What I Loved about Wall-E

With the release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, it appears Wall-E has now officially left theatres, and looking back over the seven weeks of its release, it seems a good point to reflect on what is, to me, so remarkably endearing and even prophetic about this marvelous little film.
First, consider the crafting of the movie. Top notch, to be sure. Pixar, in their typical fashion, gave painstaking care to critical details of the plot, which unfolds quite consistently. There is admittedly some lack of believability (e.g. how could there possibly be enough regenerated oxygen on a future earth devastated of most of its green vegetation to support indefinitely the returning human population?), most of which a reasonably intelligent viewer can rationalize enough to suspend their disbelief and appreciate the emotional plot line as well as

On Blasting Poetry

I deliberated a great deal about what to do with my first blog entry, and at length, I decided to provide some thoughts on poetics, a fitting subject to those who know me, I'm sure. Some time ago, perhaps several months, a friend and co-worker wrote a blog entry in which she blasted the whole of the poetical endeavor. Ironically, she had, at that time, been visiting my desk on occasion to encourage me to visit her blog and provide comments. On one such occasion, I happened to make an unwitting reference to my tremendous penchant for poetry, at which point, she emphatically stressed the importance of my frequenting the blog, given her recent electronic tirade. Like many, she sees poetry as a kind of useless, literary ego-stroking shared by academics and pseudo-intellectuals who simply don't have the sense or the gumption to say what they actually mean. I tried not to overreact to this, though I'm a little embarrassed to admit I began my response by referring to her comments as a form of blasphemy.

I have much to say on the subject of poetry, though I'll try not to be too "poetic." After all, brevity is the soul of wit, or such was the

I Am Born

It seemed such an excellent way to begin a novel, which is exactly what made me want to keep reading David Copperfield when first I opened it in a bookstore one evening and began to read. Of course, I have no intention of reviewing my life from birth, but the idea is the same: start at the beginning. My name is Chris, named after Christopher Robin, the well-known A. A. Milne character, whose stuffed animals had such endearing personalities and such captivatingly innocent powers of reasoning. My parents read the Pooh stories to my older brother when he was very little, which is how my dad learned to like the name Christopher. And so, the moment I was born and the doctor declared me a boy, my dad, in his enthusiasm, is remembered to have exclaimed, "It's Christopher Michael!" My mom, of course, knew he had his heart set on the name and so did not argue, though I believe she liked it as well. They said they had already decided not to name me Robin