Top Cat

A belated hat's off to Nin, the official cat-in-residence at the Mount Washington Observatory. Nin retired this week after twelve years of faithful service. Good kitty.

Missing the Point

It happened again. Year after year, decade after decade, the turf war over which gang of churchmen should control which bit of the Church of the Nativity has often led to holy fisticuffs. If I was a better Christian I would probably feel some sort of pity for the battling brethren of Bethlehem, but I just can't stop myself from laughing.

Oh Yeah!

Sixteen and oh! Sweet.

Thank you Patriots for giving us the gift of this season. To see your team go undefeated, to see them score the most points ever, to see your quarterback throw the most touchdowns and his favorite receiver catch the most touchdowns is really something special.

Sixteen down. Three to go.

The Meaning of Life?

We've been on something of a Monty Python kick this fall. We started by watching Holy Grail, then watched every episode of the old series, first to last. It took us a while, as time has been rather dear lately, but we persevered and finished up last week. Full up, even bloated on Python though we were, we decided to watch just one more little movie. The disc was, after all, wafer thin.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life is the film that most resembles the old series; it's a bunch of comedy bits connected by links. The weakest of the three Python movies, it is still pretty darn good. Required viewing for all Python fans, I should think. The overall theme is, of course, the search for the meaning of life. They cover life in all its stages while having a go at big business, modern medicine, religion, classism, war, Americans, and popular culture in general. They also manage to be really silly while throwing a little blood and a lot of vomit onto the screen.

A word about vomit. If you have a weak tummy like me, you might want to turn your head away when the corpulent Mr. Creosote comes on-screen. If you have a very weak tummy you might just want to step out to the kitchen for a few minutes. It’s quite funny, but it is also quite disgusting.

All that aside, do the boys deliver? Do they actually give us a clue as to the meaning of life? Oddly, they may just. Near the middle of the movie, in the midst of the usual silliness, someone says this: “Matter is energy. In the universe there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person’s soul. However, this ‘soul’ does not exist ab initio as orthodox Christianity teaches; it has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved owing to man’s unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.”

Could that be it? Are we here to create our own souls? Are we the garden and the gardener, tending to the flower invisible? Should life be an ongoing process of questions and answers, sought from without and answered from within, leading to an ever increasing knowledge of one’s own soul? In a word, yes. Inner life. That’s a close as you can come, I think, to an answer.

Or 42. Whatever.

Right. Here are the top five reasons you should see this film:

The Crimson Permanent Assurance.

The “Every Sperm is Sacred” musical number. Amazing.

The Galaxy Song.

Eric’s Noel Coward impression.

That last wafer thin mint (really, very disgusting, but still funny).

The C Word

If I had my way, every fool that goes about with "merry Christmas" on his lips would be boiled in his own plum pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.

Nevertheless, I do hope you and yours had a good one.

Glow in the Dark Cats!

Not all cats are gray at night.

Guarantee

I guarantee I enjoyed that game. Tom Terrific threw for 399 yards with four touchdowns. Moss had two of those, which means that he is only three away from reaching Jerry Rice's old record. Maroney didn't have a lot to do, but at one point he really showed some muscle, dragging half the Steelers down the field with him. Then there was that weird double lateral. Man, that was fun. Thirteen down, six to go.

A Conspiracy of Ravens

It's all true! The NFL is secretly backing the Patriots. Bill Belichick was on the grassy knoll. Elvis spiked the Gatorade. Unmarked helicopters with powerful cameras are watching for secret signals. Tom Brady was in the Michigan chapter of Skull and Bones. Mr. Kraft is getting help from the Trilateral Commission. Randy Moss was created in a laboratory by the gray aliens. Bigfoot's been spotted in Foxborough. The truth is out there. Believe!

Now You Know What to Get Me For Christmas

Yeah, it's a book, but you can't get it at Amazon. Creepy, but cool.

Jaws is Wrong

Just a brief football note here. Ron Jaworski usually knows his stuff, but I've always thought that he had a blind spot when it comes to the Patriots. Is there a difference between pacing and dogging? Was Jaws just looking to take his shot at Moss and the Pats? Yup.

November is Finally Over

I am heartily glad to see the end of it. It has been one of the worst months I've ever suffered. In a nutshell, the branch of the nonprofit I work for has been pummeled by the weak economy, I've developed a serious health issue that will affect the rest of my life, and my father has been diagnosed with a rare and inoperable form of cancer. Meanwhile a hundred little things have been nibbling away at my life and left me pretty worn.

I fell asleep last night and woke at noon today, fourteen hours later. It's as if I've been living with a frozen fever. The worst, I hope, is behind.

Right then. Let's have a sing-along: