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?

18 December 2003

Political Endorsements and Movie Faves

Something about endorsing a political candidate is belittling. Idealists who criticize an administration's actions or a candidate's plans have the moral high ground until they attach their support to an entire package rather than a single issue. Suddenly, oh, he's one of those Dean advocates, or Bush advocates. Suddenly she faces the cold reality of politics, which is compromise.

And so it is with a movie critic who lists his or her favorite movies of the year. You can't vote for just part of a political candidate — just his foreign policy, say, or just his convivial nature — and you can't watch only your favorite parts of movies until you've found them. I'm afraid that buying a ticket entitles you to every frame.

You can, however, stick to your guns, admit that each of your movie choices for the year is a compromise, that it has aspects that are less than perfect, but so be it. Somehow it works. Somehow it stands out from the available options, and the critic does his best to get the word out. Of course only one political candidate can win a given race, but unless you bow to the Oscar god, that isn't true for movies. You can see and enjoy more than one movie in a given year. You can see and enjoy a hundred. So a critic can champion overlooked movies without stealing votes from the front-runners.

Which is another way of saying what I've already said, I think, but this is nevertheless what I'm thinking as I try to sort out 2003, which I'm attempting to do even as the holiday jingle is stealing time from blogs and the allure of cookies is muddling the movie-soaked brain of someone who lives the rest of the year in the dark interior of a theater, or so it seems, where the naughty and nice are on display at 24 frames per second.

Happy holidays. More to come in the following days...

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