"So much to do, there's plenty on the farm..." -Warren Zevon

Frantic. Rushed. Panicky. Overwhelmed.

Those are all answers to the question, "How are you?" that I have given lately. Why? Work is wrapping up for a while, I won't have any big projects on my plate until August, but right now is crunch time. Progress reports, analysis paralysis, and P&L reports are all due by June 1. I am taking not one but two writing workshops, the reading load alone is killing me. I am trying to be a lot more diligent about writing when I have the opportunity. Lovely wife and I are going to Iceland, Norway and Denmark in July for two weeks. And at the end of June I am going to a retreat in California. I have a lot to think about that sits just over the horizon and I can't see it, but I can feel the tracks rumbling--if you get my drift.

But that doesn't mean that I am not taking time for myself.

I have seen Iron Man, twice, and I loved it, both times. I have in the past done movie reviews on summer blockbusters but I am a little worried that by doing it I might start to pull the sweater apart by a single thread. But here it goes anyway:

What makes Iron Man great is that it is a character driven super hero story. The special effects, augment the story; they don't hold it together with duct tape and a prayer. Spiderman 3, which will take its place in the pantheon of movies that never happened along with Highlander 2, and Rocky V, didn't have that. There was no character development. We didn't learn anything about the characters that we didn't know already. The arrival of Venom, was a contrivance to show an inconsiderate side of Parker and it didn't work because there was nothing there in the first place. In the end we ended up with Topher Grace (who was woefully under used) donning the suit and then, thankfully, the credits roled.

Iron Man didn't rely on non-stop action as the story careened from one ill conceived battle sequence to the next. There was no catastrophic inner battle within Tony Stark. He changed in the first half hour of the show and we saw it through his work in the caves and in his shop.

I have heard people complain that there wasn't much in the way of a villain in this story, and to an extent that is true. There wasn't a guy running around with an alternate cape or anything stupid. What we got was the reality of the situation. In the world there are people who are selfish and self-serving enough to play behind the scenes. Think of the world's greatest villain, Shakespeare's Iago, the conflict rolled along the story and we knew what was happening the entire time. Iago played Cassio against Othello the entire play and in the end the denouement was a scene. The same thing happened with Stane. We all knew he was bad. So why did there have to be a rock'em, sock'em robots scene for sixty-five minutes to prove the point.

Here is my concern with this movie. I am not sure that if Robert Downey, Jr., and to a lesser extent Jeff Bridges, hadn't been involved that it would have stood up on its own. The story was good, the direction was good, but the thing that made this a great summer blockbuster was that Tony Stark was brought to life. I believe that he exists. Same with Rhodes, Pepper Potts, and Jebediah Stane (which incidentally should go down on the list of great villain names).

This movie marked the first full fledged Marvel Productions movie. Previously, with Spiderman and Daredevil and Elektra, they got a licensing fee and maintained some amount of control over the movie; but with Iron Man, and later in the summer Incredible Hulk, they did the whole shebang then found a distributor to market the movie. It also marked probably the finest super hero movie since the first Batman and the first Superman. The real litmus test will be the sequel, which I understand is already in the works.

The other thing that I did recently was take a trip up to Salem, Massachusetts with Dr. Greenberg, my history teacher friend.

Here are my thoughts on Salem in the style of a list:

1. Salem is a cute town that, were it not for the Witch Trials, would have been consumed by Boston in the same way that Cambridge, Lexington and Concord have.
   
2. I had no idea the number of puns that can be made from which witch is which.
   
3. If you eat licorice bits, cranberry jelly beans, and strawberry oreo ice cream with an hour of each other the sugar crash you will have earned is unfathomable to explain.
   
4. Red's Sandwich Shop has earned the best breakfast in Salem for twenty years running and it is easy to see why: they have blueberry pancakes the size of an adult human head.
   
5. The crap for sale in Salem is the same crap that is for sale in any other touristy town in the US. If somebody were smart they would make a virtual city where you could walk around and then order the crap on-line and have it shipped to you.
   
6. In Lynn, Mass. there is a coffee shop called Javas Brewin', which, given the fact that Boston's NHL team are the Bruins, would be funner if it was called Javas Bruin.
   
7. I Learned that Capt. Dusty's in Salem created homemade ice cream. Their sign claims it, it must be true. Also I found out that Strawberry-Oreo ice cream rules. But shouldn't be consumed with red licorice and jelly beans.
   
8. The traffic in Boston is so horrendous that it takes an hour to go 18 miles. Not kidding even a little bit. An hour.
   
9. America has a sad habit of capitalizing on tragedy. The Salem Witch trials was a horrific even in our history and this town thrives on it. The Alamo, horrible blood shed and San Antonio uses it as a mascot, Wounded Knee, Station Fire, Great Quake of 1910, Mt. St. Helens. We have a nasty habit of remembering the horrible events. I know that somebody might say that we are doomed to repeat it, or triumph over misery; and to an extent I might agree. But there is a difference between capitalizing and reverence.
   

So that is about all that is happening. I will keep everybody that reads up to date if anything else exciting happens. But until then, I will be channeling my inner Jimmy Buffet and humming bars of "Kick it in, Second Wind"