I was little, but then I was mostly curious about seeing the guy who played The Hulk on my favorite TV show. It was the same kind of curiosity that made me rush home to see the historic first episode of that old "Lone Ranger" TV show that a local station used to rerun after school, the episode where they show him without his mask.

Nowadays Pumping Iron is a little boring in spots, especially for someone who can't distinguish winners from losers in this sport. (My wife mentioned that maybe Arnold's routine was more graceful than the others, but neither of us could remember if that counts in the competition. Oh well.)

There's nothing in the movie that's too damning for Schwarzenegger — you'd have heard about it by now — but he does come across as driven to win. One scene in particular has a different ring now than it probably did in 1976: Arnold talks about how he'll use psychological tricks to mess with the head of his opponent, Lou Ferrigno (later The Hulk). He says that all of these tricks are fair game and that he uses everything available to him to secure victory. Then in a related scene, we see him having breakfast with Ferrigno and Ferrigno's trainer and father. Arnold seems to sum up the relationship of his opponent to his father and plants seeds of doubt about the quality of his training, smiling and laughing jovially the entire time.

If his views matched mine, I wonder if he's the kind of guy I'd want on my side? The movie itself is middling, but Arnold is funny, charismatic, and absolutely confident.

Because of confusion about a changing TV schedule, I never did see that first episode of "The Lone Ranger," never did see why he donned the mask, and never did see him without it. I often feel the same about the front-running politicians in the gubernatorial and presidential races.

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